DVD : Superman III

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- "I can't have anyone with me who isn't with me"
The third Superman movie is very underrated and is better then Superman 2. Although Lex Luthor{Gene Hackman} is gone Ross Webster{Robert Vaughn} is still a good villian and he said my favorite line of the movie which I said in the title. Richard Pryor is good as Gus Gorman the clueless computer man but that role might have been better if played by maybe Steve Martin. I think the whole part with the "cyborwoman" is stupid but the first Superman had stupid things in it also like that creepy poem that Lois Lane says. What I don't get is that Vaughn played the Gene Hackman like part but he isn't top billed like Hackman. This movie is a lot of fun and makes a good saterday night movie to watch with friends.

Rating:

- The Man of Steel Gets a Bit Rusty
Poorly conceived and misguided second sequel to 1978's "Superman" aims towards campy comedy and misses. Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) returns to his hometown of Smallville for his high school reunion and is reunited with his childhood sweetheart Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole). Meanwhile, an unlikely computer genius (Richard Pryor) is recruited by an unscrupulous industrialist (Robert Vaughn) to reprogram a weather satellite so that it can create disastrous weather that will effect commodity prices. When Superman foils their scheme, the bad guys try to synthesize kryptonite to destroy him, but they get the process wrong so it instead splits Superman's personality into good and evil halves.

The plot and tone of the film is reminiscent of some of the sillier "Superman" comic books of the 1950s and 60s. Reeve gives another good performance as Superman and Clark Kent, and even gets to stretch as an actor by playing a Man of Steel with a bad streak. As a love interest, O'Toole is a pleasing alternative to Margot Kidder's Lois Lane, who only has a cameo. But they cannot save this disappointing mess of a movie, which suffers from a miscast Pryor, the absence of a compelling story or villains, and too many jokes which are simply unfunny.

Rating:

- The Superman movie saga hits new lows. HOWEVER...
Although I thought `Superman III' was kinda dumb, I also thought it had potential that was never realized. Sure, it featured many moments of goofy slapstick and more than a few stupid sight gags (e.g., the walk/don't walk signal fisticuffs). But it showcased a few great Superman gags and concepts, like freezing the surface of a lake & then lifting & dropping it on a raging chemical plant inferno. There were also the cutesy moments that were kinda cool in their own way, like Clark helping to improve the bowling score of his high-school crush's son. Then there were those truly bizarre & somewhat surreal moments, like the "bad" Superman splittin' into two personalities, then both of `em dukin' it out in a junkyard. But topper to the list of the many pretty good ideas that were realized here is the fraction-of-a-cent computer program scam, which I believe was based on a real-life program! And, as most cult-flick geekoids are aware, this little high-tech scam would pop up again in the 9-to-5-world satire `Office Space'!

Sadly, this potential was bogged down by quite a few not-so-great gags & concepts, as well as poor execution of some of the better ones. Who could forget the ridiculously overdone silliness of the opening credits sequence? Or the turned-evil Supes that commits such heinous acts of mischief as straightening out the Tower of Pisa and blowing out the Olympic torch? And let's not forget co-star Richard Pryor, whose presence in a flick usually was a kiss of death back when he was still relatively lucid. His familiar weirdly-stammerin'-whilst-scared-stiff routine doesn't do much to lift this Big Blue outing from the depths of cinematic mediocrity. And his character's change from a total slacker loser to a super-hacker in an instant kinda stretches the plausibility a bit too far, even for a superhero yarn!

Still, even with all these problems, I do somewhat enjoy viewing this flick on occasion, if for nothing more than the cheese factor. And besides, as bad as `Superman III' is, it doesn't even come close to the horror of `Supe IV'! So if you ever have a hankerin' for a dumb-yet-somewhat-entertaining superhero flick, the silliness and camp of this particular celluloid nightmare just might hit the spot!

`Late

Rating:

- not quite the worst
This film didn't destroy yhte Superman mythos but its overreaching attempts at humor fairly made it a bad thing to be committed to celluloid. I am the Superman fan so it was a big deal for me and it needed to be a little more - lot more - sincere. The villains were comedians, the subplots were less than engaging, in fact the only good thing were the action sequences and Reeves' affable charm as the innocent Clark and the MoS. Pryor should not have mugged so much, the Producers should not have been so desperate to make a few bucks on the franchise that they would neglect their core constituency. I can only hope that the next attempt at Superman will remind us of the 1978 original and not anything after Superman 2...

Rating:

- What On Earth Happened Here?
Saying Superman 3 is a huge disappointment is a major understatement. This film will go down in history as one of the all time worst disappointments in film. The Salkinds obviously had no idea what to do with this movie. In the film, Robert Vaughan plays a criminal mastermind who hires computer specialist Richard Pryor to help him take control of the world and to stop Superman. As everybody has already said, what is the point of having Richard Pryor in this?. It doesn't make any sense and it doesn't work. Robert Vaughan, however, is passable as the evil villain. Christopher Reeve, once again, does his usual bang up job as Superman and Clark Kent. He is the saving grace for this film. Margot Kidder, as Lois Lane, takes the backseat in this movie. Her role can almost be considered a cameo. How can the filmmakers take a classic character like Lois, and a classic couple like Lois And Clark, and do this to them?. What were they thinking?. Annette 'O' Toole(who now plays Clark's mom on the excellent new WB show "Smallville")plays Lana Lang here. She is very adequate in the role. The one great thing about this film is Superman turning evil. It was a great, and only, dynamic to this dud. The fight in the junkyard between Superman and Clark is priceless. A real gem. If only the rest of the fillm had that. It sadly doesn't. The end climax with the cyborg lady gave me nightmares when I was little. She scared me!!. Okay, enough of that. Well, this is a total mistake. It scarred the series. Superman IV would be better, but still not good enough to save this classic series. This one almost killed it.

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