I've just watched two superhero films: last night was
Hancock, and
Daredevil the night before. Both were okay but neither was worth watching again. Hancock's problem was that they didn't know what story they were trying to tell. In Daredevil's case, it may be because the storyline was taken from the 1980's comic books drawn by Frank Miller; there's probably no way to create a film with the clarity and power of Miller's artwork.
Next on the list is
Cellular. I saw the trailer years ago--the film was released in 2004--and never forgot the situation: you get a call from a woman you don't know, and she's begging for help. What do you do?
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3 comments:
I liked Hancock, but I agree it could have been tigher in places. The movie's hero reminded me of a character in a Champions campaign many years ago a friend played.
The one thing to keep in mind is that it is tough to create a superhero mythology (and any superhero story will be so) from scratch within the context of a two hour movie, without the support of preceding comics.
Unbreakable by M. Night Shyamalan (sp?) starring Bruce Willis was another unique and whole-cloth superhero telling. Similar to Hancock, it left a lot of questions for the user to guess at and despite being a fantastic movie, has never spawned a sequel. I think it is one of the best superhero movies (and probably better movies) I've ever seen.
Daredevil... I didn't mind it, and I enjoyed Electra Assassin more as a spin off... but I just couldn't reconcile the Marvel character with Ben Affleck. I do not believe he was the right choice for the job, although Jennifer Garner as Electra was fine.
The Punisher (with Thomas Jane) is probably also worth seeing sometime, though perhaps not a see-several-times either.
Batman Begins I liked and the Dark Night, while not as strong of a film in some ways, did have an amazing performance by the late Heath Ledger.
I like the Fifth Element too ... so many witty little things in there. But I'm so dumb that when the Blue Lady sang, I was completely mesmerized with how cool her voice was, the song was ... until my friend had to firmly point out it was computerized or something. (I don't care now, I still like that scene quite a bit.)
My understanding is that the Blue Lady's voice was not synthesized; it was voiced by an opera singer whose work the director had heard. I expect it was modified a bit, else the sound editor would feel he hadn't done any work.
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