Criticism for Supeehero Movies

People sometimes give unfair movie reviews. Lets do our best from now on to be fair.

Editorial Opinion
By thoarnejones - Feb 14, 2012 07:02 PM EST
Filed Under: Other
Source: comicbookmovie.com

Hello everyone,this will be my first editorial so please be as nice as possible while still stating truth. Being a comic book fan has its share of irritations. Most for me purist fanboys that nitpick on the smallest things. And while I can see where there coming from to me it gets annoying sometimes. So the question is then,what makes a good comic book movie? Is it the story,the special effects,the acting(voice acting),or is it the adaptation in general? These are questions we should ask ourselves in reviewing these movies.
Lets start with Spider-Man 3. Is that movie really as bad as some of us think? To be fair when I saw it the first time I saw it I was ecstatic. I was 12 and I loved seeing Venom on the big screen. But the more I saw ot the more I disliked it,because I can see its faults. It wasn't until I saw a review from an objective point of view did I see how stupid I was being. Now it has become one of my favorite CBM's. We get great fight scenes and cool special effects. Now while the story does suffer,to me it was Sam Rami try to make the movie to epic. X men3 has the same problem. To many antagonists that need exposition without suffeint screen time to do so. Lets compare SM3 to Batman Begins. Spiderman3 has 3 villains. Sandman,New Goblin,and Venom. None of those villains have anything to do with each other. They're just there and wanna kill Spiderman. Batman Begins has Ra' Al Ghul,Scarecrow,and Carmine Falconi. Ra' Al Ghul and the League of Shadows want to destroy Gotham because they believe its corrupt and beyond saving. Dr.Crane is one of Gotham's corrupt civil workers. The manager of Arkham Asylum,who's working for Ra's Al Ghul and mistakenly believes he's just wants to hold the city for ransom,and is just doing it for the money. He's using Carmine Falconi,who pulls the strings in the city's criminal underground to help smuggle the drugs into the city,which Crane in turn is weaponizing for Ra's. See they all fit together. Does that make Spider-Man 3 a bad movie,its clearly a matter of taste. What I find most annoying really is that I always hear someone say "The Dark Knignt was better than that". I think we can all agree the TDK is the best CBM made to date. Which is why to me its unfair to compare other CBM's to it. TDK is an anomaly. A near perfect superhero movie that sets the bar higher for CBM's. But to say other BM's aren't as good by comparsion is to me downgrading the movie because it doesn't set the bar higher. Which is why I love Marvel Studio's movie. I've heard that Thor and CAFA are standerd superhero movies. Most people hate the "winks and nods to the Avengers" I don't consider them those,but more like story points that would convilude the story i. the Avengers. Do we really need to see Capt defrosted in the movie? Its already an origin
,just get the story going. Not everyone is going to agree on how good a CBM is. But I do feel that if we all put our prejudices aside we can enjoy the movie more. The point of movies are to entertain and if we crtisise every aspect of it and say "I don't like that" we take away the experience from ourselves.
One last thing I wanna mention is the argument that Thor and Captain America are "rushed". While I do not agree with that I want to explain why. Capt's WW2 story should be a trilogy,and Thor's story of him on Earth. The last movie could have Loki going bad.
Again this is my first Editorial so please be nice. But do not withhold fair criticism.

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thoarnejones
thoarnejones - 2/14/2012, 7:43 PM
Sorry about some of the misspellings. I should not have used my cell for this.
Supes17
Supes17 - 2/14/2012, 8:16 PM
Nice article
You should take that last thing you mentioned an turn it into a separate article so that you can expand on the subject.
thoarnejones
thoarnejones - 2/14/2012, 8:54 PM
@Supes17:Thanks. I really appreciate your kind response. When I was writing my heart was in my throat.
Orphix
Orphix - 2/15/2012, 2:16 AM
Paragraphs would be nice - but cool article ;o)

As for your comments - I see where you are coming from but I have always been a firm believer in that a good comic book movie and a good movie are the same thing. They are not mutually exclusive. I am quite happy for a filmaker to experiment, play around with and bring new ideas to a familiar character if it makes the film better.

Too many times filmakers have been too constrained by their material (like Snyder with Watchmen) to really explore the story ideas and themes. Making the costume look perfect seems to take precident for too many fans on here - especially when they feel 'insulted' that a director has taken 'liberties' with a character costume. The amount of flak Johnson got for the USO Captain America suit was very harsh.

And you make some really great points about the amount of antagonists in a film - especially when comparing Batman Begins with Spiderman 3. These films show that it all comes down to the writing. BB unfolded without huge exposition scenes and we knew enough about the characters from how they acted and the decisions they made. A little bit of information held back, a little bit of mystery, added all the more to the story and helped it become more 'adult' and somewhat of a thriller.

SM3 on the otherhand felt it had to tell us everything. Big exposition scenes, creation of their powers, and big character arcs all played a part in making the film feel rather shallow. Too much time on these things meant that characters weren't explored and, ironically, felt 'shortchanged'.
Orphix
Orphix - 2/15/2012, 2:23 AM
Oh - and I agree on your comments about the MCU.

The Avengers has, unfortunately, had a bit of a detrimental effect on some of the films.

Ironically the more each of the individual franchises are kept seperate the more magical it is when they do all finally come together for The Avengers.

Nods and winks are very cool - but they should be tiny and very infrequent. Or, at the very least, serve the story. In that sense having the hulk going nuts on the news in the background is cool. Have Hawkeye show for absolutely no reason whatsoever is bad.

I felt CA:TFA got really shafted in the final third because they had to get him frozen by the end of it. It completely undercut any relationships he had building up with either Peggy or the Red Skull. The sense of romance in one and threat it the other was totally ruined.
marvel72
marvel72 - 2/15/2012, 11:12 AM
i can only watch the action scenes of spider-man 3,i can't bare to sit through the rest.
MoonDoggyX
MoonDoggyX - 2/15/2012, 11:19 AM
Nice Read! Ophix hit the nail on the head. For a CBM to be good, it simply has to be a good movie. There are technically good movies like TDK and Iron Man, then there are movies that are just entertaining and not much else like Transformers or Spiderman 3.

Unfortunately, IM2, Thor and Cap were a little bit of both, but not enough of either to be enjoyable for me. As you mentioned, all the Avengers crap took away from the movies' stories, and the action was too weak in both of them to be mindless fun. They didn't reach for the "brass ring" one way or the other. Which is a real shame because those movies had some MAJOR talent in them.

Marvel did have the CBM formula down. They had it for Iron Man 1 and The Incredible Hulk. Let the movie tell its own great story with a few easter eggs, then leave all the Averger tie-in stuff for after the credits. Then they got greedy or something and IM2 Thor and Cap were basically Avengers prequels. Stuffed and bound so much by the Avengers, that they don't stand up very well on their own...
thoarnejones
thoarnejones - 2/15/2012, 12:10 PM
Thanks for all the feedback. This is all new to me. They get better as I go on.
thoarnejones
thoarnejones - 2/15/2012, 12:16 PM
@Orphix:The difference with Watchmen is its an adaptation. There's only one Watchmen story. And they brought it to the screen. The aim was to be accurate in the adaption. If they hadn't we get another Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer. And I do feel that a CBM has to be a good movie first.
Ghostt
Ghostt - 2/15/2012, 5:01 PM
Happy first article. you broke your cherry! (on your cell phone? wow)

Now stop begging these nutjobs to be nice. You ain't wrote an article if some crazy doesn't tear it to shreds!
Ghostt
Ghostt - 2/15/2012, 5:03 PM
oh yeah...

I think we should be critical of CBMs, because if they are not great, then people will stop paying money, and they will stop making them, and this whole superhero thing will just be a fad that people laugh about. We must force them into excellence!
Wolverine19742
Wolverine19742 - 2/17/2012, 4:56 AM
Nice article but, be very careful on your mistakes. I have had articles pulled for a lot less than what you have here. Just a FYI.
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