Review: Superman III

Richard Pryor plays a ne’er do well who discovers he has an amazing affinity for computers. He even figures out a way to pinch pennies from the big-time company he has recently started working for. When big money boss Robert Vaughn catches onto what Pryor is doing…he employs his services to suit his nefarious needs, destroying his competitors and causing all kinds of chaos. This alerts the attention of the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) who attempts to put a stop to things. Unfortunately, a mishap with some subpar synthetic kryptonite sees Superman turn super-douchy and not really giving a crap about saving the world anymore. Meanwhile, Clark Kent (also Reeve) travels to Smallville to attend his school reunion, sparking up old feelings for prom queen Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole). Gavan O’Herlihy plays the Smallville jock turned loutish security guard, Pamela Stephenson plays Vaughn’s bimbo, whilst Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, and Marc McClure briefly reprise their roles as Lois Lane (who is off in Bermuda for most of the film!), Perry White, and Jimmy Olsen.

 

And here’s where the wheels completely fall off, folks. Director Richard Lester (“Help!”, “The Three Musketeers”, “Superman II”) lets his slapstick sensibilities run right over the Man of Steel, and this 1983 film ends up a crushing disappointment as a result. It’s a cheap joke of a film where the only thing in the main plot that really works is Superman turning into Super Douche. Sadly, even that isn’t as effective as it could’ve been because of the manner in which it comes about. Superman stupidly touches kryptonite…willingly. What the hell? We know it’s not 100% pure kryptonite of course, but it certainly looks like kryptonite, so why in the hell would he touch it when he knows it’s poisonous to him? Even if he detected it wasn’t real, it still messed with him, so touching it just makes him look like a giant moron. Screenwriters David and Leslie Newman (who worked on the two previous films) should’ve figured out a way to get the end result by having Superman get exposed to kryptonite by accidental touch. It’s a shame because Super Douche is very, very funny as he flings beer nuts at beer bottles in a bar. The guy’s not evil, just an uncouth douchebag and Christopher Reeve seems to be having a ball with it. He does easily his best acting job of the series in this one. I may not be a fan of Lester’s comedic over-indulgences here, but in this case it worked, and it ain’t Reeve’s fault the film as a whole fails. I also found it fascinating when Clark and Superman (or Super Douche) split up so to speak and Clark sees what his alter ego has become. The resulting struggle seems to suggest that there’s Superman in Clark Kent just as there’s Clark Kent in Superman, if you catch my drift. Of course it’s ridiculous and nonsensical (and you’ll remember that Clark Kent is Superman and therefore Clark is never his own person), but fascinating to think about in a film pretty thin on interesting ideas. Although the previous film probably gave us a few too many heroic rescue action sequences, the scary fire/explosion set piece early here is a good one.

 

As for the rest of the film…oh dear. The big bold lettered ‘Alexander Salkind Presents’ is our first credit on screen, and pretty much lets you know that Mr. Lester isn’t the only one to blame here. Pamela Stephenson is one of the first people we see here, and boy is Mrs. Billy Connolly certainly no Valerie Perrine. Combine her with the opening pratfalling set-piece (involving hot dog carts and phone booths tumbling, no less) over the opening credits and the film immediately announces itself as a comedy. The entire sequence is appallingly inappropriate. It’s a wrong-headed approach, made even worse by the casting of Richard Pryor, who to me neither screams superhero film nor computer genius. He absolutely should not be here, and I say that as someone who liked “Moving” and “See No Evil, Hear No Evil”. I’ll admit that I chuckled at Pryor’s reaction to his second pay check, but overall I got the feeling that Pryor was playing an American version of Lester regular Roy Kinnear. Thing is, as much as I love the late Roy Kinnear, I’d complain just as much if he were cast in the role. The character and the tone he brings with him is horribly inappropriate. If I rag on several modern superhero films for not living up to my idea of what a superhero/comic book film should be, then I have to do the same here. Pryor gets one particularly awful moment where he messes with a computer to screw up the traffic signal light so the green man and the red man get into a punch-up. Fuck off, that’s just insulting. Later on we get a computer game-like scene where Robert Vaughn uses missiles against Superman, and it looks like awful 80s Atari crap (And indeed, Atari were responsible for it). Vaughn, meanwhile, seems to play the scene as though he’s back on the set of Corman’s underrated “Battle Beyond the Stars”. If you’ve seen both films, you’ll know what I mean.

 

For all the film’s faults, Robert Vaughn’s casting isn’t one of them. He’s no Gene Hackman or Terence Stamp, but he makes for a perfectly fine comic book villain. He does what he can with what is essentially a poor man’s Lex Luthor character. It’s a shame that he’s stuck in scenes with Pryor and Stephenson, they really make it hard to see the merit in Vaughn’s sturdy work. Margot Kidder’s mere cameo here as Lois was apparently due to her dislike of Lester taking over from the fired Richard Donner in the previous film. To be honest, after how things ended (badly) in the previous film between Lois and Clark (or Superman), there wasn’t much use for Lois anymore. In this one, her basic function is fulfilled by Superman’s mum…er…by Lana Lang, played by a youngish Annette O’Toole. The scenes of Clark going back to Smallville and rekindling something with Lana are actually pretty nicely done. Hell, it’s more interesting than the main plot. O’Toole is a bit of a stretch for ‘prom queen’ if you ask me, but has a really sweet and immediately likeable presence as Lana. She certainly convinces as a nice Midwestern girl.  It’s absolutely disgraceful how Lana is forgotten about in “Superman IV”, not just because of how things end here, but also because Lois Lane and Clark don’t exactly get back together in “IV”. So it’s so stupid to have written Lana out after setting up things so nicely here.

 

There’s some interesting stuff in here and a few solid performances, but on the whole this is a gross miscalculation, especially in regards to tone. Director Lester, the Newmans, and the Salkinds do somewhat of a disservice to the Superman legacy here. The presence of Richard Donner and Mario Puzo is sorely missed and glaringly evident. And sadly, this was merely the beginning. This is pretty lousy and very lucky to just scrape in with an average score rather than a poor one.

 

Rating: C