Here are my selections
Best...
1) hands down Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy. It has the beginning, a middle, and the only film with the balls to tell the end of a superhero's story, which is what every classic hero's journey has to have, an end.
The character goes from spoiled brat to angry troubled youth, to revenge obsessed young man, to jaded broken middle aged man, and then gets over
himself and moves on.
If anything, it's a deconstruction of the super-hero genre.
At the moment, these are my other choices:
2) MOS: a troubled loner comes to terms with being the world's most powerful man, and has to make a choice between two worlds, knowing he can never truly be a part of either of them, and at the end comes to terms with his choice.
While I loved the Reeve films, his character doesn't really change that much over the films - and the young Clark Kent part is the most forgettable part of the movie.
2) v for Vendetta, Alan Moore's transformation of Evey Hammond (not as extreme as the comic book) was brilliant.
3) Watchmen (going back to Alan Moore again). The comic goes a lot further, but essentially Batman(Nite Owl) overcomes erectile dysfunction and cold war paranoia, a cynical murderer/rapist gets what's coming to him, god gets tired of mankind and buggers off to Mars.
It's the day-glo world of superheroes tarred with the brush of everyday life
The strongest anti-superhero superhero movie, ever.
well except maybe for......
4) Kick Ass, a real classic hero's journey. Hillarious and also brutal. While they're taking the piss, the stuff about cliques amongst kids and fitting in was pretty accurate (although I haven't been in high school for about 20 years, amazing how little things change).
I thought the finale was a bit too fantastical, and they should have stuck to the gritty realism of Dave's first superhero outing (no, not the guy exploding in the microwave).
Anyway, Dave has to get through a lot to walk away in one piece at the end of the film. He's learned a bit about life and is a better man.
haven't seen Kick Ass 2, and possibly don't want to.
5) Spider Man (the Tobey Maguire series). I liked it because the Peter, Harry, MJ triangle was set up in film 1 and got resolved by film 3. Nice. Didn't like the dancing ending of SM 3, but leading up to that it was okay.
What would have been cool is if Pete's life actually ending up being a bit better at the end of SM 3 - an emotional payoff for the fans, who've invested in the character for 3 movies.
We see him go up and down, and up and then way down, across the three films, but we kind of hope for him to some sort of happy ending. Yeah, he gets MJ at the end, but she's really not all that.
Okay Kirsten Dunst fans are going nuts now (but, she can't sing ! yet had the lead in a musical, come on !)
Anyway, SM he comes to terms with having powers, SM 2 he rejects his responsibilities but realises he can't turn his back on who he's become.
SM 3 he goes to one extreme (evil black costume) and then back the other way. BTW I liked how faithful the film was to how spider man killed venom the first time. All in all, a pretty decent arc though. Props to Raimi.
For an animated film, the Incredibles was great, spot-on.
MOST ANNOYING.....
Iron Man 1..... hang on before you all jump up and go "WTF ?"
Iron Man 1 was great, probably the second best superhero film, ever.
I loved it, they handled his captivity and personal turn-around brilliantly.
Then came Iron Man 2, which is pretty much RDJr being himself, which kind
of gets old after a while.
Then IM 3, which I didn't enjoy much at all, because other than overcoming panic attacks, the character is still the same ******** he was at the end of the first movie - and worst of all, all the character development he actually goes through comes in a crappy montage about a minute long when he decides to have the arc reactor removed from his chest, cure Pepper, and stop being such a prat.
Okay, I'm exaggerating, it's not that bad, but still what bugged me is that it was a colossal let down. The series had so much potential.
It started out so well, after IM I was so keen to see the sequels, and even Iron Man in Avengers was better than in his own movies.
So not really the worst, but it pissed me off, for squandering its potential
Didn't really think much of Wolverine either. Great character when he first showed up in Xmen, and despite that everyone else hated Last Stand, he actually goes thru some character development there, so props to Ratner.
However, The Wolverine has him back to the old gruff loner schtick, **** I'm sick of that. Either accept that you're part of the X-family or don't, and stop *****ing about being semi-immortal, because pretty much everyone I know would be pretty pleased to age slowly, be immune to all disease, eat, drink and smoke whenever/whatever they want (with no ill effects) and recover immediately from all injuries.....yeah, what a ****ing curse.
I love Wolverine, I'm Canadian, but that movie, other than some not-bad action set-pieces, just pissed me off. If Wolverine's got demons to deal with
it's his temper or that violence seems to follow him, and he's a curse to his friends (he has worse luck with ladies than Spider Man).
I guess he does go through a little character development in that film, but for all the wrong reasons. Just IMO, if you liked it, more props to you.
I didn't hate the fantastic four films, not a lot of character development, but fun to watch.
Thor undergoes a lot of character development in his first film outing, and a little bit in the second. The second film is a bit more believable, as he goes from unlikeable ******** in the first film, to saint within about 30 minutes of screen time. I liked the movie, but thought the arc was a bit rushed.
The Hulk, well, if they could pick an actor who'll be the hulk for more than one film, we might actually see some character development. I actually really enjoyed Ang Lee's Hulk (Nick NOlte was a great mad scientist), and Norton was great too. Ruffalo's okay, but that "I'm always angry" just wasn't believable. Of course, how much development can the Hulk actually go thru when his primary super power is having temper tantrums ?
Green Lantern, Elektra, and Daredevil only got one movie for very good reasons.
