I have always been a fan of Ghost Rider. The combination of horror and super hero is a no brainer for someone like me.
When I had some spare dosh in the mid 00's I invested in a neat Ghost Rider carded action figure toy, by Fleetwood which really appealed to me. Amazingly I haven't sold it and its still riding round the attic looking for the contract.
I'm also a huge super hero film fan and naturally I was excited about Ghost Rider blazing a trail onto the big screen. I went to see it, with leading man Nick Cage in the title role, at the local flicks.
I caught it again last night on UK TV and realised that there is something different about certain Marvel movies like Ghost Rider.
Some don't have the flickering Marvel comics pages device at the start and there is clearly a smaller budget being spent.
There may also be something about the lighting, a sort of vaseliney haze across these movies but that could just be me.
These Marvel 'B-movies' I would say include Ghost Rider, Ghost Rider 2, The Punisher, Man Thing and the recent Venom to name a few.
These are clearly 'lesser' movies in the eyes of Marvel I'd say and seem to be secondary to the big hitters like Captan America, Iron Man, Spidey and the Avengers.
I suppose the same could be argued about DC. There are many DC 'B-movies' like Swamp Thing, the early Superman films and Supergirl.
Maybe its just a timing thing. More recent films get bigger budgets?
What do you think about these 'lesser'movies from Marvel and DC?
Those older Marvel films were before the big Disney buy out.Hence, newer films can have bigger budgets thanks to the Mouse's deep pockets.That Man Thing movie was horrendous IMHO, didn't capture the storyline at all.Not that I'm knowlegeble about Marvel characters,Im lost in the current canon of Marvel superhro films.The DC/Justice League universe is unfolding at a pace I can keep up with,so I am more in tune with those films.
ReplyDeleteYes, I'm enjoying the roll out of the DC films too Bri. Shazam! next I think.
DeleteI feel once you've seen one Marvel movie you've seen em all, that said their not at all bad but their tone has been heavily borrowed from Richard Donner's Superman, DC conversely is/was trying to distance it's self from that tone and have (in my opinion )been mostly successful, Zack Snyder's 4hr Watchman is a masterpiece! Excruciatingly challenging but the Alan Moore story is just that too!! The long and short of it is,Stan Lee has famously been quoted as saying he borrowed heavily from DC to create his characters, and ironically artists and writers are now LEAVING Marvel Comics Group to work at DC because of Marvel's intolerable work practices!!- Mark J Southcoast Base
ReplyDeleteZack Snyder is fabulous. His Man of Steel and Dawn of Justice have to be two of my fave super hero flicks ever. The pace, the reverence, the huge city-wide mayhem and the musical scores. Brilliant.
DeleteWatchmen is undoubtably a fine movie, but spoiled in my opinion by excessive gore. The film scene where Roschach breaks out of jail by electrocuting the prisoner is way too bloody and the brief panel in the Rum Runner where Doc Manhattan kills a gangster is far too graphic, showing dismembered body parts plastered on the ceiling, as opposed to Dave Gibbons restrained artwork. Viewing the deleted scenes reveals even more schlock, as Rorschach dispatches the child killer with a cleaver, rather than leaving it to the readers imagination in the comic. That said, its almost a scene for panel recreation of the seminal comic. Apart from the squidless ending! On the Marvel front, the early Daredevil film is quite good, with Ben Affleck, but my favourite must be Jennifer Garners Elektra movie, which follows on from DD, but is a mystical martial arts fest in itself.
ReplyDeleteRorschack is a fabulous character and the actor who plays him in Watchmen looks terrifically undernourished and deranged. Oddly enough I don't recall the gore. I remember feeling that a point had been crossed, when super heroes faced the real world and got depressed, lonely and died. I haven't read the comic so it was the cinematic thing for me. I agree Daredevil is good with Affleck but I found Jennifer Garner a little stiff although I do like the martial arts riffing in both DD and Elektra like you say!
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