Superman III: Deluxe Edition (1983)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Action	Main Menu Audio Audio Commentary Featurette-Making Of Deleted Scenes Theatrical Trailer Trailer-Justice League Hero's Video Game
Rating
Year Of Production	1983
Running Time	119:54 (Case: 116)
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (73:42)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4,5	Directed By	Richard Lester
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Christopher Reeve Richard Pryor Jackie Cooper Marc McClure Annette O'Toole Annie Ross Pamela Stephenson Robert Vaughn
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Ken Thorne

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) English Audio Commentary Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English Danish Finnish German Greek Hebrew Hebrew Portuguese Spanish Swedish Turkish English for the Hearing Impaired	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) has been unemployed for so long that the city won't even give him the dole anymore. In his desperation for work, he trains to become a computer programmer only to find he's a computer genius. His boss, scheming industrial magnate Ross Webster (Robert Vaughan), discovers this fact too, after Gus defrauds the company he works for of tens of thousands of dollars using a computer. Rather than fire Gus, Webster makes him his right hand man (although Webster's sister, Annie Ross, and his "psychic nutritionist", Pamela Stephenson, are ahead of Gus in the pecking order) - getting him to hack into a weather computer and causing a host of natural disasters in Columbia in a crazed effort to corner the world coffee market. Alas, Superman manages to foil this scheme and finds his elimination at the top of Webster's nefarious list of things to do.

    Webster and Gus attempt to make artificial Kryptonite to defeat the man of steel, but get the formula a little off. Instead of killing Superman, they manage to alter his personality and turn him into an uncaring drunk. As Superman wallows in his own misery, Webster's sights are set on building the greatest computer the world has ever seen and using it to take over the oil industry.

    If it doesn't sound like there's much Superman in the plot, you have the right impression. In many ways, Superman III is a second rate Richard Pryor movie that happens to feature Superman. Worse still, it is a PG rated Richard Pryor movie - a rating that forces him to hold back his trademark foul mouthed humour. About all there is to remind us this is a Superman movie for the first half of the movie is a rather weak side-plot around Clark Kent's high school reunion. A handful of rather unimaginative action sequences pad the movie, but therein lies the problem - they are just padding; the story would lose virtually nothing without them. At least Margot Kidder had the good sense to do her best at steering clear of this sequel. Lois Lane is relegated to two brief scenes in the whole movie!

    Superman III is a miscalculated mess from start to finish. It does little but show up the flaws of Superman as a concept. There is nothing interesting about an infallible hero. That is, someone who turns up, goes through the motions of saving the day and heads off to the next routine feat of heroics without any plausible threat. The lack of suspense is dull, so much so that by the time a threat to his super powers and all around niceness comes about, you just don't care. If you were ever in need of convincing about the sheer talent that went into producing the first two Superman movies, watch Superman III. It is a perfect example of how easily the concept could fail.

Video

    The video quality is very good for a film of its age, but not quite up to the standard of the remastered editions of Superman and Superman II.

    The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio and is 16x9 enhanced.

    The image is quite sharp throughout, although a number of effects-heavy sequences are not as sharp as other parts of the movie. There is a good amount of shadow detail in darker scenes. Film artefacts are present throughout the film, but very few are distracting. There are a handful of larger artefacts (such as a dark smudge at 18:48) that I am surprised were not cleaned up.

    A handful of scenes appear to have been the victims of edge enhancement, though these are all effects sequences and it is likely this was introduced as part of the special effects process. An example can be seen at 67:43 when Superman corrects the leaning tower of Pisa. Two actors in the foreground, who were most likely added via a blue screen effect, appear to have distinct white halos around their edges.

    There are no noticeable MPEG compression or other film-to-video artefacts noticeable throughout the feature.

    This is an RSDL disc. The layer change occurs at 73:42.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Four audio tracks are available on this disc; English, German and Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 (192 Kbps) language tracks and an audio commentary.

    The dialogue is quite clear throughout and at a good level in the mix.

    Aside from the opening theme and a handful of familiar cues, the score is adequate and no more. Though not actually bad, it is not nearly as striking as that in the first two films

    The surrounds and subwoofer receive virtually no use, even with Pro-logic activated.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Main Menu Audio

Audio Commentary - Ilya Salkind (Executive Producer) and Pierre Spengler (Producer)

    This is quite an entertaining commentary track, for many of the wrong reasons and a few of the right ones. Ilya Salkind goes to great length to explain how, contrary to popular belief, the film was in fact successful. Salkind seems to honestly believe that the only failing of the film is that it was too dark and too scary for "the kids". He is even proud to proclaim one scene as "perfection". We will have to agree to disagree here I'm afraid!

    The tone of the track is quite defensive at times, particularly around some of the sillier parts of the film - in regard to one infamously silly effects piece in which Superman is trapped in what appears to be a bubble of cling film, Pierre Spengler dismisses popular opinion of the effect with "...people say 'the bubble, the bubble!', but you try to make it yourself!".

Featurette - Making Of (47:09)

    A vintage made for TV "making of" featurette from 1983. Presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

    This is a mixture of marketing guff and rather interesting examinations of the stunts and effects. Much of the featurette revolves around scenes in the first 20 minutes of the film, so it does a good job of not giving away too much plot to anyone that hasn't seen the movie. It is interesting to compare this featurette to a similar featurette on the Superman II special edition, particularly how the demeanour of several of the cast (especially Christopher Reeve) has changed following the success of the first two films.

Deleted Scenes (19:43)

    11 deleted and extended scenes. Like much of the movie itself, the best bits here (and indeed most of the bits) are all around Richard Pryor.

Theatrical Trailer (3:02)

    An overlong trailer that gives away a little too much of the plot of the movie. Presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio and 16x9 enhanced.

Trailer - Justice League Hero's Video Game (1:48)

    A rather unnecessary trailer for the next computer game that will feature Superman. It looks kind of fun, but is little more than shameless advertising.

    A near identical special edition is available in Region 1, the only differences being in language tracks and subtitles. Region 1 has a French language track in place of the German and Spanish language tracks on the Region 4 release. Region 1 also misses out on Danish, Hebrew, Finnish, German, Greek, Portuguese, Spanish, Turkish and Swedish subtitles. This comparison is so close I'd call it a draw.

    Few franchises have "jumped the shark" quite so spectacularly as the Superman series did with Superman III. This release features a very good extras package that makes this disc reasonably worthwhile despite the quality of the film itself.

    The video quality in this release is very good.

    The audio is quite basic, but has no faults.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall