The 411 Top 5 05.17.06: Week Nine

Posted by Trevor Snyder on 05.17.2006

The Top 5 Worst Comic Book Movies

With the release of X3: The Last Stand less than two weeks away, fans of the series are holding their breath, waiting to find out if it's the piece of garbage that the months of negative hype suggest, or the surprisingly decent movie that the better-that-expected looking trailer promises. We'll have our answer shortly, but in the spirit of both dreading and eagerly anticipating a comic book movie, I thought we'd take a special two-week look at the best and worst the genre has had to offer so far. We'll get to the good stuff later, this week, however, 411 examines:

THE TOP 5 WORST COMIC BOOK MOVIES


Trevor Snyder

5) The Punisher (1989)
4) Supergirl
3) Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
2) Spawn
1) Batman & Robin

Honorable Mention - Judge Dredd - Yes, let's take a super-cool, ultra-violent British comic and turn it into just another generic Sylvester Stallone action flick. With Rob Schneider as the comic relief, no less! And Armand Assante as the villain! WTF? A complete waste of a character with tons of cinematic potential.

Also, for the sake of my own sanity I've never bothered to watch Catwoman or Son of the Mask, but I have no doubt that if I had they'd probably be on here.

5 – Ex-soldier watches his family gunned down by mob, loses it, wages an unending one-man war on crime. It's one of comics' simplest, yet most effective premises, and it should be easy as hell to turn into a great movie. And yet Hollywood has failed not once, but twice at making a movie that truly captures the essence of the character. While the 2004 effort was far from perfect itself, the 1989 original definitely has the edge in sucktitude. It was probably destined to make this list the moment they chose master thespian Dolph Lundgren to play Frank Castle, but there's an even bigger problem: The Punisher never even wears his trademark black and white skull t-shirt, one of the most recognizable comic symbols around. That's just unforgivable.

4 – I bet there are quite a few people reading this who are thinking, "they made a Supergirl movie?" That tells you something about this one right off the bat. A piss-poor attempt to expand the Superman franchise, this entirely forgettable movie has only one thing going for it: Helen Slater looks really cute in the Supergirl outfit. That's it. The film's tagline was "Her first great adventure!" Needless to say, there was never a second great adventure. DC's recent successful revamp of the character tells me there is a good Supergirl movie to be made. This ain't it.

3 – When discussing movies that absolutely destroyed a franchise, people love to focus on Batman & Robin (and for good reason). But let's not forget this piece of cinematic excrement, which brought a miserable end to Superman movies for 19 years. I suppose everyone's heart was in the right place with the anti-nuclear message. But…Nuclear Man? Today, it's almost impossible to watch this and not feel bad for Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman for even being associated with it.

2 – If you decide to film a crappy comic, chances are you'll end up with a crappy movie. For proof of this, look no further than Spawn, the feature version of Todd McFarlane's "style over substance" comic series. Unfortunately for anyone who has endured it, the movie features neither style nor substance. John Leguizamo is one of my favorite actors, and casting him as Spawn's nemesis, The Clown, was inspired (and is the film's only memorable element). But apparently the inspiration stopped there, as the rest of the film is sunk by a boring, pointless story and some of the worst CGI I've ever seen in a big budget movie. Good soundtrack, though.

1 – I remember sitting in the theater and hearing Commissioner Gordon say something like, "Batman, there's a new villain in town. He calls himself Mister Freeze" (or something like, I'm sure that's close enough). That little bit of dialogue was all it took to convince me that I was in for two hours of pure bat-crap. Moments later, my fears were confirmed when Batman and Robin went up against a evil hockey team, and just happened to have ice skates on their boots, even though they didn't know they would be doing anything around ice! And then there's Batman pulling out his Bat Credit Card. Alfred imprinting his brain onto a computer! Bane (one of Batman's most badass villains) reinvented as a monosyllabic henchman character. Alicia Silverstone! Look, the crap goes on and on, and everyone else in this column is going to go off on this one too. So let me try to be positive, and focus on what's good about Batman & Robin. George Clooney really isn't that bad, despite what many others (including Clooney himself) think. And Uma Thurman is actually quite good as Poison Ivy, a character who actually works with the "over the top" style. And…that's about it. Apparently, Joel Schumacher knew that he really screwed up with this one, and was planning to make the fifth installment a lot darker in tone. That's admirable, if it's true. But after sitting through this one, I'm not exactly sad that Schumacher was never let near the franchise again.


Bryan Kristopowitz

5) The Punisher (2004)
4) The Mask (1994)
3) Blade Trinity (2004)
2) Batman Begins (2005)
1) Batman and Robin (1997)

5. The Punisher (2004) - They really tried. They really, really did. Dolph Lundgren's 1989 movie has such a bad (and unfair) reputation; they made this flick to try to make everyone forget about it. They got John Travolta for the villain (and he's not bad), and they managed to get Rebecca Romijn Stamos as a poor woman living in an apartment, and Roy Scheider as the father of Thomas Jane's Frank Castle. Thomas Jane as Frank Castle? Please. Jane is a fine actor, but I'm just not buying him in the role. He's terrible. Even when he gets down to the painting the skull onto his chest and starts whacking bad guys, who cares? Jane could have been given a slightly better character to work with, though. The opening scene where the entire Castle family is wiped out is great and heart wrenching, but after that it's just terrible. The movie makers should have stuck with the simple story of the comic. Family on picnic gets killed by mob guys. Castle goes underground and comes back insane. He doesn't need to be a cop. He just needs to be a psycho killer.

4. The Mask (1994) - Jim Carrey manages to overact throughout in this live action cartoon that is just pure boredom throughout. Chuck Russell is an underrated director, and he, much like Jonathan Hensleigh for The Punisher (2004), really, really tried. But the movie just blows.

3. Blade Trinity" (2004) - David Goyer may be the uber script guy for comic book movies, but he should stay the heck away from directing those movies. He stinks at it. Blade Trinity manages to be watchable only because it's filled with Wesley Snipes kicking the crap out of vampires and doing kung fu while shooting a shotgun, which never gets old. But the rest of it is plodding, confusing, and just dumb. Ryan Reynolds is terrible as Hannibal King, and why the hell isn't there more Patton "Spence Olchin" Oswalt in it? Why build up a vampire hunting team only to kill the entire team five minutes later? And while HHH is a good henchman, he isn't given much of a boss to work for. And why do people think Eurotrash vampire scumbags are so dang interesting? It does not bode well for The Flash. Goyer should just stick to writing.

2. Batman Begins (2005) - I've seen this movie twice now, and I hated it even more the second time. Most everyone else I know loves it, and I have no idea why. It's a confusing jumble of boredom that spends time on absolutely nothing because it has seven hundred characters. Morgan Freeman and Rutger Hauer are there to do… nothing. Christian Bale does an okay job as Batman (he does have the right look, that's for sure) and Liam Neeson is good as usual as the villain. But, like the #1 flick on this list, the movie has too many characters and way too much going on to be any good. No one seems to have learned anything from 1997. And while the movie has a decent "look," that's all it has.

1. Batman and Robin (1997) - Does anyone even know what this movie is supposed to be about? It should have been great, since Mr. Freeze is a cool (ha!) villain, but the movie also has Poison Ivy, Bane, Robin, and Batgirl in it. Why? Chris O'Donnell absolutely sucks as Robin, and Alicia Silverstone, while cute, doesn't belong in this role at all. Uma tries to do the seductive lunatic thing, and Ahnold as Mr. Freeze seems like a great decision. It isn't. And having Joel Schumacher return as the director after his dreadful Batman Forever is unforgivable. George Clooney really tries to be Batman, but all he does well is the Bruce Wayne part (which is a big problem. It was a problem for Val Kilmer in Batman Forever, too, because he was a great Batman but a terrible Bruce Wayne). From top to bottom, one of the worst movies ever made. We don't need this many characters unless we have, you know, a reason for it. Batman Returns almost does this, but apparently that movie's uneven pacing didn't make anyone notice. The studio must have wanted to pack as many characters into the flick for the toy line. More characters, more toys, more money. It should have been better, and Mr. Freeze should have kicked more butt. Hockey henchman? Please. Just terrible.


Arnold Furious

5) Tank Girl
4) Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
3) Catwoman
2) Elektra
1) Batman & Robin

This was a lot harder than you'd imagine. For starters there are way more than five terrible comic book movies. I happen to think these are the worst ones, but the two Punisher movies are both awful, as is the Captain America movie they made. I can't even begin to work out how they had such a horrible conception of such a great concept. Then there's Dick Tracey, Spawn, Men in Black II and that thing with Keanu Reeves in. And League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Rubbish. But these five are all of a higher order in terms of sucktitude.

#5 is Tank Girl. I've always hated Lori Petty, but this just cemented her as one of my least favourite actresses. The script seems to have a vague connection to the comic book of the same name, and somehow they managed to waste Malcolm McDowell. Getting big names to do comic book movies is one thing; getting them to actually act is another. Then there's Iggy Pop as a rat and Ice T as a fucking kangaroo. You'd have to be on drugs to enjoy Tank Girl and if you have some drugs that make Tank Girl enjoyable, I'd like some. Thanks.

#4 is Superman IV. It's by far the worst of the Superman franchise. Even III had a few cool ideas, with the fight between Superman and Clark Kent. And it has Richard Pryor. That has to count for something. IV, on the other hand, has nothing. No direction, no budget, no plot of any worth. Not even Gene Hackman, who is good in everything, can save it. Everyone else is just there for the paycheque. I've never been a big fan of Superman, but even I can admit the first two movies were gold. This wasn't even bronze. I can't even begin to pick holes in it because there are so many. Avoid at all costs.

#3 Catwoman, a film universally derided on its release, is one of the worst films I've had the misfortune to see. It's not higher because I didn't pay to see it. I feel more personally slighted by #1 & #2 because I paid to see them. Catwoman I just saw on TV. The CGI is absolutely brutal. CGI just isn't needed to the degree that it's used in Catwoman. The whole process just comes off as lazy. There are all of about three great shots in the film that show off Halle Berry in the suit and that's it. Nothing else to see here! Lame plot, hideous technical flaws, atrocious acting. All of which are present here. I can only assume everyone that doesn't have Catwoman on their lists simply hasn't seen it. My advice to them; never do.

#2 is Elektra. I felt slighted by Elektra because I paid to see it. At the cinema. Plus I wasn't driving, so I couldn't walk out. Here's my wrap up of my review…"Almost nothing to redeem one of the worst comic book movies ever made. A pedestrian plot that didn't feel it had to make sense. Good ideas being cut really painfully short. Wasted talent. Lack of excitement. To be honest, Daredevil was WAY better than this, and I didn't particularly like Daredevil. The sexy Jennifer Garner is in both, so by re-watching Daredevil you'd be better off. Plus it'll probably cost less. Yeah, Ben Affleck is rubbish in it, but at least the plot makes sense and Colin Farrell is really superbly OTT. Avoid at all costs, however, this pile of pants". A pile of pants, ladies and gentlemen.

#1 is Batman & Robin. Oddly enough NOT the worst film I've ever seen at the cinema (Speed 2), but certainly up there in second spot. It's a shame that Joel Schumacher just totally lost sight of the point of Batman. He's so busy working at the Batman character in Batman & Robin that he neglects to pay any attention to two hammy as fuck bad guys. If Uma Thurman is ever that bad in anything else again, I'll be amazed. Then there are two sidekicks for Batman, both of which are superfluous. The only saving grace for Batman Forever was a terrific performance from Jim Carrey, using the fact that Riddler is totally over the top as an excuse to go totally over the top. So both the bad guys here are totally over the top and that's not their characters. The absolute only reason for watching Batman & Robin is Alicia Silverstone in the Batgirl gear. That's it. You'd be better off looking at pictures of her in the gear online and saving yourself two hours.


George H. Sirois

5) Superman III (1982)
4) Captain America (1990)
3) The Punisher (1989)
2) Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
1) Batman & Robin (1997)

5. Superman III was listed as my Number 1 Guilty Pleasure, so it only makes sense that it makes this list. With everything that we'd been given in I & II, it's no surprise why Bryan Singer wanted to keep with the continuity of this original film series, but sweep this one and IV under the rug. With everything that's wrong with it – the Lex Luthor Clone with a computer fetish, Superman turning "evil" and only doing one kinda evil thing, the computer going nuts at the end, the weird pacing and plot going all over the place – there's something to it that keeps me watching it, and I'm still not sure what it is.

4. Captain America was one of those films that could have been something special if it wasn't made for $17.34 (adjusted for inflation). There were some good intentions behind this, with Stan Lee onboard as an executive producer, a mixture of old stars and up-and-comers, a plot that'd been taken from the comics, and a few genuinely good scenes here and there. But because of Menahem Golan (producer of the ill-fated Phantom of the Opera re-make and another film on this list) giving only so much money and not caring at all about anything looking good, so long as the movie gets made, this once-promising project was almost doomed from the start. But at least they got the costume right, despite the rubber ears.

3. Speaking of costumes, it would have been nice if The Punisher (the 1989 original) had at least a little bit more of the comic book source other than Frank Castle's name. And I'm actually shocked that they didn't change that for this. Dolph was his usual drone-voiced self, proving once again that the less he has to say, the better. But it's so much like an ordinary low-budgeted action film that you find yourself nodding off about 15 minutes into it. Therefore it belongs on this list solely for committing the most un-pardonable of movie sins: it's boring as hell.

2. Another reason why Singer decided to cut the series in half and make Superman Returns the new Part III. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace at least had its heart in the right place with Christopher Reeve coming up with a story about the danger of nuclear weapons. But the one-two punch of Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal writing a terrible script and Menahem Golan taking the producing reigns and cutting the budget in half put the film down for good. But at least you learn something. According to Superman IV, normal people can be taken into space without a suit and still survive. Oh, but if you do go up in space without a suit, at least bring a jacket, because it's mighty windy up there.

1. I've never walked out of a theater feeling like I'd been literally punched in the gut by a movie, except for when I saw Batman & Robin. To go through this whole franchise and then be given this was agonizing, like seeing an old friend getting the crap kicked out of them in front of you. There's nothing that I can say about this film that others here haven't already said, so I'll just stop talking here before I get really upset. Let's just say that it's a good thing we were given Men in Black during the same summer, or else the comic book film genre would have been silenced forever.


Ben Moser

It would be easy to go after some of the low-budget horrors like Dolph's Punisher(which isn't really all that bad), the early Fantastic Four, and Captain America movies. But those movies being bad didn't disappoint me the way these do:

5) Supergirl
4) Howard the Duck
3) Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
2) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
1) Batman and Robin

5. Watch this movie. Then sigh to yourself. Then utter the phrase "The cast really did the best that they could with what they were given." Helen Slater was perfect for the role. Faye Dunaway was inspired as the villain. But the movie is terrible. The plot revolves around a love-spell gone wrong and the battle for control of the Omegahedron, which could destroy the world. Guess which part gets the most attention. Throw in a horrible trip to the phantom zone, and you've got one bad movie, no matter how well the cast manages itself.

4. I'll admit that I like this comic. I even have some old issues that I'll occasionally pull out of their protective bags and touch with my acid-covered fingers just for laughs. The movie lacked all of the charm and laughs that the books held. It was just awful. Even with Lea Thompson(my first ever celebrity crush, thanks Back to the Future), I can't make it through this movie. The acting and the plot are both best described by "hack."

3. When I watched this movie as a kid(I guess I would have been around 8), my brothers and I got vast milage out of making fun of this movie. Nuclear man's awfully-penned lines were the main targets of our mockery. As an adult, I can actually hear the operator directing the call that Gene Hackman used to phone this one in, making it even worse. It gets a little credit for the cute "double date" scene and for being the first movie I ever remember disliking.

2. Alan Moore wrote this marvelous book, and I was practically wetting myself when I heard it was going to be made into a movie. When I heard about the casting, I knew immediately we weren't going to be seeing anything close to the source material, so I decided that I would just enjoy it for what it was. And then I was sorely disappointed. Bad script. Bad acting. Even worse than that: it was boring. Supremely boring. Bad, bad, bad movie.

1. It's not fair to Batman and Robin that the first thing that comes to everyone's mind is bat-nipples. There are far better reasons to hate this abortion of a movie. They had this great franchise in place, and in spite of a slight misstep with Batman Forever, they could have rebounded. Instead they went for camp. There are two problems with going for camp. One is that the actors have to be charming to pull it off. Uma Thurman was half-charming, making her by far the most charming of the bunch; so that was a failure. The problem with campy Batman is that he belongs in the 70's lamenting that "Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb." I will never be able to get this bomb out of my head, I can tell you that.


Chad Webb

5) Spiderman 2 (2004)
4) Tank Girl (1995)
3) Batman & Robin (1997)
2) Howard the Duck (1986)
1) Blade II (2002)

5- I will go out on a limb for this one. I tried to stop myself but I just couldn't. I realize that this film was one of the best reviewed of its year, and many of my friends enjoyed it, but I hated this sequel. I have many reasons. For starters, what the hell was with the chocolate cake scene? Don't tell me stress…if I was stressed out I could think of loads of things to do other than eat chocolate cake. I did not care for Spiderman unmasking. I thought it was unnecessary. This killed the film for me. The first time that Doc Oc and Spiderman meet, Doc Oc conveniently grabs Aunt Mae from inside of the building, without knowing who she is (and she hangs on the ledge not realizing that she can just drop and stand…dumb). Lastly, I know why Aunt Mae gave her "heroes" speech at towards the end, but I still thought it was cheesy. I liked the first one, and I'm looking forward to the third one, but the second one I did not care for. Please don't hold this against me…I'm still a good guy.

4-I haven't seen this movie in quite some time, but what I recall was totally horrible. Lori Petty's haircut was extremely tough to look at most of the time, the plot just struck me as too strange to be intriguing, and the set design was so incredibly bad. The filmmaking was like an eye sore, as they used every type of trick they could think of like special effects, animatronic makeup, and much, much more. I have wasted too much time writing about this now. I'll bet most people forgot this movie even existed.

3- Of all the Batman films made, this is by far the worst, and not just because of the surfing through the sky or the foolish motorcycle race, but because of George Clooney becoming Batman. Don't get me wrong, Clooney is a great actor and filmmaker, but as Batman he sucks. It went from Keaton to Kilmer and then Clooney. You can't expect fans to enjoy the film when the key character keeps changing. Oh, and on top of that, Schwarzenegger's one-liners were beyond dumb, and the constant shots of the heroes butts, crotches, and chests stepped on my last nerve.

2- I had no idea this was based on a comic book until recently, because honestly I have tried to eliminate this disaster from my memory. You know, as a kid I admit that I thought this was cool. Looking back, I wonder what the hell was wrong with me. I don't need to elaborate on why this was so bad. Others already have. I will recommend checking it out and laughing with your friends about it though. It would be a good time.

1-When I saw the first Blade movie, I thought it was fantastic. To me it was a vampire film to be proud of. The Blade character was dark and didn't talk much, and I like that in a hero. I was excited when I saw a sequel would be released, but my excitement quickly went to horror after the movie started. Blade was given the cheesiest and most ridiculous one-liners that completely changed his character. On top of that they brought Kris Kristofferson back after he very clearly died in the first film (yes they gave a reason but I don't care). I never read the comic, so I don't know what the Blade acts like in that, but I wanted it to stay true to the first. I was so angry by how brainless this film was made. I never saw the third one. I never wanted to. What's the point. Blade II killed any chance this series had of being great.


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Congratulations go out to Batman & Robin, which has pulled off what I believe is a Top 5 first, appearing on every single list in this column. In fact, it took the top spot in all but one list (way to mess up the perfect score, Chad!). I don't really think the world needed a reminder of just how mind-numbingly awful Batman & Robin was, but oh well, it really can't be helped.

Next week, we'll take a look at brighter side of our cinematic friends in spandex, with the Top 5 Best Comic Book Movies.