10 Worst Comic Book Movie Climaxes

When the Fat Lady forgets her words.

Green Lantern Parallax
Warner Bros.

We watch superhero movies for a number of reasons, but one of the most purely entertaining is the catharsis of seeing the hero overcome the odds and face the final confrontation. Whether it is one last battle against the supervillain or foiling their evil plan through a great act of courage, the equivalent of big boss fights in the genre show us the true strength of the hero and leave the audience on a high note.

But for such an important part of the experience, it's an element a lot of superhero movies fumble the ball on. Even truly great recent examples of the genre like Iron Man and Wonder Woman fumble the ball in their final moments - at least compared to the awesomeness that had come before.

On the other hand, there are other superhero movie action climaxes that are outright awful. They fall flat for a number of reasons: they're too brief, they come out of nowhere, they're ludicrous and nonsensical, they're poorly conceived and staged or, most importantly, they fail to give an adequate challenge to our hero. It's clearly a minefield.

So buckle in for an onslaught of underwhelming action sequences and a heavy overuse of CGI...

10. Daredevil

Green Lantern Parallax
20th Century Fox

We may have the Netflix series now, but for a while the only live-action Daredevil fans had to survive on was the mediocre Ben Affleck version from 2003. The film certainly isn't awful and has its moments, especially if you watch the superior Director's Cut, but one thing that doesn't work in either version is the final fight with Kingpin.

While Michael Clarke Duncan's performance as the character is solid, the inherent nature of the Kingpin makes him a difficult character for a superhero to really do battle with; he's just a pudgy guy in a suit.

Vincent D'Onofrio’s interpretation solved this in the Netflix show, but the end of the Daredevil movie just gives us a brief and clumsily-edited battle that basically just amounts to a few swings of a stick and a kick in the kneecaps.

The final battle isn't helped by its place in the film either, as it directly follows Daredevil's fight with Bullseye, which was a much more dynamic confrontation that took advantage of the character's acrobatic skills. Now he's locked up in an office that doesn't allow for much flair. Couple that with the whole battle being obscured in water and constant cuts to Daredevil's radar sense POV, and it's really quite disappointing.

Contributor
Contributor

Aspiring screenwriter, film critic, pop culture fanatic and perpetual dreamer. May contain nuts.