Anyone who knows me remotely in the least, or at least has been reading this sorry excuse of a blog of mine, knows that I love comic books, always have and always will. As much as I love them and all the history that surrounds the medium though, there is one thing that is involved with the graphic medium that I absolutely hate: shitty comic book adapted movies.
Yes sir, more often than not, there are all kinds of shitty comic book adaptations that command big budgets, big stars, and wind up being big piles of horseshit instead. In those regards, I now humbly present to you, the 10 worst comic book movies I have ever seen and/or just plain despise because they kill the source material so damned much. They aren’t in any particular order mind you, and some hold some of these adaptations in high regard (for whatever reason, probably because they don’t know how to fucking read but that’s just me), but regardless, do yourself a favor and just NEVER, EVER watch these pieces of cinematic trash. Do something more constructive with your time instead, like try sticking your head up your ass while whistling the theme song from “The Simpsons” or something.
Anyway, here we go:
BATMAN & ROBIN (1997)
Director: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Uma Thurman
The granddaddy of all shitty superhero movies, Joel Schumacher’s “Batman & Robin” is so bad I can’t even put it into the right words. No, seriously, if you’ve never seen it, you really don’t know just how fucking bad this movie is. Everything you’ve heard; from the bat-nipples, to the bat-ice skates, to the bat-credit card and more besides, is all so sadly, depressingly true. Atrociously campy acting, a neon colored Gotham City, and some of the worst dialogue in the history of mankind…ALL THAT is what you’ll find here!!! This movie was so bad that there wasn’t even a real attempt to make another Batman movie until 2005’s “Batman Begins” reboot. This movie was so bad that it made no studio ever want to touch another comic book property to make a movie. This movie was so bad that it pretty much effectively killed the careers of Chris O’Donnel and Alicia Silverstone. This movie was so bad that it made little kids who saw it in theaters lead lives of perversion and degradation, committing crimes, wiping their asses with the American flag, and fuck their best friend’s mothers! This movie is nothing more than pure Bat-shit!!! Pure fucking Bat-shit!!! And it makes you be thankful that Christopher Nolan came along and brought respectability back to Batman in film. It makes you thankful that Joel Schumacher is now looked upon by comic book geeks as the Hitler of film directors. It makes you thankful that “Batman Forever” wasn’t even this bad (and that’s saying something). I’d rather go dive face first into a huge pile of bat-shit than sit through this disgrace to comics and film again.
CONSTANTINE (2005)
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, Shia LeBeouf
The John Constantine I know and love from the “Hellblazer” comics is a blonde, British, chain-smoking master of bad luck black magic. He conned the devil into curing his lung cancer and when done, looked him in the eye, lit up a cigarette, and gave him the finger. He’s often a reluctant hero, but he’s also a bastard who uses his friends and loved ones as pawns whether he realizes it or not, all in an effort to always wind up on top of whatever bloody situation he finds himself in. The John Constantine found in “Constantine” is in the form of Keanu Reeves, and is a boring old demon hunter who wants to go to Heaven when he dies because he’s afraid of what awaits him in Hell, and he’s kind of a douche bag as well. Granted the Constantine I know and love is a selfish prick, but he isn’t without his charm. So why do I hate “Constantine” so damned much? Because it takes just about everything great about the character and dumbs it down to be digested by a wider audience. John Constantine has had run-ins with Lucifer and demons from time to time, but he sure as fuck isn’t a demon hunter like he’s presented here as being. And oh yeah, the film’s storyline as a whole is so fucking overblown and ridiculous that it causes character creator Alan Moore to shit fire anytime it airs on television. Yes, he hates it probably more than I do.
V FOR VENDETTA (2006)
Director: James McTeigue
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea
Another creation of Alan Moore’s that was dumbed down for mass audiences to digest, “V For Vendetta” either misses or completely disregards the points made by Moore’s original work and instead opts for an action-oriented shit-fest that audiences fell in love with. The moral quandaries of whether or not the Guy Fawkes-masked antihero V is a hero or a terrorist is thrown out the window. The subplots regarding the inner-workings of the totalitarian state that the story takes place in are ignored. Evie’s backstory is altered to the point that you already know everything there is to know about her within her first five minutes of screen time. And the moral ambiguity of V’s actions, as well as that of his identity and ultimate intent of taking Evie under his wing are skewed and flat-out shit all over and instead opts for V doing Neo-esque kung-fu moves in dark alleys (which isn’t surprising, considering the Wachowski brothers wrote the screenplay and produced the film). Do yourself a favor, if you want a truly challenging, complex, deep, and emotional read, pick up Moore’s graphic novel instead; you won’t regret it.
X-MEN: THE LAST STAND (2006)
Director: Brett Ratner
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Halle Berry, Ian McKellan
Bryan Singer managed to work some kind of strange magic with the first two “X-Men” films, “X2: X-Men United” in particular. With the awesome, downbeat ending that was featured in “X2”, X-Men fans across the globe (myself included) couldn’t wait to see what could have been the classic “Phoenix Saga” brought to the big screen. We didn’t get it. Instead, Singer and his team jumped ship to make “Superman Returns”, while the third “X-Men” film ended up falling into the hands of Brett fucking Ratner; the same assclown who helmed the “Rush Hour” movies. The end result was a straight up slap in the face to fans of the X-Men comics and movies alike. We get tons of corny moments, incoherent action scenes, whiny mutants, Colossus looking like he’s wrapped in tin-foil, Cyclops getting unceremoniously killed off-screen (in reality, actor James Marsden, who had a prominent role in “Superman Returns”, was written out early in the film as punishment from Fox), flat out insulting the intelligence of the audience, and nothing remotely resembling the “Phoenix Saga” in the least. True, it may not be the absolute worst superhero movie you’ll ever see, but it’s just so lame and pays little to no respect to the source material that you can’t help but wonder why Fox and Marvel didn’t at least take their time in the film’s overall production, which was notoriously short and hurried. As for Bryan Singer though, he wasn’t quite without sin either in 2006…
SUPERMAN RETURNS (2006)
Director: Bryan Singer
Starring: Brandon Routh, Kate Bosworth, Kevin Spacey
When “Superman Returns” came out the same summer as “X-Men: The Last Stand”, it had been the first true “Superman” film in nearly 20 years, and it had a lot going for it. Bryan Singer had made the first two X-Men films, and he did quite well with them too. Warner Bros. had given Singer nearly a quarter of a BILLION dollar budget to work with. Kevin Spacey was playing Lex Luthor, and the overall cast looked great as well. What we got instead with “Superman Returns” was an overblown, underwhelming, wankfest that supposedly “pays homage” to Richard Donner’s original “Superman” film, but really just basically plagiarizes it. Instead of Superman, we have a “super-stalker”, who can’t stand the fact that Lois Lane has moved on in his absence and now has a fiancé and a young son (and oh yeah, the son is really Superman’s and he has superpowers too. Nooch.). One last thing, it’s a 2 and a half hour long movie and it barely has ANY action sequences. When I think of Superman, I think of world-shattering action and excitement. Here, we get none of that except for when Superman saves a space shuttle and lifts up a chunk of rock to launch into orbit. And Lex Luthor is still doing the whole “land scheme” from the 70s films. Yeah, Superman in film has really, really come far. Fuck this shit.
HULK (2003)
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Eric Bana, Jennifer Connolly, Nick Nolte
On paper, a big budget adaptation of the Hulk should have worked, even if it was handled by the guy who achieved worldwide fame for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and would go on to win an Oscar for “Brokeback Mountain”. Why you ask? Because the whole Bruce Banner/Hulk inner struggle and all the emotions associated therein could have been real gold…but instead what we got was a giant green turd. Shitty CGI effects are one thing, but the fact that the 2003 “Hulk” is so mind numbingly slow and boring is absolutely unforgivable. Add to that a scene-chewing Nick Nolte, ridiculous “Hulk-dogs”, and the fact that there is very little action going on in what’s supposed to be a movie about an angry, mutated monster destroying everything in sight; and you have one totally shitty comic book flick. Thankfully, the 2008 reboot was much better, but it sadly couldn’t erase all the memories of green shit that are still in my brain after wasting the cash to go see this piece of fuck.
LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN (2003)
Director: Stephen Norrington
Starring: Sean Connery, Shane West, Stuart Townsend
Alan Moore’s “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” comics were equal parts shocking and exciting, as he gleefully took various literary characters and put them in some fucked science fiction/horror situations. You’d think that a film adaptation directed by “Blade”’s Stephen Norrington and starring Sean fucking Connery would be awesome…and you’d figure wrong! Universally panned by critics and comic book fans alike, this film adaptation was so goddamn bad that Connery and Norrington actually got in an on-set fist-fight, and Connery hasn’t acted in another film since. This is the film that led creator Moore to request that any adaptation of his work not credit him in any way whatsoever. This is the piece of shit that took a serious, horrific take on these classical characters and turned them into nothing more than jokes. This is the shit-riffic fuck-fest that took any original ideas of Moore’s, shit all over them, and attempted to re-package them for dimwitted audiences…but even some people aren’t that stupid. Piss on this fucking turd.
DAREDEVIL (2003)
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Starring: Ben Affleck, Jennifer Garner, Michael Clarke Duncan
What can I say about “Daredevil” that hasn’t been said already? Granted I kind of dug how they managed to present how Daredevil “sees” like bat-radar, but other than that we have a somewhat campy and overly flashy take on Marvel’s blind superhero. Those things are bad enough on their own, but the casting of Daredevil, Elektra, Bullseye, and The Kingpin are so goddamn bad that it boggles my mind what the casting company was smoking. Add to that the ridiculous costumes (Daredevil’s looks like an S&M lovers wet dream, while Elektra’s and Bullseye’s just look like garbage) and the poppy-emo soundtrack, and the end result is Fox and Marvel trying to take the noir-ish superhero and turn him into a Spider-Man-esque douche bag for everyone to enjoy. And yeah, you guessed it, nobody enjoyed it.
CATWOMAN (2004)
Director: Pitof
Starring: Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, Sharon Stone
I’ll be totally honest with you; I’ve never made it all the way through “Catwoman”. It’s just so unbelievably awful that I try to pretend that it doesn’t even exist. Even having Halle Berry prance around in that ridiculous (yet kind of hot) costume doesn’t help matters any, it’s just so bad, “Mystery Science Theater 3000” bad. I remember when the film was coming out, the trailer for it had said something to the effect of “when a person dies, a cat can bring them back to make the wrong things right”. Wait a fucking minute why does that sound so familiar? Because it’s from “The Crow”, only the word “cat” replaces “crow” in this piece of shit! I’m all for having a legit movie based on Catwoman, because she’s such an interesting character that walks the line between hero and villain and has always been one of Batman’s greatest allies/adversaries. The fact that the character isn’t even the original Selena Kyle from the comics is fucking unforgivable as well, not to mention the fact that the whole affair has the flash and dash of a big budget car commercial. Thankfully it bombed, and Berry has never even been able to live this piece of shit down.
THE SPIRIT (2008)
Director: Frank Miller
Starring: Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlett Johansson
Oh Jesus, I don’t even know where to start with “The Spirit”. I actually kind of had high hopes for this believe it or not, mainly because I knew how beloved Will Eisner’s character was by Frank Miller, himself a legendary comic book visionary who wanted to try his hand at the director’s chair after the success he had with Robert Rodriguez filming “Sin City” in 2005. Instead with “The Spirit”, we get a “Sin City”-ish take on Eisner’s characters and world, and it feels like a watered-down noir that is so overblown, overacted, and overstuffed with all things horseshit and boredom that it instead just flat out slaps Eisner and his work in the face. Miller may have had good intentions (and even that is debatable) but he ended up making his idol and mentor roll over in his grave. What a disgrace.
JUDGE DREDD (1995)
Director: Danny Cannon
Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Armand Assante, Rob Schneider
Before the abortion of a movie known as “Judge Dredd” came out, people had no idea who the fuck he was, on this side of the pond anyway. In the UK, Judge Dredd was the flagship character of the “2000 A.D.” comic magazine, so much so that many great comic writers and artists had worked on the character at some point or another. In the comic, Dredd never takes his helmet off, because he’s just that goddamn intense and serious about what he does. Here, Stallone takes his helmet off the first five minutes. Now, I don’t have that much of a problem with that, but the fact that the character and his world are treated like second-rate science fiction knock-offs, it’s no wonder that no one here cared about Judge Dredd then or now. There is a new adaptation in the works right now, so hopefully the second time around will do Dredd the justice (no pun intended) he so deserves…but I doubt it.
Dishonorable mentions:
Howard the Duck (but it’s so bad it’s kind of funny, so it’s worth a look just for that alone)
Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (starring David fucking Hasselhoff)
Captain America (the early 90s direct to video piece of shit)
Superman III
Superman IV: The Quest for Peace
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Ghost Rider
The Punisher (2004)
Batman Forever
Wanted
Spawn
Elektra
Barb Wire
Spider-Man 3
The Phantom
Fantastic Four
Steel
Jonah Hex
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