The Glade 4.0

We were actually having this discussion on my FB page, but I thought I'd port it over here.

As we were discussing this before, I thought I'd throw out my thoughts on the crop of superhero films we've gotten since their 'renaissance' with Blade back in 1998. According to Wikipedia, here's the list, and I've thrown them into my own rankings. To keep things simple, I've restricted the list to A) superhero films (no Road to Perdition, 300, etc.), B) based on pre-existing comic book properties (i.e. no Incredibles), C) live-action films (no Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, Doctor Strange, Superman: Doomsday, et. al.).

I've broken them into five distinct rankings: films I would consider great, regardless of genre (5 stars), great superhero films (4 stars), good superhero films (3 stars), mediocre films (2 stars), and utter garbage (1 star).


Great film (5 stars)
Blade (1998)
Blade II (2002)
Hellboy (2004)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Batman Begins (2005)
Iron Man (2008)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Watchmen (2009) (qualified as director’s cut)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Great superhero film (4 stars)
Spider-Man (2002)
X2: X-Men United (2003)
Thor (2011)
X-Men: First Class (2011)

Good (3 stars)
X-Men (2000)
Daredevil (2003)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Kick-Ass (2010)

Mediocre (2 stars)
Hulk (2003)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Elektra (2005)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
The Spirit (2008)
Iron Man 2 (2010)

Utter trash (1 star)
Catwoman (2004)
Blade: Trinity (2004)
Fantastic Four (2005)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Superman Returns (2006)
Ghost Rider (2007)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Jonah Hex (2010)
Green Lantern (2011)

Not seen
Mystery Men (1999)
The Punisher (2004)
Punisher: War Zone (2008)

Great film
Watchmen (2009) (qualified as director’s cut)

Superhero Films of Which Lord Doom Approves
Green Lantern (2011)
Blade (1998)
Blade II (2002)
Hellboy (2004)
Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Batman Begins (2005)
Iron Man (2008)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
The Dark Knight (2008)
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
Spider-Man (2002)
X2: X-Men United (2003)
Thor (2011)
X-Men: First Class (2011)
X-Men (2000)
Daredevil (2003)
The Incredible Hulk (2008)
Kick-Ass (2010)
Hulk (2003)
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003)
Elektra (2005)
Spider-Man 3 (2007)
The Spirit (2008)
Iron Man 2 (2010)

Utter trash (1 star)
Catwoman (2004)
Blade: Trinity (2004)
Fantastic Four (2005)
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)
Superman Returns (2006)
Ghost Rider (2007)
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
Jonah Hex (2010)

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I"m not sure you can put the Hellboy and Blade second movies in the same category with their originals without doing a disservice to said originals. Also what's the beef with fantastic four?

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

You don't do an origin story for the Fantastic Four. There's exactly zero point in it. You do an origin narration/montage while you roll the opening credits.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I prefer the sequels to each, easily, to be honest (Hellboy and Blade), but the originals stand as excellent films in their own right.

As for FF, jokey tone, poor acting, hideous mishandling of the characters, lack of story (not to be confused with 'too much Story,' which is the root of their problems)...the entirety of both films is just a mess, IMO.

Are we talking about Daredevil, or Daredevil: The Director's Cut? Extreme night and day differences there.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Not particularly...the theatrical cut was quite solid to me. The DC is better, but it doesn't jump it a full grade to me like the Watchmen director's cut did.

What was different about the Watchmen director's cut? I watched both, but there was enough of a gap between them that I couldn't really spot what had changed.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/ ... ws/?a=8360

It's the additional Holland Manners scenes that give it the heart and soul I feel it lacked in the theatrical cut.

You rank the first blade that highly? I feel I am missing something, maybe my brain could not get over the plot "I will turn the world into vampires!" no one called him on the stupidity of that plot?

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

Iron Man and X-Men: First class each go down at least a notch for me. I'd say Iron Man was a very good superhero flick, although the end fight was ultimately disappointing for me. XM:FC was decidedly average but for the little bit of Magneto hunting Nazis which I really liked. Thor might be down to 3 or 3.5 stars too. Good but not great.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

I would disagree on dropping Thor, granted I am very biased. Doing any kind of interesting movie for characters of that power level is challenging I think, and they pulled it off well. The quick/clunky character development is where the movie gets a negative

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"Life isn't divided into genres. It's a horrifying, romantic, tragic, comical, science-fiction cowboy detective novel. You know, with a bit of pornography if you're lucky."
— Alan Moore

I would slide Hellboy 2 & Blade 2 down a tier, and push X-men first class & Thor up to 5 stars. Everything else seems to reasonably match my own preferences.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

My ratings:

Batman Begins (2005) *****
Blade (1998) **
Blade II (2002) **
Blade: Trinity (2004) *
Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) *****
Catwoman (2004) - did not see
Daredevil (2003) **
Dark Knight, The (2008) *****
Elektra (2005) *
Fantastic Four (2005) *
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) *
Ghost Rider (2007) - did not see
Green Lantern (2011) ***
Hellboy (2004) **
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) **
Hulk (2003) *
Incredible Hulk, The (2008) *****
Iron Man (2008) *****
Iron Man 2 (2010) ***
Jonah Hex (2010) - did not see
Kick-Ass (2010) ***
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, The (2003) *
Mystery Men (1999) ****
Punisher, The (2004) - did not see
Punisher: War Zone (2008) - did not see
Spider-Man (2002) ****
Spider-Man 2 (2004) **
Spider-Man 3 (2007) *
Spirit, The (2008) - did not see
Superman Returns (2006) ***
Thor (2011) ****
Watchmen (2009) (qualified as director’s cut) ** (I didn't much like the comic, either)
X-Men (2000) ***
X-Men: First Class (2011) ***
X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) *
X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) *
X2: X-Men United (2003) ****

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

Oh man, at first glance I though you had them in order of preference! 0.o

Ha. No.

I have some significant differences from FarSky's list. While FarSky and I have some similar tastes in movies, there are areas where we disagree terribly. For instance, I don't see the appeal of the Blade or Hellboy movies. However, I moderately enjoyed Superman Returns and Green Lantern.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

What? This is unacceptable. Revise your opinions. Immediately.

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

One star seems a little low. They weren't painfully bad, just uninteresting.
Edit: I once described them as "plotless blood spatter patterns set to rave music."

Plus they had Kris Kristofferson in them. That is rarely a good sign.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

It's a very fun action movie.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I too liked it more than the other Blade movies (Blade doing a suplex on a bad guy a-la Wrestlemania in Blade II? Yeah, ok). Plus it had Traci Lords and introduced me to New Order's remixed Confusion (Pump Panel Reconstruction Mix). Not bad things.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

I personally like Blade 2 more than Blade, but they are really different types of movies in my mind. Much like Alien and Aliens.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick