Category IIA. Pleasing comic-book geeks with a big-screen adaptation is a formidable task, a struggle to balance a true-to-its-roots translation with all the trappings of a blockbuster. Take “Batman Begins,” for example: a realistic and gritty origin story, but a ridiculous runaway-train conclusion. Or “X-Men”: the tales may be epic, but they are chockful of cut corners and glaring errors, obviously because they were rushed to meet the release date.
(USA) Hopefully, Hollywood’s post-9/11 obsession with revenge flicks has reached its end with this picture. The need for some kind of payback has seen that vengeance spread throughout genres, in everything from grindhouse originals (Kill Bill) and comic-book flicks (Batman Begins) to blockbuster sequels (The Bourne Supremacy).
Category IIB. At first glance, Richard Shepard’s “The Hunting Party” appears to be a dire warning about the perils of what happens when war correspondents get bored. But by the end, it’s clearly more of an alarming indicator of what happens when film directors get bored. Bored, that is, of the chao
