We did a “Best of” for our favorite comic book films
recently. It’s only fair that if we bring up the best, we have to also dish-out
the worst. Here are the comic book films we would like to forget, but
unfortunately can’t. Please note, I have not seen every comic book movie ever
made. If something like Howard The Duck
deserves to be on this list and isn’t, it’s because I haven’t seen it. I know
it’s probably bad. But since I can’t say that first-hand, that’s not fair the “film”
in this case. Let’s get going.
#09 – Dark Knight Rises – I’m probably going to be getting a
lot of flack for this one, but Dark
Knight Rises is really a lackluster film that brings down the entire Dark Knight trilogy be existing. It’s
the third-film curse but this time dealing the deathblow to the cape-n-cowl
instead of the Godfather. Problems?
None of the villains picked to be in here were interesting or did anything
interesting besides Catwoman, and she really is the only silver lining for this
movie. Batman doesn’t die. Robin/Nightwing never takes up the mantle. There are
plot holes all over the place that make us ask why the characters didn’t do X
or Y instead of Z. It lacks any sort of color or excitement and you can’t
really understand what the two main characters are saying half the time, which
also makes is kind of funny, but you know that’s not what they’re going for.
Much like Spiderman 3, a bad film
that followed a much better film and can only be erased from our memory with
worse films.
#06 – 300 – I like Zack Snyder. I think Suckerpunch is an underappreciated gem and that Watch Men was a serviceably good
adaptation. Zack Snyder has a good eye for visuals (most of the time) and can direct
well-made action scenes. But Man of Steel
and now 300 are both showcases for
some of the worst aspects of his directing. There is a disturbing lack of color
and life in either of these films (lots of death though). 300 was one of the most boring films I’d watched in recent memory
and that disappointed me a lot because so many people I know said it was a
great film. But the entire time I was watching a bunch of photoshopped,
muscle-headed, Greek-era-jocks fighting a war against a creepy-looking asshole
who I didn’t really know much about other than he was trying to invade their
home and take it for his own. But the problem becomes that I didn’t like the
heroes enough to really care if they won or lost. I didn’t like the villain
either, but that’s really the problem. If I don’t like either side of the
fight, I have no interest in the story at all. Also, the overuse of slowmo
killed the pacing for me. Way too much of that.
#04 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine – You thought X3 was worse?
Do you remember how bad Origins was? Ignoring the absolutely terrible Deadpool
in this movie (Ryan Reynolds wasn’t great and the post-op imitation Deadpool
was an abomination), this movie is a complete mess. Gambit was bad in terms of
acting and powers (inconsistent accent must have been one of his powers). Most
of the Weapon X team was made of mutants that, surprise, weren’t actually on the
Weapon X team (and really, why did you guys HAVE to use The Blob?). The story
of brotherhood and betrayal between Sabertooth and Wolverine was lackluster and
undermined by the fact that they put aside their differences in the end to work
together… but then why do they hate each other after the fact? Or was that not
the case in the previous movies like it was in the shows and comics? But thanks
to Days of Future Past this movie
technically no longer matters or really even exists and same applies to X3. Too bad Ryan Reynolds has to still
exist.
#3 – Batman & Robin – I’m not going to go into all the
details as to why this movie is bad. It’s been out for so long and you remember
why it’s bad. Clooney is the worst Bruce Wayne and Batman. The costumes are
atrocious. The villain team-up made the least sense of any villain team up (if
successful, Freeze would have killed all of Ivy’s plants, which would cause
them to fight and the no one wins). Bane was terrible here and really set the
bar low for Bane outside of the comics. Robin is old enough to be Nightwing,
but isn’t Nightwing. Also, Schwarzenegger is a terrible actor who shouldn’t
have been Mr. Freeze. I know plenty of people disagree with me for some stupid
reasons. But, no, you’re wrong. The ice-puns are funny in an ironically stupid
kind of way, but beyond that, they make for a terrible movie and a terrible
interpretation of the character.
#01 – The Amazing Spidermens (Amazing Spiderman 1 and 2) – I
love Spiderman and think that he was
(and to a degree) still is one of my favorite heroes. Yes, he gets shit on
constantly. Yes, he’s had a few bad runs of bad comics in his past. But has a
colorful array of villains to choose from. He, much like Superman, stands for
an ideal (responsibility) that I always looked up to. And, much like Batman, it’s
all because he wants to make the world safer as a response to something
traumatic in his past. And while the whole radioactive spider and the powers
resulting from it are silly has hell, it made the entire endeavor something
that I could enjoy as both a kid of the 90’s to an adult of the 201X’s. But
leave it to Sony of all places to kill enjoy enthusiasm and joy I’ve had for
the films, character, or franchise as a whole. The only two things that have
any level of improvements from the original Sam Raimi films would be Emma Stone
and the CGI looks mildly better.
But things that are worse? Every villain design has been
downright awful, mostly taking from the Ultimate Spiderman comics (which
explains an awful lot right there). Not to mention all their origins are tied
to Oscorp, whereas in the comics most villains originate from different sources
making the world feel larger. By connecting everything to one origin point, it
makes everything in this universe seems smaller and predictable. The plot
focusing on Peter’s parents is one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard of (since
they played almost NO ROLE in the comics at all and most any Spiderman fan
doesn’t give a single shit about them). Then there’s Peter…. I don’t need to go
on, do I? I do? Fine. He’s an consistently inconsistent character that’s
hovering somewhere between Edward Cullen and Michael Cera with the constant stammering
and mumbling of his lines. Granted, he’s playing an awkward teen, but I didn’t
come to watch angsty teen romance in my fucking Spiderman film. I came to watch
fucking Spiderman. And the character of Peter doesn’t have any real character
arc. He goes from being a somewhat cool dude to being a somewhat cool dude
behind a mask with no real change in character from his pre-powers to
post-powers arc. Plus we never get any closure to the death of Uncle Ben. Plus
Peter never seems to keep his damn mask on… ever.
I know that Green Lantern is, technically, a worse film. But
my investment to Green Lantern isn’t as big as Spiderman. That isn’t a
childhood being ripped to shreds. That isn’t one of my favorite heroes being
dragged through piles of shit and slapped on the big screen next to a Sony logo
to dance for the slack-jawed executives who still can’t figure out how to make
Spiderman lucrative despite having done so before four or five films ago.
And there are my worst comicbook movies. If you can think of
worse ones, I’m sure they exist (Steel, Howard the Duck, Elektra, Ang Lee’s
Hulk, RIPD) but from what I’ve seen thus far, these are the top of the list of
comicbook films that are disappointing or just plain awful. Enjoy… see ya next
time.
No comments:
Post a Comment