The Good
Spider-man 2: They finally got Spider-man right. I absolutely hated the first Spider-man movie when it first came out. I was one of those super fans (i.e. dorks) who had expectations impossible to meet. Plus, there was that Macy Gray cameo. Ugh. Spider-man 2, on the other hand, was a revelation. Sam Raimi was finally allowed to make the franchise his own, we were finally given a good villian, and there were no superfluous cameos from current pop artists. Comic book movie gold!
Batman: You can have your batsuit nipples and your weird-looking Batmobile--this is the Batman movie for me, friends. Tim Burton's entries are the best in the series (although I did really enjoy Batman Begins and have high hopes for The Dark Knight) and to me Michael Keaton will always be Batman.
The Bad
Ghostrider: Not worth the $1.50 I paid to see it. This is shit and everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves. Mark Steven Johnson obviously did not learn his lesson after making the equally lame Daredevil. Guilty...of being terrible!
X-Men: Growing up you either liked Spider-man or the X-men and that was it! My best friend had a huge collection of X-men comics while I preferred your friendly neighborhood webslinger. I'm probably not the right person to discuss the X-Men movie anyway, because I've never been a fan. I didn't really care for any of the films, but this initial outing was boring and empty.
Daredevil: Mark Steven Johnson's first offense. At the time I remember thinking Daredevil was pretty good. As I've reflected over the years, my hatred has grown, as has my distrust in the Hollywood studio system to ever deliver a comic book adaptation worth paying $9.00 to watch. Ben Affleck isn't even convincing as a human being let alone the greatest blind superhero/lawyer to ever live.
The 'Eh'
The Punisher: I was reading a lot of Punisher (having run out of everything else at my local library) when this movie came to DVD. I actually liked what I was reading, so I thought I'd give the film a try. I didn't hate it. It's actually pretty good. I mean, it's got to be better than the Dolph Lundgren version, right?
The Fantastic Four: More like the Fantastic Bore. Right? After Spider-man, The Fantastic Four is my favorite thing to come out of the Marvel universe. I knew this movie wasn't going to be any good and it was because I had lowered my expectations so much that I enjoyed the film. Sure, there are a lot of extreme sports scenes and the soundtrack is wall to wall post-grunge radio-friendly hard rock, but it didn't suck hard. It just sucked. They pretty much raped the origin story, but it was non-offensive and short, so...
Constantine: Now while I don't mind the Punisher and Superman is starting to grow on me (a little), I adore John Constantine and couldn't wait for a movie about him. Then I found out Keanu Reeves was playing John Constantine--Keanu Reeves who isn't British and isn't a good actor. Surprise, he wasn't that bad as the surly, lung-cancer-suffering master of the occult. It was the movie around him that was mediocre. I'd pray for a Constantine movie worthy of the hard-living John Constantine, but I don't know who to pray to.
Superman Returns: I remember liking this movie...and that's it. Nothing sticks out as particularly memorable or mind-blowing. Spider-man 2 had that train scene--remember that when all the passengers were passing Peter Parker's body down the aisle?; John Constatine had his eerie trip into Hell; I mean, even Fantastic Four had that scene where Johnny Storm goes snowboarding. You get what I'm saying? There was nothing offensive about this film, but there wasn't anything particularly amazing about it either.
Let me know if you don't agree at giantpengy@yahoo.com
