List of Crap #131 Worst Superhero Movies Ever

[stethacantus]

WARNING: While I have strived to keep any spoilers out of these write-ups, there are a few movies where discussing the spoiler is unavoidable. Just assume that from this point on spoilers will abound.





"The superhero movie is dead."

That was the pronouncement in 1998.
Overall, it had been a bad decade for the superhero genre, despite starting out strong with Batman Returns  and The Mask.  But then came the third TMNT film fans would like to forget. The one where they time traveled to Japan in the 1600s. And there were other major bombs. The adaption of the #1 comic book at the time, Spawn, Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd. Even Pamela Anderson nude on the big screen in Barbed Wire failed to please critics or make any money. For the parents, there were the old time Superheroes, The Phantom and The Shadow, which also bombed with the box office and with critics.  And then there was Batman & Robin, the fourth movie in the successful Batman franchise which was reportedly so terrible that it went from being the #1 movie in America on Friday, to empty theaters by the following Monday.  It did make over $130 million in it's first week, but the historic drop off in ticket sales spooked Warner Bros. so much that they canceled the franchise just as the fifth film, which was to maybe star Howard Stern as the Scarecrow, was in pre-production.

So when Wesley Snipes announced he would be bringing a relatively obscure superhero called Blade to the big screen, everyone assumed this would be the final nail in the superhero coffin. Not to mention that all previous attempts at Black superhero movies, The Meteor Man with Robert Townshend, Blankman  with Damon Wayons, Spawn with Michael Jai White  and Steel with Shaquille O'neal, were among the biggest box office bombs of the decade. And up to that point all films based on Marvel characters were disasters. Howard the Duck was called one of the worst movies ever made. It was followed by The Punisher which the studio deemed bad enough to cancel it's theatrical release and dump it directly to the home video market.  Same story with Captain America. The Fantastic Four didn't even get a home video release.  Marvel buried it, and with exception to bootleg releases, it is still buried. However, Blade was released, got critical praise, and was a hit. And while it grossed slightly less than Batman and Robin, it was seen as a huge success. Enough so that the X-Men franchise was greenlit. And the success of the X-men franchise lead to the Spiderman being green lit. The superhero film had been resurrected from the dead by a vampire hunter.

It wasn't all smooth sailing after that. Both the X-Men and Spiderman franchise hit rough patches. There was the occasional superhero movie ruined by some director making an artistic statement, asinine studio interference  by executives who thought they could improve the superhero genre, and a whole lot of really bad superhero films made between the good ones. Then Marvel decided to make their own films, created a unified cinematic universe where all their superheroes could play together, and changed the motion picture industry forever.

Today superhero movies break box office records, earning studios billions in worldwide box office sales. It is unimaginable that such a profitable genre was ever endangered. But that was what a streak of bad superhero films almost did. And it isn't as if the crap parade has ended. There are more bad superhero films released each year than ever. But thanks to the successful films like Deadpool, the Dark Knight trilogy and the entirety of the MCU, the genre is live and well and waiting for some studio executives to f$#k it all up.

*******

This LoC is the collected opinion of five members. Each list is a combination of their experiences with the superhero film genre based on just the films they have seen in their lifetimes, and their own tastes in what is entertaining and what is boring. Those of you who are too young to remember what superhero movies were like in the 90s will probably be less accepting of a subpar MCU entry. Some may find character building boring and dislike films that are mostly drama with little action, while others dislike the Michael Bay approach of overloading a film with explosions and CGI effects. You will see a lot of films in this LoC that you probably thought was okay, or even liked. Rest assured, any film has it's critics. Look on sites like Rotten Tomatoes and nearly every film on there had critics that hated it. Every film on this list is something someone did not like, or if found entertaining, still thought was badly made. If something didn't make their lists, then that probably meant they didn't see it. In my case, I have not been to a theater since the 90s when the price of movie tickets where I live jumped from $6 to $20 and I decided it was not worth paying that much to sit in a miniscule multiplex screening room with a small screen and the soundtrack from the theater next door bleeding in. So if it has not been released on physical media yet, or has just been released but is still at it's maximum overprice, then I have not seen it yet. Nor have I seen any movie only available as an exclusive to a streaming service I do not have a password for. Or maybe it is a film I just learned exists and have not yet tracked down a DVD for. So there are probably films missing from my list that I would have included had I seen them.  But I am sure for everyone, there are movies missing from their lists because they found 25 they thought were worse. I know in my case there are about five films I wish others had on their lists. Films I knew about, but didn't make the cut on my own list because there was nothing I could drop. So you will notice a lot of films that you think should be here are not, and may find a few films you think should not be on a worst list. But the submission deadline for this LoC was extended to half a year. So if it didn't turn out the way you wanted and you didn't bother to submit a list of your own, then you have no business complaining.


Doing the write-ups for this LoC did have it's problems. No problem doing a write-up for a movie I have seen and hated. Not as easy to do a write-up for a movie I haven't seen yet, and even harder for a movie I did see and actually liked. In those cases I needed to consult the reviews of others to find out what they didn't like. In some cases the critics made good points, and I now realize how bad those films I liked were, although I probably will still find them entertaining if I were to see them again. For some of these films, it was really hard to dig up what exactly was wrong with them, other that those criticizing the film because they felt it had the wrong tone or mood. There is nothing they can point out is wrong with it other than they just didn't like it. So in some cases the critique part of the write up will be shorter than other movies on the list. For many of the movies I didn't like, very long critiques. If there is a movie you think I didn't criticize enough, or missed something that was wrong with it, then comment with your own critique. The film probably deserves it.

Recaps of the plots are usually saved for the more obscure movies with less of a recap on the films most everyone has seen. In most cases I try to avoid spoilers, but in some cases spoilers can not be avoided. I also have included the histories of each film in the write up. In the cases where characters are in multiple movies, or more than one entry in a film series is in the LoC, those histories are split up. In some cases the histories of both the character and film production are thin or non existent, so those will be short. Fuller histories or ones with interesting side histories will be longer. Because I have so few lists to work with, a lot of ties were not broken. These are the films that ended up on only one list, and had the same number of points as another film that only appeared on one list. Ties were broken in the usual way, via number of lists it was on and highest position. In the ones I could not do that with, I decided to go to IMDb and use their score. These are the scores submitted by those who have watched the film. The final points are the average. This is the best indicator I know of to decide which film was worse. The one with the lower IMDb score got the higher position on this LoC. You may wonder, why not use Rotten Tomatoes? Because too many films are not reviewed on Rotten Tomatoes, resulting in a 0% rating. However, if for some reason the IMDb score did not break the tie, then I did go to Rotten Tomatoes to use their score. If at that point both films got the same % on Rotten Tomatoes, or turned out to be one of the films that was not reviewed on that site, then the tie can not be broken. Fortunately, that didn't happen, so every tie on this list was ultimately broken, either through an IMDb score or a Rotten Tomatoes score.  I would have preferred they were broken by the members here, which could only have been done if one or two more lists were submitted which also included those one off entries. I suppose I could have just listed them as ties, but I prefer having a final number then having three films tied for #48 and no #50.


And with all of that out of the way, on to the bad films.

[stethacantus]

#78

Venom ( 2018 )

1 point, 1 list, TIIEBREAKER 6.6 points IMDb, #25 stansimpson

Studio: Columbia Pictures/Sony
Script: Jeff Pinker, Scott Rosenberg, Kelly Marcel
Producers: Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal
Director: Rubin Fleischer
Cast: Tom Hardy ( Eddie Brock/Venom ), Michelle Williams ( Anne Weying ), Richard Ahmed ( Carlton Drake/Riot ), Scott Haze ( Roland Treece ), Reid Scott ( Dan Lewis ), Woody Harrelson ( Cletus Kasady ), Stan Lee ( dog walker )

TRAILER

They went ahead and did it anyway.  Sony's plan to start their own MCU with just one character, Spider-Man.  That means spinning Spider-Man's villains off into their own franchise, because aside from Black Cat and Spider-Woman, there aren't any other superheroes within the film rights to Spider-Man. Yet Sony claimed they had the rights to more than 900 Marvel characters through their film rights to the Spider-Man comics. Of course, a lot of those characters only appeared in one comic, or perhaps even one panel.

Venom suffers from being half an origin story. The full origin would have Spider-Man acquiring the symbiote costume, giving it his Spider powers and eventually rejecting it before it finds a new host in Eddie Brock. But in this Venom origin story, Spider-Man is nowhere to be found.  There is no rhyme or reason why Brock would bond with the symbiote, nor why it would look like Spider-Man and have similar powers. If only Sony could get the rights to use Spider-Man. .... Oh wait a second...Sony does have the rights to Spider-Man...and Venom is supposed to take place in the same cinematic universe as Spider-Man! That's sort of as dumb as if Warner Bros. decided to do a Catwoman origin movie without Batman in it.

Spider-Man is such an important element to the Venom origin story that it makes zero sense that, in a cinematic universe where Spider-Man exists, they would chose to erase all existence of Spider-Man from the story. What they end up with is a semi-Deadpool rip-off that hasn't the guts to go beyond a PG-13 rating. One without any motivation, nor let's you care about the characters.  Sure, the original origin took place during Marvel's Secret Wars, and Sony can't use any of those other characters. ( If they could,  then why would their superhero cinematic universe have only Spider-Man and his foes? ) but they could have done a modified version of the origin story.  They actually did so in Spider-Man 3. Just do the same thing again, only this time have Parker find the symbiote in a U.F.O. instead of having it conveniently drop out of the sky onto his moped. Whatever potential Venom had was blown, leaving behind a soulless origin story for two characters you barely care about.


ORIGIN:
In 1984 Mattel made a deal with Marvel to put out a line of superhero and villain action figures. As part of the deal,  Marvel publishing an event miniseries similar to Contest of Champions which would involve every Marvel  superhero and villain.  Editor in chief Jim Shooter took the concept further withSecret Wars where Marvel characters were abducted by a God like entity called The Beyonder to battle on an alien planet. The events in the 12 issue miniseries would cross over into other Marvel titles, including The Fantastic Four, it's spinoff book The Thing, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Avengers, The Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants, Marvel Team-Up, Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, and The Amazing Spider-Man where the crossover would range from just one panel cliffhangers of heroes vanishing or reappearing to entire stories about their absence.

Mattel wanted Spider-Man to have a black costume for a line of action figures, and Shooter obliged them. In the May 1984 crossover issue Amazing Spider-Man #252, Parker is given a black costume to replace his torn Spider-Man costume. As promised to Mattel, Spider-Man continued to wear the costume long after the miniseries ended. Once Mattel had stopped selling the Black Costume Spider-Man action figure, Marvel was free to switch back to the classic costume. It would be revealed that the costume was a symbiotic life form that was trying to permanently bond with Peter Parker. He rejects it, but it keeps returning.  Using the tone of church bells to paralyze the symbiote, Parker is able to remove the costume for good. It immediately finds Eddie Brock, a reporter who is a co-worker at The Daily Bugal and who has a vendetta against Spider-Man. Brock was introduced March 1988 in Amazing Spider-Man #298, and is revealed to be the symbiote's new host in issue #300 where we find out both have fully merged to become Venom.

Venom became a popular character for Marvel, even after it evolved from an arch enemy of Spider-Man to a superhero.  In 1997 New Line Cinema obtained the rights to Venom and his nemesis Carnage for a movie written by David S. Goyer and starring Dolph Lundgren as Eddie Brock a d Venom. The film ended up in development hell, and eventually New Line's rights to the character expired.  They became part of Sony's rights to Spider-Man. Venom was ultimately added to Spider-Man 3 as one of the villains who is killed off at the end of the movie. Thanks to Spider-Man being rebooted, so was Venom, who became part of Sony's Spiderverse.

The decision to remove Spider-Man from Venom's origin required a brand new origin.  In this version a spaceship from the Life Force Foundation discovers symbiotes on an asteroid and attempts to bring four back to Earth.  The spaceship crashes and one symbiote escapes. Life Force founder Carlton Drake brings the three remaining symbiotes to a lab where he experiments on the by giving them human hosts, almost always leading to the host body dying. Investigative reporter Eddie Brock learns of Life Force experimenting on humans and sneaks into the lab, only to end up infected by the symbiote who becomes Venom. Carlton Drake was a villain in Marvel comics who, along with his Life Force Foundation, were introduced March 1998 in The Amazing Spider-Man #298.  While he eventually did bring symbiotes back from space and experiment on human hosts, that did not happen until long after Venom had evolved into a antihero. Drake never bonded with Riot in the comics. The symbiote Riot made it's debut May 1993 in Venom: Lethal Protector #4 and had bonded with several Life Force employees over the years.


Reviews
"It's a mediocre origin story, a superhero host that sadly fails to bond with its comedy parasite." ~ Empire Magazine

"Venom is riddled with the poison of dullness." ~ The Guardian

"The filmmakers seem faintly aware that not all comic book characters are superheroes, but unsure of what else Venom could actually be." ~ AV Club

"A waste of a perfectly good Tom Hardy."~ Citizen Dame

"Mostly bad-bad, with a splash and dash of fun." ~ US Weekly

[stethacantus]

#77

Daredevil ( 2003 )

1 point, 1 list, TIEBREAKER  5.3 IMDb, #25 Pac-Man

Studio: 20th Century Fox
Script: Mark Steven Johnson
Producers: Arnon Milchan, Gary Foster, Avi Arad
Director: Mark Steven Johnson
Cast: Ben Afflek ( Matt Murdock/Daredevil ), Jennefer Garner ( Elektra Nachios ), Michael Clarke Duncan ( Wilson Fisk/Kingpin ), Collin Farell ( Bullseye ), Jon Favreau ( Foggy Nelson ), Joe Pantoliano ( Ben Urich ), Scott Terra ( Mat Murdock as a kid ), David Keith ( Jack Murdock ), Leland Orser ( Wesley Owen Welch ), Lennie Loften ( Detective Nick Manolis ), Erick Avari ( Nikolas Nachios ), Ellen Pompeo ( Karen Page ), Derick O'Connor ( Father Everett ), Kevin Smith ( Jack Kirby ), Stan Lee ( old man at crossing )

TRAILER

WARNING: this entry will discuss a major Marvel character that gets killed. Although this character is among the Marvel characters that almost every comic book fan  knows was killed. If you are new to Daredevil, and are planning to see this movie, the Netflix series, or read the back issues of his comic book, this write-up may be a spoiler.

There is always going to be a difference of opinion of which films were bad and which were good. In some cases you get a film like The Avengers or The Dark Knight which will always be considered the best by almost everyone. But every now and then you get a film like Daredevil where the opinions are mixed. This film got a lot of good reviews. Nearly half the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes gave this film a good or passing review.  Ebert & Roeper gave it two thumbs up. Yet this film has been critically panned by the other half of reviewers, and among comic book fans, was considered one of the worst superhero movies ever made. I myself remember liking this film. Not loving it, just liking it. But then again, I saw it years after it's release on DVD as the extended directors cut. Which brings up a small problem with this list. A lot of superhero films got later directors cuts on home video, and often a directors cut vastly improves the film. So does the person putting the film on their list include both the theatrical release and directors cut? I am going to have to assume tat if they hated a film that they would not have bothered watching the directors cut when it later came out. So lets all just assume the films on this LoC are the theatrical release. But this does bring up a major problem for me. I have no problem explaining why a film I hated was bad. But when I get to a film I liked, especially one with mixed reviews, then I have to do a lot of research, looking up unfavorable YouTube reviews and reading decade old forum threads that are still extant to figure out exactly why some people hated this movie and what I may have missed.

The film opens with Daredevil grasping a cross on the roof of a church, recreating a panel from the story arc Guardian Devil.  With the scene taking place at night, and wounded Daredevil entering the church for sanctuary from the police who are hunting him, and his dark and brooding demeanor, you can tell what the mood of this film will be. Which you would be partially wrong about. In a voice over Daredevil tells us his back story. When he was a kid his eyes were exposed to toxic chemicals during an accident. Initially the chemicals blinded him for life, but they also enhanced his other senses beyond those of mortal men. Matt could  hear so well that he developed an inner sonar that gives him a mental picture of his surroundings. And he can hear things happening a great distance away. He also has enhanced smell and touch. And somehow enhanced ninja abilities. Matt's father is a prize fighter who refuses to take a dive for a mob boss who was betting on his fight. So he is murdered in an alley.  Matt vows to use his abilities to fight crime. Years later Matt has become an accomplished attorney in a small firm he runs with his friend Foggy Nelson. But by night, he dons a leather devil costume and goes around beating up criminals,  one of which was a rapist who Daredevil throws in front of a moving subway train and mocks as the train cuts him in half. One day while Matt is having lunch with Foggy, he is somehow able to smell a beautiful girl entering the restaurant , even though she is still outside the door. He is smitten with her and introduces himself, but she refuses to give him her name and walks away. Matt follows her to a playground, and suddenly the tome of the film turns campy as Matt and the girl have a martial arts fight on the seesaws. Impressed with each other's fighting abilities, the girl finally tells Matt her name, Elektra Nachios.

The film then shifts to romance as Matt and Elektra build a relationship. However, things go bad when a mob boss called Kingpin decides he wants Elektra's father killed. He brings in a campy villain called Bullseye who has a bullseye tattooed on his forehead, and the ability to toss any sharp object any distance with perfect aim. Matt finds out that Elektra's father is about to be assassinated, and donning his Daredevil costume, does his best to prevent it. However, during a fight, Bullseye is able to grab one of Daredevils weapons and use it to spear Mr. Nachios to death. Elektra only partially sees the battle and assumes Daredevil was the one who murdered her father. Donning a tight leather outfit, she hunts down and fights Daredevil on a rooftop, eventually stabbing him.  Before she can deliver a death blow, Daredevil's mask is removed, and she realizes it is her boyfriend Matt. Bullseye, who has orders to kill Daredevil. shows up and begins mocking Elektra. Realizing Bullseye was the one who murdered her father, she fights him. But he is able to stab her with her own weapon, once again restaging an iconic panel from the Daredevil comic book where Elektra lost her battle with Bullseye. Too wounded to protect Elektra from Bullseye, Matt takes refuge in a church, leading back to the opening scene. Somehow recovering from the wound Elektra gave him, Daredevil fights and defeats Bullseye, but not before Bullseye gives up his boss Kingpin before Daredevil kills him. The previously mortally wounded Daredevil is then able to get into Kingpin's penthouse and fight him. Kingpin is defeated, but instead of delivering a death blow, he decides to leave him there for the police to arrest.

Okay, there were a few things in this movie which may have put off comic book fans.  Lets start with how the bar had been moved up since 2000 with Unbreakable, the first two Blade movies, Spider-Man and The X-Men, so comic book fans were less accepting for any superhero movie that reverted back to the old tropes. They felt that the fight scene in the playground was embarrassingly campy, usually comparing it to the basketball scene from Catwoman released a year later. They really hated Collin Farell's portrayal of Bullseye, which was over the top, as if Collin thought he was in a completely different comic book movie than the movie the other actors were in. Maybe studying Batman & Robin for his role was a big mistake? They felt too much of the film was wasted developing a romance between Matt and Elektra. Which pretty much missed the point of the Elektra/Daredevil romance in the comic books. In this film, Elektra is just a girl with some martial arts abilities. In the comics Elektra was an assassin who often worked for villains, although sometimes helped Daredevil on a mission. Their relationship was complicated, and there was a sense that Matt was hoping he could some day reform Elektra. In the book, she fights Bullseye over which one will be Kingpin's assassin, and then wounded and dying, returns to Matt's house to die in his arms.  So basically all they lifted from the comic book was that Matt and Elektra were in love, and that Bullseye stabbed her with her own sai during a fight, making the love story somewhat pointless. Worse than that, Benn Affleck and Jennifer Garner have no on screen chemistry at all, which is an amazing accomplishment considering at the time Ben and Jennifer were in love with each other, having first met on the set of Pearl Harbor in 2000. ( They would make it official in 2004, and were wed in 2005, which lasted a good 12 years and three children. ) Fans did not appreciate giving Daredevil amazing ninja powers, which included the ability to jump off roofs and stick a landing on a ledge several stories below, or the ability to leap across vast expanses. And they did not like the inconsistencies in his abilities, such as being able to use his sonar to dodge bullets in one scene, and not dodge a collection plate Bullseye frisbees at him in another scene. But the thing that seems to piss haters of this film off the most is the music soundtrack. In particular the back to back use of Evanescence songs near the end of the second act.  My Immortal during Elektra's father's funeral, and Bring Me To Life when she goes into a training montage when she decides she wants to kill Daredevil.  Really? I had no problem with the music. Just be thankful that Daredevil wasn't made or set in the 80s, and instead of Evenescence and Nickleback on the soundtrack, you would have had New Kids on the Block and Air Supply.

ORIGIN:
Daredevil debuted April 1964 in his own book Daredevil #1.  His secret identity was blind lawyer Matt Murdock. Supporting characters introduced in the same issue were Foggy Nelson and Karen Page, who was a major character in the comic book, but is barely on screen in the daredevil movie. Karen was Matt first love. In issue #57 Matt revealed to her that he was Daredevil. There relationship went downhill from there, culminating in a breakup,  and in issue #86 Karen left the firm for a career as an actress in California. She would reemerged as a regular character in Ghost Rider. Ksaren would return to the Daredevil book a few more times as she and Matt would have on again-off again relationships. She left the book in 1999 for good when she was murdered by, you guessed it, Bullseye. Karen's death effected Daredevil more than Elektra's death, and many Daredevil fans believed she was the love of Matt's life, despite their constantly rocky relationship. But Elektra's death was aa more popular story arc, so Matt's life with Karen was omitted so they could go straight to his romance with Elektra. It is a wonder why they even bothered putting Karen in the movie at all, as most of her scenes ended up being cut for the theatrical release.

20th Century Fox first optioned the rights to Daredevil in 1997 as a film to be directed by Chris Columbus. Fox wound up never green lighting the film, and the option expired. Disney negotiated to pick the film up, but the negotiations fell through. Columbia Pictures  acquired the rights in 1999 and the project was back on. But Columbia didn't like Columbus' script, so hired screen writer Mark Steven Johnson to completely rewrite the film. Johnson had written the scripts for the popular Grumpy Old Men films,  but followed those with scripts  for critically panned bombs, including Jack Frost.  Columbia's parent company SONY ended up cancelling the film over internet rights. Regency picked up the film because they liked Johnson's script, and invited him to direct the film. 20th Century Fox, who had previously dumped the film rights 15 years earlier, jumped on board again, as the success with their X-Men film had them regaining interest in the superhero genre. However, by this time Mark's script was about five years old and written to match a typical 90s era superhero film. While the end result of Daredevil may have put off half of it's audience, but it impresses SONY enough that they hired him to write and direct Ghost Rider.

Reviews
"Torn between moody grandiosity and cartoonish mayhem, Daredevil tries to have it both ways, and succeeds at neither." ~ Newsweek

" Second-rate and ordinary." ~ New York Times

"Daredevil doesn't take a single dare. " ~ Washington Post

[stethacantus]

#76

Super Buddies ( 2013 )

1 point, 1 list, TIEBREAKER 4.1 IMDb,  #25 Stethacantus

Studio: Disney
Script: Anna McRoberts, Robert Vince 
Producers: Anna McRoberts, Robert Vince
Director: Robert Vince
Cast: John Ratzenberger ( Marvin "Gramps" Livingston ), Trey Loney ( Bartleby Livingston ), Veronica Diaz-Carranza ( Sofia Ramirez ), Cooper Roth ( voice of B-Dawg ), Jeremy Shinder ( voice of Butterball  ), Tenzing Norgay Trainor ( voice of Buddah  ), G. Hannelius ( voice of Rosebud ), Ty Panitz ( voice of Mudbud ), Colin Hanks ( voice of Megasis/voice Captain Canine ), John Michael Higgins ( voice of Drex ), Jay Brazeau ( Mr. Swanson ), Jake Earles (  Jack Schaeffer ), Fiona Gubelmann (  voice of Princess Jorala ) Michael Tiegen ( Sheriff Dan ),  Tim Conway ( voice of Deputy Sniffer ), Amy Sedaris ( voice of Betty ), Zendaya (  voice of Lollipop  )

[size=20]TRAILER][/size]

Here is an idea for a superhero film. Dr. Horrible has perfected this movie.  Something small children will love and want to watch all the time, but will be excruciatingly painful and nauseating for any adult that watches it. And he plans to unleash it on DVD, Blu-ray and Disney+. It is up to Captain Action hero to stop this movie from being released.  But he soon discovers that Super Buddies is his Kryptonite, and all it takes is for Dr. Horrible to play the movie over a video monitor to send Captain Action hero to his knees in pain. It is now up to the Captain's sidekick, Blink, to shut the film off. But has Blink matured enough to also find this film excruciating, or too young and will end up watching it in a zombie like trance?

While there are no supervillains in this world, there is Disney.  Only six years after being responsible for the live action Underdog movie, they give us yet another terrible canine superhero film. For his 12th birthday, Bartleby is thrown a superhero themed party, which involves dressing the attending puppies up in superhero costumes. And did I mention the puppies can talk? Maybe only other animals and anyone watching film can hear them, but they do. I am sure there is a back story from the previous Air Buddies films explaining how they got this ability, but I'm not going to watch them to find out. The puppies find glowing rings buried in the barn, each a different color which just happens to complement the colors of their superhero costumes.  And when they wear the rings like collars, each gets a different super power. The rings are currently being sought after by a space villain called Drex, who the puppies ultimately fight. While this plot seems serviceable, be warned that it is 90 minutes of making puppies look and act cute. There is a point where cuteness crosses the line into nauseating, and Super Buddies crosses it within the first five minutes. The only respite from the puppies, are the bland kids who own each puppy, and the equally bland adults.


ORIGIN:
Buddy the Golden Retriever was a minor sensation on Late Night with David Letterman and America's Funniest Home Videos  where he would leap through the air and knock a basketball into a hoop. It wasn't long before the dog was getting offers for his own film. Air Bud ( 1997 ) told the story of a down and out basketball team who suddenly find themselves in a winning streak when Buddy the Golden Retriever joins their team. It was a bad film, but Buddy was likable, and it had that memorable line "There ain't no rule that says dog can't play basketball." Air Bud was a hit, and soon enough there were sequels where we learned there were no rules that said a dog couldn't play professional football, soccer, baseball or volleyball.  Buddy would not get to enjoy those sequels.  Soon after completing Air Bud he was diagnosed with cancer and had one of his legs amputated.  Disney continued the film series with an impostor Buddy. By the 6th film Buddy was married, had puppies, and the entire family talked. Once again, no idea how the dogs learned how to talk, don't care. By the 8th film Buddy and his wife are no longer in the series, and it is now officially the Air Buddies series.  Super Buddies was the seventh film with the Buddies, and despite being years later, they are all still puppies and are all still talking.  By this point I suspect this has to be the work of Satan.


Review
"Objectively  the worst Buddies movie, but I still love you guys.  Would still rewatch to fall asleep to or something." ~ Letterboxd.com

[stethacantus]

#75

Morbius ( 2022 )

2 points, 1 list, #24 stansimpson

Studio: Columbia Pictures/Sony
Script: Matt Sazama, Burk Sharpless
Producers: Avi Arad, Matt Tolmach, Lucas Foster
Director: Daniel Espinosa
Cast: Jared Leto ( Dr. Michael Morbius ), Matt Smith ( Lucien / Milo ), Adria Arjona ( Martine Bancroft ), Jared Harris ( Dr. Emil Nicholas ), Al Madrigal ( Alberto ), Tyrese Gibson ( Simon Stroud )

TRAILER

This is the newest film on the list. It is currently in theaters. Which means I haven't seen it yet. So basically, this is one of the films from Sony's Spider-Man cinematic universe which they think will be able to compete with the MCU. And it stars Jared Leto who, and I am making an educated guess here, the director allowed to do whatever the f&%k he wants with the role. Gee, I wonder what went wrong. And you know what, since I am going to be adding this film to my superhero collection as soon as it is available on blu-ray, I have a lot of incentive not to spoil whatever plot it has. So I will just point out that the critics who have seen it gave it a dismal 17% score on Rotten Tomatoes. Anyway, here is the official synopsis of the film released by Sony:

One of the most compelling and conflicted characters in Sony Pictures Universe of Marvel Characters comes to the big screen as Oscar® winner Jared Leto transforms into the enigmatic antihero Michael Morbius. Dangerously ill with a rare blood disorder and determined to save others suffering his same fate, Dr. Morbius attempts a desperate gamble. While at first it seems to be a radical success, a darkness inside him is unleashed. Will good override evil -- or will Morbius succumb to his mysterious new urges?

In other words, he accidentally turns himself into a friggin vampire. Seems to have more potential as a horror film than a superhero film, but there you go.


ORIGIN:
The Comic Code Authority, a.k.a. The CCA. You will be hearing a lot about this organization in the writeups to come. But basically the CCA was formed in the 50s by a number of comic book publishers as a way to keep the federal government from censoring or outlawing comic books that critics clamed were causing juvenile delinquency.  The CCA set a bunch of guidelines to keep comic books wholesome, graphic violence free,  sex free, and generally family friendly. The CCA also was a way for the comic book publishers to take out E.C. Comics. It's full name was Educational Comics, and was founded in 1944 by Max Gaines, the publisher who more or less invented the comic book, and previously owned All-American Publications, the comic book company where Wonder Woman, The Green Lantern and The Flash were created. When All-American merged with National Comics to become D.C. comics, Gaines left to found Educational Comics which would publish books on science and history to be sold to schools as teaching tools, and biblical comic books to be sold to churches. In 1947 Max was killed when his motor boat collided with another boat. His son Bill inherited E.C. Comics, and deciding books on education and Jesus were dull, decided to take the company in a new direction. Hiring such talent as Frank Frazetta, Will Elder, Jack Davis, Wally Wood and John Severin, he decided that from then on E.C. would stand for Entertaining Comics, and they would discontinue publishing educational and religious comic books, and instead publish crime, war and horror comics, with Harvey Kurtzman's humor comic book Mad thrown in. E.C. soon became the best selling comic book company, specifically because the fad in superhero comics that began with Superman in 1939, had finally faded. Sales in superhero books dropped everywhere while comic book fans switched to the more adult oriented material found in E.C.   It was specifically E.C. comic books that had alarmed critics who complained that this adult material was in a format that children read, causing Congress to hold hearings as to the dangers of comic books. The Comic Code Authority was created as self censorship. But the comic book companies who founded it also added rules prohibiting horror comics of any kind. It was the horror comics that were the best sellers at E.C., with such popular titles as Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt. The way the CCA worked was that they  would award a stamp of approval to any book that adhered to their guidelines, and distributors across the country agreed not to distribute any comic book that did not have the CCA seal. Which meant that E.C. could no longer sell their horror books in newsstands. E.C. also had lines of Science Fiction comic books, but censors at the CCA constantly found reasons to reject them. This eventually lead to the end of E.C. Comics, with the exception of one book, Mad Magazine. ( But we will get to that story later. )

Comic book  publishers  continued through the 50s with anthology books, usually Science Fiction, but also Romance. Also humor like Archie. Licensed characters like Mickey Mouse. And what remained of the Superhero books, Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman. In the late 50s and early 60s D.C. rebooted a number of superheroes, and with Justice League America, renewed interest in the superhero comic book. Marvel Comics, the one time home of Captain America, the original Human Torch and Sub Marriner, had been publishing mostly romance comics and light humor like Patsy Walker for the past decade. With record sales for Justice League America, Marvel publisher Martin Goodman asked editor in chief Stan Lee to come up with a superhero team, and he and Jack Kirby created The Fantastic Four, soon to be followed by several other superheroes like The Hulk, Spider-Man, The X-Men, Iron Man and Thor.

Both D.C. and Marvel's line of superheroes were successful, and both became primarily superhero publishers. However, a sales slump in the early 70s combined with the threatened competition from adult themed comic magazines like Vampirella who didn't need a CCA stamp, had the companies running the CCA decide it was time to relax the guidelines. And one of the rules relaxed was the one prohibiting horror. Marvel went overboard with horror themed comic books, such as Son of Satan[, Ghost Rider, Werewolf by Night, The Tomb of Dracula and Man-Thing. The Amazing Spider-Man had been written by Stan Lee since the book began in  1963, but in 1971 Lee decided to relinquish the writing duties to Roy Thomas. Roy was eager to take advantage of the newly relaxed CCA rules, and decided the villain in his first Spider-Man comic Shold be Dracula. But Stan shot that idea down, insisting Spider-man should only fight costumed villains. Thomas compromised by creating a costumed villain who was a vampire. October 1971 in issue #101 of The Amazing Spider-Man, Morbius the Living Vampire made his debut. Similar to the origin of The Lizard, Morbius was a scientist who, after trying to cure the rare blood disease that was killing him, accidentally turned himself into a vampire. As a villain, Morbius clashed with Spider-Man many times, eventually earning a slot in Adventure into Fear in an 11 issue run of his own solo comic. While technically still a Marvel villain, the solo comics gradually rose Morbius to antihero status. Although whenever guest starring in a superhero book, he reverted back to villain.

Morbius nearly made his screen debut in Blade ( 1998 ) where he was to make a cameo appearance to promote him as the main villain in the second film. Inevitably the Morbius cameo was cut as the production company behind Blade decided they didn't want to use Morbius after all. New Line Cinema had acquired the rights to  Blade via the rights to Tomb of Dracula. While Dracula himself was public domain, the vampire hunters, including blade, were Marvel owned characters. Evidently Morbius was part of the Tomb of Dracula rights, and after New Line's rights to Blade and the other Tomb of Dracula characters reverted back to Marvel, the rights to Morbius transferred over to Sony as one of Spiderman's villains. ( Similarly Sony has the rights to Wilson Fisk a.k.a. Kingpin  as a Spider-Man character, but can not use him until 20th Century Fox's rights to the character, who have him tied up in the Daredevil rights, either allows the rights to lapse, or cedes them to Sony.  Very complicated when arch villains belong to more than one comic book.. ) In 2017 Sony officially announced that they would be creating a cinematic universe with Spider-Man and all his villains, and Morbius was announced as one of the potential spin-offs.


Reviews
"Unless your ticket is free, don't bother. This movie is as lifeless as the bodies Morbius drains and throws on the floor." ~ Observer

"The studio may have accidentally created the first Shepard film: it goes on for about an hour and 45 minutes, and right up until the second it ends, you keep feeling as if it's just about to start." ~ Daily Telegraph U.K.

"A poorly edited, derivative time suck -- pun intended." ~ Associated Press

[stethacantus]

#74

Venom: Let There Be Carnage ( 2021 )

3 points, 1 list, TIEBREAKER 6.0 IMDb - 59% Rotten Tomatoes, #23 stansimpson

Studio: Columbia Pictures/Sony
Script: Kelly Marcel
Producers: Avid Arad, Matt Tolmach, Amy Pascal, Kelly Marcel, Tom Hardy, Hutch
Parker
Director: Andy Sirkis
Cast: Tom Hardy ( Eddie Brock/ Venom ), Michelle Williams ( Anne Weying  ), Naomi Harris ( Frances Barrison/Shriek ),  Reid Scott ( Dan Lewis ), Stephen Graham ( Patrick Mulligan ), Woody Harrelson ( Cletus Kasady/Carnage )

TRAILER

One problem with most superhero films is the origin story.  Instead of getting the superhero, we get the protagonist learning to be that superhero, which usually does not happen until the end of the movie when he is forced to fight the villain.  The sequels are supposed to be the fully formed superhero on an adventure.  However, every now and then you get a sequel like Venom: Let There Be Carnage where the protagonist is still coming to terms with being a superhero, and once again does not embrace being a hero until the climax. So basically Venom: Let There Be Carnage is everything you didn't like about the first film with everything you didn't like about the first film. The Venom symbiote wants to be a superhero, albeit one that eats the criminals they bust, but Eddie doesn't want to. Then we get a long section of the film where after Eddie and Venom fight, the symbiote leaves to find a new host, splitting them up. They finally reunite and acting like superheroes in the final 15 minutes of the movie because they have no choice but to fight Carnage.  Why force  the audience, who paid to see a superhero movie, sit through 75 minutes of B plot before the actual superhero story begins?


ORIGIN:
When Woody Harrelson made a guest cameo as Cletus Kasady in the post credit scene of Venom, was there little doubt there would be a sequel featuring Carnage as the villain? Well, yeah. Sony had rebooted the Spider-Man franchise without resolving anything from the Amazing series. I am sure Paul Giamatti and everyone else was convinced he would be playing The Rhino in Amazing Spider-Man 3.  Both Cletus Kasady and Carnage made their debuts March 1999 in The Amazing Spider-Man #344. At the time Brock was in prison and sharing a cell with serial killer Kasady when the Venom symbiote snuck in and merged with Eddie again, allowing him to break out. Venom left behind symbiote offspring, one which infected Cletus when it found a cut on his hand, becoming Carnage.  Carnage would go on to be one of Marvel's most popular villains, and Venom's greatest foe.

Other Marvel characters appearing in this film included Frances Barrison, a.k.a. Shriek.  She made her introduction May 1993 in Spider-Man Unlimited #1 which was part of the crossover series Maximum Carnage where she and Kasady escape from an asylum for insane supervillains and soon become a couple. And police detective Patrick Mulligan, who debuted September 2004 in Venom/Carnage #1. In issue #2 Mulligan is infected by an offspring of Carnage and becomes the symbiote Toxin. This movie ends suggesting that Mulligan was infected by something.  Another Marvel character was Anne Weying, who debuted March 1993 in The Amazing Spider-Man #375 as Brock's ex-wife. In 1995 she becomes one of Venom's host, during which she goes on a rampage as She-Venom. While in this film Anne allows Venom to bond with her in order to sneak him into the cell Eddie is being held, she does not actually become She-Venom. Anne was also in the first Venom film, so there is little doubt the producers are building up to a She-Venom movie, perhaps as a spinoff of the Venom films. 

And with that, all of the Spiderverse spinoff films are in the worst superhero movie LoC. Nice going Sony.


Reviews
"Sitting at 'Venom: Let There Be Carnage,' you quietly ask yourself, 'What have I done wrong? Is God punishing me?' " ~ New York Post

"A pile of monster mush that should have been left in the lab." ~ Guardian

"It's the worst movie Tom Hardy ever made. It's the worst movie Woody Harrelson ever made. And it's the worst movie Michelle Williams ever made." ~ San Francisco Chronicle

"If 2018's Venom felt like an afterthought, then the sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage, feels like an afterthought to an afterthought." ~ Reel/Views

[stethacantus]

#73

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze ( 1991 )

3 points, 1 list, TIEBREAKER 6.0 IMDb - 35% Rotten Tomatoes, #23 Pac-Man

Studio: New Line Cinema/Golden Harvest
Script: Todd W. Langen
Producer: Thomas K. Gray, Kim Dawson, David Chan
Director: Michael Pressman
Cast: Brian Tochi/Mark Caso ( Leonardo ), Robbie Rist/Michelan Sisti ( Michelangelo ), Adam Carl/Lief Tilden ( Donatello ), Laurie Faso/Kenn Troum ( Raphael ), Paige Turco ( April O'Neil ), Kevin Clash ( Splinter ), David Warner ( Professor Jordan Perry ), Ernie Reyes Jr. ( Keno ), François Chau (  The Shredder ), Kevin Nash ( Super Shredder ), Toshishiro Obata ( Tatsu ), Mark Doerr ( Freddy ), Vanilla Ice ( dork performer in club )

TRAILER

A pizza delivery boy named Keno attempts to thwart a burglary at the mall, but despite having advanced fighting skills, is quickly outnumbered.  Fortunately the Ninja Turtles show up to help take the gang of burglars down. And by this time you are thinking to yourself "Where is Casy Jones, and who is this guy?" The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle film was a Golden Harvest production with  New Line Cinema acting as distributor. But by the second film New Line was in charge, and their executives were making improvements.  Their tampering lead to a sequel that just barely qualifies as entertainment. 

This time around the turtles are fighting the Foot Clan over a canister of mutagen referred to as Ooze. 16 years earlier the turtles and splinter were exposed to the Ooze, changing them from normal animals to intelligent mutants. The Foot Clan wants to possess the Ooze so they can make mutant warriors of their own. Those hoping for a different villain from the comic book this time around were disappointed to see Shredder return as the villain, even though he was killed off in the first movie. Looking a little disfigured from his fall from a rooftop, but still breathing. Shredder kidnaps the inventor of Ooze, Professor Jordan Perry, along with the last existing canister of Ooze, and orders him to turn two animals into mutants. But instead of getting Bebop and Rocksteady as expected, the film gives us knock off mutant characters Rahzar and Tokka. The final showdown with the turtles happens at a  pier where Shredded administers the last of the Ooze to himself, becoming Super Shredder, and then ends up killing himself by accident when he breaks the supports to the pier and it drops on him. It is then that the turtles have to face the most hideous mutant to be in a TMNT to date, Vanilla Ice.

ORIGIN:
The first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic book was published in May of 1984. It was an independent comic written and illustrated by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, who founded their own comic book company Mirage Studios. Only 3,000 copies of the first issue was printed. But soon after the book was a success. Although Eastman and Laird claimed the comic book was supposed to be a parody of Marvel's mutant comics, particularly The New Mutants, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles seemed like, from the start, something a toy company would have come up with for a line of action figures.  Within a couple of years Eastman and Laird were receiving offers to turn the turtles into a line of action figures. An animated series was created to promote the line of toys, introducing the turtles to millions of new fans who never frequented the comic book stores where the TMNT books were sold.

The studio that produced the first film was Golden Harvest, the Hong Kong studio that produced the Bruce Lee films including  the co-production with Warner Bros. Enter the Dragon, and  the Cannonball Run films in the 80s. Like most of the Golden Harvest films produced for the American market, their input was mostly financial. The only thing missing was a distributor. But because Masters of the Universe had  bombed two years prior, every major studio and distributor passed on the film believing  movies based on toys were box office poison. It was eventually picked up by New Line Cinema, where it earned over $130 million in the North American box office. This meant that a sequel would be made. Only this time New Line wanted input into the production. They wanted the violence toned down, so insisted that the Turtles fight bare handed instead of using their weapons. Todd W. Langen, who wrote the second draft script for the first film,  was brought back to write the sequel. While Golden Harvest was once again hands off with the script, New Line submitted a barrage of notes on what they wanted added or removed.  They also wanted the overall tone of the film changed, insisting on more slapstick gags, puns and one liners from the turtles.

Golden Harvest had only licensed the characters April O'Neil, Casey Jones, Shredder, The Foot Clan, Splinter, and the four turtles. They wanted to license further characters for the sequel, but found out the characters they wanted were not owned by Eastman and Laird, but characters created for the cartoon series and were co-owned by producer Fred Wolf and Playmate Toys. The characters Bebop and Rocksteady, who were a mutant warthog and rhino respectively, were in the original script, but needed to be replaced with different animal mutants when Golden Harvest was unable to license the characters.   The only change Golden Harvest made to the script was to have Casey Jones replaced with a new character called Keno. In the previous film David Chan was impresses with former child actor turned stuntman Ernie Reyes Jr. who had done the fighting for Donatello, and wanted to give him a major role in the sequel. Judith Hoag, who had played April O'Neil in the first movie, was not asked to return for the sequels for constantly complaining to producers that a film that was being made for children was too violent.


Reviews
"The artful grunge is gone -- and so's the edge. The whole movie is bright yet colorless" ~ New Yorker

"This swindle of a sequel is so dim that it looks as if it were lit by candles." ~ People Magazine

"The plot of Turtles II hinges on toxic waste, and that turns out to be a pretty accurate description of the film." ~ Philadelphia Inquirer

"If a Vanilla Ice cameo is a highlight, imagine what the rest of the film is like" ~ Kalamazoo Gazette

[stethacantus]

#72

The Crow: City of Angels ( 1996 )

3 points, 1 list, TIEBREAKER 4.6 IMDb, #23 RVR II

Studio: Miramax
Script: David S Goyer
Producer: Jeff Most, Edward R Pressman
Director: Tim Pope
Cast: Vincent Pérez ( Ashe Croven/The Crow ), Mia Kirshner ( Sarah Mohr ), Richard Brooks ( Judah Earl ), Thuy Trang ( Kali ), Iggy Pop ( Curve ), Thomas Jane ( Nemo ), Vincent Castellanos ( Spider Monkey  ), Eric Acosta ( Danny Croven ), Beverly Mitchell ( Grace ), Ian Dury ( Noah ), Tracy Ellis ( Sybil ), Allen Gelfant ( Bassett ), Deftones ( Themselves )

TRAILER

For those of you who despise this film, take heart that the man responsible for this has gone to prison, possibly for life. Auto mechanic Ashe Croven and his son Danny witness a gang murder, and are themselves killed by the same gang. Sarah, the little girl from the first movie who is now a grown woman, begins to have dreams of Ashe. A crow appears in her apartment, and she follows it to the river where the gang dumped Ashe and Danny's bodies.  There she witnesses Ashe's resurrection.  She  explains to him that he has been brought back to take vengeance against the gang who murdered him and his son. One by one the gang members are killed, as Ashe and Sarah begin to fall in love with each other. Gang leader Judah suspects that someone supernatural has been killing off his gang, and hires a medium to find out how to stop him. She tells Judah that Ashe is indestructible, but has two weaknesses. His love for Sarah, and the crow that resurrected him, which if killed, will render Ashe mortal.  Sarah is kidnapped, and as Ashe tries to rescue her, the crow is captured and killed. Judah attempts to kill Ashe, but Sarah steps in front of him and ends up being the one stabbed to death. Ashe does away with Judah by summoning a flock of crows who tear him apart. With his vengeance complete, Ashe joins Sarah and his son Danny in the afterlife.

ORIGIN:
If this sounds like a rehash of the first film, it wasn't meant to be. Miramax wanted a sequel to The Crow. Because the director of the first film could not bring himself to direct a sequel without Brandon, the job was given to music video director Tim Pope, who directed the video for Safety Dance and hundreds of other 80s videos. An up and coming screenwriter named David S. Goyer who had previously written one Van Damme film and a few direct to video movies, was hired to write the sequel. 

Neither Pope nor Goyer wanted to bring Eric Draven from the first film back, as they felt his story has been told, and they did not want to recast the character out of respect for Brandon Lee. Goyer's initial idea was for Sarah to be the next Crow, but eventually came up with the idea of a grown Sarah becoming romantic with the next Crow, Ashe Croven. Ashe was given a son instead of a wife or girlfriend to avenge, so that he would be free to romance Sarah. When the film was completed, studio head Harvey Weinstein didn't like it because it wasn't like the first film. He demanded drastic edits and reshoots, which Pope refused to do. Weinstein ended up re-editing and shooting alternative scenes without Pope's consent, and both Pope and Goyer publicly disowned the movie. Among the drastic changes was the fact that the killing of the spirit Crow meant that Ashe was doomed to live forever, never able to join his son or Sarah in the afterlife, and ended with a despondent Ashe driving off on a motorcycle. This was changed to the happy ending of Ashe joining his son and Sarah. Many believe the original version would have been a great sequel instead of the critically panned film that was released, and that this director's cut is still sitting in the Miramax vault, waiting to be released.


Reviews
"Stunningly awful." ~ Variety

"Although the setting has moved from Detroit to LA, the stylized urban wasteland, morbid atmosphere and basic plot remain the same." ~ Time Out

"Utterly devoid of energy and shock value." ~ New York Times

[stethacantus]

#71

Elf-Man ( 2012 )

3 points, 1 list, TIEBREAKER 3.5 IMDb, #23 Stethacantus

Studio: Wiseacre Films LLC/Anchor Bay
Script: Ethan Wiley, Richard Jefferies
Producer: Richard Jefferies
Director: Ethan Wiley
Cast: Jason "Wee Man" Acuña ( Elf-Man ), Jeffrey Combs ( Mickey ), Mackenzie Astin ( Eric ), Mirelly Taylor ( Amy ), Carty Robell ( Kasey ), Blake Kaiser ( Ryan ), Marty Terry ( Grandma ), Dave Coyne ( Jean-Pierre ), Larry Nichols ( Big Bucket )

TRAILER

It is Christmas Eve, and Kasey and Ryan's father has just finished inventing a chip that generates enough electricity to power an entire house. Now that dad is finally finished, they can finally put up the decorations. As Kasey removes the Christmas stockings from a box, she finds one with "Mom" written on it, and sadly says "I miss mommy." "I know. I miss her too." says dad sadly. After a slight pause for everyone to be sad, it is back to the decorations. Grandma shows up with a fruit cake, which Ryan  quickly shoves into a cupboard stacked with uneaten fruitcakes from the past dozen years. Does this family ever throw old food out? Dad has to rush out to the butcher's shop where the butcher's daughter is holding on to a ham for him. You can tell that dad is smitten with the daughter, and she with him, so he awkwardly invites her to his house for Christmas dinner.  So much for missing the recently dead mom. As dad leaves the shop, the van that has been following him since he left the house pulls up behind him. Inside are three Home Alone style criminals who kidnap him, demanding he tell them where the energy chip he just invented is. So basically, dad lives in the middle of nowhere, yet moments after inventing an energy chip he has been working on for months, three criminals find out it exist and drive to his town to steal it? After dad has been missing for two hours, grandma decides it is time for everyone to go to bed. Kasey is very upset that dad is missing, so grandma gives her an elf doll, telling her that if she makes a wish on it, the wish will come true. So Kasey wishes dad was home.

You have just sat through the first 15 minutes of Elf-Man, a film that has so far jammed in tropes and stale jokes from dozens of past Christmas movies.  You may be thinking this is not tat bad. But it grows worse. Santa shows with two elves, one of them Wee Man, who's job is to collect the poop as the reindeer shit it out.  Well, what is a film for kids these days without the obligatory poop and fart gags? Santa finds out that Kacey made a wish on an elf doll, so abandons Wee Man at the house, where he has to fulfil the wish before Santa will return for him. The next 40 minutes is a home alone retread where the criminals try to break into the house to find the chip, and the elf keeps stopping them. The elf finally finds dad, because the criminals were holding him in the abandoned barn next door to Kasey and Ryan's house. But he is unable to pull off a rescue. Deciding he is worthless, the elf gives up and waits on the roof for Santa to pick him up. Kasey and Ryan decide  that the elf is a superhero, because he has magical powers, and to pick up his spirits, make him an Elf-Man costume. Meanwhile, dad has managed to escape on his own, and has returned to his house, which is soon under siege by the criminals.  That is until the elf shows up as Elf-Man, and for the final 20 minutes of the film uses his Christmas magic to emulate a superhero and defeat the criminals.

Elf-Man is super sappy, super derivative, super unfunny, and super annoying, all at the same time. It is not that painful to sit through, but you can't help but feel it could have been a good film, perhaps even a classic, had Ethan Wiley and Richard Jefferies not spent so much time in the script ripping off moments from other Christmas films, and instead had come up with something new.


ORIGIN:
There is absolutely no behind the scenes information on this film. The production company released no promotional videos other than the trailer. What I do know is it was co-written and directed by Ethan Wiley, who is best known for writing the script for the 80s horror-comedy House ( 1986 ), and for writing and directing the sequel House II: The Second Story ( 1987 ). The star of this film was Wee Man from the popular MTV series Jackass and the R rated Jackass films. It was following the completion of Jackass 3D which was planned to be the group's final film, that Wee Man signed up for this film. The production company, called Elf-Man LLC, was found guilty of copyright trolling, and was ordered by the courts to pay back over $100,000 in attorney fees to one of the defendants. Elf-Man LLC had filed lawsuits against random bit-torrent users, including 29 Spokane residents, claiming they had illegally downloaded a leaked copy of the yet to be released Elf-Man. This practice is basically a fishing expedition where most of those sued had never downloaded the film, the purpose to catch the ones who did who would then settle out of court. One of those sued, Ryan Lamberson, had not downloaded the film, and ended up having to hire an attorney, which he was reimbursed for when Elf-Man LLC admitted they had no evidence Lamberson downloaded the film.



Review
"If Santa With Muscles is far too good for your festive season, then you can really scrape the Christmas movie barrel with this truly awful vehicle for Jackass star Jason 'Wee Man' Acuna." ~ Leterboxd.com

[stethacantus]

#70

Jonah Hex ( 2010 )

4 points, 1 list, #22  RVR II

Studio: Warnrr Bros.
Script: Neveldine & Taylor ( Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor )
Producer: Akiva Goldsman, Andrew Lazar
Director: Jimmy Hayward
Cast: Josh Brolin ( Jonah Hex ), John Malkovich ( Quentin Tumbull ), Megan Fox ( Lilah Black ), Michael Fassbender ( Burke ), Will Arnett ( Lieutenant Grass ), Michael Shannon ( Dr. Cross Williams ), Wes Bentley  ( Adleman Lusk ), Aidan Quinn ( President Ulysses S. Grant ), Lance Reddick  ( Smith )

TRAILER

Confederate soldier Jonah Hex disobeyed orders to burn down a Yankee hospital, and ends up killing General Tumbull's son while deserting.  Years later Tumbull and his men tracked Hex to his house, murdered his family, burned down his shack, deformed half his face with a branding iron, and left him for dead. Fortunately some Native Americans were able to save him with a ritual. This not only revived him, but gave him the power to temporarily revive and talk to dead bodies. Hex uses his new power to become a bounty hunter. Presented Grant hires Hex to track down Tumbull, who is now the leader of a terrorist group who have stolen a super weapon the government was building.  Hex revives one of Tumbull's dead thugs, and he sends him to Colonel Slocum, who runs an illegal death match in South Carolina.  Slocum doesn't help Hex, but jokingly suggests he ask Tumbull's dead son Jeb. Hex goes to the cemetery where Jeb was buried, and after apologizing for killing him, asks him where his father is. He is told that Tumbull can be found at Fort Resurrection. Once there Hex uncovers Tumbull's plot to destroy Washington D.C. on the Centennial.  He gets into a gunfight with Tumbull's men and is mortally wounded. Once again his Native American friends revive him with another ceremony. Hex tracks Tumbull to a warship steaming towards Washington, sabotages the weapon so that it destroys the warship, causing it to blow up.  A grateful Grant offers Hex the job of Sherriff of the United States, but he turns him down. Oh, and Megan Fox is in this film as a prostitute who sometimes helps Hex, but mostly ends up being a hostage Hex needs to rescue. Basically just a poorly done adaption with the source material changed to give the hero powers he didn't have in the comic book, and a cyberpunk ending tossed in so we get to see shit explode in a western.


ORIGIN:
Jonah Hex debuted February 1972 in issue #10 of All Star Western. Five years later he got his own book, which ran for seven years before being replaced after Crisis on Infinite Earths with the comic book Hex, where Jonah is transported to an apocalyptic 21st Century.  Fans didn't take to their Western hero being turned into a road warrior, and the book was eventually canceled in 1987.  20th Century Fox had acquired the television rights to Jonah Hex, and in 2000, intended to produce a hourly western series, but a pilot was never greenlit.  The rights reverted back to Warner Bros. who decided to turn it into a movie, reasoning that Westerns were cheaper to produce than superhero films. The directing team of Neveldine & Taylor, who's complete resume was Crank and it's sequel, were hired to write and direct. They decided that a straight Western would not work as a comic book movie, they added elements of fantasy and science fiction.  Stealing an idea from the television series Pushing Daises, they gave Jonah the ability to temporarily revive the dead. The villain Quentin Tumbull acquires a futuristic city destroying weapon so that the climax of the film would require visual effects. As the budget grew, Warner Bros. executives began interfering. Neveldine & Taylor eventually quit out of creative differences with the studio. They were replaced with Jimmy Hayward, an animator from Pixar who worked on the first two Toy Story films, and whose only directing credit was the animated feature Horton Hears a Who!. Jonah Hex would be his first and only live action film. Ironically, Jonah Hex would be released the same weekend as Toy Story 3. According to Josh Brolin, the script was constantly being rewritten at the studio's request, including scenes already shot. He said that they were forced to reshoot 66 pages in 12 days. One major change the studio insisted on was the appearance of the character Lilah Black, who in the comic book is missing her left eye and has scars on her body. Once Megan Fox was cast in the role, all physical deformities were ordered removed from the character.  In total Jonah Hex only earned $11 million  on a budget that ballooned to $47 million.


Reviews
"An object lesson in how not to adapt a comic book. A crushing disappointment." ~ Empire Magazine

"All three of you clamoring for a sequel to Wild Wild West have got your wish." ~ Time Out

"The movie is laughable, but it's not funny, not even in a camp way." ~ MSN Movies

"Every once in a while, a film limps into theaters so stitched together, it's a wonder it doesn't rip apart in the projector. Jonah Hex is such a film" ~ AV Club

"So short, and so bad, you cringe at the thought of how awful whatever ended up on the cutting-room floor must be." ~ Associated Press

[stethacantus]

#69

Unbreakable ( 2000 )

5 points, 1 list, #21 Darth Geek

Studio: Touchstone
Script: M. Night Shyamalan
Producer: Barry Mendel, Sam Mercer, M. Night Shyamalan
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Bruce Willis ( David Dunn ), Samuel L. Jackson ( Elijah Price/Mr. Glass ), Robin Wright-Penn ( Audrey Dunn ), Spencer Treat Clark ( Joseph Dunn ), Charlayne Woodard ( Mrs Price ), Eamonn Walker ( Dr. Mathison ), Leslie Stefanson ( Kelly )

TRAILER

Okay, here's my problem. From time to time I am going to get a movie here I didn't think was that bad, or may have even enjoyed watching myself. I have no doubt the person submitting the list found that film to be bad for whatever reason. Even Citizen Kane got it's share of bad reviews. I mean, it is easy for me to describe why a film I did not like was bad. Or in the case of a Brett Kelly film, downright horrid. But when writing about a film I sort of liked, or enjoyed watching, I have to do a little research to find out exactly what others found wrong with it. Often I can find good critiques. Bad continuity. A divergence from the source material. A character that was supposed to be serious being funny, and a funny character being serious. Something that I can agree with, and see why something I thought was a good piece of entertainment others hated. The problem here is, this film gets mostly good reviews, and  the reason why a few critics didn't like this is that it was weak compared to The Sixth Sense. M Night Shyamalan, the director who's last name sounds like a lyric from a late 50s' Rock'n'roll song,  certainly did give critics a reason to criticize him for his other films. Perhaps with such an outstanding debut with The Sixth Sense we all set our expectations too high, criticizing his other efforts for not being better than his first film. In a way, that is exactly what happened to Orson Welles, where nothing he did could live up to the excellence of Citizen Kane. But then again, the films that followed were either hobbled by low budgets, or sabotaged by the studio he worked for when they reedited them without his consent.  For all we know, the version of The Magnificent Amberson which would have outshined Citizen Cane ended up lost forever on the cutting room floor. Shyamalan never had that problem. His films were almost always low budget, so studios were hands off. If we sat trough something of his just to get a dumb ending that failed to shock the way The Sixth Sense did, then that was all his fault. I thought Unbreakable was an okay film. It seemed to be competent, and had a feel to it as if it was a horror film, even though it never ended up going in that direction. The twist ending wasn't shocking. More of an O Henry twist than a Rod Sterling twist. But I was not bored out of my skull while watching it, nor found any of it stupid.

So basically, the only real complaint anyone can have of this film is that it is promoted as a superhero film, when it clearly is not. A superhero film is more than the protagonist gaining powers. This is why the Hercules movies are not considered superhero films. Superheroes have costumes. They have secret identities. Willis never once becomes an actual superhero. Sure, that is what the other characters in the film want him to be. But Unbreakable comes off as an origin film to a hero that never appears. A dead end. And I guess that is why anyone expecting a superhero film would not like this. Yes it technically counts as a superhero film. But it really isn't. And it is not alone. I have seen dozens of movies promoted as superhero films where we never seethe protagonist become an actual superhero. Movies like American Hero ( 2015 ) where Stephen Dorff does have telekinetic powers, but we wait through an entire movie before he finally uses them to take out a gang of drug dealers. Does this motivate him to put on a costume and fight crime from that moment on? No. The movie ends with him reconnecting with his ex-wife. It didn't lead to him becoming a costumed hero, nor does it suggest he will ever use his powers to fight crime again. Fast Color ( 2019 ),  promoted as a Superhero film. It was a nice little drama with a girl that has telekinetic powers, but they are not once used to rescue anyone nor fight criminals. And, no costume. If telekinetic powers qualifies a character as a superhero, then was Carrie ( 1976 ) a superhero film? How about Scanners ( 1981 )?  The protagonist in Sleight ( 2016 ) has built himself a device he implants in his arm that gives him limited magnetic powers, which he uses as a street magician. It isn't until  the final ten minutes that he is forced to use it against a gang. But no costume, and no indication he will ever fight crime again. Chronical ( 2012 ) was a found footage style film where three friends acquire telekinetic powers from a rock they find in a cave. At first they have fun with their powers, but one of the friends becomes crazy and the other needs to stop him. Not once  does any of the friends decide to become a superhero. Yet, because writer/director Josh Trank promoted this as a Superhero Film, it's success earned him the Fantastic Four reboot everyone hated. Then we got a bunch of films where a group of teenagers gets powers, including Push ( 2009 ), I Am Number Four ( 2011 ), The Darkest Minds ( 2018 ) and Jumper ( 2008 ), all based on successful novel series for young adults that the studios hoped would have the success of the Twilight films, but were all promoted as superhero films. Aside from having similarities to X-Men spin-offs like [i[]The Gifted[/i] which were also about teenagers with powers on the run from the law,  these films never once had their characters become traditional superheroes. And lets not forget television series like Heroes. Four seasons, five volumes, one spinoff, and not one character became an actual superhero. Not even the two characters that actually wanted to become superheroes.

Most superhero films cover the entire origin story in the first act. Or if you are Batman, do away with any origin story and start the film as a fully formed superhero. Maybe somewhere during the film there will be a mention Bruce Wayne's parents were gunned down, giving the audience a hint as to why a man would dress up as a bat and fight criminals. However, some films do wait until the third act for the protagonist to become a superhero. Most of those films end up poorly reviewed. Had Unbreakable been the origin story of an established comic book superhero, the fans of that book would have complained. This is not the case with David Dunn. The average audience member has no expectations that this movie is leading to a man in tights and a cape. They are just enjoying the story itself as it unfolds. Unlike the other films I had mentioned, Unbreakable was not promoted as a superhero film. It was a category it was put into long after it was released in theaters, and quite frankly letting people know of the superhero aspect of the film in advance is somewhat of a spoiler. The trailer only gives away that Willis survives a train accident, and suggests it is probably another horror movie. (  M. Night Shyamalan actually wanted to promote it as a comic book movie, but Disney executives insisted on promoting it as a supernatural thriller. )    If you didn't see Unbreakable then you didn't know what it was about. That is until a few months after release when the first media outlets began blabbing about it's comic book hero connection. By the time it was released on home video and Pay-Per-View, anyone seeing it for the first time fully expected a superhero origin story. And if that was what they wanted, they would have been disappointed. Now, I am sure there are those who didn't like this film because of it's lethargic pacing. It takes an hour forty minutes to reach the twist ending, with very little happening during those minutes. M. Night Shyamalan is a film maker who banks everything on his twist endings, which if you didn't like, makes the rest of the film a waste of time. It is all hit or miss, and for many a miss. If you didn't like the revelation that ends Unbreakable, then I guess you can call this a bad film.


ORIGIN:
High ranking Disney executive David Vogal was so impressed with the script for The Sixth Sense that he paid $3 million for it and agreed to the terms that M. Night Shyamalan would be allowed to direct it. Shorty after Vogal was terminated from his position, and Disney, stuck with what they thought was a bad deal, sent the project to Spyglass Entertainment. The Sixth Sense turned out to be a phenomenal success, so Disney immediately bought Shyamalan's spec script for his next film, Unbreakable, for $5 million. At the time, a record for a spec script. While directing The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan had contemplated the three act  structure of the typical superhero film, The heroes' birth, his struggle against evil doers, and his eventual showdown with the films arch enemy.  Feeling the birth section of a superhero film was the most interesting, he began work on a script that would do away with the second and third act. The final script ended up as a superhero origin story without a superhero.  Whether you liked Unbreakable or not, it did end up breaking ground for the superhero genre, resulting in those other mentioned superhero films without superheroes. 



Reviews
"A muddled, self-serious snoozer." ~ San Francisco Chronicle

"Unbreakable is a film that begins with a train wreck and then, figuratively speaking, becomes one." ~ Boston Globe

[stethacantus]

#68

Max Steel ( 2016 )

6 points, 1 list, #20 RVR II

Studio: Mattel Playground Productions/Dolphin Entertainment
Script: Christopher L. Yost
Producer: Bill O'Dowd, Julia Pistor
Director: Stewart Hendler
Cast: Ben Winchell ( Max McGrath ), Maria Bello ( Molly McGrath ), Ana Villafañe ( Sofia Martinez ), Josh Brener ( the voice of Steel ), Andi Garcia (  Dr. Miles Edwards )

TRAILER

I am not going to give the full synopsis of this film, as there are too many spoilers. Although most of those spoilers are predictable.  For example, you can easily guess which character will turn out to be the surprise villain the moment he is introduced.  The film centers around Max McGrath, a teenager living with a single mother who is moving back to the small town they had originally lived in when Max's dad was still alive. As far as Max knows, dad was struck by lightning, and mom refuses to say anything else about how he died. So what do you do when you don't want your son to learn how his father died? You move to a small town where everyone knows how he died, and have no problem walking up to him and saying stuff like "You're Jim McGrath's kid? To bad about him getting killed in that there laboratory accident." Max is the new kid, but since this is a movie, the best looking girl in his high school immediately becomes his girlfriend.  Max begins to emit some sort of energy plasma from his hands, and gains the ability to short out any electronics in the same room. And just when you are thinking this is a dull but watchable science fiction movie, Steel shows up. No, not Shaquille O'neal, which would have made this movie about 100 times better. But an annoying floating CGI robot called Steel. When Steel is not attempting slapstick, He is making terrible wisecracks with his annoying voice. This is what you are forced to put up with for the rest of the movie. Welcome to Hell.

Steel has robot amnesia, and can only barely remember where he is from, but once knew Max's dad. Also, when he comes into contact with Max, the two combine to become Max Steel, which is basically a Power Ranger. Think of a power ranger in thin armor with no power ranger friends, and no animals themed robotic vehicle that can combine with the other power ranger vehicles to become a giant robot. So basically, a downgrade.  The movie continues on with the Max Steel combo fighting enemies and uncovering the truth behind Max's father's death.  But by the time Steel has been on screen for ten minutes, you are more than ready to rage quit this film.

ORIGIN:
The Max Steel line of action figures were introduced in 1999 by Mattel. Max Steel was originally meant to be  a spy, similar to James Bond. An animated series was commissioned for the WB network to promote the action figures, and the studio making the series invented their own back story for the characters.  The hero was Josh McGrath, a 19 year old athlete who obtains super powers in a lab accident, and decides to become a superhero called Max Steel. Eventually the toy line began to match the cartoon.  Max Steel lasted three seasons. The action figure line would continue until 2012. In 2009 Paramount Pictures purchased the rights to do a live action movie based on the Max Steel action figures. The role of Max Steel was offered to Taylor Lautner, but he was forced to back out because he has a previous commitment to star in a movie based on the Stretch Armstrong toy.  You can't make this shit up. Without a star Paramount canceled the film. After 23 years, Mattel decided to cancel their original Max Steel line, replacing it with a new toy line with a different Max Steel. A brand new animated series was commissioned which featured a 16 year old teenager  named Maxwell  McGrath who combines with a robot to become Max Steel. Looking to further promote the new action figure line, Mattel decided to self finance a feature film themselves. It currently holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.  Care to guess how many toys this film helped sell?

Reviews
" A half-baked, time-wasting curtain-raiser for a superhero franchise that is never, ever going to happen" ~ Variety

"A spectacle without the spectacle, an autumnal, amorphous blockbuster that just sits there, suspended in mid-air, as you soak in its ceaseless banality." ~ TheWrap

"Not an abortion. Just a miscarriage." ~ Movie Nation

"This I Was a Teenage Iron Man wannabe is inept at every level" ~ Sacramento News & Review

[stethacantus]

#67

Eternals ( 2021 )

7 points, 1 list,  TIEBREAKER 6.3 IMDb, #19 stansimpson

Studio: Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures
Script: Chloé Zhao, Patrick Burleigh, Ray Firpo, Kaz Firpo
Producers: Kevin Fergie, Nate More
Director: Chloé Zhao
Cast: Gemma Chan ( Sersi ), Richard Madden ( Ikaris ), Kumail Najiani ( Kingo ), Lia McHugh ( Sprite ), Brian Tyree Henry ( Phastos ), Laurence Ridloff ( Makkari ), Barry Keoghan ( Druig ), Don Lee ( Gilgamesh ), Harish Patel ( Karun ),  Kit Harrington  ( Dane Whitman ), Selma Hayek ( Awake), Angelina Jolie ( Thena )

TRAILER

Here is another movie I have not yet seen. Also, did not expect to see an MCU on this list. But this did get a 47% on Rotten Tomatoes. That's unheard of for a MCU film. they are all 70% or better. The only MCU related anything to get a lower rating is the Netflix series Marvel's Iron Fist at 37%, and The Inhumans at 11%. ( I am not sure if The Inhumans is a movie, a miniseries or a failed pilot. )  Best I can get from the reviews is that The Eternals is long and boring. I have no idea what the film is about other than a bunch of heroes need to stop some sort of evil from destroying Earth again. And I have never read either The New Gods nor The Eternals so have no idea what the film is supposed to be based on.


ORIGIN:
Jack Kirby had spent most of his career doing freelance work for various comic book companies including Harvey, D.C. and Archie Comics.  He had once worked for Martin Goodman at Timely Comics where he had co-created their best selling superhero Captain America with Joe Simon. Both Kirby and Simon ended up fired from Timely when Goodman found out they were freelancing for rival comic book companies. Kirby was convinced it was Stan Lee who told Goodman about their freelancing and vowed to never work for him again. Kirby and Simon spent the 50s freelancing for comic book companies, eventually dissolving their partnership at the end of the decade. Stan Lee thought he could get Kirby to work for Goodman as a freelance artist, so was able to iron out the differences between  the three men. By the 60s Timely was called Marvel Comics. Goodman wanted a superhero team just like Justice League of America, so Kirby co-created The Fantastic Four with Stan Lee. For the next nine years Kirby created and co-created several iconic Marvel characters, and set the art style of Marvel Comics.  But he was still freelance.

In 1970 Marvel finally offered Kirby a contract, but he was insult by its terms. He had been secretly negotiating with D.C. for a job, so signed with them on a three year deal. At D.C., Kirby created the miniseries The New Gods, first issue published March 1971, which he had intended to last only a few issues, but sales were impressive, so they had Kirby expand the story.  His years at D.C. were anything but pleasant. He was constantly assigned books he didn't want to draw.  The sales of The New Gods had fallen off. D,C cancelled it without warning Kirby. He never got to complete the story he wanted to tell. Kirby left D.C. as soon as his contract was up, and in 1975 was back working for Marvel. He began writing and illustrating comic book called Return of the Gods which, with new characters, would follow the same basic story as The New Gods, only this time the story would be properly concluded. Marvel worried that D.C. would sue over copyright infringement, so had Kirby change the title to The Eternals, the first issue published July 1976.  Unfortunately, much like The New Gods, Kirby was asked to expand the book beyond a miniseries, and once again it was cancelled before Kirby could resolve the entire story.  Editor in chief Roy Thomas decided to have the unresolved plotlines from The Eternals resolved in a story arc in Thor. Much of the Eternal's mythos invented by Kirby has been referenced in subsequent Marvel stories. Since the 70s there have been a few attempts by Marvel to revive The Eternals in new books. But each time the sales were poor. Makes you wonder why anyone would try to revive a Jack Kirby vanity project without Jack Kirby, or why someone at Marvel Studios thought a comic book with poor sales would be great source material for a movie, when there is so much Marvel property that has not yet been used in the MCU.


Reviews
" Seriously, what a snooze. Fresh off of winning the Best Director Oscar for "Nomadland," Chloé Zhao has upchucked one of the MCU's worst movies in ages." ~ New York Post

"Eternals is too much of a not good enough thing." ~ Detroit News

"Clearly, we're supposed to leave the cinema filled with an urgent sense of anticipation. But all I felt was relief that the two-and-a-half hour running time had finally come to an end." ~ Sydney Morning Herald

"You have to commend the effort to take the MCU in a different direction, but there's little else worthy of applause." ~ Time Out

[stethacantus]

#66

Dr. Strange ( 1978 )

7 points, 1 list, TIEBREAKER 5.1 IMDb,  #19 Stethacantus

Studio: Universal Television
Script: Philip DeGuere
Producer: Alex Beaton, Philip DeGuere, Gregory Hoblit
Director: Philip DeGuere
Cast: Peter Hooten ( Dr. Strange ), Jessica Walter ( Morgan LeFey ), Anne-Marie Martin ( Clea Lake ), Clyde Kusatsu ( Wong ), Philip Sterling ( Dr. Frank Taylor ), John Mills ( Thomas Lindmir/former Sorcerer Supreme ), June Barrett ( Sarah )

TRAILER

Any Marvel Comics fan could tell this movie based on Dr. Strange would be a disaster when they read the following words next to it: "70s Television Movie".  Up until the syndicated Star Trek: The Next Generation, television shows and movies were given very small budgets. Everything was cheap and padded. Meanwhile, a typical Dr, Strange comic book had him flying through mystical dimensions and going to mystical realms. Even the earthbound stories had Strange in magic fights that would require state of the arts special effects if replicated on screen.  Movie studios at the time could barely afford to adapt a Dr. Strange story to the big screen. Doig a Dr. Strange movie on a limited television budget, unthinkable. And yet, that is exactly what Universal Television did.  Perhaps they thought they could get away with limiting the scope of Strange's powers. Like they did with the Hulk. While in the comic book, the Hulk could leap great distances, toss tanks and knock down entire buildings, the hulk on Television could only punch holes through walls, turn over cars and shove red necks to the ground.  A limited Dr. Strange would mean most episodes he would do simple magic, such as pointing a  finger at a door to unlock it, immobilizing people who were running away, maybe having an object fly off a table and into his hand, and by using a locked camera and editing, having him suddenly disappear. Invisibility was also doable, All that was needed was footstep sound effects, and a door rigged to open and close.

As with all of the live action adaptions of a Marvel superhero for television, major changes were made. In the comic book, Strange is a surgeon who damages his hands in a car accident and ends up traveling to Tibet in search of treatment that will fix them. There he ends up becoming a disciple of the Sorcerer Supreme who calls himself the Ancient One, eventually becoming Earth's new Sorcerer Supreme ten years later when the Ancient One died.  In the movie, the ancient one is not a monk in Tibet, but a not so elderly white man in Los Angeles. Strange is a psychiatrist in a hospital just blocks from the Ancient One's sanctum.  Strange doesn't seek the Ancient One out, but rather the Ancient One seeks him out. The Ancient One tells Strange his parents were his disciples, and he was always destined to become the next sorcerer supreme.  The plot of this film: A blurry blob with two glowing eyes, later identified as The Nameless One, sends his disciple Morgan Le Fay to Earth to kill the Ancient One and/or Strange before the Ancient One can make Strange the new Sorcerer Supreme.  Which is barely enough of a plot for an hour episode. But this plot is dragged out to an entire two hour television movie. Which is the problem with this film. A story that could have been completely told in the first ten minutes of this film, took the entire two hours to tell. Even on home video where without commercials the movie is only 90 minutes, this is very boring. Strange does travel across dimensions, but that when that happens, it is just Hooten against a blue screen, with the background being  lights filmed  in howlround, similar to the images in the opening credits of the average Doctor Who episode.  The only other dimensional relm is a single small set, which is in eternal nighttime, with a single rock outcrop.  At least the producer of this film allowed the budget for a couple of optical effects of the occasional character shooting lightning at another character, but that was  about it. Dr. Strange was meant to be a pilot movie for a proposed television series. Airing against the rerun of Roots, it tanked in the ratings and CBS never picked it up as a series. However, I have no doubt that had there been a series, we would have seen very little of supernatural battles or other dimensional realms, but instead Strange the likes of Strange foiling counterfeit rings, catching jewel thieves, and recuing kidnap victims. One only has to look at the other superhero series around that time, Wonder Woman, The Incredible Hulk and The Greatest American Hero to know the caliber of villains faced each week. Basically the same villains Barnaby Jones faced off against.

ORIGIN:
Strange Tales had it's first issue back in June 1951. A horror anthology published by Marve Comic's forerunner Timely Comics, it was published in response to the popularity of E.C. Comic's horror titles. With the Comic Code Authority banning horror comics in 1954, Timely ( which had changed it's name to Atlas Comics ) didn't cancel the title, but rather changed the stories in it from Horror to Science Fiction. When Artist Steve Ditko proposed a new superhero who was a sorcerer, Stan Lee decided to debut him in issue #110 of Strange Tales ( published in Junne of 1963 ).  The character's name Steven Strange was chosen so it matched the title of the comic book., and if he became popular enough to take over the entire book ,then the title would not need to be changed. That never happened. In 1965 Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. was added as the second feature, and until May of 1968 Strange Tales was published as a split comic where it ended it's original  run at issue #168. Both Doctor Strange and Nick Fury went on to their own comic books.  After snatching the Wonder Woman series from ABC in 1977, CBS became interested in airing other superhero series, and began negotiating with Marvel as their heroes were not yet tied up in production deals. After Spiderman and the Hulk, Dr, Strange became the third Marvel character to have a pilot air on CBS.  He was among the characters picked up by Universal Television, who just as with the Hulk, wanted Strange to battle normal criminals each week as a cost cutting measure. After Universal turned down several villains from the comic book as the series antagonist, Stan Lee suggested Morgan Le Fey.  Based on a character from the legend of King Arthur,  she was one of the villains from a 1950s medieval comic book called The Black Knight, beginning with it's first issue in May 1955. They had just brought the character back at Marvel as an arch enemy of Spider-Woman in her second issue. At the time she had not yet faced off against Dr. Strange in the comics, but had the series been picked up, Morgan would have been the series recurring villain.

Reviews
"The transition from comic strip to the small screen is rife with conceptual traps and very few projects can bridge that artistic chasm effectively. Dr. Strange didn't." ~ Hollywood Reporter

"Basically just a mid tier 70s horror movie but with no blood or boobs." ~ Letterboxd.com

[stethacantus]

#65

Spider-Man 3 ( 2007 )

7 points, 2 lists, #20 Pac-Man

Studio: Columbia Pictures ( Sony )
Script: Sam Rami, Ivan Rami, Alvin Sargent
Producers: Laura Ziskin, Avi Arad, Grant Curtis
Director: Sam Rami
Cast: Toby Maguire ( Peter Parker/Spider-Man ), Kristen Dunst ( Mary Jane Watson ), James Franco ( Harry Osborn/New Goblin ), Thomas Haden Church ( Flint Marko/Sandman ), Topher Grace ( Eddie Brock/Venom ), Bryce Dallas Howard ( Gwen Stacy ), James Cromwell ( Captain George Stacy ), Rosemary Harris ( May Parker ), J. K. Simmons ( J. Jonah Jameson ), Bill Nunn  (  Robbie Robertson ), Bruce Campbell ( Maître d' ), Elizabeth Banks ( Miss Brant ), Willem Dafoe ( Norman Osborn ), Cliff Robertson ( Ben Parker ), Stan Lee ( Man In Times Square )

TRAILER

There are basically three main reasons why many hated this film.
#1. Rami jammed three separate plots into the same film, with Harry as the Goblin, the Sandman and the black Spiderman costume that becomes Venom. And each plot is shortchanged.
#2. Uncle Ben's murder is retconned so that Sandman murdered him instead of the robber shown killing him in the first movie.
#3 the film comes to a dead stop to hear Mary Jane sing in a Broadway musical.

There are a lot of other problems with this film, such as evil Peter walking the street like he is Travolta  in Saturday Night Fever, to anything about Mary Jane's stage career, which is an unnecessary sub-plot stacked on an already teetering pile of plots. Three major plots and several sub-plots which screen writer Alvin Sargent heroically tried to bind together in a single tale. But even an Academy Award winning screenwriter could not prevent the script for this film becoming a busy mess.

The film begins with sub-plot #1. Peter wants to propose to Mary Jane. You could forget about this sub-plot as it is a dead end. As they relax in a web hammock k in the middle of Central Park, Mary Jane mentions sub-plot #2. She wants to be a Broadway star, lands a role in a musical, and can't understand why Peter has never shown up to see her perform.  I don't know, maybe because he is too busy saving people? As they leave the park, plot #1 begins. a small patch of black goo  has fallen from outer space and has attached itself to Peter's moped, which is conveniently near by where it landed. Hitching a ride on the bike, the goo follows Peter back to his apartment. This is a very plot convenient way of introducing the symbiote that becomes Venom, but in the comic books, Parker gets his black costume during the events of the Secret Wars, a multi issue event that crossed over into every Marvel comic in publication ( excluding their licensed  books )  and involved every Marvel superhero.  So Sony, who only owned the characters in the Spider -Man comics, had to change the Venom origin. Still, traveling billions of miles through the cosmos, then  landing right next to Pete's bike? Plot #2. Harry tries to kill Peter. After finding out Peter is Spiderman and believing Spider-Man murdered his father, Harry decides to put on that creepy Green Goblin gear he found in his father's secret room and get some revenge. Harry ends up smacking his  head on a pipe, knocking himself out, and awaking with amnesia of the past year. So much for Plot #2.  On to Plot #3. Escaped convict Flint Marko tries to hide from police in a particle accelerator and ends up being fused with the surrounding sand, turning him into Sandman. He proves undefeatable when Spider-Man is unable to stop him from robbing an armored truck. And since this plot is working so well, the movie decides to unnecessarily muddle it. The police inform Peter and Aunt May that Marko was the one who killed Uncle Ben and not the guy Spider-Man pretty much revenge killed in the first movie. Parker becomes obsessed with catching Marko.

Back to Plot #1. while he is resting, the space goo hiding in his apartment finally attacks Peter, turning into a black Spider-Man costume that makes Peter way more powerful. But also makes Parker meaner and nastier. Plots #1 and #3 merge a bit when Spider-Man in his black costume finally catches Marko and seemingly kills him with water. Parker becomes an asshole and begins treating Mary Jane like shit, which is sort a compilation of the first two sub plots and a continuation of Plot #3. Harry suddenly recovers from his amnesia and decides to break Peter and Mary Jane up as revenge for his dead dad, which is now Plot #2 mixed in. Now lets throw in another sub-plot, Daily Bugel co-worker Eddie Brock.  And as long as she is not needed in this continuity and it would be dumb to introduce her, lets introduce another sub-plot with Gwen Stacy. Parker finally realizes that the back suit is making him evil, but is unable to peel it off. That is until he realizes the sounds of church bells hurts it long enough for it to be removed. But somehow Eddie Brock just happens to be at the same church, so becomes the new host, and turning him into Venom.

Let's tie Plots #2 and #3 together. Venom finds Sandman who is still alive, and in the spirit of most of the Batman films, both decide to team up to kill Spider-Man. The kidnap Mary Jane and use her as bait on the top of a construction site. Peter begs Harry to help him save Mary Jane  ( Back to Plot #2 ) and after a butler informs Harry that he was there the night his father was killed, and Spider-Man wasn't responsible. So suddenly Parker and Osborn are friends again and team up to battle Sandman and Venom. Hey, now all the plots and subplots are combined! Still, a lot of plot convenience to get here.


ORIGIN:
Spider-Man debuted August 1962 in issue #15 of Amazing Fantasy.  Spider-Man was high school nerd Peter Parker, who while on a class field trip to see radiation, is bitten by a spider that had passed through the radiation, and gained spider powers. Spider-Man quickly became Marvel's most popular character, leading to Saturday morning Animated cartoons, a live action network series, and a wacky Japanese movie. In the 80s Marvel pitched Spider-Man to several producers. But the only producer interested was Roger Corman.  He worked out a deal with Orion to be its distributor, and hired Stan Lee to write the script. The villain was to be Doctor Octopus.  Lee refused to submit his script once he found out the minuscule budget Corman wanted to give the film.  Orion wasn't interested once Lee was out. The film rights ended up being sold to Cannon for $225,000. The odd thing was that studio heads Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus  purchased the rights from Corman because they mistakenly thought it was a monster movie. Neither read Marvel comics, and had never heard of Spider-Man before. So assumed Spider-Man was a half human/half spider creature similar to a werewolf.  Even after being shown Spiderman comic books, Golan and Globus decided they preferred their interpretation of Spider-Man, and hired Leslie Stevens, the television writer who created The Outer Limits to write a script where Peter Parker ends up as a Guinea pig for a mad scientist who turns him into a human tarantula, and then hired Tobe Hooper to direct. Stan Lee found out, and in a meeting with Cannon, convinced the studio they would make a lot more money adapting the comic book then doing a half human half beast monster movie. In 1985 Cannon hired  new writers to write a script that was closer to the comic book, with Joseph Zito, the director of the Chuck Norris hits Missing in Action and Invasion USA hired to direct. Since the film rights came with Doctor Octopus, the villain Corman chose, he would once again be the villain in the Cannon film. That is, if only Cannon had made the film. That same year Cannon acquired the film rights to Superman and Captain America, The plan was, make a Superman film, then a Captain America film, then a Spider-Man film, and then perhaps a film where all three team up.   And then Superman IV: The Quest for Peace bombed at the box office. Cannon quickly cut the budget for the Spiderman film from $20 million to $7 million. Director Joseph Zito resigned. He may have been willing to make low budget Chuck Norris films, but he knew a low budget Spider-Man film would be a disaster. Cannon turned to Albert Pyun, who at the time was directing Alien from L.A. for  them, and he was willing to make a $7 million Spider-Man film. That is until Pathé bought out Cannon, and cancelled their superhero films. Menahem Golan left Cannon, taking the rights to Captain America and Spider-Man with him.

Following so far? Golan was owed millions in severance. Something Pathé didn't have at the time. The owner of Pathé had also previously bough 21st Century Film Corporation, which, along with the film rights to Spider-Man and Captain America, were given to Golan in lieu of payment. Both properties were to expire if Golan did not produce movies by 1990. A low budget Captain America movie was rushed into production, directed by Albert Pyun. As for Spider-Man, what money Golan had was being allocated to the Captain America film. Golan had the updated script and story boards, and wanted the original $20 million budget. To raise funds, he sold the television rights to Viacom, the home video rights to Columbia Pictures, and the theatrical rights to Carloco Pictures. There was a reason why Carloco wanted to do a Spider-Man film. They had the rights to X-Men, and were about to do an X-Men movie with James Camron as producer. Cameron held a meeting with Stan Lee to discuss the film, during which Lee lamented over how many timed a deal to make a Spider-Man movie fell apart, how he would have preferred Spider-Man to be the first Marvel superhero to get a movie, and how more cinematic Spider-Man was. By the end of the meeting, Cameron was sold on Spider-Man, and decided to postpone any X-Men movie for a Spider-Man movie, provided Carloco could get the rights. And just like magic, representatives for Menahem Golan contacted Carloco, asking if they wanted to buy the theatrical rights to Spider-Man for a co-production. With the money from Carloco, Golan extended the option for another five years. Cameron began developing a darker R rated Spider-Man with a $50 million budget, and wanted Leonardo DiCaprio to play Peter Parker. However, Carloco attempted to cut 21st Century Film Corporation out of the loop, and Golan ended up suing them. This put the Spider-Man movie on hold for years. James Cameron had a production deal with 20th Century Fox, who tried to acquire the film rights to Spider-Man for him., but could not as they were still tied up in the lawsuit between 21st Century Film Corporation and Carloco. M.G.M. bought 21st Century Film Corporation, and in behalf of their new acquisition, filed fraud lawsuits against Viacom, Columbia Pictures, Carloco and Marvel who they claimed conspired to cut 21st Century Film Corporation out of the Spider-Man film. Unable to wait any longer while this legal nonsense was going on, Cameron abandoned Spider-Man to begin working on Titanic.

1995 came and went, and the film rights reverted back to Marvel.  Once the lawsuit with M.G.M. was settled, Columbia Pictures began negotiating with Marvel for the film rights. Titanic became the first movie to make $1 billion, and every studio wanted to work with Cameron. Columbia's parent company Sony Pictures settled the matter by buying the film rights to Spider-Man. Another deal was made with M.G.M. who owned the production of the film Cameron was working on, including Cameron's  script.   The one thing they could not get was Cameron himself, who no longer wanted to make a Spider-Man film. Sony went through a number of directors they asked to direct Spider-Man, including Michael Bay, Ang Lee and M. Night Shyamalan, but eventually signed Sam Raimi.  Various rewrites were made to the Cameron script, mostly to change the villains. Eventually every element of the Cameron script was removed and it became entirely David Koepp's script. Raimi's Spider-Man was a huge box office hit. Sony immediately had Rami working on a sequel.  At the time of it's release, Spider-Man 2 was considered by most critics and comic book fans as the greatest superhero film to have been made to that date.

Raimi  kept insisting on the villain being the ones he grew up with as a kid, instead of  what was then the current villains. Initially the three villains that were to be in Spider-Man 3 were Harry Osborn's Goblin, Sandman and The Vulture. Raimi was even in talks with Ben Kingsley to play The Vulture. It was Marvel's Avi Arad who insisted Raimi change Vulture to Venom.  Sandman was Flint Marko, an escaped convict who wandered onto a nuclear testing sit which caused him to bond with the sand he was crawling on, turning him into a pile of living sand that could shape shift into anything he could think of. A major Marvel villain, he first appeared September 1963 in Amazing Spider-Man #4, becoming one of Spider-Man's rogue gallery. Green Goblin was introduced July 1964 in Amazing Spider-Man #14. He was originally Norman Osborn, rich industrialist and founder and CEO of  Oscorp. And the father of Harry Osborn, Peter Parker's closest friend. Norman took on the Green Goblin persona after a lab accident turned him insane, but also elevated his intellect and strength. Using Oscorp technology to create a bat shaped rocket powered hoverboard and pumpkin bombs, and dressed in a Green Goblin costume, Osborne terrorized the city, becoming an arch enemy of Spiderman. Originally the Green Goblin's identity was unknown, with co creator Steve Ditko insisting that when the identity was revealed, it be a character no one knew, while Lee insisted it should be Norman Osborn.  The final issue Ditko drew was #38, and after he had left Marvel  The Green Goblin's identity was finally exposed in Issue #39. Years later Norman accidentally kills himself during a fight with Spider-Man. this is witnessed by his son Harry who believes he saw Spider-Man murder his father. Inheriting Oscorp, harry decided to become the second Green Goblin in order to take revenge against Spider-Man. Similarly, the films have Norman Osborn as the Green Goblin in the first film, and Harry's vendetta against Spider-Man turning him into the second Green Goblin through the next two films. Acadamy award winning screenwriter Alvin Sargent had been hired to write the screenplay for Spider-Man 2, and as it had been such a triumph, was hired to write the third film. He would later admit he was overwhelmed with all the characters, plots and sub plots Raimi and Marvel wanted in the movie. He even considered breaking the story up into two films, handing in what would be scripts for Spider-Man 3 and Spider-Man 4, but Columbia Pictures nixed that suggestion.


Reviews
"Spidey the Third feels like an even greater letdown following Spidey Part Deux, which was the rare sequel that surpassed the original." ~ Associated Press

"Spider-Man 3 has an ungainly, cumbersome feeling, as if its plot elements were the product of competing contractors who never saw the need to cooperate on a coherent final product." ~ Los Angeles Times

"It's as if director Sam Raimi felt he had to give us more of everything, and in the process lost sight of what made the first two films so enjoyable."  ~ Chicago Sun-Times

"After a fairly pedestrian opening, director Sam Raimi loses all control of the film as it rambles from storyline to storyline in search of a center." ~ Detroit News

"At 140 minutes, it's not a difficult movie to sit through. It's just difficult to enjoy." ~ San Fransisco Chronicle