Hollywood and comics: a tenuous relationship

In getting that review of X-Men: The Last Stand off of my chest, I started thinking about the role comic books have played in Hollywood cinema over the past few years. While it isn't a new occurrence for Hollywood to borrow liberally from other forms of media as the basis for the latest screenplay (the lack of original screenplays lately being another topic entirely), it seems that after the box office and critical successes of Sam Raimi's Spider Man in 1999 and Bryan Singer's X-Men the following year, interest seems to be peaking. How could the American film industry continue to pass up this previously neglected well of unused properties? In conversations with fellow comic book fans at the time, I even went so far as to say that the comic book movie was experiencing a true renaissance - the producers and directors were finally realizing that they couldn't simply rely on the hardcore fanatics to fill theatre seats. This statement was egregiously misguided, however, as the comic movies to be released in the years that followed would show.

Let's recap. After a great debut with the action-heavy Blade (1998), the series became mired in trying to develop some alternate telling of the vampire myth and completely ruining the backstory developed across several Marvel "Midnight Sons" titles in the early 1990s. I'm pretty sure Blade: Trinity (2004) was universally reviled by both comic book fans and moviegoers alike.

Daredevil (2003) was probably the worst comic movie I've seen out of this recent batch, and it amazed me that Elektra – easily the most uninteresting comic book character adapted on screen - somehow managed to get her own movie. I've got nothing against Daredevil the character. In essence, he is almost exactly like Batman in the sense that he is self-trained and doesn't really have any "super powers". He is also a character with a deep inner conflict – something that wasn't even hinted at on the screen in favour of portraying some lame love story. With the "romance" between Jean Grey and Logan and the manufactured love triangle of Rogue, Iceman and Shadowcat in The Last Stand, the X-Men series is drifting far too close to this territory.

Hulk (2003) was an overemotional mess, and clearly the result of what happens when you put a sentimental director behind a character hell-bent on breaking things. How hard can it be to please audiences with explosions and wholesale destruction? Every summer blockbuster with less polished scripts can manage to do it. Ang Lee complicated the issue and ruined it for fans and moviegoers expecting action – not a story of a man's resentment of his father. Or gamma-irradiated poodles.

There isn't much I can say about Hellboy (2004) that I haven't already. It is probably the only comic book movie that knows it's a comic book movie. Relative to everything that was released before or since, the approach seems brilliantly simple.

The Punisher (2004) was not necessary. It felt like Marvel was greedily branching out too much, too fast – riding the comic book wave as it were. Once again the character's obvious reason for being is lost in a screenwriter's attempts at reworking the Punisher mythos. This isn't a stand-alone novel. The work has already been done developing the universe and the character over hundreds of issues of comics. Why do comic book adaptations insist on distancing themselves from the source material?

Constantine (2005) was forgettable, inoffensive fare: neither terrible nor especially thought provoking, it could have easily passed as any other action film aiming to capitalize on occult themes. It was nice to see another one of DC's comics make their way onto film instead of Superman and Batman, but the producers made too many mistakes for it to be considered a good comic book movie. Keanu Reeves was simply the wrong choice for the titular character - while he may have pulled off the whole disaffected/sarcastic/devil-may-care (literally) personality, he was too clean. He may have "seen things", but it wasn't reflected in his appearance. Rachel Weisz and Keanu Reeves on the whole were too pretty and seemed out of place on the gritty streets of Los Angeles shown in the film. Though the biggest mistake was the liberty taken with the character of John Constantine - the line between anti-hero and the morally ambiguous self-serving low life from the comics was clearly drawn, and completely undercuts the nature of the character. Instead, we get the usual tale of a selfish man redeemed by self-sacrifice.

I’d consider Sin City (2005) on the same level as Spider Man and X-Men in terms of cultural events, but as a comic book movie it felt gratuitous and unsophisticated, despite its origins as a comic book specifically aimed at mature readers. It most definitely conveys the same feel as Miller’s minimalist art, but as much as the script tries to tie everything together the whole production was as if a bunch of fanboys had come together to play with their favorite property. I couldn't get over the absurd amounts of makeup the actors had to wear, because while readers of Miller’s comics might understand the exaggerated features it probably looked more comical to the average person. And to this day I still do not understand why Quentin Tarantino was given so much attention as "Guest Director". Yes, Rodriguez and Tarantino are pals – but get out of film school, guys. You’re professionals.

Last year's Fantastic Four came across as a "me too" team movie in the wake of the X-Men, executed with far less taste. I mean The Thing wore a foam rubber suit, and Jessica Alba still cannot act to save her life (except when she's invisible?). I only wish I could say the movie intended to be this tongue in cheek. Instead it soils the legacy of one of Marvel's most lovable superhero teams.

When I heard Ghost Rider was going to star Nicolas Cage I cried. Not because he is one of the worst actors in Hollywood today, but because I knew this movie would never do the character justice. I remember drawing flaming skulls and winding chains in my math notebooks back in 8th grade after the character made his return in 1990. I caught the trailer for this latest comic adaptation before X-Men: The Last Stand. I can tell they fucked around with the continuity of the series. Johnny Blaze is the main character of the film, but his appearance is modeled after the Danny Ketch Ghost Rider that I grew up with. I also noticed that a "Western" Ghost Rider makes an appearance – no doubt to tell us that these powers have been inherited by more than one person. Even though the Ghost Rider lineage began with Johnny Blaze the stunt motorcyclist, and the "Western" Ghost Rider was simply another unrelated Marvel series. But I'll leave that to the experts behind what I'm sure is a well-researched script.

So what is to become of the comic book movie?

This summer's Superman Returns, like Batman Begins, is aiming to restore the franchise to its former self by essentially overwriting what happened during their increasingly nonsensical and idiotic sequels. One can only hope.

What continues to astound me is how the medium has been treated in its transfer to film. While it's nice to see them being taken seriously as money making ventures, there comes a point where the film's ties to the original format are permanently broken by inserting too many characters, plot contrivances or intellectually stunted lessons in morality. They're comic books. They thrive on exposing us to fantastic things that could never be realized without multi-billion dollar budgets. The stories are already there, archived for use in any screenplay. And yet somehow the visual medium of film, including the enormous leaps and bounds the world of special effects has made, cannot seem to capture the feel of these things.