Superman III (1983) Comics Αφιέρωμα

director: Richard Lester

writers: David and Leslie Newman

starring: Christoper Reeve, Marlon Brando, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder

genre: Comics

As I said in the first review of Superman I, the people handling the Superman franchise were a bunch of morons. Donner who made the first film and 75% of the second was fired. His replacement was Richard Lester who emphasized more on comedic gags then deep plots with an attractive story. With Donner gone, so did Hackman go and Lois (Margot Kidder) was pushed aside as well. With some of the people that made the first films big now gone how much better do you think the franchise could have gone?

In the third film Superman/Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) decides to return to Smallville to write a story while Lois (Margot Kidder) goes on a vacation to Bermuda. On Kent trip to Smallville he will see his old childhood friend Lana. There he will feel in love again and happy. Here is were the film is interesting. Now to the uninteresting part. Richard Pryor plays Gus a bum who gets a computer job. Touching the computer he realizes he has exceptional skills and steals money from the company. The president Webster (Robert Vaughn) finds out and makes a deal with him. Causing havoc where they can so they can manipulate the market to make greater profit. But there is only one person in there way. Should I say who?

Let me start off with the good. Kent going to Smallville wasn't a bad idea and making Lana into a love interest was a great idea. The chemistry between them is on par with the Lois and Clark dynamic. Also the way the film ends leaves hints to a possible love triangle scenario in the fourth film which would have been a marvelous idea. But as we all know, that didn't play out as it should have.

Now lets get into the bad. First the villains of the film are preposterous. The character of Webster is just a terrible replacement/ripoff of Luthor with once again terrible sidekicks. Then there's Richard Pryor one of the greatest stand up comedians of all time and not a bad actor who get the part of a computer genius that by touching a computer realizes he is a computer genius. I might say that right there is some very creative writing!

Besides the villains of the film, the other discrepancy the film has its is change of direction. The previous director Richard Donner had a more serious take on Superman that most audiences loved. Instead Richard Lester take on Superman is to put in more comedic gags that have nothing to due with continuation of the story or by any chance make any sense.

In the end Superman III was a failure at following the two first films. It wasn't a complete failure. It had a nice romance story and a good evil Superman subplot. But it was the start of the downfall of Superman films as the next one in the series destroyed all hopes for the franchise to continue.