Not long ago, I wrote my ideas as to what SUPERMANs III and IV should have been for Superman Cinema's fan-fic section. My version of SUPERMAN III picked up where the last film left off, with the relationship between Lois and Clark/Superman dead and gone. In it, Lana Lang returns to rekindle her relationship with Clark while a pair of insane government scientists mass-produce Bizarros for use as a disposable army. Spurned on the basis that such an army would violate human rights, the scientists use the Bizarros to wreak havoc upon Washington and end up in direct conflict with Superman.
Why am I telling you this? Because what I came up with was way better than the actual SUPERMAN III. It's no secret that the Salkinds originally intended the SUPERMAN films to be camp comedies, a plan that Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz undid when they made SUPERMAN as a dramatic film. Even though both men had been fired from SUPERMAN II after filming 80% of the picture and replaced by Richard Lester and the Newmans (who rewrote and reshot much of the final film, and are the "masterminds" behind III), enough of Donner and Mankiewicz's influence was stamped into the film to keep it from being totally screwed up. With SUPERMAN III, Donner and Mankiewicz's influence is completely absent, and we finally see what the Salkinds intended the SUPERMAN series to be all along. And what we get is a campy, dumb, and unfunny insult to the mythos. Not even the superb FX work, a good rescue scene at a chemical plant, and Robert Paynter's comic book-panel photography can make this film feel like genuine Superman.
It's not the idea of having Richard Pryor in a Superman film that makes this film bad, or using Lana Lang. It's not even the idea of using new villains. What makes this film bad is the sheer carelessness and idiocy of it all. For a film that revolves around computers as a menace, the villain should have been Brainiac, the genocidal AI of the comic books. Instead we get Robert Vaughn and Annie Ross as greedy tycoons who sucker a computer wiz into helping them corner the commodities market. Not very exciting. Instead of giving Pryor a meaty, serious role that would have tested him as an actor and have fit into the tone of the Superman mythos, we get Pryor as Gus Gorman doing standard Pryor shtick and not being funny at all. Instead of Lana Lang having some zest and excitement to her, we get a very bland and dull character played by a very boring Annette O'Toole. It also doesn't help that Pamela Stephenson's Lorelai character is beyond annoying, that Lois Lane barely appears in this movie at all (the Salkinds were punishing Margot Kidder for openly sticking up for Donner), that none of the plot threads are remotely satisfying, that Superman is now a bit player in his own movie, that Ken Thorne's abysmal and boring score continues to reduce John Williams' powerful fanfares to shrill and campy disgraces, that Richard Lester's disdain for Superman shows in his indifferent direction, and that the acting is all-around awful. Even when Superman ISN'T evil (and the "Superman goes evil and fights himself" scene is the lowest point in the film), Christopher Reeve comes off as smarmy and insincere (probably because he realizes the film sucks). And let's not forget the horrible slapstick gags, which are totally out of place here. And why does Metropolis have such a strongly British feel to it in the opening sequence? Shouldn't it be more American? Shades of SUPERMAN II's Idaho residents with British accents....
I can't say that this is as low as the SUPERMAN films can sink; the upcoming Jon Peters-produced SUPERMAN movie promises to be even worse. But of the Christopher Reeve cycle, this is by far the worst of the four. To those who assert that this film is truer to the comic books than the first two, I beg to differ. The first two films are kin to the best Superman comic stories. III is kin to the absolute worst.
Why am I telling you this? Because what I came up with was way better than the actual SUPERMAN III. It's no secret that the Salkinds originally intended the SUPERMAN films to be camp comedies, a plan that Richard Donner and Tom Mankiewicz undid when they made SUPERMAN as a dramatic film. Even though both men had been fired from SUPERMAN II after filming 80% of the picture and replaced by Richard Lester and the Newmans (who rewrote and reshot much of the final film, and are the "masterminds" behind III), enough of Donner and Mankiewicz's influence was stamped into the film to keep it from being totally screwed up. With SUPERMAN III, Donner and Mankiewicz's influence is completely absent, and we finally see what the Salkinds intended the SUPERMAN series to be all along. And what we get is a campy, dumb, and unfunny insult to the mythos. Not even the superb FX work, a good rescue scene at a chemical plant, and Robert Paynter's comic book-panel photography can make this film feel like genuine Superman.
It's not the idea of having Richard Pryor in a Superman film that makes this film bad, or using Lana Lang. It's not even the idea of using new villains. What makes this film bad is the sheer carelessness and idiocy of it all. For a film that revolves around computers as a menace, the villain should have been Brainiac, the genocidal AI of the comic books. Instead we get Robert Vaughn and Annie Ross as greedy tycoons who sucker a computer wiz into helping them corner the commodities market. Not very exciting. Instead of giving Pryor a meaty, serious role that would have tested him as an actor and have fit into the tone of the Superman mythos, we get Pryor as Gus Gorman doing standard Pryor shtick and not being funny at all. Instead of Lana Lang having some zest and excitement to her, we get a very bland and dull character played by a very boring Annette O'Toole. It also doesn't help that Pamela Stephenson's Lorelai character is beyond annoying, that Lois Lane barely appears in this movie at all (the Salkinds were punishing Margot Kidder for openly sticking up for Donner), that none of the plot threads are remotely satisfying, that Superman is now a bit player in his own movie, that Ken Thorne's abysmal and boring score continues to reduce John Williams' powerful fanfares to shrill and campy disgraces, that Richard Lester's disdain for Superman shows in his indifferent direction, and that the acting is all-around awful. Even when Superman ISN'T evil (and the "Superman goes evil and fights himself" scene is the lowest point in the film), Christopher Reeve comes off as smarmy and insincere (probably because he realizes the film sucks). And let's not forget the horrible slapstick gags, which are totally out of place here. And why does Metropolis have such a strongly British feel to it in the opening sequence? Shouldn't it be more American? Shades of SUPERMAN II's Idaho residents with British accents....
I can't say that this is as low as the SUPERMAN films can sink; the upcoming Jon Peters-produced SUPERMAN movie promises to be even worse. But of the Christopher Reeve cycle, this is by far the worst of the four. To those who assert that this film is truer to the comic books than the first two, I beg to differ. The first two films are kin to the best Superman comic stories. III is kin to the absolute worst.