Superhero films!

[David Bailey]

Yes, I admit it, I'm a sucker for superhero films, I've seen them all - well, OK, not The Punisher, even I have some shame.

It's a standard actioner - hero makes deal with Devil, gets transformed into the "Devil's Bounty Hunter", with blazing skull and cool leather outfits, then goes hunting Evil Demons, dispatching them (usually) very easily.

Nicholas Cage is the eponymous hero here, fulfilling his long-stated desire to play a superhero. Unfortunately, he's now too old to play this role credibly, so there's a bit more expositionary-origin stuff than is necessary.

Eva Mendes is the lurrve interest - she looks good, but doesn't actually do much in the film apart from being the Obligatory Hostage. And, as my companion noted "All of her clothes are too small" - i.e. extra tightness added around the curves to appeal to the boy contingent.

The bottom line is that this was an average film of its type - about the same level as Daredevil, much better than Catwoman or Elektre ( ), less good than Batman Returns, and nowhere near as good as Hellboy

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Yes, I admit it, I'm a sucker for superhero films, I've seen them all - well, OK, not The Punisher, even I have some shame.

The original with Dolph was a fairly forgettable actioner, the new one was utter *******s. You didn't miss anything either time. The annoying thing is, the lead makes an excellent punisher, or would if he had a punisher script

It's a standard actioner - hero makes deal with Devil, gets transformed into the "Devil's Bounty Hunter", with blazing skull and cool leather outfits, then goes hunting Evil Demons, dispatching them (usually) very easily.

Which sounds quite like Spawn in some ways. That was a fairly weak film too Not read Ghost Rider comics in many, many years...and can barely remember them at all - which says a lot about the original material.

The bottom line is that this was an average film of its type - about the same level as Daredevil, much better than Catwoman or Elektre ( ), less good than Batman Returns, and nowhere near as good as Hellboy

Pretty much agree with your stacking here : not seen Catwoman and dont want to, but Ive got to say Michelle Pfeiffers catwoman was ace in Batman 2. So lets have a comic book rating list here : out of 10 - 10 being "brilliant" of course.

Men In Black (smith vs jones great casting, good effects, funny) ( 8 )
Men in Black 2(almost as if there was only enough material for one film) ( 4 )
Elektra - ( gorgeous lead, couple of good set pieces, 5 mins of good script(including start/end credits) ( 3 )
Spawn - (like a jean claude van damme film with a superhero in it) - ( 3)
Daredevil (ropey lead, weak plot, SUPERB bad guys, "paperclips") (6)
The Crow (superb lead, excellent atmosphere, "can't rain all the time") ( 8 )
Batman Returns (superb lead, solid acting everywhere, kick ass script) ( 9 )
Batman (Michael Keaton ok, suitably dark until Ham Joker shows up in purple and green, good but not great) ( 7 )
Batman 2 (great catwoman, great bad guy, slimy penguin, *******s script) ( 5 )
Other Batman films (just...don't go there) ( 2 )
Fantastic Four (superb Human Torch, ok thing, ok effects, script written by small child) ( 4 (sic) )
HellBoy ( good script, great acting, SUPERB lead ) ( 8 )
Spiderman 1 (Ropey Spiderman, rest of cast excellent, great script) ( 8 )
Spiderman 2 (Same ropey spiderman, rest of cast excellent, great script ) ( 8 )
X-men (one word: wolverine. some other bits good too. script forgettable apart from "you're a dick" line ) ( 7 )
X-Men 2 (nightcrawler, wolverine, secret base, brian cox, brilliant ) ( 9 )
X-Men 3 (wolverine was good, otherwise big disapointment) ( 4 )
Superman ( great cast, great story, great effects for the time ) ( 8 )
Superman Returns ( great effects, great superman - superb dual personality acting, left script in phonebox) ( 6 )

[Paulthetrainer]

Men In Black -7 Good idea but ran out of steam before the end

Men in Black 2 -Forget it.

Daredevil- 5 One of my faves growing up but dissappointed with this. The scene where MM and Elektra fight in the playground really spoilt it.

The Crow - 9 All time classic. Wonder what Brandon Lee would be doing now had he lived.

Batman Returns- 8 Might have got a 9 but for Michael Caine's dumb line about press-ups

Batman- 8.5 Great introduction for Batman.

Batman 2- 4 Val Kilmer was a better Batman but let down by poor plot

HellBoy 7 Good but ever so slightly predictable even though I didn't know who he was.

Spiderman 1 9 Have to say I thought Tobey Maguire made a good Spiderman, and I had about 300 Spiderman comics as a boy (why, oh why did I give them away to the kid from up the road?)

Spiderman 2 9 At least as good as the first one

X-men 7.5 -Not a massive X-Men fan but Wolverine is easily the best character although with not anywhere near as effective powers as the rest.

X-Men 2 -4 Kind of blended into the first one for me.


Superman 9 - using a set of revolving doors to get changed in is a skill we should all strive for.

The Punisher 7.5 - Sorry guys but I quite liked it! (never read the comic strip though)

haven't seen the rest.

[David Bailey]

Oooh, a "Superhero-films-you-have-seen" discussion!

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

The original with Dolph was a fairly forgettable actioner, the new one was utter *******s. You didn't miss anything either time. The annoying thing is, the lead makes an excellent punisher, or would if he had a punisher script

Well, it's a pretty silly premise really, Death Wish / Taxi Driver with a naff costume...

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

Which sounds quite like Spawn in some ways. That was a fairly weak film too Not read Ghost Rider comics in many, many years...and can barely remember them at all - which says a lot about the original material.

Spawn the comic book is much better than Ghost Rider the comic book. For a start, Marvel got all wimpy and started retconning the whole "Devil" thing - "Oh, actually, it's not the, you know, real Devil, it's just a... err... alien, or monster, or something" or whatever.

They did the same thing with the Son Of Satan - "Ah, when we say Satan, we actually meant a demon who called himself Satan. Nothing to do with the real Satan, honest."
- you have to wonder about the levels of pandering-to-American-religious-nuttydom when you have to refer to someone as the "real Satan"

And then it was "Ah, he's really the son of Sattanish (son of Dormammu for those keeping up). Oh, but he's lying about that."

Sigh...

(interestingly* Son of Satan first appeared in the Ghost Rider comic)

* Admittedly, for a very low value of "interest"

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

{list}

I really can't disagree with any of those.

I'd rate both X-men 2 and Spiderman 2 at the top - interestingly, both were made by the same director as the first in the relevant series, but with more freedom and money. As LOTR showed us, keeping the same director at the helm is crucial.

I'd have loved to see Bryan Singer's X-men 3, but I'm looking forward to Raimi's Spiderman 3.

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Oooh, a "Superhero-films-you-have-seen" discussion!

Notable, but not surprising perhaps, that no-one mentioned Hulk. I remember being sorely disappointed by it - a dull script, not very impressive Hulk effects and some wooden performances.

[David Bailey]

I've split this into a separate thread...

[Dreadful Scathe]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

Notable, but not surprising perhaps, that no-one mentioned Hulk. I remember being sorely disappointed by it - a dull script, not very impressive Hulk effects and some wooden performances.

dunno why i overlooked that. in places it was brilliant. i liked the comic box style, and the "hulk can jump" scenes were very comic book - gotta love hulk versus tanks. The bit that spoiled it for me was the whole "dad is electric monster" thing - id give it 7/10

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

dunno why i overlooked that. in places it was brilliant.

Where? The end credits?

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

i liked the comic box style, and the "hulk can jump" scenes were very comic book - gotta love hulk versus tanks.

There's almost no part of that film that I care to remember. I didn't even get the DVD - and I bought the Elektra DVD, so that shows you how low the bar is...

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

The bit that spoiled it for me was the whole "dad is electric monster" thing - id give it 7/10

He was the Absorbing Man, wasn't he? That was all very strange...

The Abomination's the Big Bad in the Incredible Hulk - two big green monsters, can't go wrong there

[jive_me]

I think I fell asleep watching Hulk.

Big fan of X-Men and X2 but not X3 (the whole thing at the beginning with Cyclops?!). I grew up watching the X-Men cartoons and reading the comics so was a bit disappointed with some of the characters (Rogue was a bit poor really). But disregarding that, good movies

xXx

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by Dreadful Scathe

dunno why i overlooked that. in places it was brilliant. i liked the comic box style, and the "hulk can jump" scenes were very comic book - gotta love hulk versus tanks. The bit that spoiled it for me was the whole "dad is electric monster" thing - id give it 7/10

One reason why the film didn't work is clear on the DVD extras. The director Ang Lee effectively does the "acting" for the Hulk - he was wired up for the movement in an electronic rig for the CGI to be built on. And he punches like a girl, rather than a half-ton green radioactive mutation with attitude.
Another reason was Jennifer Connelly. I struggle to rank her either as balsa or pine. Her possession of an Oscar is one of cinema's great mysteries IMO (but then Sean and Mr Caine have Best Supporting gongs too, so maybe not).

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Stuart M

One reason why the film didn't work is clear on the DVD extras.

Someone with an even lower bar than me?

Originally Posted by Stuart M

The director Ang Lee effectively does the "acting" for the Hulk - he was wired up for the movement in an electronic rig for the CGI to be built on. And he punches like a girl, rather than a half-ton green radioactive mutation with attitude.

Ah, that makes a bit more sense.

I'd assumed the state of the art with CGI was just not up to the job, of portraying a realistic monster in full daylight - but of course Gollum disproved that.

It's incredible how truly dumb Hollywood producers can be, isn't it?

And it shows that with superhero films, the director is everything - compare Xmen 1-2 (Singer ) with 3 (Ratner ), Batman 1-2 (Burton ) with 3 (Schumacher ), and so on.

Fortunately Spiderman 3 has Raimi again.

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Someone with an even lower bar than me?

We rented the DVD and I couldn't sleep so I watched the "Making of..." featurette.

Ang is certainly not a bad director, but he was the wrong choice for that particular project.

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Fortunately Spiderman 3 has Raimi again.

Indeed.

[Mezzosoprano]

Please tell me that I'm not the only girl who's posting to this thread.... I love Superhero films!!! X-Men films were good but.... Christian Bale in the latest Batman was absolutely brilliant... much darker than Michael Keaton and Val Kilmer...

They should do Dan Dare...

[jive_me]

Last time I checked I was a girl not a keen Superhero film fan though besides X-Men and to some extent the first Spiderman.

xXx

[David Bailey]

Originally Posted by Mezzosoprano

Please tell me that I'm not the only girl who's posting to this thread....

Well, DS is a big girlie, does that count?

[Stuart M]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

I'd assumed the state of the art with CGI was just not up to the job, of portraying a realistic monster in full daylight - but of course Gollum disproved that.

It's incredible how truly dumb Hollywood producers can be, isn't it?

Forgot this point: it's even more incredible that Ang decided to do this after seeing the example of Gollum in LOTR. Andy Serkis got rave reviews for his efforts in portraying Gollum - there was a campaign to get him nominated for Best Supporting Actor Oscar, I think. That should surely have flagged up to Ang an obvious point: that acting is as much about the physicality as it is about reading the lines.

I actually agree with DS, in the sense that the Hulk film did have some superb things in it. But it's frustrating that so many things were obviously wrong.

[Mezzosoprano]

Originally Posted by DavidJames

Well, DS is a big girlie, does that count?

Nope! Gotta have the horomonal need for chocolate too!