**Better than the tedious Superman Returns/Man Of Steel**


Bad effects aside, this one is definitely more fun than the _tedious and dull_ Superman Returns and Man Of Steel stuff - an overload of special effects does not make an engaging film.


The performances here are all top notch as usual and the plot moved swiftly without taking itself too seriously. The franchise has always been silly - stupid even - especially when we remember that _Richard Donner's Superman had Ned Beatty as the moronic Otis._

The silliness has always been integral to the Superman series.

Filled with cheap gags, really horrible visual effects, a lazy story, a very bad musical score by Alexander Courage, a terrible villain (Nuclear Man), and some tiresome performances by the cast (except for Christopher Reeve), Superman IV: The Quest For Peace is one of the worst films ever made, the one of the worst movie sequels of all time, and the worst Superman film of all time. It is the kryptonite nail in the coffin for the Superman films, and none of the films after this even tried to save the Man Of Steel from his own detriment.

_**The least of the tetralogy due to a slashed budget and the corresponding cheesy F/X**_

Superman (Christopher Reeve) destroys all nuclear warheads on Earth for the sake of world peace, but Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) has discovered a way to make a nuclear-powered thrall from Supes’ DNA and the energy of the Sun. Meanwhile a tycoon & his daughter take over The Daily Planet (Sam Wanamaker & and Mariel Hemingway).

“Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” (1987) is the weakest of the quadrilogy because the Salkind family sold the franchise to a Grade B production company, Cannon, and so instead of the healthy $39 million budget of “Superman III” (1983) it was slashed to $17 million (although it was originally supposed to be $36 million), which is apparent in the low-rent opening credits and the non-special effects throughout.

Other than that glaring flaw, the main cast returns and the story is decent, augmented by the kick-axx Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) and the continuation of Clark’s relationship with Lois (Margot Kidder).

The first two movies are standout sci-fi motion pictures, despite hailing from the late ’70s, and the third one has worthy themes if you can adjust to the parody tone and cartoonish presence of Richard Pryor (at least his character has a worthy story arc). This one, by contrast, is disappointing due to the second rate vibe. While there are some entertaining elements, the drop in quality is just too noticeable.

The film runs 1 hour, 30 minutes, and was shot entirely in England with establishing shots of New York City, The Golden Gate Bridge, The Great Wall of China, etc.

GRADE: C

Even my BluRay player refused to play this movie as if he'd remember something I didn't.

To quote Christopher Reeve: "Superman IV was a catastrophe from start to finish. That failure was a huge blow to my career."

And the sad part in retrospect, he never got the chance to make another one. But I don't blame him for the failure despite co-writing the story. I think he wanted to make a story about the threat of nuclear destruction out of sincere worry. But the studio wanted crash, boom and bang and the usual silly comedy parts. Both of them mix very, very badly. Due to the lack of budget (it was cut in half shortly before production began) the SFX looks at times rediculous almost like those cheap scifi rip-offs that were made around that time. And pardon me for saying that, but Marc Pillow is one of the worst actors I've ever seen in a movie. His performance is a prime example of over-acting. Even Hackman's return as Lex Luthor can't save this movie from being a catastrophe. [spoiler] And pulling out the kiss and forget act on Lois again ? [/spoiler] Really ?! They clearly had no ideas left.

In hindsight it's amazing to see how over the span of ten years they ran the Superman movies into the ground.

It's a little amazing, really, how quickly the original Superman franchise eroded into bad comedy. This being the ground floor of that descent, it bears little similarity to the original film beyond several key casting choices and a spit curl. Christopher Reeve returns as the title character, of course, with Margot Kidder suffering an expanded role and Gene Hackman back from a one-film exile to ham it up once again as a clueless, underwhelming Lex Luthor. Filling the Richard Pryor "why?!" role from the previous film is Jon Cryer, then known as Duckie from Pretty in Pink, who plays some sort of pointless, meandering male twist on the Valley Girl stereotype that was rolling through culture at the time. I'm still not entirely sure why he was elbowed into the plot.

This isn't aggressively bad like Superman III, it's just hopelessly inept. In fact, the core of the story has a lot of potential: Superman, inspired by a letter from a young boy, destroys the world's nuclear armaments and discovers that some problems can't be solved quite so easily. It sputters and fails right on the launchpad, though, and soon falls back on a muscle-flexing brawl with some generic evil menace to solve the problem. Its grasp on physics, and reality as a whole, is so loose it's almost adorable. I'd pat my four-year-old son on the head and smile if he suggested we move the moon around to keep the sun out of his eyes, but for this film that's a legitimate solution. To say its answers make any sense would be an insult to sense itself.

The whole thing plays like an easy answer to a complex problem, from the story to the editing to the acting and effects work. These older superhero movies don't hold up to the rigors of time as a whole, but Superman IV looks particularly bad in a modern setting. Even the hero's indistinguishable costume seems cut-rate and fake, like they'd forgotten to commission a wardrobe department until the night before production.

Head-shakingly pointless and dull, this film only seems to exist to kill time. Which, thankfully, it doesn't demand in great quantities. While the original cut came in at over two hours, some greedy last-minute cuts trimmed it down to a slim ninety minutes. Why the late edits? To ensure a few more showings each day at theaters nationwide. Of course.