Men in Black (1997)
The Movie: Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones’ hit pairing as two agents for the titular organisation that polices alien visi🦩tors to Earth and keeps their presence a hidde🤡n from the general populace.
The film’s mixture of action and comedy spun out into two sequels, both continuing under Addams Family director Barry Sonnenfeld.
Based On: Lowell Cunningham’s Aircel Comics title began as a three-issue miniseries. The property was transferred first to Malibu Comics and then Marvel f꧒ollowing a string of buyouts.
Faithful To The Source Material? The film and comic differ sign⭕ificantly in tone, Sonnenfeld introducing light-hearted humour to the originally brutal and sinister organisation. The Men in Black’s remit was also narrowed from general paranormal phenomena (including demons, monsters and the undead) to solely e🐷xtraterrestrials.
Old Boy (2003)
The Movie: The second instalment in director Park Chan-wook’s Vengeance Trilogy is a brilliant if often 🥂excruciating experience, with a mix of both psychological and physical horror. For those who haven’t seen it yet, the less said, the better.
Spike Lee’s A🌱merican remake of the movie will arrive later in 2013 with Josh Brolin in the lead role.
Based On: Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi&rsquoℱ;s manga series r🔯an from 1996 to 1998, with its English language adaptation scooping an Eisner Award.
Faithful To The Source Material? Unusually, the more shocking elements of the film were actually absent from the original manga. While sharing the same premise, the comic serves as a mystery thriller with significantly less death and violence than the Old Boy movie.
The Losers (2010)
The Movie: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Chris Evans, Columbus Short and Óscar Jaenada star as a five-man special ops team out 𝔉to clear their names after their superior Max (Jason Patric) betrays them.
When Zoe Saldana’s Aisha off𒊎ers them a chance at redemption, chaos follows in a film that may be short on brains b✅ut delivers on fast-paced action.
Based On: Long-time comics collaboratoꦿrs Andy Diggle and Jock’s Vertigo series, which was itself 🎃loosely inspired by an older DC Comics war property of the same name.
Faithful To The Source Material? While superficially the same, the film diཧd abandon the simple sophistication of the comic for a more brash and silly plot about sound-based weapons called ‘snukes’.
Virus (1999)
The Movie: The single directorial outing for SFX man John Bruno starred Jamie Lee Curtis, William Baldwin and Donald Sutherland as the crew of a ship that stumbles upon a damaged Russian vessel that has been taken ꦡover by an alien consciousness that transforms humans into cyborgs.
They may be a reason why Bruno never ret♛urned for a follow-up p🧔roject.
Based On: The Chuck Pfarrer-written sto♎ry, which he originally intended for a movie before selling it to Dark Horse Comics in 1992 after deciding that curren🅰t special effects were not up to scratch.
Faithful To The Source Material? Largely faithful, although the Chinese ship was replace♛d w🙈ith a Russian one.
Red Sonja (1985)
The Movie: Brigitte Nielsen (better known as the former Mrs Sylvester Stallone) teamed with Arnold Schwarzenegger for this sword and sorcery flick. Severely inferior to Schwarzenegger’s original Conan film, the actoꦦr and sometime politician has joked that it is the worst m෴ovie he has ever made.
The movie has been accused of vilifying homosexuality with its vengeful lesbian villain, played by another Conan alumni Sandahl Bergman.
Based On: The Marvel Comics character created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith in 1973, loosely based on Conan creator Robert E Howardꦆ’s Red Sonya of Rogantino. The original Sonja has since been killed off and replace♌d by a successor and distant relative.
Faithful To The Source Material? The movie origin and gene𒁃ral characterisation of Red Sonja stuck relatively closely to comic, although her later adventures differed.
