I feel the first film managed to mix in some of the dark aspects of the comics with the light-hearted feeling from the cartoon. The other live-action movies weren't able to accomplish that.
Yeah I was like 8 or 9 and my dad reluctantly took me to it in the theatres for my birthday.. my mom wouldn't even go. Even then I thought in the back of my mind "my dad hates this my dad hates this sorry dad.." and he really enjoyed it, I think more than I did.