Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

The Superman series starring Christopher Reeve had just given up by number four, worsening inexorably after its sombre, impressive number one, offering up a high camp number three and then, despite the good omen of Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder returning as Lex Luther and Lois Lane, the series serves up this preposterous number four, a movie in which Superman is pitted against a Lex Luther-created solar-powered drag queen and must find someplace to shove her where the sun doesn't shine.

★★☆☆☆

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Superman III (1983)

The one in which a down-and-out Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) transforms into Mark Zuckerberg opens with a scene of slapstick mayhem in Metropolis, a prelude to the sprawling mess of loosely held together plots that follow: Superman attends his high school reunion in Smallville; reacquaints with old flame, Lana Lang; is exposed to synthetic kryptonite laced with cigarette tar; drinks irresponsibly; splits into a good and bad version of himself (the bad being a lecherous Superman with bigger hair and more mascara); and battles a supercomputer...and even though Lois Lane departs early and Lex Luther is nowhere to be seen, and despite its unprecedented levels of campiness, in 1982 this third Christopher Reeve Superman movie was everything this then-seven-year-old Superman fan could have hoped for!

★★★★☆

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Deathtrap (1982)

This is another Michael Caine film that has been adapted from a suspense mystery play (this one by Ira Levin) and like his two Sleuth films, this one too involves a sinister cat-and-mouse parlour game (check) played out in a theatrically claustrophobic set (check) between a pair of feuding male protagonists (check), one of whom is a successful mystery writer (check), and like Sleuth it is great twisty-turny fun.

★★★★☆

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