The Most Disappointing Comic Book Movie Sequels of the Last 10 Years

[Geralt of Rivia]

War Zone was actually a reboot instead of a sequel to the 2004 Punisher, so I don't think it fit the criteria of the list.

And both are really bad

[JediMindTrick]

X-men 3 Last Stand should begin and end the discussion. It looked pretty but the story was utterly abysmal and it tarnishes the the rest of the X-franchise by its mere existence

[lancerman]

War Zone's okay in a gory B-movie kind of way. Way better than the 2004 movie.

[SpOck]

Iron Man 3's plot made sense, had surprises, had great supporting characters, was superior to its predecessor and got the character of Tony Stark right. TDKR's plot was adolescent, predictable, had horrible supporting characters, was legions worse than Begins or TDK and completely got Bruce Wayne wrong. It completely flew in the face of the stellar previous two films as well as the Bat mythos in general. If The Dark Knight was The Godfather of comic book films, TDKR was The Godfather part 3. A dumb state-of-the-art movie made by a great filmmaker who clearly didn't care about the series anymore.

Iron Man 3 has a villain with no motivation with a jumbled mess of a plan, as well as numerous glaring plot problems like Tony not defending his house in any way after he told a terrorist his address and the Iron Patriot armor working for certain people and not for others, and basically functions however the plot requires it to. Pepper and Rhodey are one-dimensional cardboard cutouts that don't have an arc in the movie at all. And as far as "getting Tony right" I find it hard to believe that a man who escaped a hellish terrorist prison camp by building a suit of armor from scratch gets PTSD after falling through a wormhole and single-handedly killing all the aliens in a clearly one-sided battle.
Meanwhile, TDKR had far fewer (although more noticeable) plot holes, it had a plot with unexpected twists, and it had multiple strong supporting characters (Selina Kyle, Alfred, John Blake, I could go on and on) many of whom have interesting character arcs within the film. Bruce was portrayed perfectly, getting over his guilt over Rachel and his parent's deaths, allowing him to not need to be Batman anymore and pass on the mantle to a worthy successor, completing his character arc and providing the first (and probably only) ending to Bruce Wayne's story.

[sonofspam1972]

Some Rotten Tomatoes viewer scores
ASM 2 - 70%
TDKR - 90%
Iron Man 2 - 70%
Thor: TDW - 79%
Superman Returns - 61%
X-Men 3 - 63%

Pretty darned good for disappointments. It really speaks to the quality of Superhero films being made.

Of course, I think movies like Elektra and Wolverine Origins, which are essentially sequels, are more deserving.

Law of averages i assume?

War Zone was actually a reboot instead of a sequel to the 2004 Punisher, so I don't think it fit the criteria of the list.

None of the three are sequels to each other.

Exactly. I also don't understand why the article said that Silver Surfer was mishandled in FF2. He was easily the best part of the movie, as other posters have said.

Yeah i've never been a fan of his but i would easily see a spin-off movie from that character if it done by the same people.

[SpOck]

I agree. But I didn't find any of these films disappointing as sequels, because I thought they were on par with the first.

Thor was fun but half of the film was Crocodile Dundee 2 with Superheroes.
Ghost Rider 1 was fairly mediocre. Two was zanier but just as mediocre.
ASM 1 was great when featuring Peter and Gwen but set up the clunky Peter's dad plot that had to be resolved in part 2. Part 2 was great when it featured Peter and Gwen but fell apart with a poorly executed villain and heavy continuity.


And I can watch Blade 3 over and over. Because as confused and all over the place the plot was, the action scenes are absolutely awesome and the character design is way cool. Whatever you say about Wesley Snipes, he brings an athleticism and fluidity to action roles that a lot of other actors can't touch.

I agree. I found them more disappointing as their own films than as sequels.

Yeah, the action in Blade: Trinity was admittedly cool.

[Jorge]

Begins was worse. Also only on this site is it taken for a given that TDKR is bad or a disappointment, in the real world the actual consensus was that it was very good to great.

88% of critics liked it. 90 % of viewers did too.
Begins is 84% and 95%.

Dark Knight is 94 and 94.

It's not like Batman had to fight along a tribe of ninja carebears in TDKR.

[Donuts]

Dang, Spidey you got two films on the list.
Not good.
As for the others on the list, I really dislike Blade: Trinity and X3 most of all.

[capNthor]

Yeah, I disagree with almost everything you said but I respect your opinion.

[lancerman]

88% of critics liked it. 90 % of viewers did too.
Begins is 84% and 95%.

Dark Knight is 94 and 94.

It's not like Batman had to fight along a tribe of ninja carebears in TDKR.

I just will never get this whole sentiment on here that TDKR was bad. It's literally limited to here. Maybe it's the whole not being a bright fun pseudo comedy like the Marvel films. Idk.

[twincast]

Iron Man 2 was good now IM3 that should have been on the list.

QFT

Sure, Iron Man 2, Thor: The Dark World and The Dark Knight Rises had some issues, but none of them deserve to be on a list together with all the other trash named, whereas Iron Man 3 absolutely does. Not only that it reduced Iron Man's most iconic arch-nemesis to a punch line in a rehash of a stunt Nolan had already pulled in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight Rises (where the repeat at least works as a form of bookends) with the only significant difference being that it's played for (trolling) laughs to add insult to injury—not to mention that its supposed timeline completely contradicted the Ten Rings teasers in the first two films. Nope, the whole arc of the main plot with Stark hiding out in the boondocks for whatever reason with S.H.I.E.L.D. not giving a damn made no sense whatsoever. Also, there were several issues with the capabilities (and availability) of the suits in terms of consistency. And "You stood me up, so I'll kill you." is a horrible motivation for a villain.

Speaking of horrible, what about Superman 3 & 4 and Batman 3 & 4?!

Also, ASM1+2 suffer severely from badly characterized villains (the first one additionally from cuts that make you feel like at least a quarter of the film is missing, surprisingly lame music and several bad changes to the origin just for the sake of change which didn't stop anyone from labeling it a rehash of the first Raimi film anyway, the second one additionally from blatantly setting up a Sinister Six spin-off) on par with SM3's, but conversely their Spidey, Pete and romance are miles and above anything Maguire ever put to film, so while SM2 is still the best Spider-Man film so far, I don't have it in me to hate ASM2 anywhere near as much as everyone else seems determined to do.

[capNthor]

I just will never get this whole sentiment on here that TDKR was bad. It's literally limited to here. Maybe it's the whole not being a bright fun pseudo comedy like the Marvel films. Idk.

I find that hard to believe that this is the only place you visit that were massively disappointed with that film. comicbookmovie, batmanonfilm, superherohype, boxoffice.com, bleedingcool, are some sights I frequent that have many members who share my opinion.

[We R. Venom]

I can see if Man of Steel and TDKR are on the list. Those movies were just...painful. But ASM2, Thor 2, I cant see those being disappointing at all. They listed the problem ASM2 had was that it was looking towards the future. Sorry but that's not a flaw to me. That's just smart. I couldn't complain about the acting, visuals, humor, flow, or story. I guess they might have Raimi on a pedestal, which is fine. But if setting up future movies is a big problem, then that doesn't cut it. As for Thor, I need to watch it again, but I couldn't find anything in it I was disappointing in ether. I don't think this list was well thought out. No offense.

[lancerman]

I find that hard to believe that this is the only place you visit that were massively disappointed with that film. comicbookmovie, batmanonfilm, superherohype, boxoffice.com, bleedingcool, are some sights I frequent that have many members who share my opinion.

It's treated like a fact on here. Not on those sites. It's minority opinion everywhere else. Even those sites. Majority consensus has always been that it's a very good to great film.

[Biff Pow!]

I just will never get this whole sentiment on here that TDKR was bad. It's literally limited to here. Maybe it's the whole not being a bright fun pseudo comedy like the Marvel films. Idk.

I don't think there's anything unique about this site, the discussions are similar to most geek sites. The Dark Knight Rises reaction was all over the map- there was a lot of mocking (especially Bane's voice), and a lot of overrating (it's #50 on IMDB's top movies of all time.) But ultimately none of that matters, only personal opinion.