Snarky Explosions

I just saw Iron Man and three thoughts immediately hit me as I walked out of the theater:

1. That is how to make a movie out of a comic.


2. I live ten miles from Hollywood, and most of the movies theaters out here are not that great.


3. I wonder if City Of Heroes is seeing a spike from all of these superhero movies.

I used to read a lot of comics, from X-Men on the flashy side to Sandman on the serious side, and up to now only a few have been made into movies that are any good.  The worst offenders are X-Men, Spiderman and god-awful Elektra.  On the other side you have Sin City, Hellboy, and Batman Begins, although that may have more to do with me expecting Bale to go American Psycho at some point.  Those two characters are frighteningly similar.  The bad conversions take all of the depth in the characters and pound them into spandex and pecs/boobs, the two dimensions blockbusters are built on.  Examples:

Punisher turns a poor man's Batman into a flat revenge story.

Spiderman has such terrible casting and acting for the protagonist and love interest that I just can't care what they say.

Elektra has... Jennifer Garner's body.

I think Fantastic Four is a dumb comic, so what can you expect?

Daredevil has... Ben Affleck.  One of the most interesting angles while I was reading the comic was how messed up in the head Matt Murdock is, and you pick Ben Affleck?  When the villain is often inside the hero's head, at least pick someone who can do self loathing.

Constantine tried, it really did, but the main character is a very bad man.  Most of the time he nails the girl, damns her sister to hell, and then sells someone else's soul to get out of the consequences.  And to get rid of pesky things like cancer.

X-Men strips all of the interesting out of the main characters that make them work for more than a splash illustration and then tries to build a franchise.  I mean, where do you go after 3?  The supporting characters that act as foils to the core team are dead, gone, or impotent.  Note to the writers: Scott Summers is supposed to be at least a little bit likeable underneath it all, and Rogue was kind of important.

V for Vendetta was decent too.  It simplified a very confusing story just enough to make it work in a hour and a half, and made the female lead into a much more interesting character.

Superman was okay, and so was the new Batman.  But so far Iron Man is the hands down winner for best overall movie.  It doesn't try to tip-toe around societal issues.  (By this I mean Downey doesn't really need to say guns are bad, the torture does it for you.)  The special effects look like they belong in the movie.  And the actors actually fill in the characters.  The little quips between the Paltrow and Downey come off as actual dialogue.  Good job Marvel Studios, you got this one right.

But when they make Terrence Howard into War Machine, god help us all.