Superman III

That was alarming. I was a bit shocked. That was one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time. I laugh at the idea of a superhero movie actually being so bad it's offensive. Batman & Robin was awful, but harmless. Elektra was simply boring. And Fantastic 4 2015 may have sucked, but really, what Fantastic Four movie DIDN'T? Outside of Spawn I had yet to see a superhero movie so bad it challenged me in that way.

When there was a half hour left in this I seriously considered shutting it off. I NEVER feel that way for movies. Ultimately I kept going because I knew I needed to write the review, and I won't review ANYTHING I haven't seen the entire thing of. That's a rule for me. And the movie was so bad I needed to vent.

Here is the interesting thing, and the probably the real reason I was shocked. The first half of the movie is lame, but I don't think it's any worse than Superman II. You can be outraged by me saying that, but both films are dumb and if the first half was dumber it was only by a matter of degree.

The real problem with the film is it gets worse and worse as it goes along. And its 2 hour runtime is pure torture. The Evil Superman thing is just skeevy and disgusting on every level.

I'm not going to say Richard Pryor was wasted, but he didn't really fit into any part of the movie easily, either as a hero or villain. What I will say is as terrible as the movie is, I think it's probably a more appropriate sequel to Superman II than Superman Returns. Superman Returns is a better film than this, but I think Superman Returns doesn't really get the Reeve stuff.

For one thing, Bryan Singer notably cast no Black actors in it. Sort of as a tribute to the old-school nature of the 1980's stuff.

Except Superman III had Richard Pryor and the previous two films had Black actors too. Singer was making an homage to an era of Superman films that never existed. So instead of being consistent with the tone, it's comes off as racist as it actually is. Say what you will about Gus' role in the film not being well-defined, he's Black, and he fucking exists. As terrible as the film is, it makes a better piece of the Reeve canon than Superman Returns for that reason.

But I can't stress enough how bad the movie is. Spawn is still worse, but the shocking thing to me is even if this is NOT a close second in the worst superhero film I've ever seen, it's also not a DISTANT second. It's not in Spawn territory. But it's far closer than anything else I've sat through.

I hated the evil Superman thing and I thought that the film having him sleep with the woman was absolutely gross.

And the worst thing about the movie is how stupid it is. Yes, 1980's movies are pretty much all dumb, but this specific movie decided to take a new trend of the era (computers) and design an entire movie around the concept. The problem is that the writers are so fucking stupid they have no idea what computers can and cannot do or even how they work. The general public didn't either, so audiences might have been able to shut off their brains and let the stupidity slide, but the truth is, if the writers were GONNA make computers the central hook of the film, they could have done some basic fucking research. And damn it, that is NOT an unreasonable ask for ANY film exploring a new trend in society. The fact that computers were actually here to stay just makes this film's ignorance and laziness seem all the worse decades later.

Christopher Reeve is finally billed first in the credits (although the end credits are weirdly shown backwards) and Margot Kidder gets an "And Margot Kidder as Lois Lane" credit despite her role amounting to cameos at the beginning and end. Smallville's Annette O'Toole plays Lana Lang. Gene Hackman is entirely absent.

I've heard nothing but bad things about the film. But bad genre rolls off my back. This was bad enough I found it quite offensive. That is not remotely usual. This was a special level of terrible for that reason. Not as bad as Spawn (or the TV show Titans for that matter). But closer to that level of horribleness than any superhero project ever should be. 0.