SUPERMAN III

   Film (1983). Dovemead/Cantharus/Alexander and Ilya Salkind. Dir Richard Lester, starring Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, Jackie Cooper, Marc McClure, Annette O'Toole, Pamela Stephenson, Robert Vaughn. Screenplay David Newman, Leslie Newman. 125 mins. Colour.

   Sequel to SUPERMAN (1978) and SUPERMAN II (1980), this is a movie on a more domestic scale, involving Clark Kent returning to the Midwest for a high-school reunion, where he (as opposed to his colourful alter ego) is fallen in love with by hometown girl Lana Lang (O'Toole). Abetted by his computer-genius pawn (Pryor), an evil business tycoon (Vaughn) with conventional world-takeoverplans uses synthetic kryptonite to subvert the now thoroughly demystified Superman, who turns bad, broods in bars, tells a woman in distress"Don'texpect me to save you, 'cos I don't do that nice stuff any more", but finally has his conscience awakened by a sweet little boy. Closer to its COMIC -strip origins than its 2 predecessors, and broader, SIII's bestmoments are the opening scenes of escalating chaos, at least equal to Mack Sennett's work. There are good sequences throughout, and it is clearlybetter than its successors, SUPERGIRL and SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE, if less ambitious (and even sillier) than the earlier films.Thenovelization is Superman III * (1983) by William KOTZWINKLE.

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