The Four Color Media Monitor

I looked around the database of the popular Wizbang weblog, where the great Kevin Aylward put together the nifty standalone trackback pinger (which I used to send a ping to the following post, but because it's from three years ago, I'm not sure if it worked.), and found a short take on the movie adaptation of the Incredible Hulk he wrote three years ago. Kevin's blogged plenty of good stuff over the years, though I think this discussion here has both what I can concur and dissent with. First:

Remember how bored you were in the first half of the original Superman? The same feeling applies to The Hulk, only the good feelings never arrive. It's never a good sign when the audience laughs at the dialog in a dramatic scene because it is so bad you feel sorry for the actors and crew who had to film the scene.

When I look back at a lot of comic book movies over the years, I have to admit, many of them do fall very short of the mark, to the point of camp (Catwoman most definately qualifies there, sans argument), and if they did have any luster when first made, they've lost it since.

On the other hand...

My wife had a pretty good summary... When comic book films try to be serious and dramatic (as opposed to going the camp or pure fantasy route) they are bound to suck. Why? Taken as a whole, the story lines in comic books just are not that good. Comic book movie directors should stick with to the mindless fun and lite fare formula employed successfully by the X-Men or Spiderman movies. Don't try to make us forget Death of a Salesman with your tale of the "special" little boy whose daddy didn't love him.

Well, I wouldn't go that far. The stories in comics can be good, and there are plenty that are (though with the way the companies have been invaded by moonbats who don't give a crap about what makes them work, in superheroics, adventure, or even in dramatics, is coming dangerously close to proving otherwise), but, if I can figure out what Aylward is trying to say, it's that the characters in the film, whether they be wearing costumes or look comic-bookish and cartoonish like the Hulk himself, are increasingly hard to translate to live-action, if at all. True, there is and always will be that problem, and it can certainly make it hard thus, to take the movie at hand seriously.

The thing is, with movies going continuously downhill these days accompanies by constantly decreasing box office receipts, that's why, while I do hope that the third Spider-Man and X-Men movie will do well, I can't say I'm all that bothered by if, as a result of Tinseltown's collapse, there'll be no more adaptations to come. Reading material, comics included, as I've concluded in the past year, is better.

And without too many more adaptations, I figure that Marvel won't be able to tamper with the story structures in their books that much, just so that movie audiences "won't be confused" by what they see in the original comic books. Ah, now that would most definitely be a breath of fresh air.

Labels: Hulk, marvel comics