Keeping it short as Superman II just edges out its predecessor I will tell you exactly why… Terence Stamp as General Zod. He was evil incarnate and I loved him for it.
This will probably be my one choice disputed by most as the 2005 film adaptation of “Hellblazer” didn’t exactly blow the doors off at the box-office, but I loved every dark and moody moment of it. I will say, if this were a perfect world and I could change one thing about this film, I would axe the stupid part where Constantine is floating away and flips the bird. The movie wasn’t that kind of a tongue-in-cheek film and I thought that part pretty much blew, but what came before and after was truly amazing in my opinion.
Dark and moody is going to become the theme of my top four, and The Crow is certainly no exception. I was looking around to see other opinions on this film, including its 86% rating at RottenTomatoes, I found this synopsis over at IMDb:
A rocker, with a perfect life comes home to a horrible situation. His wife is being raped. He tries to intervene and gets stabbed and shot, then thrown out the window. A crow carries his spirit and he comes back to kill everyone.
Simple and to the point. The only thing, for how simple this story is, there is equally beauty and menace in its execution. It truly is one of the greats and it is unfortunate it spawned such awful sequels.
I think the Nightcrawler attack at the beginning of X-Men 2 just may be the absolute best superhero moment ever “filmed.” The beginning of a movie is supposed to grab the audience and never let them go and this opening absolutely strangles the audience to the point that it almost doesn’t matter what comes next… you are gonna like it. Too bad Nightcrawler wasn’t invited back for the tedious third film and Bryan Singer went on to make the endlessly boring Superman Returns. At least we have X2 to look back on fondly.
