It really doesn't get much worse than this! By far, one of the all-time worst movies I've ever seen, period. It's like a masterpiece of bullsh*t. "How To Murder Your Film Franchise In 88 Minutes".
Their heart was in the right place, and that's the sad thing. They did a comic book adaptation of this one, based on the original script, and I gotta say, it's not terrible, and it proves that the basic story itself had some merit. But by god, you CAN'T make a Superman movie with the loose change you find digging under your couch, you just can't.
The film rights were bought by the notoriously low-budget Canon Films; their BEST movie of all time is arguably "Masters of the Universe", a movie I enjoy but is again notorious for being a bit half-baked and made on the cheap, so if that was their best work, well... you can imagine how this turned out. Fun Fact: A LOT of this movie's original budget was instead given to MotU through some creative bookkeeping! Crazy! When you watch that movie and this one, though, you can see which one they cared about more. Not this one!
Reeve himself "wrote" the script; in quotes because he actually read a script someone gave to him, rejected it, then wrote a nearly-identical version and stuck his name on it. He THEN got sued by the original writer and spent every cent of his "Superman IV" earnings on legal fees. Point of fact, a LOT of people who worked with him have less-than-inspiring stories about Chris Reeve The Guy. He was well-known for being a prima donna, but apparently he was a bit of a thief, as well. So I guess him not even making any money on IV was karma for stealing the script in the first place.
It's not like the premise of Superman trying to wipe out nuclear weapons is bad; again, the comics have done some very interesting things with that exact premise. But the execution is very much lacking. For one thing, Superman says he's gonna take everyone's nukes... and they let him. And nobody complains (except Lex and the crooked arms dealers)! In the comics, at least, it's always been a Big Huge Global Event when he tries anything like that, with various governments and military leaders standing up in defiance and even regular ordinary people wondering who gave him the right to act so unilaterally. It generally plays out a lot like the events of BvS, which is what you'd expect if you are a rational person and some guy falls out of the sky and says, "Hey guys, I'm gonna go ahead and dismantle the entire global military because I've decided that I know what's best for everyone. No big deal." Ayn Rand would have a f*cking field day with how easily everyone in Superman IV just rolls over and accepts that Superman is now a God-King and he's only gonna let us do what he thinks is "acceptable", otherwise he'll take our toys away and spank us. Good grief. It's such a childish and juvenile approach to what should be a much deeper and more thought-provoking story. But nope. "Superman's the good guy, he's gonna disarm the world because the story says so, and he's still the good guy because the story says so." No pushback, nobody even questions it.
Lex could've been great, for this. As is, he's merely adequate. But it would be far better served if his humanist elements were brought to the surface; him questioning what gives Superman the right to make such decisions for all mankind, using that as his motivation to kill him (aside from and in addition to petty revenge), even maybe trying to win over the public by positioning himself as the "good guy" and Superman as a "menace" who's overstepped his self-imposed authority. Again, the basic story leaves room for a lot of intriguing possibilities, but they would require a competent writer and a decent budget to actually explore them.
Mariel Hemingway gets brought in as a foil for Lois, and also to pine over Clark the way Lois moons over Superman. This is mostly filler. True story, Hemingway's character only exists because the producers thought that Margot Kidder was far too old and haggard-looking to play Lois anymore. They simply either didn't want to re-cast because they feared backlash, OR were contractually obligated to keep her in the role, depending on who you believe. Either way, they wanted a younger, sexier love interest, thus Hemingway. And she's fine, she just doesn't really add anything - except making Kidder look even worse by comparison. Kidder as Lois subsequently gets almost nothing to do.
The soundtrack is a far cry from the earlier ones, re-purposing clips from the other films' soundtracks and splicing them in seemingly at random. And the effects... Hoooo boy, what hasn't been said? It's the sh*ts. It is the most bush-league, grade school-looking thing you've ever seen. It almost defies belief. I've never seen a worse-looking film that was actually a Hollywood production. Every shot of Superman flying is the same ONE shot pasted over different backgrounds! The George Reeves show was more convincing. Just awful.
I actually don't mind Nuclear Man as much as most people do, I just think it could have been done better. For one thing, he's supposed to essentially be a "clone" of sorts of Superman, yet they look nothing alike; Lex says something about their DNA being identical, or something, but they don't really have anything in common physically. And the "Lee Press-On Nails Of Death" is f*cking ridiculous. I like that he was rather "unhinged" and relentless, but again, in a movie this bad it mostly comes off as campy and corny. In a better movie with a better director it might have played more sinister and menacing. But he goes out like a chump in the end, anyway. And his weakness never really made any sense; again, he's a hyped-up clone of Superman, thus he's powered by the Sun like Superman... except Nuclear Man is completely useless and immobile if he's obscured by even the faintest shadow... while Superman doesn't suffer any ill effects from not being in direct sunlight, so why should Nuclear Man? If anything, Nuclear Man is supposed to be STRONGER than Superman, so one would think that his cells would process solar energy MORE efficiently than Superman's, not a million times LESS efficiently!
But then again, this movie's writers apparently only got through second grade science, so I guess it's expected. You've got Superman having a cheerful conversation in outer space about 5 minutes in, and then at the end Nuclear Man is flying in deep space with Mariel Hemingway, and not only is her head not exploding or her eyes popping out or anything, she's actually breathing quite normally, and then he DROPS her, and she starts FALLING - in OUTER SPACE - and SCREAMING - in OUTER SPACE! - and at this point, I'm usually screaming "F*CK!" at my TV, over and over. "Who booked this sh*t?!"
"Let's Just Make Sh*t Up" returns again, this time with Superman's "Rebuild The Great Wall Of China-Vision" super-power. I wish I were kidding. "Guys... we can't afford to have Superman fix the Wall." "...Can we have him stare at it?" "...Yeah." "Great, so what exactly is the problem?" I hate these people. I don't even know them, and I hate them.
Reeve is fine as usual, despite the terrible material. Hackman is fine, although he doesn't get as much to do as he usually does, and I feel they missed a lot of opportunities to expand on his role given the nature of the material. Jon Cryer as Lenny is ridiculous, but actually one of the few entertaining parts of the film, or at least memorable for anything besides being lousy. The movie's few quiet, "sincere" moments come off alright, but whenever they actually have to spend a buck or do any "super-hero" stuff, it goes headfirst into the sh*tter.
Oddly enough, I watched this movie the most as a kid, because I was about 5 when it came out and so it was being replayed a lot on cable and Channel 11 for the next two years. On a tiny, grainy TV with mediocre reception, it wasn't the worst thing I'd ever seen, and it was enough to entertain me at that age, but once I started watching the entire series more regularly - and on better TV sets - the flaws are really glaring and unforgivable, even before you get into the half-baked plot. The entire thing, beginning to end, looks like it was held together with Scotch tape. The dollar store kind.
If I'm doing a marathon, I'll put it on, but only out of obligation. I always have to watch a better Superman movie immediately after, or I spend the whole day pissed off.