Best Adaptations

Pre-sold properties, studios love 'em because they come with a built in audience. Best selling book? A good chunk of the people who read will go see the movie. Classic cartoon show? Folks who grew up loving it will see it for the nostalgia, and will probably bring their kids too. Comic book character? Well, you get the idea. Hollywood loves to adapt preexisting properties, but they don't always love to do it well, so I feel it should be celebrated when they do. Here's a list of adaptations that got it right, crafting entertaining, original stories that both honor and enrich the source material.

1. The Godfather
Just to get this one out of the way because we all know it has to be on here. Young filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola takes Mario Puzo's stunning and engrossing novel and adapts it into one of the greatest films of all time. Perfect casting, a smart script that knew what to keep and what to cut from the story of the book, and brilliant editing- the baptism scene intercut with the murders commissioned by Michael Corleone is still talked about to this day- make this the great film that it is. The key, though, is the exact replication of the tone of Puzo's book on screen, and that's what makes it a stellar adaptation.

2. American Psycho (2000)
Writer/director Mary Harron does the impossible and maintains the humor and satire in Brett Easton Ellis' masterpiece, without losing the shock and horror of the actions of the main character. While Batman-to-be, Christian Bale, brings Patrick Bateman to life flawlessly, capturing both the terrifying and pathetic traits of the character. Every scene in the movie is in the book, sometimes wildly out of order, but this seems to elevate the book by serving as an examination into its themes as a commentary on the 1980's and yuppie culture. Don't just stare at it, eat it.

3. The Dark Knight (2008)
The brothers Nolan take the Batman mythos and transport it into a world that is very much like our own, maintaining the core themes of the mythology and adding the impact of verisimilitude. What makes this such a great translation of the Batman universe, over everything else the movie gets right, is the relationship between Batman and The Joker. Two opposite sides of the same dark coin (yeah, that's a Two Face jab for those paying attention), one representing order by extraordinary mean, the other representing chaos by extraordinary means. The two can't exist without eachother, which is the tragedy for Batman, and pure joy for the Joker.


4. The Adams Family (1991)
That's right, the creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky family that started as a series of illustrations by cartoonist Charles Addams, and was brought to life in a 1964 live action sitcom, got their first big screen treatment in Orion Pictures' The Addams Family, starring the always great Raul Julia as Gomez Addams, and the always oddly attracting Angelica Huston as his wife, Morticia. The film did what very, very, few tv to film adaptations manage to do and presented a faithful (in my opinion superior to pre-existing media) depiction of the characters in an original story that just felt right. The tone and humor the series was popular for gets elevated through the macabre wit of the film, and also has the added bonus of making guys everywhere who stare at Christina Ricci's amazing rack nowadays feel really guilty.

5. High Fidelity (2000)
One of my personal favorite books and movies, this John Cusack vehicle has the distinction of being one of the few works that manages to successfully translate its story across the pond, with novel taking place mostly in London and the film being set in Chicago. With that in mind, it's astounding how well the film, directed by Stephen Frears and written by Cusack and his frequent collaborators, captures the soul of the book so well. It's like an uncomfortable look in the mirror for any man who may favor his record (or ahem DVD) collection over the women in his life. It's also a love letter to music and the effect it has on us, and the movie translates that perfectly.