The Rule of Threes (with comic book films)

Yesterday Gavin (the person who lives in the other room in my apartment) sent me a message on gChat with a tempting offer -- "Want to watch that really bad Fantastic Four sequel tonight?" Considering there was beer recently brought into the apartment, OF COURSE I wanted to watch a really bad movie! On top of that, I've been attracted to watching awful movies as of late. Some readers may recall that weekend Joel Schumacher still owes me, and just the other night I was starting to watch Blood Simple when the mere sight of Dan Hedaya made me say, "You know what movie I could go for instead? Alien Resurrection." I don't know if maybe I'm suffering from depression, or perhaps I'm feeling anxiety because of the crippling economy that these news anchors told me about, but some voice deep inside of me says, "I know you just bought a copy of Magnolia and all, but wouldn't you much rather reminisce on all those good times you had with Brett Ratner when he mangled the X-Men franchise?"

However, I digress. All of this bad movie watching has made me notice as of late that comic book film franchises tend to follow a rule of threes: First installment -- pretty damn good; second installment -- AMAZING!; third installment -- trainwreck.

Allow me to analyze the examples we've already been provided with, starting with Superman. The first film from the Christopher Reeves era was a wonderful adaptation of the character and the comic. While I generally don't enjoy straight up Superman vs. the bad guys stories, this film has a bit more to it to make the film a fun fantasy romp that successfully makes the character's origin accessible to new audiences, and I'm also fond of watching how Reeves transformed himself between Clark Kent and Superman. Although the increased quality in the second film is debatable, I don't think it is. Simply put -- Zod rules. 'Nuff said, now KNEEL. When we enter the third one, we have a mess of a film where somebody decided it would be a good idea to have Richard Pryor help Robert Vaughn invent Brainiac. They also lifted that idea about stealing penny fractions from bank accounts from a much better film called Office Space.

The next major comic book franchise we had was Batman, and wisely chosen was Tim Burton to helm the first film. While farther off from its source material than most people realize, the first Batman maintains several key elements of the character's core, and there's no way anybody can forget Jack Nicholson's awesome presence as The Joker. Except seriously, why was Vicki Vale allowed in the Batcave? Anyway, the success of that allowed Burton some more freedom to create a much darker toned film with Batman Returns, which is the direction most Batfans would like to see with the character. And then there was Schumacher. Take my word for it, Batman Forever sucks. If you don't believe me, I will once again direct you toward Brando's Lost Weekend to read up on that subject more.

After Joel Schumacher killed comic book movies for the rest of the 90's, Bryan Singer came along to seek sweet, sweet redemption with the X-Men franchise, even if he did start the subtrend of comic book films with questionable female casting (Halle Berry in this case, which has continued with Kirsten Dunst, Katie Holmes, and it appears Gwyneth Paltrow). Again, X-Men wasn't the greatest film ever, but it was a lot of fun and its success treated us to a bigger, better film with X2. It was evident that Singer was trying to carefully plot an arc stretching across several films with plenty of nice set-ups and winks in this film. And who didn't freak out with the obvious allusion to the Phoenix at the end? Of course, Brett Ratner came along and while he at least didn't Schumacher all over Patrick Stewart's scalp, he committed the atrocity of cramming too much into one film with a hearty side of arbitrarily introducing characters.. just because. Was Angel really pivotal to those two scenes he was in? And while I get a good laugh out of the videos online as much as anyone else, but did Vinnie Jones really need to declare that he was the Juggernaut, bitch?

But no film committed the heinous act of two-films-in-one as badly as Spiderman 3. Oh, Sam Raimi, where are your morals? The scope and sheer wonder of the first Spiderman completely captured my imagination, and while it isn't "the film" that made me do so, it was an important catalyst in making me decide I wanted to enter the film industry. And you made Spiderman 2 so much better! You did such a great job of capturing the struggle that a masked vigilante must endure when trying to be a hero and living their own life. Nobody had done so well with it, and they still haven't touched it since. But the third? Far too much was attempted at once. It felt like some black suit, Venom, and Sandman stories were taken and thrown into a garbage compacter and then you reached in and found your script. That's really what the film is -- garbage contained to a much smaller space than it should be. All that was accomplished in this film were some cool effects with the Sandman and effectively making James Franco look like some sort of pederast.

At the end of this retrospective, we must think of what the future holds for this cursed Rule of Threes. Christopher Nolan looks to be well on his way to following the same path with his rebooted Batman franchise. It's astounding how well he simultaneous took the character back to its core on screen while helping ease the pain of those dreadful Schumacher versions of the character. The Dark Knight looks to continue on this same path, and the opportunity to see The Joker and Harvey Dent (Batmans two biggest adversaries if you ask me) in top form on the big screen is sure to be a fanboy's -- and a Brando's -- wet dream.

All of this considered it makes me think what Christopher Nolan could do to screw up any Batman film. Not only is he doing great things for the character on the silver screen, but he's Christopher Nolan! He made Memento! And The Prestige!! I asked the same about Sam Raimi, of course, but we all see where that ended up. Would Nolan ditch a character he seems to be so enthusiastic about working with before the third movie? Or do you think he would do something drastic like take his source material from Frank Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin the Boy Wonder (aka The Goddamn Batman)?

I'm also a little curious to see if this works in the opposite direction. For as bad as Rise of the Silver Surfer was, it was still better than its predecessor. I can't deny how cool the Silver Surfer looked. In theory, this is going along with the rule of threes only with diminished quality in its proportions -- part one is really crappy, with part two being slightly less crappy. If they make a third Fantastic Four, can you imagine how epically terrible that would be? It would probably even be subpar to your average made-for-Sci-Fi Channel movie.

And what are your thoughts on the matter? Are you more secure than I am about the direction our comic book properties are headed on screen? Do you think I'm actually suffering some sort of weird mental disorder that makes me more likely to watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning rather than The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford when I get home from work tonight?

Just kidding about that last one.. there's a new South Park on tonight. But seriously, let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment or sending me an email -- brandonrohwer@gmail.com