Comic Talk #4: Comic Book Movies

To paraphrase the great underground comedian Brian Posehn, the worst thing you can do to a nerd is to get their obsession wrong. When Hollywood decides to undertake comic book projects, they typically heed this warning. But not always.

Generally speaking, there are three outcomes when a comic book movie is made. Most often, it’s a fun movie at the theater, you see it once, and you never need to or want to see it again. Somewhat less often, it’s absolutely terrible and takes everything that was good about its source material and puts it in an accessible package that has little merit, if any. And most rarely of all, the film is a genuine masterpiece: great not only as a comic book movie, but also as a movie in general.

To stir up controversy, I’m going to break down just a few of the notable comic book movies that Hollywood has produced.

Category A: Fun Once, Not Worth Buying:

“Hellboy”/“Hellboy: The Golden Army” – These movies are both a good time and capture the essence of the beloved Mignola antihero reasonably well, but the second-viewing value is pretty low.

“Spider-Man” Trilogy: The first two are on the threshold of pretty good and excellent, and the third is an abomination. Considering I wouldn’t rank the first two among my favorite comic book movies, I think it’s fair to call this a Category A trilogy.

Basically every “Superman” movie: Nothing remotely close to a masterpiece yet, but nothing terrible. Christopher Nolan’s new advisory role on the next installment gives me a lot of hope, though.

Category B: Abominations

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”: I went to see this movie for its midnight release. A refund for my ticket would have been insufficient; I deserved a refund for my two hours. Everything that was great about the original X-Men trilogy was gone, and even Hugh Jackman couldn’t save it.

“Watchmen”: Another midnight premiere that wasted my time, except this one wasted over three hours of it. I don’t need to hear the arguments about how it was pretty faithful to the book. Those are not my complaints. My complaints are much more specific, and I might detail them in a later week when I write all about Watchmen. Simply put, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons made a subtle, beautiful masterpiece, and Zack Snyder made it loud, brash, and damn near unwatchable.

“Hulk”: No, not the Ed Norton version that came out last year. That one belongs in Category A. I’m talking about Ang Lee and Eric Bana’s project from 2003 that looked like a bad CGI take on a TNT drama and sucked ten times worse. There was a time when I considered this the worst movie I had ever seen. And I was a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan.

Category C: Masterpieces

Hey, let’s do this as a top five, why not:

5. “Sin City”: Say what you will about Frank Miller and his most famous creation – I think both are terribly overrated, personally – but Robert Rodriguez really made Sin City come to life. If 100 Bullets gets a treatment half as professional, it’ll knock this off the list, but for now, props to Rodriguez for making one of the most unique-looking comics of all time look real on the screen.

4. “X2: X-Men United”: Miles ahead of the “Origins” flick because it told the Weapon X story properly, with a good script, and with an all-star cast turning in great performances across the board. Jackman eats up the spotlight in his best Wolverine performance, and when two of your lead roles are filled by people whose names begin with “Sir,” the movie is bound to be pretty good.

3. “Iron Man”: Hopefully this movie will mark a trend for Marvel Studios. Their plan for a 2012 Avengers movie as a culmination of individual movies for each Avenger is ambitious, but doable. Robert Downey, Jr. is tremendous, and the new Iron Man origin story works exceedingly well against our current Middle East political backdrop.

2. “V for Vendetta”: Alan Moore says he doesn’t watch any film adaptations of his work. In most cases, it’s because the adaptation is terrible, and he has a point. In this case, it’s probably because the Wachowski Brothers outdid him. The source material is strong, but in the post-9/11 era and with Natalie Portman’s best performance, this movie is the real deal.

1. “The Dark Knight”: Was there really any question? And do I even need to say why? This is a milestone in filmmaking, not just in comic book movies. With any luck, this movie has given production companies the impetus to start making high quality comic book adaptations more often.

The big name on the horizon right now is, of course, “Jonah Hex,” due out on June 18. Frankly, if it lives up to the hype, it could easily dethrone “The Dark Knight.” Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Megan Fox, and a soundtrack by Mastodon for one of the best comics on the shelves right now? If you’re going to pick a horse for the race, it’s probably this one.

Selected titles available this week
Amazing Spider-Man #621
Captain America #603
Deadpool #19
Hulk #20
Batman #696
Green Lantern #51
Air #18
Dante’s Inferno #3
Devil #1