10 Superhero Movies Worse Than Batman v Superman & Suicide Squad
DC certainly seems to be having trouble launching their cinematic universe. Batman v Superman was critically panned and a financial dissapointment, and the critics have been equally harsh on the latest release, Suicide Squad. While it is set to have a record-setting weekend, Batman v Superman did that as well and didn’t have enough of a box office tail thanks to the bad reviews and word of mouth. The same could happen with Suicide Squad, we’ll just have to wait and see.
But the thing that certainly seems off about the reviews (although I don’t believe there’s any bias or Marvel payoffs or any of that ridiculous bull) is that often they either claim there is nothing redeeming in these films, which is patently untrue or list of the few things they find redeeming, but then don’t give it a score that seems to match what they are saying.
Don’t get me wrong, I think Batman v Superman is a bad film with only a couple of really good elements, and Suicide Squad is a bad movie saved by a few standout performances, so I don’t have a super high opinion of either film, but these seem to be being portrayed as the worst superhero movies in the last decade or more when that isn’t patently true. I’m pretty lenient on Superhero films. I didn’t think Spider-Man 3 was that bad, for example and I kinda enjoyed the cheesy older Fantastic Four films, so my bar is pretty damn low. So what I have here is a list of 10 Superhero films that are way worse than any DC film released in the past year, and hey there’s a pretty even mix here. There aren’t any current MCU films here because I honestly believe their worst movies are at worst on par with Suicide Squad & BVS, not significantly worse. So let’s get to the list:
Next: #10. Daredevil
#10. Daredevil
Yup. That other movie where Ben Affleck plays a major comic book superhero, and pretty much at the low of his career because it was after a ton of major flops like Pearl Harbor & Gigli. And sadly, it might be the best movie on this list, but that’s like being the king of garbage. If you look back at this movie, it’s pretty easy to see why people thought Ben Affleck would be a terrible Batman (and he’s easily one of the few bright spots in Batman v Superman). He’s really awful as basically blind street-level Batman, Colin Farrel is hamming it up to the Nth degree as Bullseye. I think he’s having fun but just comes off as annoying. Jennifer Garner somehow got a spin-off movie even though she doesn’t come off well in this movie either. Really the only positive I can take out of this film is I thought the late Michael Clarke Duncan was actually fairly solid as Kingpin at the time. Though it probably wouldn’t hold up as well now against Vincent D’onofrio’s insanely excellent portrayal of Wilson Fisk in the Netflix Daredevil series. On top of the bad acting and nonsensical script, even for 2003 the CG just looks goddamn terrible and practical effects would’ve gone a long way.
Next: #9. Batman & Robin
#9. Batman & Robin
I think the superhero genre is in a healthy enough place right now that no one film can kill it. But Batman & Robin pretty much did for yearsm, especially for any DC films (Blade came out the following year and was a pretty big hit, but that was almost it for several years). And I still like Batman Forever. It remains a fun campy if forgettable movie. It was the right amount of camp and cheesy puns and not taking itself seriously kind of movie. Batman and Robin is when you take all those elements to excess. With a surprisingly ill-cast George Clooney, who despite being a legit great actor and box office megastar who has done many action and comedy roles, is easily the worst Batman ever. Chris O’Donnell as Robin, well he’s just whiny and annoying (“I want my own Robin signal”, really?). Alicia Silverstone as Alfred’s British niece who keeps losing her accent and is entirely unconvincing as Batgirl. And Bane, one of Batman’s greatest foes, is reduced to a dumbass henchman who does nothing of note.
I do think Arnold Schwarzenegger & Uma Thurman are kind of fun as cheesy campy villains Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy. And had they been the campiest thing about the movie, maybe it could’ve worked on the same level as Batman Forever did. But this is a movie filled with Bat Credit Cards, Bat nipples, and an insane amount of butt, crotch and boob shots. So the villains might be the least silly thing in the entire movie. Maybe it’s why DC is trying for such a dark atmosphere now with their films like Batman v Superman & Suicide Squad, they don’t want to be anything even slightly reminiscent of this.
Next: #8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
#8. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
It’s a testament to just how much Hugh Jackman embodies Wolverine that no matter how often they make terrible X-Men films or even spin-offs like this, people still want him as Wolverine and are super excited whenever he shows up. It’s an even further testament that he’s the only one who came out unscathed of this mess of movie, which gives us some pretty poor versions Gambit, Sabretooth and several other characters.
But of course the biggest sin of this movie is easily how they handled Deadpool, as Ryan Reynolds is super fun for the 5 minutes he’s actually in the film, and then they turn the merc with a mouth into a silent assassin who somehow gets several other guys’ super powers for one of the worst CG-filled finales in history. I mean c’mon guys, this movie could’ve almost been salvaged if you just had Ryan Reynolds as deadly wise-cracking 4th wall-breaking assassin Deadpool fighting Wolverine as the finale. It wouldn’t even have to have made sense, because it’s Deadpool vs. Wolverine on the big screen, it doesn’t have to!
Next: #7. Superman IV
So there are several pretty bad Superman movies to choose from (in fact I think the only Superman movie I like is Superman II, and it hasn’t aged all that well either), but this one really tops the list. Though, it has the slight excuse of being made with massive budget constraints (unlike today’s ballooning budgets for superhero films) and only even existing because Christopher Reeve wanted to make a movie with a world peace/anti-nuke message. And hey, even a bad Superman movie still has Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman, but that can’t save this awful, awful movie with a nonsensical villain, horrendous special effects that would’ve looked cheap in an 80s student film, and so many, many scenes that just don’t make any sense (how can he rebuild the Great Wall Of China just by looking at it, HOW I ASK YOU?!?).
It might actually just be impossible to do a really good live action Superman film, but Superman IV: Quest For Peace is laziest, cheapest quick cash-in attempt on an already faltering franchise there might ever have been.
Next: #6. X-Men: The Last Stand
Aka let’s just kill everybody because we know this film is garbage. Seriously, let’s ignore the fact that Brett Ratner, who isn’t a great director anyways. filled in at the last second for Matthew Vaughn, who based on First Class & Days of Future past, probably would’ve done an ok job. But with this script? Who the hell knows. You kill off Cyclops in the opening minutes, introduce tons of other well known X-Men characters only to kill them off, and much like say Batman v Superman, it’s two separate stories that could’ve and probably should’ve been two separate movies awkwardly mashed together. I mean, the Phoenix Saga should be it’s own a movie. An introduction of a “mutant cure” and what the implies could easily be it’s own movie. Why are these two stories in one movie? Also, internet memes.
I mean, how many movies can you think of where they actually made a movie just to retcon it so that the previous trilogy didn’t actually happen? That is X-Men: The Last Stand’s unique contribution to film, because I guess there probably wasn’t enough time for Fox to just let the series lay low for awhile and reboot because they might loose the licensing rights or something. Which is always a great reason to make a film!
Next: #5. Amazing Spider-Man 2
#5. Amazing Spider-Man 2
So I’m a pretty big Batman fan, but I feel like I can be impartial about him. The same cannot be said for Spider-Man. He’s been my favorite super-hero every since I was young. I think the short-lived Spectacular Spider-Man series might even be better than Batman: The Animated series (I know, blasphemy) and actually think Ultimate Spider-Man is a super fun show. I thought the original Amazing Spider-Man, while super unnecessary, gave us a promising cast and was really looking forward to the next installment now that they had gotten the origin story out of the way.
But this movie is the worst representation of Spider-Man I might ever have seen on film. You have the terribly convoluted conspiracy story with his parents that doesn’t come to any satisfying conclusion. In one movie, they manage to totally ruin 3 classic Spider-Man villains. Jamie Foxx, who is a kind of underrated actor generally, is super awful as Electro and just mumbles half his line. Harry Osborn becoming Green Goblin is given almost no time to develop, and what the hell is Paul Giamatti even doing in this movie? He shows up for the opening scene screaming nonsense as a bank robber, then becomes a terrible sci-fi techno Rhyno for the last 5 minutes of the film.
To top this all off, Andrew Garfield, who I liked in the first movie, makes Peter Parker a complete douchebag in this film instead of a lovable nerd or a wise-cracking asshole. He’s not funny, at all. He continues to date Gwen Stacy after promising his police chief father while the dude was dying that he’d stay away from her for her own safety. And Gwen Stacy’s iconic death hits with a thud as there’s just no dramatic impact to it. Hell, Spider-Man barely cares, how are we supposed to. This movie is a gross violation of everything Spider-Man, and I feel it’s far worse than anything DC has released in the last several years.
Next: #4. Jonah Hex
#4. Jonah Hex
Geez, this shouldn’t have been that hard, right? Jonah Hex is not that damn complicated. It’s a western with a guy that has a badly scarred face. There’s not much else to it. Occasionally there’s a little mysticism involved, but Hex doesn’t have any powers. But what do they do? They go ahead and give him weird powers. James Brolin and John Malkovich in a movie, any movie should be worth the price of admission. But it’s really clear that neither person wants to be there. And then you have Megan Fox, who yes is incredibly good-looking, but literally drags down every movie I have ever seen her in. And clearly though this film aimed to be a high-concept supernatural western, it probably would’ve been far more successful being a straight-forward no frills low-budget one, possibly paying homages to the spaghetti westerns of the past. An absolute wreck from start to finish. And yet it’s not the worst movie on this list.
Next: #3. Elektra
#3. Elektra
I can sort of see where studio execs thought there might be something salvageable from Daredevil in an Elektra spin-off. Jennifer Garner was no stranger to being a kickass action hero at the time, as her Alias TV series was still going pretty strong and her stock was still very much on the rise. But have we ever seen a good movie spun out of one element of a bad one? I meant movies rarely get spun off from box office duds to begin with, so Elektra even being made is kind of special case.
And in no way did this pay off as Elektra makes Daredevil look like goddamn Iron Man in comparison. Everything about this is completely ridiculous. Like there’s even an unreal amount of wind in this movie, because Jennifer Ganrner’s hair is blowing in wind all the goddamn time. Motivations are virtually nonexistant or change on a dime. There’s no consistency to anything, the soundtrack is terrible. The dialogue is hackeneyed and even contradicts itself on occasion. You’ll also notice that after this movie, while Jennifer Garner still gets work, she hasn’t really had a leading role since. She has mostly done work in supporting roles in much lower profile films. Like say Nine Lives, which is in theaters this weekend, and features Kevin Spacey getting turned into a cat.
Next: #2. Fantastic Four (2015)
#2. Fantastic Four (2015)
The older Fantastic Four movies aren’t great, but they have some redeemable elements. I really enjoyed Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans in their roles in both movies, and even the fairly bad Rise Of The Silver Surfer, the Silver Surfer looked incredibly cool,
There is nothing redeemable in this latest Fantastic Four movie. Absolutely nothing. The scenes are all terrible. The special effects are terrible. The characterizations are terrible. There are time jumps for no reason (well, shoddy editing, but no story reasons), and the movie spends a large majority of its running time with absolutely nothing happening and the characters just being stuck in a warehouse set, then rushes to the end with the worst interpretation of Dr. Doom anyone’s ever seen (or possibly any comic book villain ever). I can’t emphasize how much nothing happens in this film. Like even in these other bad films, stuff is happening and there’s a story moving along. In Fantastic Four, nothing happens for pretty much all but 20 minutes of this hour and forty minute movie. Then it ends with one of the worst big screen finales with poor special effects in recent memory.
Plus as usual they give Dr. Doom vague god-level powers that should allow him to easily defeat everybody and he still somehow loses when the whole thing about Doom is he’s able to take on top level superheroes despite having no powers. Some of the reviews of Suicide Squad said it was worse than this movie. Those people are insane.
Next: #1. Catwoman
#1. Catwoman
It’s hard to accurately describe just how terrible Catwoman is. Again, this shouldn’t be that hard to make at least a mediocre movie out of. Catwoman is a burglar, has a change of heart and at least becomes an anti-hero if not a full on hero. Hell, you could’ve kept her a villain, but one out for revenge against some evil corporation, but this movie is stuck deciding which they want her to be. The special effects are freaking terrible, for some reason she has goddamn “cat powers” which include things like being distracted by shiny objects. I am not joking. Every line of dialogue is terrible. The soundtrack is loud and obnoxious and punctuates every second of the film as if to distract you from how terrible everything else is when it only amplifies that fact. There’s a thinly veiled commentary on our obsession with age and beauty that falls completely flat. Also makeup gives Sharon Stone super powers.
Channeling the late Roger Ebert, I hated this movie. Hated, hated hated this movie. Hated Every insufferable insulting minute of this movie. It is without question the worst superhero movie ever made, and possibly the worst movie ever made. I notice the director hasn’t worked since. And it’s not like Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt or Sharon Stone have bounced back from this dud. They still get work sure, but it’s all much more low profile.
And that’s a list of ten movies far worse than Batman v Superman or Suicide Squad. It’s not a definitive list, there are other movies that were certainly considered (Green Lantern almost made the list, and I haven’t seen Punisher: War Zone, but it probably would’ve made the list if I had). I think Batman v Superman was a bad movie with a couple redeeming qualities. I think Suicide Squad was ok and had some really standout performances. Neither of them are great, but there’s a lot worse superhero films out there, and yet you have critics claiming these as the worst superhero movies in years when that isn’t remotely true. I hope Wonder Woman finally turns it around for critics and audiences at large and starts a trend of well-received DC movies.