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Saturday, July 01, 2006

Continuing the Top Ten Game: Superhero Movies

You know how you hit somebody else's computer and they never bothered to make a homepage other than MSN.com? Well, that happened to me today and I found this fascinating list of the ten best and five worst superhero flicks.

Having seen what MSN came up with, I've got my own list to post.

10. Darkman -- One of the darkest and quirkiest superhero flicks ever. The main character has major problems with anger and anxiety. Even when he's kicking butt he's quite, shall we say, edgy. Occupies a unique spot in the genre.

9. The Shadow -- This isn't in anyone's list of favorites, but it scored with me. Alec Baldwin captures the old Radio Age Lamont Cranston quite well. I particularly enjoyed the way his face and personality changed when he inhabited the Shadow character. Very much a piece of pulp, but a satisfying one.

8. Batman Returns -- Keaton, Devito, and Michelle Pfeiffer. This film does a wonderful job of exploring the psyche of people who develop these wild meta-personalities with which to encounter a violent world. What keeps the film down is that Batman's ability to solve some problems is more magical than gritty.

7. Batman Begins -- Christian Bale was a brilliant choice to play a young Bruce Wayne. Still an American Psycho, but this time with a moral compass. Sending Bruce to the Orient to learn the ancient arts just as Lamont Cranston (the Shadow) did worked. The action almost didn't even need to return to Gotham to satisfy.

6. Batman -- The original Keaton vehicle was the most pleasant of surprises. After years of pure crapola from the superhero industry (save a couple of Superman movies a decade or so previous), Batman arrived to save the day. Things haven't been the same since. Jack Nicholson steals the show, but that's expected from The Joker.

5. Superman -- There was a reason people cared so much about what happened to Christopher Reeve. This film was it. During an era when superhero entertainment meant bad animation, or worse yet, terrible, terrible live-action, Reeve's Superman was a bolt from the blue. Beautifully filmed. I'll never forget the young Superman bounding across the plains or Reeve's success in portraying a hunky, yet truly nerdish Clark Kent. Margot Kidder was tops as Lois Lane, too. Not glamorous, but spunky and you can see why Superman is torn in his affections between Lois and the world.

4. Superman II -- Based on limits of technology, this one probably ranks as the greatest of all time because it worked without today's special effects. Combat, combat, combat tied in beautifully with a drama and a romantic backstory.

3. Spiderman II -- Successfully continued the Peter Parker hard luck story with amazing battle scenes with our hero and Doctor Octopus. Extremely enjoyable and guess what (Spoiler), Peter gets the girl. In fact, the girl next door.

2. Spiderman -- The origin story magnificently rendered. Superhero movies had already improved with the resurgence of Batman, but this was another level.

1. I know one of the three top spots will belong to the newest Spiderman movie, so here's a big vote of confidence.

Biggest Disappointments

5. Daredevil -- I didn't hate it the way so many reviewers did, but it failed to capture the feeling of the comic. I'm not sure it was a great idea to combine the origin story and famed Electra tragedy in one go-round either.

4. The Hulk -- This movie was going somewhere for the first hour, but it all fell to pieces. Try again.

3. All the X-Men films -- Really not bad, but far, far short of the original comics. I've gone to each with high expectations and have each time thought it was worth the money, but not amazing. The last one really screwed up by combining favorite bits and pieces from lots of different stories in one film. Hodge-podge can be fun, but it's no substitute for a little literary discipline.

2. Fantastic Four -- Not bad as entertainment, but again falling short of places where the comic has been. Reed Richards was definitely too young and Sue Storm was too much sex appeal and not enough maturity.

1. Superman III and IV plus whatever the heck the Clooney Batman was. 'Nuff said.

7 comments:

Kathy Hutchins said...

Maybe this is too far outside the mainstream of the genre for you to have considered it (or maybe I'm just the only person who really likes this flick) but I would put Unbreakable on my list of top ten superhero movies.

Kathy Hutchins said...

Oh, and how could you have forgotten The Incredibles??

Hunter Baker said...

The Incredibles was incredible, but I'm excluding the animated pics from my list. There's been a lot of good animated stuff that deserves to be mentioned if we go that way. The Incredibles deserves to be at the top of the list and is so well done you're probably right that it belongs on ANY list of superhero flicks.

Unbreakable also deserves a mention. I'm tempted to put Shyamalan pics in their own category. I liked Unbreakable, but would have liked it even better if we could have seen our man Bruce in action a bit more.

James F. Elliott said...

Kathy, I totally agree. Unbreakable was awesome. You're the second person I've ever seen who holds the same high opinion.

James F. Elliott said...

Tlaloc, I'm surprised you're so vituperative about the Batman movies. I agree with Hunter: Batman, Batman Returns, and Batman Begins were pretty good iterations. At least, in my opinion, which is pretty much what movie reviews are about.

Now, what I really want to see is Planetary, Global Frequency, and Powers, but that's just me.

Hunter Baker said...

Tlaloc, you're wrong about the Batmans. They paved the way for further goodness down the road. I'm with you on Ghost Rider and on the X-Men. A Sentinels flick would have been ultra-fab. By killing so many characters they seemingly foreclosed the possibility of that kind of future-oriented flick.

If I'm picking the next comic for big screen treatment, I wouldn't mind seeing the early Alpha Flight implemented!

James F. Elliott said...

Alpha Flight? Alpha Flight?!

Kill me now. Coming down the pipe is Joss Whedon's Wonder Woman, which might be interesting. I'm also looking forward to the next Batman iteration, and I would love to see a Green Lantern or Avengers movie (the things Mark Millar did with the Ultimate Avengers would make a great film.