Top 5 Superhero Movies

For those of you not following me on Twitter, I’m currently in the Rockies on a long-term, freelancing, writing project.

I have (terrible) Internet and virtually no cellphone signal. I’ve never before gone so long without a Starbucks (the mocha withdraw proves a challenge).

Not a single movie theater stands anywhere near me.

That provides a problem in regards to movie reviews, which means I must either take a leave of absence from this blog or get creative with it. I attempt the latter.

I’ll list, for this review, the top five (in my current opinion—always subject to change) superhero movies.

First, some ground rules. I shall, to simplify things, only count superhero movies based on comic books (sorry Kick Ass and Hancock).

I’ll count only superhero movies based on comic books that existed before the movies or cartoon show (sorry G.I. Joe and Transformers—as if either of those would stand a chance of making this list).

I will, as a final rule, only count movies based on comics made by DC or Marvel (sorry Watchmen, Predator, Aliens, Akira, Terminator 2, and the good versions of Robocop and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

Why all the rules? If I don’t narrow my selections, I’ll face days’ worth of consideration. The scope of candidates without these limits proves too much to consider.

So here we go. The Top Five Movies Based on a DC or Marvel Comic, listed from least to greatest.

5) X-Men 2

Few good movies have carried the X-Men name.

The most frequent downfall of these movies proved their lack of characters. By “lack,” I mean quality, not quantity. X-Men movies often offered an army of characters, each little more then an action figure for parents to purchase.

Take Holle Berry’s character, Storm. She appeared in nearly every X-Men movie, yet her removal from those movies would’ve made little to no difference. She’s just there.

I could nearly make the same argument for the character Cyclops, who served as the X-Men’s leader. That’s a huge, red flag.

X-Men 2 performed a bit better. It’s not the only decent X-Men movie, but it seems the movie most worthy of mention. While a few characters still appear in this movie merely to sell toys, the most central characters feel better flushed out.

The action felt solid, rather than a device with which the writers marked time.

The move didn’t feel predictable, yet managed to make (enough) sense.

I could complain about the creepy way Wolverine tried to sleep with Cyclops’s girlfriend, topped only by the fact the Wolverine decided to tell Cyclops about it because it might somehow help Cyclops cope with said girlfriend’s death.

The movie provided a fun ride and a relief after its predecessor.

. . . I might’ve, in all honesty, bumped this movie onto the list so that Marvel Adventures movies didn’t dominate this list.

4) Captain America 2

The line between a movie armed with a moral premise and a movie that stands atop a soapbox and preaches to its audience remains a fine line, indeed.

Captain America 2 marched that line and made it look easy.

Even the most politically uneducated couldn’t have missed this movie’s message, yet the movie didn’t talk down to its audience or baldly state its theme. Captain Showed its message. It didn’t Tell it.

Effort remained a pleasant surprise that this movie shared with all but one (Iron Man 2) of its Adventures-based movies.

Given the success of its predecessors, this movie could’ve offered any lazy platter and raked in the cash. Instead, Captain proved a thoughtful film saturated with consideration. Every scene. Every line.

I felt that its creators wanted desperately to fashion a good movie.

Even if you disagree with Captain’s moral premise, you ought to respect the rhetoric of its closing argument.

3) Guardians of the Galaxy

The dialogue alone makes this movie. Every exchange sounds as if the writers spit-balled back and forth for hours in their labors to find the most perfect way for every character to deliver her or his every thought.

Yes, the villain proves a two-dimensional bad guy with few motives beyond bad-for-the-sake-of-bad, but this seems to work in comedies.

The second scene provided one of the best character introductions in the history of film. We saw our protagonist, Star-lord, enter a scene straight out of an Indiana Jones movie. It screamed threats of booby-traps and other dangers.

A lizard-like monster proved the setting’s deadly potential when it, fangs bared, made a beeline for Star-lord. How did our hero react? He snatched up the monster and improvised it as a microphone while he listened to happy-go-lucky music on his prized Walkman. He sung into the lizard (which snapped and slobbered at his face) and danced around deadly traps. Perfect! I knew everything I needed to know about this character.

Guardians offered excellent, complex characters (aside for the aforementioned villain). They each felt flawed to belief. They felt real as people and unreal enough to admire.

2) Iron Man 3

I would repeat myself to mention most of what made this move so damn good (see Captain America 2). This movie just managed an even more admirable job on each of those points.

This movie asked a lot from its audience. Hard-to-swallow concepts abounded, but, in the end, the exchange of suspended disbelief for entertainment proved a bargain.

The acting worked. The dialogue worked. Great special effects. Wonderful, soundtrack. Directing. I couldn’t conceive of a better way to have told this story.

Best of all—and I again repeat myself from my above review of Captain—the writers communicated their moral premise without, well, without sounding as if they had a moral premise to shove down our throats.

1)   The Dark Knight

Heath Ledger made this movie. We all know it. Yes, Knight had a lot to offer, but without Ledger’s amazing performance and the writers who conceived of the Joker’s dialogue . . .

Ledger’s Joker provided moviegoers with the most quotable villain since Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter (although that seems a different list).

Well, I have to slide my laptop back into my pack and hike down this mountain. I’ll publish this post as soon as I discover some Internet.

Next time, I’ll provide my top 5 Worst superhero movies.

In the meantime, feel free to check out my short fiction blog and my novel, Daughters of Darkwana on Kindle. Daughters stands as the first in a series, the third book of which arrives next January. Thanks for reading!