The summer blockbuster season has hit again like a string of class five hurricanes, their funnels of hype destroying everything in sight. One could not travel outside in May without seeing a poster for The Da Vinci Code adaptation, whether it were pictures of the stars or one of the many puzzles that when cracked spelled out the official film website. It was the same again later that month, with X-Men: The Last Stand, the third chapter in the superhero series.

Yet there is more in common here, than simple mass marketing and multi-million dollar box office hits. Both these films were spawned from texts, a best selling novel and a series of comic books that span an entire universe, which are held in higher regard than any other. Both films, while making money, received a gruelling critical slaughtering, more so Da Vinci. Can a film be made from a text placed so high upon a pedestal by its original ardent readers?

The Da Vinci Code has sold approximately 40 million copies worldwide, so naturally a film adaptation would follow, if only for the money, if nothing else. But the task of adapting a book loved and revered as well as repulsed and hated around the world was apparently, in the eyes of the critics, too large for these filmmakers. Akiva Goldman (A Beautiful Mind) has followed the plot of the book almost as rigorously as Silas followed the ordains of Opus Dai, and herein lies the problem. The structure of a novel is inherently different from that of a film, and so by trying to please the followers of Dan Brown, the filmmakers have casually shot themselves in the foot. Rather than focus on the characters, the film crams in most of the events from the book, which are too plenty for a film and so they whoosh by without any time for consumption, in the hope that those audience members who have read the novel will explain to those who are less informed about what is going on. But for some reason they have changed the ending, not significantly in relation to plot, but to do more with the character relations. One wonders why? Given the original ending was far more satisfying and required less explanation. Could it be that the filmmakers wished to surprise those who had read the book by giving them something novel at the end? Or could this have been someone within the production placing their mark?

At the other end of the adaptation game is X-Men: The Last Stand. Many of those browsing the X-shelf in Forbidden Planet will tell you that the first two films were as faithful as possible to the long running series of comic books, an incredible feat given the fact that the X-Men have been around for sixty years and gone through various incarnations (Ultimate, Uncanny, Astonishing, Amazing, and just plain old X-men). They will also tell you that the third feature film takes great liberties with many of the major storylines of the comic (namely The Dark Phoenix Saga, here reduced to a unbalanced subplot). But the filmmakers' problems here were far greater than that of one single novel. They had an ensemble cast left over from two films, all demanding more story and screen time, they had to figure out a way to round off the trilogy in case this was the last X-Men film (given the secret ending after the credits and the opening weekend U.S. domestic box office of $104 million, I doubt it will be), and they had to introduce new major characters to keep the fans happy.

Given the weight of this burden, the production team have managed a modest success. While not as smooth as Bryan Singer's efforts, Brett Ratner has delivered some amazing action sequences that would raise a smile in even the most arduous comic book fan's face, most memorable being the Fastball Special or Wolverine being pummelled by Vinnie Jones' Juggernaut.

Many fans have moaned that "this didn't happen in the comic" or that the "characters were all wrong," but they must comprehended the intrinsic difficulties surrounding the art and craft of adaptation. Given the vast number of storylines and characters in the X-Men universe, one could be consumed by it all if trying to nit-pick threads which to use in the film. They also have to recognise, as with the structure of The Da Vinci Code, what works in one medium will not work in another. This best example of this stems from the very first X-Men film. The original, bright spandex comic costumes were constructed, but were soon scrapped because they looked ridiculous on screen. Fans initially reacted with furore to early pictures of the X-Men dressed all in black, but once the film was released they accepted that it had to be this way. Why? Because, even though a comic book is a closer medium to film than the novel form, there are certain visuals that work in the frame of a comic book that do not work on the cinema screen.

That is not to say X-Men: The Last Stand is a masterpiece. It was publicly reported as being rushed through production to beat Superman Returns to the silver screen, because Bryan Singer was seen by many of the executives as a traitor, and the fact that it was hastily pushed through is very evident on viewing the finished product. Given more time on the script and pre-production, this could have been remarkable instead of average. Perhaps the fan boys have a right to moan that Calisto has different powers from the comic book page, or that Wolverine should be small instead of Hugh Jackman tall, but they should stop to think of the great many burdens that come with making a film. Just wait until Superman Returns opens at the end of June. "Lois Lane has a child? That never happened in the comic book!"

Perhaps there simply is no excuse. Sin City's film noir visuals worked with equal success on both page and screen, to the point that nearly all the scenes in the film were spot on reproductions of Frank Miller's delightful comic book frames. Novel adaptations require more thought because of the larger, contrasting difference in mediums. How does one retain the essence of a novel while changing massive parts of the story, plot, and even characters? It is a question that I suspect will go unanswered for quite some time.