Good Scenes In Crappy Marvel Movies

Now that about a million movies based on Marvel Comics have been released, we've grown accustomed to some being super awesome and some being maybe the sorts of movies we pretend never existed in the first place. But even in those crappier Marvel movies, there are still some scenes that can make the rest worthwhile.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine was the first of what was planned to be several standalone Marvel films following Logan and then Magneto. It also introduced us to a version of Gambit best not spoken about any further. And, more notable than anything, it introduced us to Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool. Sort of.

If you ignore what happens with Deadpool at the end of the movie, and you should, you can focus entirely on Reynolds' performance as Wade Wilson before he gets all sewn up and weird. We're talking about the scene in which the Weapon X team takes an elevator to a bad guy's office to lay down some punishment and Wilson leads the way with swords a-blazing. He takes out a room full of gunmen with nothing but a pair of swords and even slices a bullet in half at one point. It's a hell of an over the top action scene and a lot of fun to watch, and shows just why Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool was a great idea, even if the first time out failed miserably.

The first Ghost Rider movie left a lot of people scratching their heads and wondering what was happening to Nicolas Cage's career. Ghost Rider 2, while even worse from a critical standpoint, also features Cage doing what he does best, and that's going way, way over the top crazy when a scene calls for it. But even the lunacy Cage brings to the character this time around doesn't quite brighten up this film as much as one scene does.

A Bagger 288 is a 13,500 ton strip mining machine and is one of the largest machines man has ever created. In Ghost Rider 2, Ghost Rider takes control of one and, just as his bike takes on hellish characteristics when he rides it, so too did the Bagger 288. The massive excavator was transformed into what basically worked as the most hellish chainsaw anyone has ever seen, belching forth fire and brimstone and taking out a field of enemies. It's such grand scale mayhem you can't help but enjoy it, even if the rest of the movie is kind of ridiculous.

Iron Man was a huge hit for Marvel, and there was no doubt a sequel would be on the way. When it showed up, it was a little more muddled than audiences and critics were hoping for, with a confusing villain in Mickey Rourke's Whiplash. The effects are great, of course, and there's some okay action, but it feels a little rushed...except for one standout scene. When Tony Stark decides to show off at the Monaco Grand Prix, he gets attacked by Ivan "Whiplash" Vanko and his car is totaled. Fortunately, the introduction of the Mark V evens the playing field and shows off some kick ass effects as the entire suit unfolds from an emergency suitcase. A battered and bruised Stark simply opens the case and jams his fists into the familiar Iron Man gauntlets, then raises the rest of the suit to his chest as it covers his entire body in seconds. It's a hell of a quick change and a super cool effect we hadn't seen before.

The Punisher has had three bites at the big screen apple already and has a fourth in Netflix's Daredevil season two. The original Punisher with Dolph Lundgren is a relic of another time and the more modern reboot with Thomas Jane was an overall letdown with a sleepy Punisher who didn't seem to want to punish anyone. Then along came Punisher: War Zone. War Zone decided to drop the idea that Frank castle has a lot of humanity or sympathetic characteristics and instead presents just a hardcore maniac with an endless supply of guns. And as bad as that sounds, that's who the Punisher is supposed to be. He's an anti-hero, who uses the most extreme means necessary to bring criminals to justice. Or put them in the ground.

War Zone was a critical bomb, but man did they amp the action to 11. The opening of the movie shows what kind of film we're dealing with: the Punisher crashes a dinner party with a decapitation, numerous stabbings, a few gun shots, and then suspends himself from a chandelier so he can spin and shoot in a full circle as henchmen run in and die in a hail of bullets.

Ben Affleck's Daredevil had a lot of points against it, not the least of which was an overly silly costume and a backstory that was uninteresting and overdrawn. Even when the action begins, we're forced to wonder how come Daredevil can do acrobatics just because he's blind. Really, the only redeeming feature of the whole movie was the novel casting of Michael Clarke Duncan as the Kingpin of crime. While Affleck's performance is a bit wooden, Duncan chews up the scenery like a starving man and makes the role his. The big fight between the Kingpin and Daredevil is arguably the best scene in the film, as Michael Clarke Duncan strips down to an undershirt and pants with suspenders. His shoulders, biceps and pecs are all bigger than Ben Affleck's head as the two throw down, making the fight look insanely one-sided. Of course Daredevil has to win, but it was a great performance from Duncan.

Brett Ratner's attempt at an X-Men movie did not go over well with most audiences, and with good reason. The unceremonious deaths of Cyclops and Professor X, the introduction of underused characters like Multiple Man and Juggernaut, and a messy third act that feels rushed and underwritten all make it the worst of the original X-Men trilogy. All that said, Ratner did pull put a serious emotional punch with the final confrontation between Jean Grey and Wolverine.

When all the other mutants are powered down, dead, or in mortal danger, the Phoenix is about to unleash the full scope of her power and destroy everyone. Only Wolverine, whose healing factor continually replaces his flesh as it's burnt away from his skeleton, is able to approach her. And in a tragic and emotion-filled scene, Wolverine is forced to take the life of the woman he loves, not just to protect everyone else, but to save her from falling victim to her own darkness. It's a powerful moment that caps the story and serves to create great inner turmoil for the Wolverine character in all subsequent films.