even scum spend the holidays with their families

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#10: The Dark Knight (2008)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  So now that we’ve reached the final date of this comic book adventure, there are probably some sore losers who wonder why I didn’t include movie A or move B or what not but there was never any promise to bring you the best of the best, only a sampling of those that I have enjoyed in the last ten years.  Still, there is a lot of noise that The Dark Knight is the best comic book movie of all time. (Or at least there was before people started saying that Avengers was a candidate for that title.) I’m a Batmanaholic, honestly, and the excitement and thrill of The Dark Knight was such that I saw it twice on opening day: once at 12:01 AM and once again at 7:00 PM. Those experiences, while both full of nerds, were very different. The super nerdy energy of seeing a dorky comic book movie at midnight is always more fantastic than seeing it with the (and I hate to use this term) mainstream movie crowd on a Friday night.  Fewer costumed heroes and in-jokes in the opening day standard showing crowds. Midnight movies are for true believers.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. You already know what point #1 is going to be. It’s Heath Ledger and his portrayal of the Joker, of course. OF COURSE. DUH. A thousand times DUH. Best film adaptation/on-screen version of that character ever. He breathed such an interesting and fascinating light to the Joker wrapped him up with all of the usual giddiness and prankishness but made him sinister, evil, the true mirror to Batman, in the way that The Killing Joke suggested he should be.  Heath Ledger was very much one of my favorite actors. (He and Christian Bale were both also on the fangirl crush list, also, which made my nerd excitement over this movie even more evident when it was first trailering in theaters.) I’m glad that the last thing we really remember him for is something that was so universally acknowledged to be incredible.
2. “Wanna see a magic trick?” <- Done. No explanations needed.
3. Two-Face. I think I mentioned in the listing for Batman Begins that my favorite Batman villains include Ra’s Al Ghul and the Joker but Two-Face rounds out the triad. (Mr. Freeze and the Riddler would follow close behind, though Bane is an interesting choice for The Dark Knight Rises, I guess. I kept joking that it should be the Clock King. Totally believable villain in the Nolan realism world, right?) Anyway, Harvey Dent is fabulous and I’m happy that he got to be in a movie at the same time as the Joker. I wasn’t 100% behind Aaron Eckhart’s performance or casting but he really turned it into something I could support, nonetheless.  (Fun fact, I once read a list of “Lawyers in Comics” and nobody mentioned either Harvey Dent or Daredevil. WTF?”)
4. Scarecrow makes another brief appearance, really demonstrating that the rogues are out in droves.
5. Maggie Gyllenhaal is so much better than Katie Holmes.  So much better. I actually felt something when her pivotal scenes were taking place.
6. All of the staple Batman characters progress in their Gotham fabulousness. I was so happy to see them all there, making a rounded and complete Batman tale. I’d ultimately always have to take the Animated Series over any of the movies, only because it had a longer-running place in my heart, but The Dark Knight, it does a fabulous job of knitting together those connections and making them splendidly believable, interesting, and dramatic.
7. Cliffhanger conclusion. This is my term for the modern ending where there definitely is an end to a story but it has the power to go on because you don’t really know what happened. I actually do like this sort of ending (many readers of modern literature and short stories hate this kind of thing) and it’s very appropriate for a Batman story regardless. There’s always a new crime, a new villain, a new story.

What I think may not be so good:

1. There’s actually very little of Batman himself in this movie. And when he is there, Christian Bale seems to have learned to overdo the Batman voice by about fifty times over his Batman Begins performance, which is just silly.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

I can’t grant a perfect rating but I can give it a 9.6, just enough to show that I think it edges out Scott Pilgrim in terms of its place in the universe but really, I only do that because my attachment to the world of Batman is so much greater than my attachment to the world of Scott Pilgrim is. I haven’t decided yet if Avengers is better than The Dark Knight but I can tell you that Dark Knight is ridiculously, insanely amazing and you should own it just to pull out the DVD and watch the bank robbery opening over and over again.

what happens in black and white stays in black and white

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#9: Sin City (2005)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  Raise your hand if you like creepy and weird things! Stylistically, Sin City was utterly and almost unbelievably true to the comics. The visuals were impressive. Characters were very close to their original comic selves. Essentially, this movie was extremely, extremely pretty. (This was my biggest compliment for the second Matrix movie, ha.)  But it still has a truly great story, drawn on from Frank Miller’s crazy, crazy brain.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. Noir style can be so difficult to translate to print. I never thought I’d be arguing that it was difficult to translate it from print to film. In this case, though, I think it’s a valid point because the quasi-noir style of Sin City the comic is something I would have expected to look silly on the screen. But it doesn’t. It looks great. It’s not without its cheese but the film knows it’s being cheesy in those moments and plays it off as such.
2. No particular character overshadows the others. This really is a united story. You could make all sorts of arguments about frame characters and main characters, particularly if you’ve read the comics but I see the movie as being a story of the individuals as they pass by and interact.
3. I know it is going to sound lame but I heartily approve of Jessica Alba’s refusal to completely remove her clothing. You know why? Because I like comic book women who actually don’t find every excuse in the world to strip down. I prefer such things, if they occur, to have meaning, otherwise I’d rather just be watching naked women, you know? Don’t dress it up (ha!) as a story when it isn’t. Besides, Carla Gugino did plenty.
4. Though there is actually some pretty horrific violence in this movie it doesn’t feel out of place. This is similar to my point for #3. I believe I mentioned yesterday in talking about the progression of Iron Man that I like my comic book stories to actually be character-driven. I don’t like plot for plot’s sake unless you’re going to construct something that is supposed to be pure visual spectacle. Sin City is not that story. It’s supposed to actually BE a story. Therefore, the extreme violence was nonetheless appropriate.

What I think may not be so good:

1. There are so many characters that it can be hard to follow along. In print, it’s easy to refer back to something you’ve already looked and see it again. In a movie, this is a bit difficult. This is especially true if you have an audience that doesn’t know the stories.
2. Brittany Murphy may have been a little miscast. She did a good job at playing the “trashier” part of things but she still felt a little off in this role. This is too bad, of course, especially as she is dead, and it feels a little like I’m just harping on a dead girl.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

7.5. It’s not even that I think this movie is “worse” than any of the others. It’s just that my top-ranked ones in the 8-9.5 range are so amazing that it’s hard to put this on the same shelf.

FE-Man has a tower instead of a sword

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#8: Iron Man (2008)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  This movie is beautiful. Every little homage and setup, every twisting, cutting, snarky, sarcastic remark from Tony Stark. At the time they were released I actually preferred Iron Man to The Dark Knight in several ways (sacrilege points, amirite?) Jon Favreau did an amazing job, though. Visiting Afghanistan and crashing, mandating the need for the arc reactor may not be a work of genius but it did allow for a slow but believable climb for an audience who likely didn’t have a lot of actual Iron Man knowledge. (My own is limited but not nonexistent. I was always more of a DC girl than a Marvel girl, [other than X-Men] though in recent years, I’d say my love for Marvel has grown exponentially.)  All of the cutting jokes going into the movie were about the fact that Robert Downey, Jr. was seriously the choice for Tony Stark? (The jokes wrote themselves, come on.) But he was absolutely perfectly cast for that part.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. Our friend Mr. Stark is perfectly cast.
2. Nobody is a useless sidekick. Pepper Potts is a true counterpart to Tony Stark, an equal (perhaps even a superior in so many ways), and she is just as biting and snapping as he is. Their dynamic is wonderful.
3. Jeff Bridges makes a good “villain.” (I always hesitate to use terminology like that when it’s a story of a good guy gone wrong, or however it wants to be played.) He’s great.
4. I actually felt like the plot was less driven by the action and more driven by the characters, which is a rarity in almost any story that involves weapons and big explosions and CGI. Nonetheless it was here and I’m even more impressed because it was a comic book movie. It may not be super evident but I’m kind of a character-driven story person. I like stories that show me the person rather than the person’s actions. Iron Man actually did a good job of that (much better than its sequel did).
5. Tony Stark’s reveal of “I am Iron Man” is deadpan awesome.
6. Nick Fury! (Does that even count?)

What I think may not be so good:

1. Maybe a little too much time spent in the desert getting turned into Iron Man. As I have noted several times in this series I really love origin stories but the process of his turning into Iron Man took a long time and it was the slowest part of the entire movie.
2. At the end of the day aren’t you still in love with a weapons manufacturer?

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

9.1. Sure. It’s like the Olympics up in here. I think the decimal point is okay.  55.845 is also okay.

frankly, mr. moses, the position you’re in

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#7: RED (2010)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  Okay, I’m cheating with this one. It is, however, the only one where I’m cheating. By cheating, I mean I’ve never read RED.  Eee. (I swear I’ve read books for the other nine movies. Really!) This movie was seen on a whim one lazy Sunday afternoon after some delicious Greek food and a nice walk to the theater. I had few expectations so essentially I had no negative counterpoints to my high-minded comic book ideals. I think Mary-Louise Parker is adorable and her inclusion in this movie was adorable, too. (Note that I’m not calling her “hot” <- comic book fans aren’t all teenage boys, drrr, but I am saying she does adorable things with her face.)  In all, the actors provided a well-rounded cast and I like that the film isn’t just a bunch of twenty or thirty somethings dressed in spandex costumes while they’re being badass.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. The setup. Having no introduction to the story via comics, I can honestly say that I didn’t feel lost by the film story. It worked, clearly, even for those of us who had none of the written story. I believed Bruce Willis as a retired spy/assassin/special agent/secret agent/whatever you want to term it. He had just the right amount of displayed listless loneliness and continued brute strength and itch for adventure.
2. Helen Mirren is so great at playing this type of character. She’s stoic, patrician, hoity-toity and reserved but she is a bloody hands-on killer. I suppose I ultimately just enjoy her duality. She’s funny and likeable because she actually seems less like a believable version of this person. She’s also exceedingly funny. She and Karl Urban both made this movie so great.
3. I laughed so much. I really did. I don’t laugh loudly a lot when I watch things. Usually my laughter is pretty reserved but I was unable to hold back while I was watching this movie.

What I think may not be so good:

1. My comparison list is hard to pull out, as mentioned, with the lack of comic book knowledge, but if anything I’d say it’s that we occasionally get jostled from activity to activity a little too quickly. Then again, that seems to be necessary to the pace of the movie.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

(R)eally (E)ntertaining (D)rama = 8 points. Yay, 8 points! (I’m scared of Bruce Willis.)

my, my, this here batman guy…

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#6: Batman Begins (2005)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  God, 2005 was really a good year for comic book movies, huh?  (So was 2011, for my money. Which of course, I spent willingly on a lot of Vertigo/DC movies in 2005 and a lot of Marvel movies in 2011.) I honestly believe The Dark Knight is a better movie than Batman Begins but in lots of ways I enjoy Batman Begins more. (If I could put Heath Ledger’s Joker into Batman Begins somehow, it would have almost everything I’d want in a Batman movie.) I’m a sucker for origin stories and the Jeph Loeb/Time Sale books The Long Halloween, Haunted Knight, and Dark Victory) are among my favorite Batman comics (not Hush. Oh god, not Hush), all of which factored into this movie in some ways. (Of course so did Frank Miller’s Year One Batman story) The inception of Batman (aghhhh, if you’ll pardon that awful joke) is something Christopher Nolan and his team clearly cared a lot about developing in a realistic fashion and it’s actually nice to see a realistic version of Batman out there.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. Christian Bale. I love how frequently Christian Bale plays some form of sociopath, social outcast, crazy whackjob, whatever. When this movie came out, I was expecting a dose of film version Patrick Bateman as Bruce Wayne. (How many Bateman/Batman jokes can one really make before it grows wearisome?) The voice (which was far more pronounced in The Dark Knight than in Batman Begins) alleviated some of the psycho serial killer vibe I was expecting, and just made the movie comical. Michael Keaton may have been a better Batman in many ways but Bale wasn’t a bad choice.
2. Ra’s Al Ghul! He’s one of my top favorite Batman “villains.” One of the nice things about him is that he’s not entirely a villain and he’s not entirely an ally. I’ve always liked his nebulous status and enjoy the fact that by canon, he knows who Bruce Wayne is. He knows he is Batman. And it’s not his interest to “out” him. Liam Neeson was a good choice for this role (though nobody is ever going to outdo David Warner in my book) but the diversion of Ken Wantanabe was the best. We all really thought he was going to be the actual Ra’s Al Ghul and I’m glad that Chris Nolan, et al. played this ‘joke’ on the audience.  We also don’t know what becomes of Ra’s Al Ghul by the end of the movie and we’re never really sure if he can come back as he claims. (Canon says yes but does Christopher Nolan? Liam Neeson is listed in the credits for The Dark Knight Rises but this could just be archive footage.)
3. This brings me to the point about how this is a Batman movie featuring largely non-American actors. I really just like this piece of trivia.
4. Setting up a Batman movie where the big villains weren’t the Joker and the Riddler and the Penguin… that was a brilliant move, really. Audiences were sick and tired of seeing those same villains being played off again and again. I love the Joker and Batman dynamic and could go into a lengthy discussion of why they need each other and how they feed each other but it’s probably best saved for the Dark Knight review you know I’m so totally planning, but that’s not what this film was about. The Joker is created as a mirror to Batman after Batman is established. Batman needed the other villains (including the homage to mob crime that was part of the original Detective era stories!) to get his start. Ra’s Al Ghul, though one of my favorites (I’m a geek) wasn’t well-known to audiences. Scarecrow may have had some play but certainly less than the other villains. Using them in conjunction to develop an origin story was a sweet move.

What I think may not be so good:

1. Everyone’s pronunciation of “Ra’s Al Ghul.” Ugh.
2. Katie Holmes. Do I actually have to elaborate?
3. There are some moments in the plot where we really could have sped things up. Some slow moments and so forth. Namely some of the hearkening back to little Bruce and the bats.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

I’m pretty sure Batman would be after me in a heartbeat if I didn’t rank this movie well. (It’d be a crime.) That said, I vote 8.5 of 10.

azazel the outcast

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#5: X-Men: First Class (2011)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  My friends are usually the ones to insist that we see comic book movies in the theaters (or movies in general). They’re almost exclusively male so I guess there’s some stereotype at work here. Regardless, when we first started previewing First Class before other movies, they balked. I had to jump up and down and squeal (well, maybe a little) in order to get them to go with me to see the movie in the theater. I kept insisting it would be great and that everything I saw from the trailer encouraged me. James McAvoy is a good actor (just because I happen to think he’s adorable is not reason enough for me to see a movie he’s in… for example, I will never, ever, ever watch Wanted again, which is a comic book movie that probably belongs on my “worst” list despite its fabulous cast of actors) and that alone pushed me to the mindset of believing the movie would be good. Imagine my friends’ shock when they really enjoyed First Class.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. The X-Men have been done well before (and I could write an entirely separate post about the varying reasons why the previous X-Men trilogy had its ups and downs) but this was, to me, a phenomenally more enjoyable film than the others. It had a good pace throughout, with enough character development in the brief vignettes that we saw before the team starts coming together.  The little nods to the older X-Men movies, such as Jennifer Lawrence Mystique turning into Rebecca Romijin Mystique to appeal to our buddy Magneto… that’s just a good visual gag, all around. See #5 below as well.
2. Kevin Bacon was particularly well-cast. I have to mention this because of all the NERD RAGE surrounding his inclusion as Sebastian Shaw. So many dorks out there insisted that he was wrong for the part, that he couldn’t pull it off, that there were better actors, and that Kevin Bacon was just a shlub anyway.  I honestly won’t hold with any of that. He was great.
3. Moira gets her own story development. This is nice, actually, since I presume the films going forward (and they will go forward, right? Right?) will eventually show how Charles Xavier came to father a son.
4. This is a period piece, which provides a good companion to the other Marvel period piece of 2011 (Captain America) and also I have a bit of a nerd-on for the 1960s in general. I know the movie actually starts out in the 40s but the bulk of its action and plot development takes place when the characters are all definitively grown-up and living adult lives.
5. Also, “GO FUCK YOURSELVES.” Of course. Seriously, did you think I’d miss that one?

What I think may not be so good:

1. We almost never actually see Professor X and Magneto as friends. They’re mostly shown with the presumption that we already knew they were friends who drifted apart.
2. January Jones.  I still have a bit of hatred of her from Betty Draper (I think I mentioned above being a nerd for the 1960s… hence Mad Men love as well, I suppose) but as Emma Frost she was, if you’ll pardon the pun, frozen. Her face was frozen, she was dead, totally unemotional, and not just playing an ice queen, but rather playing some sort of weak version of Emma Frost. Her best moment in this entire film is probably when she is telepathically projecting herself so she doesn’t have to give up her physical body for some old gross man’s sex games.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

8 out of 10 X-Men characters prefer First Class. Fortunately that also happens to be my rating for this movie.

nothing ends, adrian. nothing ever ends.

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#4: Watchmen (2009)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  Considering the ruination caused by other Alan Moore comic-to-film adaptations and my general disgust for V for Vendetta: The Movie (apparently in contrast to other nerds’ opinions) I have to say Watchmen is a surprisingly good movie.  Opening weekend I doubt I would have said as much because I was too busy dissecting the various missing bits, the lack of nuanced character development (then again, how do you take a book like Watchmen and create a film without cutting out 60% of its details?) This movie is by no means, even half as good as the comic but it is a good film. As far as adaptations go, it’s not the worst and it’s not the best but if you pretend it isn’t a comic adaptation you can find far more enjoyment in it. (This is my take on Star Trek: Nemesis, also. Pretend it isn’t a Star Trek movie and you’ll enjoy it a whole lot more.) I will admit I spent months sighing before the Watchmen movie came out and still went to see it opening weekend. (I’d been camping all weekend and came home, didn’t shower, and still went to the theater. I mean, seriously, gross, right? But definite nerd points accumulated.)

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. The opening credits. “The Times They Are-A-Changing” has never been more aptly used and never have I been so impressed with the opening credits of a film. (You could argue that the credits establish a level of expectation that isn’t met by the rest of the film but it doesn’t really matter at this stage.) Many of the pieces of backstory that are addressed in the comic in more lengthy detail are actually covered here, albeit with brevity. It’s nice, though, that they got worked in.
2. The casting of nearly everybody fit well enough to make me believe that these were film versions of my long-beloved book characters and not new Hollywood inventions. I actually found Nite Owl (well, Nite Owl II) to be pretty good, which was a contrast from my feelings during the original Watchmen trailers.
3. The decision not to include the Tales of the Black Freighter as part of the main theatrical feature. This is also on my “not so good” list below but I’ll address that in the subsequent part. I think it was a good decision to remove the full page text and print pieces from the film because really, it’s just too much. Too much information, too many things that worked well as comic pages (the “pasted” pictures motif, the newspaper articles) that wouldn’t work in a live-action film, especially one that was nearly three hours long anyway.
4. Watchmen didn’t become a specific anti-terrorist film. Too many stories get updated to be about the Afghan and Iraq Wars and though those definitely deserve their own sorts of stories, Watchmen wasn’t about those wars. It was never meant to, and it’s insulting and irritating when films head off in the direction of “UPDATE” with the claim that audiences won’t care if it isn’t pandering to uniquely current American experiences. (See LXG and the film’s inclusion of Tom Sawyer for whatever ridiculous reason.)
5. Nobody in the film ever referred to the characters as THE Watchmen, which was a big fear for many nerds. (Of course we also got Saturday Morning Watchmen from this fear so it isn’t all bad.)
6. The ending, though changed, was still a strong resolution to the overall film. I wouldn’t have changed it, personally, but I do understand that they had to make alterations in order to get the strong story they wanted in the film version.

What I think may not be so good:

1. As mentioned above, The Tales of the Black Freighter was removed. I said above it was a necessity, unfortunately, and it was good that it was taken out in order to meet time and story constraints. But it was nonetheless such an integral part of the side-by-side development of Watchmen the comic that its absence makes the film feel like it isn’t really a Watchmen adaptation. The comic-within-a-comic is meant to parallel and address additional points from the main story. It’s not that Watchmen is terrible without it. It just feels lacking.
2. “Hallelujah.” Ugh. This is not a sex scene song. It never should be. Especially not in a comic book movie that involves costumed hero sex. Just no. Absolutely not, never, no, no way.
3. We’re missing some important backstory, e.g. murders and these items are not addressed at other points in the story. Essentially, sweeping parts of the book are left unaddressed. While I understand that this is a movie and not a miniseries and therefore some stuff has to be cut, it’s hard to look at an adaptation of Watchmen and not notice the missing pieces.
4. Ozymandias is more sympathetic than he ought to be.  This is probably the particular problem of film visuals and the fact that he was never completely unsympathetic but I found myself rooting for him a lot more in the movie than in the book.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

Alan Moore took his name off it. What a surprise. I’d still say it’s a better adaptation of one of his stories than pretty much any of the other ones that have come to film. I vote 7.5 out of 10 with the reservation that this is to be enjoyed absent the comic book rather than as an extension of the comic book.

a history of viggo mortensen

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#3: A History of Violence (2005)

Trade Paperback Tickets:  A rare case of the movie being better than the book. Considering that this is a David Cronenberg film, it’s hard to believe that the violence and straight-up torture porn of the comic didn’t make it into the movie. No, instead Cronenberg took a story that was interesting and made it thrilling. The touches of family and minimalist (accepted) violence between father and son and son and community touch on the theme of perpetuating hate and the idea that the past can’t be forgotten even if it can be cut off.  Every character who is in the film version of this story has been given more sketch lines and a more important and better understood role. The book addresses plenty of mob violence and has truly horrific shock scenes that don’t resonate nearly as well as the understated film elements simply because the characters never mattered as much.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. I like to be able to call it the one comic book movie I know for sure is better than the original book material.
2. Your wife is hot. You do not need twenty-year old women to satisfy you if you have a woman who truly loves you, understands you, and is willing to engage in a strong, healthy relationship with you. Wait. Did nobody else take away this message? I only mention it because it was nice to see Maria Bello playing that role. Too many comic book movies (and movies in general) ignore the fact that middle-age women can be attractive, dynamic partners and that husbands may still prefer them to nubile adolescents. This movie did not.
3. As creepy as Cronenberg loves to make things, he didn’t take History of Violence and turn it into a gore fest, despite the fact that the source material offered up plenty of those scenes on a silver (but blood-splattered) platter. He offered real images, real motivation, and even real torment. (Emotionally and physically.)
4. Viggo Mortensen was a really good choice for this movie. And William Hurt as his brother. Believable, understandable, sympathetic but still scary in all the right ways.
5. Audiences would probably never have known this was a comic book if there hadn’t been a marketing push in bookstores after the film’s release. I mention that because it’s nice to reinforce the idea that comic book movies != superhero movies.

What I think may not be so good:

1. Some of the earlier hints at a different past were set up without as much understanding as may have been needed for the audience.  By this, I mean only that the violence and strategic hunting down seemed to come on a little strong and felt a little forced. Fortunately, I suppose, this was better fleshed out as the story went on.
2. Now what? I hate when I feel like a story forces me to ask “now what?” since I’m a student of the modern story, wherein the ending may not have a real resolution even if it has a conclusion. Nonetheless I found myself wondering that in the case of this movie.

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

A solid 8.5 out of 10. I’d actually rank A History of Violence among the top ten best comic book movies of all time (along with yesterday’s choice of Scott Pilgrim and several others) as well as my top ten favorite comic book movies of all time. You know, if you want good movies.

canadians have all the fun

As part of the series Ten Days of Comic Book Movies.

#2: Scott Pilgrim versus the World (2010)

Trade Paperback Tickets: If you want to talk about one of the most faithful comic book adaptations ever made we should chat about Scott Pilgrim. Someone recently posited to me that Scott Pilgrim isn’t a comic book movie since it’s largely about video games. Well, sure, Scott lives a video game life but this is still a definitive comic book movie. It’s based on a series of comic books, after all.  The various characters who appear in the Scott Pilgrim world are actual people, despite being sometimes conveniently used to move the plot forward (I blame the lack of available time to fully explore as much as was explored in the comic books) and everybody has a role. I find the choice of actors pretty much perfect. The film is never dull and though it leaves out some items from the books, it’s mostly done as a factor of time and the things that are removed are those that wouldn’t have translated as well to film, anyway.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. It is as fun a movie as you can get, comic book or not. It’s funny, it has meta references, action sequences, one-liners, pop-up jokes, visual gags, a moving storyline, dozens of interesting characters, silly songs, etc. Name something great and it’s probably in this movie.
2. Nobody who is in this movie is not, in some way, a nerd. By which I mean these people are either good at playing nerds or are self-professed nerds, or are just generally really easy to believe are closeted nerds. In a comic book movie, you really can’t ask for much more than that.
3. Video game references. The video game references that may make this seem more like a video game movie are extra awesome because they are video game references in a comic book movie that includes video game references. The music, the visual gags, the mere fact that there is even willingness to create a video game movie within a comic movie. (That last part is a little cheap but seriously, much love for Bryan Lee O’Malley and for everybody who worked on the film version.)

What I think may not be so good:

1. The fact that this movie was not well-loved when it was in the theaters.  Um, I’m sorry, nerds, where the hell are you? Why didn’t you like this movie?

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

This is going to be 9.5 out of 10. (I have a hard time offering perfect scores. This is about as close as it gets.) 1-up!

Revenge of Comic Book Movies

Avengers netted over $200 million dollars in profit its first week in theaters. Being a geek, I obviously darted out to see it on opening day. It deserves every bit of praise it has received. Sensationalists always seem to jump out and call any new movie the “best” of its kind when it’s really good but Avengers will probably have lasting power in the Best Comic Book Movies game. So many lists of comic book movies have appeared this week: The Ten Best Comic Book Movies, The Best Superhero Movies, The Best Marvel Movies, etc. I, for one, am glad to see this geekery exposed to the press but I also feel compelled to join in by bringing you my Ten Days of Comic Book Movies. Am I going to tell you the best ones ever? Probably not. What I am going to do is tell you about ten comic book movies I’ve enjoyed in the last ten years. Feel free to disagree and be sure to tell me why I’m wrong because NERD RAGE is the best kind of rage.

#1: Constantine (2005)

Trade Paperback Tickets: British blond devil-may-care (ha) John Constantine converted surprisingly well to dark-haired American “Excellent” Keanu Reeves. Sad Keanu really should have started with Constantine since he spends the majority of the movie moping in one format or another. Sometimes his moping is reflective, sometimes it’s angry, and other times it’s full-on ragetastic. He probably ate many sandwiches all alone in high school. Certainly Hellblazer established extremely different origin story details. Our buddy John actively sells his soul rather than lose it in the back of a Catholic guilt-trip ambulance after attempting suicide. He’s meaner, he’s harder, and he’s going to be aging in real-time for forever. Movie Constantine (pronounced differently, of course to give all of us silly Americans less excuse for incorrect vocal inflection) is a snarky asshole, too, though he seems to have toned it down during his trip across the pond. Maybe he had a lot of time to himself to reflect on why others don’t like him. Or maybe one of his Hellbound demon buds came along and threatened him. Who knows? Either way, the ‘watered’ down version of John Constantine actually produces strangely effective results for a film story.

What I truly like about this movie version:

1. John is a mopey, mopey man, a character trait which Keanu does well as an actor, therefore making him believable. He’s also snarky and snippy and delivers good one-liners, seemingly in response to his moodiness.
2. The origin story for John Constantine makes him a more sympathetic character in the film than in Jamie Delano’s issues of Hellblazer. (Don’t get me wrong, because the Newcastle storyline of Hellblazer creates a lot of sympathy but it isn’t a proper “origin” story either.)
3. Supporting actors. Gavin Rossdale, for example, is a surprisingly good Hell creature. (All of the jokes one could make about Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani and here we are, pinning in in between the parts of a comic book movie.)
4. The tone. It’s dark but not so dark as to be impenetrable to the masses. There isn’t too much “in-world” reference and though the movie isn’t without nuance, the story is straightforwardly dramatic. You know the expectation of what is going to come and can see the whole thing play out without too much head-scratching. In other words, it’s fun. Which is a nice thing for a semi-supernatural religious-oriented comic book movie.
5. My favorite line from the movie: “You have to ask for absolution, asshole.”

What I think may not be so good:

1. Character changes to John Constantine and no discussion of the seminal Newcastle story pull some of the punch from the Constantine background.
2. Religious symbolism and misinformation about Catholicism tends to spark up a certain kind of controversy that generally just makes me sigh because it’s a freaking comic book movie. (In other words, really, this one is about the audience.)
3. The fact that a special movie version of Hellblazer had to be put out and it was called Constantine instead. Going too far? The renaming was frustrating anyway (mostly because as I recall there was some singer with the name Constantine walking around at the time) but I do get the need to not mix up Hellraiser with Hellblazer.
4. Wait. This is an Alan Moore creation on the big screen that played well with many comic book fans and also with the masses? Was it a true sign of our impending doom?

Endorsements & Prohibitions:

My end rating would probably be a 7 of 10 but at least a large portion of that 7 is based solely on the Constantine snark and in forced ignorance of many of the plot holes and problems in the film.