Rated
PG
Running
Time: 1 Hour & 30 Minutes
Cast:
Christopher
Reeve-Clark Kent/Superman
Margot
Kidder-Lois Lane
Gene
Hackman-Lex Luthor
Marc
McClure-Jimmy Olsen
Jackie
Cooper-Perry White
Mark
Pillow-Nuclear Man
Sam
Wanamaker-David Warfield
Mariel
Hemingway-Lacy Warfield
Jon
Cryer-Lenny Luthor
Damian
McLawhorn-Jeremy
Directed
by Sidney J. Furie
 |
| Let's get ready to rumble! |
Note: Part of the "Superman Motion Picture Anthology" Blu-Ray set.
Watching
“Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” for the umpteenth time, I have to wonder
just what the heck happened to the “Superman” film franchise. 1978’s “Superman”
is nothing short of a masterpiece thanks to the reverence director Richard
Donner had for the source material. Absolutely no expense was spared as the
film utilized the latest special effects at the time in order to make the
audience believe that a man can fly. Despite Donner being unceremoniously fired
and plagued by a myriad of behind-the-scenes production troubles, 1981’s
“Superman II” managed to maintain the high quality standard set by its
predecessor but everything unraveled when “Superman III” arrived in 1983. With
Donner and ‘creative consultant’ Tom Mankiewicz finally out of the picture,
producers Alexander and his son, Ilya Salkind set out to make their vision of a
“Superman” film, and the result was a dull, campy affair that squanders all the
potential and goodwill set-up by the first two films. Although “Superman III”
was a moderate box office success, it received negative reviews from both
critics and fans due to the drastic change in tone and its overreliance on
slapstick comedy. Reeve and the producers believed that the “Superman” film
franchise had run its course but that didn’t stop the Salkinds from making a
spin-off film with 1984’s “Supergirl,” a critically-reviled, box office bomb.
Four years later, having sucked dry whatever money was left to be made with the
“Superman” film franchise, the Salkinds sold all the rights to Golan &
Globus of Cannon Films. Co-founded by Israeli cousins Menahem Golan and Yoram
Globus, Cannon Films specialized in low-to-medium budget fare and financed any
film if they believed it would make a quick buck. Eager to make a fourth
“Superman” film, Golan & Globus approached Christopher Reeve to reprise his
famous role but he was hesitant and feared it would be treated as a farce like
the third film, which he felt was disrespectful to both the fans and the source
material. To sweeten the deal, Reeve was at first offered a paycheck comparable
to what he received in the previous films. Second, Cannon Films would produce
and release any pet project of his choosing (the result was the crime drama
“Street Smart,” released the same year as “Superman IV”) and finally, Reeve
would have the opportunity to develop the story for the fourth film and receive
credit. He accepted and the result is one of the worst comic book films ever
made. “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” has its heart in the right place but
the poorly edited story, combined with its laughable special effects done on
the cheap proved to be the death knell of the franchise. Reeve escapes
unscathed but ultimately not even Superman can save a film that was doomed to
disaster from the start.
After
saving a group of cosmonauts whose ship is thrown off course by a rogue
satellite, Superman/Clark Kent (Christopher Reeve) returns to Smallville to
check on the now uninhabited farm he grew up in. He finds the empty space
capsule his father, Jor-El, built to send him to Earth and discovers a
green-glowing, Kryptonian energy crystal. Clark hears his mother, Lara (voice
of Susannah York), who informs her son that the energy contained within the
crystal can only be used once. Returning to The Daily Planet in Metropolis,
Clark learns from Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) that the newspaper has been taken
over by a tabloid tycoon named David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker), who fires Editor-in-chief
Perry White (Jackie Cooper) and replaces him with his daughter, Lacy (Mariel
Hemingway). Meanwhile, Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) manages to escape from prison
with the help of his bumbling nephew, Lenny (Jon Cryer), still determined to
destroy Superman. Back at The Daily Planet, everyone is watching the
President’s speech, who informs the public that due to a failure to compromise
at the disarmament talks with the Soviet Union, the U.S. is forced to step up
its nuclear arms race. The broadcast is watched by schools all over the
country, with a concerned schoolboy writing to Superman to do something to
bring about peace. Clark is conflicted about whether he should interfere and
consults with the spirits of Krypton’s Elder Council at the Fortress of
Solitude for advice. Their responses fail to get him any closer to a decision
but after spending some time with Lois, he makes his way to the United Nations
as Superman to plead his case. Fearing the catastrophic destruction of a
full-out nuclear war, he announces that effective immediately, he will be
ridding the entire world of nuclear weapons. This decision is met with
thunderous applause. Elsewhere, Lex and Lenny break into a museum (in broad
daylight) and steal a strand of Superman’s hair. He plans to put the genetic
material in a device attached to a nuclear warhead in order to clone Superman.
The missile is launched and as expected, Superman catches it and throws it into
the Sun. A super-powered being is born and this ‘Nuclear Man’ (Mark Pillow)
immediately begins a wave of destruction around the world to destroy Superman.
I
don’t even know where to begin with “Superman IV.” Originally set with a $40
million production budget, Cannon Films slashed it to a paltry $17 million just
days before shooting began as the company had completely overextended itself
due to years of mismanagement. In fact, Cannon Films would declare bankruptcy
in two years! The original cut of the film ran 2 hours and 15 minutes but the
test screening in Los Angeles, California was a total disaster as people felt
that it dragged on too long. As a result, the filmmakers made drastic cuts and
deleted approximately 45 minutes of footage, leaving a total running of 1 hour
& 30 minutes, hardly a proper length to a tell an epic Superman tale. I
doubt the original cut had been any better but it would’ve fleshed out
character motivations, explained much of the action, and resolved all the loose
plot threads in a way that made sense. Here, nothing makes sense at all!
Numerous subplots are introduced but either are immediately dropped or hastily
resolved with its weak ending. As his political leanings were liberal, the idea
of nuclear disarmament was Reeve’s idea and it had a lot of potential.
Unfortunately, it’s only a means to move the action along and the way the film
deals with it is laughably bad. Would all the world’s countries really react
with thunderous applause if they learned that a super-powered being would rid
their world of nuclear weapons in the name of so-called ‘peace’? While the
concept is admirable and had its heart in the right place, Reeve and the
writers failed to grasp the serious consequences of what would’ve happened if
Superman destroyed the world’s nuclear stockpile.
The
rest of “Superman IV” is a tired retread of the previous films from Luthor
using nuclear weapons to Superman and Lois’ on-again, off-again relationship.
Its tone is certainly more serious compared to “Superman III” but the gutted
running time and choppy editing left it in an unsalvageable, illogical mess.
Adding insult to injury is the absolute misrepresentation of Superman’s powers
and the horrid special effects. This film was made nine years after the
original so the visuals should get better, not regress! The first scene where
Superman flies toward the camera has a green tint and is reused over and over
again throughout the film. Whenever there’s a wide shot of him or Nuclear Man
flying, it looks like some sort of action figure was used. Either that or they
used a cardboard cutout and pasted it on a random stock photo of Earth with
Elmer’s Glue. Superman also seemed to have acquired strange new powers. In the
beginning when Clark explores the space capsule he came to Earth in, he makes
it disappear just by staring at it. In fact, he does a lot of things by
staring! During Nuclear Man’s reign of destruction, he destroys part of the
Great Wall of China and Superman fixes it by staring at it and all the bricks
just magically pop into existence with ‘blip-blip-blip’ sound effects. Later,
during the climax, Nuclear Man unleashes some sort of beam (he seems to have a
beam for everything!) and lifts a group of innocent bystanders. Once again,
Superman brings them down…by staring at them! I wonder if any of the filmmakers
actually picked up a Superman comic before! I also expect to suspend disbelief
for a “Superman” film but when Nuclear Man flies Lacy Warfield to space,
shouldn’t she start gasping for breath due to space being a vacuum?!
Apparently, knowledge of basic science escaped the writers as well. At least,
Alexander Courage’s score turned out to be quite good.
The
acting is a mixed bag. Christopher Reeve once again delivers a genuinely
sincere performance and makes all the lame dialogue sound better than it
actually is, especially the speeches he gives. Everyone else had very little to
work with given the poor script. Gene Hackman is fun to watch but by this
point, his portrayal of Lex Luthor was beginning to feel overly cartoonish.
Margot Kidder is reduced to staring wide-eyed at Superman and the intervening
years since the original film hasn’t been kind to her looks. Mariel Hemingway’s
(granddaughter to famous writer Ernest Hemingway) Lacy Warfield is introduced
as a love interest to Clark but its half-baked and after Superman saves her,
she inexplicably disappears. Jon Cryer was incredibly annoying and Mark Pillow,
well he grunts and grunts…and grunts some more. Pillow’s entire career after
this film was starring in one episode of “Wiseguy” and a role on a short-lived
Russian television series, “Alaska Kid.” He currently works as fine wine sales
representative and retired from acting.
“Superman
IV: The Quest for Peace” arrives on Blu-Ray as part of the “Superman Motion
Picture Anthology” box set. For a film so terrible, the picture quality is
impressive but all it does is magnify how shoddy the special effects looked.
Still, textures are detailed, colors are bold and on the whole, it looks like
it was filmed yesterday. The audio is also loud and dynamic, especially during
the action scenes. Dialogue is very sharp compared to the previous films,
though does not approach modern levels. Special features are a little bare for
this installment but the audio commentary from writer Mark Rosenthal is worth a
listen. He defends the story but also touches upon all the problems of the
film. There’s a television special that debuted during the 50th anniversary of
Superman hosted by Dana Carvey, of all people. Also included are 30 minutes of
deleted scenes but they all look rough with unfinished visual effects, although
I find it hard to believe it can look worse than the final product. There’s
also a theatrical trailer as well.
Released
on July 24, 1987, “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” received overwhelmingly
negative reviews with a paltry 10% on Rotten Tomatoes. Critics wrote that ‘the
action is boring, the special effects look cheaper, and none of the actors
appear interested in where the plot's going.’ Its total domestic box office
gross $16 million barely covered the production budget. In his autobiography
Still Me, Reeve wrote that the film was ‘hampered by budget constraints and
cutbacks in all departments.’ He used the United Nations scene as an example,
noting that if it was Richard Donner, it would’ve been shot on-location in New
York City. Rosenthal recalls that Reeve and director Sidney J. Furie begged
Cannon Films to film in front of the actual UN and that the Milton Keynes
setting looked nothing like it. In fact, due to the company’s extreme penny
pinching, the UN depicted in the film was just some municipal auditorium. It’s
really sad that the “Superman” film franchise went out with such a terrible
film and I don’t enjoy ripping it apart as I love Christopher Reeve and
consider him to a real-life Superman. “Superman IV” ended with Reeve saying,
‘See you in twenty!’ to Luthor but the line proved prophetic because it would
be nineteen years before Bryan Singer’s “Superman Returns” was released. I
think Reeve speaks for all of us when he wrote, ‘The less said about Superman
IV, the better.’
Final
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
“Well,
once more, we survived the threat of war and found a fragile peace. I thought I
could give you all the gifts of the freedom from war, but…I was wrong. It's not
mine to give. We're still a young planet. There are galaxies...out there…other
civilizations for us to meet, to learn from. What a brilliant future we could
have. And there will be peace. There will be peace when the people of the world
want it so badly, that their governments will have no choice but to give it to
them. I just wish you could all see the Earth the way that I see it. Because
when you really look at it, it's just one world.”
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