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SUPERMAN IV MEDIA REVIEWS OF SUPERMAN IV
Movie Review:
"Superman IV: The Quest For Peace"
Part of the fun of each Superman film has always been that opening credit crawl, with its hilariously grandiose lettering and its stately pace. In "Superman IV: The Quest For Peace", which opened yesterday at the New Carnegie and other theaters, the credits zip by in a shaky manner, trailed by billows of unsightly glitter. This is a bad sign. What's more, the Superman flying sequences, which were spectacular in the first film, look chintzy in this one, and the special effects are perfunctory, too. (Superman repairs the Great Wall of China with a single brief glance.) The cinematography is so sloppy that Superman's turquoise suit is sometimes green. Luckily, there's more to "Superman IV" than looks. Christoper Reeve is still giving this character his all, and especially in his bumbling Clark Kent incarnation he remains delightful. (Clark pretends he can't hit a baseball in one scene, then bats it into outer space when no one's looking.) Also back, and also a treat, is Gene Hackman as the gleefully malevolent Lex Luthor. Jon Cryer does a funny turn as Luthor's obnoxious nephew. The women in Superman's life - Margot Kidder as the sexy, earnest Lois Lane (who still doesn't get the full picture where Superman is concerned) and Mariel Hemingway as a glamorous new love interest for Clark - also add some spice. One prolonged sequence here has Clark/Superman courting exhaustion as he meets both of them for a double date. Miss Hemingway plays Clark Kent's new boss, the daughter of an unscrupulous mogul (Sam Wanamaker) who takes over the Daily Planet and tries to turn it into a sleazy tabloid ("Summit Kaput - Is World on Brink?" asks one banner headline, illustrated by a photo of a girl in a bathing suit.). This film's social conscience, which fortunately is presented with a minimum of self-righteousness, also leads Superman to the United Nations, where he makes a speech and promises to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He is then seen gathering missiles into a gigantic mesh shopping bag, spinning it around and flinging it into the sun, where it explodes. The Superman series gets more and more whimsically outrageous as it goes along. The cast wears costumes that are swanky but very strange, and the dialogue is also unexpectedly funny at times, as when Luthor pronounces Superman a workaholic and advises him to "stop and smell the roses". There's also a new character, a solar-powered blond titan (Mark Pillow) created by Luthor as a rical for Superman, to keep the action moving. Threadbare as it's beginning to look, the Superman series hasn't lost its raison d'etre. There's life in the old boy yet.
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