Top 10 Superhero Movies

In case you didn't get the memo, Hollywood is on a Superhero craze right now. Now there has been Superhero movies for a long time, but until the new millennium Superman and Batman were the only Superhero movies that were really popular. X-Men in 2000 and Spider-Man in 2002 were really the two movies that changed that and ever since those two we have had ten years of what seems like non-stop Superhero movies. And it's not about to stop anytime soon. Next year we get another try at a Superman movie and if that works out well, Batman may get another reboot in order to attempt a Justice League movie. And of course Avengers phase two will begin as Marvel has already announced it's lineup of Iron Man 3, Thor 2, Captain America 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Ant-Man. We'll also get the sequels to the newest Spider-Man reboot and I'm sure plenty more. With all that we've experienced and all that we are now looking forward to, I feel it's time to pause and reflect for a second on my personal favorite Superhero movies thus far in the form another top 10 list. Like always, these selections are my personal choices, so don't hurt me if you disagree.

#10- Spider-Man 2- There was much debate in my mind over this choice. The first nine spots were pretty easy to pick, but in my mind there was a bit of drop off after those. I contemplated The Incredible Hulk or Captain America. I also thought about Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) since that was one of my favorite movies as a child. I even thought about putting Megamind here, but in the end I decided to give some credit to Sam Raimi and his Spider-Man trilogy. Yes, X-Men came two years earlier and had decent success, but it was probably Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002 that turned everyone's heads in Hollywood as it earned 403M here in the states. That total at the time was not only the highest grossing Superhero movie of all time but the fifth highest grossing movie ever behind only Titanic, Star Wars, ET, and Star Wars: Phantom Menace. Yes, the trilogy had it's problems with questionable lead roles, a story line that strayed from the comics quite a bit, and an awful third installment, but I still enjoyed the first two and the second one especially deserves credit as I thought it was a really good movie with a movie story and an amazing villain.

#9- The Dark Knight- WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?! The Dark Knight comes in at number 9 on the list? Am I on drugs? I realize that this will be a controversial selection and I risk the chance of getting stoned because The Dark Knight is at least in the top 3 of 95% of people's favorite Superhero movies. But not mine. I had issues with this movie. Main reason is that it was really dark. Nothing happy happened the whole movie as it was just bad luck after bad luck after bad luck for Batman, ending with him being seen as a criminal or a villain in the eyes of most people from Gothom. The other main reason was what they did with Rachel. First off, the casting change from Batman begins. Sure, Katie Holmes leaving wasn't really in their control but they could've cast someone a lot better because Maggie Gyllenhaal was awful. Second, they blew her up after building up that romance story line for a movie and a half. It kinda shows that Nolan sucks with romance in his movies. But with that said, this wasn't a bad movie. I did enjoy it as you can see it made this list. I just thought it was a bit over-rated as it is not good enough in my eyes to be any higher than this.

#8- Iron Man- I don't imagine there being much question with this choice. Now I am not a huge comic book fan, but I know enough to say that Iron Man isn't exactly up there in popularity with other superheros like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man, so this movie being such a big hit is impressive. Robert Downy Jr. made Iron Man legendary as his performance was brilliant. The second movie had it's issues, but the first movie was an all around good movie in addition to Downy Jr.'s excellent performance and definitely deserves a spot on this list as one of my favorite superhero movies.

#7- Thor- Now I know that this will be my second controversial pick at least because for some odd reason, a bunch of people hate Thor, but I really liked that movie. It was my favorite of the pre-Avengers movies. The movie had a great story line with amazing special effects. Thor was great as a superhero. He was both funny and awesome and his character went through great character development. Loki was one of my favorite villains and the scenes between him and Thor were fantastic. Natalie Portman as Thor's girlfriend was a useful girlfriend I thought as opposed to the girlfriends that do nothing but get captured and need rescue. Can I also compliment an excellent cast that includes Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgard, and Kat Dennings? Thor defended.

#6- The Incredibles- I didn't think about including this one at first, but when I thought of it, I couldn't leave it out. This list isn't my favorite Superhero movies based on comic books. It's just a list of my favorite Superhero movies in general and the Incredibles certainly fit the bill. It's funny when I think about Pixar movies they have recently been attempting to join the sequel kick, but doing sequels of movies that don't make sense. Of course the Toy Story sequels worked out brilliantly, but Cars 2 was a disaster. The Monsters Inc prequel Monsters University doesn't make sense in my mind and neither does a Finding Nemo 2 if they go forward with that. Pixar needs to realize that if they are going to do a sequel kick, an Incredibles sequel would make the most sense. This movie was just brilliant.

#5- The Amazing Spider-Man- As you will shortly see, I was a huge fan of all three Superhero movies that came out this year. It was really a good Superhero movie year. As far as The Amazing Spider-Man goes, I was really skeptic for a long time. It didn't seem right to reboot Spider-Man after just five years, but it happened and it turned out to be a great decision. Yes, the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies were groundbreaking and all were all box office monsters, but this version was surprisingly better. It was a lot more true to the comics. Andrew Garfield is a much better Spider-Man than Toby Maguire was. And Emma Stone. Oh my goodness. I am in love with that girl. She was so awesome. Also, while a lot of Superhero films are nearly 100 percent action oriented, this one had depth and character rather than just forced action. And when the action did come, it was well. Being cliche, this movie was amazing.

#4- Superman- Yes, the 1978 version. You honestly can't create a list like this and not include this classic on the list. It was pretty much the father of Superhero movies. Sure, it wasn't the first one, but it was the first hugely popular one earning 134M back in 1978 which is equivalent to 450M today after adjusting for ticket price inflation. No this isn't a list of most well done Superhero movies because it wouldn't necessarily make that list, but this is a list of my favorite Superhero movies and I do really enjoy this one. It was one of my dad's favorite movies to watch and so I thus watched it a lot and it is enjoyable movie and certainly a classic. Classic to the point that when you think Superman, you think of Christopher Reeve and when you think of Christopher Reeve, you think of Superman. He is Superman. Superman is a tough comic book character to adapt to the big screen and make it done well, but I think this one did a good job and so far no other Superman movie has come close to topping this original Superman movie.

#3- Batman Begins- There have been a lot of Batman movies made, but now that Christopher Nolan's trilogy is complete, we can officially crown Nolan the Batman King. He totally rocked this one. True I was mildly disappointed with the second one, but it still made this list and so did the most recent one (a precurser of things to come on this list), meaning that the whole trilogy made my list of favorite Superhero movies, which is impressive. It's also rocked the box office as The Dark Knight was the second movie to ever pass $500M domestically and now The Dark Knight Rises is closing in on that list as well. Batman Begins was a very good start to the trilogy and provided a great message that just sat well with me. While not as epic as the Joker or Bane, this movie still provided great villains with Liam Neesan and Cillian Murphy portraying Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow respectively. It also had a great story arch that just left me feeling great afterwards and a great romance story line that sadly got ruined in the second one, but was great in the first.

#2- The Dark Knight Rises- I just gave praise to this trilogy, so no need to do that again, but I must say that in my opinion, The Dark Knight Rises was the best movie of the trilogy. Sure there were several things negative things that I could point out about it, but the level of epicness certainly outweighs those negatives. It's still early in it's release, so I won't say much right now so that I won't spoil anything if you haven't seen it, but this movie was just so epic. And by epic, I specifically mean the ending. I praise how Nolan closed this. I praise Bale for being a great Batman throughout the trilogy as well as Michael Cane and Morgan Freeman for their excellent performances throughout. Lastly for this specific movie I praise Tom Hardy, Joseph-Gordon Leavitt, and Anne Hathaway for making this movie what it was.

#1- The Avengers- I'm sure you knew by now that this was on top. Either you talked to me, read my Avengers review, or noticed that this movie wasn't in places 2-10 and thus had to be number one. This movie was just so totally awesome! Ever since Nick Fury appeared at the end of Iron Man, I knew that The Avengers movie was going to be a thing and I was very excited about that for the whole four years that I had to wait. Making it that hugely anticipated and making five movies to build up to it was certainly a high risk thing, but in this case high risk turned into extremely high reward as it was just as epic and possibly even more epic then I even thought. Seeing Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and Hulk alongside the SHIELD squad, specifically Hawkeye and Black Widow, was so awesome because they all did so good. I went and saw it four times in theaters and loved it every time. In fact, I just recently saw a trailer for it in the dollar theater movie that I went to and got excited again. Definitely the best Superhero movie of all time and also easily one of my favorite movies of all time in general. Go Avengers!!