My guest article about when it’s a good time to reboot a franchise just got posted at comicbooks.com. The editorial assistance was surprisingly good. The edited article has a slightly more casual voice than most of my content on SN, but I hope you’ll enjoy it anyway.
If you’d be interested in hosting one of my guest articles, please let me know at superheronation-at-gmail-dot-com. I’d really appreciate if you would suggest an article topic (e.g. How to Write an Interesting Sidekick) or some general genre of articles (e.g. anything about characterization) you find interesting, but it’s not necessary.
*Never proven in a court of law, but Batman isn’t much into legal niceties (like verdicts). Double points if he does Roethlisberger with a Terrible Towel.
I’d give Captain America 3 out of 4 stars. If you’re into superhero action, I’d highly recommend it.
The writing was consistently clever and entertaining. I’m not sure how much of it I will remember a few weeks from now–most of it wasn’t brilliant–but it was a very fun time.
The movie played with a few superhero tropes. For example, there’s the obligatory chase scene where a villain tries to escape by throwing a civilian into danger. A villain throws a boy into a river and runs off. The Captain glances at the boy, who says something like, “I can swim. Go get him!” However, I think they could have more smoothly handled the trope that the super-serum could not be replicated. Spoiler: The project falls apart because one scientist gets killed and he didn’t have any notes or additional doses of the serum anywhere? Didn’t he have any lab assistants? (I don’t think it would’ve been hard to plug this hole. Maybe he was worried that the Nazis would steal his notes, so he did as much from memory as possible and/or he used a code that only he could understand).
I liked that Steve Rogers proved himself, whereas many other superheroes are just passively chosen for greatness (e.g. they’re born with superpowers or happen to be in the right place at the right time for a genetically-modified spider bite). Rogers is selected as the test subject for the serum because he shows uncommon character, cunning and bravery. The bravery struck me as a bit banal (he leaps on a hand-grenade without knowing it was a dummy). The cunning was much more memorable. That flagpole scene was pretty kickass.
This is an update of my original survey of the average Rotten Tomatoes ranking of Marvel and DC comic book movies. The two changes are:
I’ve included the movies that have come out in the past year (X-Men: First Class, Thor and Green Lantern).
A few people thought that it would be fairer to look at only the current wave of superhero movies (starting in 2000 with X-Men). I’ve added a section comparing both companies’ performance post-2000.
Summary
Including the older movies, the average Rotten Tomato score was 50.2% for DC and 58.1% for Marvel. If we look only at the modern movies, the gap narrows somewhat. Since 2000, DC has averaged 54.8% and Marvel has averaged 59.9%.
Marvel has been having more critical success with more series. Since 2000, DC’s non-Batman movies have averaged 47.1%. Since 2000, Marvel’s non-Spiderman movies have averaged 55.8% and its non-X-Men movies have averaged 56.4%.
Curses. I was a lot more excited about GL than the other superhero movies this year (X-Men: First Class, Thor and Captain America) because it’s a more ambitious story, more purely sci-fi than most other superhero stories. Unfortunately, the initial reviews have been, ahem, not favorable. (25% on Rotten Tomatoes compared to 77% for Thor and 87% for X-Men: First Class).
It’s less action-heavy than previous X-Men movies. That’s fortunate, because the action is largely derivative of previous X-Men movies.
The character-building is surprisingly good. I think 2-3 more minor characters like Havok, Darwin, Angel, Riptide (the unnamed tornado villain), Banshee and Moira the CIA agent/love interest could have been removed so that there was more development time for the others, but to the writers’ credit I think each of them had at least one worthwhile moment besides Angel.
I feel Beast and Xavier are a lot more interesting here than they were in the previous movies. Wolverine’s cameo was hilarious and the Magneto-Xavier relationship was good but rushed. (I don’t think Magneto interacts enough with Xavier that he would be as shaken up about losing him as he was).
The cast was generally competent. However, Kevin Bacon (the lead villain) is notoriously inept. A few of his scenes were unintentionally funny. Besides Emma Frost, the ladies were notably not bad, particularly compared to previous superhero disasters (e.g. Jessica Alba and Halle Berry). However, all of the ladies got small roles.
There were several female characters (Mystique, Emma Frost, Moira the love interest and Angel) but, besides Mystique, I thought the writers didn’t accomplish much with them. The Moira-Xavier romance was half-hearted. I think it would have helped to eliminate Angel and use that time to develop Moira and/or Mystique. Also, the movie failed the Bechdel test. (At least two named women must have at least one conversation about anything besides a man).
Spoiler: The black guy is the only protagonist to die? He barely got enough screen-time to say his name! (Still, he’s less awful than the jive comic relief in Transformers).
The political propaganda was a bit less heavyhanded than usual, mainly because the U.S. military is a potential genocidal villain and not a current genocidal villain yet. (That’s pretty much as politically evenhanded as the X-Men series gets). Also, there’s a likable CIA agent and a CIA supervisor that is not totally evil, whereas the military was pretty consistently portrayed as some combination of evil and/or useless. (For example, Xavier implicitly compares U.S. soldiers to Nazis “just following orders”). However, I’m inclined to give the screenwriters a pass on making the CIA bosses grossly sexist because that strikes me as plausible for this time period.
Besides Mystique, the nonhuman-looking characters looked surprisingly goofy. Beast and Azazel (Nightcrawler’s dad) looked like extras on a Sy-Fy production. Yeah, if my dad looked like Azazel, I’d probably join the circus to get out of the house.
I noticed two one fairly minor plot hole. There’s a scene where the characters are staring at incoming missiles and Azazel can teleport himself and others. Hey, maybe instead of staring at your impending death, Azazel, maybe you can warp everybody to safety like (SPOILER) you did after the missiles were disabled? Just saying…
Scott Pilgrim’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes is 80%. It was so neck-deep in every sort of geeky awesomeness that it totally made sense when the hero used a 1-Up as a “get out of death free” card. The highlight of the movie was definitely the superpowered kung fu. The romantic comedy was reasonably effective, better than suggested in the trailer. The first 33 seconds of the trailer are forgettable, but the movie is substantially better, particularly if you’re into people getting drop-kicked in the face by vegan supervillains.
While critics in general are happy to give approval to comic book films (and, I think, many critics do treat them fairly), I think there’s no question that there are elements of bias in many critics’ reviews.
First, look at the language many critics use. When giving a positive review, many will say things like “despite its comic book origins,” or “leaping beyond comic books,” as if being based on a comic book is in some way a handicap.
Actually, I think being based on a comic book (or a novel or TV show or anything else) is a handicap for a movie.
Judging by ratings on Rotten Tomatoes, DC movies do almost as well on average (although its bombs tend to be uniquely awful).
For the sake of convenience and clean numbers, I took the top 20 grossing movies from each publisher and then gathered their Rotten Tomato rankings, which are averages of hundreds or thousands of reviews. (A RT ranking isn’t a perfect measure of quality, but it’s probably pretty accurate).
I want to see The Losers when it comes out, although it’s probably awful, and was pleasantly surprised by Kick-Ass (which has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes). This got me thinking about financially successful comic book movies without superheroes. After running some numbers, I found they’re really rare nowadays.
In the past year, his comics have consistently been outsold by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Flash, Green Lantern, Deadpool, and every A-list franchise. (For example, his top-performing comic book in June 2009 placed #43 on the bestsellers list).
According to io9, even DC Comics acknowledged that the Superman movie franchise is struggling. Superman’s latest film-outing grossed about $390 million on a production budget of $270 million. That’s notably worse than 1996′s Batman Forever, let alone either of the two most recent Batman films. Yes… even Joel Schumacher, the “director” that put nipples on the Batsuit, beat Superman.
Here’s how I would reboot Superman.
1. Give him a real personality with some actual flaws. This does not mean that he has to be brooding. (Please see Spiderman or Ironman– characters can be three-dimensional and fun!) For example, maybe he’s a bit overconfident or careless. Even a small flaw would make him more likable and believable.
1. If a competent villain must make one of the huge villain mistakes on the Evil Overlord List, the villain should have a good reason to do so. Here are some examples: For example, generally, it’s a mistake to try capturing a hero rather than just killing him (because the hero will always escape). However, […]
I wouldn’t recommend giving your characters supersenses unless they develop a character and/or serve an important plot purpose. Otherwise, they’re probably wasted space. 1. You can use supersenses to develop an unusual point of view. For example, maybe a nonhuman is supernaturally talented at perceiving something highly relevant to his species and/or cul […]
Toys classified as “dolls” face import taxes twice as high as other toys do. Dolls are toys that are (only) humans, as opposed to, say, teddy bears. In 2003, Marvel successfully convinced the U.S. Court of International Trade that mutant action figures are not actually humans, even the ones that look human (e.g. Professor X). […]
Witch Doctor is a Lovecraftian medical thriller graphic novel. According to one reviewer, “The metaphysics they reveal through the gruesome adventures in this volume has a weird internal consistency, but it’s so cockeyed and frankly revolting that I can honestly say it never occurred to me before they scarred me with it.” I haven’t […]
“Think of a person watching a computer screen and having his or her brain patterns modified to match those of a high-performing athlete or modified to recuperate from an accident or disease. Though preliminary, researchers say such possibilities may exist in the future.” […]
1. As always, be smart–the competition is pretty fierce. I have superbly qualified candidates with postgraduate degrees and years of experience applying for a minimum wage writing internship. If a prospective writer has typos in his cover letter and/or resume, he’s probably not in the running. I’ll assume that you’re pretty smart and already have […]
Kahi: “At the moment, [I'm writing] a novel. Its about a world where superhumans have long been the cause for conspiracy and secrecy, but have recently entered the public eye in the last decade. While the world is adjusting to these superhumans walking among them, a mutant is discovered that has the ability to sense […]
