4. Trying To Incorporate Too Much
The worst thing about any "bloated" movie is that - even if the sum of its parts are rather good - you're unable to really enjoy any of them because there's not enough time spent with each part. So when a comic book attempts to ham-fist more narrative than it can manage into a single movie, the resulting feeling is like that of charging into a sweet shop, looking around in amazement at everything in sight, before slipping over, hitting your head on the floor, and coming round in an alleyway outside with the creepy manager leaning over you with his pants down. Sorry to put such a horrific image in your head, but you get my point. The recent Iron Man 3 suffered from what I would call a "plot overload" - eventually you had to stop listening to what was being said, because it started to make no sense. And then there's The Dark Knight Rises, which felt so bombastic from start to finish that it almost hurt to watch: there were way too many unnecessary scenes, characters, action scenes... everything felt like it had been thrown into the pot to try and please absolutely every type of person, and the movie just ended up feeling tepid as a result. Next year's The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is rumoured to feature three villains, which begs the question: did they learn nothing from the tragedy that was Spider-Man 3? At least they took Mary-Jane Watson out of the equation, which should free up a little space, but there's something uncomfortable about the weight hanging onto that movie anyway. As fans, we obviously understand a filmmaker's drive to include as much good stuff as possible (who knows when they might get another chance?), but there's a limit. Less it better, right? It's always the way.