Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor), an unemployed ne'er-do-well, discovers a knack for computer programming. 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 has convinced his newspaper to allow him to return to Smallville for his high school reunion. En route, he extinguishes a fire in a chemical plant containing vials of acid that can produce clouds of corrosive vapor when superheated.
In Smallville Clark is reunited with childhood friend Lana Lang (Annette O'Toole). Lana is a divorcée 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.
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 to decimate the nation's coffee crop. Webster's scheme is thwarted when Superman neutralizes the tornado and saves the harvest. 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 locate Krypton's debris in outer space, but after the computer fails to analyze an "unknown" element in kryptonite, 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. 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, he becomes selfish, focusing on his lust for Lana, causing 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 torch and straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Later, Ross Webster wants to take control of the world's oil supplies so orders Gorman to direct all the oil tankers to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and sit there until further notice, but Gorman moans that Ross gets his own way all the time and is not right. Ross asks "Thats it. What do you want?" and Gorman pulls out a load of crudely drawn blueprints for a 'super computer'. Ross makes a deal with Gorman by agreeing to build his super computer in return for sorting out the oil tankers.
Superman assuages his depression with a drinking binge, but is overcome by guilt and undergoes a nervous breakdown. After nearly crash-landing in a junkyard, he splits into two personas: the evil, selfish Superman and the moral, righteous Clark Kent. They engage in an epic battle that ends when Clark strangles his evil identity, restoring him to his former self.
After defending himself from numerous rockets and an MX missile, Superman battles 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 kryptonite ray with a firefighter's axe, whereupon Superman flees. The computer becomes self-aware, defending itself against Gus and draining power from electrical towers, causing massive blackouts. Ross and Lorelei escape from the control room, but Vera is pulled into the computer and transformed into a cyborg. Empowered by the supercomputer, Vera attacks her brother and Lorelei with beams of energy that immobilize them.
Superman returns with a canister of Beltric acid from the chemical plant he saved earlier; the intense heat emitted by the supercomputer causes the acid to turn volatile, destroying the machine and turning Vera back to normal. Superman flies away with Gus, leaving Webster and his cronies to 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.
In my opinion the third film is definetly the weakest of the four original films. Although I am intrigued by Reeves' dark performance (which i loved), but hated most of the Pryor performance which left me most of the time rolling my eyes and groaning.
Rating...
4/10
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