The Green Hornet debuted at #1 at the box office this past weekend, despite mixed critical reviews and the prospect of Seth Rogen playing Seth Rogen playing the Green Hornet. My own views of the movie were equally conflicted, but there are far worse tongue-in-cheek takes on the genre than the occasionally enjoyable Green Hornet. Here’s five of the biggest goofy superhero misfires.
Steel
Is it still a comedy even if it’s unintentional? If you thought Shaquille O’Neal playing a wise-cracking genie in Kazaam was fine cinema, then Shaq as a superhero in this 1997 DC Comics adaptation is right up your alley. Loosely based on the armored scientist character who briefly replaced Clark Kent as a more literal “Man of Steel” in the comics, Shaq mumbles his way through the title role as weapons-designer-turned-vigilante. Written and directed by Kenneth Johnson of TV’s ” Incredible Hulk” fame, Shaq’s Steel is somehow less sympathetic and less emotive than the Hulk. Saddled with a generic action movie plot and with no reference to the its more popular source material (O’Neal’s real-life Superman tattoo doesn’t count), the movie was doomed long before Judd Nelson turns up as the world’s least competent arms dealer.
Son of the Mask
In 1994, The Mask hit big and cemented Jim Carrey’s status as a box office draw (and unleashed Cameron Diaz on an unsuspecting world). A sequel was naturally called for, and audiences got one… 11 years later. With almost none of the original players aboard.
Instead, viewers were “treated” to an unabashed kids’ film about a cartoonist (Scream’s Jaime Kennedy) who winds up with the titular mask after the (timely?) murder of Ben Stein by the Norse god, Loki (Alan Cumming), rightful owner of the Jekyll-and-Hyde-inducing item. Avery winds up conceiving a child with his wife while still wearing the mask (kinky!), imbuing the baby with the mask’s rubber-faced powers. Even the dog gets in on the hijinx by donning the mask. With no-name stars, a complete tonal shift from the original, and CG effects that were dated even at the time, Son of the Mask joins the elite club of shoddy sequels to well-liked movies, an elite club featuring the likes of Caddyshack II.
Condorman
Though something of a cult phenomenon now, it’s difficult to describe the specific awfulness of 1981’s Condorman. This Walt Disney Film featured Michael Crawford – yes, the original stage Phantom of the Opera – as an eccentric cartoonist (as if there’s another kind!) drawn into a CIA plot to rescue a defecting foreign agent, a ploy that requires him to dress up like his own creation, the deeply uninteresting Condorman. It’s the epitome of cheesy, bargain-basement effects – you actually CAN see the wires attached to the “flying” Condorman. I’ve seen an unauthorized Turkish version of Superman with more to offer than this one.
Catwoman
After Michelle Pfeiffer’s turn as Catwoman in 1992’s Batman Returns, talk naturally turned to giving a spinoff to the character, cat-suited thief with a heart of gold, Selina Kyle. When it finally happened in 2004, it was “Catwoman” in name only: Ms. Kyle was now “Patience Phillips,” a vacant character played equally vacantly by Halle Berry, who had already ruined the role of Storm over in the X-Men movies. Patience is resurrected by a cat god (or something) after her murder at the order of her boss (Sharon Stone), an unscrupulous cosmetics executive. Whatever problems one might have based on the condescending premise of a female superhero facing off against an evil cosmetics company, there’s plenty more to scorn about this movie, from its leaden romantic subplot between Berry and Catwoman-chasing cop “Tom Lone” (Benjamin Bratt) to the clumsy direction by first-time director, French cinematographer Pitof.
The Spirit
On the surface, getting the man behind the visually striking comic book series “Sin City” to tackle the creation of his old friend, the late Will Eisner, seems like a good idea. In practice, one gets a watered-down version of the movie version of Sin City, brimming with absurdities and non-sequiturs and bearing no resemblance to Eisner’s masked detective character. Instead, viewers were greeted with villain Samuel L. Jackson in a Nazi uniform, among other ostentatious wardrobe choices, and the sight of a cloned henchman who consisted of a head attached to a mobile, bouncing foot. Add in a cast of Hollywood hotties (Eva Mendes, Paz Vega, Scarlett Johansson, and more) decked out in various forms of fetish gear and what you get isn’t a movie so much as a glimpse into Frank Miller’s own proclivities. I saw this movie on New Year’s Eve 2008, and it was not the way to ring in the new year.
