Fox to reboot Fantastic Four

Time was a reboot used to mean a second shot at a failed franchise - a chance to put things right a la Hulk. So what exactly was wrong with Fantastic Four's $600 million plus box-office takings first time around?

Review: X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Straight off the bat: this movie features more shots of muscle-bound men looking up at the camera and yelling “RAAWWWRGH!” than any other I can remember. It's the shoutiest film of the year: guaranteed. But in the X-Men Origins universe, cursing skywards is short-hand for tragedy – it's emotion, spelled out in capital letters in...

Review: Watchmen

Dear Alan Moore, Hi. How are you? We hope Northampton is nice this time of year. I mean, obviously it's not, but unlike Zack Snyder, at least we're aware that it isn't in London. In fact, that Snyder fellow is the reason we're writing to you. We're sure you're aware his adaptation of your timeless graphic novel Watchmen is ab...

Review: Push

Push is a sign of things to come. Licensed comic book movies have made more than a bajillion dollars since Spidey swang back into town, so it's only natural that movie studios will want to continue this trend, without having to send wheelbarrows of money to Marvel or DC. This means they'll have to come up with original IP, whi...

Review: The Spirit

There's no question Frank Miller's graphic novel Sin City – and the subsequent Robert Rodriguez movie adaptation – glorified violence. In Miller's own adaptation of Will Eisner's '40s superhero serial The Spirit, he's guilty of glorifying something else: tits. Rather than swing with Sam Raimi's light and frothy Spider-Man movies...

Review: Hancock

Holy shit, Batman! An original superhero story! No stigma attached; no fanboy preconceptions; no bitching about bad casting; no in-built audience to pander to. Just an honest to Zod, original idea for a film about a superhero that’s not ripped from the pages of a comic or a TV show or a website or a painting or a dirty limerick....

Review: The Incredible Hulk

It’s no real mystery that Ang Lee’s Hulk failed to set the box-office alight. What do you expect when you hire the director behind films like The Ice Storm and Sense And Sensibility to adapt a comic-book about a big green ball of rage? You get what you pay for. For Hulk 2.0, Marvel have realised just that, and in hiring the dire...

Review: Iron Man

There’s now a very clear sliding scale on which any new superhero movies must be placed before they’re pushed into production. At one end is the candy-coloured, day-glo fluff of the Fantastic Four, while at the other is the dark and brooding sincerity of Batman Begins. In other words, you’re either in it for the money, or you’r...

Review: Spider-Man 3

Spider-Man 3 is long. It’s very long. In fact, before going to see it, you might want to check what time it finishes, because if you’re anything like me (i.e. a dunce) and don’t check the train times, you might end up stranded outside your local Odeon at 1am with no buses in sight and a minicab that’s destined to eternally be ...

Review: Ghost Rider

“Why doesn’t the water put out his flames?” For a film about a man who becomes the Devil’s own bounty hunter, complete with a flaming skull for a head and a pimped out motorbike, it’s not perhaps the most pertinent question for the girlfriend to ask, but ask she did. The answer is because Ghost Rider is a comic-book movie, a...