I Forgot How Bad These Final 2 Christopher Reeve Superman Movies Were

After watching and watching again James Gunn’s Superman trailer I’ve been on a Superman high for the past few weeks. I decided to continue Building Lego on Christmas breakI would watch them all again Christopher Reeve Superman movies. Movies I’ve seen before – I’m even old enough to watch IV in theaters—but hadn’t been consistently revisited in decades. What I found was one of the fastest declining franchises I can think of, although I believe two films in history have been reversed.

Everyone would agree with Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman it’s classic. It’s so epic and full of memorable scenes that it still stands as one of the greatest superhero movies of all time. Clearly the best of the bunch. Superman II is a definite step up, but it wraps up the film’s story nicely, giving us a full circle with Clark Kent and Lois Lane’s characters, and wrapping up the whole General Zod thing.

Then I threw it Superman III and I immediately knew it was a bad decision. It begins with Richard Pryor’s character at the unemployment office. Then he magically becomes the world’s greatest computer hacker. Clark Kent returns to Smallville and becomes strangely close to an old classmate. Pryor and his evil boss make fake kryptonite, which is basically cigarettes, making Superman a downright badass. Then we have to watch him be an ass for a very long time. Ultimately, Superman battles himself, becomes normal again, and fights computer hackers, while inexplicably forgiving Pryor’s character. This is, frankly, a big piece of shit.

Superman III actually made me angry. If I wanted to watch a Richard Pryor movie, I would. It was obviously only Richard Pryor in a movie Superman film, not the other way around. It misunderstands the characters, never develops a dramatic plot, is full of all sorts of inappropriate gags, and works better as an anti-smoking ad than anything else. It bothered me a lot because I had seen it Superman and Superman II I don’t remember several times in recent years III or IV also. All I remember, I thought, IV was the worst of the bunch. So I was a little hesitant when I started.

Going in with these low expectations, I actually found it Superman IV: The Quest for Peace to be very superior Superman III. It’s still creepy—let’s not forget that—but at least it’s trying to be Superman movie. He fell in love with Lois Lane again, Margot Kidder returned for the entire film. Lex Luthor has a new scheme and Gene Hackman is back for the entire movie. Superman must fight an otherworldly supervillain in Nuclear Man. And the character works for the betterment of the whole world. These are all things that feel crucial to each other’s DNA in one way or another Superman movie.

Of course, this all happens very easily, and none of the actors – with the exception of the always exceptional Reeve – seem to care one bit about what they’re doing. Superman IV it forgets the events of the other movies, looks bad, feels too small for the franchise, and the action set pieces are terrible. It’s a bad, bad movie. But this is a step up from the ugliness of the previous one.

As soon as the movie ends (Superman IV it’s also about 45 minutes shorter than the previous three minutes there are many reasons for this), I felt quite confident in my ratings. One is one, two is two, four is three, three is four. Honestly, it almost felt like an infallible list. So when I looked at Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes to see it Superman III if not much, it is considered better IVI was a little surprised. Obviously that’s the story in my head, but watching two bad movies back-to-back, I felt like the date was wrong after the first and good second movies. Superman III and it is terrible in every sense of the word The Quest for Peace at least it’s terrible while trying to be a Superman movie. And that put him over the top.

Thankfully, Warner Bros. has the perfect palate cleanser for these two monstrosities. No, not an unofficial sequel Superman returns since 2006. We mean Super/Human: The Christopher Reeve Story, a fantastic documentary about man and character. This in fact, it might be the best Superman movie out there.

All these movies are currently streaming on Max.

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