Superman Week Part 3

Unbelievable, just unbelievable! I can’t imagine what they have done to Superman after the second film. Unlike Batman Forever, where Schumacher just decided to make it more child-friendly and it was ok, they did not do the same thing for Superman. Want to know what they did? Just hold on to your vomit bags, it’s time to look at the 1983 horrendous sequel in the franchise, “Superman 3.” For this film, Ilya Salkind originally wrote the film introducing other famous Superman villains, like Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk, and even introduces Superman’s cousin, Supergirl. Originally there was supposed to be a father-daughter relationship between Brainiac and Supergirl. Hold on a second! Brainiac and Supergirl aren’t father and daughter! Did you bother to read a Superman comic before writing out this outline, Ilya? If that’s not enough, there was going to be a romance between Superman and Supergirl. They’re cousins, you moron! Do your stinking research before writing this out! Thankfully, Warner Bros. rejected that idea. Well that’s a relief. However, they decided to create their own film, where the script took Brainiac and instead made it an evil “ultimate computer.” I would have personally loved to have seen Brainiac in this film, but I guess that would be a hard one to pull off. It’s like if you decided to put Clayface in a Batman movie, it would be difficult to make him. However, Salkind’s rejected idea was later released online in 2007.

Back to the review, the film co-starred the late raunchy comedian, Richard Pryor as Gus Gorman, who is a computer genius. Boy do I have to say he does not do a very good job here. Richard, you’re one of the funniest comedians we ever had, what are you doing in a Superman movie? It’s fine that you are in here, but still, where’s the comedic genius that we all are familiar with from your stand up or other films? Whenever he is trying to be funny in a scene, it just comes out painful to see. When he’s telling the millionaire family he is working with to take down Superman how the Man of Steel stopped a hurricane, nothing about it is funny. When the family is looking at him as if they weren’t the least bit entertained as well, he says, “Superman’s bad.” No Richard, you’re bad in this. Even when he dresses up like the army guy when Superman is at that public appearance of his it’s just overacting at its worse. Did the director suck all the funny out of him? I wouldn’t even be surprised if Richard Lester did that. When Gus says at the beginning, “Don’t call me a bum, I’m not a bum,” I have to say, regretfully, “Yes, you are a bum.”

Even the opening credits are saying this film is doomed from the start. Instead of the classic openings with the opening credits zooming in the front of the screen with the famous John Williams Superman theme playing, it’s instead looking like the Star Wars opening with so many Three Stooges stunts going on in the city. Just watch the opening of this film, if you want to know what I mean.

So the plot to this film involves Gus Gorman working with millionaire Webster (played by Robert Vaughn), his sister Vera (played by Annie Ross), and his mistress Lorelei Ambrosia (played by Pamela Stephenson). When Gus finds out that he is a computer genius, he helps them build a computer to take over the world financially. Meanwhile, Clark Kent convinces his boss, Perry White, played by Jackie Cooper, to return to his hometown of Smallville for his high school reunion, while Lois goes to Bermuda for vacation. Thank goodness Margot Kidder got out of this one. Jimmy Olsen, played by Marc McClure, goes with Clark. At the high school reunion, Clark meets up with his old friend Lana Lang, played by Annette O'Toole, who now is a divorcee and has a son, Ricky, played by Paul Kaethler. So it looks like they are getting back together when Clark’s old bully and now an alcoholic, Brad, played by Gavan O'Herlihy, still wants her attention. On the other side, Gus and Webster find kryptonite, which is Superman’s weakness, in order to turn him evil, and become infatuated with Lorelei. Superman also becomes an alcoholic. What is going on here? Why is there so much emphasis on comedy? Superman is not supposed to be a comedy! I know that Superman is more light-hearted compared to Batman, but he did have some serious tones to the comics. They just completely forgot about that, as if they never read a Superman comic! And you want to know what tops off this atrocious film? Vera gets taken over by the computer and becomes a cyborg. That moment is the scariest moment in film history. It can alone give you nightmares for weeks.

Even though this film was a success, fans were extremely upset with the film, particularly Richard Pryor’s performance. If you were a Richard Pryor fan, wouldn’t you be as well? The last two had a serious tone to it; this was just not funny to begin with. There was also controversy over evil Superman as well. Actually, now that I mention it, the only good part of this film that you should watch is the junkyard scene when evil Superman fights good Clark Kent. That is the only part of this film that I would watch again out of this two hour pain. Trust me when I say this is one of the worst superhero films ever made. It’s in the top 10.

Thank goodness I’m done with that film. Will the Salkinds learn and not do the same thing in future Superman films? Well, believe it or not, they actually made a spin-off of the Christopher Reeve films. Find out tomorrow if it’s any good, which I think you will not be happy with that one at all. Not one bit, but we’ll see. Up, up, and away!