Oh, and in the 50's TV series, Superman was played by George Reeves. Which I never got wrong. So that's OK then. Me wondering if they were related looks a bit silly now, but that's my issue, not yours.
Anyway, back to the blog and at #91 on our list, Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.
Come to think off it is it Cliff Richard or Cliff Richards?
In 1983, after completion of Superman III, everyone involved in the production pretty much thought, 'that's it', and why not? After all, the first 3 films were a big commercial success. Superman, the original film, is a classic and a great re-imagining of the origins. Superman II was fantastic, although to paraphrase 'Family Guy', 'Did you just throw cellophane at me? What's that all about, that's like mildly inconvenienced me!'. Superman III had it's critics, not least Reeve himself, but I liked the comedy and the fact it was not taking itself too seriously. Also Richard Pryor is just damn good, period!
So if the producers of the original trilogy, Alexander and Ilya Salkind, were thinking to themselves, 'we've done all we can do here', then I think few would have disagreed. A great original and 2 not so shabby sequels under their belt, the decision not to tarnish the franchise would have been sound. Unfortunately, money has an annoying way of changing things.
Canon Films and Warner thought that the Salkinds were missing a great money making opportunity to carry on cashing in on the Superman name and so made an offer to buy the rights, which they accepted. Licence in hand, all they then needed to do was convince a reluctant Reeve to reprise the role. Our old friend money changed his mind and with the promise of co-writing the script and backing for a solo project, Reeve dusted off his cape and enormous specs and agreed. The rest of the cast quickly followed.
Almost immediately into production, the studio cut the budget! They were currently supporting 30 other projects and so had spread themselves very thinly. I would like to say that this had no effect on the movie and that the director and producers managed to work around this. I would like to say it but I would be lying as it so clearly did and what was produced was a diluted shadow of its former self.
In an earlier blog, I mentioned the annoying trend of movies from the 80's to use eco issues for their storylines. During this period, nuclear threats and the Cold War were also used ad nauseum. Red Dawn, Firefox, Rocky IV, ('If he dies, he dies!') and many others all had and so Superman IV decided to jump on this already very crowded bandwagon.
The films gets off to it's very familiar start. John Williams music blasts out, the usual font and styling of the opening of the other movies is used and you feel that you are in a nice warm safe place and about to enjoy another 90 minutes of superhero action. Maybe this is why by the end of the movie you feel so let down, because by the mid way point, you realise the gig is up and this is a far poorer product than previously. (In fact the opening titles tells us that this is a Furie film. How right they were as you do feel like performing an act of irrational violence throughout).
We start with Clark going back to his hometown, Smallville and back to the farm he grew up on. Obviously Clark being a very busy Superman, has completely forgotten about the spaceship he originally came to earth in and re-discovers it hidden beneath a trap door in a barn. Within is a glowly thing which Clark is told he must use only once and then the spaceship dies and disappears. By which point I'm thinking lucky spaceship getting to leave the movie so quickly. Clark puts his glowy thing away and we are, off course, meant to forget this has happened and to act surprised when it is used later in the movie. Clark then bumps into an old family friend who then embark on the traditional, 'Clark is a bit clumsy and slow, but when people's back are turned, he can do the same task but with superhuman strength and speed', gag.
This time it is the turn of Clark playing baseball and the old family friend pitches the ball to Clark which off course Clark swipes and misses. Ha ha ha, he so clumsy. Then, after the old family friend, (who I am sure has a name, but I can't be arsed to look it up), drives off, Clark picks up the ball, tosses it in the air and then smashes it out of the earth's orbit, where it narrowly misses Chris Waddles 1990 penalty shot. Ha ha ha, but really he so strong. I guess this makes the film nice and familiar again, but really, it has been done to death and better and could have been left out.
We then have couple of sub plots happening. Lex Luthor, (again, played by Gene Hackman, who really looks like he doesn't want to be there. I suspect, however, our old mate wonga has made an appearance), is broken out of prison by his nephew Lenny, (played by Two and a Half Men's Jon Cryer. At this point, I must apologies to Cryer as I said that in Two and a Half Men, he plays the most pointless, humourless character I have ever seen. He actually plays the 2nd worst, Lenny being the new champ.). This involves a 'hilarious' radio controlled car, (real car, not toy), in which the prison guards get trapped, driven off a cliff, explode and then crawl out dusting themselves down like they have just stepped into an episode of The 'A' Team.
Men!
The other sub plot is the Daily Planet has been bought by a tabloid owner who now wants to take this quality newspaper and turn it into a red top rag. Actually, the Daily Planet being a quality paper is something I dispute as it only seems to only report stories about Superman. It's like the world outside of Metropolis does not exist. Now for me, this sort of inward looking and failing to acknowledge the outside world from an American newspaper is just too far fetched and out there for me to comprehend. Oh, hang on, wait......
With every 'plot' for the movie set in place the main plot is revealed, the Nuclear arms race. The American government announces they are going to step up their Nuclear defense systems. This is in response to the Russians doing something or other, but the end result is a kid, called Jeremy, decides that Superman should step in and get rid of all the nuclear weapons and so writes him a letter asking so. A reluctant Superman at first does not reply to Jeremy, prompting the Daily Planet to run the headline, 'Superman Says Drop Dead To Kid'. Now I must admit the kid is annoying, but I think this is a tad harsh.
Superman then has a moral dilemma of does he or does he help. Apparently he is not supposed to interfere in Human life, (erm, but has he not preciously done that for the last 75 years?), so he consults the world's largest magic 8 ball, The Fortress of Solitude, as to what he should do. The elders, (or whatever they're called), seem about as interested as Hackman and say, 'yeah, why not' and so Superman collects all the nuclear weapons in a giant space net and hurls them into space. And the earth is saved and this was a very short film. Oh no, unfortunately it carries on.
Lex Luthor who is not only a criminal genius but now also a geneticist, comes up with a plan to create a superhuman from Superman's DNA, a nuclear weapon and the sun. In the Metropolis museum, a strand of Superman's hair is in a glass case and is hanging and supporting a 1,000lb weight. OK, so this I get, sort off, in that Superman is strong, so his hair is strong and can support a heavy load. However, Luthor then proceeds to steal the strand of hair by cutting it free with a Wilkinson's bolt cutter. It looks frankly as sharp as the Kardashians at a pub quiz. But steal it, he does, as well as a nuclear weapon, which he puts the hair into and then fires the weapon. Superman, stops the weapon and throws it into the sun and from this a new superhuman is born....Nuclear Man! Ahem.
Nuclear Man, who has the special power of growing his fingernails, looks like an 80's wrestler. I think he looks like Lex Lugor, but I realise this could get confusing, so I'll call him Nuclear Manicure instead. Nuclear Manicure is played by Mark Pillow, (actually maybe it should be Nuclear Manure?), but is voiced by Hackman. This suggests to me that Pillow was not a great actor and that this was hastily done to rescue the character. Pillow however is not a 'bad' baddie and can gurn and look menacing enough whilst wearing tight pants to be a convincing super villain. The problem is rather with the actual character itself. It really is naff, unimaginative and sort of done in Superman III when Superman faced an evil version of himself. There were, originally, 2 nuclear mans but 1 was cut from the final film. I suppose that at least means we didn't get disappointed twice.
So it then plods along to a good vs evil ending. Superman gets scratched by Nuclear Man, (oh, the bitch) and ends up getting radiation poisoning. Luckily the glowy thing we had all forgotten about cures him. Which is handy as almost immediately he is called on to save The Daily Planet's new owner's daughter, Lacy, (Mariel Hemingway), who gets kidnapped by Nuclear Man. This leads me to one of the films most glaring errors in which Nuclear Man takes Lacy into space and the lack of atmosphere / oxygen / breathable substance does not seem to affect our Lacy and she carries on breathing quite happily. (The lack of atmosphere is off course apparent throughout the whole movie, so she was probably used to it by then).
Does Superman defeat Nuclear Man and save the day. Well off course he does and after popping Lex Luthor back in prison, he heads off the UN Headquarters, (Milton Keynes) and makes a resounding speech about how we should all love each other or something and then, to my relief, the credits roll.
Back up Colin, is the UN Headquarters in Milton Keynes? I thought it was in New York. You are right Colin, it is in New York and this brings me to the conclusion of why this movie just did not work and I briefly mentioned it earlier. The films budget was slashed and so they cut corners and it shows...... badly. Rather than getting a permit to film outside the UN Headquarters in New York, which they could have done as a lot of the movie was filmed in New York, they decided to use some industrial estate in Milton Keynes as the 'perfect' backdrop. Why? Because it was a hell of a lot cheaper. But why do it? Why not just move the speech to somewhere else in New York or even at the Daily Planet's headquarters. At least we would know that he is still in New York and clearly not in the freezing drizzle of a grey trading estate in England.
Locations were cut and so were the special effects. Superman's flying, which actually looked pretty good in the first film some 9 years earlier, looks bloody awful. He has a permanent blue hue around him from the blue screen effects. Superman remains in sharp focus, whereas the background is blurry and moves erratically. I would like to say, well it was 1987 and effects weren't as good back then, but that's bollocks. Star Trek TNG had started in the same year, with less budget and looked a million times better. Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Blade Runner all were 80's movies, all had decent special effects and all were wayyyyy better than this movie, (yes, some of the effects have aged in these movies, but seriously, watch some of this film and I think you would agree that some B movies had better effects).
At no point, though, is the lack of money more evident than in the closing fighting scenes between Superman and Nuclear Man on the moon. First problem, the wires are so painfully evident that they might as well have come with a large neon sign with 'WIRES' and a large arrow. It really is poor and I remember looking so carefully at the first 3 movies for them and not seeing them once. Then bang, they are right in your face. Lastly is the effect for 'space' itself which is very clearly a big black curtain. I say very clearly because you can see the damn thing ruffling and moving! What should have been a climatic finale to a cinematic experience ends up looking cheaper than the effects on 'Button Moon'. Honestly a baked bean can and a funnel would have have been like CGI to these guys.
And that is the problem, there was simply no money in the end to make it and quite frankly they should have abandoned the project. The first 3 films were good and they should have just let these stand alone in this version of the franchise. However, the desire for a quick buck blinded everyone involved and even after it was so painfully clear that what was being created was simply not good enough, they all ploughed on. At the end of the day, no-one, not even Superman could have saved this movie.......
