Superman III

• Directed by Richard Lester
• June 17, 1983 (US) / July 19, 1983 (UK)
• Based on Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Superman battles a corrupt businessman and his computer savvy henchman who have together constructed a powerful supercomputer.

Superman III is something that has always stuck in my brain mostly because of some fond memories I connected to it. I saw this on TV and like so many big movies that came on network television at the time it was a bit of an event in my house. We all sat around and watched the first time it came on. Sadly those memories do not match the actual quality of the movie. It takes a great character and an interesting idea and moves it to the lowest common denominator.

As a series the Superman movies could have survived the campy comedy of Lester’s version of Superman II. They could not survive Superman III becoming not only a Richard Pryor vehicle but being an overt comedy. It goes so far as to open with a goofy bit of comedy appearing to be ripped off from Harold Lloyd than something drawn from a Superman comic book. I’ve heard over the years this was originally supposed to be Brainiac as the villain instead of the computer that they eventually ran with. I think the issues go a bit beyond that.

The plot plays largely on computers and the public’s general ignorance at the time of how they actually worked. At the time computers were these nearly magical things with that were seen in the likes of Star Trek or Buck Rogers. Arcade games were in just about every gas station and grocery store but your average citizen really did not understand how they worked. Heck this was the same time that movies like Tron came out and Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends had a recurring nemesis called Videoman that was a computer entity interacting physically in the real world.

The villain’s plot is all about getting computers to do things they aren’t supposed to do. That’s fine and makes sense to a certain extent but the problem is Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) enlists bumbling hacker Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) to reprogram a weather satellite to control the weather. I don’t even know how that might work.

Richard Pryor was quite the star at time so I understand him getting significant screen presence in the film but it drowns have Christopher Reeve and his part as Superman. ‘Superman’ is in the title and his presence is continually blunted by showing the bigger star and justifying his appearance in the movie. You could almost think Lester wanted to do a Richard Pryor movie more than another Superman movie.

Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) in her short time in the movie is certainly softened from the first two films. Then again in Superman ‘78 she was quite mean but it’s easy to keep the character soft when she is kicked out of the story after less than five minutes. With her out of the picture it makes Clatk expressing feelings for Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole) a little easier for the audience to swallow. Just do not think about Superman rewinding time to save Lois from the disaster unleashed by Lex Luthor.

The Miss Teschmacher replacement Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson) shows random instances of significantly greater intelligence. I guess that’s meant to be humorous but then it just goes away. You are left thinking it’s going to somehow play into the climax, but it doesn’t. Keep her dumb or have her enact a surprise plan!

The best way I can describe much of this film is that it is filled with little side quests. So much is not focused on the fight against the villain with much of those side quests aimed at showcasing the comedy stylings of the legendary Richard Pryor. Everyone but Pryor is the straight man though with Reeve occasionally dancing into that zone in his time as Clark Kent.

There is an actor in here playing the part of Lana Lang’s ex Brad and it bothered me for about half the movie who he was. For those interested it’s Gavan O’Herlihy and he was the actor that played Chuck Cunningham in Happy Days before being accidentally erased from history by events in the ABC Saturday morning animated series The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang. The latter is a real show. But back to the discussion of the movie…

It gets things wrong like the villains decide they are going to make kryptonite. Kryptonite is not a material you can manufacture necessarily. You can’t mix this and that and the other thing and achieve kryptonite. Kryptonite is an element. Specifically a transuranic mildly radioactive element meaning it is something that doesn’t actually exist outside of comics. You can create it in a lab using a nuclear accelerator. Here they task a satellite to analyze a meteor and create it by using lasers that also bring it to Earth.

When Gus comes to Smallville during the ceremony for Superman saving little Ricky it’s probably the worst moment in the in a Superman film because the radiation of kryptonite is what hurts Superman and not chemical exposure like here. This kryptonite turns Superman into a super jerk in a very cartoony way. What happens here is more what you would probably find in a Three Stooges short or Batman ’66 like straightening The Leaning Tower of Pisa for example.

Red kryptonite would have been a better choice and less silly. It also would have worked better to explain Superman splitting into two halves due. The green variety was already used and as such the audience, no matter their familiarity with any Superman mythos, had expectations on what it could do. You would not even need to change how they created their kryptonite though you still should.

Lois would’ve been ideal for dealing with evil Superman yet she is conveniently in Bermuda and never makes a return when Superman starts acting up. There’s been rumors why Margot Kidder’s role was reduced to a brief appearance but whatever the reason it was a bad move for the story. Lois Lane is a key character for Superman. You just can’t get rid of her especially given her implied view of the character in the last two movies. 

The story just meanders around. The character of Superman is often superfluous to the main driving force. You can also view it as having two separate plots. One is Gus Gorman as a relative computer genius creating havoc in the world at the behest of an industrialist. The other is Superman getting contaminated by seriously fake kryptonite and having an identity crisis.

Richard Lester’s pathological need for comedy really hurts this movie down to the climax. During the climax Ross Webster is firing rockets at Supes with a readout screen that looks like a videogame. It even has points on the on the screen. Really? I have no idea how Lester got a second film or how anybody let him do what he did here. I have this image of stogey old men in horn-rimmed glasses smoking cigars thinking this is what the public wanted because they only ever read the stories that were closer to fables than what you would get in the 80s.

Despite causing global devastation and a lengthy criminal record, Supes gives Gus a second chance at a mining company by dropping him there and I am pretty sure he does nothing to Ross Webster and pals. The ending was so forgettable I am not sure if they all died when the computer went rogue. I would have supported at the minimum dropping Gus at the authorities with a positive word from Kal-El suggesting a slap on the wrist because he helped.

Superman III is a movie that is a mess for an adult but just fine for a kid. A real young one. It’s nice to see Reeve’s Superman again but you really want to see him in a better movie.