Superman III

Okay, before we begin here, I just want to say that I don't HATE Superman. In fact, it's one of my favorite film series'. But only three of the five films are worth watching. Those are Superman, Superman II, and Superman Returns. I found this out the hard way, when I bought all four films for ten bucks from Target. This seems like a pretty good deal, which it is, but now I feel cheated that I paid ten bucks for Superman III and IV. So, let's dive right into Superman III.

The Main Characters
Superman/Clark Kent/Evil Superman: Christopher Reeve! Okay, here Superman does a pretty decent job playing the evil Superman and the good Clark Kent. But he still can't save this movie.
Lois Lane: Margot Kidder! One of the most annoying, selfish, conniving, manipulative, high strung reporters/photographers ever is FINALLY in this movie for under three minutes. She apparently goes to Bermuda because, I guess they couldn't afford to keep her on set for more than two hours.
Perry White: Jackie Cooper! He pretty much plays the same guy he did in the last two. Editor of the Daily Planet.
Gus Gorman: Richard Pryor! He pretty much just plays... Richard Pryor. A less funny version of.... Richard Pryor. Let's move on!
Lana: Annette O'Toole! Apparently she reconciles with Clark after seeing him at their high school reunion and moves to Metropolis to be with him. Does she appear in Superman IV? No. Who knows what happened to her, despite the fact that she moved several states away to be with him.
Brad: Gavan O'Herlihy (whoever that is). Now, okay, this has got to be the most stereotypical bully of all time. Basically, he used to be a football star in school and now he's a bachelor and an alcoholic. So, of course he thinks he's God's gift to women (because he's a REAL catch) and is always giving kids pointers on sports. And what on Earth are two people with O' in front of their names doing in this movie??
Ross Webster: Robert Vaughn. This millionaire is absolutely ridiculous. Though he's already rich, he gets Gus Gorman to control a weather satellite so he can control the weather (?) so he is able to dominate the world's coffee supply. But, he tries to destroy Superman after he stops it.
Ricky: Paul Kaethler. This kid has got to be the dumbest, most accident prone son ever! He meets Superman but feels the need to get his autograph after he says goodbye, so, then he tells everyone that Superman will be at his birthday party, and he has to be saved after he falls unconsious in front of a combine harvester. What an idiot.

The Plot
Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) has gotten one too many unemployment checks and decides to finally start looking for a job. And he makes it look like it's everyone's fault but his own because he was too lazy to get a job. He discovers he has a knack for programming computers and is hired by eccentric multi millionaire Ross Webster. What follows is one of the most accident prone slapstick themed opening credits ever. But before I tell you about the scene, I have got to tell you about the actual credits. While all the other movies make a bang when it comes to the credits, this one just doesn't. These credits look nothing like the usual credits, and in fact, they just sort of pass by! I guess, this has Richard Pryor in it, so since they made it a comedy, they probably want to let the viewer focus on the HILARIOUS comedy. It involves a blind man, a fire hydrant, a blonde bombshell, and a mime. It sets off a chain of events in which several people are injured.

Of course, this eventually leads to a car crashing onto a fire hydrant, and the car fills up with water in seconds. Okay, what? So, Superman changes in a photo booth and saves the man, which he couldn't have done himself, I guess. And the man is still alive somehow, because two minutes ago, his entire car was filled up with water. Superman then goes back to Smallville for his class reunion. But on the way there, they come across a nuclear power plant. The reporter he is traveling with wants to stay and take pictures, but Clark goes and changes into Superman. While trying to prevent a nuclear meltdown, he discovers a scientist who tells him that there are experimental fuel cells that will explode if they are not kept at a certain temperature. Well, that's kind of an overlook on their part, it's not exactly safe. Superman doesn't waste time with his "freeze breath", who cares about that? Instead, he literally rips an entire lake out of the ground and drenchest the plant. Well done, for taking the long way to victory, Superman. Well done. So, he arrives in Smallville and reconciles with his old flame, Lana, a divorced mother.  Her son, Ricky, falls unconsious in a field and Clark hears how combine harvesters are coming towards him. Superman saves Ricky, but this isn't enough for some reason, as he wants an autograph, too. After this, he tells everyone at school that Superman will be coming to his birthday party.

Meanwhile, Webster decides he wants more money and tells Gorman to reprogram a weather sattelite so he can CONTROL THE WEATHER!!! Yeah, because that is so simple to do! He wants to do it because he wants to control the coffee industry, by threatening to flood Colombia if they don't fork over the dough. But there are more countries that make coffee, you know. So, Gus does this and the news reports chaos all over the streets. However, when Gus returns he tells his boss that Superman dried up all of the water, foiling his scheme. Also, in this scene, it actually has Richard Pryor doing a voice over of footage of Superman drying up the crops. Why this was not in the news is beyond me. So, he gets angry and retreats to his ski hill built on top of a sky scraper. (?) Of course, Richard Pryor falls off the skyscraper and, dressed in a pink shawl which he had earlier used to play Superman with, is walking through traffic in skis and a pink shawl. Okay, that got a laugh out of me, because everything else he had said was ridiculous. Gus creates synthetic Kryptonite out of the materials that make it up, but he improvises with tar and travels to Smallville disguised as a soldier in an attempt to kill Superman.
However, it seemingly doesn't work. I guess just replacing the contents of synthetic Kryptonite with tar just won't work. And to think, I made sugar cookies the other day, but ran out of sugar. So, I just added "tar" and they turned out fine!


However, Superman has been acting strangely, he seems distant. He seems like he just couldn't care about anyone's problems. He actually decides to spend time lusting after Lana. When she tells him that a bridge has collapsed, he postpones getting there, and switches back to his normal self. He flies to the bridge, where the authorities just kind of say "Hey, Superman! You didn't make it! Sorry!" And that's the end of that. No emotion from the cops, they just kind of chastise Superman for not helping them, although they were at the scene, so why couldn't they have done it? Superman flies back to Metropolis, where he quite literally "screws around" with one of the billionaire's assistants. The next day, Lana decides out of nowhere that she just wants to pack up and move to Metropolis, where she has no job and no family, so apparently it's just for Clark. (She doesn't know he's Superman, right? So, why would she move when she barely knows him?) They go to Metropolis, where Superman decides to be some kind of a prankster, doing "dastardly" things like making the "leaning" tower of Pisa in Italy straight, and blowing out the Olympic torch. Ooh, that fiend! So, Superman then decides to duke it out with himself (?) in a junkyard, where the two personalities have finally split. Okay, this scene is completely confusing. You've got this guy, okay, a mild mannered reporter, who has superpowers. So, then all of a sudden, he splits in two. Clark strangles the man of steel somehow, and realizes that now he must be both, and not one. Okay. Couldn't you have noticed that without the epic battle scene? I mean, we don't even know if that was real. How could it be, right? But how could it be fake? Was it a dream, a hallucination? So, Superman goes to stop the DASTARDLY rich criminals, who have had Gus build them a supercomputer in the Grand Canyon for some reason. Okay, the Grand Canyon is in ARIZONA, and Metropolis is in NEW YORK! How did they even transport that giant computer, where did they get the power, and why did they choose the Grand Canyon??? For dramatic effect? So, Superman comes in and chastises them for trying to kill everyone in Colombia. Superman, however, is shot by a bubble, where he begins to suffocate. What. Superman could breathe IN SPACE, and now he can't go long without oxygen? WHAT THE %25#@$?!?!  Gus feels a pang of consience, because he never "meant" to kill Superman. Okay, that's like saying you never "knowingly" took steroids. He friggin' HANDED him Kryptonite, and now he doesn't want to kill him? While Superman is trapped, they use the computer to cause chaos in Metropolis, where Lana is. This is where I thought, great! A truly awesome scene, where he has to juggle Lana and the bad guys. But no. This has no signifigance. With Gus's help, the man of steel escapes, but not before the supercomputer somehow captures one of the billionaires and turns her into a ROBOT!!!


No, I'm not making this up! If you don't believe me, click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuSsSwg9MXs

So, with Gus's help, Superman destroys the cave and kills everyone. Wow. Bleak for a PG movie. He takes Gus and flies very slowly, yet they are able to make it to, I think Arkansas, in less than 3 minutes. They arrive at a power plant where Superman crushes a chunk of coal with his bare hands and turns it into a diamond. Okay, I don't care who you are, that's friggin' awesome! He takes the diamond and tells them that if they need a computer programmer, then Gus is their man. Gus, however, rebuffs their offer for some reason, and walks to the bus station some 20 miles away. Why he did not take the free ride from Superman I will never know. Back in Metropolis, Clark gives Lana the large stone and she is happy. Then the douche who is acting better than everybody is HILARIOUSLY humiliated when he falls into some food.

And they all lived Happily ever after.... except for Gus, who is still unemployed and except for Clark and Lana, because they don't even show up in the sequel, so what was the point of that subplot, but come to think of it, he can't be in a relationship anyway because she would discover the secret about him. BUT ANYWAY, LET'S JUST GO WITH THAT!!!!!!

Great Prose Alert
"I ask you to kill Superman, and you're telling me you couldn't even do that one, simple thing."
Well, Mr. Webster, if it is so easy, why don't YOU do it???

Guess Which Film This is From!

Believe it or not, this shot is from Superman III. If I showed you this, would you think Superman III? No. Tell me this single shot does not tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about Superman III. Richard Pryor in the Twinkie mascot's hat.

Conclusions
This is worse than Superman IV. It's that bad. I think it's worse than IV because it has a woman turn into a ROBOT. You have got to be friggin kidding me! In a Superman movie? Come to think of it, if all you saw for Superman III were the robot scene and the opening "wah-wah-wah" scene, you probably wouldn't even think that it was a Superman movie! Not to mention that Richard Pryor gets more screen time than Superman, the villain is stupid, Richard Pryor isn't funny, the effects are cheese, and the film was obviously only made for money! In fact, in the credits of Superman II, you saw: COMING SOON: SUPERMAN III. So, it would have been really cool if a Superman clone was made. In fact, when I saw the scene in the junkyard on TV, I was certain that that's what it was about, and I thought, ooh, awesome! Superman against HIMSELF! You could do a lot with that. But with this, eh. You can't really do much with what they were given. A rushed cast, script, and effects.

0 stars.