Mac Spotting News Posted by Seb Patrick on 2nd July 2005, 13:30 I finally found myself a copy of the wretched Superman IV : The Quest For Peace at a car boot sale today. Yes, I know it’s down there with Captain America and Batman & Robin in the pantheon of worst ever comic book movies, but I had to get it for curiosity’s sake. Ten minutes or so into the film, and none other than Mac McDonald shows up. Unlike his role in Aliens, though, he’s actually playing a character a bit different to Captain Hollister – a Texan cop who gets locked in a remote-controlled car and crashed into a canyon (don’t ask). But yeah, if I was in that film, I’d have kept it quiet as well.
I remember getting really excited when this film came out. Mainly because the Daily Planet building at the end was actually the stone & webster building my dad worked in next to Milton Keynes train station. They apparently filmed the skyscraper then swapped it from being a horizontal shot to vertical (or Vice Versa). The best bit is when Superman swoops in at the end you can very clearly see the reflection of the crane from which he was dangling in the glass of the “skyscraper”
They clearly spent all the money (what little of it there was) on the salaries of Reeve, Kidder and Hackman. Because it sure as hell didn’t go on the effects. There’s a bit early on where he’s flying in front of a subway train, and not only does it almost just look like a flat still photograph superimposed onto the picture (almost like the Starbug in Series VII, heh), the sizing is completely disproportionate and wrong. And then there’s the small matter of the 45 minutes of footage chopped from the middle of the film that leave a massive jump in plot, rendering the second half of the film pretty much nonsensical. The whole thing’s just a mess, but you have to feel for Reeve, because he was really still giving it his all.
You should watch the second one, because it’s great. The third one is disappointing, but still has some things to recommend it if you like the character (the fight between Clark Kent and Evil Superman was pretty much my favourite thing in the world when I was a kid). The fourth one should be avoided at all costs unless you’re a fan with a burning curiosity, or an extreme masochist.
I am a fan with a burning curiosity. I only ever saw this film once, many, many years ago when my dad rented it out for us. I can’t remember anything about it except Nuclear Man, if that’s what he was called. I’d really like to see it again, just because I’m a big fan of the first two films, but for some reason they never show it on TV.
Good god, Superman IV is awful. It seems it was only done because they wanted to make a statement about nuclear warheads or something. If you thought Superman III was bad (lets face it, it is mostly) then you need to watch IV to see how truly dismal things can get. It’s like watching Series VII and thinking ‘ah well, things can only get better, right?’ only for it to all come crashing down. Hell, the new Superman film next year might end up being even worse…. actually no it won’t.
> Hell, the new Superman film next year might end up being even worse…. I doubt it. Bryan Singer’s directing, and he’s brilliant.
Nuclear Man is awesome, Siegfried sans Roy look and all. I also like the shot of the sun rising over the moon and the shaft of light through the lift rejuvenating Nuclear’s powers.
Superman IV is almost upsettingly bad. I can still enjoy quite a lot of III, Superman being a dick, the Tower of Pisa stuff etc. I think Richard Lester did a very good job of finishing II, and it’s unfortunate that some of the patches aren’t hard to spot, like the Hackman impersonator (“South, Miss Teschmacher! South!”). I wasn’t too impressed by the Donner cut of II.
I like Superman IV more now than I did when I wrote this original post. It’s a legitimately awful film on every conceivable level, of course, but I enjoy it.
I didn’t see the date of the OP the fist pass, and when I read “Captain America … worst” I was “Whaaaaat?” for a moment, LOL.
