Superhero fans can literally pick and choose from bad movies. Among them, we will find works that are so boring that they will put anyone to sleep. Marvel has been leading the way here lately, flooding us with mercilessly long series. I found this out myself. In June and July 2023, I had huge problems falling asleep. It was like this every day – except Wednesdays. Then she left “Secret invasion”which put me to sleep in fifteen minutes.
However, Marvel productions are things that fly out of your mind immediately after watching them. And yet the best bad films are those that are remembered because they surprise or make us laugh so much with their incompetence, exaggeration, and misunderstanding of the source material. A special place in my heart is occupied by adaptations from the turn of the century, as if they were ashamed of the comic book original and instead went for the darkness and seriousness straight from high school dramas. It’s hard to forget “Daredevil” Mark Steven Johnson, who fought evil accompanied by the music of the band Evanesence. Or “Spawn” Mark AZ Dippé, which tried so hard to be dark that it became unintentionally funny, and was scary mainly thanks to terrible computer effects and the unbearable performance of John Leguizamo as the Clown.
But maybe let’s start from the beginning, when comic book adaptations were still in their infancy. “Superman” Richard Donner’s 1978 film broke the bank, didn’t it? It’s a pity that the series didn’t end with the second part. “Superman IV” Sidney J. Furie was created for a fraction of the budget of the first part. You can see it in every scene. It was similar with the spin-off of the series, “Supergirl” Jeanot Szwarc, in which Faye Dunaway and Peter O’Toole presented some of the worst roles in their careers.
It was the 1980s, and no one dreamed of the Marvel Cinematic Universe back then. Instead, we had television productions based on the House of Ideas’ intellectual property. Bill Bixby served us with subsequent television spin-offs of the series “The Incredible Hulk”, in which the jade giant was wrestler Lou Ferrigno, previously painted with green paint. He stayed for good measure “Punisher” with Dolph Lundgren and “Captain America” Albert Pyun, perfectly fitting into the trend of action films from the bottom of the bin in the video rental store.
George Clooney laughed many times because of this “Batman and Robin” Joel Schumacher was almost murdered by superhero cinema. Let’s be honest, since the species has survived “Steel knight” Kenneth Johnson, based on the fate of one of the supporting characters from the Superman comics, nothing will bother him. In addition, the title character was played by Shaquille O’Neal. Let’s be honest, you can say a lot of good things about the former basketball player – but not about his acting.
Fantastic Four is also unlucky with adaptations. Marvel’s First Family has been brought to the big screen four times so far, and each time it hasn’t been great. First time in 1994 by Oley Sassone. There was such a curiosity that producer Avi Arad, who recently became the head of Marvel Studios, paid the creators of the film not to release it in cinemas and thus not to tarnish the brand. It didn’t quite work, because pirated copies of the work are still circulating on the Internet. Then there were two parts from Tim Story – terrible but memorable. Josh Trank’s nightmare from 2015, however… Despite the interesting idea of including elements of body horror in the film, the whole thing was terrifying mainly due to its boredom and lopsided script. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that five times is lucky and the version with Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby will turn out to be at least decent.
Of course “Madame Web” isn’t the only weak superhero movie in recent times. Well “The Amazing Spider-Man 2”, which seems to be a creature stitched together from several films with completely different tones? Or “X-Men: Dark Phoenix”whose cast plays the game “who is more punished here?” (Jennifer Lawrence won). The increasingly uglier films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, among which it wears the crown of horror with pride “Quantomania”, the third of the Ant-Man and the Wasp adventures. There is also a lot to choose from among the latest DC Comics adaptations. “Suicide Squad”, which someone wanted to turn into a colorful adventure. Or “Aquaman: The Lost Kingdom”, in which Jason Momoa tries to be the coolest guy in the world and only ends up being insufferable as a result. I guess nothing can compete with it anyway “Batman V. Superman”in which the heroes stop fighting when it turns out that their mothers have the same name.
“Madame Web” it’s terrible. However, it’s not the worst superhero movie we’ve seen. And knowing the capabilities of creators and producers, the future will surprise us with something equally terrible more than once.