RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books comic book movies -- the good, the bad

batman and robin, spider-man, daredevil, x-men, new superman films, steel, tank girl, etc, etc...

doing your best to not judge the movie in terms of traditional movie judgements (storyline, acting, special effects, etc)... what do you think of these movies, comic-wise? i.e; are they beneficial to comics? or comic fans?

do they make comics cool, or at least more socially acceptible? are they just hollywood ploys for quick cash, jumping on the "comic geeks are movie geeks" bandwagon?

are they telling horrible stories? are they doing an injustice to the characters they represent?

The bad....I don't know.Superman IV really evoked the cheesiness to a point where reading Superman might not have been cool but then Byrne's revamp & the media coverage for that kinda overshadowed(thank Gob).

it was a cool movie, and made a cool buzz, all like you said, but... that also showed other writers and producers that "hey, fans like super heroes -- lets quickly discuss every other hero!"

i mean... is there really a demand for a ghost rider movie? (there's not even a demand for the book!) and yet, nick cage is semi-frequenly "in talks" with various producers about the idea.

will ben affleck do matt murdock justice?? did we really need arnold as mr. freeze?

I suggest picking up a copy of Danny elfman's "Music for a darkened Theater" which not only has the music to Batman but beetlejuice,Pee wee's Big adventure and lots of other stuff...

I have a soft spot for cheesy and campy superheroes movies...Supegirl,Howard the duck,Josie and the Pussy Cats and even batman and robin (Batman 4) have thier moments (Uma was awesome as Poison Ivy and yum...Bane...).

X-Men blew horse chunks.

Unbreakable was awesome...completely unexpected ...as was the movie "Orgazmo"...I'm trying to find a copy of the "Specials" (sp? maybe "Specialists")...you know...the low budget movie With Rob lowe and mellisa Joan Heart about a group of misfit superheroes...but none of these relied on actual comic book characters...

Will Eisner's spirit made it on the small screen as a tv movie about a decade ago. Very fun movie...totally captured the spirits spirit.

The first two Superman Movies.

Blade Rocked...

But the flash tv show was still the best.

I liked X-Men... Loved the Flash TV Show...

I thought Blade sucked, though...

All comic movies(from long-running mainstream comic lines) have to be completely rewritten, it just doesn't work if it isn't.

I actually liked From Hell, Ian Holm gave a stellar performance, cinematography was excellent.

Unbreakable is about as good as it gets, had everything I wanted in a comic movie, plus a great ending.

First two Batman movies were just fine by my standards, as were first two Superman movies.

Blade had some good elements, great fight scenes, but the story lacked. However, it's clearly going to be a big franchise, what with the 2nd movie already on the way. Should be fun.

Everything else has pretty much stank, can't think of too many other decent films. Spawn, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Punisher, last few Batman movies, last few Superman movies, all were terrible.

The Rocketeer was actually an excellent adaptation of the comic, but I think it got overlooked because it was a Disney movie. Jennifer Connelly was at her most beautiful, plus it had all these great serial/pulp elements: Hollywood intrigue, Nazi spies, a dashing pilot hero with a jet pack.

Tank Girl was alot of fun....never got into the character until after I saw the film...so can't judge the accuracy of the adaptation.

I enjoyed the X-men a pretty decent take on the team.

Howard the Duck was a decent camp effort, while Batman 3 & 4 just didnt work for me....if you REALLY want to hear my opinion on these again lemme know....

I have the faintest memory of Supergirl, but not enough to give any type of assessment.

I saw Punisher, it wasnt as bad as I thought it would be....despite having one of those Arnold clones in the lead role.

Blade was fair but could have been better...

As far as tv goes...as I said elsewhere I would love to see a serious adaptaion of Batman and/or Bruce Wayne on tv.
Flash was probably the best
Lois & Clark went BEYOND camp after their marriage.
Never watched Superboy and have little interest in Smallville until Bruce Wayne arrives.
The recent animated efforts by DC have been wonderful.
The Marvel animation I could never get into because it seems like its a constant continuation and I rarely get to watch consisitentt episodes..and couldnt get the effort to tape them.
The Hulk with Bill Bixby is by far was the BEST tv adaptation!

Wonder Woman tv series was good fun!

I liked Howard the Duck, as well...

I've liked all the DC toons... Marvel ones were ok...

I'm very curious about this Spirit movie, though...

The Shadow sucked....as did Dick Tracy.

Just saw "Ghost World"...outstanding movie. I used to love the old 40's and 50's Blondie and Lil Abner movies. "Popeye" with Robin Williams may be considered a critical flop...secretly it rocked.

Not that familiar with it but theres an asian action flick called "The Three Superwomen" who ride around on flying motorcycles and fight a demon who likes to decapitate people by putting thier heads in a cage and then yanking it off.

BarbWire was mostly T&A, but was before whashername became the Silicon Cyborg.

Ghost World....cant recall that one...John Carpenter?

Popeye I havent seen in years.

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Originally posted by Disco Steve:
I liked Howard the Duck, as well...

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There was a Howard the Duck movie????

The worst comic related movie I've seen is the JLA Live Action Series Pilot Episode...
Everything about it sucked, except the effects for Guy's ring...

coz I'm lazy heres the Howard synopsis

[ 02-23-2002: Message edited by: THE Franta ]

The Hulk was a great tv series but the movies that it spawned (with Daredevil and Thor) were disappointing.All Marvel tv properties kind of suck:Captain America,Spiderman was mediocre...the Generatiox X movie,Dr. Strange...

I had the chance to see the pilot to a proposed "Power Pack" tv series that wasn't so bad. It was meant to air on Saturday mornings...the tape included a pilot segment for a Wonder woman tv series that if it was picked up...it would have aired like in l966...in it Wonder Woman is a klutzy old maid who lives with her spinster mother and dreams of the day she'll meet the right guy. The tape also included a proposed batgirl series starring Yvonne Craig.

Ghost World is based on the Dan Clowes indie strip about the lives of two girls post high school.

Enid rocks. You'll like her.

The Hulk movies post the series were bad....

What about the Captain America TV movies? Teh 2nd one had Cap's son and involved some kind of gas? virus? that turned people into children!

The Shadow has one of my favorite lines:

"I had a dream I was lying naked on a beach in the south seas."
"I had a dream I tore my face off."

The one comic movie we are all forgetting is Swamp Thing! Then there's Return of Swamp Thing! And the TV series! And the crappy animated series!

[ 02-24-2002: Message edited by: Disco Steve ]

I have the script Sam Hamm (the duy that wrote the first The Bat-Man movie) Watchmen script... It's awfull... he ruined the ending, the one thing he shouldn't have touched.

I can post is here if anyone wants...

One of 3 or 4 Disney movies that weren't complete shit.

Tank Girl had some fun elements but sucked for the most part, Mystery Men was funny but forgetable, and Supergirl wasn't much.

The Shadow was good too, though like Phantom it wasn't really a comic book movie.

I vaguely remember the Swamp Thing movie(s). I think the first one was ok.

Dick Tracy was good.

Made for TV movies were ok as far as I can remember. Except Gen X, that sucked. Hulk was ok, Spiderman was decent, and I liked the Wonder Woman ones. Was their a Flash movie?

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Originally posted by glamorilla:
The first Batman movie was brilliant. It's only comics-to-screen flaw was making a young Jack "Joker" Napier the Waynes murderer. Outside of that it did a perfect job of capturing the magic of Batman.

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eh, i didnt mind that part so much.

the part i hated was all the bat-murder. its sorta a huge staple of the character to not have him kill, and burtons batman killed, maimed, etc... no good.

other than that, tho... i did really love the first movie. one of my all-time favs.

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I suggest picking up a copy of Danny elfman's "Music for a darkened Theater" which not only has the music to Batman but beetlejuice,Pee wee's Big adventure and lots of other stuff...

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got it and love it (actually, i have version 1 and 2... and love'em both!)

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Unbreakable was awesome...completely unexpected

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good call.

i always forget this when discussing "comic book" movies, as its not really based on a comic book of any sort, like traditional comic book movies are. and... actually, even tho im a huge comic fan, even i think that adding it to the "comic book movie" genre sorta cheapens the film -- like its too good to get that label, or something (way to go, dcmb moderator!)

i loved the first superman movie, too. it will always have a special place in my heart or soul or whatever, as i remember watching it as a kid in jammies, gettin all happy at the superman-ish parts.

the second superman movie still, to this day, bothers me, when supes gives up his powers and gets beat up. i cant even look at the screen when it happens, i get so mad.

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Originally posted by THE Franta:
I enjoyed the X-men a pretty decent take on the team.

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i liked x-men, too. i thought it was really good!

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Originally posted by Disco Steve:
I thought The Shadow was ok... as well as Dick Tracy

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while i thought the shadow was lame... i REALLY enjoyed dick tracy! i thought it was a wonderfully done production, bringing the comic to life, in a much more "literal" translation than any movie before or since, i think! the big sets, the 4-colored everything... beautifully done.

unfortunately, i dont think it did ANY thing for the comics (in the 10+ years since its been released, i havent seen a single dick tracy comic).

batman 3 and 4 (even 2), and the later supermen (especially 4)... you can tell that there's simply so much commercialistic value applied. i fear the same will happen with the later x-men and matrix movies.

sometimes, i think the best way to treat a series is to NOT make it a series, and leave it well enough alone.

batman 4, i think, was a great example of something released, where nearly EVERYone could see it was done for commercial exploitation. toys were released of the movie weeks before the movie came out... thats sad.

when i was working daily in the DC offices a few years back, and there were major (even more than now) rumors of another superman film... it was so depressing to hear the discussion.

bottom line, the entire film was being driven by sponsorship. (i forget the company... coke? mcdonalds?). the company wanted to have polar bear tie-ins (which is why im thining coke) because that is something they were going to use for their products. so, DC wrote a scirpt where supes lost his powers, somehow got to the arctic, and was forced to fight a polar bear. ... all in order to push the product that tied into the polar bear (polar bear shoes, blankets, hats, dolls, etc).

...sad.

I agree that all the good comic movie franchises become way to comercialized after the initial movie, fortunately for one's like Dick Tracy and The Shadow the original was allowed to be experimented with, giving it a much more pulp hero feel, which if done correctly is really fun to watch. This was true with Batman too in the beginning, a fantastic film, although after looking back I'm suprised Tim Burton didn't tweak the story more than he did, he's notorious for doing stuff as mentioned above. I agree that the only major flaw that I rolled my eyes at was having a young Joker as Batman's killer, a little to Hollywood cliche.

I can recall Batman actually killing only ONE person the fat clown in Batman Returns where he sticks a bomb down his drawers!
Which doesnt make sense later as he wouldn't allow Catwoman to kill Shreck.

I rented Ghost World last night. Pretty average. I dont see how it worked as a graphic novel either.

well, there's the clown you mentioned -- that guy, he flat out murdered.

but there were several other non-batman lethal (or lethal-like) attacks, tho. (granted, "no body, no death," but...) such as the "batmobile fire exhaust blast to the face" in batman returns, or dropping the thug down the bell tower in batman. how about using the batmobile bombs to blow up a factory filled with baddies?

plus, there's the fact that just about every supervillain dies in the movies.

one of batman's major aspects is NO dying. no killing. doesnt matter if you tried to kill him for 90 minutes, he'd still save you. the comic book batman would have swung via rope to save the joker (etc).

this is more or less the reason for this post... the batman (namely just the 89 movie version) was pretty different from all comic book adaptations.

he was much more grim, wore an all black suit, didnt really work with police (all be it in a "i dont know you yet" fashion).

he was also much more violent at times (the above maimings / killings -- slapping machine guns on the batmobile, full out shooting at the joker in the batwing, with missles no less!)

buuuut... is that a bad thing? i mean, they made no claims that it was the comic book version of batman. it was a great, stand-alone movie, that told a story and got people interested in the character.

there was obviously a lot of effort put into the casting, acting, scenes, musical score, etc. and, there wasnt the emphesis on tie-in sales back then, like there are now.

good far outweighs the bad, in this case.

I think it's done to make a statement.It's the one realistic element in an otherwise completely unrealistic enviroment. If Batman,Joker,Penguin and all the rest were actually alive they'd have a very short shelf life.

That's about it. The rest that have been mentioned here either I didn't see, didn't like or left so little an impression that I can't comment.

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Originally posted by glamorilla:
Good point about the villains dying in the movies...only Arnold made it out alive.

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Actually, didn't the Riddler, Catwoman, and Poison Ivy make it too?

I actually thought that was pretty good. I didn't read the book so I can't speak for "accuracy", but it certainly wasn't worse than Punisher, Captain America, Spawn or Fantastic Four.

And Bastard, you're not the first person to accuse Matrix of ripping off the Invisibles, but could you explain the similarities to me? I've only read two issues of Invisibles and they didn't make a DAMN BIT of sense to me. In general I think Morrison is all hype, and I'm in no hurry to track down the rest just to see what might have inspired Matrix. But I would be very curious to know.

Producer John Peters came up with idiotic ideas before Burton.

Peters wanted Supes to be played by Sean Penn... and wanted Supes to have the "heart and soul of a killer" and touch on his dark side... or somesuch nonsense.

He also told Kevin Smith to have Brainiac fight Polar Bears... throw in a giant spider in the 3rd act (bastard got his way in Wild Wild West)... And have a gay robot as Brainiac's sidekick (the robot was JLA character L-Ron!)... He also didn't want Superman to wear a cape or fly.

Kev had this great character building scene taking place between Lois and Supes on Mt. Rushmore... WB execs didn't want it in, cause they just wanted to make the movie to make a crapload of money on merchandise...

Burton then came along. He hates comic books. He seems to be proud of it, too... He introduced seeing Superman's inner organs in his costume, I think.

He threw out Smith's script soon after that. I forget what other bullshit he proposes...

Which is why I'm worried for the upcoming Superman flick, if it does get made.

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Originally posted by Big Bad Voodoo Lou:

And Bastard, you're not the first person to accuse Matrix of ripping off the Invisibles, but could you explain the similarities to me? I've only read two issues of Invisibles and they didn't make a DAMN BIT of sense to me. In general I think Morrison is all hype, and I'm in no hurry to track down the rest just to see what might have inspired Matrix. But I would be very curious to know.

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Lou, The Invisibles was about a subversive group of individuals that tried to stop another group from taking over the world...or else release the true world from their control. This group used martial arts, time/space travel and other tools to help them in thier quest. It's kind of hard to explain. I could point out the obvious similarities but, the best I can tell you is to read volume 2 of The Invisibles and THEN, watch The Matrix. You'll see what I am talking about. Most of Vol 2 is collected on TPBs and I've seen them in libraries...so it won't be that expensive for you to check it out. If you want a more concise answer, I suggest you go to the Invisible boards at the DCMBs and pose the question. I'm sure that more than a few of them will be able to fill you in on Morrison's thinking.

In fact, here's a link to that board where I posed that very question. You may wanna transfer it to the general discussion board since I don't know how many people frequent the Invisibles board.

[ 02-28-2002: Message edited by: THE Bastard ]

But while The Matrix has set itself up so far as an "us vs. them" kinda battle, the beauty of The Invisibles is it went beyond the good vs. evil story. Like Marvel Boy after it, it's about looking beyond the fight, and being ready for a new age in life.

where'n the sam hell have YOU been!? YOU'RE the invisibles!

re: the grant morrison lawsuit scenario -- WB is a powerful, powerful, powerful super conglomorate. internal fighting would have been very bad for them (wb movie vs wb comic book), public relations wise.

re: from hell. never seen the movie. never read the book before the movie. but, i've heard and read a lot of commentary on how it was both an incredible movie AND an incredible take-off from the book.

lemme pose this question:

should comic book movies be based on comic books? should they either be forced to correspond with the books, or forced to take things in new directions? (i.e; like what the x-men movie did, reshaping continuity and ages and focuses -- taking basics from the books, but then doin what they want). its sorta like an "ultimate marvel" line, just on film and not on paper.

while i think thats a better way to go -- it really doesnt help the comic BOOK industry, at all (again, i.e; the x-men movie, which did zero for sales across the board in comic book land -- namely because even if fans of the movie wanted to follow up in a book, they couldnt, cuz no book resembled their movie).

spider-man, at least it is hoped, will help out the industry in a much bigger way, specifically (of course) spidey titles, as marvel is making a concerted effort to capitalize of its success -- having (even forcing) their comics to reflect scenes, characters (etc) from the movies.

wb/dc has done that with the 89 batman movie, but more specifically with the cartoons -- using the audience of 3+ million (per show) to make changes to their audience of 300,000 (per book... a GOOD book). adding characters like lock-up, harley quinn, redoing freeze's story (etc).