Superman III – Review

Reviews for Superman III and IV will be included on this site for sake of completeness, but I am not really recommending either movie. For those that like either of these movies, that is awesome, more power to you, I wish I did also!

Gus Norman (Pryor) has been unemployed for 35 weeks. His name is called at the county office, but they don’t have good news. His benefits have officially run dry. As he strikes a light for his cigarette, he sees an ad for money making as a computer programmer on the matchbook’s back.

On the city streets outside, an attractive woman causes chaos while walking as men fall all over themselves gawking. Even blind guys and mimes get in on the wacky antics and slapstick hijinks. It is hard to avoid letting this set the tone for this movie and if you hate everything so far you may as well eject now.

Superman III begins with gags and jokes, finding itself barely able to recover or get any steam going. As Gus begins to excel in his programming job, Lois (Kidder), Perry White (Cooper) and Jimmy Olson look into Ross Webster (Vaughn), a local business tycoon. As Clark (Reeve) strolls in late thinking his high school reunion will make a great story focusing on how much a typical small-town changes in 15 years.

Perry eventually agrees, so Clark looks to slink off, and Lois heads off to Bermuda, smartly wanting nothing to do with the movie script. Gus gets his first paycheck, but it feels light to him, so naturally he decides to hack the system and boost that income, allocating himself a few extra half cents here and there. Ya know, the ones the corporation usually takes when it rounds down paychecks. Ka-ching!!

Characters and plotlines eventually converge; however, the results don’t move the needle much and it takes soooooo long to get going that by the time it does you may not notice. The script could only carry the film so far, and the plot is too basic for a Superman tale. The movie includes action such as a chemical plant fire and bowling with young dipshit Ricky, or getting his dumb sleeping ass out of a frield before he is run over by a harvester. Jesus Christ, pay attention Ricky.

The movie makes slow progress, but at least it is good to see the familiar cast in action again, and Reeve does a great job with doing a few new things in the role. Adding Richard Pryor and Robert Vaughn should have helped, but again the writing came up short. Watch it for completion sake only for the most part, as some of the things that happen in this movie are beyond absurd and the first hour is a major drag.