Superman 3
The production of Richard Donnerâs first two Superman movies starring Christopher Reeve saw witness to a traumatic power struggle that in many ways would ultimately destroy that incarnation of the franchise. It all started when British journeyman director Richard Lester was hired by the producers as an onset âconsultantâ while Donner was still hard at work crafting parts 1 and 2, then exploded when Donner was suddenly fired and Lester was promoted to finish a patchwork version of Part 2 (the film that was released to theaters in 1981 while Donnerâs much better version would come many years later after being reassembled) using much of Donnerâs footage in the process. It quickly became clear that Lester in stepping into the directorâs spot was now going to do things âhis wayâ, mostly by finding a way to always incorporate a dry, British type humor into almost every scene and ruin any possibly serious approach to the tone of the material. After Lesterâs patchwork version of Part 2 was released to great success (since most people werenât aware of all the drama), producers Alex and Ilya Salkind quickly signed him on to direct Part 3 which would be released in 1983, thus making this his first âfullâ Superman movie. But there would be severe repercussions for the firing of Donner, as series stars Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder had both vowed to never work with Lester again after reportedly seeing first hand the way that he had undermined Donner on the previous production. After considering recasting the role of Superman, the producers were able to alleviate Reeveâs concerns by offering him the opportunity to work on the script, but Kidder was a tougher nut to crack, with her finally settling on having a brief cameo at both the beginning and the end of the movie that ultimately amounted to nothing and officially made the Lois Lane character non essential. But the worse was yet to come. Lester had decided that he had wanted to have a big name in the movie, one whom nobody would be able to see coming, to co star with Reeve. And with that, we got the out of left field, literal stunt casting of the legendary Richard Pryor as Gus Gorman, a down on his luck unemployed black man in Metropolis who suddenly discovers that he is incredibly adept at programming computers with little to no prior training. The interesting story here was that Pryor WAS originally going to be playing Brainiac, the villain best known from the comics as Kryptonâs all controlling mainframe computer which had become self aware and had actually caused the orbital shift that destroyed Supermanâs home planet before coming to Earth and possessing the ability to control the minds of certain human beings for long term periods (including Gorman, which would have reasonably explained his immediate adeptness with computers), but whereas Pryorâs casting would have made one think that he was playing an honest to god bad guy (which no doubt he would have been awesome at), the producers waffled instead and had him written up as a nice guy who is blackmailed with jail time and manipulated to do the bidding of the filmâs actual villain, a billionaire industrialist played with a bit too much comedic flair by Robert Vaughn. The opening scenes and credits are indicative of Lesterâs new approach, as Pryor starts it off with an unfunny scene in an unemployment office and then the sweeping, epic nature of the usual opening credits is now replaced with a long, slapstick âcomedy of errorsâ sequence involving Reeve and several others which only has a couple of actual clever bits. Itâs almost as if Lester didnât even want to have it feel like a Superman movie at least until Reeve first puts the suit on. When Pryorâs computer abilities are detected and he is brought into the billionaire Vaughnâs inner circle (which includes his bullish sister played by Annie Ross and hot blonde girlfriend played by New Zealander and former, forgotten, early 80s SNL star Pamela Stephenson), he is motivated to use his hacking skills to first change the weather satellites and then misdirect all the oil tankers of the world into a holding patten so that Vaughn can corner the oil market. While there is definitely some potential here for having one of the worldâs richest and most powerful men (i.e. Illuminati) who is consolidating his power by utilizing the worldâs computers and using his vast wealth as his main weapon against Superman, sadly Vaughn plays him as such a cartoonish buffoon that itâs hard to accept him as a formidable foe, again leaving things to Pryor (with the running gag being that he is always treated like a servant) to design some synthetic Kryponite and present it to Superman which leads to the filmâs twofold main points of interest. First the âfakeâ Kryponite alters the Man Of Steelâs personality enough to the point that he becomes sullen and mean spirited, giving Reeve the chance to do some impressive acting to show this side as Superman starts off doing some offensively nasty pranks (like straightening the Leaning Tower Of Pisa) before we come to the second and even more fascinating dynamic, that being Stephensonâs Lorelei Ambrosia who only pretends to be a complete bimbo when sheâs around Vaughn and his sister when really she is a crafty, cunning expert in the art of psychology with a story arc (first hinted at in the opening sequence when she turns Clark Kentâs head while sheâs strutting down the street which clearly shows that heâs attracted to her) involving her actually seducing and manipulating Evil Superman to do her bidding (and it being made clear that Evil Superman DOES indeed screw her). As this was originally meant to be Bizarro World Superman from the comics, the fact is that this makes the Lorelei character (whose voice alternates between being high pitched or husky when sheâs playing either the bimbo or the seductress) the only one besides Lois Lane to have actually had sexual intercourse with Superman and itâs a shame then that Lester chose to cut the fingers off of this storyline, never really following it up or resolving it properly despite the fascinating idea that she appears to be sincerely symphathetic towards Supermanâs plight when he gets into trouble during the final battle but (unlike Pryor) never actually does anything to help him, thus leaving this (very sexy) female character as a fascinating enigma in the Superman movie universe. Instead, with Kidderâs Lois out of the picture (literally) the role of the requisite (nice) love interest for Superman falls upon the rather boring, conventional Lana Lang (Annette OâToole, who later would play Martha Kent on Smallville) whom Clark meets up with again when he returns to his old hometown for his class reunion (complete with Gavin OâHerlihy in the unnecessary role of Clarkâs old high school nemesis and rival for her affections) and even gets to play potential daddy for her obnoxious brat of a son (obviously this would go nowhere) before sheâs subject to a near rape attempt when Evil Superman first rears his ugly head. While there is definite story value in the idea of Evil Superman not really being âevilâ at all but rather âless perfect / less niceâ and âmore humanâ which means having him dredge up all of the bitter qualities that most of us display every day (including lust which Lorelei deftly exploits), for the most part we are left with a series of unfunny comedy scenes involving Pryor mugging for the camera (with Pryor later admitting that he thought that the script was shit and only doing it for the $5 million payday which he was offered) while doing everything he can to squeeze some humor out of the whole affair while also watching Clark renew his courtship with Lana as the other series regulars get lame pieces of business like Jackie Cooperâs Perry White struggling to open the balls out of a bingo machine to get the numbers and Marc McClureâs Jimmy Olsen breaking his leg early on while Superman is saving lives and putting out an extremely dangerous chemical plant fire (the only sequence that truly feels like old school Donner). In the end, a failed sequel with the right ideas but which still got stuck in neutral due to its directorâs rigid beliefs that making a movie about a man who can fly is somehow supposed to be funnyâŚ
5/10