I'll take Rosenbaum over him any day of the week. Eisenberg, Talbot and Shea over him too. Spacey might be worse since he was channeling Hackman.
I'd like to see Terry O'Quinn, Toby Huss or Alfred Molina play Luthor.
Best and worst live action versions of comic book super villains
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
I'd like to see Terry O'Quinn, Toby Huss or Alfred Molina play Luthor.
Agreed, Rosenbaum is my favourite.
But I would take Spacey over Hackman too, he was a better Hackman than Hackman.
I felt like Spacey was doing his version of Hackman doing Luthor not his own take on the character.
Which was basically a problem of the whole film...
I like Rosenbaum a lot, but he's not really a traditional Lex Luthor. I'd say Hackman is my favorite of the normal Lex's, and Spacey is pretty good (it helps that he is the only person in Superman Returns who doesn't seem to be sleepwalking through the movie, which was more a fault of the writing and directingthen it was any of the actors).
As for the worst Lex, technically its Eisenberg. but, really he's not playing any version of Lex Luthor. In the same way Spacey is kind of playing Hackman's Luthor, Eisenberg is playing Ledger's Joker, so Eisenberg is more a terrible copy of a bad Joker then he is any version of Luthor.
As for the worst Lex, technically its Eisenberg. but, really he's not playing any version of Lex Luthor. In the same way Spacey is kind of playing Hackman's Luthor, Eisenberg is playing Ledger's Joker, so Eisenberg is more a terrible copy of a bad Joker then he is any version of Luthor.
See, I liked Spacey as Lex Luthor... more so than I enjoyed Hackman when I was a kid...
Out of recent film and tv, I like Manu Bennet's Deathstroke and Josh Segarra as Prometheus/Simon Morrison/Adrian Chase. Both villains really stick it to the heroes and come oh so close if not succeed in their plots of villainy. I think what makes a great villain is that he or she has depth, meaning to their sinister ways, and are fully capable of defeating the good guys.
Worst? Oh man.. where do you start? There have been so many.
Out of recent film and tv, I like Manu Bennet's Deathstroke and Josh Segarra as Prometheus/Simon Morrison/Adrian Chase. Both villains really stick it to the heroes and come oh so close if not succeed in their plots of villainy. I think what makes a great villain is that he or she has depth, meaning to their sinister ways, and are fully capable of defeating the good guys.
Worst? Oh man.. where do you start? There have been so many.
I'll say the exact same thing I say every time I see someone make a similar complaint: Who fucking cares?
Adherence to source material is in no way related to quality.
What can I say, I like a Luthor who comes across as an intelligent master criminal, not a barely competent con man. I'm not asking for a green and purple battlesuit or prison greys, but a foe that can challenge Superman on some level. There's not a glimmer of that in the script or Hackman's performance. So yeah no quality there.
So you're judging the performance because it isn't what you wanted it to be, as opposed to judging it for what it is.
That's no way to go through life. Lex Luthor is a name on a page. Superman movies and TV shows and whatever are not biopics.
What it was was horrible. Poorly written and poorly acted. My expectation was both elements would be better. I've seen a lot of variations on Luthor: mad scientist, gangster, and ruthless businessman. So I've no problem with different takes on the character, but I do want them to be well written and acted.
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I fucking care!
I care that one of my favorite iconic DC villains was portrayed as a twitchy asshole on a sugar high.
I care that I paid to trap myself in a theater seat and spent two hours watching that bullshit.
I care that what should have been an awesome, historic movie - the first meeting of Batman and Superman in live action - was marred by the through line of "Twitchy Luthor creates giant shell-less Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."
I care that some idiot at WB/DC thought Eisenberg was making brilliant choices with his performance.
You don't care? Fine. Nobody's forcing you to.
I believe that Eisenberg was written to be similar to Morrison's version of Lex Luthor from the new 52, a hyper caffeinated millenial. Didn't work though.
I'm watching the Shadows of the Bat BtS documentary for Batman and Robin right now, and, to be perfectly honest, Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze really aren't what's wrong with the movie; there's actually a good story in there with regards to their characters, and Freeze in particular isn't any more OTT than The Joker, The Penguin, The Riddler, and Two-Face.
The problem with the movie is that, at some point, George Clooney decided he didn't care about the project and, instead of leaving (which is honestly what he should've done, even though they were in production already), decided to do everything he could to intentionally shit on the Batman character, which in turn got Chris O'Donnell to intentionally shit on his character, which in turn made it impossible to take the story and the villains seriously.
There's actually the core of a good movie buried in Batman and Robin; it just gets strangled by the poor acting decisions of George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell, which was then exacerbated by Joel Schumacher's decision to focus the second time around on the more outrageous and lighthearted aspects of the film being a live-action comic book, creating a scenario in which any level of respect for the characters and the comics just got suffocated.
The problem with the movie is that, at some point, George Clooney decided he didn't care about the project and, instead of leaving (which is honestly what he should've done, even though they were in production already), decided to do everything he could to intentionally shit on the Batman character, which in turn got Chris O'Donnell to intentionally shit on his character, which in turn made it impossible to take the story and the villains seriously.
There's actually the core of a good movie buried in Batman and Robin; it just gets strangled by the poor acting decisions of George Clooney and Chris O'Donnell, which was then exacerbated by Joel Schumacher's decision to focus the second time around on the more outrageous and lighthearted aspects of the film being a live-action comic book, creating a scenario in which any level of respect for the characters and the comics just got suffocated.
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How can you talk about poor acting decisions and not mention Uma Thurman? She makes Jack Nicholson's Joker look like Nimoy's Spock. George Clooney was fine, and O'Donell would have been ok if the writing wasn't so atrocious. When it comes to the villains in those movies, Joker is the only one that was any good. After that it was just weird, disgusting Burton stupidity (Penguin), Arnold becoming the Pun King, etc. Thurman (and Tommy Lee Jones) just saw Nicholson's Joker and decided that's what a Batman villain was. The writing didn't help at all, but the actors just saw the first movie and took that to mean they should chew scenery like their life depended on it.
In the end, the writing kills Batman & Robin. The best actors in the world, actually trying to act, couldn't have saved Poison Ivy or Mr. freeze. But, even in a bad movie, Thurman somehow made the material worse and Arnold, as charismatic as he is, couldn't do anything to save the role. Clooney and O'Donell at least seemed to be trying, not that they could make the material work. I honestly find Batman & Robin to be an entertainingly bad movie, but that doesn't mean I give the bad stuff a pass just because it can be entertaining.
In the end, the writing kills Batman & Robin. The best actors in the world, actually trying to act, couldn't have saved Poison Ivy or Mr. freeze. But, even in a bad movie, Thurman somehow made the material worse and Arnold, as charismatic as he is, couldn't do anything to save the role. Clooney and O'Donell at least seemed to be trying, not that they could make the material work. I honestly find Batman & Robin to be an entertainingly bad movie, but that doesn't mean I give the bad stuff a pass just because it can be entertaining.
^ Thurman's Poison Ivy is no more OTT than Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman, and actually fits very well into that same generic mold. If the good aspects of the movie (the basic story, the villains' motivations, and the natural evolution of Batman and Robin's partnership) hadn't gotten strangled and suffocated out of it, I firmly believe there would've been a different response to her interpretation of the character.
Also, if by "George and Chris were actually trying" you mean "actually trying to be as intentionally disrespectful of their characters as possible" , you're right.
Also, if by "George and Chris were actually trying" you mean "actually trying to be as intentionally disrespectful of their characters as possible" , you're right.
I can't remember if it was here or somewhere else, but someone once called Batman & Robin a big budget version of the Adam West Batman series, and I think if you approach it that way, that actually helps a lot. I went into it with that mentality and thought it was actually pretty fun in a ridiculous, OTT way when I watched it for the first time a couple years ago.
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