For a long time, this part was one of my favourites. As a young kid, I was fine with the overall comedic tone. Now as an adult, I have mixed feelings about it.
The opening sequence for example sets the tone, and it's quite awful. It's too artificial and dated. Sure, the running joke of hot Lorelei indirectly causing disaster is funny, but why is it a joke? Why is she even there? The film even states that not even Superman is beyond her reach. And if that isn't enough, Superman reconnects with Lana Lang while Lois Lane is on Bermuda somewhere. So is Clark / Superman over his love for her? He gave up his powers for her, and now he is just moving on? Not to mention the fact that Lorelei was fine after she had sex with the evil version of him, so it completely takes away from the events in Superman II. Then there is Richard Pryor. I like him, but not in this film. I understand that most of that is due to the way he is written, but also of how he plays it. He simply doesn't know what to do with his role. He is like a smarter but goofier version of Otis, henchman of Lex Luthor. In this film, the big baddie is played by Robert Vaughn who kind of is similar to Lex Luthor, only it's very clear, that Gene Hackman took his role far more seriously than Vaughn did, who treats this like a comedy. And who can blame him, director Richard Lester treats it as such, so no wonder.
Another flaw is the coherency, or rather, the lack of. There are so many ideas thrown into the mix and while these do lead up to some epic moments, it's not consistent tonally. So what are these epic moments? Well, Superman saving the day never gets old and in what other film have you seen someone freeze a lake and then carrying it so that it can be used to put out a gigantic fire. But the biggest moment (at least for me), is the fight where Superman fights himself. After Superman gets affected by a synthetic version of Kryptonite his whole demeanour is changed. It's the closed thing of what it would be like if Superman were evil. Still, relatively tame, but enough to make people scared. At one point he does realize something is off and decides to deal with it. Clark is the representation of Good, and the greyer version of Superman is Evil. Definitely, the biggest highlight for me. The fight with the super computer is just silly, even if the transformation of Vera into a robot is excellent.
What I never had noticed before, and what does hurt the viewing experience, is the pacing. I didn't experience this with the first two. But that immediately points out the difference between Richard Lester and Richard Donner. Donner is the superior directors who understood what Superman was about. Lester, like many adults thinking that comic books are only intended for children. No, they aren't. But even if they were, the comic books often had a nice balance between camp and seriousness. Lester went full camp.
Overall, it's a film with significant highs but gets hurt by the many lows.
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