Movies based on comic books are nothing new. They’ve been around for decades, but it was Superman: The Movie that really made audiences take movies like that seriously. Batman, while it did have it’s cheesy films back in the day, got its first real serious film in Tim Burton’s 1989 film. Comic book movies were starting to be taken seriously. Batman Returns was a sequel that in some ways ended up being better than the first. But, while we did see some good movies like Superman and Batman, we also ended up with some pretty terrible follow-ups. Back in 2000, we began to see a major explosion of movies based on comic books. X-Men was the movie that really ushered in a new age of comic book film. We didn’t just start getting movies from Marvel’s line-up, but DC Comics as well. The first film out of DC/Warner was Batman Begins. But for all the good ones that we get like The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and The Dark Knight, we get crap like Superman 3/4, Jonah Hex, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. For today’s list, I’m going through each comic book film that I personally found disappointing. If my opinions match other people’s opinions, that is entirely coincidental. Anyway, as I like to say, let’s get this show on the road.
Ghost Rider/Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
First out of the gate are the two Ghost Rider films starring Nicolas Cage. Where do I start with these? First, let’s start with the fact that Cage is terribly miscast as Johnny Blaze. He has a horrendous Southern accent and he eats jelly beans out of a martini glass. Are you kidding me?! Blaze is a full-on alcoholic in the comics. Nicolas Cage said that he’s a huge fan of the comic book, so why was the character so butchered? Cage was too old for the role, and even more so for it’s sequel/reboot. The casting in the first movie was a mixed bag. Yeah, you had the likes of Sam Elliott, Nic Cage, and Peter Fonda. But you also had Eva Mendez, Wes Bentley and everbody else. Yeah, the trailers made the film look interesting, but it was anything but interesting. They got the character of Blackheart all wrong. In the comics, Blackheart rarely took on human form, because he’s a demon. He didn’t need to. The character was abominably written and horribly acted by Wes Bentley. Blackheart was supposed to be this demonic bad-ass, and what do we get? A pasty-faced hum-drum villain. Yeah, the visual effects are pretty spectacular, and when Blaze turns into the Rider, Cage goes full-on crazy. I’m not suggesting that we really take a biker with a burning skull too seriously, but we could certainly do better than this. So, we get Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, also starring Nicolas Cage. I thought this one was a lot better, but that’s not really hard to do. It was supposed to be a reboot. When you do a reboot, you need to recast the main character, and they didn’t. I like Cage, I really do. He’s a fantastic actor, but he has no business being Johnny Blaze. The cast is a bit more interesting as we get Idris Elba as a French mercenary and Christopher Lambert as the head of an ancient society of monks. But that doesn’t help the fact that is not a good movie. Neither one is. Mark Steven Johnson, who directed the first Ghost Rider, also wrote it. He’s pretty much dropped off the radar after Ghost Rider was released. Speaking of Mark Steven Johnson, he also wrote and directed the next movie:
I’m really split on this one. Daredevil was released back in 2003 and it got slammed left and right by critics, and rightly so. It was not a good movie. The character of Daredevil isn’t exactly on the level of say, Spider-Man, but he had a pretty decent following. Ben Affleck starred in the lead role, and to be perfectly honest, I thought he did a great job. I also thought that Michael Clarke Duncan did a great job as Kingpin. So, what went wrong? Everything else. The tone of the film was absolutely inconsistent with the character. It was too reminiscent of Batman. It was dark, brooding and bleak. The writing was terrible and the story was atrocious. Some of the fight scenes were a total joke, like the playground fight scene between Matt Murdoch and Elektra. Daredevil wound up getting a director’s cut, which really improved the film in many ways. But it was too little, too late. After Daredevil was released, Affleck said he would never do another comic book movie again and the film franchise was as dead as a door nail. Recently, it looks like Ben Affleck is getting another chance to play a superhero again. He will be playing Batman in the upcoming Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice which is set to be released next year. I think he can do it. Daredevil is also getting a new lease on life as a TV show on Netflix. Apparently, it’s been getting really good reviews. But the Ben Affleck film of Daredevil was a total mess, there’s no getting around it.
Spider-Man 3
Now, here is what a train-wreck looks like. It’s a shame too, because the first two Spider-Man films that Sam Raimi did were fantastic. So, why did Spider-Man 3 not live up to the hype? A lot of elements went wrong here. One, too many super-villains. We had Sandman, New Green Goblin and Venom. Venom was more a fan-service, and the way he was treated was a disaster. Topher Grace was hilariously miscast as Eddie Brock. Brock was supposed to be a bit of a jock, you know, big and muscular. Topher Grace is not that. Peter Parker going emo was also funny, for all the wrong reasons. I don’t know if it was Raimi’s idea or Marvel’s, but they had dance numbers in Spider-Man 3. There were a few things that the film got right: Thomas Haden Church as Sandman was not only a fantastic character, but was also very sympathetic. He did the wrong things for the right reasons, and that made him more human than anyone else in the movie. The action’s great, but it doesn’t mean a thing if everything else is a complete wreck. As a result, Sony Pictures ended up rebooting the franchise not even 10 years after Spider-Man 3 was released. Not once, but TWICE. Yes, the franchise got rebooted twice after the box-office failure of The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Rami’s third film had a lot of potential. It’s just too bad that the writers and director had to throw in everything but the kitchen sink.
Avengers: Age of Ultron
This one is the most recent of the bunch, and quite possibly the most painful for me to put on this list. I really wanted to love this movie. I really did. It gets a lot of elements right. The action is superb, the humor is spot on and the jokes fly at a mile-a-minute. But it also gets a lot wrong. For one, the jokes fly at a mile-a-minute. That’s rather inappropriate for situations in a movie that have real consequences. I’m not asking for Dark Knight levels of grit and drama, but you really need to cut back on the funny stuff when you’re dealing with an end-of-world situation inadvertently started by Tony Stark. Let us not forget the terrible romantic angle between Black Widow and Bruce Banner. Those two have absolutely ZERO chemistry between them and to put those two together doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. Ultron, while voiced brilliantly by James Spader, is a one-note villain. It’s also a villain we’ve seen before in movies like Terminator and The Matrix. The whole man vs. machine deal, as I’ve stated in my review, is not what a follow-up movie should deal with. The movie is a major success already, so, I’m not worried about the future of The Avengers film franchise, but Age of Ultron feels like a major step backwards in my opinion. I didn’t hate, I rather enjoyed, but it was very underwhelming for me. This one was disappointing.
The Green Lantern
Oh, boy. There are movies that are outright disasters, and then there’s The Green Lantern. Let’s start with the obvious: The suit. Good lord, what were they thinking making the whole thing CGI? It just doesn’t work. I mean it works in situations where CGI is required. But having it as a constant, just doesn’t work. What’s worse, is we knew this was going to happen. Somebody had the bright idea that an actual suit would seem too impractical. Well, I’ve got news: The CGI suit is impractical and it’s absolutely ridiculous to look at. The casting is also very suspect. Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan? No. Just….no. I like Reynolds, I really do. But I think he would make a better Deadpool than a Green Lantern. Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond? That was not a particularly good choice. Mark Strong was fine as Sinestro. Here’s the problem, though: Sinestro is Green Lantern’s arch-enemy. But they made a giant yellow cloud the main villain of the film. It’s a visually spectacular film and did some things properly, but the writing and the story are just monumentally stupid. It’s unlikely we’re going to see another Green Lantern film until after Batman V. Superman hits the screen next year. The character deserves a better movie. Speaking of evil clouds of destruction:
Fantastic 4/Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer
The Fantastic Four films are probably among the most disappointing movies ever made, in my opinion. Let’s start with the first film: The cast was mostly good, with Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards. I thought he was pretty good in the role. He was a little awkard, but still pretty cool. Michael Chiklis was phenomenal as Ben Grimm. But the one I really liked was Chris Evans as Johnny Storm. He had the attitude and the humor which really gave the character some real heart. Jessica Alba was miscast as Sue Storm. Alba just doesn’t have the acting chops to really portray a character like that. Julian McMahon was an absolute joke as Dr. Doom. They could not have picked a person more wrong to play that character. He doesn’t even get the whole outfit towards the end of the first movie. Doom is an iconic super-villain and Tim Story screwed it up. Not to mention they turned the whole movie into a comedy. That was Story’s intention, and it failed miserably. The Fantastic Four are some of the most well-known superheroes in comic book history, and the comics were supposed to amplify how important family was for superheroes. Tim Story turned it into a farce. It was one bad decision after another. The sequel was just as bad if not worse. It was great that they introduced the Silver Surfer into the mix, but when you introduce him, you have to bring in Galactus, the planet-eater. What they did to Galactus in F4: Rise of the Silver Surfer is absolutely unforgivable. I’m not saying the character should be completely purple, but the film-makers turned him into an intergalactic cloud of mass destruction. I’m not exactly the biggest reader of the comics, but I do know that Galactus was not a cloud. Again, the writing in this movie is so abysmal it ruins any potential emotional impact that the film would otherwise have. Yeah, some of the action is spectacular and the Silver Surfer is cool, but the movie was just a complete waste of talent. Thankfully, for Chris Evans, he rebounded in the superhero arena with Captain America. So, he’s one of the few that came out of the Fantastic Four mess unscathed. You can also add this franchise to the list of reboots, as they are getting ready to release a new film in August. Sadly, we’re not likely to see a film of Silver Surfer as the Rise of the Silver Surfer bombed big time. It’s too bad, he’s a very interesting character.
That’s my list for some of the most disappoint movies based on Marvel and DC licenses. Yeah, I left out a few like Batman And Robin, but that one is just too damned easy. The ones in my list are the ones that really could have gotten it right but didn’t. We’ve got a lot more movies coming our way and hopefully, most of them won’t be disappointing.