Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Everybody laments how bad the fourth Superman is, but in that regard, it is absolutely excellent. As a product of both its time and the hellish circumstances of its creation, it is one of the most entertaining comic-book movies of all time, though to a large extent unintentionally. The bosses at Cannon Films were the first to sense the commercial potential of comic-book movies and planned an entire series of adaptations in which the reboot of the Superman franchise would be followed by Captain America and Spider-Man. Unfortunately, the company had already fallen into financial difficulties at that time, so their resuscitation of Superman ended up being the final nail in the coffin instead of the desired financial boost. The film required proper funding for special effects, but Cannon was forced to cut the budget from the planned 36 million dollars to 17 million, which is obvious in the final result. Add to that the very heavy-handed cutting of more than half an hour of scenes after an unfavourable test screening, due to which the film contains a number of obvious plot holes and motifs that are introduced but never revisited and brought to a conclusion. On the other hand, the blame doesn’t fall solely on the management of Cannon Films. A significant share of the blame can also be laid at the feet of Christopher Reeve, who used the film as a means of venting his attitude toward nuclear weapons, and the screenwriters, who certainly didn’t bother with such things as logic, physics or basic facts, such as that there is no air in space. Conversely, these and many other manifestations of naïveté correspond to the now-neglected idea that superhero comics and comic-book movies were originally intended for children. Today, after the flood of overly clever comic-book movies that flatter fans and pass off Wikipedia histories of their protagonists and pubescent gloom and angst as being mature, it is conversely wonderfully refreshing to see an old-school comic-book flick with an ultra-helpful hero, a cartoonishly evil villain, superficially humorous scenes, surreal superhero deeds and literal declamation and bombastic patriotism in the style of 1950s ideological agitprop. In its spectacular comic-book excess, rollicking lack of seriousness and all-encompassing campiness, Superman IV is not only more entertaining, but also more honest and memorable than most of today’s uniformly overdone comic-book blockbusters, none of which can compare to grandiosely goofy scenes like plugging up an erupting volcano with the peak of a mountain. (10/11/2015)

And this is how superheroes meet their maker. With pathos to the bone, with zero craftsmanship, and with a stumbling cast of actors. Bryan Singer deserves a monument for being able to scratch out his last two Superman Returns films and bring Kal-El back to the top. (06/22/2005)

The script is not good, there's simply nothing that can be done about it. However, it is certainly not the only element that brought the film down. The main blame for the failure lies with the studio itself, which essentially abandoned the film and treated it as just another one from their production. Financially, they were unable to manage and oversee it. This eventually led to the dreadful visual aspect of the film. Whereas Donner could boast about absolutely brilliant effects in the first film, here, the fourth one drastically declined and every shot of flying looks ridiculously staged. I know that money shouldn't have such a big influence on a film, but in this case, it happened anyway. "Superman 4" transformed into an incredibly B-grade production due to their lack, which could not have any serious ambitions. Success simply could not be seriously discussed. More: http://www.comics-blog.cz/2013/08/240-superman-4-1987-25.html (08/20/2013)

At Cannon Films, they only resurrected Superman so that they could bury him again, this time for good. The means of producing this was unbelievably and appallingly handled by the moviemakers, which is sometimes really hilarious in parts of some scenes (like the plugging up the volcano), however, as a whole does not work even on a basic level. The effects are absolutely abysmal, the acting is wooden, the directing is confusing, the screenplay is unbearably stupid, and although it is the shortest Superman movie with a running time of 90 minutes, it seems to go on for three hours. Never again. (05/24/2019)