Film Adaptations of Comic Books

The first Batman by Tim Burton, The Dark Knight, and my favorite: Oldboy, based on a manga.

I only saw Watchmen last night. I think I put off watching it for such a long time since I became disillusioned with the adaptations of V for Vendetta and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I am happy to say though, that the adaptation of Watchman was much, much better than previous Alan Moore adaptations. I felt that the film was extremely faithful to the graphic novel, bar the missing inclusion of 'Tales of the Black Freighter'.

The Dark Knight, based upon earlier comic book incantations of the Joker, is the only other great comic book adaptation which springs to my mind. Mind you, the video game, Batman: Arkham Asylum is awesome, probably the best video game I've ever played to be honest! If you own a console and you're interested in Batman, you would be ridiculous to not play it.

My favorites:

The Burton Batman films
The original Richard Donner Superman
Iron Man

I enjoyed The Spirit, although mostly for the experience and not so much for its film merits. Frank Miller seems to be becoming a filmmaker of ego - like Tarantino, but with less inherent understanding of the medium. Makes for a great Halloween costume, though.

I haven't seen Watchmen, though I've been meaning to. I love the graphic novel, for sure.

I love The Punisher, with Thomas Jane. It took what is a very controversial, very sociopathic comic book antihero and made him palatable for mainstream audiences as well as enjoyable to watch for comic book fans.

V For Vendetta is a passable film, but it's a guilty pleasure film that tries to masquerade as intellectual fare. It compares very unfavorably with the powerful graphic novel. Compared to the book, the film is grossly heavy-handed with its ethical and political anvils. Given how heavy-handed the book is already, that's really saying something.

I find Nolan's Dark Knight saga...overhyped, to say the least. Batman Begins was nearly unwatchable for me on repeat viewings out of frustration with the atrocious writing (including an Italian mob boss saying, unironically and with a straight face, "You got spirit, kid, I'll give you that") and cringeworthy abuse of basic science. Many have excused this with the fact that it's a comic book movie, but I feel that once filmmakers commit to trying to make a realistic depiction of a comic book hero, including a much-lauded sequence following the development of Batman's gadgetry, they lose their right to using comic book conventions as justifications. The Dark Knight improved on Begins in almost every respect, but runs about a half-hour too long and rushes its third act to an unwieldy title drop. And I have trouble listening to the score, which struck me as sort of a two-trick pony. I've never been a big Hans Zimmer fan, though.

Oh, and the first Men In Black was excellent. The second...not so much.

I'm really hoping the Green Arrow film does well (some of the oldies of the forum will understand why), but I'm trying not to get my hopes up. For one thing, it's being written by David Goyer, who wrote the aforementioned Batman Begins in addition to some pretty bad comic book adaptations (Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, the best part of which was actually David Hasselhoff, impressively enough for the Hoff). For another thing, the plot barely even centers around Green Arrow; the writers hardly seem concerned with his role in the film at all. The only reason he's in it is because the writers needed a hero that wasn't in current film use to slot in the protagonist role for a movie that takes place in a prison for supervillains. Based on some interviews I read, the writers seem more enthused about the B-list villains involved than about Green Arrow.