Worst Superhero Movies

Okay, last time I did worst science fiction movies.  Now it’s time to do worst superhero movies.

Superhero movies are supposed to be a little bit beyond the normal realm of suspension of disbelief.  After all, we’re talking about people flying through the air and shooting laser beams from their eyes.  But there still has to be some depth.  People have to be willing to see something that says “Hey, this could happen under the right circumstances.”  Even our favorites can’t just show up and start being super campy.  That’s little more than an attempt to capitalize on childhood nostalgia.  Well, you know who pays for movie tickets?  It’s not usually children.

1.   Batman & Robin – Wow, starting off the list with a bang.  While nothing can match Christopher Nolan’s BatmanBegins trilogy, the original Batman movie with Michael Keaton was at least somewhat fun.  We hadn’t had a real Batman movie, and Keaton made it interesting, along with Jack Nicholson’s portrayal of the Joker(only surpassed decades later Heath Ledger).  Sure, it was a bit campy, but it was fun and in line with most Batman comics.  Batman & Robin was not.  It took the gritty Gotham look and gave us gangsters that wore fluorescent face paint, as well as Arnold being, well, super-Arnold.  Let’s leave aside a bat suit with nipples, or the way they denigrated Bane - someone asked Joel Schumacher if he’d ever read the Batman comics.  When he said he didn’t read comic books, most folks knew that was why this movie sucked.

2.   BatmanVersus Superman – Sticking in the Batman universe, the newest reboot was awful.  Great potential that was utterly wasted.  It didn’t help that they put Ben Affleck as Batman(I once posted a list of people who would’ve made better Batman actors, and I think I included Verne Troyer and Drew Barrymore on that list), but the conflict itself made no sense.  And did they really need to try and stuff every single DC superhero into the movie?  It was pretty obvious that they felt they had to catch up to the MCU overnight, and it came off as forced.  I watch it if it’s on TV now solely for comedic value.

3.   SupermanIV: The Quest For Peace – Let me first cop to my undying view that Christopher Reeves will always be Superman.  His portrayal in the early 80s was what seared into my mind.  That said, he should’ve been kept as far as possible away from story input.  From what I’ve read, Reeves was instrumental in developing the plot for this hippie-snoozefest about Superman ridding the world of nuclear weapons and fighting a villain that got his juice from the sun.  No, Christopher…just no.  It not only made Superman Global Cop #1, it also would’ve justified Batman’s later attempt to off him by pointing out there’s a super-powered alien who thinks he knows best for humanity, and he’ll impose his version of peace on us whenever it suits him.  I have no idea who had enough blackmail material on Gene Hackman to make him appear in this farce, but it must’ve been a doozy.

4.   CaptainAmerica(from the 1970s) – no, this isn’t about the MCU.  In the late 1970s(1979), Rod Holcomb made this terrible film about a Captain America wearing a motorcycle helmet and riding a rocket powered bike with a detachable glider.  It was so cheesy that I can’t even recall who the villain was.  I watched this on a Saturday afternoon in the 1970s, and even my six year old self knew it was bad.  Maybe there was some kind of contractual obligation to make this and they threw it together at the last minute.  Zero real special effects and a plot that was basically, “HERE’S CAPTAIN AMERICA!” made for a boring Saturday afternoon.

5.   JusticeLeague – okay, okay, so there’s another recent DC installment here, but did anyone feel any tension in this movie?  Like…at all?  I have no idea why the bad guy was doing what he was doing except that he was bad and hated good.  The special effects gave an eerie red glow to things, and no one cared about the heroes.  Also, the outcome was never in doubt.  In Infinity War, the MCU shocked us by following through on the finger snap, and while we knew that the Avengers would eventually make things right, there was some tension as we figured a few of our favorites wouldn’t make it.  In Justice League, I never had that doubt.  Steppenwolfe’s army was so weak that the JLA made it through to the main boss with no trouble whatsoever, and once Superman was involved, it was mostly a combination of bad dialogue and heat ray vision.  I think DC comics has better characters than Marvel, but DC makes horrible movies.  This was among them.

So, what have I missed?