Superhero films from 2000 to about 2007

In my view, what really changed the landscape of superhero and comics related films was X-Men. There were rumors of the film being made circulating ever since the animated series had been popular. Speculation on who would play certain roles was rampant, and Wizard Magazine had several articles on it. I honestly didn’t think it would ever happen. Batman and Superman, and possibly Spider-Man were the only characters popular enough to warrant a well-done, high budget film that would be well received by the general public.

So it was quite a shock to me that while eating breakfast on my last day in Japan when I heard that an X-Men movie was not only being made, but was due to be out within a couple of months. I was initially excited, then worried. Here was the chance that my favorite characters would be portrayed on screen, that the world at large would be introduced to Wolverine, and the possibility that it would be awesome. There was also the very, very distinct (and probable) chance that it would suck, and suck hard. Based on the past movies/shows, I would have given it about a 2% chance of being good, 8% chance of being just okay, and a 90% chance of being bad. I was worried that whatever studio/producer/director combination would screw it up and ruin the prospects of my hobby being accepted by others. I had hoped that a well made movie would hopefully help them (parents/friends/bullies) understand why I loved the characters so much and earn me some vindication as to why I spent so much time and money on them.

So when I walked out of the theater, my first thought was, “That didn’t suck.” In fact, it was kinda good. I didn’t know who this Hugh Jackman was, but he nailed the role of Wolverine. The movie was subdued a little bit – no flashy yellow spandex and they were a bit conservative on the fighting. Specifically, the black leather in place of traditional costumes helped it be more palatable by the general public, and the marketing made it seem somewhat attractive to the sci-fi, comic book, and action movie audiences.

And then X2 was even better. Director Bryan Singer said that X2 was the movie he wanted to make, but that the first movie was sorta like an extended introduction/trailer that had to be made first. Because the first one had been well received, he could experiment a little more in some X-Men history, other characters, and be a little more flashy on powers.

However, X-Men III was a big disappointment. It did well at the box office, but a lot of that was because of the good will earned by the previous two movies. Sure, it had some cool

action pieces and some new characters, but it tried to do too much and combine the Dark Phoenix story with the Cure story while doing neither story justice. It seemed like they (the studio) weren’t as concerned with telling another chapter of a cohesive story about a group of heroes that had previous history as they were about making a single movie. They kinda neglected to do their research about exactly what the previous films had covered and were making a movie by the numbers with an action scene every so many minutes whether the story demanded it or not. On top of that, it felt “subversive” and shocking because so many important characters died (though, it should be noted that some of them occurred because of studio politics more than plot development).

Trading off years with the X-Men movies were the Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies. As much praise as I give X-Men for keeping true to the characters/story/history and really only changing it by toning down the costumes, I have to give a lot of credit to how well this movie turned out. The only major change from the comics was that Spider-Man made web organically rather than by using self-invented mechanical web shooters. Everything else was a slight modern day adjustment (like cage fight wrestling instead of a circus and genetically altered spider instead of radioactive). I thought they nailed the characters of Aunt May and J. Jonah Jameson, but that while Toby Maguire was pretty good as Peter, he wasn’t as good as Spider-Man, but part of that may have been the script.

And just like X-Men before it, Spider-Man 2 was even better. It continued the story and had a more believable/relatable villain. My only major gripe was that the kidnapping of Mary Jane would become a common theme. And it continued in Spider-Man 3. Like X-Men 3, they tried to do too much in one movie by combining Sandman, Harry as New Goblin, and Venom. From what I’ve read there was a lot of meddling from the producers and it shows. It would have been better to do Sandman and Harry while teasing Venom for the fourth film. It had some major cringe and seemed like they were on cruise control, not putting nearly as much thought into plot/story/originality, and it kinda put a hiatus on the franchise.

One thing I noted was that because 20th Century Fox had released X-Men and Sony released Spider-Man, there would be no crossover potential, which was always one of Marvel Comics’ bigger selling points.

Around this time, Daredevil and Hulk movies were released. There were good and bad parts of both films, but they weren’t up to the quality of the first two X-Men or Spider-Man films. My hopes that they had finally cracked the code and now most comics-related films would be good were a little shaken. But they were definitely better than the pre-2000’s movies/TV versions, and were at least tolerable/passable, but nothing that would really excite people who weren’t already comics fans. And unlike the X-Men/Spider-Man movies, they didn’t “convert” any new fans to run out and start reading the source material. An Elektra sequel was released, but it was pretty bad. I didn’t see it in the theaters and only ended up getting it on DVD because it was part of a 2-movie set (the other being the director’s cut of Daredevil).

Within this same time frame, there were also 2 Punisher movies, 2 Fantastic Four movies, and 2 Ghost Rider movies. In all three cases, the first one was passable and the second was not as good. I only saw the first Ghost Rider film in the theater, and didn’t even know about the Punisher ones until years later (and I still haven’t seen the second one). Like the Hulk and Daredevil movies, they were just okay. Not great, but not atrocities like the old Captain America movies. Had they been released in the 90’s, they would have been viewed more favorably because they were at least decent, and were better than any comic book movies thus far (Batman 1 and Superman 1 excepted). But because they had been released in a post X-Men/Spider-Man world, they seemed more mediocre.

The Fantastic Four movies were a little bit better, had a little more levity and some camp, but also lacked much of a menacing villain. In the second one they transformed one of Marvel’s most iconic cosmic villains (Galactus) into a cloud. A cloud. Overall I liked them but didn’t love them, but they were at least fun to watch.

On the DC side of things, they released a very badly made Catwoman film with Halle Berry which I haven’t seen and probably never will. Ms. Berry even showed up at the Razzies to accept her award. They also did Constantine and V for Vendetta, which were comics based but not like the traditional superhero in spandex type of film. V for Vendetta adapted the Alan Moore graphic novel into a movie but took a few cues from Orwell's Nineteen-Eighty-Four and lightened up on the anarchy a bit, but was a very good film. On TV, the show Smallville showed the origins of Clark Kent. It was pretty good for about 5 seasons, but the combination of the Writer’s Strike of 2007 and having no real ending planned made it into just another commonplace, meandering teen drama that happened to have someone fast/strong in it. Had there been some sort of plan in place to end after, say, 6 seasons having acquired all his powers, and then transitioned to the big screen in Superman Returns, it would have been great.

Speaking of which, in their efforts to revive the Superman franchise, Superman Returns was released. It had been teased in the late 90’s and in developmental hell for nearly a decade ever since the Death of Superman story arc in the comics renewed interest in the character. Kevin Smith has a humorous story on some of that, but what eventually ended up being released was directed by Bryan Singer of X-Men fame, and starring Brandon Routh, who kinda looked and sounded like Christopher Reeve. The problem with the movie was that it was a sequel to the Richard Donner cut of Superman II, which is hard to explain to a casual fan. The short version is that when Donner was forced out of production on Superman II (even though it was 75% completed), his replacement had to re-shoot stuff to get the sole credit on direction, and the easiest way to do that was to revert back to an inferior version of the script. When the original footage resurfaced, Donner was able to (more or less) put the movie together they way it had originally been intended and it was released on DVD. So Singer was making a sequel to that, ignoring the third and fourth Superman movies and the theatrical release of the second one. What came out was kinda like a remake of Superman 1 almost, with some scenes and dialogue being straight copied from the original. There was also the issue of Superman being kinda like a super powered stalker ex-boyfriend. But the one thing they didn’t screw up on was keeping John Williams’ music. However, the film didn’t inspire any sequels.

However, DC rebooted the Batman franchise with Batman Begins, which sort of follows the Batman: Year One story from the comics. This was a great film by Christopher Nolan that had a very realistic take on the origins of the character. Its sequel, the Dark Knight, was even better, and was so good that I forgot I was watching a superhero film instead of a noir crime drama. However, like the X and Spider franchises, they dropped the ball on the third film. It wasn’t as tight of a story, had some major plot holes, and there were a few odd choices in the character development. But overall it was better than the third movies for X-Men and Spider-Man.

A few other films of note were Watchmen, Jonah Hex, and Green Lantern. Green Lantern wasn’t great, but it was about as good as Hulk or Daredevil. It teased a sequel, but the box office numbers made that somewhat unlikely. Watchmen was greatly hyped and looked fantastic from the trailer, but the film itself was a bit dull and dragged. I didn't see or hear much about Jonah Hex. 

I should also mention that during this time there were also several animated shows (as there always have been) on various channels. TMNT was rebooted twice, there were a couple of iterations of an X-Men cartoon, and various Batman, Justice League, and Teen Titan shows (among a lot of other things). Some worked, some didn't. I would love to say I watched them all, but I was too busy and uninterested. 

Overall, for this era of superhero films, I would say that there were 3 trilogies that made 2 good movies where the second one was better than the first, but where the ball was dropped on the third film (X, Spider, and Bat). There were a lot of mediocre films, but ones that I would never imagined would ever get made because they weren’t as popular (Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Hulk, Ghost Rider, Punisher, Green Lantern, V for Vendetta, Watchmen). And there were a few bad spin-offs/sequels based on characters most people already knew (Electra, Catwoman, Superman Returns). To someone who wanted nothing more than to see some movies in this genre that weren’t terrible, I gotta say that I was fairly happy that this kind of thing was becoming a little more mainstream and accepted. The general public now knew about more superheroes than Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. But I had no idea that another revolution was about to begin.