Ever since I started doing The Best, I’ve tried to keep it as positive as possible. Too much negativity can have a surprisingly….negative impact on one’s health. Now, the main reason why I started doing The Best was to highlight the best aspects of films and the film industry. I didn’t want to focus on the bad stuff that’s come out of the industry. It worked for a while, but sometimes you have to recognize the fact that life ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. Occasionally, you have to take in the bad with the good. That’s reality. As a result, I’m going to make a slight adjustment to The Best page. It will no longer be just The Best. It will be The Best and The Worst. I would do separate pages, but these two concepts are basically two sides of the same coin. Besides, I think it’s a healthy thing to talk about negative stuff every once in a while. Since I’ve been on a comic book movie binge lately, I want to talk about the worst of the worst of these films. Oh….boy, it’s gonna be a ride!
Fant4stic
It’s not very often that a movie fails so badly that it can tank a director’s career. That’s exactly what Fant4stic did to Josh Trank’s career. He hasn’t done a thing since this movie came out back in 2015. This is the fourth attempt to bring the Fantastic Four characters to the big screen, and it failed spectacularly. I had my issues with the last two Fantastic Four films starring Chris Evans and Ioan Gruffudd, but at least they were entertaining. This one is just flat-out boring, which is one of the worst sins that a comic book movie can commit. The writing was awful and the apparent studio interference made this film a chore to sit through. Josh Trank’s response to the film’s final cut was….interesting to say the least. He came out swinging against it. It’s hard to know who to blame for the state of the movie. They still couldn’t get Doctor Doom right. This should have been a knockout punch for Fox at the time, but it ended up being one of the worst comic book movies ever made. Of all the movies that I’m putting on this list, Fant4stic is the one that I hate the most. The rest of the films on this list are pretty much guilty pleasures of mine, but they are still pretty bad.
Supergirl
I’ll be honest: I actually kind of like this movie. Is it good? No. But there is definitely some good stuff in here. Helen Slater was fantastic as Supergirl and Peter O’Toole just hammed it up as Zaltar. The acting wasn’t actually bad. Some of the visual effects were pretty nifty as well. Unfortunately, the bad stuff outweighs the good. This is an overly campy film that spends too much time with Supergirl in disguise at a local school, even though she’s supposed to be in a hurry to save her people. There’s a lot of logical inconsistencies peppered throughout the film. How did the main villain even know how to send people to the Phantom Zone? Why was she obsessed with brainwashing a local lumberjack? This movie makes no sense!
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Boy, they really screwed the pooch with this one. As much as I love the X-Men films, this one is beyond redemption. Not even Hugh Jackman’s performance could save this one. This is what happens when you throw crap at a wall and hope something sticks. Of all the X-Men characters to get an origin story, Wolverine really didn’t need one, especially since you already know how he ends up. The story is all over the place, and the visual effects are god-awful. I mean, look at Wolverine’s claws. That is some of the worst CGI I’ve ever seen. Even the claws from the first movie back in 2000 were infinitely better than what we saw here. The action was alright and so was the film’s score, but this one couldn’t be salvaged. Oh, yeah: I can’t forget about what they did to Deadpool in this movie. Let’s just say that Ryan Reynolds finally got to play the character as he was meant to be in 2016’s film and 2018’s sequel.
Green Lantern
Aaaand here’e another one that got needlessly butchered. While I can’t say that this movie was the worst ever made, it was not planned out very well. Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan? Brilliant. CG-animated super-suit? Not so much. The movie isn’t necessarily boring and it’s got some pretty interesting visuals. Mark Strong as Sinestro was brilliant casting. But he should have been the main villain, not Parallax. In fact, it’s obvious that the film-makers didn’t pay attention the comics or they would have realized that Hal Jordan becomes Parallax at a certain. Add on top of that, Parallax ended up being nothing more than a giant fart cloud. This is another case of the film-makers blatantly ignoring the source material.
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace
Superman has been a staple of comic book movies since his inception in 1938. He’s literally been the face of DC Comics for 80 years. When the 1978 film starring Christopher Reeve was released, it was a smash hit. Superman: The Movie is one of the greatest comic book movies of all time. Superman II was a good sequel, but not without its faults. Superman III had lots of issues, but it was still a decent enough experience that it’s worth watching. Superman IV: The Quest For Peace? This movie is undiluted garbage. The concept behind the film was pretty good, dealing with the threat of nuclear weapons. It could have worked, had Warner Bros. not given the license to the Canon Film Group. See, Canon was notorious for their low-budget schlock. Apparently they took a good chunk of money that was to be spent on Masters of the Universe, but they spent it on this film, damaging both movies. In fact, Superman IV was so bad that it basically helped shutter the Canon Film Group for good. Bad visual effects, ham-fisted acting, and not even Reeve could save this film. In fact, word got out that Mr. Reeve was extremely disappointed with the film. As a result, Superman would not get another film for 20 years. In case you haven’t noticed, I really hate this movie.
Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider was a movie that should’ve been really good. The character is interesting as are his villains, but the folks behind this film clearly didn’t understand. The casting of Nicolas Cage as Johnny Blaze was another strike against the film. Now, I’m a huge fan of Nic Cage as an actor, but this film didn’t do him any favors. Aside from some decent effects, the god-awful writing, characterization and story just stuck this film into a cannon and shot it directly into the ground. The entire movie was miscast, and despite Cage claiming to be a huge fan of the comic, his performance indicates other-wise. Now, the film would get a sequel/re-boot of sorts, but even that movie wasn’t any good.
Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad is the poster child for marketing that promises too much and not delivering. The trailers to this movie were fantastic, and the concept could have worked….if it weren’t for studio interference and David Ayer’s incompetence at bringing these these characters to the screen. There was a lot of re-writing to make this film a lot less….bleak. Warner Bros. didn’t want another Batman V. Superman so they tried to lighten it up. Here’s what works: Margot Robbie, Will Smith, and Jai Courtney as Harley Quinn, Deadshot, and Captain Boomerang respectively. What doesn’t work: Jared Leto as the Joker….and everything else. They really didn’t need to do the whole “save-the-world” gimmick here. That’s not what these folks were brought together to do. It ended up being more generic than it should have been. It comes as no surprise that the next Suicide Squad film is going to ignore this one entirely. With James Gunn at the helm, the next film has a much better chance of being good.
Batman And Robin
It goes well without saying that most people think that Batman And Robin is the worst comic book movie ever. It’s really hard to disagree with that, even though I think that Superman IV is quite a bit worse. That being said, there really is nothing that redeemable about this dumpster fire of a film. Aside from the HORRIFIC miscasting, which includes Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl, the film suffers from the fact that it was made only to sell toys. There’s no other reason. George Clooney has gone on record saying that his role in Batman And Robin was one of the worst decisions he’s made. Joel Schumaker, the director has also gone on record apologizing for the film. This movie did some serious damage. Alicia Silverstone’s film career never recovered, and Chris O’Donnell has basically been relegated to doing TV shows. He’s been successful there, but his movie career is pretty much shot. Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Clooney’s careers managed to survive. In fact, they’re doing better than ever. Yeah, this movie was a complete disaster. Also: Bat-nipples? REALLY?! Although, if it wasn’t for Batman And Robin, we probably would never have gotten Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. Silver lining, folks. Silver lining.
You know what? That was actually kind of fun doing that post. I really enjoyed writing and it makes me feel a hell of a lot better now. It’s pretty therapeutic. So…I will most likely be doing more of The Worst….probably. I hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I did writing it and…I’ll see you back here soon. Same Bat-time, same Bat-Channel!
That Batman bomb scene is the best!!!