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