What is everyone's top comic based films?

[Gin Rummy]

Aside from the first two Turtle films. I'd say my favorite comic book films would be Batman 1989, Sin City, and The Shadow as a guilty pleasure.

[TurtleTitan97]

Spider-Man
Spider-Man 2
Iron Man
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Incredible Hulk
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Avengers
Batman: Under The Red Hood
The Dark Knight Returns Parts 1&2
The Flashpoint Paradox
Superman Vs. The Elite
Batman: Mask of Phantasm
Wonder Woman
Justice League: Doom
Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero
Batman Beyond: Return of The Joker
Justice League: Crises on Two Earths
Next Avengers: Heroes Of Tomorrow
Thor
The Amazing Spider-Man
Men In Black
The Rocketeer
Batman (1989)
Batman Returns

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

I've only seen a few comic book-based movies. I liked Superman II (with Christopher Reeve), liked the Rocketeer (though the beginning was overlong), but I didn't care for V for Vendetta (which I found hokey for a number of reasons, including how V was supposed to have been able to do so much in a repressive society).

[Captain PunchYouHard]

The Batman movies.

I don't even like DC Comics. Marvel Comic movies are just that awful.

[Leo656]

I'm a huge DC mark but I'm gonna go ahead and call that opinion of the Marvel movies unfair. Some of them are lousy but a few are really good.

[Captain PunchYouHard]

Just can't agree. I've watched every single one (I think) and walked away totally unimpressed, although the original Spider-Man one was decent.

In fairness, the first Hellboy movie was atrocious, so it's not like it's purely a Marvel thing.

[ObiWanFan4life]

Originally Posted by Doom Cookie

Just can't agree. I've watched every single one (I think) and walked away totally unimpressed, although the original Spider-Man one was decent.

In fairness, the first Hellboy movie was atrocious, so it's not like it's purely a Marvel thing.

Opinion or not, that sounds a bit biased, don't you think? And for the record, how Exactly is Hellboy atrocious.

[Leo656]

C'mon, not even Captain America? I thought they did as well as they possibly could have with that one.

As for Hellboy I liked both of them, but I actually felt the second one was a bit weaker, for some reason.

[Captain PunchYouHard]

Originally Posted by ObiWanFan4life

Opinion or not, that sounds a bit biased, don't you think? And for the record, how Exactly is Hellboy atrocious.

Biased how? I love Marvel comics. If anything, I should be biased in favor of them when seeing their movies.

Oh boy. Do you want an alphabetical list, or in increasing order of horrible? /Raphael

-Bad dialogue
-Incoherent plot
-Non-compelling actors
-Not particularly good costumes
-Cheesy special effects
-Tortuously long due to all of the above

In any case, maybe Marvel will make an X-Men 2099 movie someday and that'll be really good.

[Captain PunchYouHard]

Originally Posted by Leo656

C'mon, not even Captain America? I thought they did as well as they possibly could have with that one.

I didn't love it, exactly, but it was on the less-egregious side of the scale. It was fine as a date and friend movie - I think I ended up watching it three times total, and never wanted to claw my own eyes out like I did halfway through Daredevil. I did like seeing Cap's backstory on the silver screen.

Oh, I actually enjoyed Hulk. They made a movie feel like a comic with the creative cinematography.

[CyberCubed]

I really liked Thor which surprised me, as I was never much of a fan of the character. The sequel is actually my most anticipated Marvel film.

[Type 97 Chi-ha]

I should add that I did see the 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, which people liked (and I did), but I didn't see the Batman movie from the same time, which everyone said they hated. Silly as it was, I did like the 1960's Batman TV show, which creator Bob Kane defended as having revived his Batman character.

[That Matt Guy]

Originally Posted by Doom Cookie

In any case, maybe Marvel will make an X-Men 2099 movie someday and that'll be really good.

I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Leo656]

I respect your opinions, Doom, but I'm gonna have to agree to disagree on some of it. I think the dialog could be better in some films but just fine or even really clever in some of them; I've mentioned often that Hollywood as a whole right now seems to be in a very bad pit, dialog-wise. In the 80s, movie dialog was atrocious, as everyone was very obviously reading from a script. In the 1990s it got a lot better, as tons of movies actually had people speaking to each other like people. Now we're back the other way, where nobody talks like a human being because words are just filler before the next CGI action sequence. Same thing for the actors: Some I thought were good, some mediocre, but it's a product of the times. We don't have "actors" in Hollywood right now, we have models who occasionally speak but are mostly just there for show. I blame the Fast & The Furious franchise. Pretty much for absolutely everything wrong with movies today. But I digress.

I also think some of the costumes in the Marvel movies are pretty good. I thought Captain America and Thor made the characters look less cheesy than the comics, Spider-Man looked pretty good, Iron Man could have never looked that good even 10 years ago, and for all that was wrong with the Daredevil movie in general, I at least thought he looked good in the suit; all they really changed is moving the logo over. People can argue spandex vs. pleather forever all day long if they want to, but I'm just for whatever looks better on film. Conversely, I didn't care for the X-Men's more "realistic" costume approach; they looked like they were going to a gay biker bar, frankly. I guess it was a symptom of the first film being made back when comic movies were taboo and you couldn't adhere too closely to the books or risk being a "niche" product. Also, Green Goblin looked awful. I think that was the worst costume job in all the Marvel movies, he looked like a rejected Power Rangers villain.

I'm not sure which SFX were cheesy without specific examples, but to me they've done a decent job pulling off some impressive stuff. Off the top of my head all I can think of is some of the horrible CGI in the Spidey movies where he would be climbing and hopping like a... well, a bug, but it was very obviously not really him. And Hulk, obviously. I'm glad someone else has an appreciation for that movie, and for the same reasons I do, as I'm not really in love with it yet forever defending it. But HE looked awful. I've read interviews with the SFX guys working on it where they said they knew it looked bad and kept trying to change it, but Ang Lee had a certain insistence on how things should look, and at the end of the day with CGI what goes on screen is a result of the director's instructions, not the guys actually doing the work. Which is a shame; All the best FX movies usually happen when the director just lets the crew exercise their knowledge and simply advises them on it, not undermines them.

Which plots were incomprehensible, specifically? I thought a few of the movies' plots were weak or shallow but I didn't think any of them didn't make sense. It was just really obvious that the plots were second to the action scenes.

Just my opinions, though. I admit only reading a little bit of Marvel through the years, but I've enjoyed most of their movies a lot more than I expected to, generally speaking. I will say, though, that I think the Fantastic Four movies are great examples of what you dislike, and in those cases, I agree 100%. I was hoping to like F4, but I couldn't. They were awful.

If you haven't seen it, the Daredevil Director's Cut doesn't fix all of what was wrong with that movie but it's a lot better, and is worth a look even if you absolutely hated Daredevil. The deleted scenes help tell the story a lot better and make the tone a bit darker, which was definitely cut because of the studio very late in the game because they wanted a lighter tone. It's still not great, but I'm glad I watched it. I loved Bullseye; others' mileage may vary, but he saved that movie for me. I think that exact same movie with an entirely different cast (same Bullseye, though) would have been good... minus the playground fight, that sh*t was just terrible.

[Captain PunchYouHard]

Originally Posted by That Matt Guy

I wouldn't hold my breath.

Me either.

Originally Posted by Leo656

I respect your opinions, Doom, but I'm gonna have to agree to disagree on some of it.

My itemized list was actually referring to Hellboy. I haven't cared for different Marvel movies for different reasons, but the most recurring offense is that they come off like action p*rn: They move very quickly through character development to get to the good parts. This is understandable, since these are action comics we're talking about. However, Marvel tends to choose actors who don't play their roles convincingly. In the end, I have no chance to connect to the main character and am invariably dissatisfied.

I love Marvel, though, so I'll keep giving them my money even though they keep disappointing me. There's a certain satisfaction in seeing a loud, flashy action movie on the big screen even if you do start looking at your watch halfway through. (I remember when I saw Ghost Rider and half of the six-person audience had walked out before they got to the undead town. And this is Texas.)

You are so right, BTW, about the lack of real actors. Megan Fox is a prime example of this. I'm not attracted to her, so I've actually noticed that she's a terrible actress, and was really not at all impressed when I heard about her being cast as April in the upcoming TMNT movie.

[Leo656]

I thought Hellboy was OK, I thought the sequel had a good villain but weak execution. And yeah, it's tough as it is to juggle a half dozen characters in a movie, especially an action movie, and even more when the movie is ostensibly "Hellboy", not "Hellboy and These Other Guys". They were interesting characters to me, but the execution was flawed by design. We only have so much time to get to who Hellboy is and what's his deal, let alone Abe and the others, etc.

And then you have League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, where it's like, "Here's a bunch of characters from books nobody under the age of 80 has read in at least 50 years, and we're going to put them all in a room together and have them do action stuff, but we're not really going to tell you anything about them except their names. Have fun entirely not caring about any of this."

Lack of viable actors is one reason I don't hold that flaw against the Star Wars prequels. I'm in full agreement with those who say that the acting wasn't great across the board (Ewan MacGregor was great, though, best character in all three). My counter-argument is, Lucas wasn't going to necessarily get anyone "better". Even if I personally am sure that almost anyone could have been better than Hayden Christiansen, it's not *certain* that anyone else who was picked would have been better. Vin Diesel is a very successful actor. He's terrible. James Franco is a very successful actor. He's terrible. Ashton Kutcher is a very successful actor. He is the Anti-Christ. And so on and so on. I haven't been able to judge any movie based on the acting since the 1990s, because really, we haven't had anyone good come along since Michael J. Fox got all twitchy from travelling through time too much with Doc Brown.

Well, Christian Bale is an amazing actor, but he's also a cyborg, and a lot of people don't know that, so they're unfairly comparing a robot built specifically to act amazingly against human beings who suck at acting, so that's not even a fair comparison.

[Captain PunchYouHard]

You should be a film critic, sir. I'd read that column for the snark alone.

[Leo656]

My therapist says people aren't supposed to encourage me.

Seriously though I've occasionally thought about at least doing reviews for a blog or something but I'm too lazy. Maybe one day.

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

that is tough, lets see:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990)
Man of steel (2013)
spider-man 2 (2004)
Turtles forever(2009)
Batman (1989)
The Dark knight trilogy(2005 - 2012)
Avengers Assemble(2012)
Iron man (2008 )
Batman Mask of the phantasm (1995)
batman under the red hood (2010)
batman year one (2011)
batman the dark knight returns part 1 (2012) (have not seen part 2)

this is only a few, i have a lot more

[Whatswiththeheadbands?]

Originally Posted by Type 97 Chi-ha

I should add that I did see the 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, which people liked (and I did), but I didn't see the Batman movie from the same time, which everyone said they hated. Silly as it was, I did like the 1960's Batman TV show, which creator Bob Kane defended as having revived his Batman character.

everyone hated the 1989 batman movie? i thought it is one of the highest rated superhero movies of all time.