Zev
Superhero
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I was just thinking... what moments made you cringe, wince, sigh, and vomit in disgust? In the format of an uber-inventive top ten list...
10. Green Goblin Attacks Macy Gray, Spider-Man
Okay, Macy Gray had a cameo, nothing too painful... Then Green Goblin shows up. In an all-too-static faceplate which seems designed for ease of conversion to Halloween costumes and a green armor suit, it's amazing that people didn't laugh out loud at the 'menace', especially when he proves his villain-osity to the world by (gasp! horror!) slashing a passing balloon float. Luckily, veteran heavy Willem Dafoe is behind the mask to keep the performance afloat and the movie is fast-paced enough for us to disregard the costume for the most part. Still, who here can truly say we didn't turn our heads slightly when that... THING graced the silver screen?
9. The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, Batman
Picture the scene. Joker is throwing a combination parade/mass execution. Batman is speeding towards him in the Batwing. A ruckus is going to start. What better song to hype us up for this grand confrontation then... Prince? Yes, that's right, Joker throws money around, breakdances under giant balloon floats filled with poison gas, and generally makes an ass of himself. It's a relief when Batman finally shows up and strafes the Clown Prince of Crime, even if he does miss like a Stormtrooper.
8. "...The same thing that happens to everything else," X-Men
In an otherwise stellar movie which has recently been unfairly overshadowed by its sequel, one line makes the entire case against it. Future Catwoman (In Name Only) Halle Berry, wearing a bad wig and digitally-inserted white eyes (you can see her pupils behind them and everything), blows Toad away. As he hangs on by his unnaturally-long tongue, Storm pauses to utter a quip before destroying him with lightning. Unfortunately, it turns out to be this clunker. "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's hit by lightning?" etc. Wolverine can be forgiven for stabbing her through the chest in the next scene.
7. Superman Goes Back To The Future, Superman
Having written themselves into a corner with Lois Lane's death, Superman decides to go back in time to save her. A ludricious decision, of course, because why not go back in time every time you fail? But, this is Lois. So, he's going back in time. Not by attaining lightspeed by circling around the sun, that's been done. Not by using one of his Deus Ex Machina Krypton Krystals, like in Superman 2 (and 4, but that's another story). No, he flies around the Earth's equator until the Earth orbits backwards, which somehow CAUSES TIME TO REVERSE! I'm in wonder how this plot twist wasn't laughed out of theaters. Of course, the sequel featured the God-like Clark Kent laying down the law to a bully, so... whatever.
6. Sewer Meditation, Punisher '89
As skull-less (literally, the famous insignia is nowhere to be found. Maybe it's in the parking lot.) Dolph Lundgren shares his marble-mouthed mumblings on God and the nature of vengeance, the camera tracks through his sewer lair (rented from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, perhaps?) and... OH GOD, MY EYES! We get a nice, long shot of his grimy, bare ass. Why, Marvel, WHY?
5. Various/Hulk
In this case, it's not the big things you find a problem with, it's numerous little things. Like how Bruce Banner stares longingly at a picture of him and his ex, which then starts moving, transitioning us into a conversation about a dream Betty Ross had, a dream we see. A dream sequence within a flashback. Then Talbot dies when he fires an RPG into the Hulk. Said grenade then bounces off the Jade Goliath and blows up Talbot, who expires in the literal cinematic equivilent of a splash page. Or when Nick Nolte, in a fit of literal scenery chewing, becomes the Absorbing Dad of electricity and zaps Hulk around, before getting turned into a giant jellyfish brain and nuked. That was the most unkindest cut of all.
4. Vault Death-Trap, Batman Forever
Picture it. Tommy Lee Jones, acting like a total goon, has imprisoned Val Kilmer's Batman, along with a 'comically' panicking bank guard, in a bank vault hanging from his helicopter. As Two-Face rants "For your dying pleasure, the vault is being filled with the same acid that made us the way we are today!", Batman MacGuyvers the bank guard's hearing aid into a safe-cracking tool and uses his Bat-grapple to deposit (no pun intended) the vault back into the hole in the wall. Then CGI Batman hangs onto to the helicopter for a while before it crashes into the Statue of Liberty. The next scene, in which a fully-costumed Batman, sitting IN BROAD DAYLIGHT in a courtroom, fails to save now-white attorney Harvey Dent from a mobster on trial, who somehow has acid, fails to even contend with the idiocy of this Bond-wannabe 'action' sequence.
Did I mention Two-Face's henchman have machine guns outlined with bright neon?
3. Oh, Batman, You're So Funny, Batman & Robin
Having disposed of cheesy villainess Poison Ivy, as played by only-bright-spot-in-the-film Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone turns to Batman and is greeted "Batgirl? That's not very PC. How about Batwoman or Batperson?" WTF? This is the Dark Knight of Gotham? My bunny slippers wouldn't be scared of anyone who makes a quip like that. For anyone who still had hope after watching a tight close-up of the Bat-Butt, which acted as a certain "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here", and endured Arnold's Kindergarden Cop readings of Mr. Freeze's various out-of-character, low-temperature-themed zingers, this should clue them in that the elevator is on the sixth level of hell and going down fast.
2. Elektra Trains, Daredevil
After given the dubious pleasure of Daredevil murkily fighting his way through a bar full of strobe lights and thugs, then killing a rapist to whom he lost in court (our favorite attorney was prosecuting for some reason), and finally leaving his logo in lighter fluid for a slumming Joey Pants to find, we get the end result of master thespians Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner doing their impression of a bad romcom for most of the movie. Elektra is on a warpath and no one's going to stop her! So, what's the first thing she does? Why, dress up in the standard anti-hero black leather (complete with not-protective-offered-what-so-ever cut-off top), turn on some nu-metal, and jump around slashing sandbags with ninja sais. And just when we think it can't get any worse, a sandbag custom-fitted with a caricature of Daredevil drawn in red crayon lowers. Elektra proves how much of a badass she is by throwing a sai through it. Unfortunately, people, unlike sandbags, can dodge, intercept, and otherwise render mute thrown projectiles and then use them against their owner, as Elektra learns when a wildly-mugging Colin Farrell impales her a few minutes later. Daredevil's unbelievable ability to defeat both Bullseye and Kingpin after being critically wounded can't hold a candle to the slap in the face of the comics that is Movie!Elektra.
1. Nuclear Man, Superman 4: The Quest For Peace
You can find a lot wrong with the fourth and final Superman movie. It's hamfisted anti-nuke message, the replacement of the bumbling but lovable Otis with Jon Cryer as a 'hip' young rocker, the lousy special effects... but none moreso then Nuclear Man, as essayed by Mark Pillow (!). From his 'birth', when a giant net full of nuclear warheads is thrown into the sun by Supes and he grows from fetus to fully clothed man (!!) by virtue of bad animation, to his voice, an electronically roughened version of Gene Hackman's (even though he's supposed to be a clone of Clark Kent), nothing about Superman's mirror image proved him fit to "Kneel before Zod!" or even ski with Richard Pryor. But perhaps the fatal flaw in the character was his fatal flaw... The villain, put in the film to show us the dangers of nuclear science, is SOLAR POWERED! What's more, if not in direct sunlight, he collapses, comatose!!!
Sometimes I don't know what keeps Gene Hackman coming back.
Honorable Mentions: Parking Lot Explosion, The Punisher. Rocketeer Penguins, Batman Returns. Richard Pryor, Superman 3.
10. Green Goblin Attacks Macy Gray, Spider-Man
Okay, Macy Gray had a cameo, nothing too painful... Then Green Goblin shows up. In an all-too-static faceplate which seems designed for ease of conversion to Halloween costumes and a green armor suit, it's amazing that people didn't laugh out loud at the 'menace', especially when he proves his villain-osity to the world by (gasp! horror!) slashing a passing balloon float. Luckily, veteran heavy Willem Dafoe is behind the mask to keep the performance afloat and the movie is fast-paced enough for us to disregard the costume for the most part. Still, who here can truly say we didn't turn our heads slightly when that... THING graced the silver screen?
9. The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, Batman
Picture the scene. Joker is throwing a combination parade/mass execution. Batman is speeding towards him in the Batwing. A ruckus is going to start. What better song to hype us up for this grand confrontation then... Prince? Yes, that's right, Joker throws money around, breakdances under giant balloon floats filled with poison gas, and generally makes an ass of himself. It's a relief when Batman finally shows up and strafes the Clown Prince of Crime, even if he does miss like a Stormtrooper.
8. "...The same thing that happens to everything else," X-Men
In an otherwise stellar movie which has recently been unfairly overshadowed by its sequel, one line makes the entire case against it. Future Catwoman (In Name Only) Halle Berry, wearing a bad wig and digitally-inserted white eyes (you can see her pupils behind them and everything), blows Toad away. As he hangs on by his unnaturally-long tongue, Storm pauses to utter a quip before destroying him with lightning. Unfortunately, it turns out to be this clunker. "Do you know what happens to a toad when it's hit by lightning?" etc. Wolverine can be forgiven for stabbing her through the chest in the next scene.
7. Superman Goes Back To The Future, Superman
Having written themselves into a corner with Lois Lane's death, Superman decides to go back in time to save her. A ludricious decision, of course, because why not go back in time every time you fail? But, this is Lois. So, he's going back in time. Not by attaining lightspeed by circling around the sun, that's been done. Not by using one of his Deus Ex Machina Krypton Krystals, like in Superman 2 (and 4, but that's another story). No, he flies around the Earth's equator until the Earth orbits backwards, which somehow CAUSES TIME TO REVERSE! I'm in wonder how this plot twist wasn't laughed out of theaters. Of course, the sequel featured the God-like Clark Kent laying down the law to a bully, so... whatever.
6. Sewer Meditation, Punisher '89
As skull-less (literally, the famous insignia is nowhere to be found. Maybe it's in the parking lot.) Dolph Lundgren shares his marble-mouthed mumblings on God and the nature of vengeance, the camera tracks through his sewer lair (rented from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, perhaps?) and... OH GOD, MY EYES! We get a nice, long shot of his grimy, bare ass. Why, Marvel, WHY?
5. Various/Hulk
In this case, it's not the big things you find a problem with, it's numerous little things. Like how Bruce Banner stares longingly at a picture of him and his ex, which then starts moving, transitioning us into a conversation about a dream Betty Ross had, a dream we see. A dream sequence within a flashback. Then Talbot dies when he fires an RPG into the Hulk. Said grenade then bounces off the Jade Goliath and blows up Talbot, who expires in the literal cinematic equivilent of a splash page. Or when Nick Nolte, in a fit of literal scenery chewing, becomes the Absorbing Dad of electricity and zaps Hulk around, before getting turned into a giant jellyfish brain and nuked. That was the most unkindest cut of all.
4. Vault Death-Trap, Batman Forever
Picture it. Tommy Lee Jones, acting like a total goon, has imprisoned Val Kilmer's Batman, along with a 'comically' panicking bank guard, in a bank vault hanging from his helicopter. As Two-Face rants "For your dying pleasure, the vault is being filled with the same acid that made us the way we are today!", Batman MacGuyvers the bank guard's hearing aid into a safe-cracking tool and uses his Bat-grapple to deposit (no pun intended) the vault back into the hole in the wall. Then CGI Batman hangs onto to the helicopter for a while before it crashes into the Statue of Liberty. The next scene, in which a fully-costumed Batman, sitting IN BROAD DAYLIGHT in a courtroom, fails to save now-white attorney Harvey Dent from a mobster on trial, who somehow has acid, fails to even contend with the idiocy of this Bond-wannabe 'action' sequence.
Did I mention Two-Face's henchman have machine guns outlined with bright neon?
3. Oh, Batman, You're So Funny, Batman & Robin
Having disposed of cheesy villainess Poison Ivy, as played by only-bright-spot-in-the-film Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone turns to Batman and is greeted "Batgirl? That's not very PC. How about Batwoman or Batperson?" WTF? This is the Dark Knight of Gotham? My bunny slippers wouldn't be scared of anyone who makes a quip like that. For anyone who still had hope after watching a tight close-up of the Bat-Butt, which acted as a certain "Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here", and endured Arnold's Kindergarden Cop readings of Mr. Freeze's various out-of-character, low-temperature-themed zingers, this should clue them in that the elevator is on the sixth level of hell and going down fast.
2. Elektra Trains, Daredevil
After given the dubious pleasure of Daredevil murkily fighting his way through a bar full of strobe lights and thugs, then killing a rapist to whom he lost in court (our favorite attorney was prosecuting for some reason), and finally leaving his logo in lighter fluid for a slumming Joey Pants to find, we get the end result of master thespians Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner doing their impression of a bad romcom for most of the movie. Elektra is on a warpath and no one's going to stop her! So, what's the first thing she does? Why, dress up in the standard anti-hero black leather (complete with not-protective-offered-what-so-ever cut-off top), turn on some nu-metal, and jump around slashing sandbags with ninja sais. And just when we think it can't get any worse, a sandbag custom-fitted with a caricature of Daredevil drawn in red crayon lowers. Elektra proves how much of a badass she is by throwing a sai through it. Unfortunately, people, unlike sandbags, can dodge, intercept, and otherwise render mute thrown projectiles and then use them against their owner, as Elektra learns when a wildly-mugging Colin Farrell impales her a few minutes later. Daredevil's unbelievable ability to defeat both Bullseye and Kingpin after being critically wounded can't hold a candle to the slap in the face of the comics that is Movie!Elektra.
1. Nuclear Man, Superman 4: The Quest For Peace
You can find a lot wrong with the fourth and final Superman movie. It's hamfisted anti-nuke message, the replacement of the bumbling but lovable Otis with Jon Cryer as a 'hip' young rocker, the lousy special effects... but none moreso then Nuclear Man, as essayed by Mark Pillow (!). From his 'birth', when a giant net full of nuclear warheads is thrown into the sun by Supes and he grows from fetus to fully clothed man (!!) by virtue of bad animation, to his voice, an electronically roughened version of Gene Hackman's (even though he's supposed to be a clone of Clark Kent), nothing about Superman's mirror image proved him fit to "Kneel before Zod!" or even ski with Richard Pryor. But perhaps the fatal flaw in the character was his fatal flaw... The villain, put in the film to show us the dangers of nuclear science, is SOLAR POWERED! What's more, if not in direct sunlight, he collapses, comatose!!!
Sometimes I don't know what keeps Gene Hackman coming back.
Honorable Mentions: Parking Lot Explosion, The Punisher. Rocketeer Penguins, Batman Returns. Richard Pryor, Superman 3.
