Enhance Productions

My Top 10 Worst Comic Book Movies of the 21st Century

   

Written by:

jaro235

*Cover Image | Source: UnSplash.com | Artist: Erik Mclean

My Credentials

When I was a young kid, I was much more into gaming than cinema. The only kinds of movies I watched were animated or family films, even at around 12 or 13 years old I would still love animated films (rango/kung foo panda). After I saw Pacific Rim and Man of Steel in theaters, I became obsessed with going to the movies—which led to me going to see different kinds of films. For years, the films I was most looking forward to were comic book movies. They had everything I was a fan of: comedy, sci-fi, fantasy, huge stakes and a ton of action-packed battles. 

I have watched all of the *DCEU films and almost every Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie as of now. I have seen plenty of other comic book movies and while I enjoy most of them, even ones that were critically panned, there are some that I find very lackluster. These ten movies are what I consider the worst comic book movies I have seen.

A couple of rules for this list:

  1. I am only including movies from the 21st century because I feel that it was much harder to make a comic book movie in the ‘90s or before; so nothing like Batman and Robin, Spawn or Steel.
  2. I have not seen every comic book movie, so there could be worse movies out there that don’t end up on this list. Simply because I have not seen them.
  3. These ten movies are not so bad, that they are good. All of them are just plain bad or boring with few redeeming qualities.

With all that said…

Let’s get started!

10. Justice League (2017)

Back when this movie first came out, I did not think Justice League was that bad. However, it got worse the more I thought about it and after I rewatched it, I can confidently say it is the worst movie in the DCEU.

The whole movie feels like a Great Value version of The Avengers with how the comedy plays out and how the story plays the same beats. The comedy in this film is so cringeworthy because it reeks of a desperate attempt to tell audiences, “look everybody! We tell jokes just like Marvel!” The story feels so unfinished with how rushed the pacing is here that the movie feels more like a video game than a movie. 

It looks like a PS3 game too, despite the huge budget. The action scenes are decent, but they are unmemorable compared to Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. They just feel very CG heavy and video game-like.

Steppenwolf is a worthless villain who has no personality aside from being a generic CGI villain. The cast do the best they can with the material with Gal Gadot, Jason Mamoa and Henry Cavil as the standouts, but their characters are done poorly, especially the obnoxious Flash. They are so much better in Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League.

There are worse movies out there than Justice League, but the production history with how certain actors were treated makes it worse. Also, I am a huge fan of these characters. As someone who has watched the 2000s cartoons, and even some of the animated DC films, I should have loved this movie. Instead it left me feeling completely indifferent. At least there is a version of this movie I love, even if it took them until 2021 to release it.

9. Fant4stic (2015)

Source: Twentieth Century Fox

Better known by its nickname Fant4stic, Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four is about as exciting as riding a bus to school. The first third is not awful, as I got somewhat invested in the story and characters and was curious to see what direction Trank was going for, but the movie just has nothing going on throughout the runtime.

The script is very dull and gives nobody a chance to shine. All of the actors in this movie are very talented, but they get so little to work with, that their performances come off as surprisingly wooden; with Jamie Bell as the Thing being an exception. Toby Kebball as Dr. Doom especially falls flat with the way he looks like a mechanical robot. 

The movie is shot okay, but some of the lighting is too dim, even in simple conversation scenes. There is only one major action scene and although it is decently shot, it has absolutely no weight or excitement. It is a battle on an ugly-looking wasteland that ends up feeling so anti-climactic.

I do think the reputation for Fant4stic is worse than the film itself because I did not hate it entirely, but it was such a misopportunity. I remember the movie was supposed to be a horror comic book movie. How cool would that have been? I really hope the MCU Fantastic Four coming out this year will turn out to be good because this franchise seems to have no luck when it comes to movies.

8. Morbius

This is the first of Sony’s recent Marvel movies on this list. I enjoy the Venom movies for what they are and I love Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but Morbius is a gigantic mess. Jared Leto sleepwalks throughout the entire film with his emotionless acting, his character is uninteresting and unlikable and the story does nothing to take advantage of its fantastic concept.

This could have been a very interesting action/horror hybrid that has Morbius and Milo navigating their powers in crazy ways, but it is a tame comic book movie with similar beats done so much better in other films. The PG-13 rating does not help at all, because it not only prevents the movie from tackling more compelling themes, it detracts from the production values too.

Morbius looks like a movie from a comic book movie in the early 2000s. There is a train sequence that looks so fake that I wondered if the movie was even finished. The action scenes are mediocre at best and downright unwatchable at worst, with the climax being horribly-shot and edited. There are so many cuts and shots in the final battle that I could not see the characters fighting.

The only consistently good thing about this movie is Matt Smith as Milo. Smith acts circles around Jared Leto because Smith looks like he’s having the time of his life compared to Leto, who looks like he’s bored to be there. Smith has a scene where he dances around when the cured Milo can walk, which is far more entertaining than any scene with Morbius. Milo as a villain is pretty solid, having sympathetic motivations for his actions while being evil enough to root against. 

Matt Smith is the only reason why this otherwise joyless movie is not lower on this list.

7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Source: Twentieth Century Fox

This one hurts. X-Men Origins: Wolverine on all accounts should be a movie I like. It is an X-Men movie that focuses on Wolverine featuring Deadpool and Gambit. It is packed with action, which is something an action-junkie, like myself, should love. The problem is that almost nothing in this movie works.

The cast is very committed, especially Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth and Lynn Collins as Kayla Silverfox, but the script and production values are dreadful. The story does not do a good job of telling the origins of Wolverine at all, and the script feels like just another generic adventure with him and a lot of boring fan service. Even as a standalone film, the movie is very boring to watch because of the pacing and bland characters.

The special effects are really shoddy, especially Wolverine’s claws that look cartoonish. The action scenes are awful in this movie, with so many quick cuts, shaky cam shots and bloodless carnage (thanks to the shaky cam). This is one of those films where the camerawork is so bad that I cannot make out what is going on in these fights.

And then there is the butchering of Deadpool… I am not a comic purist by any means, but this is unforgivable. Not only does he show up with his mouth sewn, but he looks like Baraka from Mortal Kombat. He even has blades that grow off his arms! How do you butcher a character that hard? Also, that last action scene with Barak- I mean Deadpool is no better than the rest of the action in the film.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is such a misfire that I am surprised that I got addicted to the X-Men movies after this being my first one. This movie has just about everything I dislike in action movies. At least the franchise got better and Ryan Reynolds got to return as the Merc with the Mouth with a vengeance in Deadpool’s own films.

6. Jonah Hex

Here is a DC comic book movie released on the same day as Pixar’s Toy Story 3. If that did not tell everyone the quality of Jonah Hex then the short runtime of 82 minutes should be another indicator that this will not be a good movie. Even with both of those facts in mind, Jonah Hex still majorly disappoints.

Despite lasting less than an hour and a half, I have seen three hour films that have flown by quicker than this movie has. You would think that the movie would feel rushed, but it actually feels like it is moving at a snail’s pace. It does not help that the editing is horrendous jumping from one setting to another, with the arena fight scene as the standout for all the wrong reasons.

Jonah Hex himself is a charisma vacuum despite Josh Brolin doing his best in the role, since his character relies on a lot of exposition. Megan Fox falls flat as the love interest and the villains do nothing for me. The script offers nothing of depth with the world, characters, story or lore. It seems like the filmmakers focused more on spectacle than character here, but that falls flat too.

The action scenes are poorly shot and edited with jump cuts everywhere making it hard to make out what is going on. Even if the action was well shot, it would still come off as too generic to enjoy, with bland shootouts and explosions. I wonder if this is another movie that was supposed to be an R-rated film, but the studio made it PG-13 in the hopes of getting more people to see it.

With the right creative team and a solid script, Jonah Hex could have been an awesome comic book movie, especially with its western setting. Instead, it is one of the most lifeless action thrillers I have ever seen and I have seen a bunch of them. I do hope Jonah Hex gets another chance at a movie release, because I think this character could still make for a really good movie.

5. R.I.P.D.

Ryan Reynolds loves to joke about Green Lantern a lot, but that is not the worst comic book movie he has ever been in, because R.I.P.D. is so much worse. Even seeing it in theaters as a 15-year-old, I did not like this movie. Looking at clips from the movie now, I wonder what in the world I was thinking when I went to see this. 

It looks so cheap, even for 2013. This was the same year that Pacific Rim, Oz the Great and Powerful and Gravity came out, so this film should look so much better than it does. The action scenes are not terrible, but they lack tension and style partially due to the bad-looking CGI.

The normally funny and charismatic Ryan Reynolds is shockingly bland as the lead and lacks on-screen chemistry with Jeff Bridges. Bridges fares a little better because he seems to be having a blast with this movie, but he is still at the mercy of a terrible screenplay with painfully unfunny humor. There is an interrogation scene that involves some gross-out humor with Jeff Bridges’ character eating fast and nothing about it is pleasant to watch, let alone fun.

The whole movie is just unpleasant to watch. It is unoriginal, ugly and unfun to watch, even with its short runtime. I still consider R.I.P.D. to be the worst movie I have ever seen in theaters, and I have seen over 200 movies in theaters at this point. I have also watched the straight-to-DVD sequel, R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned and it is no better than the first movie.

4. Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

This entry on my list is a bit different. I have both Ghost Rider films here because they are both awful for different reasons. Not even Nicholas Cage playing as a biker with a freaking flaming skull for a head could save these cinematic disasters, which both blow so hard.

Ghost Rider is one of the most boring blockbuster movies I have ever watched. A movie with Cage being this devilish bike rider performing daring stunts should not be so tedious story-wise or action-wise. Ghost Rider himself is a character with no depth or charisma, with even Cage giving one of his duller performances. The movie has one decent riding sequence towards the end and some of the visuals looked nice, but this is one of the few films where I dozed off while watching.

The sequel, Spirit of Vengeance, is even worse. While Nicholas Cage’s performance is more entertaining, everything else about the movie takes a step back. The storytelling is more inconsistent, the characters are even less fleshed out and the visuals are an absolute nightmare. At least the first film looked okay from a visual standpoint. There is so much bad imagery in this movie that it becomes more or less visual noise with no substance. 

Both of these movies had so much potential to be great and yet they fall flat for different reasons. Whereas the first film bored the daylights out of me, the second film angered me quite a bit when I watched it, to the point where my Spirit wanted Vengeance! I even heard that the second one was a guilty pleasure for some viewers, but it made me feel guilty with no pleasure.

Source: Marvel Entertainment

3. Madame Web

Madame Web is another Marvel turkey by Sony and it makes Morbius look like Guardians of the Galaxy. Just from the horrible opening scene, I knew this was gonna be a disaster.

First of all, it has the single worst villain I ever seen in a movie with Ezekiel Sims played by Tahar Rahim. Rahim is abysmal in the role either overacting or underacting in every scene as a villain, with the flimsiest motivation for his evil actions and he has the most laughably pathetic defeat I have ever seen for a villain.

Despite being a paramedic, Cassandra Webb is one of the most unlikable protagonists I have seen in a movie. She is rude, she leaves her patients who need her and she abandons three girls she is supposed to protect. The three girls are really no better themselves as they have one-note personalities that manage to be both boring and annoying.

The action scenes are horrendous with badly shot and edited fights with multiple cuts and messy camerawork. Even if the action was decently shot, it would still look too boring to watch. This movie also has an obsession of rotating the camera in disorienting ways taking me out of the movie even further.

Madame Web could have easily been a movie that is so bad, it’s good like Batman and Robin. Dakota Johnson has some fun moments in the lead role and some of the humor brought a smile to my face. Unfortunately the pacing is so bad, that it takes out any enjoyment I could have gotten from the movie. I think it will be hard to find a comic book movie in the 2020s that is worse than this one.

2. Hellboy (2019)

Source: UnSplash.com | Artist: Paul Marshall (AKA “Rally Tog”)

Of all of the comic book movies on this list, Neil Marshall’s Hellboy is by far the most joyless to watch. There are not a whole lot of movies I wanted to shut off while watching them, but this is one of them. While they were not my favorite comic book movies, I did enjoy Guillermo del Toro’s two Hellboy films for their style and creativity. This remake takes everything away that is cool about del Toro’s films in order to be as edgy as possible.

There is not a single joke in this entire film that even cracked a smile on my face, let alone made me laugh. The humor consists of nothing but mean-spirited one-liners and a bunch of swearing gags, because cussing is hilarious right? The dialogue is so bad that it detracts from all of the characters by making them unlikable and unbelievable.

Hellboy himself is a charmless a**hole played by a sleepwalking David Harbor who disrespects his father, throws tantrums and conveys no charisma whatsoever. We have Daniel Dae Kim and Sasha Lane playing as his allies who are equally bored to be there putting on hilariously bad English accents. Then there is Milla Jovovich who has the best performance in the film as a forgettable one-note villain who only shows up a couple of times. There is not a single decent character in this movie.

Normally, I am someone who is squeamish to gore but here, it is so excessive and mindless that I became indifferent towards it. This movie has gore for the sake of gore, but there is no weight or artistry to the gory parts. It all just looks like CGI kool-aid that detracts from some genuinely creative creature designs, costumes and makeup. Remember movies you watched as a kid that wanted to show as much violence as they could, because they offer nothing else interesting in the story or script? This is that movie.

I watched Venom the same day as this movie. Venom is the best kind of bad movie for being so insane, wacky and fast-paced that it becomes enjoyable despite its many shortcomings. Hellboy is the worst kind of bad movie. It sucks the joy out of experiencing cinema and leaves me feeling empty inside. There are probably worse movies than this, but there are not many that make me feel as numb as this disaster.

1. Catwoman (2004)

Here it is: the single worst comic book movie I have ever seen. Catwoman is arguably one of the most infamous movies in the 21st century. Not only did it win Worst Picture at the Golden Raspberry Awards, but Halle Berry showed up at the awards to receive her Razzie for Worst Actress. Unlike Fant4stic which also won Worst Picture, alongside Fifty Shades of Gray in 2016, this movie is every bit as awful as the reputation suggests.

This movie has the worst editing in any film that I have ever seen in any form of media-making: the movie unwatchable. There is a basketball scene that is saddled with jump cuts and disorienting camera movement that makes all of the other films on here look decent. Even scenes with two people talking back and forth have a lot of cuts. If they could not even get conversation scenes right, just imagine how chopped up the editing in the action sequences are.

Editing aside, the rest of the movie is just as terrible. The story is a paper thin origin story with probably the worst romance I have seen in any film, featuring characters who feel more like caricatures. There is not a single character that sticks out in a good way because they are all very cliched in how they handle conflict, especially the villain and the love interest. 

Despite giving her best effort here, Halle Berry is painful to watch because she is working with atrocious dialogue that no one could make work. Everyone else in the film looks bored to be here, especially Sharon Stone, who plays as a bland villain. Benjamin Bratt, who plays as an even blander love interest shares zero chemistry with Berry. It does not help that the dialogue is so bad that not even the best actors in the world could deliver naturally.

The production values are not much better, with uninspired set designs, a downright hideous Catwoman costume, some obvious CGI effects (especially in the scenes with Catwoman leaping from building to building), and cinematography that seemed more interested in showing off Halle Berry’s body. The fact that this movie does not look a fraction as impressive as any of the live-action Batman movies before, including the infamous Batman and Robin, is almost impressive.

Every single aspect about Catwoman is awful, except maybe its soundtrack. One could write a whole essay using this film as an example of how not to make a comic book movie. Honestly, I felt like I lost brain cells after the movie ended, making me feel dumber after watching it. There are very few movies that I would give a 1 out of 10 to, but this is one of them. Catwoman is not only the worst comic book movie I have ever seen, but it might be the worst made studio film I have ever watched too.

This article was written by Enhance’s friend Jared Jacoby and edited by team member Sidney J Floyd-Armstrong. Be sure to subscribe and keep an eye on the blog for more from our team and for more movie and video game reviews from Jared!

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