Comic book movies

**SilentDan** · June 8th, 2011, 08:29 AM

Which ones do you think they did right? Wrong? What annoys you?

Personally...

Right: Xmen First Class, Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Ironman (both), Spiderman 2 (even if they really exaggerated the whole *particular* screaming thing) those really did it for me. And Watchmen. Though that's Graphic Novel. In fact, Graphic Novels, period. Kick Ass. SCOTT FREAKING PILGRIM!!! (okay, not superhero stuff but appeals to the same crowd, Michael Cera aside). But especially Watchmen.

Wrong: Batman Forever, outdone ONLY by Batman and Robin (stupid nipple obsession). Spiderman 3 really annoyed me. Xmen 3 wasn't great either. Wolverine was at least so bad it was good. Fantastic Four? More like Ordinary Four.

Also, when superheroes in general just have stock-standard Superman powers. Laser eyes, flight, speed, strength, and it's all played straight. Sky High had a great angle, as did The Incredibles and Megamind (oh god, was Megamind good). Venture Brothers has a funny take on the Fantastic Four: stretchy guy is the only one with useful powers, everyone else has realistic versions of the FF powers - the girl, her skin goes invisible... and that's it. The fire guy, he only lights up in oxygen, and it hurts him, so he has to be comatose 24/7. And Ned, the Thing analogue, has itchiness and a mental impairment. Good times.

And Hancock. That made me lol. Will Smith as a drunk, angry Superman. Brilliant.

Anyone else heard of No Ordinary Family? I haven't seen it, but it looks like a cheap, lazy, pandering rip-off with utterly pedestrian setup with powers taken straight from Superman and hoping to cash in on Heroes' success without any creativity or anything. From what I've seen of the ads, anyway. Point is, it doesn't *look* particularly interesting, not the way Heroes was. He has super strength. She has flight or super speed or something. The kids have... I don't know, but I have the power of the Channel Changer, so beat that

**PeteMC** · June 8th, 2011, 08:38 AM

Originally Posted by SilentDan

Anyone else heard of No Ordinary Family?

Watched the first two eps and gave it up. Meh.

As for "done wrong" - that abomination of a Hellblazer movie with Keanu Reaves in it was the wrongest sort of wrong in all of wrongdom!

I thought the first Batman reboot was pretty good (Batman Begins? Can't remember).

**SilentDan** · June 8th, 2011, 08:50 PM

Aww, but Keanu Reeves plays a very convincing robot! It's like he's *actually* robotic!

**Chekhov** · June 9th, 2011, 12:26 AM

"Graphic novel" and "comic book" mean the same thing to me, except one is intended for adults so there's supposedly less stigma attached to liking it. Anyway, I enjoyed Kick-Ass a lot as a hilariously brutal deconstruction of the genre, and Scott Pilgrim for its 90s nostalgia. (Not a superhero? He has implausible fencing powers, travels through subspace and turns his enemies into coins - how are those not superpowers?)

The first Spider-Man movie was pretty good. The others... not really. I didn't like the X-Men movies much either. They didn't feel like the franchise to me.

**SilentDan** · June 9th, 2011, 12:34 AM

Well he's hardly hero type, nor are his powers 'traditional'. I think 'video game hero'. But the distinction is probably moot.

**Loerwyn** · June 9th, 2011, 02:11 AM

I quite liked Sky High. I watched it on BBC iPlayer one day and enjoyed it much more than I'd thought I would.

I'd like to say they did the Hellboy movies right, but they didn't. They weren't bad movies, but they moved from the source material too much. It was still Hellboy, just not the same kind of Hellboy. The two animated films were a little better, however. There was also the Judge Dredd movie that was both bad and good. Sly Stallone was perfect as Dredd, but it was hardly a great film.

I think you're kinda forgetting the more artsy graphics/comics, too. I watched the film of Persepolis and quite enjoyed it. Struggling to think of any others right at this moment, though.

**pocket** · June 11th, 2011, 03:21 PM

The first 2 Spiderman films nailed the character for me, sadly they then had to make spiderman 3

I enjoyed the majority of the x-men films the exception being X3. X-men First Class was to good for words and a real surprise as I was expecting a quick cash in movie to keep the licence.

Scott Pilgrim was just awesome - but then Edgar Wright stuck very close to the comic.

This sadly didn't work as well for the Watchmen which bored me to tears.

**PeteMC** · June 12th, 2011, 07:51 AM

Yeah, I didn't even make it all the way through Watchmen.

I'm still not sure about The Crow - I thought it was an excellent film, but again it didn't really stick close enough to J O'Barr's original for me. The sequel was terrible.

I'm just glad nobody seems to be trying to film Sandman...

**Loerwyn** · June 12th, 2011, 08:44 AM

Originally Posted by PeteMC

I'm just glad nobody seems to be trying to film Sandman...

I thought they were?

**PeteMC** · June 12th, 2011, 08:58 AM

Really? Oh dear...

**pocket** · June 12th, 2011, 03:21 PM

There was talk of The CW doping Sandman - but thankfully I think it went away.

Although I'd guess a TV/movie version is probably inevitable

**kged** · June 12th, 2011, 05:07 PM

A series of Sandman films done right would be better than a big bag of excellent things. Although I doubt they would be done right - how would you get that strange, dreamy tone off the page?

I'd love to see a Doom Patrol movie.

**Winter** · June 12th, 2011, 11:08 PM

The only thing good about the Wolverine flick is that they casted Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool.

Adaptations tend to annoy me, but Watchmen is perhaps one of the best I've seen. They changed a few things, some central and some less important, but it remained accurate. It doesn't bore me, no matter the length... and I tend to watch the director's cut instead of the theatrical, which adds even more running time. I much prefer it to the graphic novel, which left me rather unimpressed given the immense amount of hype surrounding it.

I am in the minority when it comes to the new Batman movies. They were OK, but I really dislike Bale in the role and the quick cuts in the actions scenes of The Dark Knight managed to do little more than tick me off. I wasn't fond of Tobey Maguire's performance in the Spider-Man films either, which took a lot away from them--in fact, I thought Topher Grace would have been a better choice, but he somehow managed to get cast as Venom.

I enjoyed the first two X-Men films, but did not like the third one at all. Of course, the third film was caused because the director of the first two decided to film Superman Returns, which was just as much of a disappointment. It felt like it was treading the same ground as the older films.

Scott Pilgrim was a lot of fun and I think it may well be the first time I've not wanted to punch Michael Cera in the face, but I still prefer the comics. It was about what you could expect from a movie combining six volumes into one movie that's less than two hours in length. Kick Ass was pretty good, too, but I think it was a bit of a let down in comparison to the comics.

As for No Ordinary Family, my fiancée was watching it on a regular basis, which meant I sat down and tuned out of boredom more than anything. It was nothing special and I think its cancellation is testament to that. It was far better than The Cape though, which mostly caused me to yell at the television because the hero is so utterly inept. And Heroes was good at the beginning and started slipping toward the end of the first season, after that it just became a muddled slog that spent most of its time nerfing Peter (and really, his power was the only interesting thing about him) and showing everyone how not to handle time travel plots or why you don't introduce a villain that can and does steal powers from everyone until no one can hope to stand against him (except Peter, but chances are the writers took his powers away again). I gave up after the first few episodes of the last season. Maybe it got better. I'm betting it didn't.

**ebusinesstutor** · June 13th, 2011, 12:16 AM

The Good:
----------
Spiderman 1 & 2

X-Men 1 & 2

Iron Man 1 & 2

Elektra - weird, I hated the DareDevil movie but liked the Elektra one

Ghost Rider - surprisingly, I liked this one. Not a real Nicholas Cage fan so I didn't think I would

Watchmen - loved the movie, but hadn't seen the comics, so I don't know how true they were to the comics. But the movie had an intriguing feel to it.

The Bad
--------
Every Superman movie - Stupid movies, make Lex Luthor into a cornball. No respect for the franchise.

Every Hulk movie

Daredevil

Going to see Thor this week, so we'll have to see.

**Chekhov** · June 13th, 2011, 12:26 AM

I saw The Dark Knight last night and loved it. I don't know why I didn't sooner.

I appreciated seeing a more serious take on the character compared to the show I grew up with.

Well he's hardly hero type, nor are his powers 'traditional'. I think 'video game hero'. But the distinction is probably moot.

He's an anti-hero of the "reluctant hero" type. Many comic book heroes don't have real powers at all.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...leOfAntiHeroes

In my opinion, Scott Pilgrim is a I, Batman (rebooted franchise) is a III or so and the Punisher is a V. But it's very subjective so there's plenty of room for disagreement.