Cure for the Common
As a boyhood comics fan, I was really excited to see the spate of movies based on Marvel Comics characters. The first X-Men was okay, and the second one a bit better. I was disappointed in Spider-Man because, despite what Stan Lee says, Tobey Maguire does not seem like the Peter Parker I used to read about. At all. The worst thing, though, is the ridiculously poor motion attributed to the Spider-Man character when he's onscreen doing his fight scenes.
I first thought his movements had the same (lack of) quality of a poor video game. Today I saw a trailer for an actual video game, "Spider-Man: Friend or Foe." Why, oh why, can't the producers of three major motion pictures do CGI animation as well as the Jolt Cola junkies working on a video game? The movements of the characters in the trailer were astounding compared to what was in the movies. It befuddles me.
Movies like The Punisher and the Blade franchise don't do much for me, probably because the characters never made an impression on me in the actual comics. Ghost Rider should have been cool but apparently wasn't. When a movie is that widely seen and that universally panned, I'll wait until a late night showing on the SciFi channel in five or six years. The commercials will give me an excuse to flip away.
I thought I wanted to see the first Fantastic Four movie. I missed it in the theaters and wondered if I'd missed out on something despite the reviews. Then I saw the second one and it cured me from the desire to see the first one. Even if Jessica Alba could act well enough to pull off the hokey poses and the uninspired, cliched dialog, the movie would still, um, suck.
The quality of Marvel's four animated features (two Avengers, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange) are, except for the crappy near anime style animation, is far and above better than all the live action pictures. I'm not sure what this means. My guess is that the answer is simple and that the crew behind the animated movies simply have higher standards. Not being mainstream Hollywood, I'm sure this is a much easier state of bliss to achieve.
On the other hand, their next release is going to be a kiddie Avengers flick. That will be a huge mistake. Muppet babies, anyone? But next summer, the John Favreau helmed Iron Man movie will be out. The trailer for that looks awesome, and gives hope to comics fans that a movie may finally do justice to the original comic books.
I first thought his movements had the same (lack of) quality of a poor video game. Today I saw a trailer for an actual video game, "Spider-Man: Friend or Foe." Why, oh why, can't the producers of three major motion pictures do CGI animation as well as the Jolt Cola junkies working on a video game? The movements of the characters in the trailer were astounding compared to what was in the movies. It befuddles me.
Movies like The Punisher and the Blade franchise don't do much for me, probably because the characters never made an impression on me in the actual comics. Ghost Rider should have been cool but apparently wasn't. When a movie is that widely seen and that universally panned, I'll wait until a late night showing on the SciFi channel in five or six years. The commercials will give me an excuse to flip away.
I thought I wanted to see the first Fantastic Four movie. I missed it in the theaters and wondered if I'd missed out on something despite the reviews. Then I saw the second one and it cured me from the desire to see the first one. Even if Jessica Alba could act well enough to pull off the hokey poses and the uninspired, cliched dialog, the movie would still, um, suck.
The quality of Marvel's four animated features (two Avengers, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange) are, except for the crappy near anime style animation, is far and above better than all the live action pictures. I'm not sure what this means. My guess is that the answer is simple and that the crew behind the animated movies simply have higher standards. Not being mainstream Hollywood, I'm sure this is a much easier state of bliss to achieve.
On the other hand, their next release is going to be a kiddie Avengers flick. That will be a huge mistake. Muppet babies, anyone? But next summer, the John Favreau helmed Iron Man movie will be out. The trailer for that looks awesome, and gives hope to comics fans that a movie may finally do justice to the original comic books.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 11:28 AM
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