Superhero
movies have two very real problems;
- They show up appalling writing. This isn't restricted to superhero movies. Robert Kee pointed it out using the example of "Interview With A Vampire". But poor writing, which is endemic, in comics is a real issue when you try to make movies out of them. A question on Quora asked if comic stories had improved and the general consensus was that the art had improved so who cares about the story. Well it's translated to a live action movies, the art is discarded so what else is there? Oops
- The Watchmen movie was about 3.5 hours long which is very long for a movie. However, the motion comic which is a completely faithful rendition of the whole story is closer to 6.5 hours. And even when movies are continuations of each other, they still need some kind of start and finish. So movies are a bit of a straight jacket to a decent story. Akira suffered from the same problem. However, a TV show which is 22 episodes of 45 minutes would be able to do it which, amusingly, is about 6.5 hours long.
However,
it can be done and has been done. I thought that the movie versions
of the Shadow, Howard the Duck and Hellboy were all magnificent
renditions of their respective comic book characters. I thought Blade
was a vast improvement on the comic. I was looking forward to the TV
show but it died. I thought Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD played by
David Hasselhoff was a triumph of capturing the naivete of comics by
the movie experience without belittling it. I thought RED, RIPD, Tank
Girl, Scott Pilgrim Against the World were all good fun although I
haven't read the comics so I don't know how accurate they are.
