R0BTRAIN's Bad Ass Cinema: Superhero Lame-Off, Part 2

Features, Top Story

Welcome to the first post-Dark Knight column in nearly a month. This one’s probably going to be a quickie because I’ve been pretty swamped here lately. Between my girlfriend’s birthday today and starting a new job recently I’ve been constantly on the go, but I’m finally getting to finish up my list of the worst superhero fights of all time. Enjoy!

R0BTRAIN’s Bad Ass Cinema presents,

Lamest Superhero Fights, Part 2

America..F#*% No!
From: Captain America (1990)
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Let me tell you, if you were six when this movie came out you probably loved it. You were probably too young to realize that Captain America’s Costume looked like it was made of rubber. The same rubber it looked like The Red Skull’s head was made out of. Did I mention the Red Skull is Italian in this? I hope that every new Marvel director has the youtube video of this fight handy just to remind them how not to do a fight scene. If you think about how DC/Warner Bros. were doing the Burton Batman films at the time, and this is what Marvel was answering with, it’s just embarrassing.

Brett Ratner’s Last Stand
From: X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
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Hey, this movie’s got an awful script, kills off beloved characters one right after another in the lamest ways possible, and seems to take all the potential from X2 and throw it completely out the window, but it at least ends with an awe-inspiring battle right? Surely, this wouldn’t feature 1000 generic, unconvincing mutants that we don’t care about whatsoever whose only power seems to be jumping, right? Or a terrible Juggernaut that’s quoting an internet craze? Surely, no one would do that. That would just be awful.

Flame on Kid!
From: Fantastic Four (2005)
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Doctor Doom. He is maybe the greatest villain in the history of comic books, or at least the greatest one in the Marvel Universe, or at least the greatest foe of the Fantastic Four. Yet here in this movie he’s really just a Green Goblin rip-off, and the Fantastic Four seem to beat him in less than five minutes real time. That’s about it. Not much of a match-up to really climax this movie with, but considering that I think this is still the worst of all the modern Marvel movies (yes, worse than Ghost Rider), it’s pretty much par for the course.

Destroy Superman!
From: Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)
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Steps to ruining a beloved franchise. Step 1: Take a franchise that is already reeling from a mediocre third entry. Step 2: Sell the Franchise to Canon films. Step 3: Watch as Canon films cuts budget by about 50%. Step 4: Add a liberal amount of crappy effects, 1 lame supervillain, a host of stock footage, 1 aging hero, a total disregard for the hero’s past mythos and current line up of powers (like eye-beams that repair walls!), and 1 climactic fight at Statue of Liberty. Note: Current political subject matter is an optional additional. Step 5: Mix together and serve to an unsuspecting public.

Shouldnadunthatbabe!
From: Supergirl (1984)
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I tell you what the Ilya Salkind produced Superman franchise movies hate. They hate rednecks. They hate them so much so that they had three of the most powerful super-villains ever put on screen, who could immediately take over the world, take the time to beat up an entire town of rednecks first. In 1984‘s Supergirl, the Salkind hate for rednecks continues after Supergirl, who is clearly loitering in the middle of the street, takes the time to beat the crap out of two truckers. Make note of the idiot second trucker, who has already watched his friend get manhandled and then blown into a wall by what is clearly a super powered being. Then he decides to get out his switchblade? Maybe these rednecks do deserve to get beat up after all.

Catfight!
From: Catwoman (2004)
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Remember when I complained about the fights in Batman Begins and how there was messy editing galore and poor camerawork, but the movie itself was really solid? Yeah, imagine the same egregious editing surrounded by the worst superhero movie of the decade. I suppose any Captain America fans out there that wanted to have a comeback could mention that the same year Marvel put out Spider-Man 2, Warner/DC released this abomination. I’m all for seeing Halle Berry in skintight outfits as much as the next guy, but not when you have to be subjected to this type of crap.

Finally when the villain says “It’s over!” you pray that she’s right, but then the fight just keeps going. After a constant bludgeoning of bad CGI, choppy editing, one bad line after another, all this movie does is make you curse the creation of comic books and all that they’ve spawned over the decades. Hell, this movie makes you hate the invention of fire for that matter. Curse you Catwoman, curse you.

Don‘t Tell Grandma
From: Steel (1997)
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Honestly, who in the hell thought this was a good idea? Really? Let’s take a character, that at least was the most likable of the Superman replacements in the late 90‘s, and then make a movie version that doesn’t actually resemble this character at all (in storytelling or costume) AND have it star Shaquille O’Neal. Again, I have to wonder just who though this was a good idea.

Then, as if the idea of Shaq as Steel weren’t bad enough, the execution manages to somehow be worse. Check out this climactic fight scene. Lame sidekick? Check. Racial stereotypes? Embarrassing dialogue? Check. References to Shaq’s shortcomings as a basketball player? Check. Wow, there’s a special place in Hell for the man that wrote this “movie”.

You get the Ice, I‘ll get the Iceman
From: Batman & Robin (1997)
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1997 may go down as the single worst year for Comic Book movies ever. Yes, 2007’s lineup of Spider-Man 3, Ghost Rider and the unnecessary Fantastic Four sequel made for some truly horrific times at the theater last year, but a decade before, the trifecta of Steel, Spawn and Batman & Robin are the things of geek nightmares. When Spawn is the best Comic Book film made out of any certain year, you’re in big trouble, and if you went to the movies with any hopes for any good movies at all, you were definitely in big, big trouble.

Now admittedly, making fun of Batman & Robin is an exercise in futility, but its hard to think of a major release more banal, besides maybe Catwoman or perhaps Battlefield Earth. Take for instance this opening fight scene in which Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Arnold Schwarzenegger in Mr. Freeze makeup. He’s frozen a museum for the purposes of making horrible ice-jokes, and stealing a diamond which somehow powers his suit. How does this work? Who cares?

At any rate, this toy commercial for Batman figures and ice skating seems to go on and on and on, with one lazy pun after another until you are sure that Warner Brothers, Joel Schumacher, George Clooney, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and God himself had nothing but contempt for Batman fans. Truly, Comic Book geeks everywhere wept upon the release of this atrocity, knocking the genre back to the days of Adam West and Burt Ward.

So that’s all I got. Both Marvel and DC characters got pretty trashed here by the studios and thank God some of them have made some comebacks. Hope you guys are making thru Dark Knight withdrawal. See you next week.

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.