After the success of Superman: The Movie (1978) and Superman 2 (1980), Superman III was an inevitability. However with the first film's director, Richard Donner, having no role in the making of this movie, director Richard Lester gives this third film a completely different feel from the previous movies. This film has a much more comedic and silly tone rather than the more fantasy focused last two films.
In this movie, Superman (Christopher Reeve) must stop the evil businessman Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) from taking over the world's oil supply. To do this Webster recruits a bumbling computer genius (Richard Pryor) to help him. Things are complicated when a synthesized attempt at creating kryptonite causes Superman to turn evil. While all this is happening as Clark Kent, our hero is rekindling his romance with his high school sweetheart Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole).
As a fan of both Superman and slapstick comedy, I should love this movie. However, I will be the first to admit that this film doesn't quite work. The comedy and the superhero adventure don't mesh very well. The charm of the first two films is that they fully immerse you in the world of the movies. In this third entry, the comedy can stretch past the realm of believability. How Richard Pryor's character is automatically a computer genius as soon as he steps behind a computer and the various over the top comedic things he is somehow able to do with the computers, are the type of humor that could work in a Three Stooges, Marx Brothers or Mel Brooks style of comedy. In a Superman movie though, they simply make you stop believing the characters and story. It doesn't help that the comedy can be very hit and miss. There are some truly funny moments here like the scene where Gus (Richard Pryor's character) uses booze to get a security guard to pass out and a couple of pretty good one-liners here and there. However, when it comes to the actual slapstick, it is never that funny. The slapstick gags feel forced instead of naturally flowing from the story and characters (as is the case in the best slapstick comedies). The timing and delivery on these gags feel a bit off and makes them go by without even a chuckle from someone who loves this type of comedy (i.e. me).
On the superhero adventure side, this film suffers from a weak villain. For some reason instead of using a villain from the comics this movie decides to create a new villain. Unfortunately, this villain does little to stand out from Lex Luthor in the pervious movies. In fact, this villain is in many ways simply a blander and less intimidating version of Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor. The idea of an evil Superman is fun but the filmmakers don't do enough with it. I will admit that I enjoyed the Superman vs. Superman fight, even if it didn't make any sense. The closest thing this movie has to a saving grace is the Clark and Lana romance. Christopher Reeve and Annette O'Toole have wonderful chemistry, and these scenes bring a little bit of the old-fashioned charm that made the previous movies so great.
This was originally going to be a very different film. The original storyline was also going to be over the top and silly but in a different way. The original storyline was going to be more in tune with the classic silver age comics than be a slapstick comedy. Producer Ilya Salkind wrote a script in 1980 that would mark the big screen debut of such comics characters as Brainiac, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and Supergirl. Though this movie would have been a tribute to the silver age comics, it would have also changed a lot about these characters. Supergirl would have been a love interest for Superman instead of his cousin. Brainiac would have been almost an overprotective father-figure for Supergirl, who disapproved of the romance with Superman. Mr. Mxyzptlk would have a first been a secondary villain but would have eventually helped Superman save the day. Superman would have still turned evil but this would have been from a machine Brainiac created rather than a synthetic attempt at kryptonite. The film would have ended with Brainiac and Superman fighting without powers and as old-fashioned knights, followed by Superman winning and marrying Supergirl. This storyline doesn't sound good at all but with the actual movie's villain problem using Brainiac and Mr. Mxyzptlk (though Mr. Mxyzptlk would have been hard to do with 1980's special effects) wouldn't have been a bad idea. The reason this film was never made was that Warner Brothers decided it wanted to go the safer route with the third film and also wanted to up the comedy. Director Richard Lester also favored this safer and more comedic approach. Husband and wife writing team, David and Leslie Newman (who had worked on the previous films) would create the script for the movie we have today.
The movie grossed $80.2 million worldwide and was the 12th highest grossing film of 1983 in North America. However, it was a disappointment after the major financial success of the previous films. This movie was also a critical failure. Leonard Maltin called it, "appalling sequel that trashed everything that Superman was about for the sake of cheap laughs and a co-starring role for Richard Pryor." Roger Ebert (who included the first film in his Great Movies books) stated, “'Superman III' is the kind of movie I feared the original “Superman” would be. It’s a cinematic comic book, shallow, silly, filled with stunts and action, without much human interest. What’s amazing is that the first two Superman movies avoided that description, creating a fantasy with a certain charm. They could have been manipulative special-effects movies, but they were a great deal more. With this third one, maybe they’ve finally run out of inspiration."
-Michael J. Ruhland
Resources Used
https://screenrant.com/superman-3-original-plan-story-not-happen-reason/
https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/superman-iii-1983
No comments:
Post a Comment