Sunday, January 5, 2014

Ranking the comics adaptations - Part I

I love comic books. I love movies as well. This means that I have a pretty soft spot for comic book adaptations. In a way, I'm probably not a good person to ask whether a particular one is good or bad, as I tend to find something good in almost all of them, even the ones where I can objectively see that they're bad. (Although as more and more of these movies are getting made, I'm probably less and less tolerant. If Green Lantern had come out when I was a teenager, I would have thought it was awesome. But with movies like The Dark Knight and Iron Man being out there? Yeah, it's not so good.)

For some dumb, obsessive-compulsive reason, I have decided to rank all of the various comic book adaptations. The first thing I did was start with Wikipedia's list of English-language comic book adaptations. This leaves out the Asterix movies, which I haven't seen, but as a fan of the comics, I'd like to one day. From there, I took off every movie that didn't have a theatrical release - so no rubber-eared Captain America nor Dolph Lundgren Punisher. Also, I'm not counting anything that came out before 1978's Superman. (There weren't too many of those anyway - mostly action serials from the 1940s.)

With that out of the way, there are a whole lot of movies that I haven't seen, or it's been so long since I've seen them that I don't feel right categorizing them. So, for the first two parts in this series, I'll be listing off the movies I've never even heard of, movies that I haven't seen and am actively avoiding, movies that I haven't seen but would be willing to see, and the movies where I just don't remember well enough to properly place. I'll give some thoughts about some of these if I've got something to say, but first:

The Movies I Don't Know Anything About - For all of these, I am unfamiliar with both the movie and the comic, and some of them could very well be direct-to-video or TV adaptations. I don't feel like taking the time to research each one of them. Leave me a comment if you've seen any/know anything about any of them.

2 Guns
The Amazing Cynicalman - Nothing amazing about that.
Faust: Love of the Damned
G-Men from Hell - This sounds vaguely familiar.
I, Frankenstein
I Sell the Dead
Model by Day - What is he/she by night? A dentist? Probably.
El Muerto - I'm intrigued by the title.
Oblivion
The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik-Yak. - WTF?

The Movies I Haven't Seen and There's No Way in Hell I Will See - I'll tell you why for each of these.

Art School Confidential - This has been on my Netflix queue forever. I was intrigued because I liked another adaptation of a Daniel Clowes story, Ghost World, but I've heard that this movie is only so-so. I'm not totally opposed to seeing it, but it's probably just not going to happen.

Barb Wire - I actually read most of the comics from Dark Horse. The movie seemed to have little in common with them, and Pamela Anderson's acting doesn't exactly bring me running. I understand that she gets naked in it, but I have this feeling that there are other ways one can see that, if one were so inclined.

Bulletproof Monk - Never read the comic, heard the movie wasn't very good. Pass.

Catwoman - Yeah, right. I actually had a free ticket to see this that came in a DVD collection of Batman: The Animated Series. I still have it just in case they ever re-release it in theaters. Seriously though, anybody who likes this movie needs to rethink their standards considering that its star admitted that it was crap. And that costume? Ohhhhhh...sooooooooo....awful.

Constantine - I've never read the comics, and from what I hear, the movie bears little resemblance to them. Making him an American seemed to be the first of many things they got wrong.

Elektra - Okay, Daredevil wasn't very good, and supposedly this one was worse. Why would I do that to myself?

Jonah Hex - The comics are pretty much straight-up Westerns. This movie seemed like something else entirely. No thank you.

Josie and the Pussycats - I'm sure it's fine for what it is, but what it is isn't very interesting to me.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - This looked like crap on wheels and the reviews confirm it. I haven't read the comics, although I'd like to, but this seems to have little to do with them.

Son of the Mask - Umm...no, just...no.

Men in Black II - Didn't like the first one all that much. And did enough copies of the comic exist for this to even count for this list?

Men in Black III - See above.

Monkeybone - Despite all the Oscars and critical acclaim, I'm just going to have to pass on this one.

3 comments:

Sophia said...

I heard that Oblivion was good and "underrated" and I'll probably try to see it this year, especially if it streams on Netflix. And I think I, Frankenstein hasn't come out yet...? But from what I saw of the trailer, it's not for me.
On Catwoman, I can't honestly tell you why, as I don't remember, but I actually quite liked it. It may just be that I thought Halle Berry was hot.

Andrew Nolan said...

I don't think "I, Frankenstein" is out yet.

Lance Christian Johnson said...

Well, there's one more reason it's not going to be on the list then.