“Why Are There No Air Travel Expenses For You, Kent?”
Oh, I’d heard it was bad. But, in my quest to watch all of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies, I still felt the need to watch Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. Actually, I didn’t think it was a complete waste until we reached the end. But then I started thinking about it, and the more I thought about it, the more I realized it’s bad.
This movie finds Clark Kent/Superman (Christopher Reeve) facing changes. He’s selling his farm back in Smallville. Meanwhile, The Daily Planet has been bought out by a publishing magnet (Sam Wanamaker) who focuses on tabloids. The new publisher has put her daughter, Lacy (Mariel Hemingway) in charge of the paper, and she has a huge crush on Clark. Meanwhile, Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) is still madly in love with Superman, but she has become friends with Clark.
Things start to really get going when a young boy writes to Superman, asking him to do something about nuclear war. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) escapes from prison with the help of his nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer) and starts plotting his revenge on Superman.
The movie is cheesy in a way that the first two movies aren’t. I won’t deny that. But, somehow, it feels a bit more on purpose than the tone I called out in Superman III. Gene Hackman, especially, is having fun really playing it up. Granted, his Lex was never exactly a super grounded, menacing villain. But his attempt to fight Superman this time around, Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) does nothing for the film. It’s almost painfully cheesy. Still, I was willing to buy into it.
What I did have trouble swallowing was Superman’s sudden announcement that he’s going to rid the world of all their nuclear weapons. Like that’s going to help at all. People will just create new ones. And, I guess what we were seeing was people going along with it as they shot them into space for him to collect? That just seems odd as well. I remember how big a concern nuclear war was in the 1980’s. But this movie, instead of attempting to address it in a meaningful way, just falls back into wishful thinking. Just proof that Hollywood using “entertainment” to lecture isn’t something new.
It was really hard to follow the world that these characters were living in, too. Lois seemed to know Clark’s secret a few times. And then, the next minute, she was as clueless as always. Meanwhile, Lana Lang isn’t even mentioned despite the fact that she was supposed to be working at The Daily Planet at the end of the previous movie.
I’ve seen some complaints that the special effects are a step down from the first two films in the series. I actually didn’t find that to be a problem. My problem was, there are a ton more of them. Superman fights Nuclear Man quite a bit in the second half of the film, with both of them flying in and out of the atmosphere. There are entire sequences that are just them fighting. All of that requires effects. And the more effects there are, the worse it is going to look. Not to mention, if you see the effects for 30 seconds vs. minutes on end.
I found the acting to be a bit uneven. Clark and the crew at The Daily Planet were fine, and I bought their performances. Lex Luthor and his cohort were over the top, really playing up the cheese. Somehow, it worked for me. I’d forgotten that Jon Cryer was in this movie as Lex’s nephew. It’s fun since he would go on to turn in a fantastic performance as Lex in the recent Supergirl TV show on The CW.
Then there’s a scene where Superman and Clark are supposed to be on a double date. It was a bit of mindless fun, but it went on far too long.
Honestly, I was chalking some of this up to late 80’s cheese. No, the movie wasn’t especially good, but when viewed through that lens, I was a little more willing to let it go.
Then we reach the ending, when the movie pretty much just stops. I wish I were joking, but I’m not. I’m unclear on how we permanently stopped Nuclear Man. Not to mention how the person Superman rescued was even breathing in space. I’m willing to buy Superman note needing to breathe, but a human? Then, we get quick wrap ups to several storylines that make little sense and certainly weren’t set up by the earlier events of the film. Not to mention how I found what lead to Superman’s recovery to be a cheap plot device even if it was set up early in the film.
A better ending would have let me chalk up the flaws with being a late 80’s movie. But the rushed stop we get to Superman IV: The Quest for Peace makes me much less forgiving. Yes, this pretty much is as bad as you’ve heard. Don’t bother unless you feel the need to watch all of these movies.
