If you're even remotely interested in the movie business, you've probably noticed that something rather big has happened in the whole comic book adaptation department. And by "something rather big," I really mean "it's now a well-established fact that comics make the best movies and if you don't agree with that then you're wrong and
and oh my God there's no way I can skip watching this movie if I want to keep talking to my friends is there?" Uh-huh: comic book movies are huge. Like, massive. Hulk-sized. And though Sam Raimi's
Spider-Man set the template for a new wave of superhero flicks over a decade ago, the last few years have really proven to be the best to this new sub-genre of blockbusters. I mean, the third highest-grossing movie ever is about a group of costumed heroes teaming up to fight aliens who come out of a portal and attack New York. Not a historical picture. Not a biopic about a famous social figure. Portal aliens. Sometimes I sit back and imagine how else all those hundreds of millions of dollars could have been spent. How many
Lost InTranslations and
Reservoir Dogs could we get for a single
Iron Man? And then I remember that I really, really like explosions and aliens coming out of portals, and that most comic book movies nowadays are freakin' awesome. Since CGI decide to exist and granted everybody the tools they needed to adapt things that once seemed impossible, filmmakers have truly taken advantage. Still, comic book movies - just like all the others - aren't immune to awfulness. For every
Dark Knight or
Avengers, there's a horrifically-rendered botch-job that exists only to make you want to go home, rip up your 1st editions and burn down your house. We all know the movies I'm talking about. The ones that had you mentally blogging your distain in the theatre before you'd even finished watching them. Am I right? Huh? Huh? But consider the notoriously awful comic book movies I've assembled here... all of which have spent much of their existence being ridiculed and rejected and stood up on dates 'cause
man, they're ugly, and nobody wants to be seen eating with these guys. But these movies also, in my opinion, cling to certain positive attributes that we've all completely forgotten about. Let's explore those attributes, before both of us go insane.