Are these the 5 worst superhero films of all time?
Who's saying what
Last week in Cinematic Cliffs Notes, I talked to you about the five best superhero films. Or, as should be obvious, the five that I think are the best. Critics are just people with opinions, like you are, and I figure if people have opinions similar to mine, or if they don't find me entirely repellant as a person, we'll get along just fine in this writer/reader relationship we appear to have.
So I did some analysis of my five favourite. But what are my five least favourite, and why? Will you disagree with my choices, summarily deciding to pummel me to within an inch of my life? Quite possibly. With that firmly in mind, let us commence!
Before we begin, though, a quick note: the superhero genre is relatively new. By all rights, it should have died in it's infancy, a statement which you'll feel less weird about after this list is through.
5. Leonard Part 6
Leonard Part 6 is one of the worst films ever made. It's certainly not the worst ever made, but it isn't far off. Let me put it this way: Bill Cosby publicly stated that people ought to save their money and avoid watching it almost immediately after release. Basically, it's a crude, raw, stupid and profoundly unfunny story about an ex-CIA superhero, bristling with gadgets and sucking in every way possible. It's a bizarre project which reeks of pandering and compromise, and here's the trailer.
The trailer, as you just found out, wasn't great. But in order for me to adequately sum up the problems with the plot, I'm going to copy verbatim the plot summary from wikipedia. It is… artful in what it chooses to focus on.
The movie starts with Parker being re-recruited by his former employers in the CIA to save the world from an evilvegetarian who brainwashes animals to kill people. The film ends with Leonard infiltrating the vegetarian base, fending off the vegetarians with magic meat he received from a Gypsy, freeing the captive animals and flooding the base using Alka-Seltzer. He escapes by riding an ostrich on the roof of the building, with the ostrich flying him down.
When Eddie Murphy did Beverly Hills Cop 3, he later derided the creative team for the less than stellar film. John Landis, the director, has come out and said that Eddie had basically spent decades having his ass kissed by critics and creative minds alike, and after a few box office flops, he effectively wandered onto set terribly morose, almost humourlessly hacking his way through scene after scene. Because this is Leonard Part 6, a film that basically disappeared without a trace, it's hard to find such anecdotal gems. But one can imagine Bill Cosby, firing his underarm rockets, questioning exactly where his career is bound. As it turns out, he pulled up just fine. Leonard Part 6, however, went down in flames. And deservedly so! Let's all light cigars off the smouldering wreckage! Huzzah!
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