#33 - Superhero Movie

I love Superhero Movies. They’re my favourite genre of movie and it’s almost guaranteed these days that I’ll watch a Superhero Movie. (A few indie films notwithstanding) but I won’t deny that they can be formulaic. There’s plenty of clichés that come with superheroes that make the genre perfect for parody, here’s a guide of how not to do it.

Superhero Movie is another of those ‘movie movies’ that “satirises” popular movies in a particular genre. The most popular is the ‘Scary Movie’ which has spawned a fluttering of sequels. The basic formula is sadly a bunch of references with little to no effort. And whilst I’m not above making references myself

  

Epic Movie particularly has them ad-nauseam.  How bad is this one? Let’s dig in

4 Issue Test #18 - Uncanny Avengers

Now if there’s one facet of the Marvel Universe they’ve expanded since Secret Wars, it’s the Avengers, there are 6 different Avengers titles out there, each with a unique roster. Those titles are: All New All Different Avengers, Uncanny Avengers, New Avengers, The Ultimates, Squadron Supreme and A-Force. I’m going to be looking at Uncanny Avengers and All New All Different Avengers. I’m picking up more than enough Marvel titles for this to suffice.

So, I suppose I’d better mention the cast of this book. Steve Rogers: Former Captain America, he’s not an active hero in this book. The Human Torch, former member of the Fantastic 4, but with the Richards family no longer present thanks to Secret Wars and Ben Grimm chumming up with the Guardians of the Galaxy, he’s in this title. Filling our quota for mutants (the Uncanny Avengers aka the Unity Division was initially a route to peace between mutants and humans) we have the power absorber Rogue and the merc with the mouth Deadpool. In the magic-users’ category, we have Doctor Voodoo. I don’t know who he is. In the Inhumans category we have Synapse, I have no f*cking clue who she is and Quicksilver, who was retconned into being an inhuman to screw over Fox.

Before we begin in earnest, I think it also fair to look at Uncanny Avengers Annual #1. I’ll be brief, it’s rare that a series will get an issue this early in its run. But there’s a reason for it here: it’s a marketing gimmick to get people interested in the Scarlet Witch comic. Bear in mind, Scarlet Witch is not a member of the Uncanny Avengers. In fact this story centres around magic users and barely features them. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS! With that said, let’s dig into the real content.

#28 - Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer

So, Fantastic 4 may have sucked but it made money so the inevitable sequel came out, and it sucks.

Released in 2007, this film managed only 37% on Rotten tomatoes and made $280m on it’s $130m budget, which is still more than the current movie is likely to make.

So I ask what makes a good comic book adaptation? Comic books characters have decades of history behind them making it quite difficult to come up with an idea that embraces the feel and spirit of the characters whilst also being unique in its own way. The biggest difference between a comic book adaptation and a book adaptation is the fact the story is (to an extent at least) completely original, it just stars the characters from the comic book.

Capturing the tone and feel of the characters is a struggle because the tone and feel of characters have changed over time through retcons and alternate universes. This is why I really didn’t mind the fact they went for the ultimate universe origins for the Fantastic 4 in their latest release, it makes sense to not re-tread old ground and release the same origin, like they did with Spider-man. (Spider-man’s origins in the mainstream and ultimate universe are pretty similar)

I don’t have a full answer for me take the cliff-notes versions of what the characters are like in the comics and craft a good story. The good story with well-paced and balanced action is key to a good superhero movie. Create a good dynamic between the characters and the rest will follow.

So, what goes wrong here? Let’s dive into Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer to find out.

#27 Fantastic 4

Oh boy, what was Marvel like before the cinematic universe, we had the Aang Lee Hulk movie, which sucked, we Spider-man movies which… in my personal opinion, sucked. Then we have the x-men movies produced by Fox. I confess I have not seen them, my love of Marvel started with the Avengers. (Maybe we’ll do a theme month with them, god knows there’s enough of them) so, Fox has a decent-ish record with the X-men, time to reboot the other marvel property they own, the Fantastic 4.

I’ll get to the new one when it comes out on DVD, there’s plenty to go through and to be honest, it’s worse than either of these but… that doesn’t stop them from being bad. Fox had gained the rights to Marvel’s characters in the 1990s and they would retain them as long as they keep making movies about them, the first one was made in 1994, but it was never released. Risking losing the rights back to Marvel, they decided to make another attempt for release in 2005

The film was financially successful, making $330m on its $100m budget, but gained a pretty poor critical response, only rated 27% on rotten tomatoes. This lead to it’s equally sh*tty (although in a very different way) sequel in 2007. But that’s for next week, let’s dig into to Fantastic 4.

I’ll be looking at the extended addition because that’s what I’ve got on my DVD.