User blog:LoveWaffle/Ranking 2013's Superhero Movies

2013 was a big year for superhero movies. Iron Man 3 was the biggest movie of the year; Man of Steel was, for better or worse, one of the most talked-about films; Thor: The Dark World proved this was a genre that could survive outside the summer months; heck, even little Dark Horse got a movie out for the first time since 2008's Hellboy II. There were more major superhero movies released this year than any year prior, and next year will bring just as many.

With the year now almost behind us, I thought I'd take a look back at 2013's many superhero movies and evaluate them. Which were the best, and which were the worst. Which did the greatest service to the genre as a whole and which were utterly disastrous?

So let's rank them.

But first, a couple housekeeping notes. For one, I'm only considering official releases, so no fan films like the excellent #TRUTHINJOURNALISM short. I'm leaving out the various animated straight-to-DVD releases because they need to be held up to a different standard. It would be unfair to compare Justice League:The Flashpoint Paradox to some of the year's biggest blockbusters. I'm also not considering every movie based on a comic book or graphic novel to be a superhero movie, such as RED 2, Bullet to the Head and 2 Guns which are more straightforward action films that just so happen to be derived from a comic book.

No. 7
R.I.P.D. Poor Dark Horse, their first film in five years and it's a stinker. This incredibly lazy movie that stars a bunch of people you've already seen in other comic book movies is also an incredibly boring movie, and you get the sneaking suspicion you've already seen it before. That's because you probably have, assuming you've seen Men in Black at some point in your life. And if you haven't, I'd recommend it. Men in Black is arguably the movie that's responsible for the entire modern superhero movie genre, which is what makes it exceptionally embarrassing for a movie as bad as this one to rip it off. On top of this, you get Ryan Reynolds giving another stock Ryan Reynolds performance, and it's the fourth one he's made in a bad comic book movie. He may have a problem with typecasting.

Ultimately, R.I.P.D. is simply unremarkable. A paint-by-numbers action movie that takes too many cues from far superior movies, squanders a decent cast, and is never bad enough to enter "so bad it's good" territory. Then throw in some poor special effects and CGI work on top of that. There really isn't a good reason to ever watch this.

No. 6
The Lone Ranger Coming in second-to-last is this 2013's answer to John Carter, a movie so over-bloated that you have to wonder why it was even made. The Lone Ranger is a character that hasn't mattered to anyone for something like two generations, but that didn't stop Disney from throwing almost as much money at this as was thrown at The Avengers. And what did they spend that money on? Mostly on incomprehensible action sequences with far too much going on, as well as a ridiculous plot that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. And to have William Fichtner rip out a guy's heart and eat it. Because nothing is more appropriate for the family-friendly adventure this movie was billed as like William Fichtner ripping out a guy's heart and eating it.

Where this movie gets points – the few points I can give it that puts it ahead of R.I.P.D. – is that it's the best attempt at this movie yet. In the early 80s, Universal tried their hand at a Lone Ranger movie with The Legend of the Lone Ranger. You've probably never heard of it, and for good reason. The movie was an unmitigated disaster – it tanked hard, was a public relations nightmare for the studio behind it, and the movie itself was pretty terrible. The 2013 takes a few narrative cues from it, and is much better made (even if it still is not a good movie). So, whereas R.I.P.D. takes an A paper (Men in Black) and hands in a D, The Lone Ranger takes an F paper and revises it to, well, a D. And if a superhero/western mashup is something you might be interested in, the only other option is Jonah Hex. So...progress!

But what makes this movie so bad is the openly hostile way it treats its source material. Armie Hammer's Lone Ranger is just a doofus bumbling around the west Tonto dresses up like a hero to take the credit for his actions. It's not all that different from what happened in Iron Man 3 with Aldrich Killian and the Mandarin, but Iron Man 3 isn't The Mandarin: The Movie. The Lone Ranger, on the other hand, reduces its own hero to a joke and makes the partner the hero. Speaking of which...

No. 5
Kick-Ass 2 WARNING: The following section contains language not suitable for younger readers

Does anyone like Kick-Ass? I don't mean the movies or the comic books, but the character Kick-Ass? You know, Dave Lizewski, the guy who's supposed to be at the center of all this, the guy who first dressed up like a superhero and inspired all these other superheroes? Because he's kind of boring. It's a problem in the comics compounded in the movies. Not helping things is Aaron Taylor-Johnson's forgettable performance as the character. After seeing this, I have to wonder why he was Joss Whedon's first choice to play Quicksilver in Age of Ultron. Although I do suppose it's appropriate for a bland actor to portray the bland Kick-Ass.

Maybe the lead character being bland isn't that bad if he's surrounded by more interesting characters, which is what saves Kick-Ass 2 from being as bad as two films I already about. Like in the first movie, the real star here isn't Kick-Ass himself but his much more able partner in Chloe Grace Moretz' Hit-Girl. Unlike Kick-Ass, she's the one who has to undergo a real transformation, having to adjust to life not only without her father but also as just a normal, teenage girl. Christopher Mintz-Plasse also returns from the first movie, but he's now the villainous Mother Fucker and leader of the Toxic Mega Cunts. See, I told you there would be bad language, but that's on Mark Millar and the screenwriters for naming characters like that, and it's a problem I'll address shortly. McLovin does alright, I suppose, but nothing special. You can really tell he's having a lot of fun being a bad guy in this one. Jim Carrey, Olga Kurkulina, and John Leguizamo also hold their own even if they don't have all that much to do. Like Mintz-Plasse, you can tell Carrey is having a lot of fun in his role, and we know he's a fan of the comics. Maybe he realized the movie was going to stink, and used the violence as an excuse to not do any press for it.

And that violence is a problem. Not in the way Carrey talked about though, the assertion that violent media leads to horrendous acts of violence in the real world is one that's been proven ludicrous time and time again. Rather, the movie's extreme graphic content in terms of both violence and language gives this movie something of an identity crisis. It's an excessively juvenile film with a pretty hard R rating. The people this movie would probably appeal to most can't legally see it without their parents buying tickets for them. And who wants to see a movie like this with their mom?

No. 4
Man of Steel Holding down the middle of the pack is what is probably the year's most divisive movie. A lot of people hated this movie. A lot of people liked it. I fall in the latter category, and I honestly think people were way too harsh on this one. The only real problem I have with it are some of the narrative leaps made in the movie – something the movie probably gets from Christopher Nolan's involvement – that just leave you scratching your head. Although it was cool to see Krypton as an actual civilization and not just a collection of scientists in a glacier, a lot of how it worked was never properly explained. Kryptonian technology and anatomy only seemed to work as the plot demanded it. Also, while I get why Jonathan Kent needed to die, the conditions of his death were a bit forced. I felt some of the supporting characters were a bit underdeveloped, as well. Laurence Fishburne was pretty boring as Perry White, although that maybe the script's fault more than Fishburne's, and the female Jimmy Olsen (who the studio has since gone back on calling the female Jimmy Olsen) was an annoying character. On the other hand, much of the supporting cast was an Easter Egg hunt for longtime fans of Superman. Each of Zod's henchmen were named after Kryptonian villains from the comics, while many of young Clark's classmates were named after characters from Superman's childhood.

Where I think too many people were too harsh on this one was for its tone. Man of Steel came under a lot of criticism for the level of destruction depicted in it and for taking itself a bit too seriously. My only answer to those complaints is that the Christopher Reeve movies still exist. There's no harm in different people taking a different approach to tackling well-known characters. If anything, it made the movie stronger since it didn't try and hold itself up to the Richard Donner movie(s), something that doomed Superman Returns to fail. This wasn't a Superman trapped in 70's camp, it was a modern-day Superman. My generation has witnessed truly horrifying real-world events, and we'll see them hundreds if not thousands of times in our lifetime due to the current nature of the news and social media. There wasn't a Superman there to save us, to stop whatever destructive event from happening. Maybe that's what a modern-day Superman needs to be; not the square-chinned boy scout our parents knew, but an imperfect being who can't save everyone but puts himself at unbelievable risk in order to do so. You know, a superhero.

So when Superman snaps Zod's neck – what is by far the most controversial moment in this movie – it's not a victorious moment for him. He had to sacrifice a bit of himself to save Metropolis (what was left of it, at least) and the rest of the world from the genocidal Zod, and we know this because his reaction to having killed Zod is the same reaction he had to watching his father die. It's not a place he ever wants to be again, and it is interesting to see how that would play out in a sequel. Will Superman find himself in the same situation when he's up against a physically powerful villain like Lex? How will he stop that villain without having to kill him? These were interesting opportunities this movie left open to be explored in a sequel.

Left open for a month, that is, until it became clear that the sequel to Man of Steel would be more of a backdoor Batman reboot and a pseudo-Justice League movie.

No. 3
Iron Man 3

I've already talked about this one at length before, so I won't go into too much detail now. The controversial twist regarding the Mandarin is perhaps the movie's greatest stroke of genius, for reasons I explain in the other blog. Furthermore, I found Tony Stark's arc was incredibly appropriate. He's clearly traumatized from his experience in Marvel's The Avengers, namely from having to personally steer a nuke into deep space, so it makes sense that the movie makes a point of showing how he's a hero when he doesn't have the armor on nor does the armor need him in it to be effective. It also helps that Robert Downey Jr, unlike other actors who portray superheroes, is just as entertaining when he's just Tony Stark as when he's Iron Man. What doesn't work quite as well is A.I.M.'s plan as a whole. For one, I never got the sense that Killian was really motivated by getting his revenge on Tony more than he was just trying to get him to stabilize the Extremis formula. Furthermore, it never made sense why that had to happen at the same time he made his grand move to kidnap and kill the President. And all that seems a heck of a lot more difficult trying to get military contracts, especially when he has the prime target in the War on Terror and an insider in the White House in his pocket. Extremis couldn't be AIM's only project, could it? Killian's scheme here was too contrived, something just to get the plot rolling.

But what really hurts this one – although #3 isn't exactly a bad ranking – is just how conclusive it is. Iron Man 3 is the first installment of the MCU's Phase 2, but is also the end of Iron Man's personal arc. The movie ends with Tony destroying all of his armors and getting the shrapnel and mini-reactor out of his chest, something that signals the character's end. There's nothing wrong with that, there are far too few superhero franchises that got to go out on their own terms. Unfortunately, we know this can't be the end of Tony Stark's story, since a) this is an expansive universe, b) we know he's showing up in The Avengers 2, and c) he's the biggest star this franchise has. You can't help but feel the ending to this movie is going to have to be undone at some point soon. For a movie that makes a point of putting an end to Iron Man, Iron Man coming back into action is the worst thing that can happen to it.

No. 2
Thor: The Dark World

This is the true first installment of Phase 2. Unlike Iron Man 3, which was far too conclusive, Thor: The Dark World introduces concepts that are going to be explored in later installments of the MCU. Most notable are the Infinity Stones, this universe's version of the Infinity Gems. It sets the tone for the rest of the phase, maybe even the rest of the MCU, and gets it off to a good start. We know how important these Stones are, and we know what they lead to, so it's a natural first step in building up to Thanos as the MCU's endboss. It also sets the stage for Guardians of the Galaxy, which comes out next summer. Not only does the film's post-credits tease give us a look at The Collector, but that character's last words gives us the indication that the plot of the movie will also involve the Infinity Stones. Furthermore, the movie gives Loki – who is probably the MCU's second-biggest star after Tony Stark – purpose after the events of Marvel's The Avengers. Loki does not have to be the main villain, or even a villain, to stay around, and he's also in a position at the end of The Dark World that gives him good reason to show up again. Loki doesn't have to be shoehorned-in to keep showing up in the MCU.

Aside from how it plays into the grander Cinematic Universe, Thor: The Dark World is a lot of fun on its own. The comedy works very well, especially from the human characters. Kat Dennings isn't nearly as annoying as she was in the first one, and newcomers Ian the Intern and a brief appearance from Chris O'Dowd keep laughs coming. Not to mention scene-stealing Crazy Erik Selvig, running around Stonehenge in the buff and his chalkboard chock-full of Easter Eggs. The movie's writers managed to maintain Loki's witty dialogue from The Avengers, something that's not so easy to do when you don't have Joss Whedon around. There's also a few great action sequences. The attack on Asgard was appropriately frantic and gave us something of a rarity – a fight where heroes die. Seriously, a character from the comics who is neither a villain or has an important death in the comics dying in one of these movies is something that almost never happens. And this movie did it twice (OK, maybe only once, but that depends on who you talk to)! Even though the idea of Convergence was a bit hokey, watching Thor and Malekith move between worlds during the film's climax made it one of the better final showdowns in recent memory.

What keeps this movie off the #1 spot is that too many side characters are just sort of there and not given much anything to do. Hogun maybe gets it the worst, being written out of the movie at the end of the fight in Vanaheim early on in the movie, but Fandral and Volstagg don't fare much better. Sif is given what looks like a personal arc, but that never really develops and her part in The Dark World is mostly to just be there for Odin and Frigga to ask their son why he doesn't settle down with a nice Asgardian girl. Heimdall is given a few brief appearances, and Tyr's role in the movie is so incidental that a user here was convinced he was cut from the movie. Meanwhile, Malekith and Kurse are maybe the MCU's least-developed villains yet. Their motivations are simply to take over the Nine Worlds, and they don't have much personality to speak of. Granted, the movie underwent substantial reshoots after Marvel Studios found test audiences wanted more Loki, so maybe some of this can be attributed to that. Maybe there's a good amount of extra footage cut from the film that would have fleshed out the side characters a bit more. Then again, the plot device used to reunite Thor and Jane at the beginning of the movie was really contrived, and that doesn't seem like something that can be explained in deleted scenes.

Keep in mind that I went back and forth between where this movie and Iron Man 3 would rank, so maybe I would have put this at #3 and IM3 at #2 if I wrote this on another day. But I never really had any doubt as to what my #1 would be...

No. 1
The Wolverine

I get the feeling this wouldn't be everyone's first choice. If you were to tell me earlier in the year that this would be my favorite of 2013, I wouldn't have believed you. I couldn't get excited for another Wolverine movie (especially after the first one) and another X-Men movie not made by Bryan Singer. And, to be sure, it's not a perfect movie. The villains are the weakest part. There was way too much coyness about who the main villain of this movie was and who the Silver Samurai was for little effect. It also seems like an easy fix – rename Old Man Yashida as Shingen, the movie's Shingen as Ken Harada, and the Archer as just...I don't know, the Archer. His character was fairly inconsequential to the overall movie. And everything about Viper was pretty terrible. The actress was terrible, was basically just a female Toad, and her motives were never all that clear. And maybe it wasn't the best depiction of Mariko, either, since her character here doesn't have the history with Logan her comic book counterpart has, and because Wolverine spent much of the movie still obsessed with Jean Grey.

But you know what? None of that really matters. So what if the villain's plan is kind of stupid? Unlike the lower entries on this list, the movie never asks the viewer to invest in it. It's not even that big of a threat, either, and it is really refreshing to see a major superhero movie where the fate of the Earth is not at stake. This movie knows the villain's plot is just a MacGuffin. Unlike the other movies on this list, Wolverine is the only real focus of this movie, and the movie does a spectacular job at that. The most ingenious thing this movie does is strip Logan of his invulnerability. We get to see a guy who is used to being nearly invulnerable come face-to-face with his own mortality for the first time. It also highlights his ability as a warrior rather than just his brute strength. Pit Wolverine against a bunch of Ninja and some Yakuza thugs and of course he'll come out victorious; they won't be able to put as much of a scratch on him. But take that invulnerability away and what you're left with is a guy with knives in his hands. He doesn't get to win this because he has a couple dozen drones in storage; he doesn't get to win this because he's spent the past few decades soaking up solar energy to become a god. He gets to win this because he's an incredibly skilled fighter. He gets to win this because he has some dangerous friends. How is it that Wolverine's solo movie shows him as a better team player than any of the main X-Men movies? I'd rather see him team up with Yukio again than almost everyone reassembled for Days of Future Past. Because of this, The Wolverine features the two most exhilarating action sequences in any other movie released in 2013 – the bullet train sequence, and the fight with Shingen. He's already vulnerable because he's lost his regenerative abilities, but those two scenes put him in positions where he is even more vulnerable. Those are the kinds of scenes that make you forget all the plot armor surrounding your protagonist, and, even if for a moment, you get the thought that he might not get out of there.

Maybe this one benefits from diminished expectations. Iron Man 3 and The Dark World were good because of course they were. The pedigree of people working on them speaks to that. But The Wolverine? It's been a decade since there's been a truly good X-Men movie, and the ones without Bryan Singer's involvement are the worst. Not to mention the very limited acting experience from a few of the leads here. So for The Wolverine to be as good as it is is in itself a strength of the film. The X-Men franchise is aging, and not necessarily aging all that gracefully, but if there's more movies like this in its future, there may be hope for this franchise yet.

As big as 2013 was for superhero movies, 2014 may just be even bigger... A Look at 2014 >>