Masked Anti-Hero's blog post inspired me to leave a comment.... That comment ended up being a solid 700 words long, so... I decided to do this with it. I decided to make a blog post! So here's my own personal Top 5 Superhero Films Of The Decade; I hope you enjoy these picks.

 

5. 'Hellboy'

Really had a lot of fun with this movie. It's perfectly paced and incredibly well-executed on both an acting and directing stage. Ron Perlman is wonderful as Hellboy and the supporting cast backing him are all extremely likable and/or relateable; Jeffrey Tambor has a somewhat generic role as a "big head guy" who is always looking to criticize the hero in someway, but he still has a likable charm that makes his character a pleasure to watch and he obviously had fun with the role. I actually consider this to be one of the most underrated movies of all-time, as many consider it to have had "more potential than it showed". I disagree highly; 'Hellboy' is a lot of fun.

 

4. 'Unbreakable'

Definitely agree with you on your #1 pick (at one point in time it WOULD HAVE been in my Top 10 Of The Decade list). 'Unbreakable' is my kind of film because I love films that take their time to build up an idea in your head. It's slow-moving and yet it's well-paced that you can remain on the edge of your seat through some of the slow dialogue exchanges. I think it's Bruce Willis' best role to date as a simple man with an extraordinary gift. The movie also has one of the best scenes of heroism I've ever seen in a movie when Willis finally embraces the hero within him. The score in the scene is so magnificent that it makes you smile and wonder "what if someone was unbreakable"? Terrific movie.

 

3. 'The Incredibles'

Easily Pixar's best animated film to date... and that's saying a lot.

 

2. 'Iron Man'

I was in awe of 'Iron Man'. I love simplicity in a movie, and I've always loved Favreau for making seemingly complex ideas simple enough that you can have fun with them (take for instance 'Elf' or 'Zathura'), and 'Iron Man' is easily my favorite comic-book movie of the decade. Where comic-book/superhero movies often take themselves too seriously ('The Dark Knight'), 'Iron Man' has a nice diversity between tension and fun (comedy and action, romance and dialogue, etc.).

 

[This is why I love that you had 'Batman Begins' rank over 'The Dark Knight'.] Movies that take themselves too seriously make an observer stop and look at them to uncover all of the flaws [in 'The Dark Knight's case, it's flaws were that it was meandering, had that terrible "two ferry sequence" and Bale's obnoxiously overblown growls as The Caped Crusader]. I'm an observer, and everything I observed, from 'Iron Man', was a pleasure. I had a really great time at the movies that day.

 

1. 'The Iron Giant'

That's right. 'The Iron Giant' is the #1 superhero movie I've ever seen. I think that this film is sorely overlooked by many as not being a superhero movie, but a movie for kids that grown-ups can enjoy as well. The Giant himself (voiced by Vin Diesel) lands with a splash down to Earth and it becomes quite clear, later in the movie, that he was not made for good (but it is debatable that maybe he was). At the site of a gun, the "giant... metal monster" himself turns into one and willing annihilates those that pose a threat to him. But, with a bump on his head and a good child friend named Hogarth Hughes, the Giant aspires to be a hero and that's where this wonderfully animated origin story unfolds.

 

There's something powerful about watching (essentially) an inanimate object find its place in the world and make a difference for all us little people. Machines are higher up than we are because they are beginning to become more and more "perfect". We watch a film like 'Terminator 2' and we understand what bad could come if we let such a thing happen. But, with 'The Iron Giant', we see both sides. 'The Iron Giant' is more than a "movie for all ages", it's a movie for the ages and it's one of the best movies I've ever seen. Period.