Tag Archives: Worst superhero movie

Man of Steel Crash Lands in “Superman IV”

Sidney J. Furie’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (F) was the film that trashed a perfectly good franchise, and this was coming off a previous film in which Supes accidentally ate dog food and straightened the Leaning Tower of Pisa. This fourth installment has Christopher Reeve’s now sullen Superman promise a bratty kid he will rid the world of nuclear weapons; but when he does so he accidentally activates a super-villain named Nuclear Man who had been strategically placed in embryo form in outer space by Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) and his Valley Girl nephew (Jon Cryer) for just such a fertilization. Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow) is quite possibly the lamest supervillain in movie history. Some of the effects in this film look like two dimensional cardboard cut-outs. Hurriedly-dressed sets are hilarious in how much they don’t look like Manhattan/Metropolis. And the stunning lack of logic around topics such as breathing in space further mars this quickie sequel as it creaks to the screen.