Superman III (1983)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

I remember way back in fifth grade, my classmate saying he won't see Superman III because it has Richard Pryor in it and thought it will just be a comedy. Well the movie came and went. While this sequel was not as good as the previous two, Richard Pryor in my opinion, did NOT ruin it and had little to do with how it turned out.It is true that Pryor as Gus Gorman brought some comic relief for this movie, but it did not "ruin" it. All Mr. Pryor had was the script that he was provided and was limited to that. Mr. Pryor even thought the screenplay was terrible!Robert Vaughn played new villain, Ross Webster and it's hard to find a role of Vaughn to hate. But again, he was just as limited to the script.Superman getting effected by the synthetic Kryptonite was a good touch. It brought the needed conflict to a Superman story. This may have been the few qualities of this sequel as Superman always faces conflict.Unfortunately, Reeve reprising the iconic role and bringing in seasoned actors were not enough to boost the story. While again, in my opinion, this was totally watchable, you can see it didn't follow the last two films in quality.It seemed like the writers did a sleepy job of this sequel. Not only were the fans disappointed, but the players. This would be the end of the line for the producers (the Salkinds) for this iteration of Superman with no opportunity to redeem themselves. While this iteration of Superman continued for one more film, unfortunately everything went from mediocre to worse. While not the final film in the Christopher Reeve iteration, Superman III signaled the end of this era and without the quality that made it a hit five years earlier.

Superman III is best watched on a Saturday night, with fizzy and sweets. It's such an entertaining flick that includes action, comedy, suspense, love and excellent stunts. Richard Pryor is great as the unlucky Gus Gorman, a man that can't quite find the right job. He soon becomes involved with the villains as his computer skills become abused for the evil plans of Mr.Webster. There are many interesting plots in Superman III, such as Superman's fall from grace and the relationship between Clark Kent and Lana Lang. Ken Thorne gives the film some style and Gorgio Moroder produces some decent synth songs that feature throughout the adventure. The special effects are well realised and the best of the series by a country mile. The junkyard fight is also a memorable sequence which ranks as my favourite moment from the Superman films. Superman III shouldn't be a 4.9; it's too good for that.

Superman is back.In my younger days I hated this film, in fact it made me angry as it seemed so bad compared to Sup 1 & 2, but in the last ten years I have started to warm to it...perhaps because it is so much better than TV's Smallville and Lois And Clark?There are some fine action scenes with Superman, I love the retro hardware in the cave (looks like it came from the batcave in 1960s Batman) and Robert Vaughn makes a fine bad guy.However, Superman 3 is not perfect, and you might find yourself clicking the DVD picture search when the film goes back to Smallville.But all things considered...not bad.

I don't deny Superman III is a flawed movie but damned if I didn't have fun with it! Even during the opening scene I prior to the credits I already found myself relating to Richard Pryor's character of Gus Gorman and I thought this was supposed to be a bad movie? The monotony of a Benefits office and the employees who don't want to be there and that they probably don't like you as evident through their body language. Then Gus complains about his experience being employed by a fast food restaurant and how "they expect you to learn that stuff in one day". Let's just say I've had some similar real life experiences. Untimely I enjoyed his character and didn't mind him sharing the spotlight with Superman in terms of screen time.The opening credits do look like they were done on Windows Movie Maker (or whatever the 1980's equivalent was) but I won't lie if I didn't say the slapstick comedy in the opening credits doesn't amuse me. The slapstick is at least done a director who understands and knows how to do physical comedy but how do I justify the use of slapstick in a movie which likely didn't need it to be used to such a degree? I could say it ties in with the fact that Clark Kent is a bumbling fool, plus the series is light hearted and campy as a whole, so there are other movies in which the inclusion of widespread slapstick comedy could feel more out of place. Regardless, it gets a few laughs out of me. Not all of the comedy is successful in my eyes; the scene in which Gus explains Superman's exploits in Columbia is really head scratching-ly bizarre (just an odd way of progressing the plot) plus the green man and the red man in the pedestrian traffic light was going too far but I do enjoy the gags which use Superman's powers for comedic effect such as his altering of the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the blowing out of the Olympic Torch.The villain Ross Webster comes off as a lesser Lex Luthor. I still quite like Robert Vaughn's charismatic performance but I wish they could have taken the villain in a different direction rather than just being another evil business mogul. Also why does the villain's view of Superman flying through the canyon look like a video game? It doesn't make sense but is fun to watch. However I will say Vera actually turning into a cyborg was going too far. The action scenes however are fantastic, full of creative old school special effects; the highlight being Evil Superman vs. Clark Kent (a sequence which really shows of what a great actor Christopher Reeve was). Is it ironic in relation to today's needlessly dark and gritty superhero movies that Evil Superman's appearance is similar to Henry Cavill's Superman in Man of Steel, right down to the darkened colours? Forget Batman v Superman, this is where it's really at!Like Superman II, the element of the movie I found myself enjoying the most was the character relationships. I was surprised I liked Lana Lang almost as much as I do Lois Lane. Just look at the scene in which Clark and Lana are cleaning up the gym together and she tells him about her ambitions and how she wants to leave Smallville. At this point in the movie I thought to myself how can people dismiss this movie as much as they do? Yes it is flawed but when you have brilliant intimate moments like this then how can you not see it isn't without merit.