The 13 Worst Superhero Films

     In honor of the upcoming Halloween season, I’ve written an article about the one thing that truly frightens nerds to our very core: terrible Superhero movies!  In a genre that requires massive and constant suspension of disbelief, these films have gone above and beyond the call of disappointment.  Abandon all hope ye who read onward.

13. Green Lantern.

This film just narrowly made the list by the way it squandered so much of its perceived potential.  The Oa stuff is great (all 3 minutes of it)!  Everything else?  Pretty much unbearable.  Ryan Reynolds tries his hardest, along with Mark Strong as Sinestro, but literally everyone else, aside from the Oa designers and effects gurus, could not be forced to give one shiny crap about this movie.  Blake Lively drags this into the realm of utter misery, making it the first time I couldn’t understand the plot of a film because the actress was constantly and randomly conveying absolute nothingness, making all of the stakes seem completely inconsequential.

12. the Spirit

“the Spirit” is incoherent, yet beautiful, like a dream.  Rented it twice by accident, still can’t remember any of it.  Even Eva Mendes’ bare butt couldn’t save this vague abortion.  Frank Miller needs to sober up.

11. Masters of the Universe

Pitch: Let’s take He-Man out of Eternia and put him in the 80’s with a synthesizer subplot that is absolutely useless!  After the pretty-cool first 15 minutes, this rapidly descends into a dated, two hour face palming session.  I will give credit where its due to Billy Barty for his awesome fried chicken eating / stealing.

10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3

Steve Barron’s return to his greatest film got some hopes up, but this effort was ultimately heartless.  Aside from the “Corey Feldman/ Donatello is a pedophile” subplot, the Turtles look the worst they ever have, inexplicably.  Casey Jones, who was so awesome in the first film, essentially gets a glorified cameo this time around, babysitting wacky, ancient, Japanese Samurais, present day.  I understand that “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” was awesome, but that doesn’t mean that EVERY film should be “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.”

9. Captain America (1990)

2 words: rubber ears.  Captain America (“Revenge of the Nerds” jock extra, Matt Salinger) manages to be a superhero for approximately 5 minutes before getting strapped to a rocket and launched into some icy water, freezing him until 1990, where he becomes just barely a fish out of water but still seems plenty damn comfortable.  Cap’s  great strategic mind is only shown when he repeatedly fakes like he’s gonna vomit, then runs away from the enemny, multiple times, throughout the entire film.  Red Skull has a face for 98% of the movie, and is Italian.  Pre-Captain America, Steve Rogers is still a huge, muscular, dude, but his clothes are baggy (special fx!).  This film and the shame caused by his offspring are obviously the reasons J.D. Salinger fell off the face of the Earth.

8. Steel

“Steel”: where for some random reason, Shaq builds rubber armor and hits drug dealers with a hammer.  For the record, let me just state that evil Judd Nelson ONLY works in the Breakfast Club.  Oh yeah, and Shaq can’t act, and somehow doesn’t quite come across as a super-genius (I know, I know, hard to process when he played such a convincing rapping Genie is Kazam).  But he really likes Superman (but only in real life)!

7. Batman and Robin (1997)

Amazingly, remarkably bad, as if it intentionally so.  The dialogue is somehow all one liners and childish puns. I have heard rumors that the script was in fact a coloring book.  Batman and Robin carry lasers, rubber lips, and ice skates in their boots.  The sometimes amazing Uma Thurman gives us her absolute worst.  Batman is the friendliest, nicest father figure on Earth.  PS: Michael Goughes’ Alfred death faces are hilarious.    Also: Evil Hockey Players.  Really?  Really?!  Okay, okay, I'll chill out (GET IT?!).

6. the Last Airbender

You can tell the plot to this did not express itself easily because most of the film’s dialogue is narration.  While the cartoon series, “Avatar: the Last Airbender” is arguably the greatest American animated serial of all time, this film failed to capture ANY of what made the show so profound.  The plot involves a bald white kid, who for some unexplained reason is stuck in a block of ice, but then for some reason two pilled out white kids break him free and are like, "Whatever."  Most intelligent viewers swiftly left the theater when, about a third of the way in, our protagonist Aang shows up to an enslaved village of EarthBenders and says, “Remember you are Earth Benders!”  to which they all instantly remember this fact and immediately take back their town via rock levitation.  Kudos to M. Knight Shyalaman for inventing the term “Race Bending” in regards to the whitening of the cast, and Indian-ing of the villainous Fire Empire.  The studio obviously gave up on this about midway through as there are literally scenes of Aang practicing his bending, with NO SPECIAL EFFECTS UTILIZED.  Meaning the actor is pretending to telepathically control the elements, and the elements are sitting there doing NOTHING.  Also, mad props for a climax where our hero refuses to fight and the bad guys just give up and leave because they see a big wave (in the TV series, Aang power zords into a huge water monster and kills an entire army).  Arguably the worst fantasy film ever.

5. Alyas Batman y Robin

75% Philipino.  25 % English.  100% Unintelligible.  Bat Boners.  Bat Beach Boys song and dance numbers every 10 minutes.  Midget Spider-Man.  Am I forgetting anything?  Ah yes, Bat Coffee.  

4. Hero at Large

John Ritter stars in this prequel to Kick Ass.  Nuff said'.

3. Superman 4: the Quest for Peace

A homo-erotic He-Man Villain with the voice of Gene Hackman!  Long, monotonous Superman monologues discussing Nuclear Proliferation!  Ducky!  Massive love interest confusion also ensues as Margot Kidder is too wacked out of her mind on drugs or insanity to be considered desirable to any non-Norman Bates types (but is still contractually bound to appear in this series), thus giving us a random, vapid hot blonde for Supes to fly around with (Mariel Hemingway, who can inexplicably breath in space).  I can’t even imagine what this film would have turned into if they had used the footage they’d shot of a mentally disabled, New-Wave Bizarro.  Obviously the reason Ernest Hemingway killed himself.  PS: Superman confirms rapist status this time around with blatant overuse of the “Super Kiss.”  Shame on you, Superman.  Shame on you.

2. Son of the Mask

“Son of the Mask” takes everything from its dumb yet entertaining precursor and dumbs it down to a level I’m assuming is meant for babies or people who are overall distracted/ can’t understand English.  What stands out as the worst part of this awful film is Jaime Kennedy’s musical performance of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off of You.”  It boggles the mind that a producer recorded this, put as much effort into salvaging Kennedy’s off key performance as possible, fails, and yet still inserts the song into the film, completely devoid of charm, humor or talent.  But what of the sometimes great Alan Cumming as Loki?  Before this film I had no idea that Cumming was an obvious cocaine addict spiraling out of control and into dementia.  This film will makes you go back and hate Nightcrawler in X2.  This sequel also does away with the major plot point of its prequel that the mask only works at night, so, for die hard “Mask” fans, no, this film is not meant for you either.  The make up effects people were not briefed on which "Mask" sequel they were working on, and eventually settled on a green version of Rocky Dennis' face for Kennedy.  There's not even any bad catchphrases this time around (Smoookin'!).

1. Catwoman

This is the eye of Madusa of all Superhero flicks; watch, and you will surely lose a piece of your soul if you watch the whole thing.  Halle Berry seductively licks a tuna can, and that is somehow the best part.  Mind blowingly, life alteringly non-sensicle, poorly acted, horribly edited, non-plotted, with the worst Superhero costume in the history of cinema. Absolute, silver screen, vomit.  This is how Berry want from winning the Oscar, to starring in WWE films with David Otunga.  Pardon me, I have to go gouge out my eyeballs for remembering this film exists.  On a scale of 1 to 10, the film is the least amount of fun since those fish that swim up your urethra and hulk out.

0. Spook

Seeing this 10 minute Superhero flick is believing.

Dishonorable Mentions: Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, X-Men Origins Wolverine, Hulk.