Transfer your frames to film
Last night, I watched Sin City. I'm going to come right out and say it - I'm a sucker for comic book movies. Superheroes are just so damn cool that I can't help but enjoy the comic book movies. I'm also going to come right out and say it, I don't really read comics. This isn't because I don't like them or anything, it's just because I never really did. They just weren't my thing, I guess. So, often times, when going in to view a comic-book movie, I have little knowledge of the the actual characters or anything like that.
I had a vauge idea of what Sin City was about - a dark sort of city with lawlessness and the like. I've seen people reading it here and there before. I figured it was a just another comic book, maybe just with a grittier edge. Turns out I was right. I liked the movie, but I didn't really think it was worth all the hype that's built up around it. And this made me realise that there is a certian trend around modern comic-book movies.
It all started with X-Men. This one I really liked. Wolverine kicks a lot of ass. This movie was puffed up and made out to be a huge hit, and it was very sucessful. This success proved the marketers that comic-book movies could be good sellers again (like Batman ... ironically enough, it was probably the sequels to Batman that killed the comic book movies until X-Men ... ironic, also, how the comic book movie trend should cause the Batman film series to be revived with Batman Begins).
X-Men was a decent enough movie, but I'm still not sure it deserved the hype that got pushed up around it. Lets face the facts - it was cheezy. But, as you may have noticed, I like cheezy movies. The main strike against X-Men was the fact that it didn't go to it's full potential. You have all these Mutants with awesome superpowers, and they barely use them. This was rectified in X-2, though. X-2 was an all around awesome film and I have nothing to say against it - it is the one modern comic-book film that i think is deserving of everything that was ever said about it.
The real flood of popularity came from the movie Spiderman. Two and a half hours of popcorn fun. Not a particularily good film. Slow down, before you give yourself a heart attack. I thought it was a good movie the first time I saw it. This film was huge - everybody loved it. Huge hype was thrown up around it, everybody had to see spiderman. I stoped and looked at what was going on, then I saw the movie again. First point - that dude who plays spiderman does a shitty job of acting. In fact, everybody does a poor job of acting except for Willem Defoe and Bruce Campbell. It's the solid truth. Notice how you just don't care when Spiderman is made out to be a badguy? Thats a result of poor acting and bad scripting. Second point - the computer animation is terrible! for a superhero like spiderman, if you can't do it in person, at least get something that looks real. The animation was bad like in Harry Potter, which just frustrates me. I must admit that the directing was decent, Sam Raimi is a hero of mine, but he really didn't do anything new with this movie. I mean, it's like Darkman all over again for directing. This was made out to be a great film, and really, it wasn't. In fact, it was just bad enough that I had no rela desire to watch the sequel, and to this date, I still haven't seen it. I hear from my co-conspirators that you still don't care about Spiderman's wussy emo-kid woes in this film, and I also hear that his woes are the whole point of the film. Of course, I haven't seen it, so I can't back that up.
Next up comes Daredevil. I didn't see it. I don't think anybody did. I hear it really sucked. Still, it was hyped up in the media before it was released. This is a perfect example of how superhero movies are hyped up, but in an underserved way.
I'm loath to even admit I saw The Leauge of Extrodiary Gentlemen. How they even managed to get this film released was beyond me. But again, the way it was marketed was as a good film. I was excited to see it, it looked interesting and good. And it turned out to be lame. Since when did Captain Nemo wear a turban? I mean, that and his obvious accent kind of gave away his national origins... which were supposed to be mysterious. Argh! This film just wasn't worth the time.
And then there was Hellboy. This film, also highly anticipated in the media. I liked it, but it was corney as all hell. I think that might be half the reason why. The other half might be kittens. Hellboy likes kittens, I like kittens, thus we have something in common. Plus he's a huge emo kid, which I'm down with. But, he's not a wuss like Spiderman about it. He has actual reasons to be all emo'd out and stuff. Demon from hell, in love with crazy woman with fire-hands... pretty much the same story as Spiderman, only not lame. the whole emotional duress thing in this film was taken with a grain of salt and made humerous, like it should be in a comic book movie. If a comic book movie takes itself to seriously (spiderman) it undermines the overall effect of the film.
Which brings me to Sin City. This film took itself very seriously, but in a different sort of way. The filmmakers tried to make the movie look like a comic (but, not like they did in the Hulk, which I didn't see and I don't know anything about... hence the lack of speech about it), and in this case, I think they did an admirable job. The dark black and white punctuated by the occasional coloured object stayes true, as I understand it, to the original comic. The actining wasn't bad, not great, but passable. Where then is mike strike against this movie? It's in the story line. It's not one movie, really, but three - three independant story lines that come together to, in a round about way, show how the power structure in Sin City is destroyed. I thought that the way the film jumped from one story, completing it, then going on to the next was distracting. And then, returning to the original storyline after an interceeding hour and a half of material that really had almost nothing to do with it just didn't sit right. The movie was good, yes, but I don't think it was as great as everybody has been saying it is. Comic book films are lots of fun, but I just don't think they deserve the attention they are given.
I'm still looking forward X-men 3 and Hellboy 2, though.
I had a vauge idea of what Sin City was about - a dark sort of city with lawlessness and the like. I've seen people reading it here and there before. I figured it was a just another comic book, maybe just with a grittier edge. Turns out I was right. I liked the movie, but I didn't really think it was worth all the hype that's built up around it. And this made me realise that there is a certian trend around modern comic-book movies.
It all started with X-Men. This one I really liked. Wolverine kicks a lot of ass. This movie was puffed up and made out to be a huge hit, and it was very sucessful. This success proved the marketers that comic-book movies could be good sellers again (like Batman ... ironically enough, it was probably the sequels to Batman that killed the comic book movies until X-Men ... ironic, also, how the comic book movie trend should cause the Batman film series to be revived with Batman Begins).
X-Men was a decent enough movie, but I'm still not sure it deserved the hype that got pushed up around it. Lets face the facts - it was cheezy. But, as you may have noticed, I like cheezy movies. The main strike against X-Men was the fact that it didn't go to it's full potential. You have all these Mutants with awesome superpowers, and they barely use them. This was rectified in X-2, though. X-2 was an all around awesome film and I have nothing to say against it - it is the one modern comic-book film that i think is deserving of everything that was ever said about it.
The real flood of popularity came from the movie Spiderman. Two and a half hours of popcorn fun. Not a particularily good film. Slow down, before you give yourself a heart attack. I thought it was a good movie the first time I saw it. This film was huge - everybody loved it. Huge hype was thrown up around it, everybody had to see spiderman. I stoped and looked at what was going on, then I saw the movie again. First point - that dude who plays spiderman does a shitty job of acting. In fact, everybody does a poor job of acting except for Willem Defoe and Bruce Campbell. It's the solid truth. Notice how you just don't care when Spiderman is made out to be a badguy? Thats a result of poor acting and bad scripting. Second point - the computer animation is terrible! for a superhero like spiderman, if you can't do it in person, at least get something that looks real. The animation was bad like in Harry Potter, which just frustrates me. I must admit that the directing was decent, Sam Raimi is a hero of mine, but he really didn't do anything new with this movie. I mean, it's like Darkman all over again for directing. This was made out to be a great film, and really, it wasn't. In fact, it was just bad enough that I had no rela desire to watch the sequel, and to this date, I still haven't seen it. I hear from my co-conspirators that you still don't care about Spiderman's wussy emo-kid woes in this film, and I also hear that his woes are the whole point of the film. Of course, I haven't seen it, so I can't back that up.
Next up comes Daredevil. I didn't see it. I don't think anybody did. I hear it really sucked. Still, it was hyped up in the media before it was released. This is a perfect example of how superhero movies are hyped up, but in an underserved way.
I'm loath to even admit I saw The Leauge of Extrodiary Gentlemen. How they even managed to get this film released was beyond me. But again, the way it was marketed was as a good film. I was excited to see it, it looked interesting and good. And it turned out to be lame. Since when did Captain Nemo wear a turban? I mean, that and his obvious accent kind of gave away his national origins... which were supposed to be mysterious. Argh! This film just wasn't worth the time.
And then there was Hellboy. This film, also highly anticipated in the media. I liked it, but it was corney as all hell. I think that might be half the reason why. The other half might be kittens. Hellboy likes kittens, I like kittens, thus we have something in common. Plus he's a huge emo kid, which I'm down with. But, he's not a wuss like Spiderman about it. He has actual reasons to be all emo'd out and stuff. Demon from hell, in love with crazy woman with fire-hands... pretty much the same story as Spiderman, only not lame. the whole emotional duress thing in this film was taken with a grain of salt and made humerous, like it should be in a comic book movie. If a comic book movie takes itself to seriously (spiderman) it undermines the overall effect of the film.
Which brings me to Sin City. This film took itself very seriously, but in a different sort of way. The filmmakers tried to make the movie look like a comic (but, not like they did in the Hulk, which I didn't see and I don't know anything about... hence the lack of speech about it), and in this case, I think they did an admirable job. The dark black and white punctuated by the occasional coloured object stayes true, as I understand it, to the original comic. The actining wasn't bad, not great, but passable. Where then is mike strike against this movie? It's in the story line. It's not one movie, really, but three - three independant story lines that come together to, in a round about way, show how the power structure in Sin City is destroyed. I thought that the way the film jumped from one story, completing it, then going on to the next was distracting. And then, returning to the original storyline after an interceeding hour and a half of material that really had almost nothing to do with it just didn't sit right. The movie was good, yes, but I don't think it was as great as everybody has been saying it is. Comic book films are lots of fun, but I just don't think they deserve the attention they are given.
I'm still looking forward X-men 3 and Hellboy 2, though.
posted by James @ 3:59 PM
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