Superhero movies have been around for a very long time, but it's only in the last two decades that they've become huge business. Batman and Superman dominated the superhero movie scene for years until Marvel dropped their hat into the fray with a little movie called Blade and took dominance away from DC. Since then, the MCU gained control, giving fans the big fights and cool Easter Eggs that make superhero movies so great.
However, there have always been bad superhero movies – ones that give the genre a bad name – but often they can be pretty entertaining as well. In fact, some bad superheroes can be just as great as the good ones.
10 Ant-Man
If it wasn't a part of the MCU, Ant-Man likely wouldn't be considered a good movie. The characters are wafer thin, the plot is cliche, and the action is lackluster. Even the humor, one of the best parts of the movie, doesn't match up compared to the Iron Man or Guardians Of The Galaxy movies. However, it's still a lot of fun to watch
Part of that has to do with Paul Rudd's performance as Ant-Man – Rudd is never unlikable and he does a great job with what he's given. His motormouth friend Luis, played by Michael Pena, is another highlight of the movie, even if his part in the whole thing is pretty superfluous. Finally, Ant-Man has a heart to it that lifts it from the doldrums of being painfully cliche into something that can be fun to watch.
9 Batman Forever
Joel Schumacher's Batman movies have been re-evaluated in the last few years as campy masterpieces and of the two, the actual best one is Batman Forever. After Tim Burton's gothic masterpieces, the Day-Glo camp aesthetic of the movie was a shock to the system and Val Kilmer's Batman was a somnolent interpretation of the character.
The real "bad" highlight of the movie is watching Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carrey as Riddler just chew on the scenery for the entire movie. Both performances are terribly entertaining, in that make this movie worth watching. It's made all the better when one remembers that Tommy Lee Jones completely hated working with Jim Carrey.
8 League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Alan Moore's League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is his best latter day work, taking the heroes of classic literature and telling new, more realistic stories with them. When it was announced that the series would be made into a movie, fans were pretty happy, especially with the casting of Sir Sean Connery as Allan Quatermain.
The movie took the set dressing of the comics and that was pretty much all, condensing everything into a big dumb action romp. The funny thing is, when the movie is being a big dumb action romp, it's actually pretty entertaining. This is a terrible LoEG movie, but it can be a pretty okay action movie if one turns their brain off.
7 X-Men: Apocalypse
X-Men: Apocalypse is a weird movie in that it has this reputation of being so bad when it's actually fun to watch. It definitely has a lot of problems – it's overstuffed with characters and can be a bit more dour than it needs to be at time. There are still some good things about it, though, like Jame McAvoy and Michael Fassbender as Professor X and Magneto respectively, along with action scenes are actually good.
Apocalypse is still pretty ridiculous in places, but it's ridiculous in a fun way, not in a frustrating way. The movie is mostly just a big disappointment – Apocalypse is such a beloved villain and X-Men: Days Of Future Past was so good that this movie not being great worked against it.
6 X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is what happens when writers who don't understand superheroes and why they're great get hired to pen a movie. This is a legitimately bad film, even if Hugh Jackman and Liev Schreiber give some strong performances as Wolverine and Sabretooth. However, it's also a laugh riot to watch because of just how bad it is.
Well, until the end, that is. The colossal misuse of Deadpool takes a bad but funny movie and makes it truly terrible, as it takes away everything that makes the character so great. It's worth watching the movie just to see it evolve from hilariously bad into something genuinely terrible, though.
5 Man Of Steel
Man Of Steel is the double edged sword of bad superhero movies. There are lots of things about it that are pretty good – Henry Cavill looks great as Superman and the production design is wonderful – but the movie so fundamentally misunderstands everything about Superman. However, that's also where the charm of the movie lies.
Director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer made a movie that actively hates everything Superman stands for and while that's kind of depressing, it's fun to watch the whole thing unfold in an incredulous manner. Take a drink every time something happens that is basically anti-Superman and the movie gets a lot more fun.
4 Batman And Robin
Batman And Robin is the height of Schumacher's campy Batman and it is a joy to behold. This is not a good movie by any means, but it's still a lot of fun to watch. Batman has a bat-credit card in it. Ice skates come out of his and Robin's boots. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Mister Freeze spits bad puns in every scene he's in. It's delightful.
Batman And Robin is the definition of a fun bad film. It set a new standard for camp superhero movies and while it's gotten a huge re-evaluation in recent years, Batman & Robin is still a terrible movie in the best possible way.
3 X-Men 3: The Last Stand
The first two X-Men movies are pretty great, but The Last Stand almost killed the franchise. The last movie in the trilogy has so many strikes going against it – it tries to stuff a big story into a relatively short run time and butchers a classic arc in the process. However, that doesn't mean it's not worth watching.
If one forgets that X-Men 3 is trying to adapt one of the best comic stories ever, this is a decent movie with some rather ridiculous story choices in places that make it entertaining in a so bad it's good way. Plus, the final battle is actually cool and does a lot to save the movie from how bad it is in places.
2 Catwoman
Schumacher's Batman movies are camp masterpieces and Catwoman follows in their footsteps. It doesn't share the Day-Glo aesthetic of Schumacher's movies – it's much darker – but it's just as campy, glorifying in the sheer ridiculousness of the script.
The story is not good, but everything about the movie is so over the top that it's just an entertaining watch from start to finish. The main trio of actors – Halle Berry, Benjamin Bratt, and Sharon Stone – go all out with what they're given, embracing the absurdity of the script and making a terrible movie a lot of fun.
1 The Spirit
The Spirit is like the The Room of superhero movies – if The Room was based on a beloved character, had A-list actors in it, and was directed by a legendary comics creator. On the strength of his co-directing of Sin City with Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller was put in the director's chair, but maybe he shouldn't have been.
The movie is just terrible and all over the place, trying to be a campy yet hard boiled noir story. The Spirit is a tonal nightmare full of strange visuals and way too much black and white. That said, there's a charm to the whole thing that makes it worth watching. It's peak cringe superhero cinema.