2.5/4 stars
Director Richard Lester (Superman II, Superman III) is a talented filmmaker, but he wasn’t right for Superman. There is no denying that he liked the character. But, Richard Donner – the director of the first film – respected him. Superman II, while still a decent movie, was an early sign that something was going wrong with the series’ original vision. Superman III confirms it.
Donner was fired from the production of Superman II with a little under half of its footage, then, complete. Lester, who took over, managed the salvage well enough; and all considering Superman II could have been much worse.
But, Superman III is all Richard Lester and it is clear from its start that he didn’t share Donner’s vision. He has, in fact, practically boasted of this in the past. Lester compared Donner’s style unfavorably with the epics of David Lean. Speaking for himself, he cited his own more lightweight style as his preference. To me, what this boils down to is that Richard Lester apparently thought Donner was making the series too good.
What a strange time the 80’s must have been for cinema! Producers are notoriously out of touch when it comes to understanding what audiences want, but Superman III is just insulting. The producing team, Ilya and Alexander Salkind as well as Pierre Spengler, handled the Superman movies terribly. Superman (1978) was a huge success and a critical darling still heralded as the greatest superhero movie of all time even to this day. It was the most expensive movie made at the time, largely due to director Richard Donner allowing its budget to balloon out of proportion. Obviously, the producers made their money back, but that didn’t stop them from having an acrimonious split with Donner and replacing him with Lester on Superman II.
But enough history. What about the movie itself? Taking 100% of the directing duties this time around, it is amazing how little Richard Lester accomplishes with it. Superman III waters down everything in the first two movies that made them significant. Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) is given nothing more than a few small cameos and Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor is missing from the movie entirely. He is replaced with another criminal mastermind named Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) who is nothing but a discount stand-in for Luthor. Webster has an over-convoluted scheme involving a computer hacker named Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) he uses to take control of weather satellites and the world’s oil reserves. Unlike Luthor, Webster merely plots and provides exposition when necessary. But, he has no personality of any kind. Gus, a henchman, is the central focus whenever the villains are on screen. He is introduced as an out of work welfare recipient who is forced to find a real job when the unemployment office declares him ineligible for any more handouts. He gets an entry-level position as a computer programmer for Webster’s corporation (which is implausible bull) and discovers that he has an innate talent as a computer genius (also bull). Computer programming doesn’t work this way. It’s not like discovering you are a fast runner or even that you are good at math. It’s a trained position that requires clear understanding of what one is doing. Gus impresses his boss by accomplishing some programming feat and then sheepishly says he doesn’t know how he did it. Utter nonsense!
After Gus is caught hacking the company’s payroll to increase his wages, Webster recruits him to manage all the necessary computer programming needed to hatch his scheme.
Pryor known for his comedy work is not much fun in this movie. He bumbles about playing at being in over his head, but there is no enthusiasm to his performance. Superman was not an appropriate vehicle for his career and he seems to have discovered that too late once shooting began.
Elsewhere, Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) is given a much flimsier story than previously seen. In the first two movies Lois Lane was at the center of his balancing act between being Superman and Clark. With Lois now largely out of the picture the writers clearly struggled to make anything out of Clark’s relationship with Superman and a number of odd choices are made for both.
Clark attends his high school reunion where he becomes reacquainted with his high school crush, Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole). Never having left Smallville and now a single mother, Lana wonders at her past life choices and thinks about moving to Metropolis. In Clark she sees something that she didn’t see in high school and they begin dating. As strange as this subplot is, it is actually the strongest part of the movie. I am of the controversial opinion that the budding romance between him and Lana is much better written and is more convincing than what we saw between him and Lois. Their outings to the bowling alley and on picnics is genuinely charming and pleasant to watch. We see several scenes where Clark is able to bond with Lana’s son, who just happens to be a big fan of Superman. I would have been happier had they shown more of this. The moments, while good, are sporadically paced, giving space way too often to Pryor’s soulless goof-balling and Vaughn’s complete lack of charisma or interesting traits. The villains are simply not strong enough to hold the amount of scenes with them that the movie forces upon us. The scenes with Clark and Lana are well-executed, but poorly balanced.
Later in the second act, Gus gives Superman some tainted Kryptonite that makes him evil. And by evil, I just mean annoying. He leaks oil tankers, blows out the Olympic torch, and straightens the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We also see him get drunk, misbehave around women, and claim that he isn’t in the helping people business anymore. The whole thing is absurd, but to the movie’s credit its resolution is quite well done. His emotions take a jolt when he sees Lana’s son disappointed in him and his spiritual struggle culminates in a literal battle between himself and his alter ego, Clark Kent.
Superman III pushes terrible, braindead premises, but manages to execute them better than I initially would expect. But none of the good moments last long enough before the movie’s idiotic plot commits further outrages. The final fight involves a super-computer that Gus built to kill Superman. It becomes self-aware, creates an evil robot out of Webster’s sister, and uses an interface resembling an Atari arcade game complete with scoreboard and a point counter. The movie feels like a bad Doctor Who episode.
Superman III is a horrendous, dumb movie that constantly teases us with something interesting before pulling the rug from under it to focus on its much less intelligent story. A key example is Webster’s mistress Lorelei (Pamela Stephenson). Like Lex Luthor’s Ms. Teschmacher she is played as a dimwitted floozy, but the film drops hints of something deeper beneath the surface that is never explained. She reads Immanuel Kant when no one is looking and displays a surprising understanding of computers, all of which she hides behind her exterior as a bimbo. It’s suggested that Lorelei may very well be the smartest person in the room, but it’s not developed beyond being a gag.
The movie has a number of good ideas in its brain, but they rattle about like loose marbles and nothing is properly placed. There was a good movie in here somewhere, but the filmmakers did not have the confidence to find it.
Director: Richard Lester
Writers: David Newman, Leslie Newman
Producers: Pierre Spengler, Alexander Salkind, Ilya Salkind, Robert Simmonds
Cast: Christopher Reeve (Superman/Clark Kent), Richard Pryor (Gus Gorman), Jackie Cooper (Perry White), Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen), Annette O’Toole (Lana Lang), Annie Ross (Vera), Pamela Stephenson (Lorelei), Robert Vaughn (Ross Webster), Margot Kidder (Lois Lane), Gavan O’Herlihy (Brad)
Composer: Ken Thorne
Cinematographer: Robert Paynter
Editor: John Victor Smith
Perspectives on Film 