5 worst superhero movies

LOS ANGELES — For all the enduring superhero movies that have been made over the years — "The Dark Knight," the original Christopher Reeve "Superman," Tobey Maguire's first two turns as "Spider-Man" — there are just as many that don't exactly live up to their own mythology or the expectations of their legions of followers.

This week's "Green Lantern," starring Ryan Reynolds as the reluctant new member of an intergalactic peacekeeping corps, would fall squarely into the latter category. It's just a muddled, joyless bore. But it gives us a great chance to compile an ignominious list of superhero movies that are less than super:

— "Catwoman" (2004): So few films in the genre are about female do-gooders — it's usually the job of the women in these movies to look pretty in peril and wait around for the men in tights to save them — which is why it was such a bummer that this was a laughable disaster. Halle Berry is indeed a sight to behold in her Catwoman get-up, and you've gotta love the fact that she had enough of a sense of humor to show up at the Razzie Award ceremony to pick up her worst-actress prize. (It also "won" for worst picture, worst director and worst screenplay.) But Berry's jaw-dropping good looks alone can't save this, and since all the scenes in which she kicks butt and leaps about with feline agility are sped-up, you don't get to ogle her for long anyway. This is cinema for the attention span-challenged, but the most egregious sin of all for an action movie: It's mind-numbingly boring.

— "Daredevil" (2003): This was a rough year for Ben Affleck. Besides this slick and formulaic adaptation of the Marvel Comic, in which Affleck played the blind lawyer-crimefighter Matt Murdock, he also starred in the notorious turkey "Gigli" and the John Woo thriller "Paycheck," all of which earned him Razzies for worst actor of the year. To be fair, he was an easy target at this point in his career, when he was half of the tabloid sensation "Bennifer" with then-fiancee and "Gigli" co-star Jennifer Lopez. Still, "Daredevil" stands on its own two feet for its failures. The character is flawed and tormented, not at all the good guy he'd seem to be on the surface, which might have been intriguing if Affleck hadn't played him so stiffly. "Daredevil" also has the dubious distinction of spinning off 2005's "Elektra," starring the current Mrs. Affleck, Jennifer Garner. Both have bounced back nicely from their superhero period.