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In Media Madness, Matt. Murray reviews, revisits and rambles about comics, cartoons and their interactions in and with related media.

I read some disappointing news over at Dark Horizons last week — rumor has it that Hayden Christensen will be playing Mandrake the Magician in some Criss Angel style adaptation of the Lee Falk comic strip of the same name.  Ugh.

While I’m not adverse to updating and playing with what is clearly a dated concept and character, I am frightened and saddened by choosing uber-douche Angel as the mold to recast the hero in (he evidently has a cameo as well) and then there’s casting Dork Vader himself to carry the production… In the words of Patton Oswalt doing his impression of Nick Nolte as Han Solo: Aw Hell, Chewbacca!

How the hell does this guy still get work? Has no one been to the movies in the past ten years? This kid buckled under the weight of the second Star Wars trilogy and was outperformed by the special effects and Billy Fu@%ing Elliot in Jumper. He can barely sustain the illusion of having an emotion on screen, how are we supposed to buy into the fact that he’s the world’s greatest illusionist and escape artist?

(In better news, Djimon “Give Us Us Free” Hounsou is in it too.  I’m assuming he’s playing Mandrake’s African sidekick Lothar as he’s absolutely perfect casting in that department.   So here’s hoping that maybe the producers and director aren’t complete shortbussers.)

In honor of this disgusting piece of casting that will no doubt amount to a staggering disappointment, and the death of another potentially cool classic comic franchise (The Phantom and/or Spirit, anyone?), I’ve assembled a list of the 5 worst performances in movies adapted from comics in the past 10 years or so.

Disclaimer: Enjoy the list, but by no means don’t watch the films. Really. You shouldn’t. Not only are they horrible performances but these people will get paid in some way, shape or form if you pick up the disc or watch it via some other legal means. Don’t encourage crap kids, it only begets more!

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In Media Madness, Matt. Murray reviews, revisits and rambles about comics, cartoons and their interactions in and with related media.

Poor Frank Miller.

Twenty some odd years ago, after being at the forefront of a revolution in the comics industry with his legendary run on Daredevil and his seminal take on Batman (Dark Knight Returns and Year One) he turned his sites to Hollywood and was completely crushed by the film making machine when he was hired to write the Robocop sequels. Misunderstood and re-written to the point of barely being recognized as his work, Robocop 2 and Robocop 3 literally sent Miller back to the drawing board, where he would cook up Sin City and 300… which of course would become hot Hollywood properties which would revolutionize comic book movies to an extent.

Poor Frank Miller.

Although he was rightfully billed as “co-director” of Sin City and would get the reverential treatment he deserved from the actors, producers, directors and critics that he definitely deserved in the wake of the direct translation of City and the less literal adaptation of 300 (which was filtered through the directorial sense of Zack Snyder), anyone with a sense of history and an understanding of Mr. Miller’s ambitions could see that he was chomping at the bit to get the training wheels off… to take a shot at writing and directing his own movie.

Poor Frank Miller.

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Media Madness features reviews and rambles about comics, cartoons and their interactions in and with related media.

by Matt. Murray

It’s some point after Monday, March 9th, 2009.  12:00 PM. You are reading this post.

It’s Wednesday, February 25th, 2009.  2:29PM. I have just purchased my ticket for Watchmen: The IMAX Experience via Fandango. Most of the weekend’s screenings have already sold out and the first available show is on Sunday March 8th, 2009 at 2:00 PM.

It’s Wednesday, March 4th, 2009.  12:00PM. I am walking out of Best Buy, having just bought a copy of Warner Premiere’s Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic.

It’s Monday, February 23rd, 2009. Wired publishes an interview with Watchmen writer Alan Moore in which he states:

If a thing works well in one medium, in the medium that it has been designed to work in, then the only possible point for wanting to realize it on “multiple platforms,” as they say these days, is to make a lot of money out of it. There is no consideration for the integrity of the work, which is rather the only thing as far as I’m concerned.

It’s Friday, March 6th, 2009.  4:00PM. I have just started to write this post.

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