Cut to a prison rock quarry. Just for fun, what image does the phrase "prison rock quarry" conjure up in your mind? Yep, that's it.

Guards with shotgun rifles watch over prisoners picking away at rocks with axes. And yes, all the prisoners are wearing jumpsuits with black and white stripes. I'll admit, Superman II did just as much to perpetuate this cliché of prisoners wearing black and white stripes, but that doesn't make this any less stupid.

Now, rock quarries. What are they good for? As far as I can tell, all these guys are doing is using pickaxes to break big rocks up into smaller rocks. Is there really some financial benefit to doing this? Wouldn't it be a lot more productive to pick up trash on the side of the road? Or anything?

Cut to Lex Luthor. Yes, he's in prison now, for doing, I don't know, whatever he was guilty of at the end of Superman II?

It seems as though Luthor has some sort of zen rock garden going, and he plucks out a sunflower and tucks it into a button hole on his jumpsuit. And the whole while, he's whistling Mozart, specifically the opening movement of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.

I don't know. Me? If I were in prison, about the last thing I'd want to be seen doing is tending to a flower garden. Much less while whistling Mozart. But maybe I've watched too much Oz. Sure enough, a fellow convict yells at Luthor to ask what that "godawful noise" is.

Luthor declares, "Mozart, my low-forehead friend!" And on the soundtrack, here come Luthor's He-So-Crazy tubas of high comedy as Luthor declares that "this wretched pit can't diminish the spirit of true genius!" Whatever that means, I'm in total agreement.

He continues to make boastful (and nonsensical) pronouncements, and after using the phrase "true genius" again, he informs Mr. Random Prisoner that he now has "plans to recreate life itself!" Well, of course it's a good idea to loudly declare your evil plans to whichever fellow prisoner happens to be nearby. What could be the harm in that?

And now the sloppy blocking begins in earnest. A couple of guards come over to yell at Luthor to get back to work, while simultaneously, a large American convertible drives up, blaring Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" on its speakers. Like, I don't know, maybe these are two separate, distinct events that could be depicted in two separate shots, maybe?

The big problem here is that the convertible is obviously trespassing (at least, I assume a place with a "State Prison Line Quarry" sign out front might be off-limits to the general public), but the way it's shot, it makes it look like the car is supposed to be there. Especially since the guards don't even notice the car for a long, long time, even despite the blaring music. And the honking horn.

Finally, the bumbling lawmen detect the car with their keen Spidey Sense and rush over. It turns out to be a big Caddy with a gold wing design (a design that includes the giant word LENNY) painted on the side. And in the car, in full '80s New Wave regalia, is John Hughes mainstay and current CBS sitcom star Jon Cryer [!]. Doesn't take much brain power to figure out this was a crass attempt to appeal to a teen audience. Even still... Jon Cryer? There must have been a million young stars in 1987 who could have attracted a bigger teen audience—and not even demanded a bigger salary—than ol' Jon here. Did they even call Corey Feldman? I'm sure he was waiting by the phone.

The Caddy stops, and Jon's picking his teeth in the sideview, and he's got Flock of Seagulls hair, all brushed forward. He has headphones on, and a silk jacket with big padded shoulders, and on the front of his jacket are two big red snake eyes. And then, to top it off, we see the dashboard is covered in zebra hide. That burning sensation in your eyes means it's working!

Jon pretends to be lost on his way to "Cedar City", which plays like a painfully flaccid reenactment of Lex pretending to be lost in the first film, while Otis re-targeted the missiles. When the officers tell him he's on the other side of the state, Jon declares in a total Valley Boy Cadence ,"Oh, noo-wwah!" Get used to this accent, by the way. Jon will be using it for the remainder of his performance. Because the character, as scripted, obviously wasn't annoying enough.

The dopey lawmen are, naturally, not yelling at Jon to get the hell out of there, but instead checking out his "fine, fine, supah fine sound system!" One of them even declares, as if I even have to say it, "Whooooo-wee!"

Jon guesses these "dudes" have never seen "one of these Sensurround 100s", and I assume he's referring to the weird, horn-like devices protruding out of each door. And not that theater-vibrating gimmick used to market disaster movies like Earthquake! and piss off everybody watching Chinatown in the next theater over.

Jon invites the two guards to sit inside and enjoy the experience of Sensurround 100, and of course, they eagerly hop in. Because, hey, it's not like they have prisoners to keep an eye on or anything. Then one deputy refers to the other as "Bubba". Surprised? I didn't think so. From afar, Lex Luthor continues to softly whistle and watch the unfolding events.

Once the officers are inside the car, Jon Cryer opens up his cassette walkman, which turns out to be a remote control. He remotely closes the doors, raises the windows, and puts up the top. While this is going on, Luthor even mutters, "windows... the top..." Wow, you don't think he's complicit in all this, do you?

Then Jon says, "Seats!" and punches a button that... causes the seats to recline all the way back. Oh no! Prison guards can't survive being in a low rider! It's a proven fact! Jon pushes another button and yells, "Drive away!" As expected, the car speeds off all by itself. It drives off a cliff, flies over the prisoners, and crashes. "All rye-yught!" Jon valleys.

As a black cloud of smoke appears above them, Jon rushes over to Lex with a pair of bolt cutters to chop off his leg shackles. Unfortunately, he's referring to him as "Uncle Lex". Lex follows this up with, "Lenny, I've always considered you the Dutch elm disease of my family tree. But this time, nephew, you did fine!" Yes, Jon Cryer is playing Lenny Luthor, Lex's nephew. And it's like one of those really bad, campy Silver Age stories, where suddenly we would learn Jimmy Olsen had a secret brother or something. With very few exceptions, those stories were awful, and so too is the very idea of "Lenny Luthor", as we'll soon see in gruesome detail.

Meanwhile, all the other prisoners are just... standing there, and gawking at Lex and Lenny as they brazenly escape. Must be a low security Martha Stewart-like prison. Otherwise, you'd think the lack of actual, you know, guards might tempt at least a few of these guys to make a run for it.

Unbelievably, we learn the guards weren't killed [!] when the Caddy flew through the air and exploded in a cloud of black smoke. In fact, the two officers come climbing up over the cliff, looking no worse for wear, expect they're now covered in dirt and looking slightly addled. Come on, guys. The first movie was willing to show at least somebody getting killed off by Lex. Was it really necessary to descend to this level of family-friendly Wile E. Coyote antics?

Lenny asks Lex if he might leave the country. (Or as he puts it, "skip the country" [?]. Who talks like that?) But of course, no, because that would be the sensible thing to do. Lex calls Lenny a "pathetic product of the public school system" and sets him straight. Lex isn't going anywhere, because he's only had one thing on his mind the whole time he's been in prison.

And the two of them say in unison, "Destroy Superman!" Well, that's what Gene Hackman says, anyway. Jon Cryer says in his dumb Valley-fied voice, "Destroy Sewwwperman!" And making this all the more excruciating is that we get to see the rest of Lenny's outfit. Unfortunately, I can't really talk about it, because I'm still too traumatized from actually seeing it.

And then comes mildly unintentional humor, as we cut to a shot of New York City, complete with the World Trade Center right there brazenly front and center, and the caption reads "METROPOLIS". And I know there's been this thing throughout the series, where New York pretty much stood in for Metropolis, and Metropolis has a Times Square and a Statue of Liberty and all that. But this is the most direct implication yet that the city we call "New York" is completely identical in Superman's universe, right down to the layout of the streets and the local geography, only there it's called "Metropolis".

So here in "Metropolis", Clark Kent runs across a busy street, being narrowly avoided by a cab, and more than narrowly calling to mind the scene in the second one where a cab runs into him and ends up totaled. And then Clark heads into a subway station, which looks just like a New York subway station, except they pasted "Metropolis South" over part of the sign.

Cut to Lois Lane down in the subway. I mean, And MARGOT KIDDER as LOIS LANE down in the subway. She's obviously brushing up on her French, which might be inferred from her holding up a book titled FRENCH. She walks up the stairs, randomly telling a stranger, "Bonjour, mounsier!" In response, the guy gives her the look of death. Hey, don't fuck with her! She's bipolar!

She then steps aboard a subway while a peppy version of "Can You Read My Mind?" plays on the soundtrack. Clark shows up, wearing his trusty old porkpie hat, which was already quaint back in the first film. He runs for the train, but just misses it. As the doors close, he gives Lois a look through the glass like he's trying to teach her the phrase "c'est la vie" solely through the art of charades.

On the train, we zoom past Lois bugging people with random French, and enter the conductor's car. In the same vein as the Omen series, where people died in freak accidents wherever Damien went, so too do bizarre mishaps occur wherever Lois Lane sets foot. I swear, Lois herself almost died eight or nine times in the first movie alone. This time, the conductor has a heart attack [!] and slumps across the controls of the train. It's even accompanied by a hilarious half-gulping, half-groaning "ohhhuhhh!" as he goes down.

Well, as it so happens, particularly in superhero movies, he appears to fall directly on the "go faster" control, and soon the subway train is barreling recklessly through the tunnels. (Apparently, no one in Metropolis has heard of a dead man's switch.) And so we get sped-up footage of a subway car passing through tunnels. Lois is the first to see stations whipping past at breakneck speed—well, sped-up footage of stations, crudely edited in, anyway—and starts screaming for help.

Clark, still back at the last stop, hears her cries. Yeah, I know it's super-hearing and all, but how can he possibly distinguish her screams from any of a million sounds that must be going on around him? I mean, he's in a subway station. During rush hour.

Regardless, Clark runs to a phone booth, steps inside, and then emerges as Superman. And, guys, come on. The first movie made fun of the idea that Clark would step into a phone booth to become Superman. Because there were no phone booths at the time. And this is almost ten years later. Are we supposed to believe that in the last few years, they decided to install some new phone booths in Metropolis? So now we're watching a movie filmed in 1987 where a guy in a porkpie hat steps inside a phone booth. Can anybody tell me what's wrong with this picture?

Superman emerges from the phone booth, and we cut away just before he takes off. Gee, why did they end the shot there? Lois spots an indistinct red and blue blur flying past her train and yells, "Superman!" Yes, Superman! Saving your unlucky ass for the five hundredth time!

Next up are some horrible green screen shots of Superman flying out of a subway tunnel, through a station, and um... I don't know how to break this to you, but the director forgot to have the extras actually turn their heads to watch Superman fly past. That is beyond stupid. Either that, or there must be something really awesome coming from the opposite direction. Actually, after all these years, I bet most of these onlookers are thinking, "Eh, Superman, I can see him any day. But look at that sweet out of control train!"

There's more random, sped-up footage of extras on subway platforms whipping past. And then a train POV shot, as it approaches Superman stepping out onto the track. He puts his foot on the electrified third rail, causing cartoon electricity to cover his body. And then the train... slowly comes to a halt. Superman doesn't so much as touch the train to stop it. That was... not super. In the slightest.

He opens the conductor's door to check on the guy. As random firemen and rescue workers rush out of nowhere, Superman declares, "I think he needs a doctor!" You see, this is his little known superpower of Stating The Obvious. And where did all these medical personnel suddenly come from? How did they know Superman would bring the train to a halt in this exact station? Fascinating.

Lois rushes out of the subway car, yelling out Superman's name. But he completely shuns her, just so he can give perhaps the dorkiest speech of his entire superhero career. He steps up into the doorway of the conductor's car, in effect blocking the rescue workers from doing their jobs, just so he can declare the following: "I want all the people back there to know that our subway system is still the safest and most reliable means of public transportation! Thank you!" Like, wow, man. God forbid people get scared to use the subway. Then they might actually... drive! And cause gridlock! Thank god there's none of that in the New Metropo-York we know.

I don't know, Superman. If you're telling me something as common as a heart attack can cause my subway car to careen out of control, with absolutely no failsafe or dead man's switch to stop it, I'm afraid I'd think twice about riding the subway.

But then again, who even needs a dead man's switch when you've got Superman? In fact, who needs any safety precautions, or building codes, or traffic laws at all in Metropolis, when you know Superman will always show up to rescue you if something goes wrong?

Lois again tries to catch his attention, but can only watch with sadness as Green Screen Superman takes off down a tunnel. "Thanks," she calls out weakly. And check out the NOT AT ALL DATED poster on the tunnel wall, asking for donations to help renovate the Statue of Liberty. Hilariously, at the bottom of the poster is an address in New York [!]. So, Superman's universe has a Metropolis and a New York? Do they look identical?

And this poster also makes another screw-up noticeable. If you compare Superman against the poster in the previous shot, and now in this green screen shot, it's obvious that Green Screen Superman is about one-third the size of actual Superman. I'm really not surprised, because I've seen the rest of this movie, and it's full of scenes that will definitively prove the effects department was staffed by chimpanzees.