No, her performance was rather embarrassing. She also looked ridiculous. Like blond-haired, blue-eyed actors are hard to come by.
I don't think any major female comic character has ever been cast bang on correct.
Rank the Superhero movies!
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
I don't think any major female comic character has ever been cast bang on correct.
I guess I hang out on too many comic book message boards.
People seem to want to insert an "c" into the name, maybe because they're thinking "electricity" instead of Greek mythology?
The Superman Movies:
Superman: The Movie (B)
Superman 2: (A+)
Superman 3: (D-)
Superman 4: The Quest for Peace (F)
Superman Returns (A)
The Batman Movies:
Batman (B+)
Batman Returns (B)
Batman Forever (B)
Batman and Robin (F)
Batman Begins (A)
The Dark Knight (B-)*
Spider-man Movies:
Spider-man (A-)
Spider-man 2 (A)
Spider-man 3 (D)
Hulk Movies:
Hulk (C)
The Incredible Hulk (B)
Other Movies:
Iron Man (A+)
X-Men I (A)
X-Men II (B+)
X-Men III (B)
The Incredibles (A+)
* my biggest complain about the Dark Knight is that it is too dark and too long. The franchise could learn a lesson from the first Iron Man movie. That movie had gritty realism but also some humor and lightheartedness which made it enjoyable. At their heart Superhero movies still need to have some fun and it is clearly lacking in the DK.
Superman: The Movie (B)
Superman 2: (A+)
Superman 3: (D-)
Superman 4: The Quest for Peace (F)
Superman Returns (A)
The Batman Movies:
Batman (B+)
Batman Returns (B)
Batman Forever (B)
Batman and Robin (F)
Batman Begins (A)
The Dark Knight (B-)*
Spider-man Movies:
Spider-man (A-)
Spider-man 2 (A)
Spider-man 3 (D)
Hulk Movies:
Hulk (C)
The Incredible Hulk (B)
Other Movies:
Iron Man (A+)
X-Men I (A)
X-Men II (B+)
X-Men III (B)
The Incredibles (A+)
* my biggest complain about the Dark Knight is that it is too dark and too long. The franchise could learn a lesson from the first Iron Man movie. That movie had gritty realism but also some humor and lightheartedness which made it enjoyable. At their heart Superhero movies still need to have some fun and it is clearly lacking in the DK.
Excellant: Batman Begins; The Dark Knight; Spider-Man; Spider-Man 2; X-Men; Iron Man; Iron Man 2; The Incredibles; Watchmen;
Quite Good: Batman; Batman Returns; The Incredible Hulk; X-Men 2; Daredevil; Blade; Blade II; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Hellboy; V for Vendetta; Mystery Men;
Basically Okay: Fantastic Four; Ghost Rider; Hellboy 2
Sub-Par: Batman Forever; Spider-Man 3; X-Men 3; Wolverine; Fantastic Four 2; Punisher; Hancock;
Terrible: Superman: The Movie; Superman Returns; Batman and Robin; Hulk; Blade Trinity; Elektra; Catwoman; Constantine; Spawn
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
Quite Good: Batman; Batman Returns; The Incredible Hulk; X-Men 2; Daredevil; Blade; Blade II; The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen; Hellboy; V for Vendetta; Mystery Men;
Basically Okay: Fantastic Four; Ghost Rider; Hellboy 2
Sub-Par: Batman Forever; Spider-Man 3; X-Men 3; Wolverine; Fantastic Four 2; Punisher; Hancock;
Terrible: Superman: The Movie; Superman Returns; Batman and Robin; Hulk; Blade Trinity; Elektra; Catwoman; Constantine; Spawn
Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman
I've never been able to finish the live-action version (what a waste of Martin Sheen!), but the animated series made by HBO was very watchable. On DVD, it was edited into three feature-length installments, so I suppose you could count it. Alas, it ends on a cliffhanger.
I think there's a broader appeal to superhero movies than that. I couldn't care less about the comics, really, as I've only read three in the superhero subgenre so far in my life (Watchmen, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory) and of those only cared for one (Watchmen). But the genre, on film, has provided me with at least intermittent entertainment.
A lot of it is crap, though, no doubt about it.
Rii
Rear Admiral
The only decent superhero films I've seen are V For Vendetta, Watchmen, and Unbreakable.
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight get by entirely off the back of Nolan, in the same way that Lux Aeterna can make anything at all seem epic.
stj is right, most of this stuff is dreck. Don't know what you Americans see in it.
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight get by entirely off the back of Nolan, in the same way that Lux Aeterna can make anything at all seem epic.
stj is right, most of this stuff is dreck. Don't know what you Americans see in it.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
How would you prefer she play it? Sue Storm has NEVER been a "Claremount Woman" (ie, a total kickass amazon). Alba portrayed her accurately as a very womanly woman, but still a hero(ine).
For the record, Shazam! said that, not me...
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I'm saying her performance was bad ie. her acting, not how the role was written (even though the overall script was hardly up to much).
I also think they underestimated how important the look of the character is in conveying the relationship with Johnny (as believable siblings) and dichotomy of her 'superheroness' and motherly figure to the group.
I never once bought anything Alba said because not only was her acting bad, but she looked absolutely ridiculous.
Batman Begins, X-Men 2, and Unbreakable are my three favorite Superhero movies.
Overall the Batman franchise has done the best, IMO (as long as that fucking hack Schumacher is kept away).
The first two X-Men movies were great. The third one sucked ass. I never saw the Wolverine movie, but I'm sure I'll get around to it.
I've never much taken to the Superman franchise. I don't hate it or anything, but it's never grabbed me. I don't really find him compelling.
The first two Spiderman movies were pretty good. The third one I turned off before it was over.
I've never seen any Hulk movies, or the Fantastic 4 movies either.
Overall the Batman franchise has done the best, IMO (as long as that fucking hack Schumacher is kept away).
The first two X-Men movies were great. The third one sucked ass. I never saw the Wolverine movie, but I'm sure I'll get around to it.
I've never much taken to the Superman franchise. I don't hate it or anything, but it's never grabbed me. I don't really find him compelling.
The first two Spiderman movies were pretty good. The third one I turned off before it was over.
I've never seen any Hulk movies, or the Fantastic 4 movies either.
Well, that's what I love about it. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed the Nolan films, and see them as a necessary corrective after the campy excesses of the Shumacher era, but, to my mind, there's nothing in them that matches, say, that chilling shot of the Joker's bleached hand rising from a pool of bubbling green goo, or that moment when Gordon first glimpses Batman disappearing in a swirl of chemical fog . . . .
That's pure pulp poetry.
Then again, I also saw THE SHADOW twice in two days.
Two oversights: The Fantastic Four movies and Unbreakable should have gone on my very watchable list.
Watchmen, because of the ambition of its source material, has great interest. But putting it up on a big screen exposed its inherent flaws.
It is true that many superhero movies are quite successful. But of course not all. The ones that are most successful are usually the most popular superheroes, which does go right back to nostalgia for the comics.
Of the really big hits, The Incredibles is a form of the Fantastic Four anyhow. The Iron Man movies, unlike the usual ruck, are actually good movies. They have witty and natural instead of barely serviceable quips and catch phrases and thinly disguised exposition.
Watchmen, because of the ambition of its source material, has great interest. But putting it up on a big screen exposed its inherent flaws.
It is true that many superhero movies are quite successful. But of course not all. The ones that are most successful are usually the most popular superheroes, which does go right back to nostalgia for the comics.
Of the really big hits, The Incredibles is a form of the Fantastic Four anyhow. The Iron Man movies, unlike the usual ruck, are actually good movies. They have witty and natural instead of barely serviceable quips and catch phrases and thinly disguised exposition.
Batman '89 is completely brilliant and is easily the best Bat-flick to date.
You're missing my point. Those are just visuals, though, and in my opinion a film can't just survive on visuals alone. It needs something more, like story & character, which was sorely lacking in Burton and Schumacher's films. Batman Returns had a little bit more character, but Batman (1989) was just an exercise in flashy visuals with no substance.
Nolan's Batman films have equally if not more so iconic visuals, like Batman perched on buildings in Batman Begins, or Batman standing amidst fiery wreckage and standing atop the Sears Tower in The Dark Knight. They might not have that pulpy influence, but Batman isn't all about pulp. What's more is that Nolan's films actually have involving, compelling stories & characters to back up those visuals, which consequently makes the visuals so interesting in the first place. Burton's visuals were intriguing, but they had nothing to really back them up, and thus those images come off as hollow and not as cinematically involving.
Oh, I wasn't arguing with you. I was just explaining why I prefer the Burton movie. The music, the atmosphere, the visuals all give me more of a chill down the spine, as opposed to the more mundane crime thriller tone of the Nolan movies. And, really, I don't see that much difference between the plots and characters. Is Rachel Dawes really that much more compelling than Vicki Vale? And does Ra's al Ghul's master plan to unleash fear gas all over Gotham really have more "substance" than the Joker releasing Joker-gas at a city parade? They're both pulp adventure sagas about a masked vigilante with a tragic past.
To my mind, though, BATMAN does the whole, larger-than-life, dark avenger of the night thing better. Which is what I personally look for in a Batman movie.
There was plenty of character moments in Burton's Batman. Pretty much every scene with Vicki Vale a start.
Yet the Batwing in front of the moon is a million times more memorable. In fact, the whole film is a million times more memorable.
There's a huge difference. What Burton didn't get about Batman is that he's psychologically tormented. Burton thought, to paraphrase his own words, that Bruce Wayne would need the Batman suit in order to make him feel adequate in ways he couldn't, which is why he gave the costume rubber muscles. That's really missing the point of Batman in my opinion.
Bruce Wayne becomes Batman not to feel "adequate" on a physical level, but on a deeply emotional and psychological level. He trains his mind and his body for so many years because he's trying to prepare himself for something. It doesn't become clear to him until later just exactly what that is, when he's able to differentiate against simple-minded revenge that he wants after his parents' death to the more altruistic side of saving the city that his parents vowed to salvage, which is the underlying truism of Batman's character and why he does what he does. Why did Bruce Wayne become Batman in Burton's films? Because his parents died, but it was such a selfish motive. Nolan's films correctly explained that it wasn't just about something simple, like protecting the legacy of his parents, but it was about protecting the city that was responsible for his family's legacy... he was continuing his father's work by stopping Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins.
You wanted to know the difference between the Joker gassing the people of Gotham compared to Ra's al Ghul doing the same in Begins? Simple. In Burton's movie, there was little depth behind that. The Joker was destroying Gotham City because he was a maniacal lunatic. Batman stopped him because he had to, and probably because of the grudge he held against him for killing his parents. Okay, that's very textural, and not very subtextural, which is why the Nolan Batman films are so good because there's always this underlying subtext to everything that happens. In Batman Begins, Batman tries to stop Ra's al Ghul because Ra's isn't just destroying the city, he's destroying everything his parents stood for, he's destroying their legacy, and he's destroying the city that Batman fully believes can be saved. There are psychological and story elements at play in that movie that are just totally and completely absent in Burton's movies, which is why they were so empty and devoid of any substance.
That continues with The Dark Knight, when it becomes less about destroying the city on a physical level, but on a spiritual level, if that makes sense. The Joker in that movie was trying to destroy the soul of Gotham, which was so refreshing for a superhero movie where the archetypal supervillain isn't concocting some devious, diabolical plan to destroy a city or whatever because he's evil, he's doing it because he has his own set of motivations (he believes everyone is corrupt once you remove all the surface layers) and so he sets out to destroy the things in Gotham that matter most, like denigrating Harvey Dent and attacking the people that matter most in Batman's life, i.e. Rachel.
I can go on and on for why Nolan's movies are superior to Burton's movies in every which way, but I'll stop here.
We'll have to agree to disagree. I look for something with a little bit more depth in my superhero movies, but maybe that's just me. Batman to me has always been a psychologically disturbed character with dark-rooted underpinnings, and I never considered him an "on-the-surface" type of character. Burton's films didn't really get that, but Nolan's filmed nailed that in my opinion.
Good, because you were kinda embarrassing yourself.
Such as? His scenes with Vicki Vale were kind of on-the-nose and on-the-surface. Plus, the Vicki Vale character vanished by Batman Returns, so anything that she might have contributed to Batman (1989) also evaporated. She played the archetypal love interest and that storyline brought nothing new or revelatory to the film.
That's a matter of opinion. Yes, that's a memorable visual, but Nolan's films have equally if not more memorable visuals. The fact that The Dark Knight was better received and more financially successful than Burton's Batman might lead you to believe that Nolan's films are consequently more memorable than Burton's films, since more people have seen them, giving Nolan's films the edge in that regard.
How? Sorry, I'm at a loss. Do you enjoy saying comments like that which are mean with no substance backing up your claims? I dunno. That comment seemed mean-spirited and unnecessary to me.
Just one of the many flaws of Batman Returns.
That's a matter of opinion.
More people in remembering something that happened a few years ago as opposed to 20 years shocker.
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