I hold hope that all comic book movies will be good, but sadly it's not always the case. The Hulk flopped big time because they failed to capture the essence of the comic. Ang Lee took a more philosophical approach and totally missed the action aspect of the character. They are doing a second movie now without him. I think it will be much better.
Superman recently came out and I had no interest to see it. The reason being is that Singer elected to put it into the old Superman movies rather than start fresh like Batman Begins. He had Brandon Routh essentially mimic Christopher Reeve. He also introduced a child that was very far off what the comics offer. On top of that, I just don't find Lex Luthor to be an interesting antogonist for Superman onscreen. In the comics you can see his Machiavellian schemes playout, in the movies they are too rushed. We need more action there.
Speaking of Batman Begins, that was a comic book movie I thought was really well done. It captured the essence of the character and the comic. There were tweaks for the big screen, but nothing that couldn't be overlooked. My one gripe is the obligatory love interest that Hollywood puts in to try to get women to watch. Katie Holmes was a distraction from the movie I felt.
I also really liked X-men 3 though many comic fans didn't. They were agitated that names and powers were different amongst the various mutants than they were in the comics. I loved it for what it was though and that was a fast paced action movie. It felt like a comic book on the screen with the large cast and epic battles. It was by far my favorite of the three.
I also liked Sin City alot. And it did quite well. In fact a second and third movie are currently in the works. What made the movie confusing to most is that it was a series of short stories done by Frank Miller. None of the tales he wrote actually were long enough to make a movie of by themselves. I thought they did a good job linking the stories though. And the art, acting, and action were incredibly well-done.
Upcoming comic book movies set for release in the near future(in the next year) include Ghost Rider and Spider-man 3. Ghost Rider (
trailer )looks awesome in my opinion. Nicolas Cage is in the lead role and is a self-proclaimed comic fan.(He named his son Kal-El)The story follows the origin story from what I've gathered from the trailer and the special effects look good. It should be a much darker movie as well than the typical since he is posessed be a demon and battles other demons. Tentative release for this movie is February of 2007 as I recall.
Spider-man 3 (
trailer ) looks awesome as well. I liked the first two, but this third looks poised to blow both those out of the water. It deals with the black costume saga which is one of the most popular stories of Spider-man's past. We are getting several supervillians with up to 4 villains being rumored to appear in the movie. We see Sandman in the trailer and he looks awesome. And word from insiders is that Topher Grace is looking to be an awesome Venom. We will be seeing this movie next spring/summer.
Also we are seeing direct-to-video animated movies which I recommend people check out. Marvel has already released Ultimate Avengers 1 & 2 and both were well-done. The second movies also show previews for animated Iron Man and Dr.Strange movies on the horizon. And DC has announced they are entering the animated movie field as well with a Teen Titans cartoon of the Judas Contract. (based on the comic and NOT the cartoon network anime)
