Ongoing Sci-Fi, Comic Book Movie Thread v2

[Nadal Fan]

I'd also add Superman The Movie, Black Panther, Watchmen and V for Vendetta and Zack Snyder's Justice League into the conversation

[ResAlien]

The only conversation V for Vendetta should be in is "garbage adaptations that pissed on the still burning corpse of the source material"

[Nadal Fan]

Originally Posted by ResAlien

The only conversation V for Vendetta should be in is "garbage adaptations that pissed on the still burning corpse of the source material"

I feel like we perhaps enjoyed that movie to a different degree

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Into the SpiderVerse. Watchmen was close to being great but missed the mark a bit. V for Vendetta is entertaining but botched the source material.

Justice League has no business in the conversation.

Batman Begins, TDK, superman II, spider man 2, Blade, SpiderVerse, infinity war, GOTG, Logan, DOFP.

Maybe X2, Deadpool, Dredd, First Class, Hellboy 2, Sin City, Iron Man, 300.

Some combination of the above is my top 15. No idea how to actually rank them though.

I have a hard time choosing what’s the best. Then we get into conversations like whether Road to Perdition should be on the list. Or A History of Violence.

Are we talking best movie overall? Or best adaptation? Best superhero movie?

TDK has probably the best performance but it’s mid tier at best other than Ledger. The story is borderline nonsensical.

I think I’d put Infinity War, Spider verse and sin city as the top 3 adaptations. They felt the most like watching a comic book come to life.

I feel like there’s a whole bunch of pretty good superhero/comic book movies but very few that are great. It’s hard to nail that mix of being a great movie and being a blockbuster. Usually you pick one. Could there ever be a comic book movie on par with something like Gladiator? Where it is both a top notch film and a blockbuster?

[Finger Cookin]

Originally Posted by Nadal Fan

I'd also add Superman The Movie, Black Panther, Watchmen and V for Vendetta and Zack Snyder's Justice League into the conversation

I humbly submit that the Venn Diagram overlap between "Greatest Superhero Movie of All Time" and "Best Zack Snyder movie" is much, much narrower than you think it is.

[trackercowe]

Justice League is awful. It ruined the prospects of DC for the better part of a decade. I don't know how they made a movie that bad. With those characters it should have been a gimmie. Between that and Batman v Superman it's all you need to know about Zack Snyder's abilities as a director.

[Yamer]

Captain America: The Winter Soldier deserves a mention here.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

Justice League is awful. It ruined the prospects of DC for the better part of a decade. I don't know how they made a movie that bad. With those characters it should have been a gimmie. Between that and Batman v Superman it's all you need to know about Zack Snyder's abilities as a director.

Justice League the 4 hour cut was great! However I have no idea why the hell he released as 4X3. It did look great on my 32 inch Sony trinitron though...

[blankall]

Originally Posted by trackercowe

Justice League is awful. It ruined the prospects of DC for the better part of a decade. I don't know how they made a movie that bad. With those characters it should have been a gimmie. Between that and Batman v Superman it's all you need to know about Zack Snyder's abilities as a director.

To be fair a lot of the issues with JL had nothing to do with Snyder. He left JL partway through and Wheedon hacked the whole thing up and rewrote/reshot huge portions of it.

The Snyder cut was miles better. Obviously, Snyder got a bit of a cheat there as he got to see how the theatrical cut landed and then improve on that.

It sounds like Wheedon fell into some kind of spiral of megalomania. He not only lost the ability to create anything good but also became an abusive A-hole.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Into the SpiderVerse. Watchmen was close to being great but missed the mark a bit. V for Vendetta is entertaining but botched the source material.

Justice League has no business in the conversation.

Batman Begins, TDK, superman II, spider man 2, Blade, SpiderVerse, infinity war, GOTG, Logan, DOFP.

Maybe X2, Deadpool, Dredd, First Class, Hellboy 2, Sin City, Iron Man, 300.

Some combination of the above is my top 15. No idea how to actually rank them though.

I have a hard time choosing what’s the best. Then we get into conversations like whether Road to Perdition should be on the list. Or A History of Violence.

Are we talking best movie overall? Or best adaptation? Best superhero movie?

TDK has probably the best performance but it’s mid tier at best other than Ledger. The story is borderline nonsensical.

I think I’d put Infinity War, Spider verse and sin city as the top 3 adaptations. They felt the most like watching a comic book come to life.

I feel like there’s a whole bunch of pretty good superhero/comic book movies but very few that are great. It’s hard to nail that mix of being a great movie and being a blockbuster. Usually you pick one. Could there ever be a comic book movie on par with something like Gladiator? Where it is both a top notch film and a blockbuster?

I do think the correct answer is Infinity War...

That really felt like a comic book come to life and was also the culmination of 18 prior films.

The only thing that holds it back a bit is that the conclusion in EndGame was just okay.

But Infinity War itself is still probably the best movie theatre experience I've ever had. People leaving that theatre amazed by the movie but also a bit shocked it ended the way it did.

From a critical perspective it might not be the "Best Movie" but IMO it's still the standard for what Comic Book movies and universes should aim to achieve.

[blankall]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

Batman Begins, TDK, superman II, spider man 2, Blade, SpiderVerse, infinity war, GOTG, Logan, DOFP.

Maybe X2, Deadpool, Dredd, First Class, Hellboy 2, Sin City, Iron Man, 300.

This is a pretty great list. Some other ones, I'd add:

The Crow
Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns
Donner Cut Superman I
Blade II (much better than Blade I IMO)

If I had to add more MCU content:

Thor:Ragnarok
Spiderman Homecoming, might sneak in there.

[#-3]

I enjoyed Superman, it is good writing to take a character like superman and leave you really concerned for his fate, I kind of enjoy that they jumped into a world that exists without explaining or apologizing for it. I do think it felt like you were in a Saturday morning cartoon, I'm not against having that tone but I am not sure it is a recipe for classics, it might be just what we need to build another 20 episode blockbuster serial franchise, but it might leave us with a lot of really good but not great films.

Best is pretty subjective, but I would say overall at any given time my favorite superhero movie might have been;

Batman
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 (I was like 5, it was awesome)
Blade
X-Men
X2
Spiderman
Batman Begins
Dark Knight
Iron Man
Avengers
Winter Soldier
Civil War
Homecoming
GOTG
Infinity War


I think you could honorable mention a bunch, but these would be the ones that might have topped my list at some point in time.

[iggy_oi]

Originally Posted by #-3

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1990 (I was like 5, it was awesome)

I’m in my 40s and it’s still a great movie.

[#-3]

Originally Posted by iggy_oi

I’m in my 40s and it’s still a great movie.

Sad news, 5 in 1990 = 40 in 2025

[Nadal Fan]

Is there a way to create a new thread and add a poll, (something similar to the top prospect threads) in order to see what we vote on for say the top 20 CBMs of all time?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by Nadal Fan

Is there a way to create a new thread and add a poll, (something similar to the top prospect threads) in order to see what we vote on for say the top 20 CBMs of all time?

Mods create polls. Create a new thread, ask for poll, list options.

[photon]

Or for something like that might be better off to find a website that lets you set up a ranked choice voting poll so everyone can put in their ranked choices and then it'll figure out the winner.. or there's others that'll let you set up a bracket so you can do rounds of movie 1 vs movie 2, movie 3 vs movie 4, winner of first vs winner of 2nd, etc.

[sa226]

We watched Superman last night.

My review: Finally, was that so hard??

I thought it was great. The James Gunn goofiness of Gurdians and Suicide Squad, I thought was toned down to an acceptable level.

CGI is just CGI these days. Unless its Chris Nolan, its what you get. So I didn't have too much of an issue with it.

Gunn just gets it right now. He made me care about Metamorpho, who had hardly any screen time and is just kind of a weird character.

If you're not much of a Superman fan, I think the review would be closer to "yeah, really good movie, I had fun" but maybe kind of forgettable.

Im a big Superman fan. Ever since watching the Donner movies on TV every time they came on. Gunn captured the character better than any director has since Donner. No Jesus imagery, no gritty, Greek tragedy dialog. To be clear, I liked parts of the Snyderverse. I thought Ben Afflecks Batman was great. I think Man of Steel is underrated and the Snydercut I think worked. It all explores different parts and themes for characters that have been in pop culture for decades. I think the Snyder movies suffered from poor, rushed storytelling.

That line that Superman has about how trusting people and being kind is the new punk rock, i know it's cheesy but I thought it was great.

Loved it. If we didn't have to pay a babysitter id go again next week.

[Sr. Mints]

I didn't love the marketing leading up to Fantastic Four. I really didn't. Every time I saw an ad, I cringed a little and thought, 'this is going to be a disaster.'

But I'm pleased to say the retro-futuristic world won me over pretty quick. The movie keeps things fairly simple, and I think Marvel needed to dial it way down. Good guys who're introduced in three minutes fight bad guy, throw in a few easter eggs and teasers for what's next, and you've got a decent movie.

It was genuinely refreshing not to be buried under the weight of 37 films, a dozen TV shows, and a multiverse that stopped being fun a while ago. There is a multiverse element here, but it’s handled in a pretty straightforward way.

Silver Surfer kinda got the shaft, and none of the characters or performances really popped. They were fine, but there weren’t any “nailed it!” moments.

[FireGilbert]

The Fantastic Four was in a tough spot because the multiverse was a flop that is confusing to casual fans but you can’t just drop them in the current MCU. The retro future on a different earth but with no mention of a multiverse was a suitable compromise.

I liked they took the Spider-man route and didn’t waste the first act on an origin story that had been seen before. You just get some introductions and world building before the story gets going. Also liked the focus on having interesting likeable characters and exploring their relationships. Johnny in particular was very well written. Could have used a little more action and it drags a bit when it’s just Reed doing science stuff. Every Silver Surfer scene was awesome and it wouldn’t have hurt to have more of her.

Probably the best MCU movie since End Game.