20
By ordinary movie standards it's awful, but fans of cinematic dementia should have fun for about half an hour.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
25
Superman IV is a pathetic appendage to the series, a dull, shoddy film that makes the minimal 1950s TV series seem rife with production values by comparison. [27 July 1987, p.10C]
60
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
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.
12
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
This one is a big, big disappointment. [27 July 1987]
10
Los Angeles Times by Michael Wilmington
Sequels to big-budget popular hits usually end up super-slick, shallow and inflated. But this one isn't even super-slick; it's shallow and deflated...The overall effect is of a story atomized and dying before our eyes, collapsing into smashed pulp, ground down into big-budget Kryptonite ash. [27 July 1987, p.1]
20
Washington Post by Rita Kempley
Superman IV, except for a glitzy new villain named Nuclear Man, is one of the cheesiest movies ever made. It's so grainy and grossly envisioned, it seems filmed on pulp. Superman's crystalline Arctic palace looks as if it's made of no-deposit-no-return soda bottles, and his suit of primary colors has ring around the collar.
20
Predictably awful fourth installment.