10 super stinkers to avoid

By Anthony Pickens

With Paul Giamatti in talks with “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” director Marc Webb to play The Rhino, a Spider-Man comic book villain, it’s time to look at the worst comic book character portrayal to ever grace the silver screen.

Giamatti might play his role well in the superhero film, which is still in casting. But if he doesn’t he’ll stand among several actors who have butchered fan-loved comic heroes and villains.

10. Ryan Reynolds as the Green Lantern — Reynolds typically plays the sly, wisecracking personality in most of his roles, but it never felt more out of place than 2011’s summer movie “Green Lantern.” While the Hal Jordan comic book adaptation is a serious, gritty character, Reynolds portrays the superhero as a comedic boyscout. His performance of the character is too cheesy and lacks any serious presence. In the first scene of his character in costume, Reynolds stares at the mirror with boastful confidence as he starts to dance in excitement. This scene is a perfect example of how a comic book characters can be butchered by the personality of the actors who portray them.

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9. Brandon Routh as Superman — Superman stands as one of the most iconic characters in comic book history. He has beat down villains such as Lex Luther, Parasite and Darkseid, but he can’t beat the terrible acting of Routh, who drops the ball in 2006’s “Superman Returns.” Routh’s Superman performance was poor enough to force Warner Bros. to start an entirely new Superman movie from scratch with Henry Cavill taking over the reigns. Superman looked weak and flimsy in the movie and his unemotional display of the character is robotic at best.

8. Ben Affleck as Daredevil — “Daredevil” is disastrous, and that can mostly be attributed to all of the film’s actors, including Affleck as the title character. He looks awkward in the costume, and has too many weak one-liners to spare. Affleck is an average actor, but his performance has the power to bore audiences to death in this movie.

7. Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth — In the comic books, Sabretooth is a savage man-beast with the power to regenerate himself. Too bad the character has yet to regenerate from Schreiber’s performance in “X-Men Origins: Wolverine.” Schreiber is a good actor, but the movie’s script is too simple for an actor of his caliber. Most of Sabertooth’s lines are corny, and his character looks nothing like his comic book counter part in the slightest.

6. Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face — Two-Face is depicted as a hard-nosed gangster in Batman fan lore who rarely smiles. As a former district attorney, the character is obsessed with administering justice with the flip of a coin. The character is so dark that the children’s television show “The Batman” kept him off the air in every episode. But Jones’ performance as Two-Face is unjustifiable in “Batman Forever.” He turned the dark character into a clown. Jones’ Two-Face shoots more cheesy one-liners at Batman than he does bullets. Jones is a respectable actor, but no actor can revive a terribly written script in any movie.

5. Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider — Ghost Rider is a flame-headed demon antihero from hell. In the comic book world, he’s one of the scariest characters around because of his demonic powers and corpse face. Cage depicts him in “Ghost Rider,” and he overacts the character like he usually does in most of his movies. His voice in the film doesn’t match his computer-generated skull head. The “Ghost Rider” movies have been awful thanks to Cage’s performances and deserve to go to cinema hell as punishment.

4. George Clooney as Batman — Clooney is a phenomenal actor, but he hit rock-bottom when he chose to take the role of Batman in “Batman & Robin.” Clooney made the caped crusader look like a neighborhood boyscout and not the dark, gritty character fans have grown fond of. Batman is as soft as marshmallow here, and Clooney’s performance takes away Batman’s character- defining back-bone.

3. Halle Berry as Catwoman — Anne Hathaway had a tough task ahead to redeem the feminine antihero Catwoman in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Halle Berry’s portrayal of the character in the 2004 movie “Catwoman” is the cause for this much needed redemption. The movie stands as one of the worst-rated movies on rotten tomatoes at nine percent. Berry’s performance as Catwoman is lifeless and, quite frankly, a bore.

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2. Topher Grace as Venom — Venom is one of Spider-Man’s most popular and deadly villains. In “Spider-Man 3,” Topher Grace plays the character with an uninspired performance. While Venom’s presence is one of pure intimidation in the comic book, Grace makes the character look like a wussy-High School punk. Things are bad when Tobey Maguire makes himself appear more threatening with an emo haircut and snappy suit in the movie. When Grace tries to present himself as angry or intimidating, he fails to make audiences forget his days as geeky Eric Foreman on “That 70s Show.”

1. Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr.Freeze — Mr.Freeze is a force to be reckoned with in the comics, but having Arnold Schwarzenegger play the character is one casting idea that should have been terminated a long time ago. In the 1997 film “Batman & Robin,” Schwarzenegger gives audiences a pun-filled performance worthy of instant dismissal. The movie is so bad it’s worth watching twice just to see Schwarzenegger butcher Mr.Freeze’s reputation.

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