I’d highly recommend this writer’s review by Janice Hardy, particularly if you have a kickass premise but it just isn’t coming together.  Hat-tip: Marilynn Byerly.

Speaking of Cowboys and Aliens, I found this highly amusing but not safe for work (unless your job is awesome).

If you’ve ever wondered about which superhero movies are the best and worst of all time, I’ve compiled Rotten Tomatoes’ ratings below.  Please note that this is just superhero movies, so other comic book/graphic novel movies (like Scott Pilgrim and 300) are not included.  If you’re interested in a comparison of how DC’s movies stack up against Marvel’s, please see this article.

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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.

The opening night audience was somewhere between overjoyed and ecstatic.  If you liked the previous Harry Potter movies, you’ll probably love this one. I liked it, but it never felt like a great movie. Currently, it’s scoring a stratospherically high 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, but I don’t think it’s close to the same level as classics like Up, The Godfather, Casablanca, Terminator 2, District 9, The Matrix or the like.  

Most awesome moment: McGonagall quipping “I’ve always wanted to cast that spell.”   Also, there was a cool scene with a basilisk made out of fire.

Most ridiculous moment: 19 years in the future, everybody has more hair than Charlie Sheen. I bet Ron’s parents would have killed for some of that magical Rogaine.

• 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…

Over at the Sun Times, Jim Emerson argues that “critics seem to overwhelmingly approve of the current crops of comic-book, graphic-novel and superhero movies.”

One of the commenters responds:

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.

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Birdemic!

The screenwriter for Battlefield Earth has written an amusing article describing his experience. And, also, an unsuccessful search for love on a Scientologist cruise.  No matter how bad your writing is, please rest assured that it’ll never be that bad.  And, if it IS that bad, please find some other line of work.

Spill.com did a mock script showing how Michael Bay (the guy who did Pearl Harbor and Transformers) might have tried The Dark Knight.

I recommend that you read all of it, but this is my favorite part.

BRUCE WAYNE is standing in front of a mirror, flexing his sculpted, shirtless torso.

BRUCE: Let’s do this.

Cue AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”  A series of quick shots show BRUCE gearing up: putting on the boots, slapping on the gloves, a brief glance across those beautiful pecs.  Finally, there is no longer BRUCE WAYNE, but BATMAN standing before us.

BATMAN: Back in black.

Pyrotechnics erupt in the distance.  Wailing guitar solo.

If you’d like to comment on a movie, this is a good place to do so.  (We may relocate movie-related comments made elsewhere).

The Independent reports that Kevin Spacey will be reprising his role as Lex Luthor in the next Superman movie (Hat-tip to io9).  God, I hope not.  He has none of the competence, charm or combat skills a supervillain needs to shine in a movie.  Lex Luthor can’t have an interesting fight. (And no, Superman limping around because of Kryptonite is not interesting).  So casting Luthor as the villain would pretty much guarantee that the movie has at best mediocre action scenes*.  I like Superman saving planes as much as anyone, but no one reads a comic or watches a movie to see the superhero stop a natural disaster.

Virtually nothing in Superman Returns worked.  At the very least, the next Superman movie needs a new cast, new writers and a new villain.  A different mood might help too.  I don’t think that a “darker” Superman will be much better, but it’s hard to imagine that it could get any worse.

*In the cartoons and the comics, Lex Luthor actually gets superpowers, so his fight scenes are interesting, but that’s probably too campy for a movie.

B. MAC ADDS: I walked out after around an hour of Superman Returns.  I can’t remember the last time I walked out on a movie.  Hell, I made it through Superhero Movie.

The author claims that Star Wars was better because it was human-centric rather than world- or action-centric.  Our contributors respond…

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Exhibit A:

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Fans of trippy science-fiction novels everywhere can rejoice that Neuromancer is getting a movie. In other good news, the movie poster shown by i09.com looks pretty stylish and suggests that it won’t be a remake of Swordfish.

The bad news is that Hayden Christensen, the same “actor” that ruined Star Wars and Jumper, is starring as Case. Dare I say that John Travolta could do this better? Egads. How could we have come to the point where John Travolta is the lesser of two acting evils? Hayden [censored]ing Christensen.

I loved the new Batman movie. I’d say that it was the best DC-licensed movie I’ve ever seen, but that would be damning it with faint praise. Although the action was low-key and frankly forgettable, the writing and side-characters really redeemed it. Instead of getting campy one-liners from the Joker, the script echoed The Lord of the Flies. It wasn’t exactly deep or insightful, but it was unexpectedly dramatic and entertaining.

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I would venture to say that Iron-Man is the only Marvel movie released this year that approaches watchable. (I liked Iron-Man, but I found its action scenes disappointing).

Speaking of the new Punisher movie, you can see its trailer below. It looks like it will be beyond bad. I’m not adverse to wanton, cybernoir violence (The Matrix!) but the concept should have translated to film much better than it did in the 2004 Punisher film…

The last trailer I’ve seen that was this bad was Vantage Point. If the movie is really as loaded with goofy stunts and groan-inducing lines as the trailer is, comparisons to Elektra, Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, and perhaps even the 1990 Captain America “movie” may be in order.