10 Worst Comic Book Movie Performances, Ranked

The comic book movie genre is famous for some of the greatest, most iconic castings ever. Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jr. turned Captain America and Iron Man into household names. Hugh Jackman became so inseparable from Wolverine that they literally brought him back from the dead for Deadpool & Wolverine, and they’ll probably make him do the role till he’s 90.

But for every perfect casting, there are 10 that go horribly wrong. Comic book movies rely heavily on CGI and green screens, and it is hard to give a great performance when you don’t even know what your scene will look like. Sometimes the problem is bad directing or hellish productions. Other times, you can tell the actor is doing the bare minimum and simply collecting a paycheck. Whatever the reason, these performances stand out for all the wrong reasons. These are, without question, the worst performances in comic book movie history.

10 Natalie Portman in ‘Thor: The Dark World’ (2013)

Natalie Portman is an Oscar-winning actress, so this is not a talent issue at all. But her portrayal of Jane Foster in Thor: The Dark World feels completely out of place. Her performance is cheesy, and she spends most of the movie looking angsty and annoyed. It also didn’t help that her character was reduced from a competent scientist in the first movie to a mere damsel in distress in the sequel.

The chemistry between Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Jane also feels extremely off in this movie. When Loki (Tom Hiddleston) enters the picture, it becomes even worse. Portman feels like a third wheel whenever Hemsworth and Hiddleston share the screen. The reception was so bad that Portman did not even return for Thor: Ragnarok.

9 George Clooney in ‘Batman & Robin’ (1997)

Simply put, George Clooney did not play Batman. He played himself in a batsuit. He does not even attempt to change his voice or his mannerisms. Throughout the entire movie, he looks uninterested, like he knows exactly how bad it is. Clooney later explained that most of the dialogue had to be ADR’d in a studio, and he absolutely hated doing it. That explains why his performance feels hollow and disconnected.

Clooney has been brutally honest about this role ever since. He has apologized to fans at Comic-Con, said the movie causes him physical pain to watch, and even refuses to let his wife see it because he does not want her to lose respect for him. He was so traumatized by the experience that when it came time for the reboot, he warned Ben Affleck not to take the role.

8 Kekoa Kekumano in ‘Aquaman’ (2018)

Kekoa Kekumano plays a young Arthur Curry in a crucial flashback scene. Up until that point, Arthur believed his mom had abandoned him, and this moment was supposed to explain Arthur’s lifelong bitterness toward Atlantis. He learns that his mother did not really abandon him, and that the Atlantean king condemned her to death in a jealous rage because she fell in love with a human and bore a half-breed son.

Instead of landing emotionally, the scene comes off as unintentionally hilarious because of Kekumano’s acting. He was clearly cast because he looks like a younger Jason Momoa, but his acting is genuinely tough to sit through. He puts on a weird accent that is immediately noticeable, squints because he cannot cry, and overacts by bobbing his head around. It’s the kind of performance that makes Hallmark actors look natural.

7 Wesley Snipes in ‘Blade: Trinity’ (2004)

Wesley Snipes spends most of Blade: Trinity looking completely checked out, and that is because the production for this movie was an absolute disaster. Director David S. Goyer has straight-up called it the worst experience of his entire career. Snipes hated the script, clashed constantly with Goyer, and felt the studio shoved a new supporting cast into the movie while quietly pushing him out of his own franchise.

Things got so bad that Snipes allegedly refused to leave his trailer unless it was for close-up shots. A stand-in handled the rest. He also stopped speaking to Goyer altogether and communicated only through Post-it notes, all signed “Blade.” Toward the end of the movie, Blade is presumed dead, but in the final scene, he is meant to open his eyes. Snipes reportedly refused to do it, so the filmmakers had to add CGI eyes instead, and they look laughably bad.

6 Marion Cotillard in ‘The Dark Knight Rises’ (2012)

Marion Cotillard was excellent in Inception, but her role in The Dark Knight Rises adds very little to the story. The Talia al Ghul reveal comes completely out of left field and falls flat. She is nothing like the comic version of the character, and the twist ends up undermining Bane’s (Tom Hardy) entire arc. Her character was probably just shoehorned into the movie for the implied sex scene with Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale), so Warner Bros. could lead to a possible Damian Wayne story down the line.

But bad writing is only part of the problem. The real reason Cotillard makes this list is her death scene. She suddenly does this stiff head roll and snaps her eyes shut, and it looks like a kid pretending to fall asleep when their parents walk into the room. It is one of the funniest death scenes in movie history, and it is completely unintentional. Cotillard later admitted she did not nail the scene and blamed stress and awkward positioning. Still, this feels like a Christopher Nolan oversight. Actors trust directors to choose the right take, and this should never have made the final cut.

5 Gal Gadot in ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ (2020)

Gal Gadot was already being mocked for her delivery of “Kal-El, no” in Justice League. And things somehow got even worse in Wonder Woman 1984. The script does not play to her strengths the way the first movie did, and her stiff acting is far more noticeable this time around.

There is a specific scene where she jumps onto Maxwell Lord’s (Pedro Pascal) car and demands the Dreamstone. She says, “Max Lord, you’re putting yourself and everyone else in grave danger. I need you to give me the stone. What happened to it?” But she delivers it in her signature monotone, and it quickly became this movie’s version of “Kal-El, no.” Pascal just sits there, completely silent, and looks genuinely flabbergasted. It honestly feels like he stopped acting altogether and forgot his lines, as if that blank stare was his genuine reaction to how bad her delivery was.

4 Jesse Eisenberg in ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ (2016)

Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor is one of the most infamous miscastings in superhero movie history. Fans and critics alike called his performance twitchy and cartoonishly eccentric. This version of Lex feels nothing like the cold and calculating mastermind from the comics. Instead of being intimidating, he comes off as annoying and exhausting to watch.

Eisenberg later explained that he pulled from his own anxieties and OCD, and tried to shape Lex into a more modern “tech-bro” type villain. On paper, that idea is not terrible, but it clashes horribly with the movie’s ultra-serious tone. It also feels completely disconnected from what people actually love about Lex Luthor as a character. The backlash was brutal, and Eisenberg later admitted that the role actually hurt his career in a real way.

3 Dakota Johnson in ‘Madame Web’ (2024)

A lot went wrong with Madame Web, and Dakota Johnson’s performance is a big reason why. She looks visibly uninterested throughout the entire movie, almost like this role is beneath her. Her interviews afterward made it pretty clear there were serious behind-the-scenes issues. Talking about Madame Web, she said, “You sign on to something, and it’s one thing, and then as you’re making it, it becomes a completely different thing... Of course, it’s not nice to be a part of something that’s ripped to shreds.” It feels like she was stuck making a movie she never originally agreed to, and that frustration shows on screen.

This was also her first CGI-heavy movie, and she hated it. Johnson described acting on blue screens with fake explosions as “absolutely psychotic.” She has since admitted that she will never do anything like it ever again.

2 Jared Leto in ‘Suicide Squad’ (2016)

When the first images of Jared Leto’s Joker dropped, covered in tattoos and flashing a mouth full of gold grills, fans immediately braced for disaster. The thug-like persona and the “Damaged” forehead tattoo made him look like an angsty teenager going through a phase, not a criminal mastermind. Most of his scenes were thankfully cut from the movie, but what remains is still painful.

Off-screen, things somehow got even worse. Leto reportedly stayed in character for the entire shoot and sent disturbing gifts to his castmates, including a live rat, bullets, used condoms, anal beads, and even a dead hog. With this one role, Leto went from being a respected Oscar-winning actor to one of the most mocked names in Hollywood, and nearly every role he has taken since the Joker has been met with skepticism and ridicule.

1 Halle Berry in ‘Catwoman’ (2004)

Halle Berry’s Catwoman is still the gold standard for comic book movie embarrassment. Her performance is packed with exaggerated, cat-like behavior meant to sell the character, like rubbing her face in catnip, hissing at people, and eating tuna straight from a can. None of it works, though, and it is cringeworthy from start to finish.

There is also the infamous basketball scene, which features a bizarrely sexualized version of Catwoman playing basketball in front of schoolchildren, for some reason, while wearing baggy sleeves that make actually playing basketball impossible. Nothing about it makes sense. To her credit, Berry did at least own it. She showed up at the Razzie Awards to accept Worst Actress and thanked Warner Bros. for putting her in a “godawful movie.” She joked, “It was just what my career needed. I was at the top, and then Catwoman just plummeted cme to the bottom.”