Superman III

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.

It'll keep you watching, you can say that. Either on the bad levels or the good ones (if you should find some), since most fans are so divided on this third entry. It falls somewhere under fair for me, as the effects continue to be awesome, but the story this time is tremendously lacking. Part two had three villians equally as strong as Superman, plus the romance going with Lois Lane. This one has a Lex Luthor clone (Hackman's Lex is left off-screen in jail) who also would like to rule the world, a dweeby computer genius (Pryor, as the much debated addition to the cast) and a romance you know will go nowhere with one of Reeve's lost loves. We already saw that he couldn't give things up for Lois, so why bother brining on a new girl? Though O' Toole is gorgeous, a lot more than Kidder, who is featured at the beginning of the film looking aged, then at the end with a bad tan. Rumor has it she outpriced herself which resulted in the character being shipped off to Bermuda. With her out of the picture, Reeve attends a high school reunion where he bumps into O'Toole. Meantime, Vaughn and Pryor are poised for world dominance, though Pryor is realizing the ramifications and is reluctant. But he still goes through it, concocting a kryptonite like impairment for Superman, which results in some of the film's best scenes. Reeve develops a naughty alter ego, and we get to see Superbad-man get drunk, straighten the Tower of Pisa, even get horny, among other things. There's a terrific showdown between Reeve and...well, Reeve in a junkyard where bad Supes confronts his inner goodness, Clark Kent. After this, though, the film sags to it's conclusion, as Reeve goes up against more rockets and missiles, a la part one. Despite missing the tension of part two, the film is interesting in a disjointed kind of way. The flying effects are once again top-notch, and strangely enough, are better than in the next film which came out four years later! And most have mentioned the dopey opening sequence that belonged more in a silent comedy than here, but it wasn't a horrendous mistake. I must note as a kid that when Vaughn's sister is turned into that psycho-robot it FREAKED me out! Biggest annoyance is the kid who plays Ricky, his voice is badly dubbed and incredibly nerve-racking. Also could've done without O'Herlihy's drunken antagonist. Most of the music is lifted from part two, but since I liked Ken Thorne's work, I didn't mind. I could even say (Supe fans will kill me) I would rather watch this one than the first movie. So even though the story isn't really there like in the previous films, the movie overall still FLIES (hehe).

Superman III. Still an Enjoyable sequel, but didn't measure up to I or II. I'd say III is considered more of a Comedy than an Adventure film. But, Richard Pryor helped to breathe life into the comedy element with his role of computer prodigy August "Gus" Gorman. Robert Vaughn does well as Baddy Corporate Tycoon Ross Webster. While he's no Lex Luthor, he still delivered. Pamela Stephenson's portrayal of 69% Ditz-31% Serious employee Lorelie Ambrosia was both funny and annoying. That high pitched voice got to me, but was tolorable compared to the Scary, Stern and Stubborn attitude of Vera Webster, the baby sister played by Annie Ross. And while it lacks the writing power of Mario Puzo, It's still enjoyable.

You could wonder if Gus Gorman's (Pryor) creation of the all knowing superior defensive ultimate computer could have been the breaking ground for the Y2K problem and the mindless schemes it has caused, had that computer, which I dubbed the Macintosh Of Death, had been a real life creation.

You could also feal sorry for Gus being used by Webster for evil. You could also wonder if Lana Lang, Clark Kent's High School Sweetheart, would be a problem with Lois Lane, who we didn't see much of in this film. Also, I wondered how people felt when Superman almost decayed into, in a way, Bizarro after exposure to the missing ingredient Kryptonite.

There is a disturbing moment in the film when Vera is pulled into the super computer's mainframe and turned into an android slave. That made me wonder if computer technology could become disturbingly powerful enough to be able to manipulate humanity and eliminate it completely. Similar situations have been seen in The "Terminator" pictures, The 1999 film "Virus", and the book "Reaper" which became the TV Movie "Fatal Error" on TBS. Possible?

An interesting thing in Superman III, When Superman faced the onslaught of The super system's missile attack, Atari provided the simulated Video Game that Webster plays, as well as the sound effects from the Atari 2600 port of Pac-Man. Another interesting thing is how the super computer ignorantly underestimated the hot and lethal potential of the Acid which led to it's destruction.

While not measuring up to the power of I or II, All in all Superman III is in my opinion a good picture.

Superman 3 is kind of like a double sided coin. One side being good and the other one being bad. Jekyll and Hyde if you will.

The plot of Superman 3 is essentially split into 2 parts.

The 1st part revolves around Superman going back to Smallville for his high school reunion where he catches up with his high school sweetheart Lana Lang. While there he is exposed to Kryptonite only this time instead of it making him weak, it instead turns him evil. All of this stuff is really good and what you would expect from a Superman movie.

On the other side of the coin however is the B plot which revolves around Richard Pyror who guest stars in this movie as Gus Gorman. A down on his luck computer clerk who gets tangled up with a greedy businessman who wants to get richer by taking over the world with computers.....you see why this part of the movie doesn't work right?

The 2nd part of this movie really isn't that good if you want me to be honest.

I mean I love Richard Pryor but he really isn't that funny in this movie. Mostly because he has nothing to work with due to the script.

Which is strange because you can tell just by the opening credits that this movies trying to be more like a comedy (if you can call it that) but none of the jokes really land and just feel really out of place.

The villains are awful to. Instead of using a Super villain from the comics like Braniac or Parasite, they instead chose to create a original villain called Ross Webster whose essentially just a watered down version of Luthor with little to no substance.

Which is insane considering how big of a rogue line up Superman has.

Literally the only other good thing in this movie is the action and speciel effects which are good for their time.

Especially the junkyard fight with the evil Superman. That scene is amazing and really demonstrates how great Christopher Reeves was as Superman.

Again all the stuff with Superman and Smallville is great. There everything you want and love from these movies.

It's the other half with Richard Pryor and the villains that's awful and unfortunately brings the movie down.

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.