Ranking DC Films

We all know that in the past the live action stories of the DC universe have been less than good. I have hope that James Gunn’s new universe will change that. He seems to have a good plan and knows how to execute it. All that said, let's talk about the live action movies that exist outside of his universe. For the purposes of this list I understand that he has claimed Blue Beetle under his cannon and therefore I will not be including it. Also we are going to omit Nolan’s Batman movies because those are really an entity of their own. So post Batman, pre-Gunn we are ranking live action DCU movies.

The Flash is obviously in dead last. Ezra Miller should have been recast and the entire movie was a waste of time. DC and Warner Brothers even agree as they pulled the film early from theaters due to extremely poor ticket sales.

Better by the flip of a coin we’ve got Justice League. The Whedon Version, the Snydercut, it truly does not matter. They both go at the very bottom of the list. Now I know a lot of this list is going to set off the Snyderheads and I couldn’t possibly care less. It was long, poorly structured and used the worst possible version of the team as a jumping off point.

Still only a hair better we have Batman vs Superman. Really these bottom 3 could have been tied. I can not imagine a situation in which I would ever willingly watch these movies again. Ever. For any reason. This film really demonstrates that Zach Snyder is not only a bad writer but he fundamentally did not understand the characters that he was writing for. His version of Batman is one of the most atrocious things I’ve ever seen on screen and the forced, terrible Martha scene is laughable.

Better by an actual noticeable margin there is Shazam: Fury of the Gods. Let’s be clear this movie still wasn’t good. It really disrupted its own cannon, it was insufferable to get through. I really almost didn’t finish it. But Zachary Levi is a better Billy Batson then any of the casting of the previous films we’ve talked about and that’s really the only reason it can be considered better.

Only slightly better than that is Suicide Squad, we are now to the middle of the pack where multiple movies can be considered tied again. This movie was a horrible, sexist depiction of Harley Quinn, it had terrible color grading and it wanted so desperately to be both campy and serious which I think I have established is not something that is possible.

Then we have Aquaman and Aquaman 2. These two are most certainly tied as plot wise they simply rip off other movies. The first one is just Black Panther underwater, with worse CGI and more explosions. The second one is the world's worst adaptation of Lord of the Rings. I love Jason Momoa with all my heart, he is a delightful human being but as an actor he is not great. Beyond grunts and gruff he really doesn’t have much range.

Now we have movies that are actually watchable, and rewatchable starting with Wonder Woman 1984. Now I know that this movie got a lot of criticism when it first came out but for every butthurt idiot that came to the internet with an invalid complaint, I watched the movie just to give it more views. Was it the best writing in the world? No, of course not. But it was visually beautiful, Gadot continued to be amazing and the story itself was not terrible, it was simply the execution and the dialogue that was a little rough.

Probably the most comic booky of all of the comic book films on this list we have Suicide Squad (Gunn). The second attempt at this movie was eons better then the first. Harley feels like herself, the movie was camp and funny and it was everything that it was supposed to be.

Now we are into the top 2 films of the DCEU and these are undeniably the best films. And they are the best by a big, wide, gaping margin. In second place I am putting Wonder Woman. This movie was revolutionary, and it took far too long to get it. It was also the most comic book accurate live action film DC has ever produced and I cry everytime I watch it. Nothing will ever have the cultural impact that Wonder Woman had.

That leaves the best for last, Birds of Prey. Again this film got a lot of criticism from people who have no idea what they are talking about. Birds of Prey is the best live action DC movie by so far it's not even funny. This film embodies everything that Harley Quinn is supposed to be, the film was impeccably cast, well written, funny and you can’t say you don’t like this movie if you like Deadpool. The movie is flawless and I will be taking no criticisms of it.

Overall the DC universe is not even hit or miss, it's just bad. The only people who managed to produce good, watchable films in this franchise were the women involved as they seemed to be the only ones to do any research and bother understanding the characters that they were writing. I know that a lot of DCs downfall has to do with Zach Snyder and now that he’s gone and can no longer ruin the franchise and its characters, hopefully we will get better films. At least we know that James Gunn knows his source material.