Ranking The ‘Superman’ Movies From Best To Worst

Second Worst: “Superman III”
First, a small confession. While we’re not going to go to bat for the quality of this film in any way, a recent re-watch did remind us just how many moments and scenes from “Superman III” are somehow firmly ingrained in our subconscious (no doubt generational) — from the kid unconscious in the path of the thresher to Richard Pryor skiing down the side of a skyscraper, to “bad” Superman smashing bottles of booze by flicking peanuts at them off a bar, to good Superman freezing and then dropping a lake onto a chemical fire. Elements that failed to stay with us, however, include the villain, the goal of his plot and the entire final act of the film. Which is kind of appropriate, because the film is really little more then a series of sketches, which range from the funny — Pryor’s role here may be ill-conceived, but he’s got moments and we’re not sure why but the totally unfounded scene where he shows up dressed as a four-star general from the Pentagon always makes us laugh — to the tiresome, viz the extended silliness involving a blind man, some marbles, a hole in the ground, and a mime. If Hackman’s Luthor was never the most terrifying of arch-villains, Robert Vaughn’s Webster is even less so (Vaughn stepped in after Hackman refused citing the producers’ mistreatment of Richard Donner as his reason) and is marooned in a logic-free plot that relies so blithely on the audience’s ignorance of these new-fangled “computers” that, now at least, it kind of ensures you’re smirking through even those few scenes that aren’t actually played for laughs.

Of course, not having any superpowers of his own, Webster would hardly be much of a match for Superman, so — and this is where the film really trips over its own tail — the plot contrives to have Superman go “bad” (signaled by developing a 5 o’clock shadow, hitting on Lana Lang and, er, straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa). And then “bad” Superman gets to fight himself (as Clark Kent, for some reason) because of that power we never knew he had and never displays again, to essentially bi-locate. It made us wonder if the fight scene was not actually meant literally, but as some sort of metaphor for Supes slaying his demons, but then why is it so long, and laboriously involved in a I-put-you-in-a-compacter-you-crush-me-with-a-magnet type way? Anyway, it’s all very silly, but it does feature Pamela Stephenson in the sexy villain sidekick role (Billy Connolly’s wife and a contestant on the only season of the UK’s “Strictly Come Dancing” that we watched, and she was robbed.) So there’s that, and Richard Pryor’s comedy slow-take reactions to enjoy.

Choice quote: Evil Superman to Clark Kent: “Come on chicken! You’ve been on my nerves for a long time!”