Richard Donner steps out and in comes Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night), who proceeds to strip the franchise away of any dignity it once had. Donner's close-to-the-chest serious tone is abandoned in favor a cheesy campy one, accompanied by lame sight gags and un-funny slapstick. Having Richard Pryor's scenes (who is playing a PG-version of himself) consist of half the film's runtime is just too much because most of the time he just bumbles like an idiot. Rarely has a comedic genius been so utterly misrepresented. Due to working with a lower budget, the story comes off as a Superman TV episode rather than an epic story like the previous two Donner flicks. The subplot with Clark and Lana Lang could have been interesting but it is rushed and brushed to the wayside to set-up a future Superman love-triangle between Lois and Lana (which is never followed-up upon). The villains are lame (especially there computer scheme that's laughable even for the time) but there is a morbid enjoyment to be had watching Reeve play a corrupted Man of Steel, which he perfectly nails. The 'Army of Darkness'-style fight between Good Supes and Evil Supes yields some impressive special effects. Despite a few decent moments trickled throughout, they are all crushed under a crappy and tedious narrative that feels confused about whether it is catering to kids or adults. Donner one time made audiences believe a man CAN fly. With 'Superman III', Lester proved to audiences that a man can also fall from grace.

*1/2 Wow, if you want to see how far comic book adaptation movies have come, just watch this. This is the 3rd Superman movie and it is a real stinker(not as bad as four, but it's bad). Here, Superman basically goes against a rich guy who wants to rule the world by using Richard Pryor(yeah, that Richard Rryor) to create a giant computer. Pryor tries to be funny here, and he is the best thing about the movie, but man he has no place in a Superman movie. Could you imagine Chris Rock as the lead villain in "Iron Man"? Me either. At one point he creates a form of kryptonite that turns Superman bad. By bad I mean his outfit is now maroon, he has stuble and he's a dick. Instead of doing anything real bad, he does things like blow the torch out at the Olympics. This movie was lame as lame can get, and I'm sure it was lame when it came out in the theaters. It doesn't hold up at all, and runs at right around 2 hours, which is way too long. Watch if your a die hard Pryor fan(even though you still won't like it), otherwise just skip this one altogether.