The Worst Film Ever

Such a frustrating disappointment

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Lame beyond belief, it's still slightly better than 3. Lex Luthor - who needs a rest by this time, did the producers forget every other villain superman fought? Creates and Anti-Superman, Nuclear man. Havoc ensues. Its nice that they tried to have an anti-nuclear weapons message, but it's lost in this silly, overblown movie.

It was nice seeing most of the original cast (from 1978) reprise their roles: Gene Hackman - Lex Luthor; Jackie Cooper - Perry White; Marc McClure - Jimmy Olsen; Margot Kidder - Lois Lane; and of course Christopher Reeve - Superman. This was to be their final outings in their respective roles in this iteration of Superman.Unfortunately, their presence alone was not enough to boost this movie both in story and at the box office. The Salkinds were no longer in charge. Instead, Golan-Globus and the Cannon Group were brought on to get this off the ground.The premise of this movie was a worthy one for our beloved hero: Superman wants to rid the world of nukes and his traditional arch-nemesis Lex Luthor had other plans to prevent that. Unfortunately, the Cannon Group and their writers couldn't make it interesting enough to draw audiences.While I enjoyed many of the flicks put on by the (now defunct) Cannon Group, it was apparent that superheroes and the Superman franchise were not their forte'. "Low budget" doesn't always equal low quality, but for this movie, unfortunately, the results were less-than-stellar.From what I gather, the Cannon Group was already in financial trouble when they took on the reins of the Superman series. This was a chance for them to start the road to recovery and make up for Superman III's dismal performance. They failed. Cannon continued their downward spiral and Superman IV did much worse than III.This was truly the end of the an era for Christopher Reeve's iteration of Superman, his fellow players who started in it and the original production company. While it was inevitable that the players for this iteration would no longer be playing those roles (as the years went by), it was sad to see their finale in these roles in this less- than-desirable chapter.

Generally speaking, I have no fondness for this series of films. I think Reeves is okay as Superman (a character I have no fondness for), but the humour that permeates this series is asinine and childish. So while I would admit that this film is astonishingly shoddy and stupid compared to the previous entries (or at least the first two films), I can't say that I like it any less than any of the other films. In fact, I probably enjoyed it a bit more, but that's not really to the film's credit. A lot can be made of the fact that this film's budget was cut by about 2/3 due to Cannon's financial difficulties, but although that really shows in the film's insanely shoddy effects work and poor subbing of London for New York City, you can't really argue that this would be a good film if the effects were better. This is a film where Superman seems surprised that an elevator won't hold someone with strength similar to his. This is a film where Superman pushes the moon out of orbit with no repercussions. To be fair, it's also a film where the comedic elements are just as idiotic if not worse that the previous films. I grant all that ... but somehow the fact that this film is clearly junk makes it's stupidity less egregious than the stupidity of the earlier big budget studio films.

After the abysmal effort from Richard Lester that was Superman III, the fourth film in the franchise rebounded a bit, but still dragged in a few crucial categories.The Good:-The acting is back to the quality of the first two films. Gene Hackman's Lex Luthor is back to his nefariously hilarious ways, Christopher Reeve (Clark/Superman) is again the stoic, righteous hero he is meant to be, and Margot Kidder (Lois Lane) is back in her enthusiastic mode. -Also, the storyline is, in all actuality, probably the closest in form to the old Superman comics than any of the other films. In trying to rid the world of nuclear warfare, Superman takes the type of moral and ethical stand he is known for in his legacy. A very moving politically-charged plot along the lines of Rocky IV and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.The Bad:-The special effects in this film were terrible. The flights, although I didn't notice any stray wires, were not as majestic as the first two films, while it was often much too easy to distinguish the matte background (like in space with no stars!). Plus, instead of really cool effects, the FX crew instead goes hokey, epitomized by Superman's "visual rebuilding" of the Great Wall of China that is just plain stupid. -However, the pacing of the film is really what bogs the movie down. Many scenes were cut from the film in post-production, making the plot a bit herky-jerky and confusing. Halfway through the film, the plot is steadily progressing. Then, suddenly, Superman begins his fight with Nuclear Man, which essentially lasts the entire second half of the movie.So, despite a more inspiring plot and much better acting, Superman IV: The Quest For Peace is dragged down by cop-out special effects and directorial issues that never really allowed the film to inspire awe or hold the viewers' interest. Thus, this second straight sub-par Superman film effectively killed the Superman franchise for nearly two decades.