[Retro Review] Superman III
Superman 3 was released on June 17th, 1983. It had a budget of 39 million dollars, and grossed 80 million dollars. It stars Christopher Reeve, Annete O’Toole, Richard Pryor, and Robert Vaughn. The plot revolves around a computer genius named Gus Gorman who tries to extort money from his company. When the CEO discovers what he is doing, he hires him to help boost the income of his company by stealing oil ships and messing with the climate. Superman catches wind of it but by using a rare form of Kryptonite that turns Superman evil. Superman must overcome his darker nature in order to save the world.
This movie is like Batman Forever, not the worst movie in the franchise but still really bad. For starters, the pacing is really bad. Most of the scenes are devoted to the character of Gus, he almost becomes the lead. There’s quite a few unnecessary action scenes, For instance the chemical plant scene doesn’t really do anything and is just there for needless action. The iconic Clark Kent vs Evil Superman scene is also kind of unneeded(Not to mention makes no sense) We could have had a scene of Superman overcoming it internally.
Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane is also absent for a lot of the film. Kidder apparently hated that Richard Donner was fired and was very vocal about this so her role was reduced. Her and Clark’s chemistry and fun banter is missed in this film. She’s replaced with Annete O’Toole as Lana Lang. While I do think Annete O’Toole is great in the role but her character lacks any interesting traits or writing. The same goes for the villain Webster who is an obvious Lex Luthor stand in. He’s got a good actor behind him but overall this villain lacks any intimidating traits or villainous qualities.
There are a ton of problems with this movie, but if I went through them all I’d be here all day. I decided to focus on the issues that really bothered me. The plot is often nonsensical and hard to take seriously. Fan favorite characters are replaced with cheap copies that lack the same substance. The pacing and attention of the film is off, Superman himself barely has an arc in his own film. I’d say this movie is a fun time for the sake of ripping it apart.
