[Paul_Scott]

in the wake of my Thurs viewing of Matrix Reloaded, i was craving some more action laced w/ a semblence of an intellect , and was having a hard time finding anything interesting to watch.
for some reaon i decided to pull this out instead, and i don't know what happened.
Maybe it was because the last movie i had seen had sparked my lobes to question the things i was seeing and hearing rather than just passively accept them them .
whatever it was, i felt compelled to put my thoughts down.

i don't mind admiting when i'm wrong, and boy have i been wrong.
for a long time i've always dismissed Superman 3 as the weakest entry of the series. maybe even worse than the queasy cheese-fest that followed it.
but after renting it out the other day, my opinion of it has swung around 180 degrees .
it could be that i haven't seen it in so long and in that time i've been exposed to more and more complex and subtler forms of art.
Before i used to use the first movie as the bench mark to judge the rest.
what a mistake.
the first movie has such an obvious emotional core to it ( the death of parents, the Christ-like analogies, etc), that for the longest time i thought therefore it must be 'deep'. but i now see these themes were simply crass sentimentality.
whereas i took 3's irreverence ( as in the absurd events of the opening credits) as a major strike against it. I now see the brillance and inspiration with which lester constructed it. this is a surreal artifice that becomes the frame to the looking glass thru which the rest of the
films distorted events are viewed. this is such a depature from the sanctimonious tone of the first 2 films that the shift is jarring. but the fact that he even attempted it shows Lesters courage and the confidence in
his abilities and the material with which he was working. In other words, Superman The Movie is a Norman Rockwell cover, where Superman 3 is a Duchamp exhibit, or a Jeff Koons or Roy Lichtenstein masterpiece.
To try to do justice to some of the other subtle, brilliant touches i found this last viewing would take several pages so i'll just relate one of them here:

1) the inadvertent villan Gus Gorman-a highly intelligent, but chronically un-employable black man, whose new found gifts are mis-used by his eventual employer . Ross Webster becomes, in essence, "the great white father" a combination benefactor and exploiter . this is a stunning commentary on 200 years of american history, done so slyly and satirically
most people ( including myself) completely missed it. to find an analysis this complex in a 'comic-book' movie is truly remarkable.
in fact the whole character arc of gorman is really amazing and well worth viewing with a critical eye. As i found on this screening, things aren't as simple as they first appear in Lesters Universe.

believe me, there are many, many more instances of subversive and quick-witted satire that no doubt blew past most people. Sure superman 1 (& II) seemed to be more genuine..buts thats just because we've been
trained , like pavlovs dog, to sympathize with any display of sacharine emotion. After finally catching on to the way Lester brilliantly smuggled in satire & commentary, the emotion in Donners film begins to smack of obvious and heavy handed pandering.

[Daniel J.S.]

Interesting interpretations, but I still find the film to be dull, the performances are so mediocre, the effects are well below par and the story has holes you could fly a Star Destroyer through. I concur with most that the film only comes to life when Supes turns evil, leading up to the great junkyard fight. Even then, the FX hurt the scene: you can see the wires as Supes flies in and it is obvious that Supes' fist is not making contact with Clark's shirt when he is about to throw him off the pile of cars. When Clark is strangling Superman, watch his shirt sleeves move around, giving away where the composite was done. Overall, it was bold that Lester tried to inject some irreverence into the film, but he went to far and made a farce when he was supposed to make an adventure film.

[Ricardo C]

Say what you will about part III, but the gag with the leaning tower of Pisa and the guy selling the replicas, was great

[Nick Graham]

Yes, the Tower of Pisa gag makes me laugh every time, and I still love the junkyard fight, as well as some of Pryor's lines; "Jail? I can't go to jail! In jail there are robbers and rapists, and rapists who rape robbers!!"

Having said that, Superman III is a giant, steaming turd, and Richard Lester and the Salkinds should be shot for killing the franchise after Donner's great work in parts 1 and 2.

[Joshua_Y]

I always thought Superman III was a pretty damned fun movie and has some great stuff in it...

[Colin Jacobson]

Pretty much gotta agree with Nick that Supes III bites. If anyone's interested, here's a link to my review of the DVD - it relates my thoughts about the film better than I could rehash here:

Supes III Review

[Larry Sutliff]

SUPERMAN III was a massive disappointment to me in 1983, but I've grown to enjoy much of it. The junkyard fight is very good, and some of the humor is funny. Plus the production values are very good, and I disagree that the F/X are below par. The flying scenes in this film are superior to those in II and on a par with the best of I. And it beats the heck out of the sad spectacle of SUPERMAN IV...

[Dharmesh C]

I diagree with Paul Scott on Superman 1. The film's tone and humanity is perfect in my eyes. I prefer heavy handed approach and Christ-like analogies.

As for Superman 3, I agree with you to a certain extent, but you are giving too much credit to Lester, a director who had no interest in SUPERMAN. He gives much more attention to PRYOR. Although the pre-titles smack of stereotypical black guy out of a job blah, blah, blah, Lester did manage to turn it around to the black guy's advantage. And the whole thing about the white man using the black guy is quite funny, it certainly smacks true to reality during the time the film was made.

[Paul_Scott]

Dharmesh,
what happened to the links to the fan art on your site?
some of them (including one i sent you a couple years back) seem to be broken- any chance you'll be able to get 'em back up?
i've been trying to locate a copy of the jpg for myself, bu i can't find it and i sold the original art.



oh...uh...sorry guys, i was just goofing about III.:b
I was trying to parody film criticism, which, i realize is about as challenging as fishing for bass in a Texas lake using dynamite.
i haven't actually seen that movie in many a moon, which is why the satire doesn't go very deep.
i thought for sure , just the absurdity of a 'review' thread for this particular film popping up out of the blue would be enough to cause a chuckle.
hope no one took offense.

[Gary->dee]

Well I for one love Superman III and think it's filled with good moments. When the Superman DVD's came out I made it a point to get the first 3 movies and skip the 4th because I don't care for it. I think Superman III works because it's a lighter movie with more humor and that was needed since the first 2 movies were filled with serious themes and characters. But there's also some much darker material in the third movie when Superman gets a hold of the Kryptonite and begins to turn into a dark version of the man of steel. I love the scenes in the junkyard when he's battling his alter-ego Clark Kent. Superman nutted up and flipped hardcore. That was interesting. His costume got darker and when he visited that blonde chick at her penthouse it was a dark side version of Superman's meeting with Louis Lane at her penthouse in the first movie. I also like Clark Kent going back to Smallville for his class reunion. Richard Pryor's character didn't bother me and I found him to be enjoyable. Actually his character was ahead of his time considering he was a hacker that gave himself pay raises and dreamed of the ultimate computer back in 1983. That's something else that I liked about the movie because at the time I was getting into computers, especially with my Atari 800!

"I ask you to kill Superman, and you can't do that one, simple thing."

[Daniel J.S.]

Paul, the movie may not be well thought of, but that doesn't mean there isn't a subtext going on. I don't think we should be quick to parody people who try to look beyond the surface of a film (the surface is something most critics only look at, unfortunately). Superman III is consistent with Lester's filmmaking attitude; it attempts to flout convention, stick it to authority and debunk modern myths. Lester's subversiveness is no doubt what turns off fans of the first film, which was reverent towards the character. While I concede that the first was the best, I admire Lester's work on II, where he goes out of his way to simultaneoulsy make a grand adventure while deflating the pretentiousness of the material. IMO, film needs anarchists like Richard Lester. The man who made A Hard Day's Night can't be bad. I've heard Petulia is a masterpiece and I want to see it. Can anyone here vouch for it?