I Forgot How Bad Those Last Two Christopher Reeve Superman Movies Are

After watching and rewatching James Gunn’s movie Superman In the last few weeks, I was riding high on Superman. To move forward, I decided that while I was building Lego over Christmas break, I was going to rewatch all of the Christopher Reeve movies. Superman cinema. Movies I had seen before; I’m even old enough to have seen them IV in theaters, but it had not been seen in order in decades. What I found was one of the fastest declining franchises I can think of, although I think the story has two of the films backwards.

Everyone would agree that Richard Donner’s 1978 film Superman It’s a classic. It’s so epic and full of memorable scenes that it remains one of the great superhero movies of all time. It is clear that he is the best of the group. superman ii It’s a step down, but it nicely completes the story of that movie, bringing us full circle with the characters of Clark Kent and Lois Lane and wrapping up the whole General Zod thing.

Then I appeared superman iii and I immediately 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 that’s basically a cigarette and inexplicably turns Superman into a jerk. Then we’ll have to watch him be a jerk for too long. Eventually, Superman fights himself, becomes normal again, and fights the hackers while at the same time inexplicably forgiving Pryor’s character. It is, to put it bluntly, a huge piece of shit.

superman iii It actually made me angry. If I wanted to see a Richard Pryor movie, I would have done it. Clearly this was simply Richard Pryor starring in a Superman movie and not the other way around. It misinterprets the characters, never develops a dramatic plot, is filled with all kinds of off-kilter jokes, and works better as an anti-smoking ad than anything else. This worried me a lot because although I had seen Superman and superman ii a few times in the last few years, I didn’t remember III either IV also. The only thing I remembered was, I thought, IV He was the worst of the group. So when I started it, I was more than a little hesitant.

Going in with those low expectations, I actually found Superman IV: The Quest for Peace be much superior to superman iii. It’s still terrible, let’s not forget, but at least it tries to be a Superman movie. He falls in love again with Lois Lane and Margot Kidder throughout the film. Lex Luthor has a new plan and Gene Hackman returns for the entire movie. Superman has to fight a supervillain from another world in Nuclear Man. And the character is working to improve the entire world. These are all things that seem crucial, in one way or another, to a person’s DNA. Superman movie.

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

When the movie ended (superman IV It’s also about 45 minutes shorter than the previous three, although thankfully there are many reasons for that), I felt pretty confident in my ranking. One is one, two is two, four is three and three is four. Honestly, it seemed like an almost foolproof list. So when I looked at Wikipedia and Rotten Tomatoes to see that superman iii is considered better, although not by much, than IVI was a little surprised. Clearly, that’s the narrative I had in my head, but watching the two bad movies back to back, after the excellent first one and the good second one, I felt like the story was wrong. superman iii It’s horrible in every sense of the word while The search for peace It’s horrible, although at least it tries to be a Superman movie. And that put him on top.

Fortunately, Warner Bros. has the perfect palate cleanser for both of these atrocities. No, not the unofficial sequel. Superman returns since 2006. We refer Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, A fantastic documentary about the man and the character. That In fact, it might be the best Superman movie out there.

All of these movies are currently streaming on Max.

Want more io9 news? See when to expect the latest releases from Marvel, Star Wars and Star Trek, what’s next for the DC Universe in film and television, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.