[Below] Christopher Reeve fights a "super" computer in Superman III

Superman III is either an atrocious train-wreck of a movie or it's a strangely brilliant series of goofy sketches. I think the critical opinion since the film's release in 1983 is that it is a pretty bad movie: disconnected story telling, filler scenes that do not do anything vis-a-vis the plot (except maybe as an attempt to disguise how bad the rest of the movie is) and then trapped in all of this are some very good actors doing what they do as if it could overcome the shroud of lousiness the story and direction has cast over them.

[Below] Christopher Reeve fixes the Tower of Pissa in Superman III

Not that the film is not highly watchable: someone had actual ideas which got mangled up in the telling (or maybe just didn't belong, adding to the krazy-quilt story structure). The budget on this superhero film must've been massive: there are gigantic scenes, and 1983-circa special effects that are impressive indeed. Richard Pryor is funny and earnest; Christopher Reeve plays Superman like nobody else (in fact he plays two Supermen in this movie - - one good and one gone bad which brings about a strange duel with himself in a junkyard); and then there's all the other eye candy director Richard Lester throws up on screen, especially the scene of a snow-villa penthouse with ski-ramp atop a skyscraper in summer-time Metropolis, the lair of villain Ross Webster (played by Robert Vaughn). Vaughn doesn't have much to do except play a second-string Lex Luther, and Pamela Stephenson and Annie Ross are more or less replacements for the same type of roles that were done by Valerie Perrine and Maria Schell in the earlier Superman films from director Richard Donner.

[Below] Superman II has Christopher Reeve getting soused in a bar.

[Below] By Superman III Chris Reeve was an old pro with hanging suspended from wires, but I wonder how Richard Pryor took to it?

One of the features in this 1983 film is the meant-to-impress computer technology. It's museum stuff now, but I guess at the time of the film's release it was a peek at an ultra-modern high-tech universe most people had little to do with. Buttons, whirring reel-to-reel tape, and an undefined ability to do just about anything via computer has more of a 1950s feel that later 20th century. The obvious limitations of computer technology has become the experience of most people since the advent of personal computers in the later 1980s. In this 1983 film, though, the computer was still an unlimited idea with god-like powers.

[Below] Superman faces off with actress Pamela Stephenson.

After the (relatively) high standards set in Superman and Superman II, seeing Superman III is a revelation in how a movie studio can lose its head. So many of the elements are the same, yet handled so badly.

Get a good look at Pryor's wrist-watch in the first image.