It wasn’t that long ago that superhero movies were just dreadful, but the first X-Men and Spider-Man movies, not to mention the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy, went a long way to change the dreary status quo.
So with Iron Man 3 coming out and breaking box office records left and right, you knew there would be lists on the net of the best and worst superhero movies. Sure enough, those lists popped up left and right as well.
But what makes the Rolling Stone list different is there is a ten year cut-off point, which eliminates certain whipping boys like Howard the Duck, and Batman and Robin, yet those are easy targets anyways. So what made Rolling Stone’s list for the 10 worst superhero movies of the last ten years?
Two obvious ones that made the list are Daredevil and Elektra. Ben Affleck apparently considered it a career low point, and considering he starred in Gigli, that’s really saying something. I also just realized the irony that Affleck and Jennifer Garner, who played Elektra, are now married, so at least something good came out of this.
It’s no big surprise that Ang Lee’s The Hulk also made the list, and it took The Avengers to finally give us a worthy onscreen Hulk. Speaking of easy targets, Halle Berry’s Catwoman was indeed a dreadful piece of sh*t, and as Rolling Stone writes, “Berry herself acknowledged that the cat missed the box.” Again, although The Dark Knight Rises had a lot of flaws, the previous mess made by Halle Berry was straightened out with a terrific performance by Anne Hathaway.
Rounding out the list is Fantastic Four (why can’t anyone get this one right?), Superman Returns, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, The Green Lantern (which definitely has its defenders who felt it deserved to do better), and The Green Hornet. As we’re seeing this summer, Man of Steel will try to do Superman justice, and the next Wolverine movie also has promise. Not to mention, surprise, there’s a Fantastic Four reboot in the works, and maybe this one will finally deliver.
Even with superhero movies better than ever, there’s still going to be flicks that just aren’t going to work out. It’s hard to make somebody running around in a cape and their underwear, and not have them look ridiculous, and the above-mentioned movies definitely failed in this regard. But that’s just the nature of the beast, because even superheroes have to lose every so often.
