Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE is what a Four Seasons would look like if you let Motel 6 run it for a year. B-movie producers Golan and Globus have taken everything that worked in the first two films and shoved it through their cheap, cost-cutting schlock filter. What a mess.

The budget difference is noticeable immediately, just as the main credits start to roll.

Do you remember when the main titles started in the original, 1978 Richard Donner classic? John Williams music soared as the titles flew across the screen in blue, 3D style font. It was thrilling.

Golan/Globus apparently threw about $500 to a kid and told him to recreate it on a Dell this time out. The graphics look cheap, limply teetering for a bit before flying over the Earth. John Williams music is here, but in another cost cutting move, they just hired Alexander Courage to do some new arrangements of Williams score. It's like one of those old K-Tel albums with some dude in his basement pretending to be the Rolling Stones on his Casio keyboard.

But wait a minute.

Can this be true?

The first half hour of the film is kind of charming, certainly closer in spirit to Donner's original than that awful Richard Pryor storyline in Supe III.

Even Margot Kidder is back after refusing to do more than a cameo in the last film.

Christopher Reeve is just fine too, saving some Russians orbiting space in the opening scene and then flying back into the family farm in Smallville and digging back into that secret compartment in the barn.

Reeve came up with the story of the film, wanting to create something more akin to the original two films after the "comic" tone of the Pryor entry. Kudos to his ideas, you can feel the bones of a traditional Superman film straining to bust free.

Gene Hackman is back as Lex Luthor! He's having fun flashing his superior intellect around the chain gang he's working on and has soon escaped and started his plan for revenge against Superman.

Things start to go a bit wonky as soon as Jon Cryer shows up as Luthor's nephew, Lenny. He feels like an extra from "Smokey and the Bandit" dressed in 80's garb when he arrives and he never gets better.

Meanwhile, Luthor steals a strand of our Man of Steel's hair, determined to create an evil super hero who gets his power from our Sun.

The last half hour is absolute hot garbage from the Golan/Globus producers.

Just before filming began, they cut the budget from $36 million to $17 million. Donner's original cost $55 million. That gap shows in every frame.

The special effects are horrific, even by 1987 standards.

The flying rig for Superman this time out was apparently made at Home Depot. It's so much more bulky and cheap that some shots look like Reeve put on about 40lbs. That's distracting enough. Now add on the shoddy visuals that sometimes make Superman's suit look green. I've seen episodes of HR Pufnstuf with better effects.

The budget cuts ended up cutting about 30 minutes from the film, leaving a final act that makes no sense and feels rushed and stupid. The only benefit is that this junk only lasts 90 minutes.

Nuclear Man, Hackman's big villain arrives in the persona of actor Mark Pillow. He only acted in an episode of a few TV series after this. It's easy to see why. Zzzzzzzzz.

Some great actors like Jim Broadbent and Sam Wanamaker are wasted, but Mariel Hemingway (Lipstick) manages to redeem herself in a sympathetic role.

Poor Reeve. He has a couple moments where you can feel the film that he was inspired to make. His passionate speeches at the United Nations about the country and the globe are vintage Reeve as Superman. They are the only moments that work.

This movie is a travesty to the legacy of the series.

Reeve hated the film and said in his memoir, "Superman IV was a catastrophe from start to finish. That failure was a huge blow to my career."

As bad as Superman III was, this plunges to far greater depths.

Often when a film is this bad, I enjoy the hell out of watching it and relating all the funny ways it stunk. This one is such a slap in the face to the first two Reeve films, it just feels depressing.

Okay, I have to mention one scene near the end, where Nuclear Man grabs Hemingway and soars off into space with her. Not the upper atmosphere, space, looking down at the Earth. The entire time, Hemingway continues to interact and scream. In space.....um.......I give up.

SUPERMAN IV gets an F.