It ain't the worst thing ever but we were all absolutely intrigued by director with a body of work of affecting and disturbing artistic dramas who was about to tackle a silly super hero movie. We wont have any snorricam shots of Wolverine slaughtering Yakuza, no gross-out closeups of his wounds healing, no dialogue about how he's a broken-down piece of regenerating meat, no Kronos Quartet, no hip hop montages and of blade sounds and dilating pupils, no nothin'. Now we can expect the latest hot music video director to step in after he finishes his most recent ubercool levi jeans commercial.
All kidding aside I was intrigued about how a guy like Aronofsky would handle action scenes with a guy with half a dozen pig stickers on his hands. The characterization would have been top notch I'm sure but just him in a comic book world would have been very cool. He just can't trade this in for a Noah's Ark movie!
Spider-Man 2 is still the perfect superhero film to me. It has great action, acting, story, and a whole lotta heart. That last bit is what catapults it above almost every other superhero film. It's as colorful and as lively as a good Spider-Man story should be. Characters' motivations are explained cinematically so well it makes us truly care about everyone and everything going on.
While I know it's not part of the Marvel Universe I have to find a way to throw in Kick-Ass. It is part of their company anyhow and I just love the movie. Kick-Ass is one of the best action movies made in the last ten years. The action crescendos as the story progresses and is there to serve the story too instead of standing around as bits of eye candy. Our hero may be a complete imbecile but he's likable enough to where we want to see him triumph. Also this movie is just funny as heck.
Blade is a solid film that thumps along nicely. Sadly the horrendous CG work is so distracting it takes me out of the movie. The story wasn't just quite strong enough to let me forgive the distractions completely. I know I'm in the minority but I get a huge guilty pleasure kick out of the Dolph Lundgren Punisher movie. Quit whining about the lack of a skull. That movie is the kind of straight-up 80s action FUN you don't get too often any more.
Meh, Fox needs to try harder than this graphic design major's midterm project. These are kind of lame, guys.
With that said this is the only superhero film that looks worth seeing this year. Matt Vaughn already made what is in my mind one of the best of the genre last year with Kick-Ass.
This show hasn't aged well AT. ALL. The animation recycled over and over is laughable. I think this show is more responsible for cases of childhood ADD than the interest in comics. The constantly crescendoing music and quick cuts laid the ground for an entire generation not paying attention in elementary school.
I'm a little underwhelmed. I was hoping with this new cast and alleged new direction it would look different but so far it's kind of more of the same. I could be wrong though since this is trying to play to the folks at home who are only familiar with the X-Men by what they've seen in the previous movies. Hoping for the best!
I think it's a no-brainer this was a huge reason a lot of kids born in the mid/late 80s picked up X-Men and Marvel books. DAMN WAS THE SOUND OF GAMBIT'S CARD CHARGING COOL. The quality went down after the first two or three seasons. I did love everything about the phoenix/dark phoenix saga. I remember being disappointed with The Brood's depiction who were like a race of lizard men called "The Family" than the huge creepy insects they were in comic form.
Still, as every bit as good as this show could be it couldn't hold a candle to Batman the Animated Series. It's an unfair comparison because of how absolutely perfect it is and rewatchable over the years. It also stood apart from X-Men in an important way. As serious as X-Men took itself it was alomst too serious to the point of pretentiousness. Batman was serious but it was full of pathos and morality plays that affected me more deeply than anything X-Men could do. X-Men was ambitious in the broad story arcs it told (and often very well) but Batman, as episodic as the structure was in contrast to X-Men, was way way more memorable for the characterization and emotions.
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