Review of Superman III (1983) by Richard I — 15 Nov 2010

Superman III isn't the worst Superman movie of all time, but this is no doubt where the series started to go bad. Both the first two movies are classic superhero movies, with the first being probably the best superhero movie of all time. Superman III does have some positive things going for it, like the still excellent performance by Christopher Reeve (no doubt the best actor to portray the Man of Steel). But, through more use of slapstick comedy and a somewhat casting mistake which I'll explain later, Superman III was the start of the downfall of the Superman franchise.

As Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve), AKA Jor-El/Superman, prepares to return home to Smallville for his high school reunion, multimillionare Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) plans to destroy the Man of Steel. Along with bumbling computer genius Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor), Vaughn creates tainted kryptonite (containing cigarette tar after failing to find a key 'unknown ingredient' in regular kryptonite). This turns Superman corrupt and the Man of Steel is forced to find a way to fight back against his will for evil.

I guess I'll start off with the only positive thing about this movie in my mind. Of course, that is Christopher Reeve as Superman. He is no doubt, as I've said, the best actor to portray the Man of Steel on the big screen and he also does a good job while portraying the corrupted Superman.

But, this film is full of problems. The first is the overall tone of the movie. Superman II did have slapstick comedy that wasn't all good at times, but didn't affect the overall movie in anyway. Superman III did exactly just that. One reason why is because the studio made a somewhat poor casting with Richard Pryor. Now I've never really see this guy anywhere else and I'm sure he was funny in other works he has done, but here he doesn't really have many funny scenes. I think that is because, as the Nostalgia Critic points out, he probably has more screen time than Superman himself.

Overall, I think this series went bad the minute Richard Donner was booted off during production of Superman II. Now, Richard Lester did a pretty good job with II, I'll give him that. But Donner's entry in the franchise was arguably so perfect. After III, as we all know, the Superman franchise hit its biggest low point (but we'll get to that later).

So in all, compared to what would come next for the franchise, Superman III isn't the worst film in the franchise. But, it isn't the best no doubt about that. It had a creative premise of having a dark version of Superman (wait a second, isn't there some villain who is technically a bad version of Superman). If you get what I'm saying, wouldn't that be a cool idea for a villain in a Superman movie? Anyway, III isn't pure crap, but it almost came close.