Super Movies! The one where Superman takes everybody's nukes

 

Title: Superman 4: The Quest For Peace

What Year?: 1987

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Improbable Experiment

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

In the course of this and other features, I’ve regularly mentioned certain movies that I have meant to review but not gotten to for a very long time. This time, I’m finally getting to one of the movies that inspired me to start this feature. A further common denominator is that it’s one I heard of and saw well before I knew anything about its current reputation, in this case as perhaps the most legendarily bad example of its genre. Of course, with that kind of background, I’m practically obliged to be contrary. So here is Superman IV, a superhero movie that killed a franchise, a studio, and very possibly came close to killing the superhero genre.

Our story begins, after an opening credits sequence in space, with the most iconic of superheroes engaging in some mild-mannered rescues. Meanwhile, Clark Kent faces the sale of a family farm and the purchase of the Daily Planet by a sleazy tabloid publisher and his daughter. Things take an intriguing turn when a boy sends a letter asking Superman to rid the world of nuclear weapons. After reconnecting with Lois Lane, the hero takes his do-gooder vigilantism on the international circuit and starts rounding up the nukes of both the Soviets and his own country. Just when it looks like this might be interesting, the story shifts to Lex Luthor, who convinces a group of disgruntled arms merchants to fund a clone of Superman, for some reason created by throwing Kryptonian genetic material into the sun. The result is a weird superhuman who emerges as a sort of fiery stellar fetus and then metamorphoses into a leather-clad, golden-haired mutation. It’s up to Superman to defend the world from the abomination, but when the mutant leaves him for dead, is the world down for the count?

Superman IV was the only movie in the franchise produced by (why do I bother) the Cannon Group, after Ilya and Alexander Salkind withdrew following the commercial failures of Supergirl (see also Santa Claus). Christopher Reeve returned on the condition that the film would include an anti-nuclear message. The movie also brought back Margot Kidder as Lois Lane and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, after their roles and characters were reduced or removed in Superman 3. Other cast included John Cryer as Luthor’s nephew Lenny and male model/ dancer Mark Pillow as the evil superhuman, referred to in the credits simply as the Nuclear Man. The final storyline had unacknowledged similarities to the 1977 short “Steel” by Alan Brennert, a frequent contributor to DC’s Superman comic, as well as Kurt Vonnegut’s classic 1950 story “Report On The Barnhouse Effect”.  Cannon reportedly edited the final film for a 90-minute running time, reportedly removing scenes that would have expanded or resolved several subplots. The film earned $36 million against a $17M budget, and was deemed a commercial failure for the already struggling studio. Cannon also optioned Marvel characters Spider Man and Captain America, but only the latter led to a completed film.

For my history, this is another movie I caught on 1990s TV. Long before that, I remember finding a tie in book, as far as I can recall a book of puzzles that also featured quizzes about the movie. By the time I got to it, I had already read Vonnegut’s story and I believe also Brennert’s singularly bleak tale, which I had to do a deep dive just to identify; and no, nobody else has discussed either story in connection with this movie. At the time, I didn’t consider it that much better or worse than the other Superman movies I had encountered. (Then again, I would probably have said I actually liked Superman 3.) I was always intrigued just by the idea of a superhero against the military might of at least two mutually hostile powers, which has been enough to keep this one on my good side. I finally watched it again about the time I trashed the preceding movie for the Space 1979 Threequel Trilogy, and once I thought of this feature, it was right at the top of my list, initially as a companion piece for Supergirl. I suppose a major reason I’m finally getting to it now is that I finally found a good deal on another that has remained way up there, so I threw in a used copy of this one to round out the lineup. For once, I watched it very quickly, and coming out of it, I’m still very conflicted.

The foremost thing to be said about this movie is that it’s more interesting, if not frustrating, for what could have been done than at actually happens onscreen. Clearly, once they decided on the nuclear disarmament arc, it should have occupied a much larger part of the story, and they could have worked in the kind of detail covered by Vonnegut and Brennert. For example, it clearly wouldn’t work to disarm one side then the other, because the power still temporarily in possession of their weapons would just strike while they were ahead. So, it would have to be done in a series of raids against both sides, starting with the nuclear subs and other mobile platforms that would be difficult to find or hit in a conventional way. That in itself would offer a range of nightmarish scenarios for all concerned, from a shootout with missiles on one side and a nuclear reactor on the other to some fanatical commander rigging one or more nukes as a suicide bomb (about right for Hackman’s character in Crimson Tide!). Then, if and when it became clear that Superman couldn’t be stopped, things could go one of two ways. At worst, both superpowers would hit each other with everything they still had, and the superhero would have to try to block the worst of it. At best, their leaders would actually put their differences aside long enough to try to take out Superman, complete with a further propaganda campaign to discredit him, which would all tie in nicely with the movie’s other scrambled subplots.

In reality, almost all of what redeeming qualities the movie has come into play with the Nuclear Man story arc. It’s a very cheap redo of what Superman 2 already did better, yet it remains at a minimum far more memorable than any number of similar sequences in the age of Marvel movies. The evil superhuman is genuinely surreal, more like Joseph Goebbels’ vision of the superman than DC’s, complete with those weird retractable claws that take on a personality all their own. His battles with Superman quickly transcend the story into an allegorical clash of the avatars of chaos and order, unhindered if not actually aided by the stylized low-budget effects. Then there is surprising weight in the intervening segments. When the solar-man meets his creator, there’s a genuine clash of personalities, left inconclusive due to the superhuman’s incongruous weaknesses (which should really have applied to Superman all along). Then there is the meeting between the Clark Kent and Lois Lane after Superman’s defeat, which I seriously considered as the “one scene”. It’s a nuanced, sometimes awkward exchange that I’m not satisfied I’ve worked out. There’s an especially jarring moment when Clark Kent asks if something happened to Superman, which I rewound to try to figure out. While I can see a few interpretations, I stand by what first crossed my mind, which that the superhero has been beaten and demoralized badly enough that his Clark Kent persona and his Superman identity have dissociated from each other.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and what was always in the lead was a notorious sequence I remembered from all the way back. In the middle of the first battle, the Nuclear Man demolishes a section of the Great Wall of China. Naturally, Superman swoops in and saves a few tourists, which would have been good enough. But per this movie, it’s the Man of Steel’s nature to clean up a mess even if it isn’t his, so he sets about to rebuild the wall. Of course, I’m aware per the lore that it was planned to show him repairing the wall at superhuman speed, which someone then decided would cost too much. Instead, we see him turn on his laser eyes, and the bricks simply fly back into place. It’s surreal, it’s absurd, and I can appreciate the argument that it should have been done as planned or left out. However, as with many scenes in the movie, it is memorable, and to that extent, it is effective, which is certainly more than can be said for far too many recent superhero movies.

In closing, I’m ready to take on the question that inspired me to do this review and even the feature: Is this really “worse” than other Superman movies, especially Superman 3?  I have seen plenty of people argue the contrary, and I would have been more than happy to agree with them. Alas, for all the issues I had with the preceding movie, even I must admit that this one is not better by any objective standard. I still give it an effectively higher rating, simply to show that I find its flaws far more excusable, with no regret beyond once again wondering if I was too hard on Lady Snowblood. For context, Superman 3 had more than twice the budget, a third again the running time, and some of the biggest names to appear in the franchise, and squandered them all even in its better moments. By comparison, this movie took a low budget and an assortment of mutually conflicting premises, and managed to bring them together into something unique, in a tolerable 90-some minute length. In my book, that’s still enough to squeak by on the curve.

Image credit originalfilmart.com.