Alright as promised, now onto the second part of my guide to superhero movies in which I’ll go through a list of super hero movies that you should avoid at all costs and I even decided not to take the easy way out and pick movies that people may think are actually good..
1.) Batman and Robin:
Yes I started off with an easy one but seriously, if you were fortunate enough to not be suckered into watching this movie when you were young, feel free to skip over it should ever pop up on your television screen. You’d think that a movie starring Uma Thurman, George Clooney, and The Governator and carrying the Batman name would’ve at least been decent, but then again that’s probably the same thing people thought watching Batman Forever, which starred both Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones in their prime. In fact it’s hard to choose which movie was the worse of the two;Batman Forever wasn’t nearly as cheesy as it’s successor but one thing I will say is that Batman and Robin sure was pretty. The CGI and Special Effects were the most impressive part of the film but that’s where it stops. Rubber Muscle Suits and gadget filled fight scenes ruin this film and you can’t forget Uma and Arnold rattling off some of the Worst Villain Puns/Dialogue to be used in a super hero movie. Lastly, Most of the cast seemed to be in this just for the paycheck. Final thoughts? Just Continue to browse.
2.) Hulk:
I’ll say it again. Hulk? Simple Man’s Hero. And Again, it’s a Simple Concept to follow.Hulk smash Everything. Yet this movie somehow seems to constantly miss that crucial marker. First off, the Bruce Banner in this movie is essentially an Emo through and through, just brooding and miserable which is apparently caused by father abandonment issues. There’s a Fight Scene that includes Three Gamma Radiated Dogs. Yes that’s right, dogs. I’ll never forget watching this movie for the first and only time with my dad and looking over at him during the fight scene and noticing that he was fast asleep. I was 13 then and I remember thinking that it was an appropriate response to such foolishness. The fight scene at the end was pretty cool but that doesn’t make up for the hour worth of brooding footage I’d watched prior to it. Just watch the Edward Norton Hulk.
3.) Superman Returns:
When the most impressive scene in a super hero movie is the hero saving a plane full of people, then there’s a serious problem. Also the plot ‘secret,’ which is revealed towards the end of the film, is so strongly hinted at during the first half of the film that you almost wish they’d just left it “ambiguous.” Not a surprise that the franchise is being rebooted again next year.
4.) X-Men: The Last Stand/Spiderman 3:
I couldn’t decide which one was worse so I left them as a tie. Both movies were follow ups to rather impressive super hero sequels and both the X men and Spiderman franchises were leading the path for super hero movies with mass appeal to those who aren’t heavy comic book fans. But in the end they both buckled under pressure(Spiderman more so) and shot themselves in the foot as far as continuing their trail blazing paths…
X-Men Last Stand- I’ve always wondered how different this movie may have been had the same writers and directors stayed on for the film. X2 had a good plot, but was lacking in the action department so I was looking forward to this movie to balance out the two and form a great trilogy. Not the case. To make a short case, this movie sacrifices plot for action scenes, and even though they are definitely some of the more impressive action scenes I’ve seen in the X Men Franchise, the Plot choices are so bad that they quickly become hard to overlook. Characters Crucial to the series are killed for no good reason and once Jean Grey awakens her Phoenix powers, the movie quickly spins into a high budget sci fi Horror film. Think Carrie but with Mutants. Skippable.
SpiderMan 3- You have no idea how badly I wanted to root for this movie. I really wanted it to be good. The change in design for the symbiote costume? questionable but easy to overlook. Harry as the New green Goblin with the terrible costume design?A Sensible Progression. Classic Spiderman Villain Sandman? Cool. Gwen Stacey? A bit late/unnecessary but intriguing. Introduction of the Eddie Brock character which meant at least the introduction to one of the coolest Antiheros in the Spiderman Universe? Yes please. And then it all fell apart.
3 Villains in one movie is just too much for any film under 3 hours. Director Sam Raimi seemed to just try to pluck what worked with Spiderman 2 and plug it into this movie. The back-story for Sandman was well written but everything else was subpar at best. Peter was more Emo then “unleashed” and there really isn’t enough convincing material that shows his slow progression down into the darkside, at least in my opinion. All of the fight scenes except Emo Peter vs Harry were terrible in comparison to the choreography in Spiderman 2 and I won’t even start on how badly Venom was handled. The wrong girl gets kidnapped, and partnerships that make no sense are formed on both the good guy and bad guy end as the movie approaches the climax.. Overall it’s just a movie filled with wasted potential. It’s a shame that this franchise is now getting a reboot thanks to the poor plot choices made for this film.
5.) Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer:
What happens when you take four of the most boring Marvel Super Heroes and give them a follow up film to their equally snooze worthy origin film? Absolutely Nothing. You would think that the inclusion of the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and the return of Dr. Doom, who was horribly underplayed in the first film, would make this movie decent, not too mention some relatively solid acting from the entire cast. But then you would be thinking wrong. ‘Johnny Storm’ made a smart move picking up the Captain America Role because I’m pretty sure this franchise won’t be seeing any sequels for a while to come.
In Conclusion: Of course there are other recent super hero movies that are worse than the ones I just listed here and rest assured they’ll be in the honorable mentions but I guess I just wanted to ‘challenge’ myself. Hope You enjoyed the read.
Honorable Mentions:
