I forgot how bad those Christopher Reeve Superman Films Final 2 are

After watching and watching By James Gunn Superman trailer in recent weeks, he was on a Superman high. To continue, I decided that while building a Lego during Christmas breakI was going to look at all the Christopher Reeve Superman films. Movies I’ve seen before, I’m still old enough to have seen IV in theaters, but hadn’t reviewed in order in decades. What I found was one of the fastest declining franchises I can think of, although I believe the story has two of the films reversed.

Everyone agrees that Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman it’s a classic. It’s so epic and full of memorable scenes that it still stands as one of the great superhero movies of all time. Clearly, it is the best of the bunch. Superman II it’s a step up for sure, but it completes the story of that movie nicely, bringing the Clark Kent and Lois Lane characters full circle and wrapping up the whole General Zod thing.

So I popped out Superman III and immediately I knew it was a bad decision. It begins with Richard Pryor’s character in an unemployment office. Then, magically, he 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 a cigarette and inexplicably turns Superman into an idiot. So we have to watch him be an asshole for too long. Finally, Superman fights back, returns to normal, and fights the hackers while also inexplicably forgiving Pryor’s character. It is, to put it bluntly, a huge piece of shit.

Superman III it really made me angry. If I wanted to see a Richard Pryor movie, I would have. This was clearly just Richard Pryor starring in a Superman movie, not the other way around. It misunderstands the characters, never develops a dramatic plot, is full of all kinds of out-of-place gags, and works better as an anti-smoking ad than anything else. This worried me a lot because while I was watching Superman and Superman II a few times in the last few years, I don’t remember III o IV as well. All I remember was, I think, IV he was the worst of the bunch. So when I started, I was more than a little hesitant.

Going in with those low expectations, I actually found it Superman IV: The Quest for Peace be far superior to Superman III. It’s still terrible – let’s not forget it – but at least it’s trying to be a Superman movie He is back in love with Lois Lane, with Margot Kidder coming back for the whole movie. Lex Luthor has a new scheme and Gene Hackman is back for the entire film. Superman will fight a supervillain from another world in Nuclear Man. And the character works towards the best of the whole world. These are all things that feel crucial, in one way or another, for the DNA of a Superman movie

Of course, this all happens too easily, and none of the actors—with the exception of the always outstanding Reeve—care one iota about what they’re doing. Superman IV it forgets the events of other films, looks bad, feels somehow too small for the franchise, and the action pieces are terrible. It’s a bad, bad movie. But it is a step from the previous abomination.

As the movie ended (Superman IV it’s also about 45 minutes shorter than the previous three, mercifully, though there are many reasons for that), I feel pretty confident in my ranking. One is one, two is two, four is three, and three is four. It honestly felt like an almost foolproof list. So when I looked on Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes to see that Superman III it is better considered, even if it is not much IVI was a bit surprised. It’s clearly the narrative I had in my head going, but watching the two bad movies back to back, after the great first and good second, I felt the story was wrong. Superman III it is terrible in every sense of the word while The search for peace it’s terrible, while at least it’s trying to be a Superman movie. And that puts him on top.

Fortunately, Warner Bros. has the perfect palate cleanser for these two atrocities. No, not the unofficial sequel Superman Returns since 2006. We mean Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, a fantastic documentary about the man and the character. What you do It might actually be the best Superman movie out there.

All these movies are currently streaming on Max.

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