Get Serious

As much as I love to hem and haw about the missteps of comic book movies from the past few years, I do have to admit that things could be much worse. Things could be like the 90s, when comic book adaptations seemed to be filmed with the sole purpose of selling toys to the little ones. The straw that broke the camel's back was 1997's atrocious Batman & Robin; a film seemingly designed to be as campy and stupid as possible, and not in a good way. It was a two hour long commercial for plastic toys and rampant product placement. If I could point to one movie that triggered the glut of more mature, darker, more serious superhero movies of today, Batman & Robin would be that movie.

Thank god that Hollywood got smart, realized that comic readership is skewed towards an older demographic, and started making comic book movies that finally targeted a logical demographic. And just look at the success they've had. I can complain all I want about some of these movies, but the truth is, they're no longer absolute garbage, and that's got to be worth something. Comic movies got serious, and not a moment too soon.

Adaptation = Transformation

Every story is tied to the medium its being told in, whether its apparent or not. So naturally, the types of storytelling devices and techniques used in the pages of a comic book aren't going to translate to the big screen. In fact, adaptations that hew to closely to their source material are almost guaranteed to fail. The Watchmen movie is a perfect example of this; it sought to emulate the way the comic was drawn and paced, a type of storytelling that just does not transfer to film. Comics are designed to read in installments, dragged out over the course of several months. Films are consumed on the spot in comparison, usually only lasting 2 or 3 hours. In order for a story to work on film, it has to be modified in some ways, while still retaining the essence of what made its source material unique and special.

Hellboy II and The Dark Knight were both movies that strayed from their source material, telling stories that made sense on film and not relying on strict adaptation. Hellboy II was based on an original story by the film's director, not ripped from the pages of a comic. However, it was a story that made complete sense for a Hellboy movie, and it was reverent to the characters and tone of the comic books. The same can be said about The Dark Knight, which wasn't based on any particular Batman comic. The writers crafted a story that was exciting to tell in the medium of film, while still staying true to the established characters and mood. When directors do this, it gives fanboys such as myself less grounds to question faithfulness. The stories are original fabrications, they work within their medium, and they respect the characters they're based on. What could a comic book fan such as myself find to complain about?

Organization of Paper

The way I will be organizing my paper is by dividing it into sections based on the three movies I am talking about, The Dark Knight, Hellboy 2, and Watchmen. I feel like organizing my paper in this fashion will make it easier to follow, because the reader will only have to focus on one movie at a time instead of having analysis and comparison of all three taking place at the same exact time. The way I would like to implement this style of organization is by dividing the paper into sections using titles. The title of each section will relate to the movie being discussed and provide an easy and entertaining way to find specific information within the essay.

Possible Introduction

I'll be the first to admit that comic book movies don't have the greatest reputation, especially with fans of the source material such as myself. Silver screen adaptations in this genre have been notoriously less than satisfying, however over the past few years, things have seemed to turned around some. The comic book movie genre is coming into its own; its matured over the years and is now finally willing to tackle some of the weightier themes that comics have been dealing with for quite some time. That's not to say that these films are perfect; the major problem that these movies run into is balancing their reverence to the source material with their attempts to appeal to a more mainstream audience who hasn't poured over the pages of the comic it's based on. Three recent films, The Dark Knight, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, and Watchmen, stand out in my mind as being perfect examples of superhero movies done right as well as how things can go terribly wrong. By examining the relative merits of these pictures, one can begin to distinguish the balance that must be struck between fan appeasement and audience appeal when adapting comics for the big screen.

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.

In Disagreement

In Liam Lacey's review of Watchmen for The Globe and Mail, she calls Zack Snyder's film a combination of the satirical wit of Dr. Strangelove and the CGI spectacle of the summer blockbuster. She goes as far as to call it "a provocative head trip", explaining that Snyder's translation of the themes and beats of Moore's original work is both accurate and faithful.

I have to disagree with Lacey's review of this film, and question if she has ever even read the graphic novel. Yes, Snyder's film rips images straight from of the pages of the book, bringing them to life on screen with expensive and flashy specail effects. Overarching themes such as the psychological disposition of superheroes, the futility of war and the concept of authority are all tackled in the film, but never as eloquently or in the same way as Moore's source material. I can't agree with any of the arguments, that Lacey makes in support of this being a thought-provoking film, simply because the thoughts this film provoke don't match up with the graphic novel.

Source: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/article7572.ece

Creating the World

One of the most important things comic book movie has to do is create a believable world. Obviously, superheroes don't exist with in the real world, so the ones that are created on the big screen have to be recognizable while still offering a sense of augmented reality that allows one to believe in the unreal.

The Dark Knight is the film that creates the most believable world, simply because there's not much in that movie that requires one to suspend their disbelief. Batman is a powerless superhero, and the Joker is just a criminal mastermind. Neither have super powers or abilities, and the world they inhabit seems to be grounded very much in reality.

Hellboy II accomplishes something that, in my mind, is even harder. It creates a believable world, complete with characters who are not entirely human, and who possess abilities that are not within the bounds of reality. Perhaps the believability of this can be attributed to the very fact that these characters are not exactly human. However, I think that the history and culture that is fabricated in this film really helps to sell these characters. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the heroes journey to the troll market. It's this vibrant, lived in space, filled with odd creatures and the relics of their respective cultures. It all seems very odd, but at the same time you can begin to understand the reasoning behind some of it. In my mind, that's what really begins to make this world something that you can believe in, at least until the credits role.