AllMovie

Any series needs to grow and evolve, so it's probably best not to mourn the disappearance of bedrock characters Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) and Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) too deeply. But when they're replaced by a wisecracking Richard Pryor and character actor villains with none of the gravitas mustered by their predecessors, it's hard not to long for the old days. After the first two thematically linked Superman films, the series becomes totally episodic in Superman III, including a new love interest (Annette O'Toole) for Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve), and a handful of bizarre scenarios that spring from a desperate grab bag of ideas. David and Leslie Newman's script takes Superman through some darker moments than bargained for during his kryptonite sickness, including his laying waste to a bar by flicking peanuts at the bottles at lightning speed. Does the audience really want to see Reeve's baby blues filled with menace for much of the movie? Finally winning back his identity after a brutal fight between Clark and Superman at a junkyard, which includes Clark getting repeatedly crushed in machinery that would turn a mortal into mincemeat, the movie gets somewhat back on track. But going for the comedic and demographic punch that Pryor could offer wasn't a good idea, as his jive-bumbling never meshes with the action-movie format. A series that always had a certain amount of melodramatic kitschy pride gets belittled in the process.