Your vote counts!
Jun. 19th, 2008 02:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
trinityvixenNo, I'm not talking about the election or politics or anything so boring. I am instead, of course, as ever, talking about....MOVIES!
(surprise!)
The question arose from a conversation held with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
feiran on our way back from The Incredible Hulk. More, I was pondering it at her while she sat there and went, "You know I haven't seen any of the movies you're talking about, right?" (It's true; she hasn't. This is why I beat her ass at Marvel Scene It.)
The question was this: What is the worst comic book movie adaptation...ever?
Now, to answer, first we must have ground rules.
One: Yes, it can be any movie that was a comic book or graphic novel first. (American Splendor counts as does From Hell, etc.) It is not limited to superhero comic book movies.
Two: By "worst," we're talking about the whole production, start to finish. Worst script, worst direction, worst acting, worst effects, worst editing--if it is part of making the movie, you can find fault with it, and it's fair game. (Note, however, that you cannot fault older films for their special effects unless those special effects were notably bad at the time of production. Fair's fair. No one had ILM or CGI even twenty years ago.)
Three: Consider also, when determining "worst" what so-bad-it's-funny value some movies have. If you can laugh at it, it's not the worst comic book movie ever.
Four: Sequels are different movies, so not liking most of a series doesn't count. You have to pick one film. If that means you have to weigh the camp of Dolph Lundgren against the camp of John Travolta in deciding which Punisher movie was worse, so be it.
Five: There is no rule five. Just get started commenting already.
So as not to bias anyone, my personal choice for worst comic book movie ever is behind the cut. My vote has to go to The Hulk. While The Punisher and Elektra were dead boring, and Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand both broke me, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer made me laugh at its ridiculosity hard enough to cry, and Daredevil featured Ben Affleck in red leather (enough said), and don't even get me started on the nipple-suit Batman movies...
The Hulk? Worst comic book movie ever. Absolutely not-a-thing redeemable about it. Bruce Banner wasn't even Bruce Banner. (Look it up for yourselves if you don't believe me--DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE, USE THE INTERNET!) Jennifer Connelly--Oscar-award winning Jennifer Connelly--is easily outmatched in a role played later by Liv Tyler--Aerosmith-video-lesbian Liv Tyler. Nick Nolte. For the love of God, NICK. NOLTE.
And that's just the cast. There was a scene wherein a flashback contained a dream sequence. I expected that to keep going down the story-telling ladder until there was a flashback of a dream character's dreaming about a flashback of a dream, ad nauseum. (I know I was nauseated.) The Hulk looked less real than Flubber. I think Nick Nolte ended up becoming God or something by credits' end. If that's not enough to make you shudder and doubt that there even is a God, I declare that you, sirrah! Are not, cannot possibly be human. Robot apocalypse, here we come.
In short, The Hulk is so bad. How bad is it? Here's how bad: I don't even remember half of it. This? Is monumental. I still remember most of just about every other movie I've ever hated. Ask me about Swordfish some time. I can remember the plot of The Crow: City of Angels. (To be fair, that's more out of the mortification that my father walked in on a scene set in a sex club where a guy is beating off. ::sigh:: Sorry, Dad.) But I can't remember half of The Hulk. I saw it for free in the theater, and I wanted my money back.
Worst. Comic. Book. Movie. Ever.
(surprise!)
The question arose from a conversation held with
feiran on our way back from The Incredible Hulk. More, I was pondering it at her while she sat there and went, "You know I haven't seen any of the movies you're talking about, right?" (It's true; she hasn't. This is why I beat her ass at Marvel Scene It.)The question was this: What is the worst comic book movie adaptation...ever?
Now, to answer, first we must have ground rules.
One: Yes, it can be any movie that was a comic book or graphic novel first. (American Splendor counts as does From Hell, etc.) It is not limited to superhero comic book movies.
Two: By "worst," we're talking about the whole production, start to finish. Worst script, worst direction, worst acting, worst effects, worst editing--if it is part of making the movie, you can find fault with it, and it's fair game. (Note, however, that you cannot fault older films for their special effects unless those special effects were notably bad at the time of production. Fair's fair. No one had ILM or CGI even twenty years ago.)
Three: Consider also, when determining "worst" what so-bad-it's-funny value some movies have. If you can laugh at it, it's not the worst comic book movie ever.
Four: Sequels are different movies, so not liking most of a series doesn't count. You have to pick one film. If that means you have to weigh the camp of Dolph Lundgren against the camp of John Travolta in deciding which Punisher movie was worse, so be it.
Five: There is no rule five. Just get started commenting already.
So as not to bias anyone, my personal choice for worst comic book movie ever is behind the cut. My vote has to go to The Hulk. While The Punisher and Elektra were dead boring, and Spider-Man 3 and X-Men: The Last Stand both broke me, and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer made me laugh at its ridiculosity hard enough to cry, and Daredevil featured Ben Affleck in red leather (enough said), and don't even get me started on the nipple-suit Batman movies...
The Hulk? Worst comic book movie ever. Absolutely not-a-thing redeemable about it. Bruce Banner wasn't even Bruce Banner. (Look it up for yourselves if you don't believe me--DON'T WATCH THE MOVIE, USE THE INTERNET!) Jennifer Connelly--Oscar-award winning Jennifer Connelly--is easily outmatched in a role played later by Liv Tyler--Aerosmith-video-lesbian Liv Tyler. Nick Nolte. For the love of God, NICK. NOLTE.
And that's just the cast. There was a scene wherein a flashback contained a dream sequence. I expected that to keep going down the story-telling ladder until there was a flashback of a dream character's dreaming about a flashback of a dream, ad nauseum. (I know I was nauseated.) The Hulk looked less real than Flubber. I think Nick Nolte ended up becoming God or something by credits' end. If that's not enough to make you shudder and doubt that there even is a God, I declare that you, sirrah! Are not, cannot possibly be human. Robot apocalypse, here we come.
In short, The Hulk is so bad. How bad is it? Here's how bad: I don't even remember half of it. This? Is monumental. I still remember most of just about every other movie I've ever hated. Ask me about Swordfish some time. I can remember the plot of The Crow: City of Angels. (To be fair, that's more out of the mortification that my father walked in on a scene set in a sex club where a guy is beating off. ::sigh:: Sorry, Dad.) But I can't remember half of The Hulk. I saw it for free in the theater, and I wanted my money back.
Worst. Comic. Book. Movie. Ever.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 04:13 am (UTC)Anyway, my vote goes to Spawn. I came close to screaming on several occasions in the theater when faced with the true horror of what bad film could be (this was pre my Manos etc exploration days and, now that I think about it, may have prompted that journey). Everything about it was awkward, every single scene was painful, and it had Johnny Legzo as a short, fat clown just to drive home the point that the film was clearly created so that David Lynch could record audiences trapped within a prison of their own choice before slowly zooming in on Legzo's bright blue cheeks.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 06:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 07:27 pm (UTC)As for The Hulk, I'm now 99% positive you're not even talking about the same film I am. "It felt like a real film"!? It was hackneyed, cliched, and, contrary to what you're claiming, it tried very consciously to ape a comic book. In both the sheer ridiculousness of the villain and the direct video style. You had panels of action--you had panels! Panels! Panels work in print to set pacing--things happening with time versus things happening immediately. Action bleeds over a panel or words do. You set the pace and you connect over the gap somehow to relate the pictures and words to the ongoing story.
Instead, with The Hulk, you had action going on inside each panel, but they were mainly isolated. You could have done it better with cuts because who really needs to see the entire spool of cameras A, B, C as they lower Banner in his box into a hole? Not me!
Danny Elfman writes the soundtracks for every movie John Williams doesn't, so that proves nothing.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-20 10:37 pm (UTC)Oh yeah, and half of the "Eric Bana sits in his room staring at the wall" time.
That is a brilliant description of Spawn, cbreakr. :)
no subject
Date: 2008-06-23 04:15 am (UTC)I mean, for measurement's sake, I am going to have to Catwoman again, and as time has dulled (but not dimmed) the horror of The Hulk, I'm currently dreading that more than any of the worst of the worst I've not seen. I'm guaranteeing that my opinion of The Hulk does not change, but perhaps it will be ameliorated by such other hits as Spawn, Barbed Wire, or Batman and Robin.