Superman III was the beginning of the end of the Christopher
Reeve Superman films. Right from the very first shot, which shows comic Richard
Pryor standing in line at the unemployment office, the film loses sight of what
it means to tell a true Superman story. Instead, we get bogged down in stupid
opening scenes of nonsensical slapstick showing how utterly moronic the citizens
of Metropolis really are; they can’t get through the day without suffering the
sort of disaster that even a small child would be smart enough to avoid.
Pryor
plays Gus Gorman, a down on his luck kind of guy who discovers that he has a
knack with computers. Getting a job at Webscoe, a major corporation owned by the nefarious Ross
Webster (Robert Vaughn, who’s still basically playing one variation of Napoleon
Solo after another all these years later), Gus uses his computer skills to
embezzle money from the company. Webster takes notice of Gus and enlists his
computer genius to rule the world, or something like that. This movie was
written by people who not only didn’t know anything about Superman, but they
also didn’t know anything about computers, as well. A weather satellite can not
be used to control the weather with just a few flicks of a computer keyboard--if
only it were that easy, then everybody with a computer would be a despot.
As if this story could not be more boring, Lois is sent away on vacation
(reportedly because the Superman producers were peeved at actress Margo Kidder’s
blunt assessment regarding their dealings with director Richard Donner), and
Clark is sent back to Smallville to cover his high school reunion (why?). Once
there, he runs into Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole, a fine actress who would later
play Clark Kent’s mom on the TV series Smallville) and sort of falls in love
with her--it’s hard to take this so-called relationship seriously when even the
writers treated it like a bad joke. And speaking of bad, when Superman goes bad,
thanks to contaminated Kryptonite (???), the movie finally ends up where it
belongs: in the toilet.
I've always liked Richard Pryor as a comedian and an actor, but he was badly
mis-cast here. Superman III is pointless, annoying and just plain stupid. It’s
not even "so bad it’s good", it’s just very, very bad…period. Superman shouldn’t
be a secondary character in his own movie, and he should never be trashed like
he was in this film to the point where he acts like a drunken slob in a bar. If
you wind up with a DVD copy of this piece of garbage, just use it as it deserves
to be used: as a coaster for your drinks. Unfortunately, Chris Reeve's last film
as Superman, The Quest For Peace, isn't much better.
--SF
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