Superman IV: The Quest for Peace Review

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

Release Date: 26th December 1987 - Australia

Production Companies

Warner Bros. Pictures

Cannon Films

Golan-Globus Productions

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi

Rating: PG

Runtime: 86 minutes 

Budget: $17,000,000

Box Office Gross: $36,700,000 (Worldwide)

Plot Summary

Seeing the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a nuclear arms race that could destroy Earth, Superman decides to take action. He rids the world of its nuclear arsenal by collecting the warheads and throwing them into space. Meanwhile, Superman's

arch-foe, Lex Luthor,

escapes from prison and

is hatching a new scheme.

He combines Superman's

DNA with radioactive

material to create a clone

just as powerful as the

Man of Steel called

Nuclear Man.

Cast

Christopher Reeve - Clark
Kent/Superman

Margot Kidder - Lois Lane

Gene Hackman - Lex Luthor

Mark Pillow - Nuclear Man

Jackie Cooper - Perry White

Marc McClure - Jimmy Olsen

Jon Cryer - Lenny Luthor

Mariel Hemingway - Lacy Warfield

Sam Wanamaker - David Warfield

Susannah York - Lara (Voice)
Damian McLawhorn - Jeremy
William Hootkins - Harry Howler
Jim Broadbent - Jean Pierre Dubois

Stanley Lebor - General Romoff

Don Fellows - Levon Hornsby

Robert Beatty - U.S. President

Bradley Lavelle - Tall Marshall (Chain Gang)

Mac McDonald - Marshall 1

Czeslaw Grocholski - Russian General 1

Steve Plytas - Russian General 2

John Hollis - Russian General 3 (Kremlin)

Bob Sherman - Senator - Pentagon

Eiji Kusuhara - U.N. Guard - Japanese

Yuri Borienko - Russian General - Red Square

Boris Isarov - Cosmonaut Captain

Dorota Zieciowska - Cosmonaut

Jiri Stanislav - Cosmonaut

Jayne Brook - Teacher - JFK High School

Mark Caven - Priest - Boystown

David Garth - First Elder

Esmond Knight - Second Elder

Eugene Lipinski - Cosmonaut - Space Walker

Dennis Creaghan - Bill Compton

Kerry Shale - MBC Newscaster

Crew

Director - Sidney J. Furie

Based on Comic Book
"Superman" - Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster

Superman Motion Pictures
Initiator - Alexander Salkind

Story/Screenplay - Lawrence
Konner and Mark Rosenthal

Story/Second Unit Director - Christopher Reeve
Executive Producer - Michael J. Kagan

Producers - Menahem Golan

and Yoram Globus

Production Designer - John Graysmark

Conceptual Artist/Matte Artist: U.K. -

Martin Asbury

Art Director - Leslie Tomkins

Art Director: Models - John Fenner

Assistant Art Directors - Reg Bream

and Steve Cooper

Construction Manager - Terry Apsey

Set Decorator - Peter Young

Costume Designer - John Bloomfield

Makeup Supervisor - Stuart Freeborn

Director of Photography - Ernest Day

Director of Photography: Second Unit -

Godfrey A. Godar

Aerial Photography: Gyrosphere - David Nowell,

Marc Wolff, Michael Kelem and Steve North

Unit Production Manager: U.K. - Malcolm J. Christopher

Flying/Second Unit Director - David Lane

Second Unit Director/Visual Effects Supervisor -
Harrison Ellenshaw

Stunt Coordinator - Alf Joint

Special Effects Supervisor - John Evans

Visual Effects Art Director - Dorne Huebler

Animation Supervisor - Michael Lessa

Model Effects Supervisor - Richard Conway

Director of Photography: Model Effects -

Harry Oakes

Senior Special Effects Technicians:

Model Effects - David McCall,

Robert Hollow, Christine Overs,

Andrew Kelly and Martin Gant

Matte Painting Supervisor: U.K. - Peter Ellenshaw

Opticals: Optical Film Effects Ltd. - Roy Field,

Peter Watson, Peter Swenson and

Dick Dimbleby

Film Editor - John Shirley

Supervising Sound Editor - Chris Greenham

Supervising Re-Recording Mixer - Bill Rowe

Re-Recording Mixer - Ray Merrin

Music - Alexander Courage

Themes - John Williams

Music Editor - Robert Hathaway

Review

Hello, fanatical moviegoers. It's RadDingo here. We'll look at one of the worst conclusions to a movie series ever conceived. That is until the godawful Batman & Robin paralleled it ten years later. I would have forgiven SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE of its flaws if it entertained me as the other films in circulation. The movie came from a different team on a shoestring budget with a notorious lack of respect for the Donner/Lester series. SUPERMAN IV was known as the red-headed step-child of the classic film series and is an atrocious package of cheesiness that is so bad. It contains inconsistent plotting, mangled editing, terrible logic and cheap special effects. It even has a moral that addresses how nuclear warfare is a growing danger to humanity. A message came from the original actor who played the Man of Steel, Christopher Reeve. While he has a point, SUPERMAN IV loses its impact in its poor execution of this message.

SUPERMAN IV is supposed to move away from the redundant slapstick direction that Richard Lester had overused and embraced in Superman III. I surmised that THE QUEST FOR PEACE is no different than its predecessor and has at least tried to make Superman fly again. Having original actors like Gene Hackman and Christopher Reeve wasn't enough to repair the damage. Not even Jon Cryer's performance as Lex's moronic nephew will save the film from becoming an atrocity. I note how SUPERMAN IV's huge missteps included the villainous Nuclear Man, who looks more like a reject than a worthy foe for Superman. Then there's the sluggish moon scene where they battle each other in space, and the flying sequence heavily recycled from the first instalment.

The fiasco that SUPERMAN IV left no chance of not tarnishing the reputations of those who have worked on the movie's low-budget scale. Even the late actor Christopher Reeve never got to be Superman again after this happened, even after his paralysis affected him in 1995. Several comic-book fans and moviegoers may want to watch Superman Returns instead and throw this second-rate addition into the bargain bin.

Star rating: (1/10) Worst Movie Ever

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