Comic-al Craziness!!

Lake Charles, LA

Last week saw the internetz explode with excitement over the trailer for the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy film.  To be quite honest, I wasn’t all that excited.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to see the film.  I just am not as hyped up about it as everyone else seems to be.  Stylistically it looks great, but I will hold judgment until I actually see the film.  Yes, Rocket Raccoon looks cool, but will the story hold up?  Only time will tell.

I do have to give kudos to Marvel Studios for successfully generating so much positive hype over the film.  The GOTG characters aren’t nearly as popular or well known to general audiences as Captain America, Thor, Hulk, the X-men, Fantastic Four, or Spider-Man.  Even Iron Man had a larger following than the GOTG gang.  Now he is just as popular if not more popular than the aforementioned characters.

What Marvel did correctly, though, was test the waters with major characters before taking their cinematic universe into a wider arena.  All of the films that led up to The Avengers were above averager to excellent, particulary the Iron Man films.  Ang Lee’s attempt with Hulk was a miscue, but it occurred long before Marvel’s development team set the Avengers into motion.  I felt that Captain America and the first Thor film suffered a bit due to the fact that they were the last films to  bridge all of the characters together before the big film, but Thor:  The Dark World did a solid job and I have extremely high hopes for Captain America:  The Winter Soldier.  In fact, I’m more excited about Soldier than I am about GOTG.  I’m also looking forward to the Ant Man film.

Sony and Fox are also upping the ante with their latest Marvel-based options.  The new Incredible Spider-Man does look rather interesting to me, even with the changes to Rhino, Electro, and Green Goblin.  Of course, the last time more than one primary villain showed up in a Spidey flick, it was a disaster.  I hope Sony has remedied this with the new film.

The new X-men film looks very, very crowded.  Fox also took liberties with a few of the characters.  While I don’t mind tinkering with the characters a bit (I though that Spidey’s biological webbing in the first trilogy was an improvement on the comics), there are some sacred cows you just don’t touch.  Rumor has it that Beast will be able to control his form, alternating between human and “beast” mode.  That takes away an integral part of that character’s development.  He no longer has to come to terms with his looks, which hinders the character in my opinion.  Also, Quicksilver is supposedly getting the club kid treatment……oh boy!

Then there’s the young cast of the new Fantastic Four film.  While it looks like they are going for an Ultimate FF reboot of the films, I just can’t get over the cast that they have.  Now, before anyone cries foul, know that I don’t mind younger actors taking on roles, I just hope that they don’t ruin an already struggling franchise.  I happened to enjoy the performances of Ioan Gruffudd,  Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, and Julian McMahon.  Jessica Alba was sufficient, but could have been much better. 

Now, with the reboot, we get Miles Teller as Mr. Fantastic, Kate Mara as Invisible Woman, Michael B. Jordan as Human Torch and Jamie Bell as Thing.  In my opinion, Bell has the best acting chops in the bunch, and I’m assuming he’ll spend most of the film in either heavy prosthetics or CGI, or perhaps a combination of both.  Jordan can act.  There’s no doubt about that, but I wonder what fan reaction will be like to his race.  Personally I don’t care so long as they give a reasonable explanation for his relationship with Sue Storm.  I do think that the general public’s reaction, or more specifically comic fan reactions, will be negative.  I honestly don’t know enoug about Kate Mara to make a call on her, but I hope she does well.  Teller has me worried.  I haven’t seen him in many things and he hasn’t impressed me very much with the little that I have seen of him.  There are also rumors floating around that Doctor Doom might be a lady in this film……what?????

Well, all of this talk about comic films has me wondering.  What comic book character(s) or comic teams would you like to see on the big screen?  It can be characters that have already been in films that you’d like to see portrayed by someone else, or a character that hasn’t even been rumored to be in a film past or present.  Personally I would love to see a stand alone Nightcrawler, Gambit, or Magneto film.  I love all three of these characters, and I believe that if Blade could get three films, why can’t any of these guys get a solo project for themselves?  For the record, I loved the first and second Blade flicks, and it was refreshing to see a lesser known character take center stage.  Other characters that I would like to see flying solo on the big screen include Black Panther, Flash, Iron Fist, the West Coast Avengers, and a Swamp Thing reboot.

How about you?  Let me know and once again, thanks for reading.