Top Five Friday (No. 1)

Top Five Friday
-Number 1 (One)-
Top Five Comic Book Movies

The inspiration for what I hope will be a recurring feature is the movie High Fidelity, which if you haven't seen it yet, you should go see right now before reading this blog. Watching that movie is not a requirement for reading my blog, but it is definitely one of those movies where you will be a lesser person for not having seen it. This is a movie that sadly many people are not going to be familiar with, so if you're still reading this (if you haven't rushed out to go rent High Fidelity from your local video rental store or called to borrow it from a friend who is obviously cooler than you), I'll try not to ruin anything for you.

However, part of the film does revolve around "Top Five" lists, as the main characters (including John Cusack and Jack Black), frequently fill up their time making top five lists. Such top five lists mentioned in the film would be "Top Five Musical Crimes Perpetrated by Stevie Wonder in the 80's and 90's" or "Top Five Songs To Play On A Monday Morning". Given that the main characters worked in a record store, inevitably, many of the top five lists revolved around music. As a big fan of music, I will certainly be putting some musical top five lists and more music features on the blog, but for now, I'm going to continue with the current theme of movies based on comic books or graphic novels.

If you've been following my blog for my first few posts, then my inaugural Top Five List here will come as no surprise as I'm covering my current Top Five Comic Book Movies Of All Time. This was a hard list to come up with as many deserving films were unable to make the top five but in the end, I believe that this is a definitely worthy list to comprise my favorites. Now, just bear in mind, that this is simply my current list of favorites and I reserve the right to change this list as new superhero films come out. In fact, given the current upcoming film slate regarding movies based on comic books, I fully expect there to be some changes on the list, but for now and the foreseeable future...

-Top Five Comic Book Films-

1. The Dark Knight
"Out of the darkness...there comes the Knight."
This is the reigning champ and the first film here to receive the coveted "High Five" perfect ranking. While it won't be the last, it will take a very special film to knock Batman off the top of the list. Batman soars over the competition as it's a movie that had so many classic moments from beginning to end. In fact, there could be a top five list of classic moments from that movie alone. So far, I've watched The Dark Knight countless times and I've never, never failed to enjoy it yet. For the moment, simply untouchable here at the top.

2. Spider-Man
"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility"
Spider-Man earns his position as the second best comic book film adaptation on the sheer fun factor of the movie alone. That, along with the fact that he is my favorite comic book character ever (a list for another time), certainly helps him swing above the rest. It's a great film that really shows off everything that is great about heroes. I can't say enough good things about Spider-Man.

3. Watchmen
"Who Watches The Watchmen?"
This earns the third spot on the list due to the epic scope of the moment, the excellent strength of the source material and the way that they adapted what I thought was going to be impossible for the big screen. Condensing the novel into such a fantastic and entertaining moment earns it a great deal of praise from me. As I've mentioned before, everybody needs to watch the Watchmen - at least once, if not more.

4. X-Men
"Join the Evolution."
I really wish that I could've ranked X-Men higher, but make no mistake about it, X-Men is still obviously a stellar film. The tagline for the film is exactly correct as this was definitely the evolution of superhero movies into the new millenium. We owe a huge debt of thanks to this film for saving the genre and resurrecting it like the proverbial Phoenix. Without X-Men, I'm not sure there would be any of those other movies on the list. Thank you, X-Men. Thank you.

5. Iron Man
"Heroes Aren't Born, They're Built"
It's a credit to the director, Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr., who gave perhaps what is the best performance in any superhero movie to date, that they have managed to take what was a character not recognizable to the general public and turn him into one of the biggest known comic book franchises yet. Managing to be both hilarious and heroic, Iron Man is one of the best entries in the genre to date. Definitely built to last.

I know that this was the first maiden voyage of Top Five Fridays and I know I played it safe. However, I wanted to kick it off right as we've explored top five comic book movies that worked and are, in my humble opinion, the standard bearers for the genre. Not to say that these are the only ones worth watching. There are so many others that are great films in their own right, but as it goes with these lists, there can be only five. Hopefully you enjoyed this first of what I hope will be many Top Five Fridays.

No matter what though, just enjoy the weekend and stay classy.