Superman III

OK, I saw the movie, and I loved it... along with Superman 12 and 4. But will somebody please tell me something? What the he-- does this have to do with the rest. You have Gene Hackman, Louis Lane, and Metropolis; Gene Hackman, Louis Lane, and Metropolis; then you have Richard Pryor, Smallville, and some badguy; and then back to Gene Hackman and Louis Lane and Metropolis. Did the producers get high or something while making the third? "Huh huh... Hey guys, let's cast Richard Pryor in here... Aww man that is soooo funny." Don't get me wrong, I loved all of them, but the difference is something I just can't hold in.

I still give it a 10!

If you're a fan of Superman you'll find plenty to enjoy in this third installment in the series. I do, but it must be admitted that this film is much inferior to the first two.

This has Richard Lester written all over it. Superman II was Richard Donner's creation and Lester simply took over and wisely kept the tone of the film but with some added humor. This time around the humor steers the film as it's mostly a Richard Pryor vehicle. It doesn't come as much of a surprise that the film fares best when focusing on the Man of Steel, whether he's romancing an old flame in Smallville or in high flying action.

This is also the film where Superman goes bad and fights his alter ego to the death. Those scenes are the best in the film. Some set pieces are pretty good and special effects are decent. However, the finale has to be deemed utterly ridiculous when Superman battles a "sophisticated" computer!

Reeve is amazing as Superman/Clark Kent. Effortlessly switching to playing a meaner version of himself, he's simply perfect. Richard Pryor is always the same, so if you're a fan of his work you'll love him here. Everyone else is decent except those three villains; they're a little too much, especially Vaughn.

A lot less humor and more seriousness would have made the film very good.

After making two fairly decent Superman movies, things took a slightly different turn with Superman III. Gene Hackman was nowhere to be found, Lois Lane has such a small part that she's essentially not even in the continuity anymore (Clark apparently forgets all about his love of Lois when he re-meets Lana Lang). And things became really funny, or were at least supposed to be. If you consider "campy" to be funny.

Superman faces off against himself, after being exposed to a new form of kryptonite that has tobacco tar mixed in. Can the world trust a Superman who destroys oil tankers and sleeps with random women on top of the Statue of Liberty? The best part of the "Evil Superman" sequence is when we see Superman drunk, if for no other reason than the thought of Superman getting drunk (or even having the ability to become intoxicated) is a most unusual thought. Good thing Superman doesn't drive a car.

I really enjoyed the entrance of Lana Lang into the film. Lana, in my opinion, was always the more appropriate match for Superman and there is no exception in this movie. She shares a history with him, is more caring than Lois and less dominant. I'm curious where the Lois/Lana thing will go in Part 4, if it goes anywhere. (I am not suggesting dominant women are bad, by the way. But the fact of the matter is anyone dating Superman is going to have to be comfortable with being second fiddle.) What sold me on this movie (and almost scored it a 7 instead of a 6) is the tie-in with "Office Space". In Office Space, Superman III is referenced for a computer program that takes fractions of a cent and puts them in a bank account. The scene in this film was great, and really made me appreciate the way Mike Judge used it many years later.

With nicotine and tar being the secret ingredients in the new kryptonite, was there some message being sent? Richard Pryor was great. He was funny and made the entire film more of a comedy with kitsch than the serious films we had seen before. Many people really didn't like the campiness, I guess, but I thought it was enjoyable for the most part (though they did go over the top just a bit). In my mind, Superman was the light story and Batman the dark story, so I'd rather see a silly Superman than a silly Batman.

The new villain to replace Lex Luthor was okay, but why bother making a new villain if he's going to be the exact same character? I would hope after fifty years of comic books, there would have been at least one other super villain they could have chosen (although the new "Superman Returns" focuses on Luthor again, so I guess creativity is minimal in the Superman world).

If you've seen parts one and two, you may as well see this. But do keep in mind that the world of Superman turns a little "bizarro" for the next two hours of film time...

My Take: It never reaches the heights of its predecessors with its sillier story and ridiculous villains.

Many consider this a weak entry in the Superman film series. Well, I thought it was at first. But when I watched it in numerous reruns, I began to like this. Christopher Reeve excellently reprises his role, alongside comedy favorite Richard Pryor, as a computer-whiz, who is hired by his boss to help fulfill his plans for world domination. Pryor may not do it right sometimes, but he's admittedly hilarious in spots. But painfully ridiculous in some.

Among the things that make it a bit unsatisfying for critics is the lack of the characters from the originals. Lois lane had to go on vacation, so Lana Lang (played well by Annette O'Toole)is Superman's/Clark Kent's love interest. Robert Vaughn plays a sinister mastermind, an okay replacement for the famous villain Lex Luther. What some viewers don't understand is that director Richard Lester wants it to be more of a comic book adventure rather than what scriptwriter Mario Puzo did in the first two.

Rating: **1/2 out of 5.

This is the third of the four "Superman" movies starring Christopher Reeve, in a role which the actor was very famous for. It was directed by Richard Lester, who also directed the final cut of "Superman II", and before seeing his contributions to this franchise, I saw "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!", two 60's comedies which Lester also directed, starring the Beatles as themselves. Having seen the first two installments in the "Superman" franchise within the past few weeks and being impressed with both of them (though slightly more with the first one than the second, unsurprisingly), I intended to watch this one next, since I have been planning on watching them all. I was expecting "Superman III" to be far inferior to its two predecessors, as it was clearly much less popular, but to me, it seemed to be only slightly inferior.

Gus Gorman is a man in Metropolis who can't seem to get a job and is informed that he is not eligible for unemployment. He then comes across a computer training ad and decides to enroll. His amazing computer skills catch the attention of Ross Webster, a wealthy businessman who intends to use Gus's skills to help him take over the world economy! Gus ends up joining the scheming businessman, his sister Vera, and assistant Lorelei Ambrosia in their evil plans! Superman/Clark Kent is unaware of this activity while he is away from the city and back in Smallville for a high school reunion. Ross forces Gorman to take control of a weather satellite and create a hurricane to destroy the coffee crop of Colombia, a country which has refused to do business with him! After Superman comes and stops this disaster, the evil businessman realizes he must kill the renowned hero in order for his schemes to work! Kryptonite is the only thing that can kill Superman, so Gus uses his computer skills to find the elements of the substance, and finds all but one. The kryptonite with one missing element replaced by tar does not kill Superman, but it does make him turn evil!

The first segment of this second sequel shows Gus, played by groundbreaking comedian Richard Pryor, in the unemployment office. This part basically shows what the humour is like throughout the film, sometimes just a little funny, but not usually even that. This part is followed by the opening credits sequence, featuring a series of pointless and usually very straight-faced sight gags. This might be the worst attempt at humour in the entire movie, which is certainly saying something! For a long time, most of "Superman III" seemed basically mediocre to me. There are times early on when it does get intense, such as Superman trying to save a chemical plant from a fire, but the high school reunion and the scenes involving Clark Kent and Lana Lang reunited in Smallville usually didn't grab me. Also, Lorelei Ambrosia, played by Pamela Stephenson, is borderline annoying. However, during the second hour, it finally became clear to me that the movie was above average in my book, as it gets more exciting at this point, starting with the evil Superman and the good Clark Kent getting into a fight!

I can understand why this third installment in the famous "Superman" film adaptation franchise is less popular than its two predecessors, due to the usually unsuccessful attempts at humour and maybe an inferior main villain, but after watching the whole film, I don't quite get what makes it a REALLY bad film to many people. It did look like I would by rating "Superman III" 5/10 for quite a while into it, but with the sequence showing Superman's fight with himself, I knew that I would not be able to rate the film any lower than 6/10, and what I saw after that didn't change my mind, even if it is a little overlong. It helps that Christopher Reeve's portrayal of the protagonist still has the same charm. Criticism for this particular installment in the franchise turned out to be very high, but it does seem to have a following, and it definitely turned out to be better than Joel Schumacher's contributions to the "Batman" movie franchise when he took over as the director for the third and fourth installments, so I won't call "Superman III" a must-see, but also won't urge people to avoid it at all costs.