I accidentally broke my comic book movie ban. I saw Constantine yesterday, which I didn't realize was based upon a comic book until the end credits started rolling and I saw the "DC" stamp. If today were Friday I would ramble on about the shenwrongness of movies based upon comic book, but it's not Friday and thus you are spared.

A couple years ago I vowed to never again see a movie based on a comic book. I remember my exact reasons: Spider-Man, Hulk, and X2. Spider-Man wasn't a bad movie, but it wasn't good either. It just was. I enjoyed the cinematic styling --the use of paneling to achieve a comic book feel-- of Hulk, but I hated the final fight... and what good is a comic book movie if the final showdown is a letdown? And, X2 simply blew. That crappy love scene between Wolverine and Cyclopes was disturbing... you know, the one where they embrace and cry because Jean Grey drowned. Oh, and then Daredevil was released somewhere around that time, which I place in the Spider-Man category of ambivalent blah.

I started thinking about movies based on comic books. In the history of cinema has there ever been a good comic book movie? Of course there is the first Batman and the first two Supermans, but overall comic book movies historically suck. And I don't want "suck" if I'm going to drop 25-bones at the theatre (that's the approximate cost of two adults and one child) and kill 2-hours of my life. So I vowed to never-ever-ever see another comic book based movie (in a theatre, anyway).

But, I did.

I saw Constantine.

And that's why I should never-ever-ever say, "never-ever-ever." In my defense I was unaware that Constantine was based upon a comic. If I had known before hand then I would've suggested the obviously crappy Hitch instead. That's how steadfast my comic book movie boycott is (and yes, to spoil the ending of this post: the boycott still holds).

So Constantine, eh? Yeah, Constantine. Think about what would happen if The Prophecy and The Matrix had a kid. That would be one fucking sweet movie. Now subtract 50 sweet points by way of sorry-ass comic clichés, an over-reliance on digital effects, and a lack of emotional content. Such an offspring would still be a pretty decent movie, but not good enough to atone for all of the sins of past comic book movies.
...and so it was written, shenry at 3/03/2005 01:53:00 PM.
...and so it was appended with .