The Worst Superheroes and Villains on the big screen
With countless comic book films headed to theaters this summer, it’s fair to lower the bar by looking at the failures of the past. Sure low budget projects (“Captain America” or “Fantastic Four”) seem like obvious choices, but instead I’d rather focus on the actors and the horrible portrayals they turned in.
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze from “Batman and Robin”
Arnold’s resume of moronic cliched lines fell flat with audiences. The intelligent Dr. Victor Fries was more like a character from “Dumb and Dumber” than the articulate character from the comic books. The muscle bound ‘Governator’ was laughable in silver and blue suit ripped from a low-budget Terminator costume shop.
Sylvester Stallone as Judge Dredd in “Judge Dredd”
While the film itself was a horrible attempt to adapt a dark and gritty comic full of violence and intimidation. Stallone seemed more a Weird Al Yankovic impersonation of himself than the action star audiences came to love. Sly is more of a cartoon character in real life than he played as the Judge.
The Crow from every sequel and the Canadian TV series
There was one Crow and that was Brandon Lee. Victor Perez, Mark Dacascos, Eric Mabius and Edward Furlong all tried to bring the “Crow” mythology to the big screen. More embarrassing is Eddie Furlong, the little guy from “Terminator 2”, who looked like a character from Saturday Night Live’s “Goth Talk”.
Will a reboot of “The Crow” ever happen?
Halle Berry as the title character in “Catwoman”
She can actually act, which is why this is so frustrating. Wait…wait…nevermind, it’s compounded by the fact that she’s the only black character in the story. I wonder who chick in the leather costume is…hey wait – Selina is black. Must be her! Can I add that she phoned it in for the “X-Men” sequels as well.
George Clooney as Batman in “Batman and Robin”
No surprise here I know.
The is the biggest “Big Budget” blunder by Hollywood in modern filmmaking. Only Kevin Costner in “Waterworld” has an argument to disprove that statement.
Director Joel Schumacher made a mockery of the Batman franchise with this abomination. Clooney should have just turned into a comedy playing the part as an amalgam of George from “Facts of Life” and Ulysses from “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”.
Atleast audiences wouldn’t have taken to project has a serious effort to depict the Cape Crusader on the big screen.
So, that’s my life…the Top 5.
Ben Affleck (Daredevil), Nic Cage (Ghost Rider), Topher Grace (Venom), Seth Rogen (Green Hornet) and the entire cast of “Fantastic Four” would pretty much round out my top ten.
Will “Thor”, “Captain America”, “Green Lantern”, “X-Men: First Class” have some new nominees?
About the author – Brandon Jones
My first effort at “blogging” before it was called “blogging” was a Pop Culture, Comic Book column at CrazedFanboy.com.
A lot sure has changed since these days.
Due to the support/pressure from my DOB comrades, Splash Page was resurrected to publish Pop Culture topics and the “State of the Nation” will continue to deal with politics and heavy issues.
Splash Page banner by Nolan B. Canova
