I’m only dealing with adaptations of comics, so “The Greatest American Hero” doesn’t count, and I’m not discussing cartoons or we’ll be here all day.
There were a bunch of super-hero serials (Batman, Superman, Captain America(?), Captain Marvel(?) ) from the '40s that I don’t remember well enough to review (Superman vs The Mole Men was good. I remember that much) and honestly, I don’t remember enough about the Superman TV show from the '50s to judge it fairly.
Starting with the '60s, we have the Adam West Batman. I don’t really count that as an adaptation, since it was nothing like the comic. For what it was, it was a lot of really stupid fun, but it wasn’t “Batman” (even the Batman of the time, which was Julie Schwartz and Carmine Infantino’s “New Look” Batman who was a super-detective)
The '70s:
The Hulk: Little House on the Atomic Prarie. Touched By A Gamma Bomb. Yuk. Crappy maudlin plots and (with the exception of the incomparable Bill Bixby) ungodly bad acting. Plus it was overkill. You really don’t need the Hulk to deal with wife-beaters
Spider-Man: Um…they didn’t get the costume right, he threw nets, not webbing and same flaws as The Hulk. No action.
Dr Strange: (Made for TV one-shot) Actually damned good. They f*ed up the origin, but it wasn’t bad at all. Except for the bad '70s hair.
Shazam!: Live action glurge about a teenage Billy Batson in a Winnebago with an old guy helping other teens solve their problems. Glurge. Serious glurge.
Wonder Woman: Lynda Carter! Yowza. IMO, the best of the made-for-TV stuff in the '70s. Action/adventure with very little treacle. Plus Lynda Carter! Yowza!
The only super hero movies I can think of from the '70s are the Superman movies. Even though they continued into the '80s, I’m gonna do 'em in a batch:
Superman 1: Chris Reeve was Superman, but more importantly was Clark Kent. Margo Kidder wasn’t Lois so much, but she was OK. Unfortunately, whazzhisname as Lex was horrible as Lex (great actor, badly miscast. Same with Marlon Brando as Jor-El). He’s supposed to be smart, not a two-bit conman. Some of the bits were great (The phonebooth gag), but others (Lois’s interminable “Ode-To-A-Tree” reading of the “Can you read my mind” song) just didn’t work. And there really wasn’t a plot, just a bunch of stuff that happened. And what plot there was made little sense. (Why does turning the earth backwards reverse time as opposed to causing massive earthquakes?). The pacing was terrible and there was never any real feeling of menace/tension/anything. Despite all it’s flaws though, it did have a certain raw charm. So it worked on at least one level. (and I did* believe a man could fly. )
Superman 2: The best of the lot. Bad guys, romance, adventure: an actual plot (with rising action, a climax, etc. as opposed to just a bunch of stuff that happens) good stuff. I could’ve done without the amnesia kiss at the end, but :: shrugs :: at least there was a coherent story.
Superman 3: Bad. Richard Pryor didn’t work, The story was dumb and Chris Reeve was looking tired/bored.
Superman 4: Bad beyond comprehension. Manos: The Hands of Fate bad. Gibberish plot. Horrible acting, preachy STUPID message (“Yes. Little Timmy. I WILL take everyone’s nuclear weapons away. However, the biological and chemical weapons are OK for them to have.”). And any time the writers resort to giving a hero a new power to get him out of a fix, you know you’re in trouble (Superman gained “Rebuild the Great Wall of China-vision”)
The '80s
Marvel had a couple of apparently horrible movies that I never saw, but since they were “Five years in the making, five seconds in the theater” types they were most likely as bad as their rep suggests…FTR, they were Captain America and The Punisher.
There was also a Fantastic Four movie made that never got released. I got to see a bootleg of it and…y’know? It was cheesy, the special effects were so-so and the acting ranged ran the gamut from A to B, but…it had a sense of fun and excitement to it that redeemed it from a lot of flaws. Marvel will never let it be released, but I’d like to own a copy. It was fun.
There were a couple of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies that I never saw but were apparently not bad. (The tech from the Turtles movies was used in the Fantastic Four movie to make the Thing’s head)
The Batman Movies:
I only saw the first three, and for me the problem with all of 'em is that they weren’t Batman movies, they were Batman’s villians movies. They were also a triumph of style over substance: Burton made 'em look great, but…there just wasn’t much there.
Batman 1: Hated the change in the origin (pre-Joker kills the Waynes) a lot, Nicholson was great as the Joker, Batman was ok,but not very interesting.
Batman 2: Divito was atrocious as the Penguin, Pfieffer was OK as the Catwoman, the plot was iffy at best (though there was some great imagry) and Batman was ok, if not very interesting.
Batman 3 was just bad, Jim Carrey was horrible as the Riddler and I don’t even remember who all the other villans were (Two Face and someone else?) Batman was less than OK, but not interesting at all and the only thing I remember about Robin is wondering why his body-armor had nipples. I rather thought it shouldn’t.
I’ve heard that Batman 4 rivals Superman 4 for stupidity.
The '90s.
The Mask: Fantastic adaptation of the comic (although the Mask persona was toned WAAAAAY down for the movie). Excellent acting, good special effects, coherent plot. 'nuff said, true believer!
There was a made-for-tv Generation X movie that (IIRC) wasn’t bad at all. But I don’t remember it all that well.
X-Men: Good: solid plot, competent acting, decent action sequences. It’s big flaw is there were too many characters so we never got to know any of 'em. Still, worthwhile.
Spider-Man: Wonderful. A near-perfect movie, super-hero or otherwise. Some people were bothered by the CGI. I wasn’t. The CGI Spider-Man had exactly the skittery, slightly too fast sort of motion that I’ve always imagined Spider-Man (esp. Ditko’s) should have. Toby Maguire was great as Peter (more Romita’s than Ditko’s but that’s ok!) and the scene where he’s stopping all the crooks was fantastic. I believed a man could web-sling. Only real flaw was that Green Goblin’s costume looked dumb. I’ve heard that Rami said that a rubber mask like Norman wore in the comics looked even worse than the “Power-Rangers” mask. And whoever played Jonah stole the show. Prob. the best super-hero movie to date.
I’m probably missing some, but that’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Thoughts/opinions?
Fenris