Unbreakable is probably the comic book movie that most adheres to your desires, despite not being that good and not based on an actual comic.

As film lovers & comic book fans, we have to remember that it is impossible to compress a lifetime of material into a 2-3 hour film, or even a series of them. Regardless of the quality of the film, there will be those “loyalists” who will be offended by various changes (many of which are necessary) that occur when translating a written work into a movie.

Superman Returns is a fine example. I loved the movie, but I also went into it with the realization that there would be changes to 70 years of Superman history for the film to work. I hated the storyline of the kid & I wanted to see more action as well, but realized that Singer had chosen to make a very “adult” Superman film & also pay homage to the films that had gone before. A brave move, but not from the viewpoint of the studios who only care about the profits.

We should certainly voice our displeasure when a film shows little quality, thought or knowledge of the source material. Unfortunately, we do have a very fickle movie-going audience, whose attention spans have dwindled over the years, while their expectations have grown. I for one am content to enjoy the fact that comic book film are even being made. We must remember that comic book films could quickly fall out of favor & we could end of with a rash of inept “reality-show” films. They’ve already ruined TV. Do we really want to be bombarded by films like “Who’s The Daddy?”, “My Car Cost More Than Your Car” or “Redneck Weddings”?

SEAMONKEYS! THE MOVIE!!!!!

Directed by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino. The double feature will be “Johnson Smith and Co.’s “Things You Never Knew EXISTED!”

At the core of this difference is the issue of story arc. The maker of a film has no assurance of a sequel, and the story must, therefore, have a beginning, middle and end. Comics (as distinct from graphic novels) are more deliberately episodic, in the nature of serial television series, and therefore must necessarily leave loose ends. “Be soon to tune in next week.”

So, for me, the best film adaptation of comic characters are those that recognize that they need to adhere to a more classical story model. The first “Batman” film fits this model superbly.

In another dimension, good film adaptations depend on good character material in the comic to begin with. Working with Bruce Wayne rather than Kal-El you have a built-in advantage, because the guy’s a psychopathological mess to begin with and any decent actor can make it work. Superman is notoriously hard for an actor to make into anything but cardboard. Thus, you’d expect a Spiderman movie to be better because Peter Parker’s so gloriously screwed up (Doesn’t hurt to have a world-class player like Toby Maguire in the role, either). In this sense, the X-Men film was a disappointment; the only actors who really played the exclusion/bigotry/power triangle well were McKellen and Stewart, and, again, you’d've expected that of them.

I haven’t seen the Iron Man movie, but the trailers appear to show encouraging things about the portrayal of Tony Stark. It looks like they’ve given him some massive character transformation as a result of his injury, which is right on the money

Unfortunately, they kept running into a snag when the writers for “Charles Atlas Shrugged”, inspired by the rational self-interest arguments of the novel (not the feed-on-your insecurities self-interest of the ads), kept going on strike, feeling they were not being adequately compensated or appreciated for their intellectual contributions.

Rumor is, the recent screen writer’s strike was, in fact, the end result of that fiasco.

Alas, the project has been canned for now. But I did see some test footage of Frasier’s invisibility powers (powered by the a “philosophical density” screen).