Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

"No pain, no gain..."

 You know those "bad" films that are actually fun to watch and sort of entertain you in spite of everything? Well...

I mean, I can see why this was the last Superman film of its series. The special effects are endearingly crap. The script is cartoonish. The whole thing is very silly. And yet the whole thing remains eminently watchable.

It helps that the characters are well-established, and that Reeve,
Kidder and Hackman are as excellent as always; this film isn’t big, it isn’t clever, it isn’t particularly well made. But it’s fun. So let’s ignore the silliness and the plot holes, including the one where the superpowers don’t seem to resent Superman for throwing billions worth of expensive nukes into the Sun in a scene which harms back to the left-wing wish fulfilment scenes of the early comic books. Let’s not study the political message of the film too closely, though; this is not exactly a detailed philosophical examination of nuclear disarmament.

So, yes. The film is silly, shoddily made and killed the franchise. But it’s also perfect light viewing after a two hundred mile round trip.