Favourite Superhero Films?

  • Thread starter Thread starter colliric
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

colliric

Guest
Myself, I still find Richard Donner’s edit of Superman 2 to be an amazing comic book film, and the best(certainly from a thematic point of view, but also in terms of the action and acting… sadly not so the editing, which was naturally compromised). I still love how the film’s climax is essentially a battle of pure wits at the Fortress of Solitude, with none of the sillyness of Lester’s theatrical version. And Marlon Brando’s restored scenes, almost 20 extra minutes worth, are brilliant(especially the moment he “physically materializes” in front of a surprised Clark in the scene were Supes gets his powers back), finally making sense of his $10 million dollar record paycheck.

I know I probably shouldn’t have, but frankly I also enjoyed the little additions that made the 3 villians seem much nastier, such as Zod’s amusement at brandishing of an AK-47(in the Whitehouse sequence) despite having superpowers.

I still think most great Superhero films owe their basic plot, characters and themes to it(looking accusingly in the direction of The Avengers right now).

It really does feel finally like the real “Part 2” and climax of the wider “Superman” story(which was actually written as 1 epic film screenplay that eventually they originally decided to split into two parts while they were filming it).
 
Iron Man 1 and 2 because they are redemption stories at the heart. Tony is flawed like we all are and he keeps trying.

Captain America, just because I like it.
 
Superman I & II
Batman (1966 film)
Batman
Batman Returns
Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
X-Men
X2: X-Men United
Spider-Man 1 & 2
The Incredibles
Iron Man 1 & 2
Watchmen
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers
 
In terms of quality of film, I cannot really see how one can argue against Nolan’s Batman films being the best. I also like the X-Men films.

If the Watchmen film does justice to the book, it is probably up there as well (although I have not seen it).
 
Baelor said:
In terms of quality of film, I cannot really see how one can argue against Nolan’s Batman films being the best. I also like the X-Men films.

If the Watchmen film does justice to the book, it is probably up there as well (although I have not seen it).
Click to expand...
As good as Michael Caine, Liam Neeson and Morgan Freeman are as a supporting cast, they’re got nothing on Marlon Brando, Terance Stamp and Gene Hackman…

👍
 
I thought the first Iron Man was pretty entertaining, as a movie. It probably helps that he was never one of my favorite comic book titles as a kid.
 
I really liked the Sub-mariner for some reason. Spiderman, the Fantastic Four, Claremont and Byrne’s X-men, and to a lesser degree Captain America and the Hulk.
 
I’m less enthusiastic about Byrne’s run at the Fantastic Four. A lot of it (an example being the lumpification of the Thing’s appearance) seemed like retro for the sake of retro, rather than moving the characters forward. I kind of wish he had just stuck with the pencils and left the writing to others.

To tie this into the topic of the thread, I wasn’t crazy about the recent Fantastic Four movies with Jessica Alba as Sue Storm. Jessica Alba?
 
Was it the actor, or was it the writing? I haven’t seen that actor in anything else, so I don’t know if it was his limitations or if he just didn’t have much to work with.
 
You mean Ioan Gruffudd? He’s actually supposed to be a much better actor than one might suspect from that movie. But he and Alba both had a Dawson’s Creek/puppy dog-like quality that I don’t associate with the Fantastic Four (after all they were adults when I was a kid!) and find disconcerting.
 
Apparently the FF comic book franchise circa 2012 is not the flagship title it once was?
 
Incidentally, isn’t it ironic that during the period in which Stan Lee withdrew from the day-to-day running of Marvel as editor-in-chief and delegated his authority to others, with the stated intent of promoting Marvel properties in film and television, that very little that was good or successful got made by Hollywood out of said Marvel properties? It was only after Stan Lee was gone that the floodgates opened and Marvel was able to make a mint out of its stable of superhero characters. Maybe no studio heads were interested until the first Batman movie in 1989 opened their eyes to the potential profits to be made. Still what was Stan the Man actually *doing *during all those years? How did he spend the hours of the day with no editor-in-chief responsibilities?
 
(shortened by Tomarin)

I’d say he was the comic book superhero equivalent of “the Professor” from Gilligan’s Island. When I was a youngster I was kind of fascinated by Reed Richards’ graying temples. I thought they looked rather distinguished. Now that I am an adult and actually have graying temples, I’m chagrined to discover I look less like Reed Richards than I do like Jonah Jameson. Paarker!
 
tomarin said:
(shortened by Tomarin)

I’d say he was the comic book superhero equivalent of “the Professor” from Gilligan’s Island. When I was a youngster I was kind of fascinated by Reed Richards’ graying temples. I thought they looked rather distinguished. Now that I am an adult and actually have graying temples, I’m chagrined to discover I look less like Reed Richards than I do like Jonah Jameson. Paarker!
Click to expand...
Call me crazy, but it’s a role I can see well-played by Rob Lowe. He’s come a long way since the 80’s!
 
tomarin said:
Incidentally, isn’t it ironic that during the period in which Stan Lee withdrew from the day-to-day running of Marvel as editor-in-chief and delegated his authority to others, with the stated intent of promoting Marvel properties in film and television, that very little that was good or successful got made by Hollywood out of said Marvel properties? It was only after Stan Lee was gone that the floodgates opened and Marvel was able to make a mint out of its stable of superhero characters. Maybe no studio heads were interested until the first Batman movie in 1989 opened their eyes to the potential profits to be made. Still what was Stan the Man actually *doing *during all those years? How did he spend the hours of the day with no editor-in-chief responsibilities?
Click to expand...
Took a long time for Marvel to shift sucessfully into films. In fact it wasn’t Batman that convinced them to take a bigger plunge(In fact, arguebally “Batman and Robin” might have given them second thoughts), it was the massive sucess of the 1997/8 film adaptations of little known(outside of comic circles) Marvel properties Blade and Men In Black that convinced them the time was right for X-Men and Spiderman to enter production.

Marvel had originally commissioned Blade and MIB as adaptations of lesser known properties to “test the waters for X-men and Spiderman”, and while they might have been expecting hit films with the two star Negro actors involved(Will Smith and Wesley Snipes), word is that they were truly astounded at how massive the box office returns were for both films, partly due to their lack of physical involvement, in particular in the development of MIB which they pretty much had just handed over to Spielberg’s Amblin entertainment to make without much supervision or credit at all(to the point where most people don’t even realise it was actually the first smash hit Marvel based film), not really expecting it to be given the top class production it thankfully recieved.
 
Marvel needs to acquire the rights to Italian Spiderman, IMHO. Some of the best amateur stuff I’ve seen in a long time.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
 
The Rosary praying cameleon in X-men

and

Spiderman. Both Catholics.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top