Film Feature: The Marvel Comics Movie Awards

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Best Cameo (tie): Colossus in “X2: X-Men United” and Brian Posehn as the minister in “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer”

Colossus
Photo credit: Marvel Movies

Why?: With the INSANE number of Avengers cameos in the recent Marvel Studios flicks and the obscene number of mutant cameos in the “X-Men” movies, these might seem like odd picks, but let us explain. First, the Colossus cameo is a must. He’s one of THE classic X-Men who didn’t make the cut for the first movie, so, when he shows up for 15 seconds to knock some evil SWAT guys through a wall in “X2”, the theatres we were in EXPLODED with geekgasms. Fine, he became much less cool in “X-Men: Last Stand”, but we’ll always remember his entrance in “X2”. And Brian Posehn? Here’s the thing: “Rise of the Silver Surfer” is a pretty lousy movie, but you have to love that the filmmakers took someone as cool and hilarious as Posehn, the confessed-fanboy stand-up who ruled in “Mr. Show” and the “Sarah Silverman Program”, and turned him loose as the guy trying to marry Reed and Sue. Sure, it wasn’t a perfect scene, but the casting alone KILLED us.

Runners-Up: Hawkeye in “Thor”(Go Renner!); Bruce Campbell in the “Spider-Man” movies

Worst Cameo: Stan Lee in “Spider-Man 3”

Why?: Because enough is enough. We love Stan and giggled at his first few cameos in Marvel flicks, but his cameo in “Spider-Man 3” was the moment where we finally got tired of seeing Stan the Man on the big screen. And it’s totally Sam Raimi’s fault. Having Stan walk past Hitchcock-style or accidentally drink some Gamma-radiated juice is a fun nod to his legacy as a comics creator. But having him walk up to Peter Parker and deliver hacky, overly on-the-nose dialogue like “You know, I guess one person can make a difference. Nuff said” – it just made us cringe. It sucked all the fun out of the whole “having Stan Lee show up” thing. Nuff said.

Runner-Up: R. Lee Ermey’s voice in “X-Men: Last Stand” (was it supposed to be funny?)

Best Movie Adaptation of An Existing Marvel Storyline: No Winners (yet)

Why?: Because Marvel has yet to make a superhero movie that successfully adapts one of its “classic”, published-first-in-comic-form stories. There have been minor elements from classic stories worked into Marvel movies, but most have either been a). terrible (more on that later) or b). really insignificant to the plot. Most Marvel movies so far have been rehashes of origin tales – which we’re not really counting as classic stories since those are almost myths at this point – OR brand new stories, not connected to comics continuity. Maybe that’s a good thing, but one day, it’d be great to see an honest-to-god adaptation of some canonical Marvel moments — Iron Man’s “Devil in the Bottle,” Spider-Man’s “Kraven’s Last Hunt”, X-Men’s “Days of Futures Past”, or “The Infinity Gauntlet” — on the big screen.

Runner-Up: Edward Norton’s “Incredible Hulk” DID do a nice job of adapting a lot of elements from Bruce Jones’ 2002-ish run on “The Hulk” – trying to control the Hulk, getting mysterious help from Mr. Blue – but it’s not enough to call it an adaptation.

Worst Movie Adaptation of Existing Marvel Storyline(s): “X-Men: Last Stand”

X-Men: Last Stand
Photo credit: Marvel Movies

Why?: Because Brett Ratner is a bad, bad man. Rather than, you know, write an original story to ruin in his take on the X-Men (which is the worst Marvel sequel, BTW), he decided to take not one, but TWO CLASSIC X-Men storylines, jam them into his horrible mish-mash of a movie, and ruin them for the ages. First, he stole elements from Joss Whedon’s relatively recent run on “The Astonishing X-Men” – all about a mutant cure – and stapled them onto his slap-dash narrative. (What’s worse, he took something as high-stakes as a mutant losing his powers forever and then totally reversed that decision in the film’s closing seconds, making the whole exercise a total wank.) And, second, and most heinously, he took Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s beyond-legendary “Dark Phoenix Saga”, ripped out its soul, and made it the climax of the film. The “Dark Phoenix Saga” is one of the greatest comic book stories ever told, and rather than giving the tale its due, Ratner made it an uninteresting minor subplot for Famke Janssen that made ABSOLUTELY no sense. Ratner filled it with holes, killed Cyclops off-screen, let the Dark Phoenix stand limply behind Magneto for 50% of the film, and then finally ruined its perfect ending with a lame Wolverine sacrifice scene that PALES in comparison to the ending of the original. (The wounds still hurt, Brett.) While, yes, we’d love to see classic Marvel stories on the silver screen, if they’re going to be mutilated and disrespected the way “X-Men: Last Stand” did, then let’s simply not bother.

Runner-Up: “Punisher” (for how they awkwardly tossed in the boarding house gang and Russian storyline from Garth Ennis’ first “Punisher MAX” story)

Most Underrated Marvel Movie: “Blade”

Why?: Because, as we mentioned in our intro, “Blade” started it all. “Blade” was the first Marvel movie that proved that a Marvel superhero movie could really, really work. All of the previous Marvel forays into film were bad, Roger Corman-quality, direct-to-VHS affairs, but, in 1998, when director Stephen Norrington took a D-list Marvel hero and turned him into a vehicle for the fading action star (and current prison inmate) Wesley Snipes, it was a revelation. There is no reason why “Blade” should’ve been good, but it unquestionably was. It was gory, funny, action-packed, surprising – the opening scene with the vampire rave being bathed by showers of blood was an amazingly fun shock the first time you saw it. It was, simply, a really well-done superhero movie that gave you great action, a cool origin tale, and a killer bad guy, all together in one package. And, pre-1998, Marvel had never been able to pull that off before. “Blade” was the proof-of-concept movie that essentially justified the existence of every Marvel movie that came after it. Fine, “Blade 2” was so-so and “Blade: Trinity” sucked, but, if you enjoyed “Spider-Man”,” X-Men”, “Iron Man”, “Thor”, or any other Marvel movie since, you have “Blade” to thank.

By TOM BURNS
Staff Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
tom@hollywoodchicago.com