Since Superman: The Movie and Superman II were so successful and popular, it was no surprise that Superman III was made. The surprise was how bad the finished product was.
When Superman: The Movie was first filmed, director Richard Donner was actually filming scenes for the second movie at the same time. Donner saw the two movies as telling one long story. A decision was made to focus on finishing Superman because of budget concerns. Then, despite the fact that the movie was a huge success once it was released, the producers made the bonehead move of firing Donner and replacing him with Richard Lester to finish Superman II even though Donner had already filmed much of the movie. Superman II still ended up being a strong movie, though I believe Lester’s touch could be seen in some of the corny things that turned up. Lester returned to direct Superman III, and this time the corny and campy things took over and the end result was a huge mess.
Clark Kent convinced Perry White to let him write a story about his returning to Smallville for his high school reunion while Lois Lane jetted off to Bermuda for a vacation. Clark reconnected with Lana Lang, the girl he’d been interested in. Superman also had to make a few appearances to deal with a few problems in Smallville.
Gus Gorman has been out of work for a while and decided to try computer programming once his benefits ran out. It turned out he had a gift for it and he ended up working for one of the companies owned by Ross Webster, one of the richest men in the world. Gus wasn’t happy with his paycheck after taxes and came up with a way to steal thousands from the company using his new found talent with computers. Ross and his sister Vera figured out what happened and saw an opportunity to get Gus to use his talent with computers to help them get even richer. Unfortunately for them, Superman stepped in before their first plan could work. Ross then decided that Gus needed to find a way to kill Superman. They created a synthetic kryptonite that contained tobacco tar in place of an unknown substance. It did kill Superman, but it drastically changed his personality. At first he just didn’t seem to care and later he was just mean and evil. Ross, Vera, and Gus then went ahead with plans to build a supercomputer that could do anything.
Superman III was about the character that Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The character first appeared in DC comic books before eventually being featured in cartoons, television shows, and movies. I am far from an expert on Superman, but I do know more about him than I used to thanks to reading Superman: The Ultimate Guide to the Man of Steel. Ross, Vera, Gus, and the supercomputer they constructed were created just for this movie. I thought they were rather lame as villains for Superman to deal with, and they did nothing to help the movie or make it stronger.
The plot for Superman III was rather simple and downright silly for the most part. Clark going home to Smallville for his high school reunion wasn’t that exciting for me, but it wasn’t horrible either. Everything connected to Ross, Vera, and Gus just didn’t work in my opinion. It would have been much better to have one of the actual villains that Superman had to deal with used instead of creating a guy who was basically just another Lex Luthor. If they wanted Superman dealing with Luthor again, they should have just done that. They would have had to recast the part though since Gene Hackman didn’t want any part of this movie after how the producers treated Donner. Ross was just a pale imitation of Luthor, so he wasn’t an effective villain. Too much of what was going on was just flat out stupid, especially the final confrontation involving Superman fighting the computer.
I didn’t think there was much action or adventure in Superman III. Clark was mostly shown doing stuff in Smallville with Lana and her son Ricky which didn’t amount to much. Superman did have to make an appearance to save Ricky at one point. Superman did deal with a raging fire at a chemical plant that really had nothing to do with the rest of the movie. It was almost like that sequence was added in as an excuse to have explosions and fire. Some more action turned up later in the movie when Superman and Clark were actually fighting each other in a junk yard. The scene was kind of cool, though I’m still not sure if they somehow were split apart or if that was just supposed to represent the internet struggle Clark/Superman was having while trying to over come the effects of the synthetic kryptonite. When Superman had his confrontation with Ross, Vera, and the computer, there was a little more action, most of which just looked silly. There was a little bit of violence in a few scenes that wasn’t graphic or extreme.
Special effects turned up throughout Superman III. It did look believable when Superman was flying, though there were times when I could clearly see that blue screen work had been done. Some of the other effects didn’t look as good. The effects were done fine, especially considering the time when the movie was made. They do look very dated now. There was also a lot of stuff connected to computers and computer programming used because of the things connected to Gus. I have no idea how accurate those things were. At one point late in the movie Ross used the supercomputer to attack Superman. The display on a screen was made to look like a video game and I swear I heard sounds from Pac Man as well. That was just bad.
It was clear as soon as the sequence the credits played over started that Superman III was trying to be a funny movie. The first few minutes included all sorts of silly, random events going on that had nothing to do with the main plot. Most of those things were just down right corny, and it only got worse as the movie progressed. Gus did say and do a few things that were funny, but not everything he did worked either. There were several things that I think were supposed to be funny that were just flat out stupid instead. There was no respect for the characters or what had been done with them in the first movies. It was like Lester was determined to make a comedy no matter how badly that screwed up the movie. It seemed clear to me that Lester really didn’t appreciate the source material or care about the fans of Superman.
Many things about Superman had been set up and established in the first two movies and some of those things seemed to be ignored in Superman III. I guess the biggest thing that bugged me was how Clark seemed to be willing to start up a relationship with Lana despite the history with Lois. In the second movie, Clark/Superman had been willing to give up his powers to be with her. Yes, that didn’t work out, but it was still very clear at the end of that movie that he still loved her. Then in this movie, it was like he had forgotten everything that had happened between them. It just didn’t fit in with how the character had been established that Clark would be jumping into something with another woman. Reasons had been set up in the second movie for why he couldn’t be with Lois - not that I agreed with them, but they were established. So it didn’t make sense that he would be starting something with Lana since that relationship should face the same obstacles. That may seem like a minor issue to some, but it did bug me. I also didn’t like how Superman basically jumped into bed with Lorelei when he was evil. It wasn’t shown, but it was clear what happened.
Clark/Superman was the main character once again. In some ways, he remained the same as he had been, and in others he was changed. He wasn’t a klutz like he had been previously, which was an improvement. Christopher Reeve was good in the part. He did get a chance to do some different things with the character once he was acting evil. That was sort of interesting, though I kept getting distracted by the fact that his stubble kept appearing and disappearing during a sequence later in the movie. Lois, Jimmy, and Perry were missing for the majority of the movie. Lois had a total of maybe five minutes from short appearances at the beginning and ending of the movie. That didn’t work for the movie either.
Lana Lang was from Smallville and she and Clark had known each other for years. She had been very popular in high school and had married the captain of the football team. The marriage fell apart and she was raising Ricky on her own. Lana had a decent life, but she still dreamed of getting out of Smallville. She seemed nice enough, though there wasn’t much shared about her. Annette O’Toole was fine in the part. Ricky wasn’t shown as much as Lana. He seemed like a nice enough kid.
I have heard that Richard Pryor had talked about how much he had enjoyed Superman II on a talk show, so the producers quickly signed him to be in this movie. Pryor was very popular at the time, so I’m sure they felt he would add to the box office of the movie. Unfortunately, his character didn’t work that well for the movie either. Gus was just an unemployed guy who accidently discovered that he had a talent with computers. Then he got pulled into a plot to try to take over the world. Gus just seemed out of place most of the time and he isn’t a good villain.
There was nothing special about Ross or Vera. Ross was clearly just a copy of Lex Luthor. The scheme that Ross came up with to take over the world by controlling the oil supply did seem like something that Luthor might have attempted. Vera was Ross’s very controlling sister. There was nothing special about her. Annie Ross and Robert Vaughn were nothing special in the parts. Lorelei worked for Ross and also seemed to be his girlfriend. She and Vera didn’t get along. Lorelei acted like a typical dumb blonde, but a few things seemed to indicate that she was smarter than she acted. Pamela Stephenson was fine in the part.
Main Cast
Jackie Cooper - Perry White Margot Kidder - Lois Lane Marc McClure - Jimmy Olsen Annette O’Toole - Lana Lang Richard Pryor - Gus Gorman Christopher Reeve - Clark Kent/Superman Annie Ross - Vera Webster Pamela Stephenson - Lorelei Robert Vaughn - Ross Webster
Richard Lester - Director
DVD Information
Superman III was first released on DVD several years ago. It was released again as part of the Ultimate Collector’s Edition DVD Set that includes all of the Superman movies, including Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, and many extras on fourteen discs. I did pick up the DVD set, so I will be mentioning the extras that were connected to the third movie.
There is a commentary with the producers that I have not listened to. I did watch The Making of Superman III. It seemed like it had been filmed while the movie was being made. I’m guessing that it originally ran on television around the time the movie came out in theaters, but I might be wrong about that. It showed the filming of different scenes, including how certain effects were created. Lester as well as some of the cast were shown talking about the movie. There was also a narrator that pointed out different things as well. The narrator called Lana Lorna more than once for some reason - I even backed up the DVD to make sure I heard it right. There were also some deleted scenes and a theatrical trailer for the movie included. I wasn’t interested in seeing the deleted scenes.
Superman III was a huge mess of a movie and it signaled the beginning of the end for the Superman movies. The producers made a huge mistake when they fired Richard Donner and I think that played a huge part in why this movie was so bad. I can’t help but wonder what Donner would have come up with for a third movie. Reeve was pretty much the only good thing about the movie. I have heard that the fourth movie is even worse, so I am not looking forward to watching that. In fact, I’m a bit afraid of how bad that will have to be to be worse than his turkey.
I would have gone with one and a half stars for this movie if I had the option. Since I don’t, I decided to round up to two, mostly because of how good Christopher Reeve managed to be even with such bad material.
Reeve is back once more as the man from Krypton in this comedic Superman outing with Pryor fronting for villain Vaughn, out to defeat Clark Kent s alt...More at Buy.com
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