Mad Talk: Just Shut Up and Enjoy the Movie!

Okay, so I've had this on my mind for quite a long time, I was just waiting until this topic became relevant. Since there are 3 major Hollywood adaptations coming out this month (The Amazing Spider Man 2, Godzilla, and X Men: Days of Future Past, respectively) I feel this is the right time to talk about this.

Every time a comic book movie (or just any movie adaptation in general, be it from a TV show, historical event, novel, short story, etc) hits the big screen, one thing is for sure to happen: You will always get purists ripping the movie apart for liberties taken with the source material, characters names pronounced incorrectly, and just any inaccuracies the movie will have. We've all heard the complaints... "Oh they left out this part of the book, this movie sucks!" Or "They pronounced Joey jojo jr Shabadoo's name wrong, fucking bastards!" Or "Wah wah they totally ruined the Mandarin, I hate this movie!"

Whenever I see stuff like this, I wonder why these people can't just calm the fuck down and enjoy what they are watching. So I say this: Just shut up and watch the fucking movie!

My point is, movies like Captain America, Iron Man, The Dark Knight trilogy, TMNT etc are ADAPTATIONS! That means they are BASED off of a true story, BASED off a comic book, BASED off a TV show. That doesn't mean they're going to be the exact same thing! If you want to see X-Men: Days of Future Past stay 100% true to the comic itself, then don't watch the movie, instead just read the comic book you love so much and quit your bitching.

I know of some comic book nerds who despise The Dark Knight trilogy for this very thing. "Oh, it's Raysh al gool! Not raws al gool! How dare they!" Or "The joker didn't fall into a vat of acid or give anyone laughing gas, BLASPHEMY!" Or my personal favourite "Oh wah wah wah Bane wasn't Mexican or had any venom pumping into him goo goo gah gah!"

Listen, you virgins, the whole point of those three movies was to make The Batman story grittier and more realistic. And in the real world, if you fall into a vat of acid, you'll die. If you have venom pumping into you, you'll die. And if your name is pronounced "Raysh" instead of "Raws", people will likely mistake you for an STD. Nolan and company made the changes to make the existence of a Batman, or a Joker, or a Bane on our planet possible. In my opinion, all three movies totally nailed it and the trilogy succeeded in what it set out to do. But of course, it wasn't like the comics, so it sucked, right? Fuck off.

Another thing I want to touch on is the JJ Abrams Star Trek movies. As far as I'm concerned, both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness are amazing movies. They work great as stand-alone films and, dare I say it, they're just as true to Star Trek lore (no pun intended) as everything else in the Trek-o-verse. But of course, Trekkies (or Trekkers? Who gives a fuck what they’re called? Seriously!) all over the world crapped on them for being “fast-paced space operas for the ADD generation” and “making Khan a white guy”... Wow. Now believe me, I want to destroy every argument that Trekkies have made against these movies, but I'll get to those assholes another time.

Now guys, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying you should like every movie regardless of artistic liberties taken, because sometimes movie adaptations will completely miss the mark. But in my opinion, it's not because they "bastardized the source material", it's because the movies themselves were just terrible. The reason why Batman & Robin sucked was not because of Arnold Schwarzenegger being miscast as Mr Freeze or Batgirl being Alfred’s niece instead of Gordon's daughter, the movie sucked because it was horribly acted, horribly paced, horribly directed, and had a script that was littered with dumb, unfunny puns. Iron Man 3 got crapped on because they took liberties with the Mandarin character, but that's not what bugged me about it. What bugged me was that the movie was building up this villain so much (being wonderfully played by Ben Kingsley, no less) only to have him be a drunken pawn when our main hero finally meets him. That to me is not shitting on comics, it's the movie doing something it just shouldn't do. The reason why The Last Airbender sucked was... Well... I'm not going there... Fuck you Shyamalan! Fuck you!

My point is that you should judge a movie by what it is: A movie. Comparing it to a comic book or a TV show will only cloud your judgment of the film and prevent you from enjoying it as much as you could have.

That being said, I'm going to be seeing Days of Future Past in about 3 weeks, and Godzilla the week before that. I'm sure I'm going to love the living shit out of those movies, but I'm also sure I'm going to see comments on the Internet about how Quicksilver should only be in one cinematic universe or how Godzilla's fins don't glow when he breathes fire or some shit... Ugh...

Seriously, if anyone like that is reading this... SLEEP WITH SOMEONE! For your own good!

I'm out

- Mad Mike of Metal

P.S. If you loved my last movie review, then stay tuned next week as I will be reviewing an Arnold Schwarzenegger classic!