Wait a second, is 'Superman III' actually good?

I've had a peculiar relationship with Superman III over the years. I loved it as a child -- I think I was just drawn to the absurdity and the attractiveness of its infamous poster art, which featuring Christopher Reeve cradling a terrified Richard Pryor as they flew over what appeared to be the Grand Canyon.

Of course, as an adult I came to see it as the campy curio it is. When I introduced the film last night at a specialty screening at Alamo Drafthouse, I made a point of saying there's never been another superhero movie like it and there never will be again. Imagine a new Justice League movie -- co-starring Kevin Hart as a facsimile of the same character he plays in about every other movie.

It wouldn't happen, it couldn't happen. Only in 1983, with a particular set of oddball circumstances, could Superman III happen.

It's almost universally condemned now as a bad movie. Pryor went on record as hating it, Christopher Reeve clearly did too (even though he got to show more range in this one than arguably any other Superman film), and yet it has endured as a meme-worth classic.

It's definitely a guilty pleasure for me. I've watched it twice recently, once to prepare for my hosting gig and the second time actually during it, and I'm starting to think of it as a great piece of fatally flawed pop art.

Hear me out. It's the Reeve performance that gets better to me every time I see it. He's so light on this feet in the comic scenes, which is especially impressive considering his lumbering frame. And he's so damn credible as Superman. I think any actor who plays that role doesn't get enough credit. With Batman, the cowl does a lot of the work for you, but as Superman if you don't look the part, and if you don't know how to use your body in the right ways you can look downright buffoonish, but he never does.

Richard Pryor is another story. His performance is so unfunny it somehow becomes funny again. He is such an oddball screen presence, not exactly handsome but fascinating to watch at all times. It's an unbelievably twitchy, detached performance. His Gus Gorman is not really a person but more of a collection of tics that are either child-like or dunderheaded.

At the time, Roger Ebert suggested that Pryor's infamous self-immolation in the early 1980s had somehow changed the legendary comedian's temperament, essentially made him into a too soft, nice guy on screen. Save for a couple stand-up comedy performance movies, Ebert might have been right.

Besides a sly, quieter performance in Eddie Murphy's underrated Harlem Nights, his 1980s output is strangely neutered. I know Pryor was privately jealous of Bill Cosby's success during this time period, so perhaps he thought if he similarly dulled his harder edges he might be a more palatable success. Either way, that tension makes his borderline minstrel-y performance her a meta-marvel.

I think Annette O'Toole is luminous and lovely in the film at the incredibly thirsty Lana Lang, and I've far too long slept on Robert Vaughn's oily performance here as a poor man's Gene Hackman. His role is far funnier than I remembered it, and I love that his biggest ambition in the first act of the film, the inciting incident that inspires his nascent super-villainy is his quest to control the coffee industry.

The movie's deficits are well-documented: the effects are mostly terrible, the movie is really overlong (my wife fell asleep during both recent viewings) and pretty slight on action for a superhero movie.

And yet, I cannot look away from it. It not as rip-roaringly hilarious as Showgirls or The Room, but it may be my favorite noble failure of all time.