The Science Fiction Horror and Fantasy Film Review
Any story that has a hero or heroine usually has a villain of some type. There are many memorable examples of these but not all villains are Super-Villains. Super-Villains are regular villains turned up to 15 on the dial.
Super-Villains are not just criminal masterminds but are criminal geniuses. They will frequently run empires of crime, plan world domination plots, harness Advanced Weaponry and secrets of super-science or even are Mad Scientists. They can have Hypnotism and Mind Control abilities and in Superhero Films they almost invariably have superpowers. They will often wear a costume or hide their identity behind a mask and in comic-book are often known by some motif or take a title. They are sometimes disfigured or mutated and driven by a desire for Revenge.
The first Super-Villain was Professor Moriarty in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Pulp fiction was alive with evil masterminds like the Chinese super-villain Fu Manchu or silent cinema’s Dr Mabuse. More exotic super-villains featuring some costuming quirk or facial deformity appeared in the Dick Tracy comic-books and this idea was taken up soon after by the Batman comic-book to memorable effect. The comic-book has taken to the super-villain like no other and created a lengthy line of super-powered villains
Super-villains sporadically appeared in the Serials of the 1930s and 40s and in the superhero tv series of the 1950s, although most of these were just mundane criminals. The first major screen super-villains were the nemeses fought by James Bond in the Spy Films of the 1960s and the colourful pantheon of over-acting guest stars on tv’s Batman (1966-8).
The comic-book super-villain gained strength with the maturation of the superhero film in the 1970s and 80s and have regularly appeared on screen since. By the 2000s and 10s, we had even seen a number of films devoted to the villains alone with The Joker, Cat Woman, Harley Quinn and Venom all getting standalone works. There have even been works about super-villain teams like Suicide Squad, not to mention spoof efforts like the Despicable Me films.
Tim Burton borrows from the dark brooding graphic novels of the era and gives us a beautiful, stunningly designed film that digs deep into the psychological recesses of the masks and funny faces
A film spinoff from the popular 1960s Batman tv show starring Adam West. At half-an-hour twice a week, the series was an enjoyable piece of surrealistic zaniness but its appeals seem stretched at feature-length
Batman’s first screen appearance in a fifteen-chapter serial. This is a dull, impoverished adaptation, which sees Batman and Robin rewritten in the service of the US government fighting a Japanese invasion force
A real oddity among the Batman animated films – one where the basics of the Batman mythos are translated into Aztec culture at the time of the arrival of the Conquistadors
Marvel’s third Avengers film, uniting almost every superhero under their roof, resulting in some thirty characters on screen and a plot that becomes a blur of changing locations and superheroic punch-ups
Marvel conclude the cliffhanger they left Avengers: Infinity War on and offer up a bigger-than-big line-up, overspilling with just about every MCU character to ever appear on screen up to that point
The first Avengers film came with a massive anticipation in seeing the characters come together and the snappiness of their interplay; here this seems more flat, while the rest is overrun by wall-to-wall action
The Avengers was the height of 1960s chic. Amid the 90s/00s fad for big screen remakes of tv shows, this was a miscalculated disaster that gets everything about the original wrong from the casting to the droll humour
The second of the Austin Powers films is less sharp in its parody of the James Bond film and more focused on a series of broad scatological gags. Mike Myers owns the show in a trio of entertainingly gregarious performances
The first of Mike Myers’ Austin Powers films is at times extremely silly and scatological but does offer a knowing and witty parody of the James Bond films. The result became a cult phenomenon
Third of the Austin Powers films and the point where the amusements of the other films topples over into a pandering indulgence to Mike Myers’ mugging, which is allowed to overtake the whole show
This fifteen chapter serial was the second ever Superman film. It is a vigorously entertaining run through the comic’s basics and features the first screen appearance of Lex Luthor
Adaptation of the popular Young Adult series about a twelve-year-old super-villain and his adventures with assorted magical creatures. Audiences hated this but I though it overspilled with a madcap creativity
An interestingly odd film where a videographer looking for a story investigates homeless man Joe Manganiello’s claims to being a superhero, which may or may not be true
The sequel to the DCEU’s Aquaman reaches for epic effects spectacle, although the character of Aquaman undergoes a substantial shift and is now given more of a comedy playing
The third of the films devoted to Marvel’s miniature superhero. This ventures into multiverse themes works well when it comes to introducing the MCU’s big new super-villain who ended up never happening
One of the best among the modern Marvel Comics screen adaptations. All involved are at the absolute peak of their game and the balance of superheroic action, humour and tragedy makes you cheer at how well they get it right
The reasoning behind rebooting the Spider-Man franchise after ten years and only three films is a puzzle. That said, this offers an edgier origin story than Sam Raimi’s take and Andrew Garfield makes for a fine Spider-Man
Droll, elegant camp masterpiece with Vincent Price giving the best performance of his life as a deformed madman employing the Biblical Plagues of Egypt as a motif to take revenge against the surgeons who killed his wife