Battle of the recent big budget comic book adaptations.

SPIDER-MAN
Arguably Marvel's finest character - All American nice guy bitten by radioactive spider, dons pyjamas and fights bad boys.

BATMAN BEGINS
Arguably DC's finest character - Welsh method wizard gets dark and vengeful, dons kevlar and fights bad boys.

Vote.........now!

This'd be more difficult if it wasn't about the recent film adaptations of Spider-man. Batman Begins is by far the superior, far as I'm concerned.

As much as I enjoyed the Spiderman films I've got to go for Batman Begins, it was everything that I thought a superhero film should be.

I can't decide between them so I'm abstaining (my trousers).

My choice is definetly Spidey. It's the big soap-opera of Superhero-Comic-Adaptations. It's funny, it's dramatic, it's fantastic, it's fun.

Batman Begins is trying a little to hard to be a "serious" restart of the franchise. (Even if the new "Bat-Tank" is one of the funniest thinks I've ever seen.) It's action is quite conventional (fast editing and to well known coreography) and it lacks the larger than live vilian. And it wasn't half as scary as I hoped.

Batman Begins failed, because it tryed to hard. Spider-Man was more of a fun job (if you can call a hundert million dollar production that) and became a Superhero-classic without trying. And remember, that it was Spider-Man, who started the recent Superhero-Comic-Adaptation-Hype of the last years.

You don't think X-Men had a hand in it, then?

Or Blade

X-Men got their hands in it, sure, but Spidey was the first one, I think. X-Men was the great follow up, which I even liked better until Spidey 2 came out. Correct me, if I'm wrong, but I think, Spidey came first.

Blade was just a little cool looking underground brother to the bigger productions but started it's own franchise om the screen. By the way, they want to make a TV-Serial out of it. (Whitout Snipes.)

X-Men came out 2 years before Spider-man...

Edited for pedantlinks.

X-Men came out a few years before Spidey. Blade sort of kicked it all off as it was the first big screen outing under the "Marvel productions" banner.

I wasn't aware of the TV series, thanks. Who was in it...IMDB has no listing.

Really? So it's quite impressive, that it stands in the shadow of Spidey, thought. So maybe was X-Men prototype and Spidey the start for the Superhero-Flics as we know them today. How many years have it been, since? I must have been quiete young those days.

I think that the X-Men films are superior to the Spidey films, actually. X-Men's further in memory because it's been a couple, of years since X-Men 2 came out, whilst Spidey's just had a massively-publicised sequal. X-Men opened the door for this new generation of comic-book movies.

Definitely, I always preferred the X-Men to Spiderman (comics, tv series, films, any medium) and I felt that Batman Begins really surpassed even X-Men 2. Scarecrow was a genuinely creepy character, there was no one villain so it kept the audience guessing as to who was the main threat to Batman, the relaistic concpet was done so very well, the fight scenes were really great. I just love it, better even than the Burton ones. Such a fun film to watch.

Like i said, I prefered the X-Men movies, too. They got more and better developed characters, looked more epic and was a little more subtile (as Superhero-Comic-Adaptations can be subtile). But in the end of Spidey 2, when Mary-Jane stands in Peters door in her wedding-dress I realized that is a Superhero-soap-opera and fell hopelessly in love with this concept.

That's the thing with Spider-man, though - there's such potential to make it a bit edgy, maybe dirty - but they decided to present it as more of a love story than anything else. Which is crap.

They're not particularly good films either - I seriously considered turning off Spider-man 2 when first I saw it. The first one was passable, but the second... Ew...

You can't argue over taste. I like the Spidey-movies and consider Batman Begins somewhere near Batman Forever. The best Bat-movie is for me Batman Returns. So what.

Batman Begins by a long way for me. Spiderman started strongly but didn't really hold my interest throughout. Dreadful CGI as well.

Batman Begins. Arguably the best Batman film of all.

It also got me slightly angry that they portrayed it as fine for a woman to dump her obviously head-over-heels in love fiance at the altar yet, god help us all, if someone did that to a woman in a film/TV show....

It WAS written by the people behind Smallville, the single greatest feminist superhero adaptation out there!

Fuckin' loved Batman Begins, but admit it was a "grower".

Pour moi:
Batman Begins>XMen2>Spider-Man2>Spiderman>XMen

[PS I liked Batman Forever...what?!]

Spider-man, simply because I enjoyed it a lot more than I did Batman Begins.

I liked Batman Forever, too. But it was the foreplay to Batman and Robin...

Bale is a goddamn legend yes, but he doesnt come close to Raimi, im for spidey on this

I'd truly like to know how someone could go from emaciated to bulked up in a few months! As you US cousins would say

"I gotta get me some of that!"

When Spiderman first came out, I was excited but since it was preceeded by X-Men, it didn't have the same full satisfaction. So, Batman Begins wins it. Purely Bale-orientated and far more serious than the previous attempts (Keaton was excellent, the second best Batfilm because of the Joker)

As the topic has widened out a bit:

x-men opened up the possibilities of super hero movies post the batman catacylsm (I don't count Blade becuase he's not really a superhero....dont make me explian that right now though) but it was an awful movie becuase three of the main characters cyclops, storm and Jane Gray didn't get to have personalities. Also the line "Do you know what happens to a toad when it gets struck by lightening? The same thing that happens to everything else."has to be one of the worst/strangest lines ever.

spiderman started well but the robotic goblin face made it difficult to engage with the villain and thus left me cold(compare to the first three batman bad guys if you will).

x-men two is in my opinion the best movie with everyone getting a little bit of story and the emphasis on the young mutants, the gay subtext and an excellent perfomance from Mckellan.

Spiderman 2 benifited from a better, more striking bad guy, a real kicking for the hero (which all super hero movies need) but it was too self aware that it was A Metaphor For Peoples Responsabilities To Their Communities. And starts to grate on repeated viewings. I did like that Peter was trapped in his real world responsibilities and the plot was tight and engaging.

Batman Begins was good, making answering sensibly the question "where does he get those wonderful toys?". I wanted there to be more scope for the Scarecrow (what was there was good) and I didn't feel like the Bat was crazy enough/ being forced to work hard enough/ground down (as with, say Knightfall series from which it drew some inspiration) and it all descended into dull special effects at the end. Kudos for featuring obscure character zszsarzzz(sp!!!!)or whatever his name is for the fan boys. So:


x-men2, spider man2, batman begins (losing out by a milimeter), xmen ................................................. hulk (waaaay off in the back ).

I think, Hulk didn't work out, beause

a) it was a Superhero-Comic-Adaptation worked out as a drama (but apparently only actoin and comedy works)

b) the story lacked a sff (straight-forward-feeling)

c) the Hulk didn't look like Eric Bana as Hulk but like Eric Bana as Ang Lee (coloured green).

Besides I think Eric Bana did a great job.

Batman Begins for me everytime

That could be because its edging closer in look and feel to the brilliant The Dark Knight returns by Frank Miller even though it tells of the origin and not the end of Batman as we know him

Batman loses a lot of points by bumbling so heavily into the cliches it was striving so hard to avoid while Spider-Man took those same cliches and revelled in them.

Oh, and Hulk worked. Really well.

Spidey, but not by much. Overall it encompasses the spirit of the source material so wonderfully, the performances are spectactular across the board, etc. - despite a few stumbles (I really wasn't wild about the Goblin design, though Dafoe is great; Spidey 2 is ever so slightly superior.) BB is still spectacular, though, and a long time coming.

I love the first two X-Men films for equal and opposite reasons - the character development in the first, the scope and nods to both previous films and the source material in the second - but it inherently suffers a bit simply because the medium can't possibly do that many characters justice. (Also, most of the parts are extremely well cast but *cough*Halle*cough* not all...). That said - nervous as hell to see what Ratner has wrought...

Blade is cheesy fun; sequels were cack. Hulk was OK; Bana and the cast were great, tho.

Daredevil was dire.

I highly recommend the director's cut. Easily one of the most faithful-to-the-spirit-and-content-of-the-source comic films ever. A vast improvement.

The Punisher was easily the least well received modern comic book adaptation, but I still enjoyed it on some levels.

It was having a bit of an identity crisis throughout and Travolta was in it but I'm with you. It wasn't a complete waste of my time.

Yeah Travolta was not at his best, and let's face it, there just wasn't enough gore or violence for a Punisher movie.

it did feel artificially restrained in that respect. the whole film really lacked the courage of its convictions which is really the only way to fuck up a Punisher story.

*Argh* *grrr* *hmmmmmmm*

Sostie you devil you...

Batman...no Spider-man...no Batman...

No, I'm a Marvel girl at heart...

'Spider-man'

Final answer.

I forgot about DD.

You see for me DD was one of those moments when comic book people were obliged to show the outside world what we'd been reading all this time, amongst ourselves everyone was like "yeah daredevil, he's pretty cool" but then you show him to outsiders and suddenly you find yourself thinking "hey, this is a pretty stupid idea for a super-hero".

Daredevil rocks in his apperance in ultimate x-men btw; his neck should be that thick all the time.

I've not seen Fantastic Four, but from what I've gathered it suffered from the fact that none of the characters have real personalities or personal-dramatic conflicts to resolve. Basically the successful movies are about characters who have an inner psychological life with stuff to resolve eg. spidey, batman, wolverine, young x-men etc. Mr fantastic doesn't really have any character flaws or isues and as such is just a pointless rubber man on screen.

This is the reason that I'm concerned about a movie about the world's biggest boy scout.

In the world of comics Marvel over DC always. But I have to vote for Batman Begins. Spider-Man was a brilliant interpretation, Batman Begins and brilliant re-invention. But BB left me a little more satisfied than Spider-Man...only a little. Oh, and it had Bale, Oldman & Caine - three generations of top Brit actors.


And seeing everyone else has gone of topic at some point...HULK is underrated - the rampaging was excellent.

A fantastically British cast - how did Nolan talk the big wigs into that I wonder. Maybe he just hoped they wouldn't notice, I mean how many Americans know that Christian Bale isn't American? I've heard him say he's started putting the accent on for interviews to save on confusion.

I love Spider-man, though I could tear the adaptation to shreds from a fanboy point of view (why no Gwen Stacey why why why?), it's so gosh darn enjoyable I choose not to.

Oh and James Franco's a stone fox.

[quote=Sostie,Nov 14 2005, 11:27 AM]
In the world of comics Marvel over DC always. But I have to vote for Batman Begins. Spider-Man was a brilliant interpretation, Batman Begins and brilliant re-invention.

yep thats so true re: interpretation/reinvention.

Personally though I get sick of martial arts being the only way for people to fight in movies nowadays. Thats why I hated The Matrix and loved Hellboy

How else does one train in hand-to-hand combat?

Argh! Not seen BB, so I can't say yet which I prefer.

Having said that, I did love Spidey-2. When Peter tries to tell MJ how he feels I was practically yelling at him to pull his finger out, as it was a situation with which I was familiar.

Little to no contest here for me - Batman Begins

Batman Begins is in no way the best Batman film. It comes between Batman Forever (I thought it was actually alright) and Batman and Robin (cack) for me, so it'll have to be Spidey.

Batman Forever is passable, if only for Jim Carrey going so immensely over the top, and this nice little exchange better Batman and Robin

Robin: Holy rusted metal, Batman!
Batman: Huh?
Robin: The ground, it's all metal. It's full of holes. You know, holey.
Batman: Oh.

Quite nicely delivered by both actors, but having seen it recently I can't stomach the rest of the film. As a kid it wasn't bad, but now...

That exchange made me want to cut myself, and those around me, with said rusted metal.

I dunno, I can't decided whether it is a nice po-mo spin on the iconic nature of the seminal 1960's television franchise or complete pish.



On second thought: Complete pish.

Yeah, although it was silly, it was right for the time. At 9/10 you're ready for that sort of thing. I wouldn't watch it now, at all.

Oh Zoe. Say it ain't so............

A fair point. To refine my argument I would say that I feel the question "why is Batman so tough?" in BB is answered with the statement "because he's learnt a lot of kick ass martial arts" whereas in Dark Knight Returns for example its answered with the statement "because he's really angry and driven.". I accept that you couldn't have made that movie the way it was plotted without all the martial arts, I thought that the fighting had alot of character and even as some one who doesn't like martial arts I still enjoyed it. However I would always prefer batman to be a zealot first and a martial artist second, and I felt that sourcing all of his kit (the wearing of armour, the wrist guards, the shuriken(well ok, shuriken are eastern weapons so you gotta let them off for that)even the climbing I think, as coming out of samurai school, was, whilst abrave answer, not necessarily the right answer for my own taste about Batman. I like him to be a bit crazier and less controlled, winning fights through determinationas much as skills,although obviously he couldn't not have the skills at all.

This is making me sound like I hated the film when actually I really liked it.

I just really like more ragged feeling fighting, like in Unleashed (stupid film I know but I liked the fighting in it) or LotR, because I feel to work fights have to mean something to the fighters as they fight; you have to be able to see victory or defeat in their eyes, and in the super cool Matrix for example, it just becomes people cleanly and precisely waving their fists at one another. I know they're all computer generated and so it kinda makes sense, I'm just saying that I didn't find it very compelling

Batman needs to learn Muay Thai, if he chooses to practice martial arts at all.