12 Comic Book Movie Trilogy Report Cards According To Rotten Tomatoes

First semester is almost over. Midterm grades time! In the spirit of the season, we're giving out report cards to CBM trilogies based on their individual Tomatometer scores. Come take a look.

By Manx - Nov 25, 2017 08:11 AM EST

Filed Under: Comics

Love them or hate them, you can’t blame Rotten Tomatoes for accumulating critic scores and averaging them out for you. You can blame critics though, bunch of critics. We’re not here to debate the grey area of personal taste. We believe some movies get more flak than they should or shouldn't, but we're not here for that. We're just crunching the data and leaving a few comments like any teacher would.

Superman Trilogy

Individual Scores: 93% 87% 26%

Grade: D+

Excels In: Being slow action movies. These movies benefited from lots of time for character and story development, because they were not required to cut to an action scene every 10 minutes. They were also engaging and optimistic.

Needs To Work On: Being slow action movies. OMFG, how long is this Pa Kent funeral scene going to last?

Comments: What started out with two masterpieces quickly turned south with the third installment. Not even Richard Pryor’s coke-fueled performance could save Superman 3. We left Superman IV: The Quest for Special Effects out of the equation in order to give this franchise a passing grade. We owe Superman and Superman 2 that.

Yearbook Quote: “It’s just that, guys like that Brad, I just want to tear him apart.” - Superman

Batman Trilogy

Individual Scores: 72% 81% 41%

Grade: D

Excels In: Batman.

Needs To Work On: Batmen

Comments: It’s jarring when the director and every detail except the butler and the police commissioner changes. If the changes don't raise the bar for the franchise, then it's usually a death knell. And just like Superman, we won't include Batman & Robin. We owe Batman and Batman Returns that.

Yearbook Quote: “I want nipples. Chicks dig the nipples.” - Robin

Blade Trilogy

Individual Scores: 54% 57% 25%

Grade: F

Excels In: Being Rated R comic book movies.

Needs To Work On: Not sucking.......get it?

Comments: We believe the first two Blade movies deserve higher scores than they got, but such is life. As far as the third one goes, if you close your eyes and pretend that’s a young Wade Wilson, it’s not half bad.

Yearbook Quote: “Some mother*****s are always trying to ice skate uphill.” - Blade

X-Men Trilogy

Individual Scores: 81% 86% 58%

Grade: C

Excels In: Launching the modern era of big budget superhero films.

Needs To Work On: #NeverBretRatner

Comments: Again, a trilogy’s GPA is hurt by a different director helming the last installment. We have a theory, though. Bad story, bad editing, bad directing, and pointless deaths put aside, if all the X-men had donned their iconic comic book outfits in Last Stand, it would have been the most popular one.

Yearbook Quote: “I’m the Goddamn Wolverine.” - Wolverine

Spider-Man Trilogy

Individual Scores: 89% 94% 63%

Grade: B-

Excels In: Spider-Man 2

Needs To Work On: Sony

Comments: It could have been the best comic book trilogy ever, but Spider-Man 3 ended it on a flat note. We’ve seen it a lot in movie trilogies. After two solid entries, the director is either worn down from focusing most of their energy on a single project for many years and leaves, or studio executives, high on cash, start spamming the process with their input. The latter happened here, so blame the Sony executive’s kid who screamed, “But I want Venom!!”

Yearbook Quote: “Kill them all, Peter…” – Uncle Ben

Dark Knight Trilogy

Individual Scores: 84% 94% 87%

Grade: B+

Excels in: Almost everything

Needs To Work On: A little bloated in the final act

Comments: No shortage of credit should go to Nolan for making the highest graded trilogy on this list. He did two things to make this happen. He made it about Batman, and he took Batman out of the DC Universe. By keeping things grounded, he was able to tell an epic saga of a mentally unhinged billionaire who dons a tactical suit and face-punches criminals instead of joining law enforcement.

Yearbook Quote: “You guys wanna go to Shakey's?” – Batman

Iron Man Trilogy

Individual Scores: 94% 73% 79%

Grade: B

Excels In: Getting the MCU ball rolling

Needs To Work On: No one ever calls him “Tony Snark”.

Comments: Sharing the highest individual score on this list with The Dark Knight, Iron Man was a near perfect movie. It benefited from the same elements DK used. It was a stand-alone story that focused on Iron Man-y things. It wasn’t a collection of Easter eggs strung together with some dialogue thrown in for good measure. It did have one egg and it was the greatest after-credit scene in comic book history. And that was the problem with the sequels. The bar was raised high. Iron Man 2 just smacked into it and kept on walking, and Iron Man 3 ignored the bar altogether and just started air guitaring.

Yearbook Quote: “I want one.” – Tony Snark, while sexually harassing a new employee.

Wolverine Trilogy

Individual Scores: 38% 69% 93%

Grade: D+

Excels In: SNIKT!

Needs To Work On: Forgetting the first installment

Comments: This is the oddball of the group. Where most start good and fizzle out, the Wolverine trilogy is akin to getting slapped in the face by someone, then finding some common ground with them, and then sitting in matching bathtubs on a beach at sunset while holding hands. It's every action movie romance ever. With the last two movies getting better and better, here’s hoping they give the keys to the X-23 trilogy to James Mangold.

Yearbook Quote: “Tea, Earl Grey, hot.” – Logan

Captain America Trilogy

Individual Scores: 80% 89% 91%

Grade: B+

Excels In: Perfect teeth

Needs To Work On: Hugo Weaving's German accent making us laugh at times would be the only thing

Comments: If you ask someone what their top three favorite comic book movies are, there’s a good chance Winter Soldier is on that list. Besides boasting an overall great and enjoyable trilogy, Captain America gets extra credit for being a serial Nazi puncher.

Yearbook Quote: "Tommy Wiseau, 2003, The Room. Everything you've missed jammed into one movie." - Falcon

X-Men(again) Trilogy

Individual Scores: 86% 91% 48%

Grade: C

Excels In: Soft rebooting

Needs To Work On: Chronology

Comments: Interestingly, both trilogies earned the exact same score. The similarities don’t end there. They both had a strong start and established characters we liked, both had an excellent middle chapter, and both were hindered by a their final installment. Some people call it the Spider-Man 3 Curse, but The Last Stand came before, so technically Spider-Man 3 had the Last Stand Pox. Both suffered from Batman Forever Syndrome though, and they never did test for Superman 3-itis.

Yearbook Quote: "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is already taken? What about Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children?" - Professor X

Thor Trilogy

Individual Scores: 77% 66% 92%

Grade: C+

Excels In: Being all over the place

Needs To Work On: Picking a tone.

Comments: The Thor Trilogy is an interesting one. I think they weren’t sure what to do with him until Whedon and Waititi tapped his full potential. The first movie was pretty good with the “fish out of water” narrative and the “spoiled brat becomes a noble man through the sheer power of Natalie Portman” story arc. The second movie decided to turn up the dour meter for some reason and did the franchise a disservice. The third decided to go balls-out and flipped the script on bloated final installments hurting a trilogy. Ragnarok was a great time, but made us a little sad that it took two tries to finally get Thor right.

Yearbook Quote: "Looking for love in Odin wrong places." - Thor

The Snyder Trilogy

Individual Scores: 55% 27% 40%

Grade: F

Excels In: Visuals

Needs To Work On: Everything, but especially those eggs that Clark was preparing

Comments: We’re not going end this with a Zack bashing. He makes entertaining films. He's the thinking man's Michael Bay, and that's not meant as an insult. They both excel at imagery. But unfortunately, each movie in his trilogy had a sin we couldn’t forgive. Man of Steel’s Pa Kent v tornado scene was meant to be poignant, but only invoked bewildering laughter. Batman v Superman had many flaws, but one stood out the most: those rubber eggs. Those eggs would go perfect with Granny’s Peach Tea. And finally, and this wasn’t even Snyder’s fault, we have Superman’s uncanny mouth in Justice League. Zack needs to get away from this stuff for a while and get back to finishing that Sucker Punch trilogy.

Yearbook Quote: "Here I am. Rock me like a hurricane." - Batman

X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN & RED ROOM Writer/Artist Ed Piskor Passes Away From Apparent Suicide

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131 Comments

1 2 3 4

Ryguy88 - 11/25/2017, 8:11 AM

I like it

Fogs - 11/26/2017, 10:11 AM

@Ryguy88 - I actually prefer Begins in the DK trilogy. The rest is pretty much on point.

Ryguy88 - 11/25/2017, 8:14 AM

But in what country does getting scoring in the the 80's get you a B?

PBIRD - 11/25/2017, 8:15 AM

What eggs in BvS?

JonAwesome - 11/25/2017, 9:43 AM

@PBIRD -

MCUForever - 11/25/2017, 8:31 AM

The Dark Knight Trilogy was the gold standard man, back when DC was on top of it's game and knew what it was doing in talented hands and outside the cinematic universe game.

Iron Man 1 is what got me into the MCU and my user-name should tell the story.

Captain America Trilogy is another gold standard, i find The First Avenger terribly under-rated.

Never got into Fox-Men and Blade apart from maybe being a fan of Jackman's portrayal.

1 2 3 4

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12 Comic Book Movie Trilogy Report Cards According To Rotten Tomatoes

First semester is almost over. Midterm grades time! In the spirit of the season, we're giving out report cards to CBM trilogies based on their individual Tomatometer scores. Come take a look.

Batman Trilogy

Blade Trilogy

X-Men Trilogy

Spider-Man Trilogy

Dark Knight Trilogy

Iron Man Trilogy

Wolverine Trilogy

Captain America Trilogy

X-Men(again) Trilogy

Thor Trilogy

The Snyder Trilogy

X-MEN: GRAND DESIGN & RED ROOM Writer/Artist Ed Piskor Passes Away From Apparent Suicide

Director Robert Zemeckis And Tom Hanks' HERE Receives A November 2024 Release Date

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5 Teaser Reveals First Look At Ultimate Universe's Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doc Ock

UNCANNY X-MEN Variant Covers See Rogue Leading Her X-MEN '97-Inspired Team Into Battle

SCARLET WITCH: Wanda Maximoff's Demonic Counterpart Lore Returns For The First Time Since 1994 This June

ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN #5 Teaser Reveals First Look At Ultimate Universe's Otto Octavius, a.k.a. Doc Ock

UNCANNY X-MEN Variant Covers See Rogue Leading Her X-MEN '97-Inspired Team Into Battle

SCARLET WITCH: Wanda Maximoff's Demonic Counterpart Lore Returns For The First Time Since 1994 This June

UNCANNY X-MEN: New Marvel Comics Series Will See Rogue Lead A New Team Of Mutants In New Orleans

Jim Lee Finally Unveils His Incredible Finished DC VERSUS MARVEL And DC/MARVEL: THE AMALGAM AGE Covers

WOLVERINE #50: Marvel Shares First Look At Benjamin Percy's Final Issue As Logan Celebrates 50th Anniversary

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