You know a movie is bad when it makes a franchise lay dormant for two decades! Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is by far the worst of the original Superman movies. I love Superman and Superman II and to be fair, I do not hate Superman III and it has some things that I do like. However, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is a movie that I cannot defend, this is just a straight up bad movie in pretty much every regard.
How to Download Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was released on July 24, 1987. You can download or stream the film from a digital platform. Click on the Download button at the end of this review and make your choice.
The Movie Review
A Struggling Production
To be fair, the movie had its budget slashed and they ended up giving Christopher Reeve some creative input and it is said the stuff about the whole nuclear arms race was his idea. Getting Gene Hackman back as Lex Luthor is cool, but he feels like a side piece to the main story and as money was such a huge concern, I wonder why they bothered to have Gene Hackman in the movie as he surely was not cheap.
The plot of the movie revolves around nuclear weapons and how bad they are. Lex Luthor ends up being some kind of arms dealing middleman and has a strand of Superman’s hair that is attached to a nuclear weapon! Somehow a supervillain called Nuclear Man is created and Superman needs to stop him as well as put Lex Luthor and his doofus nephew in jail.
Ok, I am simplifying things a bit here, but the whole movie just fails on pretty much every level. Superman taking on a nuclear-powered villain sounds cool on paper, especially when the fight happens on the moon. However, the lower budget can be seen as the movie kind of looks laughable in many places. Also, the whole anti-nuclear message that the movie has is a good message, but it is about as subtle as a brick to the face.
Superman’s Missed Opportunities
Superman has so many iconic villains, it is a real shame that through four movies, they barely even scraped the surface of the rogues gallery that he has and Nuclear Man kind of feels like a slap in the face. He is a very bland and dare I say lame villain and the best thing about him is that while he was played by an actor called Mark Pillow, it was Gene Hackman who provided his voice. There were so many villains that they could have used, but they instead made up their own one and he kind of sucks!
A Childhood Disappointment
Even as a kid, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace was a movie that I did not care for. I remember being quite bored by it the first time I saw it and it is a movie that I have never warmed to. The thing is, I have really tried to like this movie and find the positives in it and I have watched it several times over the years. However, it has never gotten any better, if anything, it just makes me more made each time I see it. It is a real shame that Christopher Reeve’s amazing run as the Man of Steel came to an end like this.
