Superman III

The Long Awaited Review

Well...I have been waiting a long time anyway. We finally rented the third of the original Superman movies. For those of you who do not remember, number three is the movie in which Clark Kent returns to Smallville for his high school reunion and develops a relationship with Lana Lang. Number three also stars Richard Prior as Gus Gorman, the computer genius who hacks into government satellites and uses them to disturb weather patterns and put Colombian coffee farmers out of business. Gorman is promted in his evil schemes by millionaire tycoon Webster Webscoe (or something like that). The show ends with Superman battling a super computer created by Gus Gorman and piloted by Webster.

Number three beats one and two.
In this installment of the Superman series, writers and directors finally develop a sense of humor. I never noticed it before, but Richard Prior is hilarious. His character, postmodernly, recognizes that he is out of place in Superman's white-America, 1950s world. The funniest moments are when he keeps calling Superman "bad" in the street-slang sense of the word thus confusing the rich white people he works with who don't know that bad means tough, cool. But then Superman does turn bad, meaning evil, when he is given the artificial kryptonite, and he is bad and bad, with a bad attitude. For some weird reason, while he is bad, he straightens out the leaning tower of Pisa which upsets nobody but the man who sells miniature versions of the tower to tourists. "Look out, America! Superman is now using his powers for evil, and he is destroying the junk souvenier industry in Pisa, Italy." Other odd things that happen include a fist fight between the "walk" "don't walk" red and green images on crosswalk lights. This happens when a drunk Gus uses a business computer in Smalleville to hack into the government's computer system.
I reccommend this Superman over numbers one and two for its humor. Lana Lang gets my vote over Lois anyday. The husky-voiced, smoker-faced Lois plays a minimal role (thank goodness) in this movie. Lana is prettier, nicer, and generally a better match. None of the movies has really good action or effects, but at least number three shows more reflection and humor. Well, maybe the fight between Clark Kent and Bad Superman in the autowrecking yard is a good action scene, or maybe when Superman is drinking in a bar and flicking peanuts through walls counts as high intensity action...then again, maybe not.