Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Just when the heartbroken fans of the “Superman” series thought that things couldn’t possibly get any worse, they were forced to think again. As impossible as it may seem, “Superman IV” managed to be even worse than its antecedents. The production company that made this film was well-known for being ridiculously stingy, and it shows in the special effects. This film was created in a time period where the nuclear weapons threat was still a big deal, and they incorporated that theme far too heavily into the storyline to be taken seriously. And somehow, everyone forgot how to act.

It’s hard to believe that the “Superman” franchise could have possibly allowed a film like “The Quest for Peace” to be made, but when it passed the production torch to Golan-Globus, all bets were off. The Golan-Globus production company was always notorious for being miserly, and the film’s original $36 million budget was cut to $17 million post-production. Therefore, the special effects suffered greatly. There were giant black lines around the characters every time they flew, the fight scenes looked terrible, and the running time was cut to less than an hour and a half. The latter didn’t stop anyone from impatiently checking their watches while watching, though.

One of the things that make “The Quest for Peace” so amazingly pitiful is WMD-smothered storyline. The film was created in a time period where nuclear weapons were the political centerpieces of all governmental actions, and Christopher Reeve strongly advocated to make that the primary theme of “Superman IV.” Well, his heart was in the right place, but his idea was a giant flop. Superman decided to put all of the weapons he found into a giant net floating in space, and then throw the net straight into the sun. This was cheesy enough, but then they went so far as to include a super villain called Nuclear Man. How hard is it really to incorporate some subtlety?

Both Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder stated in an interview that they considered the fourth and final film to be vastly substandard to the others, and Gene Hackman said something similar. Their opinions on the film may actually have affected the effort they put into their roles. All three of them did terrible jobs acting, and it made an already appalling film even worse.

Overall, “Superman IV: The Quest for Peace” was one of the worst films ever made, and it shamed “Superman” forever. The film had a very low budget, which led to seriously low-quality special effects. The nuclear weapons theme was too obvious and way overused. The main actors did terribly this time. This film isn’t worth seeing at all, and it doesn’t earn a single star.