Since David, below, posted the beginnings of the Wolverine reviews, I’m inspired to go on a wee bit of a rant.
He quotes:
Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: While packed with effects and action, without the attention to story and emotional investment present in such films as The Dark Knight and Ironman, Wolverine ultimately doesn’t rise above its comic-book roots.
You can tell where I’m going with this, right? The idea that a Hollywood blockbuster movie, a vehicle often for nothing more than product placement and profits for the Hollywood machine, is going to somehow be higher art than a comic book annoys the ever-lovin’ crap out of me.
I consider myself both a film geek and a comic geek, and I will argue ’til the end of days that superhero movies can be as good as any other film (Exhibit A: The Dark Knight). I don’t read a lot of superhero comics, but nearly always see the films, mostly because the movies are self-contained and don’t require me reading 8000 miles of back issues to know what’s going on–the same reason that millions more people see the movies than read the comics.
It’s certainly, however, not because film is intrinisically a higher art than a comic. Film, like comics, print, the Web, television, etc. is simply a medium. Anyone who’s watched Six Feet Under knows that television can be as complex, beautiful, and creative as film. And anyone who’s read Sandman, Preacher, Local or, obviously, Watchmen knows that comics when done right are capable of outshining any cinematic explosion of CGI and star power.
Sure, Wolverine/X-Men comics are a franchise. So are most movies that make money at the box office. And sure, the comics I like best tend to be smaller creator-owned books that come straight from the heart, and the movies are indie films written and directed by people who love and care about them, not who are out to make a box-office killing. Art is always at its best when it comes from the heart.
Yet just because a movie is a giant blockbuster doesn’t mean it can’t be brilliant. Again, see my Dark Knight review. The Dark Knight is great because of its comic-book roots, not in spite of them. Because it didn’t try to dumb itself down to a mass audience level, but assumed that a mass audience could not only hang along for the ride with the Bat-mythology, but could handle a blockbuster that was both action-packed and smart. And superhero comics are not automatically worse than indie comics simply because they’re a franchise.
I think most of us would agree that the worst comic-book movies are the ones that strayed the farthest from their roots (Watchmen being an interesting exception, where hyperloyalty made for a less thrilling film and also one that was hard to follow for those who haven’t read it). I’m so friggin’ tired of elitism and snobbery directed at comics which are often in every way superior to the films based on them.
If Wolverine sucks, it’s because the crew did a crap job making a movie, not because it “fails to rise beyond its comic-book roots.” I haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll reserve judgment until I have, but I’m quite sure that if it’s crap, there are plenty of Wolverine comics that far outshine it as far as excitement, heart, storytelling skill, and pure love from the creators, whether or not they’re the originators of the character.
April 30th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Everytime a new comic-based movie is released, the same type of reviews start coming in, whether or not the movie is good or not. I’m sure even in reviews for The Dark Knight, more than one critic made some slam or reference to comics being trash entertainment. On a rare occurrence will a comic adaptation (like say “Ghost World”) will only make an off-handed reference to it even existing as a comic before becoming a movie. Comics are destined to never be respected as an art form by anyone other than comic fans.
April 30th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@eric I don’t think that is true, especially in the case of Dark Knight. Everyone was buzzing about Dark Knight and how is wasn’t just a comic book movie and how it had risen above comic status. So I think that comics can be respected as an art form if they are done right, which Dark Knight was. Unfortunately, movies like Origins: Wolverine which apparently sucks: http://www.newsy.com/videos/wolverine_declawed/ make it hard for comic book movies to be taken seriously as a genre. I think once we start seeing some of the more high quality graphic novels adapted into movies there could be a sway in the tide.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:21 pm
But, gantrants, you just said it yourself: “Everyone was buzzing about Dark Knight and how is wasn’t just a comic book movie and how it had risen above comic status.”
So, somehow, it’s source material is, yet again, something to rise above. Looking at the best examples of Batman in print over the years, there’s nothing to “rise above”… Batman Begins and TDK are two splendid films that prove how great and enduring Batman (and the Bat-mythos) is if handled correctly. By handled correctly” I mean being faithful to the comics roots.
There’s a great deal Batman to choose from, of course, but assuming you don’t want to delve back into the cheesiness of the 1950′s/60′s Batman, I think it’s pretty easy to look at the what’s worked best over the years, what stories and concepts work best, and use those aspects to base a movie upon.
It’s respect for the material, and taking it seriously. Even Iron Man, which had a great deal of humor in it, still took the character and material seriously. They didn’t try to radically change it all, or act apologetic for being a comic book first, or do it all with a wink and a nod. That’s when those kinds of movies generally work.
April 30th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
I’ve said it before, but, the only people i’ve ever heard complain that Watchmen “was hard to follow for those who haven’t read it,” were people who have read it. everyone i know who saw it and didn’t read the book (and i asked) followed it just fine, or at least wouldn’t admit to not following it.
April 30th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
@gantrants
“Everyone was buzzing about Dark Knight and how is wasn’t just a comic book movie and how it had risen above comic status.”
That just proves the point I was trying to make. The majority of TDK reviews make the point about the film “rising above its comic book roots”, but rarely acknowledging actual that some Batman comics are just as good (if not better) than the film. As much respect as TDK got, the source material still gets blown off as incidental pap. Even in reviews for Watchmen, references to the comic being “the best ever comic ever” are sort of played off as “Oh those wacky fanboys love their silly little funnybooks!”.
Even if every comic-related movie that comes out from now on achieves the near-universal Dark Knight level praise, it’s all going to be “Thank God for Christopher Nolan to make a piece of art out of this crap.” The stigma is – realistically – always gonna stick, and that sucks, but there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The non-comic reading world has made up their minds about it. And unfortunately, for every TDK, there are three Catwomen, and that just makes the hurt worse.