What Makes a Comic Book Movie "Bad"?

If you were to go down the list of all the comic book films released dating all the way back to 1939’s “Mandrake the Magician” you will find the fan base for these various properties split almost entirely down the middle.  Professional film critics tend to be harder on comic book films than they are on pretty much any other genre because of a litany of factors.  Doug Walker, the Nostalgia Critic once pointed out those professional film critics then to have a harsher opinion because they are saturated in films.  When you consider how many movies you see in the theaters each year, it’s probably only a handful because you have other things to do.  Professional critics have to see them all the time so an action sequence or a joke that seems unique and cool to you, they’ve seen a dozen times because multiple movies have done the same sequence or joke, each with varying degrees of competency.

For more on Doug’s thoughts on the trials of being a critic vs being just a movie viewer, check out his video here

http://channelawesome.com/when-are-critics-wrong/

But what does that have to do with how we, the average fan views a superhero film.  Well, let’s take a look at 2011’s “Green Lantern” starring Ryan Reynolds.  Personally I’ve blasted this movie in the past but in looking back, even I have to admit I was harder on it than I should have been.  We, the fans, see so many superhero movies over the course of our lives that frankly they start to blur together.  A lot of people were hard on “Green Lantern” but it had a competent movie star in the lead role, great actors all around, an amazing effects budget, some very unique ideas on style, and some pretty solid dialog.  So, why was it blasted?  Because we felt we’d seen it all done before.  “Green Lantern” was very much a “by the numbers” production and it followed the same basic plot of almost every superhero movie out there.  For some reason when it came out we expected more out of it because of the unique material it had to work with.  It literally had whole galaxies to explore, but it confined itself to three locations, Oa, space, and Earth.  We’d become so jaded at that point that a lot of fans were willing to write it off as just another bad comic book movie.  Even “The Big Bang Theory” took a shot at the film.

(The Big Bang Theory: The Countdown Reflection 2012)

So, if a bad comic book movie isn’t technically “bad”, what is a bad comic book movie?  Chances are when I say “bad comic book movie” the same handful of titles keep coming to your mind: Batman Forever, Batman and Robin, Steel, Superman 3 and 4, X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Superman Returns, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Iron Man 2, Spider-Man 3, and probably a few others.  Chances are you saw one title in that list that made you cringe.  Now let’s break that list down and see if we can find common threads that makes think of these films as “bad”

“Batman Forever” featured competent actors, a decent budget, and some amazing practical effects.  There were, however choices made by the director, Joel Schumacher, that fans question greatly.  Namely the fact that Tommy Lee Jones’ Harvey (Two-Face) Dent and Jim Carey’s the Riddler feel like Joker knock-offs.  That’s the primary complaint I hear from fans, the Joker knock-offs.

Speaking strictly in tone of the film, they feel it is vastly different from the Michael Keaton/Tim Burton era (which some fans are divided on whether or not those two films were any good either).  The colors are brighter, there are more jokes, more slap stick humor and the Dark Knight is anything but dark.  What Schumacher was attempting to do with his interpretation of the character is recapture the camp and spark of the Adam West television series.  He wasn’t attempting to make a “sequel” to the Tim Burton films; he was making his own version of the character.  It just happened to fall into the franchise established by the first film.  If this was your first time watching a Batman film since 1966’s Batman series and theatrical release, you would have thought this was just an extension of that series.  The same goes with “Batman and Robin”.  It’s a bad sequel, but as a standalone film, it’s stupid and funny and you can take young kids to see a Batman movie.  If anything Schumacher seems to understand that his films were only one part in a much bigger franchise, one that included video games, comic books, and action figures.  The plot feels thin because he’s making a commercial for merchandise, and kids need to be able to see that commercial.

Perhaps Michael Bay could learn that lesson, that he’s essentially making 90 minute toy commercials.

Does creating a film to be a really long commercial make it any better or any less mercenary? Not really, but it informs why a filmmaker makes certain choices.

Let’s flip over to the Marvel Camp really quick.  “Iron Man 2” gets a lot of flak for being a “cash in” sequel, but it actually slips into the plot threads set down by the first film really well, as well as establishing characters and interactions that are expanded upon by the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Nick Fury and Agent Coulson are expanded on, both of whom have major roles later down the line, and we are introduced to Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow and reintroduced to Major James Rhodes, now played with a lot more personality by Don Cheadle, and who has again a major role in “Captain America: Civil War”.  A lot of fans feel that a better plot line for the second film to follow would have been “Demon in a Bottle”; a story that delves into Tony Stark’s alcoholism in the comics, but that wouldn’t have fit with the movie characterization.  Yes, there was a huge plot convenience in the film that, under any amount of scrutiny doesn’t make any sense, but that’s very common for really any action based film, not just comic books.

“Spider-Man 3” catches a lot of heat for shoving in a lot of villains in a short amount of time, and accusations that Sony insisting Venom be in the picture actually created a lot of the problems with the film, making director Sam Raimi re-write the story around the added villain.  The final product again was good for kids and something they could watch again and again.

A lot of how we respond to a film is dictated by our perspective.  When I was a kid, for instance, I loved “Superman 3”, I was okay with “Superman 4”, and “Batman” with Michael Keaton was the definitive Batman movie.  Now, as an adult, I see the flaws in all of them.  The jokes that made me as a kid laugh don’t make me as an adult laugh.  The plot choices I thought were cool at the time do not hold up now.  Even the sacred “Batman” film leaves me with the grown up question of “Wait, where are the poison gas balloons going now?”

Rather than blasting a movie as being automatically bad because we the fans are grown up and have “more sophisticated tastes” we should consider how the general audience is going to look at these movies.  “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” has some plot holes and choices that, to an adult don’t make any sense, but to most of the kids in the audience, it makes perfect sense, because it was geared to appeal to them so they would go out and get us, the parents, to buy the toys.

We as fans need to understand that “Avengers” and “Spider-Man” are not “The Godfather”, they are geared towards wider audiences.  You won’t find Scarface action figures in the toy aisle at Wal-Mart.  You won’t see the “Great Gatsby” on a kid’s lunchbox.  That doesn’t mean that, as a fan, you shouldn’t enjoy the movie, it’s made for you too.  But don’t take it so seriously either.  There isn’t a definitive movie about a character; there will always be other interpretations later down the road.  Heck, take a look back at some of the movies you “hate”, and you may find something you really enjoy there too.

Thanks for reading.

https://www.amazon.com/Better-Off-Dead-Lakehaven-Chronicles-ebook/dp/B00JLPG8HE

Do Film Makers Ruin the Films, or is it the Fans?

 

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve really written anything substantial; mostly I’ve been wandering aimlessly around on G+ Marvel, DC Comics, and Transformers pages, so I might as well get back to basics.

So, fandom in general…what is it?  Well it’s an avid interest which can sometimes boarder on obsession on a single genre, character, or body of work.  DC Comics fandom exists in very broad strokes and can encompass hundreds or thousands of characters, comics, novels, movies, cartoons, television shows and video games.  Those that ascribe to this fandom have a vast and sometime oddly specific encyclopedia of knowledge concerning the body of work that encompasses DC Comics properties.

That can of course be narrowed down.  Maybe you are an avid Batman fan and thus might as well have a Master’s degree in all things concerning the Dark Knight.

Or perhaps you are a Transformers fan and thus have spent years, or perhaps decades devoting your free time to the property in all its incarnations.

Regardless of your fandom, whether it is to a publisher, property, or character, you have a vested interest in all media related to your fandom, and thus you take it very personally when you see it mistreated by Hollywood.

What sets fans apart from the general audience is simple, passion.  Fans have a passion for the characters, the story, and demand nothing but the best from the studio.  The general audience wants to take their dates on something that will kill two hours without having to resort to actual conversation.  And eat popcorn.  But do we, the fans, shoot ourselves in the proverbial foot when it comes to our expectations.

I’ve personally had the privilege to be on many sides of the spectrum during my professional life.  I’ve been a supervisor, a writer, and artist, an editor, and a fan.  It’s really as a supervisor and an editor, however that I’ve gotten the best perspective of how the whole equation works.  You have to dissociate yourself from the body of work, not only pick at the nuances, but the piece as a whole.  I can tell you if the whole of a story is great and then in the same sentence says “However in chapter 6, paragraph 4, and line 8 you use the word “burrito” as a verb and that can take a reader out of the scene.”  I’ve defended my employees’ actions and decisions before those casting judgement, and then once the situation is over I’ve reprimanded them for making the wrong choices or using poor judgement.  So I tend to analyze and sometimes over analyze a body of work, and I try to do so objectively from all points of view.

Take Transformers: Age of Extinction.  I’ve been with the franchise since 1985 when the toys hit my local K-Mart.  I’ve been with the robots in disguise through thick and thin, and so I had expectations as a fan when I heard the Dinobots were to grace the big screen.  I heard the outcries:  Optimus was too violent, the movie was too Michael Bay, the Dinobots had little to do, there were too many humans, etc.  I shared many of these viewpoints.  I was not pleased that Optimus was so willing to turn his back on humanity.  I was disappointed that no Dinobot got called by name or spoke.  I did feel the Transformers had little screen time.

Then I had to look at it from the general audience point of view.   I read the reviews from the critics, but the film still did amazingly well at the box office.  If it was such a bad movie, why were people throwing their money at it in droves?   Was it because people like bad movies?  Or was it a better movie than we gave it credit for because it didn’t appeal to our sensibilities?

If they made the Transformers movies just for the transformers fans, then they probably wouldn’t make their money back.  Changes had to be made to appeal to a wider audience, ones who weren’t familiar with thirty years of back story, by my count at least 20 independent animated series (counting the Japanese iterations since often story lines differed) and more comics than I care to count right now.  There was no way everyone was going to be satisfied with the end result.

The same thing happened not too long ago with Superman Returns, which was set in the same cinematic universe as the Christopher Reeve Superman films, at least the first two, with the latter two apparently excised from continuity.  The film harkened back to those old films, and avid fans of those films, myself included, loved the movie.  Yes we could pick out problems with it but we were still pretty entrenched in the nostalgia that we could look past it.  Yet the general audience and many of the broader DC Comics fans demanded more.  “Why can’t we see Superman get in a fight with someone?”  In Man of Steel they got their wish, and immediately came the cries “Superman doesn’t kill!  Why did half the city need to be destroyed?!”

Because Zach Snyder looked at the Superman mythos and decided to up the ante.  There was a call for Superman to fight someone, but that kind of fight is going to have an effect on the environment and for the most dynamic fight scene, you need a dynamic environment.  Why did Superman kill?  Because killing Zod fit with the tone of the story.

So looping back around to where this all started…did the movie makers ruin the film, or did the audience ruin it for themselves?  With everything art related, there isn’t a right or wrong answer…it’s all subjective.  Art, beauty, entertainment in general is all in the eye of the beholder.  I can criticize bad movies, but I can also appreciate them.  Batman and Robin was probably one of the worst comic book based movies ever created, and it bombed at the box office, and I hate it, but I can also appreciate it from a certain point of view.  It’s stupid beyond belief but it’s a harmless stupid.  It’s something I can pop in with friends and we can riff on.  I can watch it alone and view it through the same lens that I view the Adam West television series.  If I don’t take it seriously, then it’s not that bad.

Just to clarify, it’s still bad, but in the same way the Adam West series was.

So do I shortchange myself when I expect too much from Hollywood?  Probably.  Should I stop expect the very best product they can make?  Absolutely not.  Yes at the end of the day Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, the Ninja Turtles, and Transformers, these are all very silly concepts but that doesn’t mean they should be done sloppily, but maybe I should curb my criticism a little because before I know it, they will roll out with something else.  Maybe the next iteration will be better, maybe not, but at least we can enjoy the ride.

Thanks for reading.