You’re a movie executive who’s just watched a double feature of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and inspiration strikes. These movies are great, no question, but you know what they need? Laughs! You set up a meeting and pitch the filmmakers on a third Batman film, only this time, the main villain will be portrayed by Adam Sandler in full Waterboy mode.
Thus, Superman III, a sequel overloaded with pratfalls, double takes, broad acting, pathetic plot contrivances and the ruinous casting of comedian Richard Pryor (Silver Streak) as a computer genius led awry into cartoon villainy. It’s genuinely mind-boggling that producers would take a beloved and financially successful cultural icon and treat it like garbage. Then again, look at 1997’s Batman & Robin. Better yet, don’t.
With the right material, Pryor was a comedy genius, but in a movie laden with miscalculations — replacing Richard Donner’s stewardship of Superman: The Movie and Superman II with the unsuitable campiness of Richard Lester (Help!); treating Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) like an afterthought; believing that computers can do anything, because science — the stand-up legend’s painful flailing about is by far the most atrocious. He seems to be acting in an entirely different film, and not a good one.
Christopher Reeve, the ideal Superman/Clark Kent combo, heroically survives scenes that would cripple a more cynical actor. Reeve’s main strength was an ability to project decency, and this alone allows him to escape the debacle relatively unscathed. He even adds a dash of surly menace when a piece of faulty kryptonite turns Superman evil — well, more dickish, really; a prick with a 5 o’clock shadow. It’s still campy, but Reeve makes it work, even when he goes all Fight Club and battles himself in a junkyard. It makes no logical sense, but it’s by far the most interesting scene.
The rest, sadly, crumbles away as Pryor and co-antagonist Robert Vaughn (The Magnificent Seven) compete to see who can debase himself more. And at the end, after causing untold danger to life and property, Superman releases Pryor because hey, mistakes are why pencils have erasers. Also, Lester hates you.
Side query: While his job is integral to the mythos, have we ever seen Clark Kent actually perform “journalism”? His big story here is writing a piece on his high school reunion, leading me to believe Clark is less a star reporter and more The Daily Planet’s advice columnist. —Corey Redekop
Wrong. This movie is awesome. Lester forever.
I have an indefensible soft spot for this flick. I know its wrong, but I laugh a lot. Favorite line – “I ask you to kill Superman, and do you mean to tell me that you couldn’t do that one simple thing.” Robert Vaughn was a national treasure.