anyway, thoughts on SMIV at length...
Ok, opening credits
unbelievable, there were probably ads in the cinema that had better graphics, they cant even spring for the yellow in the Superman S symbol.
From here on in I will be marking the appearances of the re-used footage from SMIII, the flying shot of his flying through the wheatfield, the wheat wiz by I shall be referring to it as.
(4.03) 1st Wheat Whizby
(4.22) 2nd Wheat Whizby
(4.56) 3rd Wheat Whizby it's not *exactly* the same here, but it's from the same piece of footage from SMIII, it's just that they use the bit after the cut off point of the previous two.
The rescue of the astronauts is fine, apart from the re-used shots.
Smallville, again, not bad at all, apart from the terrible computer graphic they use to highlight the X-Ray vision use. They should have just left that out and used a fade or something, some kind of normal camera trick.
Clark hits the baseball into space... this is better than that dumb baseball throw in SR. at least in this one there is a bit of spectacle when we see the ball go into space, in SR the baseball could end up who knows where, through someones window, hitting someone in the head, causing a car crash pile up, confuses another baseball game going on somewhere
irresponsible. In space no-one plays baseball or has a house(apart from those astronauts but he knows where they live), so Reeve knows the score as opposed to reckless Routh.
Escape cop-out for a moment you think there is some actual super-villany going on, but then the two prison guards show up at the edge of the crater in true A-Team fashion.
Why are they using the London Underground, lol, budget, but at least they spring for a big poster advertising the (Metropolis)Statue of Liberty so we think were in the US.
I think they have three Statues of Liberty in the DCU, one in Gotham from BF as well.
Ok, there are not many good lines in SMIV so I will highlight the ones I liked
Do you know what I could do with a starnd of Supermans hair?
Make a toupee that flies?
Of course the line is not much without Weird Science/Ferris Bulleur reject Lennys gu- delivery.
I have to say, the cheeseball saxaphone music that accompanies Clark and Laceys romance is a major cringer for me in this movie. Worse than Poison Ivys sax tune in B&R.
What are these Wise guys from Krypton on about, they do not have the wisest of scripts
If you interfere you will betray them
Betray..Betray
Betray
Not in the same league as Jor-el, Lara, or that tree poem guy, he kind of runs out of wise things to say after a line or two and goes into broken(chipped) record(crystal) mode.
I like all this stuff with Clark musing over the question of doing something about the Nuclear threat, when Lois comes round to his house and he reveals his ID again, I like the hark back to the events of II, that her memory came back and she needs a hypno-kiss re-fill.
The flight is better than the one in SR, even though it has terrible effects, and at one point Lois flies by herself when Supes drops her.
Youll do the right thing, you always have.
Apart from that time back in the fortress when he gave up his powers! And speaking of which the opening talk by Lara says the magic green stick can only help him once, and it already did, but this is superman IV, lets not dwell on the continuity mistakes or we will be here all day.
(32.55) 5th Wheat Whizby
I love the net of missiles, and the big swing. Not the safest way, but looks good.
I never realised until now that Nuclear Mans voice is Gene Hackmans. Why does he appear with clothes o
k, no more highlighting such mistakes, this is SMIV.
Another classic line, well classic delivery
I am an experiment
I am a freako.. lol
and i like it when Lex asides to SM about NM, "not one of your great thinkers."
The Clark/Superman switch about is a cringer for me, its like an ITV sitcom farce thing, although I like Clark calling her dress neat and SM calling it attractive. I wonder if Kevin Costner got the idea to diss Madonnas show from this.
Oh, and superman ruins the dinner, which is no prob for him as he does not need to eat, and he somehow fires his heat vision through a wall without it damaging the wall.
I love Clarks slip in the lobby of the hotel though.
Lex tv, I like that bit, a nice hark back to the dog-signal in SMTM.
And another rare classic line Its common knowledge you hate children and animals Luthor.
(56.30) 6th Wheat Whizby
(58.42) 7th Wheat Whizby
(101.14) 8th Wheat Whizby
(101.24) 9th Wheat Whizby
Ok, so, that is 9 Wheat Wizbys, although only 7 of them are exactly the same, the other two being from the same SMIII shot, but coming from a later point that they cut off at in the other 7.
Clark sick at home, I like this scene when Kidder visits, although her acting has been better in I and II, its good enough here, although gets a little kiddy rather than classic Kidder, like she is moping about a lost toy.
Where is the woman?
How does Superman know who NM is looking for?
NMs mini rampage is quite funny, my fav part is the cop bouncing backwards over his car.
Fight on the moon,
this is actually not too bad, one good fly by bit, that is actually new footage(Damn we dont have any moon shots we can use from SMIII, give them something out of the biscuit jar), and when Superman is blasted into the distance by the red energy it looks good.
Ok, an interesting point here
the new owner tabloid guy says What kind of disaster could we have brought about here? when NM appears, as if they are responsible through their bad tabloid, but they arent really.
In fact Lacys decision, to make the kid a star and sell papers, leads to Nuclear disarmament, they do more good for the world in one headline than the DP ever did ,lol.
One last shot that is good, and new! When SM comes in for the landing at the end when the press are gathered.
Ok, the thing about SMIV is
.I can start watching it and think to myself
hmm., if this was a tv show I might not be so hard on it, the stuff with the Nuclear disarmament is interesting, but then crap after crap is laid on and by the time of the first NM fight I just want to put it off.
I kind of like some parts of the SM/NM fights, but that is probably because I am starved of Reeve superpowered fights against another villan.
t:
).
