YMMV / Superman III

• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • It's not clear exactly how much Ross buys into Loreli's airhead act. Most of the time he seems entirely fooled but in one scene she winks at him while Vera isn't looking, suggesting it might be a game the two are playing.
    • In the novel, she is fooling Ross while secretly buying lots of stock in his company, and her wink is directed at Gus instead.
  • Due to how inconsistently written the character's motivations are, to what degree Gus is a bad guy at heart, and how much genuine complicity he has in Webster's scheme, can sometimes feel up in the air. On the one hand, Ross entraps him in the first place by threatening him with exposure and prison, and he saves Superman's life at the very end after his conscience takes over; on the other, Gus started embezzling from Webscoe not just because he couldn't live on his salary, but also because he wanted a lavish lifestyle (as Ross puts it, he wanted to be rich), and he participated in the previous failed plot to kill Superman seemingly without any misgivings. When he reveals that he's figured out Webster wouldn't send him to jail because he was too valuable, Gus uses that leverage to get his dream supercomputer design built (yet expresses surprise that Ross clearly plans to use the thing for further evil purposes), and finally declines a job offer despite Superman personally vouching for him. Is he a kind-hearted dupe who genuinely tried to make the most of a bad situation, or a deeply amoral savant of a man who did one thing right?
  • In the scene where Gus impresses his programming teacher by "entering two bilateral coordinates at the same time" someone familiar with computers from the time period would have a very different perception of what happens. It ends with the revelation that the screen text came from a BASIC program which just prints what we saw to the screen. So the question is: did Gus do something that was apparently impossible, or did he just write a program that made it LOOK like he had done that? His laughter at the end of the scene could just as well be because he got caught, not because he was being clever.
• Awesome Music: Composer Ken Thorne returns from Superman II and does a great job blending all new music cues with the iconic John Williams score. The Struggle Within—Final Victory is a notable standout, playing after Clark defeats the evil Superman and becomes the good Superman once again.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Ross Webster: Either a poor man's Lex Luthor and a generic Corrupt Corporate Executive or a somewhat decent replacement who's entertaining enough on his own and may have very well helped to inspire the Corrupt Corporate Executive versions of Luthor fans know and love today.
  • Gus. Often he's seen as too wacky and inconsistent with an overly abrupt Heel–Face Turn, but he does have those who find him interesting and likable (it helps that, being played by Richard Pryor, he's one of the few comedic elements in the film that usually succeeds in being funny).
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The slapstick opening sequence, as if the reels were switched with one from a Police Academy movie. None of these events come back into play in the film and this is before the villains' antics are in full swing.
  • The scene where the two traffic sign 'walk' and 'don't walk' figures fight each other. It's weird, bizarre, and nonsensical even by this movie's standards, and isn't mentioned again.
  • As scary as the computer scene turning Vera into a robot is, the fact that this horrific moment is in the same movie as the two above points makes the admittedly random scene all the more jarring.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • It's probably inevitable that Lana didn't return for the fourth movie, because too much more time spent with her and the audience would have been seriously questioning what Superman ever saw in Lois.
  • Secondary villain Lorelei has those who greatly enjoy watching her Obfuscating Stupidity and moments as The Vamp.
• Epileptic Trees: Some viewers believe the fight scene in the junkyard between Superman's good side and bad side is actually meant to be metaphorical; they think that what really happened was a Battle in the Center of the Mind.
• Fridge Brilliance: It's interesting to see Clark is far less stiff back in Smallville than he is in Metropolis. That's because he's dealing with a girl he knew as a teen, and therefore is more himself around her, even being pixie-ish around Lana. If you wanted to see a midway point between Supes and Clark by Reeve, the picnic scene is it.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Ross Webster was Lex Luthor's replacement as a Corrupt Corporate Executive instead of Mad Scientist. Post-Crisis Lex becomes one himself.
  • "You can't run two programs at once". Tech Marches On; almost any computer viewing this page (even a smartphone or tablet) is running probably dozens of programs at once right now.
  • A meta example is Annette O'Toole playing Lana Lang here and later playing Martha Kent in Smallville.
  • An awkward guy dances to "Earth Angel" at a prom with his original flame.
  • Robert Vaughn was best known for playing the role of Napoleon Solo. Thirty-two years later a different Superman actor goes on to play Napoleon Solo.
• Hollywood Homely: Vera. They make her sound like Quasimodo, but she's a handsome woman. And Annie Ross◊ was far from unpleasant to look at in real life.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Many fans watch this movie just for the fight between Clark Kent and the evil Superman at the junkyard, or for the subplot with Lana Lang.
• Magnificent Bastard: Lorelei Ambrosia presents herself as the unintelligent kept woman of Ross Webster but posses a calculating and insightful mind beneath her exterior. She reads philosophy books and throughly understands the working of a complex supercomputer. When Superman foils Ross's plan to corner the coffee market through unscrupulous means, Lorelei is the one to suggest that he get kryptonite to use against Superman before their next plan, which involves causing a devastating energy shortage. When the kryptonite only turns Superman amoral, Lorelei seduces him into doing their bidding, and seems to develop genuine feelings for him. She shows concern for both Superman and her Sit Com Arch Nemesis Vera when they are in danger in the climax. Throughout the movie, Lorelei acts as an essential part of Ross's schemes, and no one else but Superman even seems to realize it.
• Memetic Mutation: The scene of the evil Superman with a five o'clock shadow, pounding down drinks in a bar. Because sometimes you want to show that the Man of Steel just Needs A Freaking Drink.
• Popularity Polynomial: On its initial release it was seen as weaker than the first two films, but still an overall acceptable film despite some tonal issues. Its reputation really sank around the Turn of the Millennium, as it got caught up the backlash against overly light-hearted DC Comics adaptations such as Batman & Robin and Steel, to the point where many fans considered it the worst of the Christopher Reeve films. In the decades since, as moviegoers have come around to the consensus that superhero films should be light-hearted and fun, its reputation has essentially recovered to where it was around the time of its initial release, as a noticeably flawed but still overall decent film.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • So Lana Lang grew up to become...Ma Kent! Really, Annette O'Toole (unbeknownst to the producers of the TV show) played Clark's high school flame Lana Lang here.
  • A miner is played by Christopher Malcolm, who would later be best known for playing Justin in Absolutely Fabulous.
  • A Pisa vendor is played by John Bluthal, who would later be best known for playing Frank Pickle in The Vicar of Dibley.
• Sequelitis: At the very least it's considered a major step down from the first two Superman films, and still seen one of the weaker Superman films by fans, for some even more so than Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. While III has a few interesting scenes and concepts, those who dislike it more than IV will concede that the latter is worse in technical quality, but will gladly accept its whole-hearted (if very Anvilicious) attempt at a message over III's broad comedy and Richard Pryor's spotlight stealing antics. Also, being as loaded with unintentional hilarity as it is, it's easy to argue that Quest for Peace is the funnier movie, too.
• Signature Scene:
  • Clark Kent vs. Superman. It's the one sequence that everyone universally liked about this movie, largely in part to Christopher Reeve, who perfectly pulls off both characters onscreen at once.
  • For better or worse, the scene of Vera being transformed into a robot stuck out to many people due to how jarringly nightmarish it is.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Superman turning evil. There was SO much potential there, but despite Christopher Reeve performing it very well, the film leaves little room to really make the Evil Superman a real threat. (Though the concept has been explored plenty since this movie.)
    Oliver Harper: Evil Superman doesn't really get up to too much trouble in the grand scheme of things. He's just a bit petty and a bit of a pain in the ass.
  • The supercomputer being this continuity's counterpart to Brainiac. There could've been so much more done with that, too. It doesn't help that the trailer built up the supercomputer as the main threating force of the entire movie, when it only comes into play in the last third.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously:
  • The late Christopher Reeve still gives a sincere performance as both Superman and Clark Kent, and very effectively pulls off the former's turn to evil.
  • Annette O'Toole also gives a pretty sincere effort as Lana Lang. Many fans find her a love interest more interesting than Lois Lane, and regret that she didn't return for Superman IV.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Aside from the vintage computers in the office scenes, has a number of other very, very Eighties elements. Jimmy's hair manages to look both geeky at the time of release and the eighties today, the amount of money Gus steals via Penny Shaving would look like a routine clerical error in the 2010s, and a bunch of women at Gus' workplace are seen swapping their high heels for canvas running shoes in preparation for the walk home. It can even be pegged to the early end of the decade, because every older car is a 1970s model, while Gus's new Ferrari 308 screams '80s.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: For all of the film's faults, the special effects remain mostly on-par with its predecessors, mostly in the wire-work department. Some larger highlights include the chemical plant fire sequence, the hurricanes caused by the satellite, and of course Clark vs Evil Superman in the junkyard.
• The Woobie: A One-Scene Wonder in the opening who is just trying to help, but can't get a break. He helps the salesman gather up his robotic penguin dolls which keep waddling away, and falls into a pit. When he tries to climb out, his head gets stepped on by Clark Kent(!) who doesn't even notice him.
  • Movie-wise, Lana and Ricky.

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