Film Monthly Home
Archives
Wayne Case
Interviews
Steve Anderson
The Rant
Short Takes (Archived)
Small Screen Monthly
Behind the Scenes
New on DVD
The Indies
Horror
Film Noir
Coming Soon
Now Playing
Television
Books on Film
What's Hot at the Movies This Week
Interviews TV
|
Review: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
Christopher Reeve returns to the role that made him a star, after an absence of four years, as the Man of Steel in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace. It’s a great disappointment as Sidney Furie’s film comes off as being little more than a parody. Quite unlike the 1978 release which made us believe a man could fly—or at least do so more convincingly than in this effort. Producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus bring the incredible heroics of the comic book favorite down to Earth with a loud thud more so than a medallion of Kryptonite ever could.
Reeve is credible as usual in the dual role of Clark Kent and the title role. Yet some shoddy effects make his heroic feats look laughable. Nor is he helped by a script that is as much of a hodgepodge as most of the film sadly is. Surprisingly, Reeve is credited as one of the story writers along with Mark Rosenthal and Lawrence Konner—both the writers of the OK Romancing the Stone sequel The Jewel of the Nile—and nabs a credit as a second unit director.
David Warfield (Sam Wanamaker, last seen as the capo in Raw Deal and appeared in the stalled 1985 Reeve vehicle The Aviator) is a would-be William Randolph Hearst who has purchased The Daily Planet and has designs on turning the trusted Metropolis staple into a tabloid. This doesn’t sit well with editor Perry White (Jackie Cooper). Warfield’s ravishing daughter Lacy (Mariel Hemingway) has some ideas for the paper and has designs on a certain mild-mannered reporter.
Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) is freed from incarceration by his punk nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer) who is hoping to make good on his vow to destroy Superman. He also hopes to keep some arms dealers in business. Luthor may have found a way to achieve both. Thanks to his nemesis, who has vowed to rid the world of all nuclear missiles, Luthor might very well have found the desired results in making the Man of Steel history and earning a sizable commission from his missile merchants.
Margot Kidder has more onscreen time as Lois Lane than in the last film where she offered a cameo that was almost microscopic compared with Marlon Brando’s appearance in the first. There is a rather amusing sequence where Lois and Lacy have a double date with Superman and Clark which is scrapped via Lex Luthor—of course—which has our hero flying about the world attempting to put the kibosh on his adversary’s powerful ally: a solar-born dynamo named…Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow).
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is basically a hybrid of two genre classics” Robert Wise’s The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) and James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931). The latter comes courtesy of Luthor’s henchman, a laughable hulk who resembles an action figure that has come to life. Reportedly, some 45 minutes of footage was excised as Cannon felt a family film should not have a running time of over 90 minutes. Maybe they didn’t know (or remember) that the first film was nearly two-and-a-half hours and the first sequel was just over two hours.
Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster should feel cheated by the cheapening over their legendary creation which in 1988 will mark the fiftieth anniversary of Superman’s first published exploits. As they did with releasing Joseph Zito’s Missing in Action (1984) months away from the decade following the fall of Saigon, Cannon once again crashes the party with an effort as welcome as a circus performance at a funeral.
Robert Baum is Currently a Bryn Mawr, PA-based film afficanado and pop culture junkie.
Got a problem? E-mail us at filmmonthly@gmail.com
|