A Summer Of Comic Book Blockbusters
Although the summer weather doesn’t look to be gracing us with its presence yet or anytime soon, the summer months certainly are approaching (what with the calendar year being a fairly concrete and stable concept). Anyway, every year, within the months of May, June, July and August, we, the public are treated to a barrage of cinema but, for this year in particular, we, the geek are treated to a barrage of highly anticipated comic book adaptations which will have any self respecting nerd salivating on to his World of Warcraft t-shirt.
Iron Man, released 2nd of May is the first to hit our screens, a piece of inspired casting sees Robert Downey Jr as billionaire Tony Stark, the world’s foremost weapons designer who is kidnapped and forced to build a weapon of mass destruction, but instead builds himself a high-tech suit of armour and escapes captivity. Whilst this movie will focus largely on Stark creating the suit for the first time and becoming Iron Man, fans of the comic book will know he later spirals into alcoholism. So it’s a good job Downey Jr spent a vast number of years doing method research for potential sequels in this role.
June will play host to The Incredible Hulk, Edward Norton plays Bruce Banner in this Louis Leterrier directed all action CGI extravaganza. Not much is known about the plot but with our first glimpse of Hulk at minute three and rumours of a 26 minute final battle between Banner and super villain The Abomination, it certainly won’t be short of a few larger-than-life fight scenes.
Perhaps the most highly anticipated comic book adaptation this year is………ready for it??…………The Dark Knight! (I forgive you if you weren’t as excited about that as I) Now, those of you that have seen the two minutes and seven seconds trailer will know that it is essentially ‘geek porn’, it is that good. Joker, played by the late great Heath Ledger looks truly very scary. The very unfortunate death of Ledger means that the tone of this film may change slightly, so what I propose is to view it in two ways; one, look at it as a homage to a very talented actor and fully appreciated his final screen performance (and probably his finest). Two, forget about the former completely and just view the film for what it is, ‘The Dark Knight’, Batman vs. Joker vs. Two-Face, soak it all up.
Last but by no means least is Hellboy 2. This sequels predecessor had a fairly low profile release, but fairly high critical acclaim. It didn’t rake in the big bucks that studios desire though so it was somewhat of a surprise to hear of a sequel, never the less, here we are. Everyone’s favourite Mexican Guillermo Del Toro is back in the drivers seat and Ron Pearlman will once again assume the role of Hellboy, the beer drinking, evil fighting demon who despite his best efforts is destined to destroy the world and bring about Armageddon. Nice.
