There are two kinds of superhero movies: those that successfully integrate the adolescent wonder of physical-law defiance with the (slightly) more grown-up wonder of human emotions, and those that don't. A better way of saying this might be that there are two kinds of superhero movies: Richard Donner's Superman and everything else. (Okay, and maybe the X-Men films, too, but that's all, really.)

Every other comics-hero-inspired movie -- and there have been many and will be many more before Hollywood moves on to its next big groupthink innovation -- takes its charter either from Tim Burton's horrible Batman, Joel Schumacher's even worse Batmans, or Sam Raimi's indefensible Spider-man, offering camp sensibilities in place of comics' convictions, rank sentimentality in place of comics' heart, and digital sleight-of-hand in place of comics' graphic ambition. Donner's Superman remains the only satisfying superhero movie because it's the only one that fully surrenders to the mythic character that gives (non-underground) comics an excuse to exist. Granted, the iconography in question was a lot friendlier and more familiar to a wide audience than that of, say, Hellboy (which I promise to talk about, eventually), but the fact remains that Donner's film -- written by Mario "Godfather" Puzo, of all people -- positively swoons with mythos, and with the human/superhuman figures whose emotional entanglements dot the mythic landscape. Maybe it was their background in advertising and pulpy ethnic melodrama, but the filmmakers did not waste one frame pretending they weren't making a movie about a dude in a leotard who came from space, or trying to have anything both ways.

To put it bluntly: Donner and Puzo bought the bullshit. And to make a good superhero movie, you are absolutely required to buy it.

(Of course, Superman is also the only one of these films with a decent villain, in the form of Gene Hackman, whose off-the-rails brilliant performance as Lex Luthor more or less invented a whole school of postmodern acting... but let's leave that for now.)

The basic conceit of every superhero comic is that no matter how outlandish or implausible, all people, creatures, powers, and stories are equally credible. Man who can fly? Sure. Man with razor claws that shoot out of his knuckles? Of course. Massive red demon transported to Earth by Nazi black magicians but captured in infancy by U.S. Marines and raised as a crime-fighter? Natch. From there, the challenge of investing these inventions with essentially human characteristics alongside their epic burdens and responsibilities has kept the mainstream comics industry churning for three-quarters of a century, while most of the world has remained happily oblivious to its existence. I don't want to get into the whole thing of talking smack about comics nerds, because I most definitely was one, but there are recognizable root causes for why these publications are on the margins of popular culture. (I will posit, however, that words like "Hellboy" are key factors.)

The thing is, though I certainly would never have admitted it when I was younger (how much younger is for me to know), it's all bullshit. Highly inventive, artful, weird, beautiful even, but bullshit, categorically, undeniably. There are no men made of rocks. There are no adamantium claws. That's just bullshit. And bullshit is not for everybody. I, however, like it. The thing I keep recognizing as the parade of superhero movies marches on is that my willingness, my desire, even, to buy it -- I am, after all, in the movie theater -- keeps running aground of the incompetence, cynicism, and general tin ear of the people charged with bringing these heroes to the screen.

It's frustrating, as a movie viewer with superhero comics in his literal and figurative closets, to see the degree to which Hollywood has desecrated the form by embracing it. I can remember a time when nothing would have pleased me more than to see Marvel and DC's pantries get raided by film studios eager to spend as much money as possible. But with the notable exception of Bryan Singer's topnotch X-Men films (and possibly Ang Lee's perversely interesting Hulk failure), all the major studio adaptations of comics have been exercises in shying away from the true nature of the iconography they're cannibalizing. Nobody seems to buy the bullshit. They either try to dress it up as profound (Hulk), tart it up as young and hip (Daredevil), send it up as camp (Batman), or screw it up as much as possible (Spider-man). Worse than all of these, though, was M. Night Shyamalan's unbearable Unbreakable, an exercise in superhero existentialism that not only bought the bullshit, but was convinced that the it had Biblical gravitas. What Singer's films proved, like Donner's before them, was that by buying the bullshit and surrendering to both its charms and limitations, they helped transform it into something meaningful. Look, we all know that no one flies, but everyone wants to, and most of us will settle for seeing it. And almost anyone, if pressed, can admit that genetic mutation is a clumsy, childish metaphor. But that doesn't mean it's not useful. Metaphors aren't ideas, they're just vessels. Their operation, their very existence, requires faith. And faith is what is most lacking in the superhero movies of recent years. Not the faith of audiences to suspend their disbeliefs, but the faith of studios, producers, and filmmakers to suspend theirs.

The careful reader will have undoubtedly noticed by now that there has been no substantive mention in this article of Hellboy, the very film that occasioned it. There's a reason. Hellboy features the single best lead-character makeup job I've ever seen in a comics-based movie. It boasts one startlingly good special effect involving fire, and a production design that faithfully captures the look of the comic itself. Also, the performances of Ron Perlman, John Hurt, Selma Blair, and Jeffrey Tambor are skillful. These are the only recommendations I can make for this movie, which in all other ways -- incoherent story, uncertain tone, unconvincing action, insincere sentimentality -- is just bullshit. Excelsior!

Michael Almereyda's new adaptation of Hamlet is a thrilling surprise, a contemporary reading of the play that comes closer to tapping its potential as a paradigm for human conflict than any version on film. Text is cut, liberties are taken, but this is no revision. The deft intrusions of contemporary life--Claudius' ghost appears on a security camera; the "what a piece of work is man" speech is interrupted by a cell phone; "to be or not to be" is spoken in a Blockbuster Video store where Hamlet is surrounded by placards reading "ACTION"--play not as clever-clever transpositions, but as perfect illustrations of the play's immortal truth and infinite mutability.

Impressed as I was by the film, when I sat down with Almereyda and star Ethan Hawke, I still couldn't shake the question that arose the first time I heard of the new film's existence: "Why?" Why Hamlet? Why now? Why again?

Did the impulse to make the film come from the play itself, or were you looking to explore certain ideas about the culture -- individuals vs. corporations, for example -- and realized, "Oh, of course, Hamlet!"

Michael: The first impulse was to work with Shakespeare, and then, almost reluctantly, I came around to the feeling that the most exciting and available, charged adaptation I could come up with was Hamlet -- even though it had been done so many times, and seemingly to death. Everything in the movie really does derive from the reading of the play, thinking about the tradition of it, and thinking about how contemporary reality refracts or reflects what's in Shakespeare's plays. It's an attempt at Hamlet; it doesn't pretend to be definitive. But it's heartfelt and it does have things that are new. And it was as intimate and urgent as we could make it.

Shakespeare adaptations always tread the line between defending the sanctity of the language and modernizing the context to keep audiences interested. Yours feels inherently contemporary, not just like a novelty update.

Michael: Even the archaic language feels contemporary. Four-hundred-year-old text sounds very alive. That's just proof of how great Shakespeare is.

Ethan: It's clear in the movie, this idea of feeling oppressed by the weight of a society entirely oriented on making money, like you might feel oppressed by a dictator or a king. Hamlet's last line, "The rest is silence," comes from somebody that's been seeking some kind of peace, some kind of authenticity, and not being able to find it. And [since the film is] set in this modern world -- we're inundated with advertising, with sounds and noise of all kinds. I think you get that all from the play, but we have them be modern noises.

Hamlet's struggle in your film is primal and real, but not so vaunted that he's unassailable as a character. I mean, I don't think anyone would say he's a coward...

Michael: Well, I think a lot of people would say that, but whenever you say that, you say more about yourself than you do about Hamlet. An essay by a guy named Harold Goddard pointed out that there's nowhere in Shakespeare that you can see that murder is good. Killing never leads to anything good. Shakespeare never endorsed murder. So he played devil's advocate in this play by making the whole plot-pivot be this character's inability to kill, and playing into the audience's impatient bloodlust.

But if the ghost is the projection of the vengeful side of himself, and the play is the battleground of these two warring Hamlets, the frustration, I think, isn't that he doesn't kill Claudius, but that he can't resolve this struggle within himself.

Ethan: [Not acting] is his most frustrating quality. But it's actually in many ways, really admirable. He doesn't want to kill this guy. It's what's really beautiful about the guy that gets destroyed.

Michael: But I think it's a false hypothesis to say that Hamlet is weak, Hamlet is cowardly, that he should kill Claudius. In fact, he's justified to resist. Vengeance is not a good thing. Murder is not a good thing.