Regarding Superman: Why The Quest for Peace is Better than III

Easily, the most critically panned Superman film of the first series is 1987’s The Quest for Peace. It’s pretty easy to understand why: a full film was made, did horribly at test screenings, they cut the shit out of it, and what they ended up with was worse than what they had initially.

But even so, I enjoy Superman IV quite a bit more than its predecessor, for a number of reasons. I’ll list a few of them off:

1) Simply Describing the Plot to People Sounds Better

Here’s IV: Feeling a responsibility to defend the Earth from the very real threat of nuclear annihilation, Superman takes it upon himself to rid our planet of the powerful weapons. Wanting to profiteer off of fear and humanity’s innate desire to create war, Lex Luthor uses Superman’s good deed as a tool to destroy him, by creating a being that can both kill Superman and allow Luthor to make billions of dollars rearming the world’s governments.

Here’s III: A technology tycoon manipulates a clueless man who has an innate ability to use computers into using his technological skills to try and rule the world financially. Seeing Superman as a threat, he finds a way to create an element causing him to doubt himself and his purpose, all the while an old flame has returned to Clark Kent’s life in the form of high school sweetheart Lana Lang.

Now, just off the fly, which of those movies sound better to you? The one about a goofball that uses computers played by Richard Pryor, or the one about Superman trying to save the world from nuclear weapons and Lex Luthor?

2) Reeve’s Performance

Although the execution of this movie was cheap and embarrassing, Christopher Reeve’s performance is actually one of his best in this series, right behind the obviously-superior first two parts. There are several of his bumbling Clark Kent moments that are very well comedically timed, and the straight-faced way Superman wants to save us all from ourselves comes across as rather genuine. His banter with Lex Luthor and the way he conducts himself while damaged after his fight with Nuclear Man is also rather good.

Reeve was always extraordinary in this role in every installment, particularly with his uncanny ability to play several different characters through one overarching Man of Steel. He does this in III with the fight against himself and the way he created the persona of the “corrupted” Superman. In IV, Clark has some very quiet and personal moments where it’s almost as if you can see the weight of the world on his shoulders.

3) Gene Hackman and the Return of Lex Luthor

It’s well documented that the only reason Hackman even considered this film was as a personal favor to Christopher Reeve, but his mere presence, I feel, automatically gives this film more credibility than the previous installment. With many famous actors in bad movies, you can pretty much tell when they’re phoning a performance in. Admittedly, Hackman does this in a few places. But the moments where he is directly interacting with Superman, or extorting other maniacal world leaders for their share of nuclear profits, it’s easy to see that the Gene Hackman from 1978 decided to make a quite noticeable return in 1987.

I also argue that using Luthor once more, while it would later prove problematic for Superman Returns (which was criticized for using Luthor yet again), was a good move since he’s obviously the superior villain to the hackneyed Luthor-lite they came up with in Superman III.

But yes, I will admit, the character of Lenny was the most redundant thing I may have ever seen in any movie ever.

4) An Overall More Serious Tone

Superman III suffered in large part to me because the entire thing seemed to have its tongue planted in its cheek. From the mere casting of Richard Pryor, to opening up with a shameless slapstick comedy scene, it’s probably the oddest and most out-of-place installment of a Superman film.

With The Quest for Peace, Christopher Reeve had a direct hand in developing the story, noticing the very points I’ve outlined, and wanted to return to the former glory of the first film. That mere intention raises the stature of this film well above III, because as a fan of the character I don’t need to see him treated like an excuse to be “wacky.” If Richard Donner had directed this film, and if it was given a proper budget and more creative clout behind it, we would still be going to movie theaters every couple of summers to watch Christopher Reeve take flight.

So, in the end, I like The Quest for Peace quite a bit more than I like Superman III. It’s not an argument I win very much, but even so, I thought I might as well spell it out while it had crossed my mind again.