My Top 10 Superhero Movies - Part Two
By Ken Parker
Sorry for the delay of this article - I meant to post it a while ago.
5
-Spiderman 2 (2004) – Spiderman is my favorite superhero, or at
least he was while growing up. He is the one I am most familiar with
in the Marvel universe. Again, I will be placing a sequel ahead of
the original with this selection. While the first film is one of the
better origin stories in my opinion, I found, yet again, the bad guy
makes or breaks the movie. In this case the one tone crazed metal
headed Green Goblin portrayed by Willem Defoe was a very weak
executed character. The rest of the film was superb. Now you take
that excellence into the second film and put a really well acted bad
guy, now you have something.
Alfred Molina gives us a perfect Doctor
Octavius. His transformation into a 'bad guy' was really moving and
his complete development back into a good guy was certainly a
highlight of the film. The entire effect of Doc Oct was well
conceived and executed. One of my favorite heroic scenes in any of
these movies on my list is where Spiderman stops the train.
The rest of the cast with Mary Jane,
Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson continue their excellence in this film.
I have no real reason for why this is
not higher on the list other than there are three more films to
include.
4– The Dark Knight (2008) –
I would say that the story of The Dark Knight Rises, apart
from some logic problems, is better than The Dark Knight.
Couple this with the fact that I thought The Dark Knight was
too long with the entire Two-Face story (even though it was
important). I found all the supporting cast for The Dark Knight
Rises to be superb and yet none of them could match one
performance in The Dark Knight. I still have to say that
Heath Ledger trumps all. His Joker was well acted and written and
remains the best villain, in my mind, of any superhero movie ever.
His lack of reasoning and motive, complete with different origins
that he tells people and the fear that this character releases on
Gotham, Batman and the film-goers is unparalleled. It is 80% Ledger
and 20% the writers, producers, director and make-up.
The film amps up the franchise to a
higher level over the excellent Batman Begins and puts it on a
whole new level of superhero films. The movies would keep this dark
tone while Marvel would embrace a lighter comedic tone. Both have
their strengths and while I may leave a Marvel film with a smile on
my face, I may leave a Batman film in shock and awe.
The entire Batman trilogy kicks the
earlier franchise out of the way. Sure, the first two Tim Burton
films are excellent and just fall short of my top 10 list, but both
Dark Knight films are the definitive Batman films for me.
3 – Watchmen (2009) – I will
go on record to state that for most of these superhero films I was
not necessarily a big fan of the comic book. In the case of
Spiderman, I had read a few comic books and with the rest it was all
just minor knowledge of the characters. With Watchmen, I knew
nothing other than it was well liked by people who read the comic.
So the movie was brand new and with nothing to compare it to, I found
it to be massively compelling and original. The mythology of
superheroes in the Watchmen universe is fascinating and the
movie does an excellent job summing it all up in the opening credits.
As the movie goes on we learn that there really is only one hero
with super powers (Dr. Manhattan) and that the rest of the heroes and
bad guys are regular people (well, perhaps they are a bit stronger
and faster than most).
The entire question of with great power
comes great responsibility is turned on its ear with some incredible
characters. Interestingly the bad guys in this film are mostly
ineffectual and aging while it is the heroes that are doing all the
damage. You have one hero who thinks he is beyond criticism because
of his powers that it is okay for him to rape a woman, shoot a
pregnant woman and kill a President. Another hero takes it upon
himself to sacrifice millions to save billions and another hero that
thinks everyone is corrupt and evil. Finally we have a hero that is
so powerful that he is beyond identifying what it means to be human
anymore. The other heroes are perhaps the most noble and good but
even they abuse their powers.
The entire world depicted is against
the heroes and this adds fuel to the separation of the superheroes
with humanity. The decay of the superhero is seen perfectly in this
film and one has to wonder what it would have been like in the early
years as glimpsed in the opening of the film.
The film is certainly not the funnest
on my list but it is brave enough to pose many questions and dilemmas
that superheroes all go through.
2 – Superman (1978) – While
I think this film is dated to a degree I cannot turn my back on it.
At the time this was an incredible film. Not only is it the first
serious superhero film (the Batman film of the 60's is an
outstanding film that just misses this list) but it lays the
blueprint of all others to follow. The film tackles the most popular
hero of them all and is outstanding with Christopher Reeves doing an
incredible job. The film was also a special effects showcase of some
incredible work.
The origin takes a while but that is
okay. The mixture of humor and seriousness is perfect. I don't like
cop out endings and while Superman's travel back in time was a super
cop out, it was passable. The remaining cast were also perfect. The
next film was incredible and several years ago I might have even
placed it above Superman but this one holds up a bit better overall.
1 - The Avengers (2012) – Was
there any doubt this was going to be number one? Again, time may
change this ranking but The Avengers was everything I wanted
to see in a superhero film. Credit has to go with all the films that
led to this. All of them are part of this movie and laid the
groundwork for this film to be as good as it was. The story was okay
but it was the characters and their interaction. I don't remember
the last time I was that jazzed and excited to see certain characters
meet up for the first time. The melding of these characters was done
perfectly.
I mentioned the story was okay and
really it was this combining all these characters into a cohesive
movie that did it for me. The film was loads of fun and excelled my
sky high expectations by quite a lot. How can the franchise outdo
itself from this point on? Does anyone really believe that the next
Iron Man and Thor and The Avengers can really be
better than this one? Maybe.
In the end the fun tone of superhero movies wins out on my list. I still had some serious films in my list but the shear fun I had in 1978 with Superman and this year with The Avengers is just a bit more important to me.
So that is it. I welcome comments. I
am also milling around the idea of making a worst of Superhero
list!!!
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