Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (PG)
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Caution: spoilers.

This came out in 1987, but I didn't see it until 2021. It was panned by both critics and fans, which now that I've seen it, I can definitely understand. Personally, I didn't hate it, though I do feel like I'm being a bit generous by rating it with even one smiley. The whole thing was kind of ridiculous and there were plenty of things that didn't make sense, but at least it was never really boring.

It starts with Superman saving some cosmonauts, which I thought was nice. Then he goes home to Smallville, where he gets a glowy thing from the spaceship that brought him to Earth when he was a baby. Not really sure what he's supposed to do with it, but whatever. Then we learn that the Kent farm is up for sale, but nothing comes of that. Meanwhile, Lex Luthor is breaking rocks in a prison detail, but he gets freed by his weird nephew, Lenny (Jon Cryer; I think he's shooting for something like Valley-speak, but it's way over the top). Back in Metropolis, the Daily Planet is bought by a tabloid tycoon named David Warfield, who wants to basically turn the newspaper into yet another tabloid. He makes his daughter, Lacy (Mariel Hemingway) the new publisher. She develops a crush on Clark, but nothing really comes of that except for a silly double date scene with the two of them plus Lois and Superman. You know, the kind of thing where one person has to keep coming up with ridiculous ways to be two places at once, since obviously Clark and Superman can't be in the same room at the same time.

Meanwhile, a young boy writes a letter to Superman asking him to get rid of all the world's nuclear weapons. At first he doesn't do anything about it, because he's been forbidden to interfere with the development of the human race, or whatever. But eventually he decides to do so, after all. It's kind of weird that he can only find and get rid of nuclear missiles after they've been fired, which probably shouldn't happen nearly as much as it does in this movie, when there's no war actually going on. But whatever, we get to see a space net full of missiles get hurled into the Sun. Meanwhile, Lex and Lenny have apparently moved into Lex's old home, which I have no idea why the police never bothered to look for him there, but whatever. He makes a plan to create a "Nuclear Man" using Superman's DNA (which he really shouldn't have been able to get ahold of, because Superman's hair should be impervious to whatever kind of clippers Lex used to cut off a hair that was in a museum). So there are then a bunch of battles between Superman and Nuclear Man, and they both do a pretty good job of beating each other up. At one point Nuclear Man seems to have won, but I think Superman uses the glowy thing to heal himself, which seems like a disappointing use of the thing. Also, I find it strange that at first, Nuclear Man had no intention of letting Lex order him around, but then he starts letting Lex order him around. (Tbf, Lex did prove he could incapacitate Nuclear Man, but that was a special circumstance that I don't think could have been reproduced just any old time, which Nuclear Man should have realized. But whatever.)

Of course, Superman finally defeats Nuclear Man, in a totally ridiculous way. Well, mostly ridiculous. At least it was a sort of creative idea. I guess. But there are plenty of other things in the movie that make no sense, for some of which I can vaguely suspend disbelief, but not all of them. Oh, and Perry White saves the Daily Planet. I hope I haven't spoiled too much of the movie. But it's not really important. Anyway, this was the last movie with Christopher Reeve playing Superman, though the character would return in 2006.