I've long felt that Singer was the first one to do a great comic book movie (not so sure what the heck saying they're sci fi movies in comic book settings means; aren't comic books just sci fi then?). He brought a tremendous amount of realism and subtlety to X-Men. However, and this may have been to placate the studios, the casting of Storm was incompetent because Halle Berry can't act and Liev Schrieber is so much better than X-Men 1's version.

At the same time, Nolan really built upon things. Singer, while sometimes good, has shown a real propensity toward moral simplicity -- not J.J. Abrams levels but still quite simple. "Valkyrie" could have been a historical film that was more honest about the motives of those opposing Hitler, instead of infusing them with some false exaggerated heroism. Also, Superman Returns was not very good.

None of this stuff holds a candle to watch Ron Moore and company were able to do on Battlestar Galactica or what Ira Behr did with DS9 and Seasons 3 and 4 of The 4400, though. Singer's work looks childish in comparison, as does Nolan's to a lesser extent.

It's also ridiculous for Zak Penn to say that the problem with Wolverine was the violence level alone. I was furious that Wolverine didn't go through more trauma after the Weapon X project, but there was texture and subtlety lacking throughout the entire movie, and the story was so formulaic that I'm ashamed to say that even Abrams' Star Trek was more entertaining.

I also liked "Watchmen". It wasn't very strong in romantic areas (and that's a HUGE problem when you have a story relying on it so much), including the love story with Malin Ackerman, who just isn't very good. However, it had an ambition that I really appreciated. I think it's conclusions about how people would react to an external threat by disarming rather than further arming is faulty, especially considering how Gorbachev softened the USSR enough before a confrontational Reagan and make peace. Still, it's themes were quite interesting. I enjoyed it, even if it wasn't perfect, and I admire that much more than something that's perfect at ambitionlessness -- like anything by Abrams.

I really liked the Watchmen movie. The comic simply has that much more time and that much more text to turn the cast into embodiments of our modern idols and then tear them to shreds. The comic's message of who watches the Watchmen, which in reality translates to "who questions one's idols", was preserved really well.

Condensing the comic to 3h made it almost impossible for first time viewers to understand, so the real question will remain why Snyder did not try to sell twelve 60 minute episodes to HBO if he loved the comic that much. Sure, he is a movie maker, but every format has its limits.

In oder to bring it to the movie theaters though he had to compromise too much and many fans will hold that against him. So the movie is between a rock and a hard place. The new viewers do not get it and even get bored at times, not knowing why a drawn out conversation in necessary, while the hardcore fans think it is too fast paced.

But it is still my favorite movie of the last 12 months, if not years. Better than the Dark Knight trash action plot which lived off the Joker's performance and was hyped on poor Ledger's death.

My wife a non comic book fan loved Watchmen it is one of her top 5 movies of all time.

Watchmen was brilliant and amazing.

The rest of what they say I agree but Singer failed in Superman Returns.

After the crap that man did how dare he say that about Watchmen the best film I have seen in years. Please get fired

The world is slowly learning what many of us comic fans have always known, comics are not the funny pages of the newspaper. They are multimedia storytelling devices. They replace literary details with graphics. I credit my comic reading with making me the smartest kid in my group of friends, with the most expansive vocabulary and exposure to to new ideas.

I agree that Bryan Singer merits credit for this ground breaking work, but it is Christopher Nolan whose Batman Begins and Dark Knight have made these characters believable in the real world. The fact that none of the characters have actual super powers probably helps this, but now I regret that Daredevil was done already. It would be great with a Dark Knight treatment.

I get tired of hearing people compare movies to Gone with the Wind. Seriously, have people actually watched that movie? It's horrible! Weak plot, racist characters, poor acting, mugged emotions, and bad directing.

It's time people stop comparing things to Gone with the Wind, especially things like movies based on comic books or graphic novels.

First, I'm with Evil - Gone With The Wind blows. It's a terrible movie on so many levels - including script, direction, editing, and acting. The cinematography was excellent, and that's the only plus to that lame, lame movie.

Singer deserves a lot of credit, and his reinvention of the X-Men comic for film was pretty damn brilliant, right down to executing the major thematic elements that made the series relevant and long-lived. I wasn't a big fan of Superman Returns for several reasons (everything about Luthor, the tepid plot, the horrible and inexcusable Superboy faux pas) but much of it was decent. It's hard to recapture that Donner magic in this cynical, cynical, vicious day and age.

Nolan is a good direct, and he and his brother put together a good script. The go lucky and caught the trend of a movement to the darker facets of our Heroes (while Singer got creamed for putting out a film to the contrary). I find it a little hard, however, to give Nolan that much credit for making a 'superhero' or a 'comic' film because he didn't. He made a traditional movie about an unusual, exeptional man that happens to have some fantasy/sci-fi elements from the Superhero genre. Nolan's Batman is a creature of our world, with the Batman idea impressd upon it as much as he could get away with it, rather than the reverse approach. Not that I don't like the films - the second film was astonishing - but let's call it what it is. Ron Moore took a very similar approach to the equally brilliant Battlestar Galactica (and took the idea even farther). In some ways, these films are a teriffic approach, and in others, they are missing something... a true sense of greatness and/or the fantastic. I'll be happy to see more Nolan Batman movies, but I'll also be happy to see a more 'super' reinvention with Batman or nay of the other comic heroes - one that, like Donner's Superman, make you believe that heroes can fly.

I'm also with Muldfeld that Wolverine Origins blew on so many levels. I mean, seriously, the writers could not even be bothered to take the basics of the earlier X-Men films as shown and get the timeframe and settings correct. They started with a lame, tepid,a nd almost goofy Origins comic, and then altered what little that was there that made sense as far as a psychological origin for Logan. And it wasn't even chaged for any real reason: there is no reason that Victor needs to be his half-brother, for instance. It workd much, much, much better if they aren't related, but simply connected, for instance. And because the writers (I assume Penn) couldn't even be bothered to check the times and dates, Cyke is in his mid-40s in X1, and Gambit would be in his 50's! Was there a reason to set WO in 1977? No. It wasn'e even like the battle there set off the Three MIle Island Incident... which happened in 1979! It was so lazy, sloppy, and incoherent, that the viewers knew from the first montage that it was going to blow. And it really, truly sucked. We won't even go into the stupidity and inherent contradiction revolving around the idea of an 'adamantium bullet'. Or, hey, lets just change Emma's entire history, completely ruining the character for the future for *no apparent reason*. It was just... bad. Oh. SO. BAD.

Watchmen was pretty good but the ending was a compromise of the original vision, which is at cross purposes with Rorshach's words to Night Owl in the film:

Never Compromise

Still, it's better than it had any right to be. Not at all as bad as its critics want us to believe it is. But not as good as its faithful fans would have us believe, either.

As for Singer and Superman Returns, I feel that movie is VASTLY underrated.

The problem with any Superman movie is that it's all been done before. Singer, in my opinion, wisely tackled the subject matter from a far different angle:

What's it like to BE Superman?

The scene that exemplifies what that movie's about is when he's hovering in Earth's orbit, listening to everyone calling out for help. Who do you help? Who do you save? What is that fine line you draw between being a hero and being a meddler in the decisions mortal men make that determine the course of human history? How much right does a guy like Superman hve to choose for us?

Any of us, with Superman's abilities, might end world hunger or might stop Al Qaeda forever. Others might conquer the world and live like a fat cat for the rest of our days.

Superman is special because he capably rides that fine line between what he CAN be and what he SHOULD be. Superman Returns shows us WHY he is that special.

People want to downplay Superman Returns because it's not two hours of him trading blows with General Zodd or some other super powered menace. I argue that we've seen it all before and we know how it's going to end. Singer gave us a vastly more interesting movie about a character that is always flirting with creative irrelevance. That is why I consider Superman Returns the best superhero ever made. Because it, more than any other super hero movie, understands the main character better than any other movie of its kind.

One could argue that the Joker is just as effectively handled in The Dark Knight, but I contend that the best possible Batman movis should be about Batman's issues and not exhaustive examinations into the identities of his freakish rogues' gallery.

The Dark Knight is a GREAT movie, don't get me wrong, even a better overall movie than Superman Returns. But as a movie dealing with the most important subject matter of its titular character, Superman Returns is a few notches higher in my book.

Taiso, while I agree somewhat, I feel Superman Returns really did things with Superman's character that really don't apply to him. He wouldn't have run off to look for Krypton for five years without telling anybody, especially Lois. He wouldn't have had a kid out of wedlock and be completely oblivious to it until the end of the movie. And he wouldn't have taken a page out of Bruce's relationship book and spent time floating around outside her house spying on her with his X-Ray vision and super hearing. It works for Batman, because he is Batman, but that crap doesn't work or fit with Clark.

The movie cared about the character, but it neglected to keep him in tune with the actual character from DC Comics.

Also I think this article and all of the discussion proves one thing: Comic book movies need to be either evaluated individually, not continued to be shovelled together under the same banner of "Comic Book Film". Otherwise, why bother arguing that Elektra and Catwoman sucked but Spider-Man 2 and the Dark Knight are great if we continue to lump them in the same pile? By doing so, we continue to tell the world that overall it's all the same movie.

I don't think the ending of Watchmen is that much of an issue. The comic had the fake monster unite humanity, a supposedly external threat. The movie retains the fake aspects but instead the threat is more of an internal one.

In that regard the ending is a bit modernized, but not much. It is a tiny bit more positive in the regard that the comic made it sound as if humanity could only unite to wage war. The movie tries to stick to the real fall of the iron curtain which was governed by reason, even if the reason here comes at a much higher price.

Now what was the name of the TV show where people fight to prevent the destruction of New York which also turned out to be a small price for the greater good.

I loved Watchmen. thought it was dark and deep and disturbing. I did not like Superman Returns because I think Singer made the same mistake as Ang Lee in the Hulk (though the latter was a worse movie). Both directors decided not to take a comic book character and expand the inherent themes in it to make a great movie. They both wanted to make a great movie about a comic book character. Superman returns is an interesting film but it does not leave you feeling that you watched a Superman movie. I thought that Dark Knight captured the essence of the character much better as well as lifting the comic book to deeper thematic and psychological levels. And Ledger's Joker was phenomenal - NUFF SAID

I also agree with Muldfeld that the writer/director of Wolverine missed out big time by not exploring the emotional trauma of the Weapon X project, and hundreds of years of fighting wars and killing people. all we got was pretty scenes and average fights

Praising Bryan SInger...really..? I mean I liked the X-Men movies but Superman Returns was garbage and just about the dullest thing I have ever seen. I did see it a couple of times to give it a chance but it got worse every time..Comic movies in general are really hit or miss, even bad ones like Wolverine can do really well...While movies like Watchmen, which I thought was a great accomplishment, did not resonate with the audience. It's run time, R-rating and not having as recognizable characters had much to do with that but overall the movie as great. I am glad to see so many comic movies being made but the studios need to give directors more freedom to stick with the source material. Of course you could say that with just about every movie...

You know I think that "Blade" was the movie for me that said that someone somewhere can make a good comic book movie. Loved the comic, loved the movie.

You know I think that "Blade" was the movie for me that said that someone somewhere can make a good comic book movie. Loved the comic, loved the movie.

Hello!

SuperMan Returns Sucked BiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiG TIME!. Elektra was an insult to anybody that even heard of this movie. I happen to like Watchmen, is not perfect but i will pay to see it again. And no, i don't buy or read comics.
And yes Dark Night is great but Bale should take acting lessons. YES!, ACTING LESSONS FOR BALE.

I think 'lindyxmjh' might have a good point about how we have to see these movies. In the end the stodios are out to make money not great movies. Why do you think we have the term cookie cutter movies. The studios will always play it safe and make the directors dumb down the themes and plots of our cherished media to play for the widest possible crowd. I like to think of it as the "Godzilla Effect". On its own a good to great movie but would you really call it a Godzilla movie, they could have called it Big Ass Lizard Destroys New York.

Like everyone else I thought they dropped the ball story wise in WO but I still enjoyed the movie. Daredevil and electra blowed big time. There is no way to get around that. The blade movies were great but I think we can all agree that what helped there is that while there was a great deal of violence, the fact that the vampires turned to ash and vaporized leaving no bodies behind let them get away with alot. I did not like Superman Returns for many reasons but the biggest one is that at no point did I feel that the characters I was watching were Superman and Lois Lane. the only character who seemed to be who he was is Luthor.

I might be in a minority but I sometimes think the only way we will get a truly epic and accurate movie based on our beloved heroes is for the movies to go directly to video so that they can do what they want without worring about the box-office take. Marvel has proved that direct to video comic movies are a viable medium with there animation series.

Bryan Singer's comic movies have all fallen flat for me. It's like they're almost something special but not really. He's worked with some exceptional actors who deserved better. That being said, I felt Valkyrie was extremely good. I felt the same way about Raimi's Spider-man films. Although his villain and supporting actors are wonderful his leads are sorely miscast.

They nailed it when they said they weren't making comic movies, they were making science fiction movies based on comic books. Like the way Dark Knight is a crime movie based on a comic book.

When you make a 'comic book' movie you get Batman and Robin.