LOL You just seemed waaaay too determined to prove your point.
Rank the Superhero movies!
- Thread starter Trekker4747
- Start date
One of the things that I like about Nolan's approach to his Batman films is that everything is planned in advance. He knows the story he is telling. Burton's movies are obvious in the way he had absolutely no idea the story he was telling on a grand, larger scale.
Well, I mean, YOU think it was a memorable visual. That's just you.
No, I just really feverishly enjoy debating this.
I get really frustrated at times watching Superhero movies because it seems most directors really don't get the characters and their settings.
Here are the top ones in my opinion:
Iron Man: Fantasic version of a character I loved as a kid. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is perfect. Hard for me to imagine someone else as him now. The only drawback is the lack of a proper enemy, just another amored suit.
Incredibles: I truly loved this movie. Awesome characters, my favorite was the costumer. Great action and character develoment and a good plot line.
Watchmen: I hadn't read the comic so I didn't know what to expect. Lovely "golden age" feel to it. I liked Rorschach's character.
Very impressed.
Unbreakable: One of those movies that totally took me by surprise. One of the best explanation of the superhero mythos I have ever come across along with a fantastic plot twist at the end.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Great job on the Surfer, well paced. The best of the FF4 movies.
Spider Man 2: I loved how they brought Doctor Octopus to life. The best of the Spidey movies.
Hancock: A unique approach to the superhero genre. I loved when he got thrown through a wall at his publicist's home. Totally took me by surprise.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: I am a real fan of the Batman Beyond TV series and I loved the Return of the Joker movie.
Good portrayal of the Joker as a truly dangerous villain instead of a clown.
Terry really comes into his own as the Batman.
Good to watch
While not as good as my favorites, all of these were fun to watch.
Fantastic 4
Batman 89
Spiderman 1
Xmen
Elektra
Ghost Rider
Mystery Men
Green Lantern: First Flight
V for Vendetta
Failures:
In my opinon, here are the ones that failed.
Superman: I have yet to see a Superman movie I liked. How can they all fail with such a well loved character to work with? All these movies are lame.
Batman: I liked the Batman 89 one. Some of the rest are watchable, but overall, the movies are not as strong as Iron Man or Spider Man.
Daredevil: Terrible disappointment. I liked the Elektra movie better than Daredevil.
Hulk: I have yet to see a Hulk movie I liked. I like how the Avengers animated movies treat the character better.
The Phantom: Another disappointment as this was a well-loved comic book as a kid I read.
Here are the top ones in my opinion:
Iron Man: Fantasic version of a character I loved as a kid. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark is perfect. Hard for me to imagine someone else as him now. The only drawback is the lack of a proper enemy, just another amored suit.
Incredibles: I truly loved this movie. Awesome characters, my favorite was the costumer. Great action and character develoment and a good plot line.
Watchmen: I hadn't read the comic so I didn't know what to expect. Lovely "golden age" feel to it. I liked Rorschach's character.
Very impressed.
Unbreakable: One of those movies that totally took me by surprise. One of the best explanation of the superhero mythos I have ever come across along with a fantastic plot twist at the end.
Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Great job on the Surfer, well paced. The best of the FF4 movies.
Spider Man 2: I loved how they brought Doctor Octopus to life. The best of the Spidey movies.
Hancock: A unique approach to the superhero genre. I loved when he got thrown through a wall at his publicist's home. Totally took me by surprise.
Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker: I am a real fan of the Batman Beyond TV series and I loved the Return of the Joker movie.
Good portrayal of the Joker as a truly dangerous villain instead of a clown.
Terry really comes into his own as the Batman.
Good to watch
While not as good as my favorites, all of these were fun to watch.
Fantastic 4
Batman 89
Spiderman 1
Xmen
Elektra
Ghost Rider
Mystery Men
Green Lantern: First Flight
V for Vendetta
Failures:
In my opinon, here are the ones that failed.
Superman: I have yet to see a Superman movie I liked. How can they all fail with such a well loved character to work with? All these movies are lame.
Batman: I liked the Batman 89 one. Some of the rest are watchable, but overall, the movies are not as strong as Iron Man or Spider Man.
Daredevil: Terrible disappointment. I liked the Elektra movie better than Daredevil.
Hulk: I have yet to see a Hulk movie I liked. I like how the Avengers animated movies treat the character better.
The Phantom: Another disappointment as this was a well-loved comic book as a kid I read.
I don't know about that. It may be easy to forget, umpteen years later, but the first BATMAN movie was a huge phenomenon back in 1989. I remember sitting in a park in NYC, being struck by how pretty much every other kid or teenager was wearing a Batman tee-shirt, baseball cap, or whatever. I even saw Batman yamulkas! You couldn't get away from Batman or the Joker that summer.
Both BATMAN (1989) and THE DARK KNIGHT were huge in their time, THE DARK KNIGHT is just fresher in people's memories these days.
And I actually thought Keaton did a good job of conveying how troubled and driven Bruce/Batman was. Another one of my favorite moments is when Batman limps into the cathedral after he crashes his plane and stumbles against a row of rotting pews. It's a nice little reminder that, unlike Superman, he's not indestructible . . . .
To my mind, the movie is not all flash and substance. It's full of nice, little humanizing moments like that, while still being big and melodramatic when it needs to be.
(If I want gritty, psychological realism, I'll watch the FRENCH CONNECTION. I want Batman to be dark and spooky and evocative . . . .)
I'm not disputing the phenomenon that was Tim Burton's Batman. I will give credit to Burton for making Batman serious and dark again. I just think Nolan's visuals are more memorable and meaningful because of the significance of those visuals in relation to the story.
Absolutely. Not disputing that.
Keaton's performance was good, especially given the material he had and what little he had to work with. I always admired Keaton for that dark moodiness and that self-reverential sardonic nature that he brought to Batman. However, it was very much on-the-surface and not given much depth or introspection. Why does Bruce Wayne become Batman?
It's merely glossed over. I know Burton's Batman is not an origin story, but at least Bryan Singer's X-Men touched on the issues of prejudice and presented an allegory for racism and homophobia in the guise of this bombastic superhero film, so you understood why the X-Men banded together to fight the Brotherhood. That first scene in X-Men where a young Erik Lensherr is being traumatized in the Holocaust was the perfect representation of showing how that character was informed by his experiences. He wasn't a conniving, mustache-twirling villain; he had a lot more depth. Besides the flashback where we see Jack Napier kill Bruce's parents, we don't get much motivation or reasoning for why Bruce Wayne is Batman beyond a selfish motivation to get revenge for his parents' death, and Batman has never been solely about exacting revenge.
That's a nice moment, but it's too far in between. There's a difference between having a subtle moment here or there and some actual character and story development (for example, how does the Bruce Wayne/Batman character in Burton's film change in any which way?). For me, those humanizing moments were not enough, and were not in enough supply to supplement the experience forcing it to feel manufactured and fake.
That's weird, because Batman was plentiful dark and spooky in Nolan's films. Were you not spooked when Batman interrogated Flass upside down in the rain during Batman Begins? How are Nolan's films not dark when you have Batman dropping a mobster several stories as in The Dark Knight? Batman is all about gritty, psychological realism. Read Frank Miller's Batman: Year One & The Dark Knight Returns or Jeph Loeb's Batman: The Long Halloween, stories which inspired Nolan's take.
That's the modern take on Batman. Like you said, Burton's version is more of a homage to the 40's pulp noir version, which is what I gravitate to. I respect the Nolan version (although THE DARK KNIGHT seems to have about five climaxes too many), but when I want to see Batman striking terror into the hearts of cowardly and superstitious evil-doers, I'll probably pop the Burton version into the VCR instead of BATMAN BEGINS. It's just more lush and darkly romantic.
For example: that bit when the Batmobile races through the shadowy forest, the rush of its passage sending autumn leaves flying, has a wonderful fairy-tale quality, which the Nolan films, for all their virtues, lack.
Probably just a matter of taste. To my mind, BATMAN works best as myth, not prose. Trying to make his world gritty and realistic kind of misses the point. The Joker, Catwoman, the Penguin, Two-Face . . . these are bizarre, cartoonish fantasies, which were never meant to be considered "realistic."
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darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
If you want strong character work AND pulpy goodness AND iconic Bat-Moments, you need to watch Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a better film than ANY of the live-action efforts.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
Alas, I made the mistake of catching MASK OF THE PHANTASM at a Saturday matinee. All I remember is a theater full of berserk toddlers . . .
Get in on DVD. You should be able to track down a copy for $10 or less (I've seen it in the $5 bin at Wal Mart before).
It's everything people keep saying they want that many superhero movies don't give them and more. Bruce Timm and his team KNOW how to do superheroes. The only reason they don't get more props in public is because of the "animation ghetto" bias.
Okay, well that solves it. You like the early iterations of Batman. I like the more modern. Fair enough.
I have to disagree with you there. I mean, when you're translating comic-book stories to film, there's that change of medium where something that might have worked in one medium might not necessarily work in another. I think Nolan was able to tone down some of the fantastical elements of the Batman mythology and still make really engaging films that have stories and characters that pull you in. Despite all of the lush, darkly romantic imagery of Burton's films, they fall kind of flat on introspection. I think that's why public favor of them has kind of diminished over the years. People are realizing them for what they are, which is just pretty images, especially compared to the complex, dense plotting of Nolan's films.
I mean, how was The Joker or Two-Face negatively changed based on Nolan's "realistic" take? The Joker was pretty much who he has been in the comics, and you had the classic look still intact: white make-up, purple suit, green hair, just reinterpreted for modern audiences. The same for Two-Face, who still had the same basic visual appearance as he's had in the comics for decades, again just updated for modern audiences. People tend to over-use Nolan's word for "realistic" thinking he's going to strip everything that makes Batman fantastical away, but in reality we still had the Bat-Cave (admittedly still in early stages; I think we'll see it more defined in the next film), we still had the Batmobile, we still had Batman in his classic silhouette, and the villains for the most part have all looked very similar to their comic-book counterparts. I think the biggest deviation so far has been The Scarecrow, who just wears a burlap sack verses a full-on costume, but I think that worked just as fine.
It would certainly be interesting one day to see a more fantastical take on Batman again, giving interesting characterization to villains like Mr. Freeze or Killer Croc, but in the interim I'm perfectly fine with this acceptable version of the Batman mythology. I think the most important thing that people should realize is that with Nolan, the stories and the characters finally became complex and... well, interesting. I think it was a shame in the Burton/Schumacher films that Batman was usually the least interesting component in his own film.
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
The best Mr. Freeze ever done was the B:TAS version.
Totally agree. Mask of the Phantasm was pretty damn awesome, too.
Fair enough indeed . . . except you still seem to be asserting that, at the end of the day, the modern Miller-esque/Nolan version of a Batman movie is somehow inherently superior to Burton's lush, moody riff on the old Bob Kane comics.
Whereas I would argue that, given the character's long and mutable history, that both a pulpy noir Batman and the current Nolan version are equally valid takes on the mythos.
Obviously, you prefer a more modern and contemporary take, but that's just a matter of taste, not proof that the 1989 version "falls flat" by comparison.
I know which version I feels most like BATMAN to me . . .
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
I'm not seeing the distinction myself. The Nolan films and the Burton film feel the same to me really. They're the dark and gritty batman as opposed to the bright psuedo-camp batman from the later 50s up to Dark Knight Returns (graphic novel).
darkwing_duck1
Vice Admiral
That's true so far as it goes. Batman was gradually getting a little darker as time went on starting then, but it's Miller's work that is considered the "birthplace" of the modern Bat era.
But let's not forget that TAS borrowed heavily from Burton's Batman.
The Superman Movies:
Superman: The Movie (A)
Superman 2: (A)
Superman 2: Richard Donner Cut - haven't seen
Superman 3: (C)
Superman 4: The Quest for Peace (Z)
Superman Returns (B)
The Batman Movies:
Batman (B)
Batman Returns (B+)
Batman Forever (F)
Batman and Robin (D)
Batman Begins (A)
The Dark Knight (A+)
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (B)
Batman (1966) (D)
Spider-man Movies:
Spider-man (A)
Spider-man 2 (A)
Spider-man 3 - haven't watched yet
Hulk Movies:
Hulk (B)
The Incredible Hulk - Haven't seen
The X-Men Movies:
X-Men (B)
X-Men II (A)
X-Men III (A)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine haven't seen
Other Movies:
Iron Man haven't seen
The Fantastic Four (B)
The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (B)
The Punisher [Lundgren](C)
The Punisher (B)
Daredevil (B)
Supergirl (C)
Ghost Rider (B)
The Incredibles (A+)
The Rocketeer (A+)
Hancock haven't seen
Watchmen (A+)
The Phantom (B)
Unbreakable so boring I never finished watching.
Catwoman (C)
Hellboy (A+)
The Shadow (B)
Superman: The Movie (A)
Superman 2: (A)
Superman 2: Richard Donner Cut - haven't seen
Superman 3: (C)
Superman 4: The Quest for Peace (Z)
Superman Returns (B)
The Batman Movies:
Batman (B)
Batman Returns (B+)
Batman Forever (F)
Batman and Robin (D)
Batman Begins (A)
The Dark Knight (A+)
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (B)
Batman (1966) (D)
Spider-man Movies:
Spider-man (A)
Spider-man 2 (A)
Spider-man 3 - haven't watched yet
Hulk Movies:
Hulk (B)
The Incredible Hulk - Haven't seen
The X-Men Movies:
X-Men (B)
X-Men II (A)
X-Men III (A)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine haven't seen
Other Movies:
Iron Man haven't seen
The Fantastic Four (B)
The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (B)
The Punisher [Lundgren](C)
The Punisher (B)
Daredevil (B)
Supergirl (C)
Ghost Rider (B)
The Incredibles (A+)
The Rocketeer (A+)
Hancock haven't seen
Watchmen (A+)
The Phantom (B)
Unbreakable so boring I never finished watching.
Catwoman (C)
Hellboy (A+)
The Shadow (B)
Mask of the Phantasm was the best overall Batman film in terms of plot and execution in my view. Burton's version had a great gothic quality but lacked a bit of pace and a decent climax, Schumacker made his villains too camp, which worked fine with Riddler but when you saw that they were all like it, it wore very thin. Batgirl was totally wasted in the same way as Venom when he was tagged unnecesarily onto the third Spiderman film.
Nolan's Batman is great fun but he's already started to compromise 'realism' with his stupidly huge exploding hospital and unnecessarily special-effects-ridden take on Two-Face; make-up would have been preferable for me in keeping with his minimalist approach. The key to Two-Face is his character; Tommy Lee Jones was rubbish because the character was lacking but nothing to do with the make-up.
I was a little bit disappointed that they focused on Gordon's son too much too. Admittedly, as a superfluous character we had no way of knowing if the kid would live or die but at the very least they could have foreshadowed matters by having his young daughter peering wide-eyed at her saviour.
Nolan's Batman is great fun but he's already started to compromise 'realism' with his stupidly huge exploding hospital and unnecessarily special-effects-ridden take on Two-Face; make-up would have been preferable for me in keeping with his minimalist approach. The key to Two-Face is his character; Tommy Lee Jones was rubbish because the character was lacking but nothing to do with the make-up.
I was a little bit disappointed that they focused on Gordon's son too much too. Admittedly, as a superfluous character we had no way of knowing if the kid would live or die but at the very least they could have foreshadowed matters by having his young daughter peering wide-eyed at her saviour.
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