If anyone has ever seen an Uwe Boll film, you would know how far away from the source material his movies really fall. In an interview with the director he mentioned that he likes to take the story and change it because everyone has head that story before. Trust me, we want to hear it again! We have been waiting years for a film to come out so we can witness our favorite characters coming to life on the big screen, so we can yell at all those people who made fun of us for reading comics and say, "Hey, look how cool this actually is." and sometimes we get garbage. I think the Resident Evil series really falls hard to this. We have an idea of how the story should play out, but instead we get random characters thrown in to appease the fans only to have them killed off. Regardless, the two biggest villains that never lived up to their potential were Blackheart from Ghost Rider and Galactus from Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer. Galactus had potential and had a great build up, but failed horribly since he was never seen on screen. This was a character that devoured planets and with all the space shots in the film, not once did we see him. Blackheart suffered worse. I had high hopes that his demonic form would make an appearance, In the comics Blackheart was portrayed as a very tall black figure with tendrils for hair and piercing red eyes. Instead we got the actor who was supposed to be Blackheart being surrounded by a dark aura with dentures. Not very original. On one last note, I felt Bane was a bit of a letdown. I know that the realism of the Dark Knight trilogy was meant to show Bane portrayed from a realistic approach, but he could have been injected with Venom at the end and I would have been satisfied.
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Originality does have its rewards at times. The greatest villain adaptation on the big screen would have to be Heath Ledger's Joker portrayal. The knife wounds to create the smile were a very welcomed touch that made Christopher Nolan's portrayal of Gotham believable. Thanos is another welcomed figure in the Marvel universe. At the end of the Avengers film we are given only a glimpse of the villain, but it was a fantastic one that leaves you walking out of the theater trying to put everything together to make sense of how he could be the next villain.
#4 - Keep the Basics
Sometimes less is more. In some cases things become too complicated, and leave it up to Hollywood to glamorize everything with their patented stamp of approval. To further explain this topic I want to use a few examples where things that were added for the movies, actually made the film worse. My first example is in Green Lantern. The costume they decided to go with was made entirely out of CGI. With computer generated films we see less of the classical styles, much like older Disney films which were all hand drawn. Although a lot of work, if not more, goes into the CGI process, it should be looked at as a tool and not a framework to base everything else upon. Ryan Reynolds costume made audiences cringe because it wasn't believable, nor was it close to the comic adaptation. I feel that all of the X-Men films suffered greatly from this; of course many people can make the argument that the comic book versions of the costumes would be laughable in a live action film, but having at least some of those comic ideas could have inspired unique costumes for the movie. Instead we were given a very bland set of biker jackets that were all the same.
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Pretty much every comic book film adaptation that didn't stray too far from the source material got it right. Where as some went above and beyond (Spider-man) others kept it fairly basic (Blade). Coming up with the right amount of realism and class is not an easy thing to do. Too much of the classic costumes and you risk looking like a fruit-roll-up. In the Spider-Man tilogy, Spider-Man never uses web shooters like he does in the comics. Although this was not correct in comparison to the comics, I thought that if I was bitten by a radioactive spider, I would like to have the web shooters built in too; again this isn't the most accurate depiction, but I think it was arguably a reasonable compromise.
#3 - Don't Change the Origins
I feel this one almost deserves to be lower on my list, but I will let you be the judge of that. When you stray from the original story you are asking for punishment. Not only does a bad origin story scream for a reboot, but directors will be tarnished for slapping the creators in the face. Some of you may have heard they are rebooting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise, but the director wants to turn them into alien turtles. There have been many outburst on this all over the internet, and even my faith in Hollywood is being shaken. Let's look at some other examples where the origin of characters have hurt the story. The Fantastic Four; Dr. Doom was not on the space station, nor was he made of metal. They did try to correct this in the sequel with Doom's confrontation with the Silver Surfer, but the damage was already done. X-Men Origins: Wolverine; Wolverines past is still somewhat shrouded, but he was never brothers with Sabertooth. Also Deadpool gets a horrible makeover in this film, and I would just like to say that for the record, he never had cyclops' powers.
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First off, I would like to say you have to be pretty gutsy to try and change the origin of a character. Sometimes you can pull it off though with spectacular results. Now, I have never read the Ultimates but I am sure they retell a lot of the golden age comic origins. I think Thor may have benefited from his origin change, which had originally started with a man finding the hammer of Thor and turning into the god of thunder. Looking at Batman Begins we get a re-telling of Batman's origins; not so much in where he trained, but who he trained with. He was never trained by Ra's Al Ghul, but for the film I think it worked just fine.
#2 - Don't Kill the Heroes
Sometimes Hollywood directors think they have a liberty to kill off such iconic characters simply to make a memorable film, but more than not they just make a bad film that's not remembered for its good attributes. The X-Men films really shocked me when they killed off most of their star lineup; one even in the first 10 minutes of the film. Even though I have high hopes with the new film entitled "Days of Future Past" to fix all of these problems, you cannot do this. The only time this would be acceptable would be if you have plans to bring them back in the future or its actually been done in a comic storyline.
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So when have heroes been killed off that it was acceptable? Jean Grey died at the end of X2: X-Men United, she was brought back as the Phoenix in X3: The Last Stand. The Dark Knight Rises would not have suffered if Batman had died in its climactic sequence. We knew that this was Christopher Nolan's final film using the caped crusader, and his idea of Batman was a unique one. He used Batman as a symbol which became a martyr by dying. Although Bruce Wayne lived, Batman died. This was a great way to get the best of both worlds.
#1 - Don't Kill the Villains
This is my biggest pet peeve of all comic book film adaptations. Hollywood is slowly learning that this isn't necessary that in the end of every film we need to kill the villain. In my opinion any comic book villain left alive can make a cameo in another film. Fans eat this stuff up. These are the moments in the theater when people lean over to their friends or their date and say "I knew it!" I cannot even begin to make a list where the villain has died in a comic book film, there's just too many. You would think that if most Superheroes vow to never kill, why do the villains die so often?
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Scarecrow shows up in all three Nolan Batman films and it was welcomed every time. The Joker didn't die in the second film, and although he was never mentioned in the third film we knew he was out there somewhere, and it was satisfying. Loki was brought back for the Avengers. All of these are perfect examples of when Hollywood learned their lesson to keep the villains alive for later use. But in all fairness, Harvey Dent's death was a justified one. His death actually fueled the meaning behind the second film and kick started the plot for the third film; this was a good death.
Final Note:
Well there you have it, this is my list of the "Top Ten Things Comic Book Movies Are Doing Wrong (but sometimes right)." If you enjoyed this list and would like to comment about it, you can leave comments on my facebook by clicking the picture below.
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