The 8 worst superhero movies of all time

superman batman v superman
Warner Bros.

Audiences love superhero films. With dozens more planned over the next few years, audiences are hungrier than ever to see their favorite comic-book legends on the big screen.

Advertisement

But superhero movies aren't guaranteed hits. At their best, comic-book adaptations bring in an already dedicated fanbase and set up a cinematic universe with a lot of potential for spinoffs and sequels. At their worst, they're hugely expensive mistakes because of the high cost of shooting big-budget action sequences. 

While "Batman v Superman" has grossed over $784 million worldwide, critics picked apart the film for being an overstuffed, convoluted piece from director Zack Snyder. Though fans were kinder to the Warner Bros. movie, "BvS" is not going down as anyone's favorite superhero movie ever, but it wasn't the worst, either.

Tech Insider looked at the Rotten Tomatoes scores for superhero movies of the past 20 years and averaged critic and audience scores for the film to come up with our list.

Keep reading to see the worst superhero movies.

Advertisement

8. "X-Men: Origins — Wolverine" (2009)

bizarro-deadpool
20th Century Fox/YouTube

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 49%

2009's "X-Men: Origins — Wolverine" tried (and failed) to tell Wolverine's origin story. Despite any number of plot missteps (and a distracting supporting role from rapper will.i.am.), the film is best known for introducing Ryan Reynolds as a mutated, confusing version of Deadpool. The many weird plot decisions were later satirized when Reynold starred in 2016's "Deadpool."

A.V. Club said that ultimately, the absurd story ruined even the action sequences

"A couple of halfway decent action scenes do little to distract from the story's mounting ludicrousness, or a conclusion that's only a little more satisfying than a projector breakdown. Maybe."

 

Advertisement

7. "Ghost Rider" (2007)

ghost-rider
YouTube/Sony Pictures

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score37%

2007's "Ghost Rider" was a both a box office and critical bomb, yet somehow garnered a sequel - the even lower rated "Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" in 2012. "Ghost Rider" starred Nicolas Cage as "hell's bounty hunter," tasked with finding corrupt souls across America on his motorcycle. Critics said the original was an unholy mess, with bad acting and CG effects. The action sequences, typically the saving grace of a poorly-reviewed comic book film, were also disappointing. 

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone blamed the formulaic plot: "The real evil in this flick isn't Blackheart (Wes Bentley), the devil's son, it's the soul-sucking devil of modern cinema: Hollywood formula."

Advertisement

6. "Green Lantern" (2009)

green-lantern-reynolds
YouTube/Warner Bros

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 35.5%

Ryan Reynolds is pulling double duty on the list. After 2009's "X-Men: Origins — Wolverine," two years later, he starred in 2011's "Green Lantern," which was both a critical and box-office disaster for its bizarre plot and terrible CG effects. 

Calling it "Dim Lantern," New York Post said of the film

"His face largely pasted on a computer-generated body, poor Ryan Reynolds acts only from the neck up in “Green Lantern,” a relentlessly silly superhero flick with eyeball-rolling dialogue — set in vast, familiar-looking digital realms that look like rejected models from the second “Star Wars” trilogy.

 

 

 

Advertisement

5. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance" (2012)

Nicholas Cage, Ghost Rider
Columbia Pictures

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 24.5%

The review from The Wrap sums it all up quite nicely: "This is a movie about a flaming skeleton that rides a motorcycle -- there's no excuse for it to be this dull."

Other than a surprise supporting role from future superstar Idris Elba, the movie was criticized for its poor writing, poor CG, and poor performance from Nicolas Cage, who critics, like Elizabeth Weitzman at NY Daily Newsday did nothing with the role:

"Whether Cage is still paying off castles, appeasing the IRS, or rebuilding his comic book collection, it's clear he's decided, for now, to trade his talent for cold, hard cash."

Advertisement

4. "Elektra" (2005)

elektra-jennifer-garner
20th Century Fox/YouTube

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 20%

Jennifer Garner starred as "Elektra" in the critically-mauled 2005 film, a spinoff of 2003's "Daredevil" where she co-starred with future ex-husband, Ben Affleck. At the time, Garner was best known for her leading role on the ABC spy series, "Alias." Critics all but hated the film. 

Rolling Stone said, "Jennifer Garner should have used an alias instead of putting her name on this breathlessly boring spinoff of 'Daredevil.'"

Sadly, not only was "Elektra" the last film in the "Daredevil" series, it was the last-female led superhero film for over a decade. 

Advertisement

3. "Fantastic Four" (2015)

fantastic-four-miles-michael
Fox/Youtube

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 14%

Everything from the acting, to the plot, and CG effects were all targeted in 2015's "Fantastic Four." Chief among the complaints was that movie gets too caught up in the exposition of how the characters got their powers, it never gets around to an actually compelling narrative. The Wrap said: 

"Director Josh Trank has assembled a quartet of engaging, charismatic performers and stranded them in a miasma of exposition and set-up. So much time is spent putting the pieces on the board that there's barely any time to play with them."

The slow pace ultimately made for a boring film, as NY Post said: 

"Much of Josh Trank's abysmal "Fantastic Four" is set in a barren place called Planet Zero - and you may feel stranded there yourself for all 100 minutes of this plodding, joyless and stillborn Marvel reboot."

Advertisement

[TIE] 1. "Batman & Robin" (1997)

batman-and-robin
Warner Bros/YouTube

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 13.5%

1997's "Batman and Robin" is the lowest-rated Batman film of all time, live-action or animated. All sequel plans were cancelled and George Clooney never put the cape on again. While modern Batman films tend to be very grim adaptations, the Joel Schumacher directed film was campy and cartoonish. It didn't work.  

The Chicago Tribune said Clooney's sole outing as Bruce Wayne was "a sniggering, exhausting, overproduced extravaganza that has virtually all of the humanity pounded out of it in the name of an endless parade of stunt sequences."

Advertisement

[TIE] 1. "Catwoman" (2004)

catwoman-dance-club
YouTube/Warner Bros

Averaged Rotten Tomatoes Score: 13.5%

2004's "Catwoman" starring Halle Berry earned the Oscar-winning actress a Razzie for "Worst Actress." It's tied for the lowest-rated of all the films on this list. The movie does little more than focus on Berry's looks, and critics let their claws out in reviews.

"'Catwoman' is a movie about Halle Berry's beauty, sex appeal, figure, eyes, lips and costume design," wrote Roger Ebert. It gets those right. Everything else is secondary, except for the plot, which is tertiary." 

The subpar CG was also a problem and the overall plot, about a heavy conspiracy within a makeup factory, was dismissed as both sexist and silly. 

 

Movies Marvel
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.