The process of bringing a comic book to the big screen has a mixed past – Batman and Batman Returns were decent, the rest were horrid. Batman Begins was almost unwatchable, while The Dark Knight was actually pretty well done. Superman has been hit and miss throughout its history. The X-Men movies got progressively worse with each installment, while both recent versions of The Hulk were pretty good – even if I don’t know why they felt the need to recast.
However, with my son’s recent fascination with Spiderman, I’ve been reintroduced to the sheer fun of the first two movies. Yes, the third was complete crap, but I can’t think of a better spiritual translation of “comic book to film” than the last hour of Spiderman 2. Alfred Molina made a great “Dr. Octopus”, and their battle on the Elevated Train is perhaps one of the best action sequences ever filmed.
