Dexember's Rain

I've recently seen The Fantastic Four. I enjoyed the movie and you can find the review of it somewhere else on this site. I decided that now would be a good time to look at Marvel's success' and failures' with making movies. It should be noted that no movie made before 1990 was put into this list. The only way to do this coherently is to give each movie a basic rating based off of the following rubric:

Great - Fires on all cylinders, is about as good an adaptation as is possible in a movie. It's acting is well done and it has a good plot. Action and special effects are seamless. A great movie no matter the content.

Good - As a decent adaptation but once or twice it negatively moved away from the source material. Is a decent movie. It has average acting and might have a bad apple or two. Action and special effects are par or below.

Poor - The opposite of a Good rating. It is below par on all counts with one or two bright spots. It has a coherent plot and average fighting.

Ugly - Just crap. Has no concept of the source material. Is a bad movie no matter the context. Has bad acting and an incoherent plot.

These are categories that I place each movie into. They are now to be known as the Comic Book Movie Rating, or CBMR for short. But I also will grade each movie individually with the categories of:

Adaptation - Pretty obvious category, as most of them are. It's understood that adapting a story from one medium to another is never a straight process. Some things must be changed to better fit the medium. But staying true to the characters, tone, and overall plot of the original source material is still very important. Those who do well in this category tend to do well overall because it means they take the story seriously and understand what needs to be done to make it work.

Acting - It's either Great, Good, Poor, or utter CRAP, Ben Affleck I'm looking at you.

Fights - Again, they are either fun, well tailored for the story and coherent; or they can be confusing, needless, or worse yet, boring.

Dialogue - This is basically a critique of the script. This is not how well the lines were said but the lines themselves.

Special Effects - Self Explanatory.

Movie - How well does it do simply in the medium of movies. Is it a well made movie? Kind of a grab all but sometimes a well made movie can have bad acting and so on.

Well now that we've established the parameters for my report card. Lets get to the meat of it.

Great - Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, X2: X-Men United, Blade

Good - Blade 2, X-Men, The Punisher, Fantastic Four, Men In Black

Poor - Elektra, Hulk, Blade: Trinity, Men In Black 2

Ugly - Daredevil, Captain America(1991)

I think it can go without saying that a lot of people are going to disagree with me. That's fine. But I do have a structured way of grading these movies. The biggest thing that most people may argue with is the grade of Poor for Blade: Trinity and Good for Blade 2. Yes Ryan Reynolds was amazing in Blade 3 but it's not the Ryan Reynolds show, or at least it's not supposed to be. And the story for Blade 2 was more coherent, better developed and thought out. The other hard movie for me to out in the Good category was Fantastic Four. It really deserved to be there but my anger for all that it COULD have been really almost had me putting it in the Poor rating. That movie more than any other really was a 50/50 good to crap.

It should be obvious why all of the greats got their grade. Here's the quick 1-10 scoring that I did for each individual movie that was in the Great category. Lastly I give a total averaged number for the whole movie.

Spider-Man - 8.3
Adaptation: 9
Fighting: 7
Acting: 9
Dialogue: 8.5
Special Effects: 8
Movie: 8

Spider-Man 2 - 8.9
Ad: 9
F: 8
Ac: 9.5
D: 9
SE: 9
M: 9

X2: X-Men United - 8.5
Ad: 9
F: 8
Ac: 8
D: 8.5
SE: 8.5
M: 9

Blade - 8.1
Ad: 8
F: 9.5
Ac: 7
D: 7.5
SE: 7.5
M: 9

The system seems to work fairly well in bringing out the correct total averages of all the movies. It should also be obvious to you that if a movie doesn't get an 8 or above in it's total rating then it really doesn't deserve to be in the Great category. I'll always love Blade.

I'll take a look at the Good and Poor in the next blog as I'm running out of time before my date ;). But before I go, let's take a look at the DC Movies that have come out recently and where they fit into the above rankings. Note: Batman, the Michael Keaton original, was made in 89 and so does not make it onto this list.

Great - Constantine, Batman Begins

Good - Batman Returns

Poor - Batman Forever

Ugly - Batman & Robin, Catwoman, Steel

I think the only contention some people might have would be my inclusion of Constantine in the Great category and my allowing Batman Forever to even get a Poor rating rather than an Ugly.

Batman Returns also doesn't get a Great rating because it simply can't be compared to Batman Begins.

So lets take a look at those two winners DC has.

Constantine - 8.7
Ad: 8 (No British Accent is a negative)
F: 8.5 (About as good as I could imagine a Magic movie being)
Ac: 9 (No attempt at a British Accent is a plus)
D: 8.5
SE: 9
M: 9

Batman Begins - 8.7
Ad: 9.5
F: 7 (The only thing that kept this from being the first 9, Nolan just doesn't know how to film martial arts. The ingenuity with the rest of the combat kept the score up though.)
Ac: 9
D: 8.5 (Best line: "I swear to GOD!" Bat says, "SWEAR TO ME!")
SE: 9
M: 9

Ok, lol, Now for the last part, the Indies, British comics, and Graphic Novel adaptations. It should be noted that only movies that made it to theaters are presented here, same for those above.

Great - Road to Perdition, Sin City

Good - The Mask, Casper(It is a good kids movie people), The Shadow, The Phantom, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mystery Men(Yes, it was based off a real comic book) The Crow

Poor - Judge Dredd, Robocop 2, TMNT:2, Spawn, Hellboy, The Ring, The Ring 2

Ugly - League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Dick Tracy, TMNT:3, The Son of the Mask, Barbwire, Tank Girl

I probably forgot one or two and will update all the lists at the very end as I realize I forgot some crappy as movie here or there. So what's the biggest arguing points here? Mystery Men may not have been funny to you or you don't think kid's movies like Casper and TMNT should be given the time of day. Oh well, go suck it cause they do and here they are. lol I like that argument. Anyway, Spawn and Hellboy being Poor might put some people in a tizzy but honestly people, Spawn shouldn't be that hard to place. Hellboy was decent but fell apart in it's supporting cast and fighting absurdity. Those oldies, The Shadow and Phantom are both decent jobs and stay fairly true to the original.

Road to Perdition - 8.7
Ad: 9
F: 8
Ac: 9
D: 8.5
SE: N/A
M: 9

Sin City - 8.1
Ad: 9 (As close as you are going to get without making it NC-17)
F: 7.5
Ac: 7.5 (Bright spots, Del Toro, Willis, Owen, Over the top acting: just about everyone else)
D: 7.5
SE: 8
M: 9 (It's cinematography alone saved this movie from just Good)

That's it for now. I'll have the next round up soon.