Superman III(1983)
Warner Bros. Jun 17, 1983
Entrepreneur Ross Webster teams up with a computer genius in order to realise his own evil intentions. When Superman obstructs his plans, he decides to destroy him.
Release Details
Original Release | Jun 17, 1983 | Wide
Box Office Results
Results
$13,352,357
$59,950,623
$20,300,000
$80,250,623
Current Showtimes
orround
- Wed Sep 2
- Thu Sep 3
- Fri Sep 4
- Sat Sep 5
- Sun Sep 6
- Mon Sep 7
- Tue Sep 8
Technical Specifications
Sound Mix: Dolby Atmos
Aspect Ratio: 2.39 : 1
Other Details
Country of Origin: United Kingdom, United States, Netherlands
Language: English,Italian,Spanish
Summaries
Plot Summary
- August "Gus" Gorman (Richard Pryor), an unemployed never-do-well, discovers a knack for computer programming. Gus is at a Metropolis employment office to seek out more unemployment insurance and he is told that he is no longer eligible for unemployment benefits because of having been unemployed for 28 weeks. As he lights a cigarette with a borrowed book of matches, he sees an ad for a computer-programming school.He soon finds himself working for a big corporation, Webscoe Industries. Dissatisfied with the low amount of money he receives for his first week's pay (less than $150 after taxes), he comes up with an idea after a talk with a co-worker about the various half-cent amounts in the company's payroll plan. After hours, Gus creates a program from which he embezzles $85,000 from his new employer's payroll. After embezzling from his new employer's payroll (through a technique known as salami slicing), Gorman is brought to the attention of the CEO, Ross Webster. Webster (Robert Vaughn) is obsessed with the computer's potential to aid him in his schemes to rule the world financially. Joined by his sister Vera (Annie Ross) and his "psychic nutritionist" Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson), Webster blackmails Gorman into helping him.Meanwhile, Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) has convinced his newspaper editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper) to allow him to return to Smallville for his high school reunion. Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) however plans to leave on her own vacation to Bermuda. On route, as Superman he extinguishes a fire in a chemical plant containing vials of acid that can produce clouds of corrosive vapor when super-heated. Clark was travelling with Jimmy Olsen (Marc McClure) (photographer at the Daily Planet) to Smallville. However, Jimmy is injured with a broken leg while foolishly attempting to get photos of the disaster just as the fire crew realize their water supply is inadequate. To help put out the fire, Superman flies to a nearby lake and freezes the top layer with his super-breath, then carries the frozen sheet of water to the chemical plant where it melts and douses the fire.In Smallville, Clark is reunited with childhood friend Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole). Lana is a divorcee with a young son named Ricky (Paul Kaethler). Clark and Lana begin to share affection for each other, though Lana's former boyfriend Brad (Gavan O'Herlihy), Clark's childhood bully and now an alcoholic security guard, is still vying for her attention. Lana, who works as a secretary, recently had to pawn her engagement ring to pay bills and tells Clark she needs to get out of Smallville. He suggests she come to Metropolis and offers to help her find work.Meanwhile, Webster schemes to monopolize the world's coffee crop. Infuriated by Colombia's refusal to do business with him, he orders Gorman to command an American weather satellite named Vulcan to create a tornado like storm to decimate the nation's coffee crop. Gus travels to Smallville and in the evening arrives at a Webscoe subsidiary Wheat King office, (bribing Brad with liquor and waits until he passes out). Gus then carries out his boss's plan. Webster's scheme is thwarted when Superman neutralizes the tornado and saves the harvest.Clark takes Lana and Ricky on a picnic in a wheat field. However, when the boy disappears, Clark spots him unconscious as a harvesting combine approaches. Changing into Superman, he flies to the boy's rescue. When an excited Ricky tells Clark Superman had shown up, Clark brushes it off, saying that in Metropolis, he sees Superman every day. Ricky asks if Clark can get his hero's autograph. Meanwhile, Clark Kent returns to Metropolis to the Daily Planet newspaper write his story about the reunion when Lana telephones saying that Ricky bragged to his friends that Superman was going to be at his birthday party in a week.Webster then orders Gorman to use his computer knowledge to create Kryptonite, remembering Lois Lane's Daily Planet interview from Superman, during which Superman identified it as his only weakness. Gus uses a computer to order Vulcan satellite to locate Krypton's debris in outer space, but after the computer fails to analyze an "unknown" element in Kryptonite (making up only 1% of the meteor), he improvises by replacing the unidentified element with tar, garnered from a pack of cigarettes.Lana convinces Superman to appear at Ricky's birthday party, but Smallville turns it into a celebration at which the mayor of Smallville gives Superman the key to the city, partly for stopping the chemical plant fire. Gus and Vera, disguised as United States Army officers, give Superman the Kryptonite as a gift, and are dismayed to see that it appears to have no effect on him. However, the compound begins to produce symptoms. Superman goes through a descent into darkness as he becomes selfish, focusing on his lust for Lana, which causes him to delay rescuing a truck driver from his jackknifed rig. Superman begins to question his own self-worth, and, as the Kryptonite takes effect, he becomes depressed, angry, and casually destructive, committing petty acts of vandalism such as blowing out the Olympic Flame, straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa and so on. The media covers the Man of Steel's altered behaviors and United Nations votes to censure Superman. 'Bad Superman' also becomes scruffy-looking as his bright blue and red suit becomes transformed into more of a maroon, dark blue color and he doesn't shave.With Superman distracted, Webster furthers his plans by controlling the world's oil supply, ordering Gorman to direct all of the oil tankers to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and having them sit there until further notice. Gorman moans that Ross gets his own way all of the time and that he feels unappreciated. He then gives Webster a series of crudely drawn blueprints for a supercomputer one with advanced defenses designed to find an enemy's greatest vulnerability. Ross makes a deal with Gorman, agreeing to build his supercomputer in return for sorting out the oil tankers.However, a British oil tanker does not follow instructions and continues to Metropolis. Lorelei meets the personality-altered Superman on top of the Statue of Liberty in New York City who flirts with her. Before Lorelei will do anything with him, she insists he stop the rogue oil tanker, so he flies to the tanker, punches a hole in its hull and causes a massive oil spill in the ocean.Superman assuages his depression with a drinking binge but is eventually overcome by guilt and undergoes a nervous breakdown after Ricky calls out to him, urging him to fight against his descent into evil. After nearly crash-landing in a junkyard, Superman splits into two personas: the immoral, selfish, corrupted Superman and the moral, righteous Clark Kent. They engage in an epic battle across the junkyard, with the evil Superman repeatedly trying and failing to kill Clark by crushing him in industrial equipment. The battle ends when Clark bursts through the walls of a car crusher and strangles his evil identity, vanquishing him for good. As a battered but unbowed Clark gazes up at the heavens, he pulls his shirt open to reveal his crest. Restored to his normal heroic self, Superman sets off to repair the damage his evil counterpart had caused. He flies to the oil tanker, blows all the oil back into the tanker with his super-breath and patches the hole with his heat vision.Superman then goes to the apartment penthouse of Webster to confront him only to find a video message from Vera that they are hiding out in Utah's Glen Canyon, the location where Gus Gorman's supercomputer has been built.After defending himself from numerous rockets and an MX missile, Superman confronts Webster, Vera and Lorelei, and is forced into a battle with Gorman's supercomputer, which severely weakens him with a Kryptonite ray. Gorman, guilt-ridden and horrified by the prospect of "going down in history as the man who killed Superman", destroys the ray with a firefighter's ax, whereupon Superman flees.The computer becomes self-aware and begins to defend itself against Gus's attempts to disable it, draining power from electrical towers, causing massive blackouts. Ross and Lorelei escape from the control room, but Vera is pulled into the computer and forcibly transformed into a Cyborg. Empowered by the supercomputer, Vera attacks her brother and Lorelei with beams of energy that immobilize them.Superman returns to the battle with a canister of the Beltric acid from the chemical plant he saved earlier; the intense heat emitted by the machine causes the acid to turn volatile, eventually destroying the supercomputer, which also reverts Vera back to normal. Superman flies away with Gus, leaving Webster and his cronies to deal with the authorities. After dropping Gus off at a coal mine, where he gives him a job reference, Superman returns to Metropolis and reunites with Lana Lang, who has relocated to the big city and found employment as Perry White's new secretary.
Storyline
- Clark travels to Smallville for his High School Reunion and reconnect with his childhood sweetheart Lana Lang. Computer programmer Gus Gorman is hired by financial tycoon Ross, to take control of the coffee business, by wiping out all the competition via satellite. After Superman destroys their plan, Ross makes Gus figure out how to find Kryptonite to eliminate Superman, but he uses tar as the missing element. This causes an unusual effect on Superman. Meanwhile Gus gets his machine he wanted built that can do anything you want it to do. — anielsen-45670 In mortal enemies, the Man of Steel has no match. Even faced with a trio of sinister super-powered villains from his home planet, Superman saved the day. But can super-strength stand up to the diabolical circuitry of a criminally insane computer? Enter Gus Gorman, a genial half-wit who just happens to be a natural-born genius at computer programming. In his hands, a computer keyboard turns into a deadly weapon and soon, Superman faces the microelectronic menace of his career. Clark Kent meets his old flame Lana Lang at a Smallville High School reunion and Superman turns into his own worst enemy after exposure to a chunk of red kryptonite. — Official DVD cover
