Every year a DC superhero and Marvel superhero crashes into the box office and see who can beat out each by winning the hearts and money of the viewers. Whether the hero is known or unknown to the audience, it all comes down to one thing, DC versus Marvel. The war has been raging on in comic books and now on the big screen. This year, the long awaited Ironman 2 will be flying into theatres on May 7 and the Green Hornet fights his way onto the big screen for the first time on December 22.

Robert Downey Jr. again joins forces with director Jon Favreau for long waited Ironman 2. Downey Jr. portrays the one and only Tony Stark. Continuing where Ironman ended off, Tony is enjoying his celebrity status after revealing his identity, and runs into Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. He finds out he is just a small part of another world, the world of superheroes. This time, he faces the threat of a new super villain, the Whiplash, played by Oscar-winner Mickey Rourke, who uses Stark’s reactor technology to create himself a pair of powerful electric whips. Stark is joined again by James “Rhodey” Rhodes who this time is portrayed by Don Cheadle, not Terrance Howard. Rhodey even gets his chance to fight alongside Ironman this time around. The beautiful Gwyneth Paltrow will be returning as Stark’s love interest and the new CEO of Stark Industries. New faces to look for are Scarlett Johansson who plays Black Widow, S.H.I.E.L.D’s undercover spy and Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer.

Green Hornet, is surprisingly portrayed by the funnyman Seth Rogen. Do not expect this to be a comedy, it is indeed another fictional masked crime fighting movie. For those who are not familiar with the comic side of things, you must be asking yourself who the Green Hornet is. He is in fact a newspaper publisher by day and goes by the name of Britt Reid. By night, he is the Green Hornet and fights alongside with Kato (Jay Chou), his asian sidekick who drives “Black Beauty”, a car that can rival James Bond’s Aston Martin or Batman’s Tumbler. The Green Hornet has no superpowers, but he possesses hand-to-hand combat skills and carries an awesome gun that sprays a gas to knock anyone out. Let’s see how Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz) takes this! Cameron Diaz will star alongside with Rogen and will be his love interest in this crime fighting flick.

Who will rack up the numbers at the box office this year, will it be contestant number one, the iron clad Tony Stark in Ironman 2 or contestant number two, the crime fighting Green Hornet?

With two new superhero flicks in 2010, let’s take a look back at some of the best and worst and comic-based movies ever made in the last decade.

The Winners

Batman Begins – Batman suffered a horrible image after the Batman & Robin movie, but Christopher Nolan brought the dark back in the dark knight. Batman, (aka Bruce Wayne) is portrayed as Christian Bale, who played the character extremely well. Michael Caine as the butler Alfred Pennyworth, Gary Oldman as the young Lieutenant Gordan and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox add to the quality ensemble. Liam Neeson plays Henri Ducard/Ras Al Ghul who trained Bruce Wayne to become a fearless crime fighter.

The Dark Knight – Christopher Nolan does it again, and even better! Included in the equation this time is Heath Ledger who put on a memorable act. And to think that so many of us thought he was a bad choice to play the Joker! He made Joker even more psychotic and darker to match Bale’s portrayal of Batman. The legendary Caine, Oldman (with a promotion) and Freeman again return in this movie to aid our favourite dark knight.

X-men & X2: X-men United – Too bad Bryan Singer didn’t direct the third X-men film as well, instead he decided to turn his back on Marvel and go with a DC movie only to disappoint viewers with Superman Returns. The first two X-men movies were very well made and good choices were made to introduce some of the supporting mutants, and we all know how many mutants there are! That’s like half the population of this world if you’re looking through Professor X’s eyes. The storyline was well thought out, though Rogue’s character seemed weak when in the comic she is stronger and has a mind of her own. The movies had a huge cast too, with  Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Patrick Steward as Professor X, Ian McKellan as Magneto, Anna Paquin as Rogue, Rebecca Romijn as Mystique and many more.

Spiderman 1 & 2 – Being Spiderman, you ought to have a shipload of enemies waiting to destroy your web, so to decide on which enemy to introduce is quite a task the director has to take on. A wise choice made with Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe) in the first instalment and Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina) in the second. Tobey McGuire put on a good act playing a nerdy schoolboy Peter Parker and your “friendly neightbourhood Spiderman” (or even nuisance) as quoted by Spiderman himself.

Ironman – How can the sequel create so much hype if the first one wasn’t good? The first one was awesome! Robert Downey Jr. battled his addictions and made a come back as a superhero that is not only rich, but smart and made a fighting suit that puts all of James Bonds gadgets to shame. Can’t wait for the sequel!

Hellboy II: The Golden Army – The first movie was not great, but the sequel was surprisingly good. Though unrecognizable, Ron Perlman plays Hellboy and the sexy Selma Blair played Liz who is his love interest. Doug Jones plays the CG looking character Abe Sapien. You won’t know what he looks like but he was also the Silver Surfer in the second Fantastic 4 movie. The acting was above average and the movie was well made.

The Losers

Spiderman 3 – With the first two movies being so good, expectations for the third one soared only for it to be dropped from the Burj (tallest building in the world) and splatter on the concrete. Well, not that bad, but it was a huge disappointment. Tobey McGuire is again Peter Parker and this time he’s up against himself, his best friend, Venom and Sandman. Venom is a favourite villain but the movie itself just didn’t flow and there was too many unnecessary touches.

Fantastic 4 & Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer – The only thing that sells these films is Jessica Alba playing the Invisible Woman. The humour was childish and it looks like the movie was made just for the sake of putting Fantastic 4 out there in the market. With the sequel, the Silver Surfer was the only good thing about the movie; in fact they should have made a Silver Surfer movie against world-eater Galactus, but decided to introduce the Surfer into the Fantastic 4 movie. Was it because they were afraid that Silver Surfer wouldn’t sell as much as Fantastic 4? After all, the Surfer is less known, but if it was well made, he would have been a hit. He’s already a hit with comic readers and he looks cool enough to sell to everyone else.

Superman Returns – As stated above, Bryan Singer should have stuck with directing the third X-men rather than ditching the team of mutants. Though you have to admit Brandon Routh does look an awful lot like Christopher Reeve, but besides that, the movie was a big let down. Superman left earth for a reason.

Elektra – Can I say boring?! Okay, so besides Jennifer Garner in a tight leather outfit with a pair of sai, what else is good about that movie? The plot was horrible, the acting was below average and it was just a waste of time.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine – As much I love Wolverine and action, I thought the movie wasn’t very well thought-out. The action and acting was good but they got so many facts wrong and that just completely ruined the story of Wolverine. It had an excellent cast though; Hugh Jackman returning as Wolverine, Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool, Dominic Monaghan as Bolt and Live Schreiber as Sabretooth (who is not supposed to be Wolverine’s blood brother).

Comic-based movies have become a hit, and to see your favourite superhero come onto the big screen is exciting, but sometimes it may not be worth the hype. Some superheroes should just stay on the pages rather than coming to life on the big screen. With the never-ending battle between Marvel and DC comics, when a Marvel movie is made, it can expect to go up against a DC movie. Have you also noticed that a superhero always paves way for a strong line up of films starting in the spring? It seems that the dawn of the superhero trend is catching on.

Some comic-based movies to look forward to in the future would be Marvel’s own Thor (played by Chris Hemsworth), a God sent to Earth as punishment. It will be directed by Kenneth Branagh, who has starred in Hamlet and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents from the Ironman movies will be returning in this “godly” movie like Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson. Anthony Hopkins will be joining the all star cast as Odin, the ruler of Asgard and Natalie Portman will be Thor’s love interest. Look for this in a theatre near you on May 6, 2011!

Following Thor, in June 2011, DC’s own Green Lantern will be flying onto the big screen to battle out Thor. Ryan Reynolds, who was also Deadpool will be Hal Jordan aka Green Lantern. The one problem about this is that Reynolds played a Marvel character and now he is also a DC character. With the on-going battle, how well will this work out for him? Usually, if one were to play a Marvel universe character, they will stay away from the DC universe. Let’s just see how well Reynolds uses his ring of power in this DC flick. Yes, the Green Lantern possesses a ring that grants him godlike powers. Check it out and see who is better, the Green Lantern or Thor. 

Hints of hero movies that would be coming are the third Batman (with the whole cast returning), Captain America, Deadpool: Origin, Wonder Woman and Justice League.

Written by :

Katwoman88

 

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (4)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

...
written by jenzan, March 08, 2010

Great article, fun and full of energy.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by Katwoman88, March 06, 2010

Thanks guys =) Really appreciate it.

Yeah I agree Wolverine was pretty awful. When making a Wolverine, it should be an 18A movie, he's a complex, violent character. The way he was portrayed in Origin was just horrible, it seems like they wanted to make the movie for the sake of making a Wolverine movie. tsk tsk.

True that the Silver Surfer did get introduced with the Fantastic 4, but I have a feeling they wanted to make a comeback since the first movie was a flop. Who knows though, Silver Surfer will probably have his own movie in the near future, let's just hope it'll be well put together.

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by alessandro, March 06, 2010

awesome article! i think the reason they had the Surfer with the Fantastic Four is because that's how the Silver Surfer was introduced to comic book fans before he got his own comic. He was a guest star in a Fantastic 4 book with Galactus, so maybe they were trying to draw in some of the purists?

• 
• +0
• 
• 

...
written by rdowb, March 03, 2010

Nice article. I agree with the majority of your winners/losers. But I wouldn't have included the first Spiderman and frist X-Men movies as winners. They're ok to me. The sequels were fantastic though. I'd also have t say Wolverine: Origins deserves it's own category of putrid. It's like, downright awful. The most painful narrative ever conceived.

• 
• +1
• 
•