Ranking All 31 Marvel Comic Book Movies - From Worst To Best

25. Ghost Rider (2007)

After Daredevil, Mark Steven Johnson was again handed the reins of adapting a Marvel character for the big screen and delivered a movie that was somehow even more bland and disappointing. When you have Nicolas Cage playing a motorcycle-riding stuntman that transforms into a vigilante with a flaming skull for a head, it should be entertaining at the very least. Ghost Rider isn't.

To be fair, watering down the character for a PG-13 blockbuster doesn't make things any easier but there are just too many problems with the movie. Nicolas Cage brings his usual eccentricity to the role, but is overshadowed by his hairpiece. The script is so weak that it seems the actors are trying to chew on the scenery to compensate, Wes Bentley's hammy villain isn't threatening in the slightest and despite some impressive CGI the action scenes are lifeless and often outright boring. Ghost Rider grossed $45.4m in its domestic opening weekend, but quickly petered out once audiences realized that the movie wasn't very good. It went on to earn a respectable $228.7m worldwide, which is still a little disappointing given the $110m budget. It did manage to spawn a belated sequel five years later, which turned out to be even worse.

24. Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer (2007)

The financial success of the first Fantastic Four movie guaranteed a sequel would be made, and two years later the follow-up was released. Although it was more entertaining than its predecessor, that isn't really saying much. Rise of the Silver Surfer retains many of the problems that the first movie had, but does manage some slight improvements. As a director, Tim Story just isn't suitable for this kind of material and brings very little style or verve to the proceedings, which end up as a succession of dreary CGI action scenes. Much like the first movie, the narrative suffers from a poor script and several wooden performances, with some attempts at humour that fall painfully flat. The Silver Surfer himself is the best thing about this sequel by some distance, especially with the all-powerful Galactus being reduced to a cloud. Rise of the Silver Surfer did open to $58m domestically, but ultimately fell short of the first movie and grossed $289m worldwide. The unenthusiastic reception to the two Fantastic Four movies saw the franchise stopped in its tracks, with a reboot hitting theatres next year.

23. The Punisher (2004)

Five years after Dolph Lundgren's forgettable straight-to-video take on the character, The Punisher was given the big-screen treatment in a modestly-budgeted R-rated actioner. A bog-standard tale of a man's violent revenge, the movie's real saving grace is Tom Jane's great performance in the title role. For a movie with such thinly written characters, it's strange that one of the few meaningful backstories goes to The Punisher's iconic t-shirt. John Travolta's ridiculously OTT turn as the villain seems completely out of place in a movie where everything else is played completely straight, with the po-faced seriousness rendering things unrelentingly bleak, with very little levity. There are some good weapons-based set-pieces but a few enjoyable moments fail to cover up the rest of The Punisher's shortcomings. Theatrically, The Punisher was a disappointment and grossed just $54.6m against a $33m budget. However, the movie did become something of a cult favourite and made more money on home video than it did in cinemas. There was talk of a sequel over the next couple of years but nothing ever materialised, and the character was rebooted instead.