Superhero Movies Archives

The last few months have seen a lot of costumes, cameos and universe building, as comic-book films once again dominated Hollywood. We had six superhero releases, but did they live up to the hype? Produced for a combined cost of over $1billion, they've earned studios more than $4billion at the box office. The newest release, Doctor Strange, will surely add to that in the coming weeks. We've had so much outrage across these releases, from unfaithful comic adaptations to Rotten Tomatoes' scores. We're aiming to cut through all of that, and run down our ranking for this year's superhero films. Where will your favourite rank among the DC, Marvel and Fox releases? Click next to find out! NEXT: The worst 6. Suicide Squad "What is this, some kind of Suicide Squad?" That was the idea, at least. This was labelled as the turning point for the DCEU. We were promised fun, evil villains widening this universe. Sadly, everything from the premise to the final act was an absolute shambles. A disaster re-edited in to a confusing mess, beloved because it carries the names of some iconic characters. In the end, it was a clunky tale about villains turned in to heroes. A real waste of the Suicide Squad's potential. The two villains were ripped straight from Gods of Egypt, and put up against a team of evil metahumans. For those who don't know what a metahuman is, like the writer of this film, it's basically a person with superpowers. Two of the six Task Force X recruits are metas. The rest, just regular humans. The film sets out very early on that this unit are supposed to be able to take on Superman. It never actually shows us a team capable of doing that. This lot would struggle against Clark Kent's corpse. It doesn't have the grit that director David Ayer was supposed to bring. Suicide Squad fails at replicating the humour of a Marvel Studios film. It also lacks a coherent plot that you'd expect from a film. We don't even have time to get in to the debacle that was Jared Leto's Joker. Overall, this was the biggest disappointment of the year for us. Let's just leave this release in 2016, even with an extended cut. NEXT: The case against practical effects 5. X-Men: Apocalypse "At least we can all agree the third one's always the worst." Who was Bryan Singer aiming at with that meta-comment? A shot at his replacement on X-Men: The Last Stand? Or were they just getting their excuses in early? Apocalypse was a major step down on the two previous X-Men prequels. It was so bad that it beat Suicide Squad to fifth place here by a whisker. The acting of the new recruits was substandard. There was a lot of controversy regarding Oscar Isaac's villain, who looked absolutely ridiculous. Any character like that needs to be CG from here on out. The film consistently saw mutants forgetting about their extraordinary powers. Apocalypse himself was able to kill enemies with a flick of his hand. That was a a power he gave up using when the stakes got high; instead he recruited some inferior mutants to carry out his plan for worldwide destruction. He was little more than an old fashioned, moustache twirling bad guy. Yawn. Given how simple the villain was, it's easy to see how Professor X and co. let a real, complicated menace walk out their door as a free man. Xavier let his old friend Magneto off scot-free, despite him attempting to wipe out two armies, kill a President and much more. Outside of an overdrawn Quicksilver sequence, this was a joyless affair, which lacked any real thought plot wise. Bryan Singer and the X-franchise need to part ways, as this isn't working out for either of them. NEXT: Dawn of Extended Cuts 4. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice "Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman." Remember when you chuckled at that on the nose line from the trailer? That quote perfectly describes the plot of this film. There was nothing behind it. No reason to care. In the comics, these two are often at loggerheads over their opposing methods and moral code. There was no sign of that. A 50 minute, $3million episode of Daredevil set on a rooftop explored that better. We got a glimpse of some misplaced anger from Bruce Wayne. However, fear and jealousy would have been better motivators for him to fight the Man of Steel. Ultimately, this was a waste. Regular cut or extended cut, it's taken some brilliant comics and ruined them for future cinematic adaptation. The Dark Knight Returns was obviously a big influence. Zack Snyder greedily hacked The Death of Superman on to the final act. Potentially monumental moments in the future of the DCEU, now ruined for good. The same can be said for Lex Luthor. That character needs a serious rethink. Ben Affleck did steal the show as Batman, despite being a serial killer. That showed a complete lack of understanding for the character, but that's something DC are at least trying to fix. Many loved Wonder Woman, despite the fact she spent less time on screen than the credits. The problems may have been lessened if this was a lighter affair, but the gloomy seriousness of everything dragged it down. There's a lot of work for Warner Bros. to do on their DC properties, they've subjected us to two awful movies in 2016. NEXT: It gets more positive from here, promise 3. Doctor Strange "That doesn't make sense." "Not everything does. Not everything has to." The final superhero film of 2016 is comfortably in the top half of our list. As an origin story, this is pretty by the books Marvel storytelling. However, the visuals lift it well above many of their previous franchise openers. It's not as brilliant as Iron Man or Guardians of the Galaxy, but it is a step up on Ant-Man or The Incredible Hulk. Many wondered how the Marvel Cinematic Universe would explain the emergence of magic in their universe. The answer is, they don't. Doctor Strange explains away anything too difficult with phrases like the quote above. That's not huge problem, no one wants to have science shouted at them for two hours in a blockbuster film. There's a quality cast attached, and that helps lift it above all of the exposition and nonsense. This has one of the best casts ever assembled for a superhero film. Benedict Cumberbatch works to make Strange likeable, while Tilda Swinton and Chiwetel Ejiofor are great supporting characters. Joining them are Rachel McAdams and Mads Mikkelsen, both were solid in their bit-part roles. We could have done with seeing more than the same three things over and over from each sorcerer, but it was an entertaining film which never took itself too seriously. NEXT: Don't try this at your local airport 2. Captain America: Civil War "You ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?" How many times have you read a director call their sequel, "our Empire Strikes Back"? Is there a more overused Hollywood cliche? Many seem to think by making their heroes squirm in a sequel, it's similar in tone to Empire. It wasn't something the Russos rolled out about their Marvel extravaganza earlier this year. They didn't need to. They made the MCU's answer to Star Wars: Episode V. The fact that this film achieves so much without a gruelling runtime is an achievement in itself. They packed the old Avengers, the new Avengers and their yet to be introduced heroes in to one film. No character felt underserved, the story didn't suffer. There were stakes, jokes plus scenes ripped from the comics. Overall, Civil War is one of the best Marvel films to date. Who would have thought 12 heroes on an airport runway could be so entertaining? It's not perfect, and once again the villain is the problem. They actually flesh out Zemo, but his evil plan is just too precise. The level of intricacy needed to pull off it off would require some kind of power, and he gets incredibly lucky as his plot unfolds. Yet, from a pure character and story perspective, this is the best of 2016's superhero cinema. Overall, it lands just shy of top spot. NEXT: This year's breakout star 1. Deadpool "Deadpool. That sounds like a fucking franchise." The lowest budget of any film on this list, Deadpool contains plenty of lessons for studio executives everywhere. How much you spend doesn't matter, it's how you spend it. It cost $58million, yet the film looked as good as the rest of this year's blockbusters. It goes without saying, but this was a gigantic step up from X-Men Origins: Wolverine and their use of the character. This film was huge, purely because it gave us something different in superhero cinema. They parodied comic-book tropes fantastically well. There was also a level of violence and dark humour that these types of films never have. Deadpool showed audiences that these films don't always need morals and a PG rating. The new direction taken here blows apart claims of superhero fatigue among audiences. Without Deadpool, this year would have seen two formulaic Marvel films and three awful ones. That's when the talk of fatigue becomes relevant. However, with a guy kicking around severed heads and breaking the fourth wall, we now have a completely different approach to enjoy. Of all of this year's films, I want a sequel to this more than anything. The recent news that Ryan Reynolds and co. were looking to keep the budget down and make more of the same is great. Hopefully Fox stay as far away as possible, and let this grow in to a fantastic series showcasing the Merc with a Mouth. NEXT: What's the best Superhero series on TV right now?

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