Majestic Twelve: WORST Comic Book Movies Ever

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.

#12 – Man of Steel – Probably not as bad as Shaq’s Steel (a movie we haven’t seen and probably shouldn’t), Man of Steel the attempt to bring Superman back to the big screen. While certainly not the worst film in comics, it is one of the more disappointing films in comics as it doesn’t have the same charm of the original Superman films, comics, or even the animated show. Nolan and Snyder went out of their way to make Superman in this film drastically different from anything we’ve seen before. In many ways, they succeeded. But the lack of color and the lack of life-saving heroics kind of left a sour taste in my mouth.

#11 – MIB 2 and MIB 3 – I know it’s a cheat to put two movies in one spot. But since they’re from the same franchise and the problem with both movies is the exact same problem, I didn’t really feel a need to make two spots. MIB was a classic film (making out top 12 list you can check out right here) that we love. But MIB 2 and MIB 3 felt like just repeats of the same plot points from the first two films. Jay doesn’t understand something and needs Kay to explain it. The first movie made sense since Jay was new to MIB. But by the second movie, he’s an agent on his own and SHOULD know more about being an agent. And MIB 3 had even less of an excuse. This isn’t to say the aliens were bad or the idea of sequels are bad (the animated show was fun). But if we’re just redoing the same basic premise of the first film two more times, we’re just wasting time.

#10 – Spiderman 3 – While the newer reboot series of the Spiderman franchise has made Spiderman 3 look like less of a turd in retrospect, we still have to acknowledge the fact that Spiderman 3 was a fantastic turd following in the footsteps of the quintessential Spiderman 2 experience. The actors felt like they were phoning in the entire performance. The unnecessary Venom subplot should have either been its own movie or a subplot that had been running throughout the entire series (ie, introduce Eddie Brock sooner). Sandman, while visually impressive, just didn’t seem to really fit in this film too well. And the jazz club scene made us forget for ten minutes that this was actually a Spiderman movie. There’s a lot wrong here… but it does get worse.

#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.

#08 – Iron Man 2 – I know, a Marvel movie made this list. And it’s Iron Man of all films. I love Iron Man, so this has to be a mistake, right? Fact is, of all the Marvel movies to date, Iron Man 2 is the weakest of the lot. It felt like it was trying to do too much at once and left no identity for itself. It tried to be the sequel to Iron Man 1 and continue that storyline. But it also needed to be a prequel to Avengers and set up stuff for characters to be introduced later. It needed to have a villain, but the focus was more on Tony Stark’s inner-demons (which don’t really get explored as much as they should). It has a bizarre pacing that goes from boxing rings, to race tracks, to fighting in Stark’s personal amusement park. The only reason this isn’t ranked lower is because at least the acting is still solid with great performances from everyone involved. And the charm of Robert Downey Jr has, so far, kept any movie he’s been in recently from being absolute trash and allowed it to at least be enjoyable.

#07 – Constantine – I’m not going to lie. I don’t really remember this movie much. I know at the time of watching it that it didn’t make a hell of a lot of sense. I also know many fans of the comics have said that they did a poor job of putting Constantine to film with this adaptation. So for those people… yeah, here ya go. I didn’t like it enough to remember it, but I remember the hate it got.

#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.

#05 – X3: X-Men United – This was a tough call between this and the #4 film on the list. Both are bad for a lot of the same reasons. And in X3, we have to put up with a Juggernaut that isn’t really Juggernaut. A poor attempt to make a live-action Phoenix Saga take place. Another film focusing on Wolverine that we really didn’t need. Killing off major characters or depowering them completely. And under-utilizing the supporting cast with great actors like Kelsey Grammar. The only positive this movie has over the #4 spot? Cyclops is killed. At least X3 got one thing right.

#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.

#2 – Green Lantern – And now you can see why I don’t want Ryan Reynolds anywhere near Deadpool… or superhero movies in general. He’s a bad actor who can’t seem to act against CGI well at all. It didn’t make matters better that the CGI was also some of the crappiest CGI I’ve ever seen in films (at least during the current era of films where CGI is prevalent and, therefore, has a standard level of quality). The story is bad (why are we using Parallax as our first villain?). The main Earthbound villain didn’t really share any scenes with the hero until really late in the film. There was some build-up for an Avengers-style continuity building with Amanda Waller (who disappears during the events of the movie with no explanation) and Sinestro appearing as a mid-credits reveal. Multiple years later and… yeah, nothing further from this train wreck of a film since. The plot is also cliché as Hell with scenes, concepts, and ideas basically lifted from other, better superhero films without any twist or change to them at all. This movie lacks soul or depth and it’s just a major disappointment to see a potentially good hero get such a garbage movie. I mean, I don’t really enjoy Green Lantern (he’s no Flash, that’s for sure), but I can at least respect the fact there’s potential for a truly great film here somewhere if better writers and more talented actors were involved in the process.

#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.