Modern Movie Marvels = Marvel Movies

I don't attend the picture show all that often, but perused the latest fare in anticipation of a leisure weekend at the apartment in the city.

I noticed that Resident Evil has a sequel out, Apocalypse. And this is not the only movie based on a video game. The two Tomb Raider movies and Mortal Combat I knew off the top of my head. (I am not much of a video-gamer...) Even Alien vs. Predator, both originally movie franchises made it's debut in the video-game arena before coming to the big screen last month.

The other 'new' idea is movies based on comic-book characters. X-Men, Spiderman, Hell-Boy, Punisher, League of Extraordinary Gentleman, the list goes on and on. This is nothing new, Batman and Superman before it were popular fodder for live-action versions.

In a way, both of these make sense to me. Both are simpler plots and both already use a visual-medium to tell there story. They translate well to the big-screen.

More often than not, Hollywood has no original ideas anymore. I like action-films and re-makes of old TV shows are OK (I am watching the movie version of SWAT as I write this...) but re-makes of TV or movies seems to be most of what is offered.

I have long maintained that full length Novels never translate to the Silver Screen intact. Too much goes on in a good novel to do it justice in the typical time-frame of modern public. (Peter Jackson's epics not-withstanding. And even as long as these were, they still left out huge chunks of Tolkein's master-work.)

It's the most common complaint. Of COURSE the movie isn't like the book. Would you really have sat there for five hours to see the entire thing? Could you?

I am also no longer a reader of Graphic Novels, and wonder how these translate.

I do still stop by the rack when I am perusing the other periodicals at the local book emporium.

There are certainly ample ideas, for the enterprising producer...