The Smackdown Honestly, I wasn’t planning on writing about “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.” Truth is, I hated the first “Fantastic Four” movie and had, shall we say, minimal expectations for the second […]
The Smackdown When I was growing up, my favorite comicbook was the Fantastic Four (okay, it was a tie with the Avengers, but they haven’t made that film yet). Anyway, I collected X-Men and Spider-Man […]
The Smackdown For the sake of argument, let’s assume you’ve already paid to see “Ocean’s Eleven” (the 2001 re-make) and “Ocean’s Twelve” (the 2004 sequel to the re-make). The movies you haven’t seen are the […]
The Smackdown If early audience response counts for anything, bet big on “Ocean’s 13” this summer. Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh (“Sex, Lies and Videotape,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Traffic”) created a popular series combining snappy storytelling and bankable […]
The Smackdown Granted, “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End” is a loud, raucous installment from a hugely expensive franchise based on an amusement-park ride and “Bend It Like Beckham” is a dollar-scraping, charming indie […]
The Smackdown When it comes to movies, the third time is rarely a charm. For whatever reasons — chalk it up to audience expectations, weary and bored filmmakers, or corporate greed — “triquels” rarely seem […]
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) -vs- Spider-Man 3 (2007) -vs- Shrek the Third (2007) -vs- Ocean’s 13 (2007) -vs- Rush Hour 3 (2007) -vs- The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) -vs- Resident Evil 3 […]
The Smackdown Since more ink is being spilled on Spider-Man 3 than the Bible these days, we thought we’d reach back for our Smackdown, almost a quarter-of-a-century to 1983 for Superman III. Here we have […]
The Smackdown After facing responsibilities while battling an eight-armed mad scientist, what more can Peter Parker learn by confronting a vengeful best friend, a sandy common criminal, and a disgruntled photographer overtaken by alien goo? […]
The 70s-80s Christopher Reeve Superman and the 80s-90s Michael Keaton-Val Kilmer-George Clooney Batman were many things, but one of them was not realistic. They were comic book films made by studios that thought superheroes were still best when served up just a little bit silly. This was ironic because the actual comic book adventures of these two heroes were getting grittier every year and the problems and conflicts more and more adult. Still, we had to get to the 00s of the 21st Century to see studios wise up to the idea that audiences wanted more — they didn’t want to escape so much as they wanted to immerse. Batman Begins kick-started an entire new look at the franchise that was wildly successful followed by Superman Returns the next year with a more mixed critical response. Now Batman is nearing the end of its proposed trilogy and Superman is getting a re-re-boot. That’s a story for later; right now, let’s look at these two monster-sized franchises and see which new beginning did the best job.
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