Bottom 10 Comic Book-Based Movies of All Time


catwoman halle berry boobsLast month, I wrote a blog that took a look at Newsarama’s list of the Top 10 Comic Book-Based Movies of All Time, and, after watching The Spirit last night, it got me to thinking about how many truly dreadful comic book movies have come out over the years. So, in the interest of fairness, I figured I’d compile my own list of the absolute worst of the worst of those flicks.

Before we begin, let me point out that I didn’t include stuff that was never released in theatres (so no original Fantastic Four or Captain America), and I didn’t include stuff that I haven’t personally seen (so, again, no Howard the Duck or Tank Girl). Plus, I only included one movie from each “franchise,” otherwise this list wouldn’t have nearly enough variety. For the record, though, I hate Batman Forever almost as much as I hate everything on the following list.

And here we go.

10. Steel (1997)

Any movie where the main character is to be portrayed by a sports star is pretty much guaranteed to stink all sorts of stink. And, any movie where the only decent joke is referencing how bad said main character sports star is at shooting free-throws is just destined for the, ahem, scrap heap. Yeah, I went there.

This movie is abysmal from start to finish, and I really wished I hadn’t wasted my time on it. I think I’d rather pop in a copy of Shaq Fu on the old SNES for a couple hours than rewatch this broke-ass Iron Man movie again. And, if you’ve played Shaq Fu, you know how serious a statement that is.

9. Judge Dredd (1995)

This might be one of the least faithful adaptations on this here list. Oh, and it’s got Rob Schneider in it. Man, I hate that little twerp.

I remember when this came out, it had an unbelievable amount of hype to it, and it all flushed down the drain the second Stallone (Sly, not Frank) garbled out, “The evidence has been falsified! I never broke the law! I am the law!” Seriously, keep his dialogue to a minimum, for future reference. Word ’round the camp fire is they’re going to redo Judge Dredd one of these days. Could be interesting. I just hope they’ve learned a few lessons (but they probably haven’t).

8. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

The first in our list of franchise killers, Superman IV pitted The Man of Steel against some goofy looking male stripper type guy named Nuclear Man. Ugh. I would’ve swallowed pretty much anything on the TV as a kid, but, even back then, I remember thinking this movie was absolute trash. I mean, seriously, they get Superman’s DNA by going to a museum and snipping a piece of his hair with a scissors? A snip of his hair that just so happens to be holding up a one ton weight? And, yet, scissors can take it out? Eh, whatever.

7. Spider-Man 3 (2007)

Surprisingly, this is ranked fairly well on the IMDB. It’s got a 7.0 out of 10, which isn’t half bad. This movie, however, is quite a bit more than half bad. Not only does it try to shoe-horn several huge plots into a single movie, but it features Mary Jane singing a couple songs and Peter Parker seducing New York City with his new emo-cut and black slacks. No thanks.

Oh, and it also has a lot of slow-motion crying. Not to mention the CGI shit storm they call Sandman. Pass.

6. 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)

Yet another Marvel Comics property that ends with a giant CGI shit storm. Hooray! The one thing I’ll say about this movie that’s relatively positive is that the trailer was pretty badass. The actual movie, though, was illogical, incoherent, scattershot, and all-around messy. It’s only worse than the original by a scant margin, though, so keep that in mind. These movies are trash, pure and simple.

5. X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

Another franchise killer! Sweet. The thing that stuck in my craw the most about this movie was the end fight scene (and killing off Cyclops without even showing it on screen). They’ve built up this huge threat of the Mutant Cure throughout the course of the movie, and, at the end, have this crap being shot all over the place, even injecting Magneto at one point. Yet, when Dark Phoenix starts to poop, eh, I mean concentrate her energy, the only logical thing the X-Men can think to do is have Wolverine stab her to death? Why not shoot her with some of that juice?

Toss in the Gen-X Brotherhood and a complete throwaway character like Angel, plus computer effects that couldn’t have been more rushed if they were added in while we were watching the movie, and what you’re left with is one of the hardest to swallow betrayals to X-Men fans you could possibly imagine. Let’s just pretend it never happened, okay?

4. Punisher: War Zone (2008)

It’s hard to decide which Punisher movie is the worst of the three they’ve made, but since I liked the Tom Jane one and can’t remember most of the Dulph Lundgren version, this baby takes the prize. In our review of it, we spent a good chunk of it discussing the logical gaps the characters display, but I think the worst part about the movie is that it seems like such a simple concept. You take a guy whose family has been murdered by the mob, and you make him punish them. It’s so simple, yet Hollywood can’t crack the code.

Oh, well, let’s throw in some acrobatic Jamaican drug runners and Cocoa Puff Jim and it’ll all be good, right? No, sorry.

3. Ghost Rider (2007)

Dude, Nicolas Cage is in it.

2. The Spirit (2008)

I told myself after our review yesterday that I wouldn’t give this shit burger another thought, so I’m going to mostly pass on recounting why it’s so terrible. It’s just mindless torture unleashed on an audience that simply doesn’t deserve it. Every party involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

1. Batman and Robin (1997)

And then, there’s the king of bad movies. This isn’t just the worst comic book movie I’ve ever seen, this is the absolute worst movie I’ve laid my eyes upon in my entire movie-watching life. I remember the day it was released, June 20, 1997, my oldest brother’s birthday. We’d been cautiously anticipating it all year, and, although we expected it to be somewhat bad, we were in no way prepared for the onslaught of horribleness that ensued on-screen over the course of its run-time.

It ruined a franchise that had, up to that point, been a Hollywood juggernaut. It took eight years and a complete overhaul to right the ship, and, thankfully, it seems Warner Bros figured out what went wrong the first time around. After Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, I think we can safely say that this movie has been mostly washed out of our memories.

Now, let us never speak of it again.