Top 10 Worst Fight Scenes In Marvel And DC Superhero Movies
Seeing our favourite superheroes and villains come to blows on the big screen is almost always a treat. However, there are times when these movies let us down, and these clashes truly sucked...
Fight scenes in superhero movies are normally pretty cool. Recent examples which spring to mind include Captain America taking on Iron Man in Captain America: Civil War and Scott Lang managing to bring down The Falcon in Ant-Man, but while the majority succeed in bringing the comic books to life on the big screen, there are some which have seriously disappointed. In fact, they just flat out suck!
What you'll find here then are the ten best examples of the very WORST superhero movie fight scenes. Some were disappointing, while other essentially insulted the source material or made the sort of creative decisions bad enough to spoil not just these battles, but the entire movies too. You may think you know which fight scenes sucked the most, but the inclusion of some of these might surprise you...
10. Spider-Man vs. Electro (The Amazing Spider-Man 2)
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 went all out on special effects for the final battle between Spider-Man and Electro, but just as their early clash in Times Square was spoiled somewhat by some horrendous dialogue ("It's my birthday...time to light the candles!"), the final showdown in this superhero movie was also let down by some peculiar creative decisions.
The biggest of those is of course the fact that as he's beating Spidey up, Electro does so to the tune of "Itsy Bitsy Spider", a cheesy moment which wouldn't have been out of place in another suggestion on this list; the critically panned Batman & Robin. Throw in the fact that Gwen Stacy was only involved to explain how magnets work to the supposedly intelligent Peter Parker and this was a messy conclusion to a mess of a sequel which ended with Gwen's death in a moment which neither did the source material justice or felt earned.
9. X-Men vs. Magneto (X-Men)
In terms of action, Bryan Singer definitely delivered in X-Men: Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse. However, the director was still finding his feet with X-Men in 2000, and the climatic battle between the X-Men and Magneto was nowhere near as big or as memorable as it should have been. The problem was, we never really got to see the team of mutants working as, well, a team!
It had its moments, but lacked the sort of excitement found in the X-Men comic books when they clashed with the Master of Magnetism. However, this was a minor issue in an otherwise very good superhero movie, but still bad enough to warrant a place here. X-2 more than made up for this though, while X-Men: First Class portrayed Magneto in a far more effective manner overall! Here though, his battle with the mutant heroes simply didn't live up to expectations, especially when you look back on it now.
8. Fantastic Four vs. Doctor Doom (Fantastic Four (2005))
Even if you put aside the myriad of problems surrounding Tim Story's take on Doctor Doom in Fantastic Four, the final battle between the villain and heroic foursome was a mess to say the least. In this big screen adaptation of the popular comic book, Doom was reimagined as a jealous love interest of Sue Storm who had metal skin and could shoot lighting bolts.
Sure, the way in which he was dispatched by Marvel's First Family was equally as stupid. Sure, it was nice to see the team working together, but heating Doom up and then cooling him down (thereby essentially freezing him in place) was apparently the best they could think up for him! It was a finale full of dodgy special effects, and like this superhero movie, this battle with Doctor Doom is best left forgotten. Unfortuantely, this isn't the final time you'll see either these heroes or that iconic villain mentioned on this list...
7. Batman vs. Ra's Al Ghul (Batman Begins)
As great as The Dark Knight Trilogy was, most fans agree that Christopher Nolan was very much finding his feet in terms of directing action in Batman Begins. While the final battle between the Caped Crusader and Ra's Al Ghul was ok, the ending has left fans with a bad taste in their mouths to this very day. Though he refuses to kill his former mentor, Bruce Wayne's decision to not save Ra's life is basically the same thing.
It was very out of character for Batman, and while the movie is a superb addition to the franchise, it's a shame that the final battle ended in such a disappointing and somewhat controversial manner. It was a fight scene which could and should have been much better, similar to the final appearance of the Scarecrow who was disappointingly dispatched by a taser to the face! Of course, this still pales in comparison to the response to the way Batman v Superman's Caped Crusader dispatched of his foes.
6. Spider-Man vs. Green Goblin II (Spider-Man 3)
When Harry Osborn discovered his father's cache of Goblin weapons in the final moments of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2, fans were left eagerly anticipating the sight of Peter Parker's former best friend picking up the mantle in the next movie. What they were left with was a silly costume and a borderline slapstick battle which saw Peter miraculously keep track of an engagement ring in mid-air and abruptly ended because Harry apparently couldn't see a webline right in front of his face.
Infuriatingly, that led to an even worse subplot about amnesia, and what should have been a violent battle which paralleled the superb final fight between Spider-Man and Norman Osborn in the first movie was instead just filler in a packed out threequel which was crammed full of ridiculous subplots like this. The end of Harry's arc worked, but it's easy to see why James Franco has looked back on this franchise with regret.
5. Batman vs. Mr. Freeze (Batman & Robin)
C'mon, this is a "Worst of..." list, so you had to know that one of the worst comic book movies of all-time had to be included here at some point! The Batman & Robin battle we're talking about is of course the first meeting between the Dynamic Duo and Mr. Freeze in a pun-filled encounter (seriously, every other sentence included a pun) which took place in one of the most plastic looking sets of all-time.
With silly props aplenty, this childish clash is barely a fight scene, although it did feature the Caped Crusader channelling his inner Iceman on one of Freeze's ice slides. It was daft and cheesy, and unlike the 60's series, it lacked the charm and humour to make it work. But hey, at least this entire fight scene wasn't as cringe worthy as the debut of the Bat-Credit Card. While he's currently making his presence felt in Gotham, we still haven't seen Mr. Freeze clash with Batman in live-action since this movie was released.
4. Daredevil vs. Bullseye (Daredevil)
It was tempting to include Daredevil and Elektra's faux battle in the park from this movie here, but The Man Without Fear's fight with the assassin Bullseye was far worse overall! Taking place inside a church, it kicked off with a horrid CGI sequence which saw the two rivals fighting their way up a ridiculously huge organ, before Matt Murdock basically tried (and, as it's later revealed, failed) to murder the villain by kicking him through a window.
In contrast, Bullseye's battle with Elektra was great, recreating an iconic moment from the comic books, even lifting Frank Miller's dialogue. Thankfully, Ben Affleck got another chance in the world of the superhero movies when he played the Caped Crusader in Batman v Superman, and while the Dark Knight's killer methods generated quite a stir online, his fight with the Man of Steel most definitely didn't disappoint in the same way that this effort did over a decade ago.
3. Fantastic Four vs. Doctor Doom (Fantastic Four (2015))
Not content with already f***ing up two battles between the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom in their previous movies featuring the superhero team, Fox dropped the ball in the reboot last year too. Seeing as this part of the movie was heavily reshot, it's hard to say how much director Josh Trank was to blame for the way this one played out, but it was one of the most generic and disappointing battles ever put in a superhero movie.
Sure, The Thing said "It's Clobberin' Time!" but who cares when all the team was trying to do was basically murder Doom by pushing him into that portal? The action in Fantastic Four was weak anyway, but this dull battle - which was actually surprisingly light on action - insulted Doom by having him taken out with just a single punch. Was Trank's original version any better? We only know that it involved the Fantasticar, but it seems doubtful given the rest of the movie.
2. Kitty Pryde vs Juggernaut (X-Men: The Last Stand)
"I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" really is a line of dialogue from Vinnie Jones' (horribly miscast) take on the iconic X-Men villain in Brett Ratner's X-Men: The Last Stand when he confronts Ellen Page's Kitty Pryde. What followed was a silly sequence in which he chases after the young hero through a number of walls, before being tricked by her and left stuck in the floor. What an awful waste of great villain.
It would have been far more satisfying to see an extended fight sequence between Juggernaut and a similarly strong character like Colossus, but that's the problem when you throw in too many mutants...not every character can be given the sort of attention they deserve! Had Matthew Vaughn directed X-Men: Days of Future Past, we would have seen a new take on the villain breaking Magneto out of prison, but that role obviously went to Quicksilver instead (no bad thing as iturned out).
1. Wolverine vs. "Deadpool" (X-Men Origins: Wolverine)
What Fox were thinking when they turned Deadpool into the personality-free monstrosity above is hard to figure out, and after Ryan Reynolds' take on the young Wade Wilson was so well received during the earlier part of the prequel, a faithful take on the character would have been far more enjoyable. Thankfully, we got to see a great version of the Merc with the Mouth on the big screen earlier this year, but with Hugh Jackman's tenure as Wolverine set to come to an end next March, this is one rematch we're sadly never going to end up seeing.
Which of these superhero movie fight scenes do you think was worst? Have we missed any other battles which were worthy of being shamed here? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.