Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Superhero movies

At Attentiondeficitdisorderly, Sean Collins summed up his thoughts on various superhero movies in a single paragraph. I thought that was pretty cool. So I'm stealing from him a little bit. Though I don't think I'll be as succinct.

Like Sean, I loved Burton's Batman. I saw it 8 times in the theater. I think Batman Returns gets a bad rap and both Batman Forever and Batman and Robin are crap.

I think Sean's complaints about Batman Begins are valid, but I still think overall it was a great flick. The Dark Knight was definitely the better of the two, and to date the best superhero film ever made. Ledger's portrayal of the Joker was wonderful. I would agree with a lot of naysayers who claim Ledger would never have won the Oscar if he hadn't died, however I still think he would have deserved it. He wouldn't have won it because it was a superhero movie. His death made that less of an issue.

I wrote at length about my opinion on Incredible Hulk and Ang Lee's Hulk at TWC, but briefly, I think they were both good for different reasons. I think Hulk gets a bad rap. It was a failure, but it was a failure because Lee had grander goals than most directors making superhero flicks.

Blade is a great, fun movie with really fantastic fight scenes that didn't take itself too seriously. I thought a lot of the first film's sense of humor was lost in Blade 2, and never bothered with Blade 3.

Fantastic Four didn't feel anything like the FF I know. It felt like just another superhero flick. I never saw the second movie.

Of the Superman films, my favorite is still Superman II. I liked Superman Returns and didn't seem to have a lot of the problems other people had with it. I really appreciated how Singer continued the storyline of the older films. I think the nostalgia factor went a long way for me.

I liked X-Men and X-Men 2, but if I think about either too much, the plots fall apart. I actually liked X-Men 3 the first time I saw it. It felt more like the comics in some ways. For example, Wolverine wasn't always the central character and you got a stronger sense of the complexity of the relationship between Xavier and Magneto. But on further viewing, it left a bad taste in my mouth. I haven't seen the origins Wolverine thing and probably never will unless someone pops it in the DVD player while I'm not looking.

I liked Hancock. Didn't love it, but I liked it.

I didn't like Daredevil, but didn't passionately hate it either. I simply didn't expect much from it and my expectations were met. I've never seen Ghost Rider, but I've never managed to enjoy the comic, so I don't know why I would bother. I never have, and probably never will, bother with any of the Punisher flicks. I never saw Elektra. I felt very meh about Hellboy and never saw the sequel. I dug Mystery Men, and particularly enjoyed Geoffrey Rush and Greg Kinnear. Incredibles is a good, fun flick and I'm surprised they've never made a sequel. I think I liked Blankman, but I haven't seen it in years. I loved Unbreakable and never really understood why so many people hated it. A lot complain that they guessed the "surprise ending," but it wasn't a whodunnit, so who cares? I guessed who the killer was in Mystic River in the first 10 minutes and I still liked the rest of the movie.

I thought Watchmen was frustratingly stupid and that the director had no clue what his source material was beyond "superheroes who swear and are all violent and shit."

Spider-Man was good, Spider-Man 2 was better, Spider-Man 3 was ridiculous.

Iron Man was one of the best and I find it wonderfully ironic that one of the most critically and financially successful film properties from the comic book movie craze is a character who, until Civil War came around, most people had stopped caring about ages ago. Haven't seen Iron Man 2 yet. I'm hoping to wait a few weeks and miss the crowds.

Did I forget anything?

3 comments:

Rob said...

Sean Collins can suck it. Spider-Man 1 and 2 are both awesome, Spider-Man 3 makes me retch when I think about it (I was a big Venom fan as a kid, and he ruined Venom in every way imaginable), and The Incredibles is great fun. X-Men 1 was fine, X2 was an improvement, and X3 was fun once but I don't think I'll ever watch it again. At least he knows that Unbreakable was good stuff... Oh, and you forgot Kick-Ass, which I thought was pretty darn cool but haven't seen the source material.

Mick Martin said...

Right, Kick-Ass. Yeah, haven't read the comic and I haven't seen the movie.

Crispinus said...

I agree with you re. Superman Returns and Batman Returns.