Marvel is an extremely popular franchise, near and dear to many people’s hearts—including mine. They have produced countless box office hits as well as an extremely successful cinematic universe. However, no good thing is without its flaws, and Marvel Studios have most definitely produced their fair share of truly awful projects. In this article, I will be ranking some of the worst Marvel movies according to their Rotten Tomato scores (RT) in my unprofessional, Marvel-loving, personal opinion, with #1 being the absolute undeniable worst. The films I have put myself through so that you don’t have to include the following:
- Fantastic Four (2014) – 9% RT
- Madam Web (2024) – 10% R
- Elektra (2005) – 11% RT
- Howard the Duck (1986) – 14% RT
- Morbius (2022) – 15% RT
*SPOILER WARNINGS AHEAD*
5. Morbius (2022) – 15%
Maybe it’s because my bar was in hell going in, maybe it’s because I relate to Micheal in some ways but I actually really liked this movie. The writing was corny at times, sure, but overall not so bad. The acting felt natural to me and I thought the story was a little predictable, but still quite interesting. As someone with a lifelong disability, I found the “search for a cure” motivation to be somewhat relatable. I may not be as ambitious as Micheal or as rich as Milo, but their desire to simply get better is no foreign subject. Their banter made me laugh because they’re using humor I understand well; it made them feel real, and even if they turned into murderous bloodsuckers, I still loved the representation. All in all, this movie surprised me, and I would definitely recommend giving it a shot.
4. Elektra (2005) – 11%
This movie left absolutely zero impression on me. It wasn’t exactly terrible, but it definitely wasn’t good either. I had no idea what was going on throughout the entire 1 hour and 36 minutes of it, and every time I thought I got a hold of the plot, I lost interest for long enough for me to be confused again. The writing was just plain bad, and the acting was either at 0% or 200% with no in between, leaving me lost and without a clue of where anything was headed. The fighting was fun to watch, but the cutting and camera choices were all over the place, taking me right out of the movie. I earnestly don’t think I could recall a detail from that plot if you asked me to, and I’m not even sure how to interpret the abrupt, unsatisfying ending. However, it is very far from the worst movie on this list, as I would probably rewatch it if asked to. Either way, I doubt this movie makes sense, whether or not you’re paying attention, so if you like watching something while doing chores or working out, try putting on Elektra. It might serve as motivation for finishing your task so that you can turn it off.
3. Madame Web (2024) – 10%
I remember being excited to watch this when it came out. Spider-man is my absolute favorite superhero, and anything spider-verse related turns me into a 7-year-old boy wearing one of those zip-up Spider-man hoodies. So imagine my disappointment when I went to go see a movie about cool-looking spider-women with unique abilities, and left the movie theater feeling robbed of what could’ve been a very empowering movie. First of all, the writers for this movie must have been giggling to themselves in the writers room because there was no way any actors or actresses could’ve made the dialogue any less natural. I honestly blame most of the terrible acting on the terrible writing, with the lack of chemistry being another factor. Not to mention the whiplash of the “seeing the future” scenes, or the inconsistent pacing. The end battle felt way too long, and the ending in general felt unsatisfactory and frankly left us with more questions than we came in with. Overall, this was a low moment for the Spidey community, and I think it’s safe to say that this movie never happened and was all just a figment of our collective imaginations.
2. Fantastic Four (2015) – 9%
I knew going in that this would be a bad movie but no bad review could’ve prepared me for the absolute disaster of an adaptation this was. The writing was painfully corny, the acting was beyond terrible, and the pacing wasn’t even measurable. Every horrible line delivery only pushed me closer to turning the whole movie off altogether. Don’t even get me started on that “Say that again” scene, I genuinely had to watch it through closed eyes because I couldn’t take any more corniness. In conclusion, I think this is not only semi-correctly rated as the worst Marvel movie of all time, but is also no doubt one of the worst movies I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. The sole good thing about this trainwreck was (who could’ve guessed) Micheal B. Jordan and even that isn’t enough cause for me to recommend this movie.
1. Howard the Duck (1986) – 14%
I’d like to start off by saying I didn’t even make it to the end of this fever dream. I watched the first 7 minutes and turned it off out of sheer flabbergastedness, then returned a few hours later, determined to commit to the full almost 2 hours left, only to turn it back off about an hour later because I had completely lost the plot and physically couldn’t bring myself to sit through til the end. For starters, I had no clue whatsoever about who Howard was and where he comes from, and I was absolutely not expecting a hyper-sexual 2-foot-tall duck with scarily realistic eyes, that was pulled into a portal by his arm chair transporting him from his duck planet, where he landed on Earth. There were various other plot points that I found myself rubbing my temples at, such as Howard and a human girl played by Lea Thompson (Marty McFly’s mom) falling in love, a scientist being possessed by a demon, and others I can’t even bring myself to admit on a school webpage. I highly doubt I am ever going to finish this movie, and if I do, it’s because it was used as a torture method to which I surrendered immediately. The fact that YouTube Movies thinks it is worth $3.99 is almost as absurd as the movie itself.