It has been a long time since I've seen Superman 3&4, so my ranking may be imperfect.


The only superheroish movie I think of as worse than FF is Bay's Transformers. At the moment, Superman 4 and 3 are #20 and 22 respectively on my worst-superhero movie list. But again, it's been a VERY long time since I've seen either. From my vague memories, I thought Richard Pryor was at least funny if out of place in Superman 3. I like that the movie gave us Office Space. And I thought the Superman vs. Clark Kent battle was intriguing. I have no positive memories of Superman 4, but I could think of 19 movies about which I have more negative to say.

Again, the Corman film is the best Fantastic Four movie yet.

I suspect that will remain true after the new film.

EDIT: Oddly, even though I consider it the best FF movie, I still consider it the 8th worst superhero movie ever. Coincidentally, I think the three worst Marvel comic-based movies ever are all Fantastic Four films. Can we go 4 for 4? Man-Thing will be the thing to beat. 

I'm with ya, Kurt.

I thought they got the Stan Lee angsty relationship stuff exactly right, but blew the Kosmic Kirby stuff terribly.

And I'm rooting for the new Fantastic Four movie - I'd rather see a unique piece or art with something to say than a strict adaptation of the comic books covering the same ground I've already seen covered a million times.

Plus it made the racists cry their stupid racist tears, and that is always hillarious.   

I honestly think Doom alone justifies my opinion.

I did not find the FF at all close to perfect. Chiklis' Thing was the best part, but neither Evans' Johnny nor Alba's Sue were what I was looking for. Reed was a fine choice and maybe with a better director could have been good.

After Doom, the problem for me was the dynamic. It started to look like they were setting up the dynamic right. Thing was moody, Johnny wanted to go have fun, Reed and Sue wanted to take this seriously. But then they forgot about most of that. All existing character conflict seemed to disappear because it was time to fight Doom.

And then it ended with the town celebrating them as heroes. They became celebrities on the basis of two deeds: (1) minimizing the casualties in a disaster they caused and (2) defeating a guy whose main crime was attacking them.

Of course I haven't seen the film since the theatre. It was probably the most upset I've ever walked out of a movie theater so I resolved to never watch it again.

However, a friend inexplicably owned FF2 on DVD and I realized I'd seen so many superhero films I may as well solidify some opinions of what the worst ones were. So I watched FF2 recently. This confirmed by memories of just how terrible the writing and direction was, and just how terrible Jessica Alba was, and most importantly, just how terrible Doom was.

The treatment of Doom alone rises the Corman version above the other two in my mind. It's a bit rougher to watch because of the terrible special effects, but I never want to throw anything at the screen. Ditto Man-Thing and Generation X, my next least favorite Marvel movies.

No, but at least they didn't give us a purple-clad giant with a tuning fork helmet. The second movie is much more of a disaster than the first but even it had some redeeming features, mostly the scenes involving the wedding (though I really could've done without Reed's bachelor party). And of course Julian McMahon stinks up the place every time Doom appears on screen. Even so, it's still better than a lot of super-hero flicks (I'm looking at you, Green Lantern).

Cei-U!
I summon the misfire!

I rather liked the first Ghost Rider but, yeah, that's a pretty ghastly list.

Cei-U!
I summon Sturgeon's Law!

I'd argue that getting Doom right was even more important than getting the FF right. (The Thing looked ridiculous and simply can't work in live action without CGI.)

For Doom to work, you have to get the origin down: mother sells soul to Mephisto, gypsy heritage, conquers Latveria, time with monks, blames Reed for accident, etc. To be fair to filmmakers, Doom's backstory is so detailed and iconic, he could easily carry his own movie (The Joker doesn't cause this problem because his background is supposed to be vague or unknown.). This is what you get when the main villain is more complex and interesting than the heroes.