1. Fantastic Four
A friend of my brother-in-law's bought a bootleg DVD of the 2005 'Fantastic Four' overseas and was quite disappointed to bring it home and find out it was the unreleased 1994 film of the same title wrapped in the newer, flashier film's artwork. He gave it to my brother-in-law who gave it to me and now I've watched it twice. To be honest I don't really care that much for superhero movies but this movie is pretty fun. It is definitely a bad movie, but they put a lot of effort into it for it to be swept under the rug before getting a proper release. From what I understand, it was made for a low to modest budget and they were prepared for a big release and then someone made the decision to shelf the movie. I guess the producer or whoever owned the rights never actually planned to release it but they wanted to keep the rights so they made a film that would never be seen and then a few years later bootlegged copies started showing up around the world.Anyway, it is a fairly straightforward comic book movie - some scientists have an accident that gives them powers and they have to fight a bunch of bad guys. There are some cool effects, like the costume for the Thing and some interesting characters, like a little leprechaun guy that steals jewels. It is by no means a good movie, but I'd say it is probably just as entertaining as most of the other comic movies made today.
2. The Death Of "Superman Lives": What Happened?
'The Death Of "Superman Lives": What Happened?' was not a bad movie at all. It was a fascinating documentary about the unreleased Tim Burton film starring Nicolas Cage. Back in the 90's, after Tim Burton revolutionized the superhero movie format with his 'Batman' movies, he was picked to direct a Superman movie that would be a lot darker than the Richard Donner 'Superman' franchise. After a legal battles and clashing egos tore that project to shreds, all that was left was curious pictures of Nicolas Cage in a weird Superman costume and some crazy rumors about what happened. All of the production stills and notes and drawings looked amazing, and I think this could have been a great movie if they had went with it. Unfortunately, the world will never know.
3. Flash Gordon
'Flash Gordon' is a classic. It is a campy throwback to 60's style superhero shows. It stars Sam Jones as "Flash", a football player whose plane gets hit by a meteor causing him to crash land on the property of a scientist who built a spaceship to investigate why the moon is getting closer to the earth. Flash ends up boarding the ship and flying to the planet Mongo where he is captured by the evil Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow). Chaos ensues and it is up to Flash to save the world. At the end of the movie they put a question mark after 'The End', indicating there'd be a sequel. While there was never a direct sequel, it did spawn a porn parody, 'Flesh Gordon' which actually did get a sequel, 'Flesh Gordon Meets The Cosmic Cheerleaders'. Supposedly a remake or reboot of 'Flash Gordon' is in the works now.
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