There is a moment in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace that shows the true power of Superman. It’s not a feat of strength or use of any super powers. It’s his mere presence that makes people stop in awe and wonder. The moment he starts walking into the United Nations, a crowd of people gather around him like a rock star, yet they are very reverend towards him. His appearance in the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations entices a standing ovation and a roar of applause. And when he speaks a pin can dropped and heard for everyone is hanging on every single word that he utters.

“For many years, now, I've lived among you as a... a visitor. I've seen the beauty of your many cultures. I've felt great joy in your magnificent achievements. I've also seen the folly of your wars. As of today, I am not a visitor any more, because the earth is my home, too. We can't live in fear, and I can't stand by and watch as we stumble toward the madness of possible nuclear destruction. So, I've come to a decision. I'm going to do what our governments have been unwilling or unable to do. Effective immediately, I am going to rid our planet of all nuclear weapons.”

This is the true power of Superman, the man who can inspire others to do what is right. Unfortunately, his speech couldn’t even make this film right no matter how hard he tried.

1987’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was the final run for the original cast from Superman: The Movie and they go out with a whimper. Actually not even a whimper. More like a footnote in history. What started out as a promising, great run to the franchise eventually ended in disaster.

After the debacle known as Superman III from fours years before, the Salkinds did everything they could to sell off their movie rights to the Superman franchise to the Golem-Globus group. They were the ones who renegotiated and brought back Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper, and Marc McClure to do one more film. Because Reeve felt disappointed by the turn of events in the last of movie, he would only agree to film the fourth one if the script took a more serious tone. I guess dealing with the nuclear arms race was serious enough for him to sign on with the project. But everything that could go wrong absolutely went wrong.


Bizarro Was His Name-O

Lex Luthor is back and this time he is joined by his trusty… er, nephew? Wait-a-minute! Luthor has a nephew? Jon Cryer comes on board to play Lenny, Luthor’s nephew, who breaks his uncle out of jail. When he spits out lines like “The Dude of Steel! You are so gonna get it!” and “Yeah, you're just an experiment, freako!”, it makes you long for Otis to return. Why, why, why was this character even necessary? Was it to appeal to the kids? I was a kid back then and it didn’t work for me at all.

Luthor has devised a way to get rid of Superman and does so by stealing a strand of his hair from the museum. He proceeds to create a genetic matrix and hide it in a nuclear missile that gets shot into space. Superman is disarming all of the world’s nuclear weapons by hurling them into the sun and, unbeknownst to him, Luthor has taken advantage of the situation. The result: Luthor creates his own version of Superman, one whom he controls. He is known as The Nuclear Man (so frightening and so original).

The way Luthor creates Nuclear Man is very similar to the way he creates Bizarro, the imperfect clone of Superman. Bizarro is a walking Frankenstein monster and very simple-minded. The Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow, his only acting role), though not as ugly as Bizarro, has a one-track mind. First, it’s to destroy Superman and second, it’s to get the girl. No, he isn’t after Lois Lane, but another woman who works at the Daily Planet—Lacy Warfield.


Corporate Takeovers

The Daily Planet has been bought out by tycoon David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker). He, along with his daughter Lacy, plans to turn The Planet into a sensationalistic, tabloid-type of newspaper, one that will hopefully increase the subscription and revenue. This irritates publisher Perry White and when things get totally out of hand, he quits his position. Lacy (played by Mariel Hemmingway) becomes the new publisher. She is a flashy, superficial, materialistic, spoiled woman who always gets want she wants. And what she wants is Clark Kent.

Clark is aware of Lacy’s advances towards him and tries his best to avoid her, to no avail, of course. It’s a great look at how someone could actually be attracted to Clark without knowing that he is secretly the Man of Steel. It’s also comical in nature watching Clark trying to get out of every situation with Lacy and being polite about it.

But despite this infatuation towards Clark, Lacy cannot help but watch as the great metropolitan newspaper starts to falter, especially after her father goes too far in announcing the death of Superman in the new tabloid-sized Daily Planet. Lois quits in utter disgust. Clark gets fired as well because he’s been a no-show. The Daily Planet is no longer the great metropolitan newspaper that it is renowned for anymore.

And is Superman really dead? His latest bout against the Nuclear Man drained him of not only his powers but his life as well. Only a miracle would be able to revive this fallen hero.

Quite frankly, it was going to take more than a miracle to save this film. The sheer amount of plot holes and bad editing contributed to a very confusing movie. There were so many parts that didn’t make any sense at all. Then again, in order to have plot holes, there needs to be an actual plot.

Richard Donner, the director from the original two movies, was asked to direct this one. He declined. Richard Lester was also asked. He declined as well. So Sidney J. Furie steps in and does the job. Cannon Pictures, the company footing the bill, first told him he had $37 million dollars for his budget. Right before the movie was filmed, they slashed it to only $17 million. Whoa, hold on! As a result Furie had to cut scenes and reuse special effects. In fact, the special effects were so bad in the movie that I was wondering if I was going to see the cable that held Superman in the air.

There is also 50 minutes of deleted footage that hasn’t been seen at all. The movie was originally scheduled to run at 2 hours and 20 minutes. Because of the cutbacks, it became the shortest Superman film at only 90 minutes. Those extra 50 minutes were vital to making sense of the entire story but never made it to the final cut. I always wondered as a kid why the comic book adaptation of the movie was different and so much better than the actual movie itself. Now I know why.

And then there were just the plain stupid scenes that made you think, “What the heck was that?” In one scene Superman rescues Lacy and flies up into space to escape the Nuclear Man. See the problem already? Lacy, a normal human being with no space gear on whatsoever, is in space. On top of that, the Nuclear Man pummels Superman, so he lets go of Lacy and she falls towards Earth. I can think of many reasons why she shouldn’t be alive at this point, but she is and survives. I’m still scratching my head over that one.

And the new powers that keep popping up all the time was making me frustrated. Superman can rebuild the Great Wall of China with his vision. Do we dare call it his “Building Block Vision”? And since when can he levitate people by pointing at them? Great Caesar’s Ghost!

Christopher Reeve, despite having a say in the movie and helping write the script, knew that this movie was a catastrophe from start to finish. I’m sure he was glad not to reprise this role again. I also know he wanted to tackle some world issues and to some extent, he succeeded in voicing his opinion. The execution was still flawed, however. The missing 50 minutes made a huge difference in the flow of the story. At least there would have been some cohesion instead of this train wreck.

In the end, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace should have stayed as a concept on paper rather than this debacle on the screen. I didn’t think anything could be worse than Superman III but someone always has the pleasure of proving me wrong.

With all these new powers Superman has been displaying it’s not surprising that he can also see into the future, as indicated in this exchange with Luthor.

Lex Luthor: Is the world gonna be incinerated?
Superman: No. It's the same as it's always been: on the brink. With good fighting evil. See you in twenty.

He’s right. It would be almost 20 years after this film that Superman would grace the silver screen again and erase the kryptonite poisoning everyone experienced after watching Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.


Other Comic Book Movies
Batman
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
Batman & Robin
Batman Begins
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
The Batman Superman Movie
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
Spider-Man
Superman: The Movie
Superman II
Superman III
X-Men
X2: X-Men United
X-Men: The Last Stand

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: None of the Above
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 9 - 12