Superman: The Movie, X-Men and the Batman Begins series are all fantastic too, but they're more examples of taking the characters and revolutionizing them and doing great things rather than translating comicbooks into film.
I prefer this idea, personally because it gives more meaning to the film and gives more of a point to its existence. A Batman movie should be made because there is a specific story and a way of telling it that should be done on the silver screen rather than in a comic book and the same applies vice versa. I think superhero movies should be less of a greatest-hits celebration and should strive to just try and tell their own good stories that do justice to the characters. Spider-Man was a pretty good superhero movie, but there really weren't any innovative ideas in it about the character. It was all stuff that had been there more or less from the beginning and while it worked on screen, it wasn't really anything all that new to fans.
When I read the novelisation originally, I actually remember thinking "That's it?!" in the sense that nothing really spectacular happens in the film other than some cool webswinging scenes. The actual story is pretty simplistic when you think about it.
My favourite comic book movie is still Batman Begins. While The Dark Knight is easily a superior sequel, it's more of an ensemble drama rather than a story centred around the title character. Batman Begins gives more focus to Batman himself and more than any other Batman movie, it's the movie that I've always wanted to see and seeing it for the first time is still easily the best cinema experience of my life.
I also think Christopher Nolan's Batman movies are the best comic book movies because of the way they incorporate nods to the comics. There's no stupid in-jokes like those pointless SHIELD jokes in Iron Man and the nods are subtle and not spelled out for the viewers (like Stan Lee's face taking up the entire shot in The Incredible Hulk). Things like Batman being piled on by zombie-fear-gas-people and using his grappling gun to escape (a nod to Nothing To Fear, an episode of the animated series) and the Joker setting fire to a pile of mob-money (which Batman and Dent did in Long Halloween) are excellent methods of incorporating comic book elements in a clever, sophisticated manner.
A lot of people say this...... I don't see it. There were a few good one-liners, and too many would've been overkill to a mainstream audience. I think they did fine.
On top of that, they and Maguire still did that side of Spider-Man proud in the movie-videogames, so I think limiting in the movies was a considered decision.
It wasn't just his 'sarcastic streak' that Pete didn't have in the movies. His whole personality was just off, completely. Peter is supposed to be talkative to the point of almost being irritating, not dopey-mysterious with a look on his face that looks like he's constantly away with the fairies.
A big part of my enjoyment of Spider-Man, his personality and his world is that it's completely dynamic and never really stands still. There's constantly someone talking, or doing something and there's never a dull moment. The stories are always filled with characters, all of whom have something to contribute to the plot (or the plot of a later story) in some way. The Spider-Man movies just
didn't have this. They moved at too respectable a pace and they always revolved around four or five people and the plot was always basically the same with something about tritium or alien goo thrown in for good measure, sometimes.