Quadruple Movie Review - DC's Worst Ever Films (Not Superman and Not Batman)

Now just to be clear, I am very much aware that WB and DC have good intentions for their upcoming shared universe and are doing all they can to make it the best it can be. But let us not forget that despite the huge success that they have had with Batman and Superman films (with the exception of Batman & Robin and Superman III and IV which all sucked), they have tried with other heroes with the live action treatment, but unfortunately failed (expect for Watchmen of course). I cannot really say why that is because each of these heroes have the potential to have great films and it sounds like a lot of work was put into them. So I just ask, why did they bomb so hard? Let's find out:

Just keep in mind that I haven't seen every live action film based on a DC character so yeah, just bear that in mind.

Supergirl

So let's begin by looking at a spin off to the original Superman film trilogy where we meet Supergirl. Presumably the female counter part of Superman or if you've read the comics and seen the cartoons and DC Animated Original Movies like me, you will know that she is Superman's teenage cousin and is the only other survivor of Krypton (though her home on the planet survived the blast and is drifted into space according to the Silver Age comics. It might be different now because of the New 52, but that's how I remember it). Anyway, so we meet our titular character Kara Zor-El (played by Helen Slater) who lives in an isolated Kryptonian community called Argo City, in a pocket of trans-dimensional space. She gets to see this all powerful object called the Omegahedron which powers the city. But when a mishap causes it to blow into space. Kara goes to recover it and save the city which leads her to Earth and becoming Supergirl in the process. I don't know what it is about female leading films bombing at the box office, but I can say that this film is very much among them. Its dull, not as interesting as Christopher Reeve and very, very cheesy. Can't say anymore than that. 3/10

Catwoman

So much like with Supergirl, this film served or rather was to serve as a spin off to the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher Batman films, but most people see it as a completely separate film all together and for good reason. Its one of those films which was in development hell so therefore it would be doomed to suck big time. The idea came from the fact that Michelle Pfeiffer's portrayal of the character in Batman Returns was so well received by critics and fans alike and as such, a film based on that character was in the works with her and Tim Burton attached to the project. Eventually, Burton and Pfeiffer left the project due to other commitments and instead we get Halle Berry as the titular character with everything to do with Batman's Catwoman, the one we all know and love, taken out entirely which was the reason why it went down hill. After so long, the film was released in 2004 (7 years after the original Batman film trilogy finished) and well let's have a look at it. So our story focuses on a artist and graphic designer called Patience Phillips (played by Berry who I'm referring to as not Catwoman) who after hearing about the secrets of a skin care product that her boss and his wife is discussing about (which by the way, for most of the film, make it clear that they are the villains just by the body language and the tone of their voices), is then attempted to be disposed off, but instead ends up being resurrected by you guessed it, poor CGI cats who let her live a new life being part human, part cat. And with this new life, Not Catwoman sets out to do things a cat would do and stuff. Honestly, there are no words to describe how bad this film is. I mean its not the Catwoman film that we wanted which would be based on the comic book character Selena Kyle who for the most part is just a female robber dressed as a cat living in Batman's world who is often seen as an antihero more than a villain. The film looks like it was intended to be made for TV because it just plays out like those cheesy and boring dramas that you tend to find on the TV these days. Its sexiest, stupid and just plain awful that I'm glad people call it one of the worst films ever made because it is. Oh and what makes this more awful is that WB even hides the fact that this is a DC character by not showing the DC logo throughout the entire film. I mean, wow. 3/10

Jonah Hex

I wouldn't be that surprised if you've not heard of this guy. To sum him up, he is DC's wild west hero so he isn't really in the same period as the other heroes. I can't really describe the plot that well because after seeing this film, its just a confusing mess that has you jump from one character to another. I guess the general idea is that its trying to tell us who this Jonah Hex is and unfortunately, the film doesn't do any of that. Instead it just jumps from one character to the next with little to no focus on our titular character and I can understand if the length of this film and its budget made it the way it is, but I think there is a law now that any hero that no one except for comic book fans knows of, is doomed to be a flop and this was one of those films. 3/10

Green Lantern

Up to the point of when this film came out, many of us didn't know much about the Green Lanterns. The only glimpses of them were in Batman Beyond, Justice League, Justice League Unlimited and 2 DC Animated Original Movies. Now people who are more familiar with the comics will have a better idea of the characters that are known as the Green Lanterns, but for the rest of us, I'll just sum it up by saying that its not one superhero, its the name of many heroes who pretty much have the same abilities. For the most part, the characters are representatives of their own planets hand-picked by the guardians of the universe (not to be confused with a particular Marvel superhero team) who have the Green Lanterns serve as the DC version of the space police. Now with that out of the way, let's talk about the film. So what I just said there is pretty much summed up for us at the beginning of the film. One of the guardians got exposed to a yellow essence of fear which only made him the embodiment of fear itself called Parallax (voiced by DCAU veteran, Clancy Brown). We come to our main hero Hal Jordon (played by the then sexiest man alive, Ryan Reynolds) is a pilot who comes across the Green Lantern ring which transports him near to the location of a dying Green Lantern called Abin Sur (played by one of the Fetts in Star Wars, Temuera Morrison). There he appoints Hal as his replacement and then we go over the whole oath, what a Green Lantern is and pretty much every known cliche we've seen a dozen times before (well not every one, but if you've seen all the Batman and Superman films so far, you'll know what's coming here). But when Jordan hears of Parallax coming to Earth having saved some people from someone who absorbed a bit of that former guardian and with no help from the guardians, its up to Hal to save Earth, alone. To the film's credit, its not the worst film on this list, but it does have a lot of problems. Its got a lot of clichés in it such as the hero not understanding what it means to be that hero, his superiors not thinking much of him and the whole trying to prove himself thing as well. Its predictable, cliche heavy, some of the characters can be annoying and it's kind of embarrassing that such a great set of people working on this film, ended up giving us a bad film and it's CGI heavy as well. Well hopefully whoever plays GL in the DC Cinematic Universe does better than Reynolds. 6/10