The Actor Factor

A comic book lives and dies based on how easily one can identify with its main characters. Comics are generally even named after their main characters; that alone should tell you how important they are. When you read a comic book, you want to feel as if the character who's life you are following is making logical decisions based on the situations they are put in within the worlds that the authors create. Most comics are essentially character driven pieces of fiction, so it stands to reason that a filmic adaptation of a comic book should strive to create characters that are equally as endearing and three dimensional as their literary counterparts. However, the world of film relies on actors to provide the main drive of a performance, and sometimes the director's decisions in casting end up hurting the believability of a character.

On the one hand, you can look at the near perfect casting of Ron Perlman as Hellboy. Perlman essentially IS Hellboy, most of the time it doesn't feel like he's even acting. He's gruff, hard to get along with, funny and charming all at once. Perlman's acting chops give this inhuman character a real spark of humanity, making you believe in every scene hes in. Sure, there's alot of makeup involved, but Perlman can make you forget its there and believe in the character he's playing.

On the other hand, one doen't have to look any further than the character of Laurie in Watchmen to see an example of bad casting. Sure, she looks the part, but that seems to be just about the only reason she was chosen. Every line actress Malin Akerman delivers as this character falls flat; you see through her costume and feel as if this is really just a person reading their lines. For me, this ruins any scene she's in; I simply can't believe in the world that's being created onscreen when someone so patently fake is being paraded in front of me. Just like the works they seek to adapt, comic book movies really do live and die based on the believability of their characters.