Director Guillermo del Toro is a rarity; he's one of the few directors who knows how to captivate awards-giving bodies and fanboys. Like Peter Jackson, who was basically a fanboy god after the first Lord of the Rings trilogy, with multiple Oscars to boot, del Toro has won a slew of awards, including Oscars, for his 2006 masterpiece Pan's Labyrinth, and has won plenty of fanboy street cred with his Hellboy films and his work on Blade II. His latest film, Pacific Rim, panders more to his second demographic than the first, and it does so in a huge way...literally.
In the near future, the Earth is invaded by giant monsters called Kaiju, which enter our world through a dimensional portal that has opened deep beneath the Pacific Ocean. After the monsters attack and level several major cities around the world, with the usual weapons proving ineffective, humanity decides to create a new weapon: giant robots (as tall as skyscrapers) called Jaeger, which are operated by two human pilots locked in a neural link. Over time it becomes clear that not even the jaegers are enough to repel the relentless kaiju invasions, and the world's governments decide to just build giant walls to keep the threat out, which proves to be an exercise in futility. However, one of the pioneers of the jaeger program, a "marshall" named Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) believes the massive robots are key to a plan that could end the threat once and for all, and together with his protege, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) he approaches washed-up jaeger pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) whose last outing in a jaeger ended in tragedy, to take one last shot at taking the kaiju down. Armed with the four remaining jaeger suits from America, Australia, China and Russia, the people of the Earth make their last big push to save the planet.
If social networks are any indication, it would seem that fanboys the world over are gushing over this film, and for pretty good reason, in my opinion. The designs of both the giant monsters and the giant robots, easily the stars of the film, are the stuff of fanboy wet dreams. In particular, the jaeger robots look like they stepped out of any of a number of anime from the 80s or 90s, albeit with some pretty innovative design quirks, and with a good measure of grittiness thrown in by their designers, and the wizards at Industrial Light and Magic who brought them to life. The grotesquely cool kaiju are somewhat more varied in design than their robotic nemeses, though pretty much all of them seem inspired by monster movies of old, with some of them sporting giant crab claws or tentacles and others looking like a cross between King Kong and Godzilla. Still, the robots were the stars here. Though Gipsy Danger was the "hero" jaeger, I was a bit partial to Australia's Striker Eureka, which of all the jaeger robots on display seemed the most anime-inspired of the lot. These robots, unlike the similarly ILM-generated metal creatures of the Transformers movies, had a real weight and heft to them and really looked like they could both take and dish out a world of punishment.
Another, more crucial element that sets this movie apart from the narrative disaster of the Transformers movies, though, is the human element; there's a lot going on outside the field of battle, and much of it involves Pentecost as the head of the jaeger program, scientists Newton Geizler (Charlie Day) and Hermann Gottlieb (Burn Gorman) and sleazy black-market kaiju body parts dealer, Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman). There are a lot of surprisingly strong performances here, led by Elba as Pentecost, who delivers a Braveheart-esque speech that makes the one during the climax of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King seem embarrassingly inadequate and whose utter conviction basically elevates the kitschy script he is given. The bickering scientists played by Day and Gorman, the entertaining walk-on by Perlman and the mostly taciturn performance turned in by Kikuchi are pretty effective in reminding the audience that there's a bit more to this movie than just robots punching monsters and vice versa. Lead actor Charlie Hunnam is actually kind of the weak link here, but he is, at least, adequate.
(Mild Spoilers)
For all the shortcomings of any of the human actors, all is forgotten when the robots vs. monsters slugfest begins in earnest. As thrilling as the fight scenes were, I confess to being slightly disappointed that most of the jaeger vs. kaiju action took place between Gipsy Danger and its monstrous opponents, and that two of the much-hyped jaeger robots, Crimson Typhoon from China and Cherno Alpha from Russia, both of which featured prominently in the marketing materials and which were described as virtual legends in the movie itself, went down as quickly as they did without so much as taking down a single kaiju. I would have wanted to see Crimson Typhoon's unique three-arm attack do some real damage before the robot and its operating team of Chinese triplets went down for the count. At least Striker Eureka got to wallop a kaiju early in the movie, and got some good shots in later, during the film's climax.
On top of that, I found it slightly silly that Becket and Mori whipped out Gipsy Danger's sword AFTER they had basically used a freighter as a club against the kaiju, to apparently little effect, especially considering that one well-placed slash from the sword was basically able to take the kaiju down completely. In the anime of old, the sword was the principal weapon, and an effective one at that, a concept which this film echoes, which made me wonder why the heck they didn't use it sooner.
And then of course, there are questions like, how could a thousand-ton (or more) robot survive a 50,000 foot drop, how could a giant monster with wings climb 50,000 feet in a few seconds when it takes a commercial airliner at least a few minutes to climb to half that distance moving at just under the speed of sound, and so on and so forth. Train the harsh eye of science, even just one branch of it, like physics, on this film, and it will almost surely fall apart. But that's not really the point.
(End Spoilers)
Gripes and implausibility notwithstanding, there is no point in my denying how much fun I had watching this film, especially having grown up with giant robots in the 70s and 80s. Spiritually, this was a lot more effective as an anime adaptation than the Wachowskis' notorious flop Speed Racer,and considering del Toro's gift for visual panache that he prominently put on display in Pan's Labyrinth and the second Hellboy film, it was always going to be a visual feast.
The genius of del Toro, however, is that he isn't content to simply let the monsters and mech do all the talking. He also plays a lot with thematic elements as well, and the fact that he chose to set the story years after the invasion began opened up a lot of interesting narrative possibilities; the bodies of slain kaiju litter the landscape, and it's fascinating to see how humanity adapts. As mentioned, there is a bustling underground trade in kaiju body parts and even skin parasites (!) which takes place in--where else?--Hong Kong, and some people have even turned the kaiju skeletons into places of worship! Del Toro basically creates a world that's as grimy, sleazy and uncomfortably believable as the one we live in, for his fantastical creatures to inhabit, and this actually makes it easier to look past the absurdity of the larger-than-life grudge matches that play out on the screen.
While this film may not have the crossover appeal of other recent genre films like the Avengers or Dark Knight movies, I humbly submit that there is more to it than just a fanboy love fest, and because I would love to see a sequel to this movie, I am giving it a big ol' thumbs-up.
4.5/5
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Yellow and Loving It: A Review of Despicable Me 2
Like just about everyone else who powered the 2010 animated film Despicable Me to a worldwide gross of over half a billion dollars, I was a huge fan of the film and more than ready to shell out cash for Illumination Studios' highly-anticipated sequel, Despicable Me 2, which did not disappoint, or at least not too much.
Steve Carell's now-ex-villain Gru is back with his three adopted little girls Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher), his mad scientist colleague Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) and his tens of thousands of hilarious little yellow minions (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, speaking their patented multilingual gibberish). In this film, Gru is approached by a super spy organization called the Anti-Villain League in order to help track down a mystery villain who has stolen a powerful mutagen that can turn even the most harmless animals into murderous, indestructible monsters. The AVL boss, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) assigns Gru to stake out a mall where the villain might be hiding, and pairs him up with AVL agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig). At the mall Gru runs into Mexican restaurant owner and proprietor Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt), whom he believes is a former supervillain named El Macho who supposedly died several years before. Much to Gru's dismay, Margo then finds herself infatuated with Antonio, Eduardo's flirtatious tweener son. Worse still, a mysterious villian starts abducting Gru's beloved minions in droves. Time is clearly running out for everyone's favorite ex-villain.
Sequels to animated films, with the exception of the Toy Story films, usually tend to decline in storytelling quality relative to their predecessors, especially when the original film carries a unique premise. The first Despicable Me, for example, stood out because of the very interesting notion of having a villain adopt three little girls to further an evil scheme, only to fall in love with them later on. It even had to compete with a similar "what-if-villains-had-feelings" film, Megamind, and came out on top. Of course, with Gru's adoptive daughters now having domesticated the former bad guy, the original storytelling conceit had to give way to the question of how he would adjust to civilian life, and how the writers can introduce a woman into his life.
While I definitely enjoyed the first film more than I did this one, I'd like to credit the filmmakers with maintaining many of the elements behind the success of the first film. Even though he's already been a dad for awhile, Gru is still wonderfully awkward and Steve Carell, still sporting his faux-Eastern European accent, is still a lot of fun to watch. By introducing new elements to his character, such as a romantic interest and, at the same time, the stress of having a budding adolescent daughter (Margo) taking an interest in boys, the filmmakers are able to keep things fresh. Of course, the three orphans in the film are just as cute as they were last time, and the scene-stealing Agnes has a little bit of a subplot involving her desire for a mother. Agent Wilde is a fun character, but surprisingly bland, especially given actress Kristen Wiig's comedic resume. In terms of zaniness, she could have easily gone toe-to-toe with Carell's Gru, and a slightly wacky accent couldn't have hurt, at least in my opinion. The new potential bad guy, Eduardo Perez, is a significant stylistic departure from the first film's nerdy villain, Vector, and there's something to be said about the new approach. Part of me regrets that the filmmakers discarded the recording of Oscar winner Al Pacino, who originally did the voice-acting for the character, but Benjamin Bratt, who had previously lent his voice to a character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, was, to my mind a suitable replacement.
The visual design of the characters and locales, old and new, retained a lot of the flavor of the first film, which was basically a mix of the illustrations of the late artist Edward Gorey and some bright pastel colors, therefore much of its charm as well.
I would, of course, be remiss if I failed to mention the real stars of this movie, the characters who have already become the official mascots of Illumination Studios: Gru's minions. Even more than in the first film, the gibberish-jabbering, clumsy, and consistently hilarious little henchmen basically steal the film right out from under Gru's beak-like nose. They are even more prominent here than in the last film as they are actually now an integral part of the plot rather than just a constant source of laughs (though they are still that). As in the previous film, directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud lend their voices to these little critters, who are basically just vitamin pills with eyes, arms, legs, goggles and overalls, and to me it really is amazing how iconic these little creatures have become.
Unlike the last animated film I reviewed, Monsters University, DM2 is not about subtext or messages for adults but really is just about laughs, and this movie delivers plenty of them. While this is still basically a movie for the young and young at heart, I will go so far as to say that this a movie the whole family can enjoy.
4/5
Steve Carell's now-ex-villain Gru is back with his three adopted little girls Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), Edith (Dana Gaier) and Agnes (Elsie Fisher), his mad scientist colleague Dr. Nefario (Russell Brand) and his tens of thousands of hilarious little yellow minions (Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud, speaking their patented multilingual gibberish). In this film, Gru is approached by a super spy organization called the Anti-Villain League in order to help track down a mystery villain who has stolen a powerful mutagen that can turn even the most harmless animals into murderous, indestructible monsters. The AVL boss, Silas Ramsbottom (Steve Coogan) assigns Gru to stake out a mall where the villain might be hiding, and pairs him up with AVL agent Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig). At the mall Gru runs into Mexican restaurant owner and proprietor Eduardo Perez (Benjamin Bratt), whom he believes is a former supervillain named El Macho who supposedly died several years before. Much to Gru's dismay, Margo then finds herself infatuated with Antonio, Eduardo's flirtatious tweener son. Worse still, a mysterious villian starts abducting Gru's beloved minions in droves. Time is clearly running out for everyone's favorite ex-villain.
Sequels to animated films, with the exception of the Toy Story films, usually tend to decline in storytelling quality relative to their predecessors, especially when the original film carries a unique premise. The first Despicable Me, for example, stood out because of the very interesting notion of having a villain adopt three little girls to further an evil scheme, only to fall in love with them later on. It even had to compete with a similar "what-if-villains-had-feelings" film, Megamind, and came out on top. Of course, with Gru's adoptive daughters now having domesticated the former bad guy, the original storytelling conceit had to give way to the question of how he would adjust to civilian life, and how the writers can introduce a woman into his life.
While I definitely enjoyed the first film more than I did this one, I'd like to credit the filmmakers with maintaining many of the elements behind the success of the first film. Even though he's already been a dad for awhile, Gru is still wonderfully awkward and Steve Carell, still sporting his faux-Eastern European accent, is still a lot of fun to watch. By introducing new elements to his character, such as a romantic interest and, at the same time, the stress of having a budding adolescent daughter (Margo) taking an interest in boys, the filmmakers are able to keep things fresh. Of course, the three orphans in the film are just as cute as they were last time, and the scene-stealing Agnes has a little bit of a subplot involving her desire for a mother. Agent Wilde is a fun character, but surprisingly bland, especially given actress Kristen Wiig's comedic resume. In terms of zaniness, she could have easily gone toe-to-toe with Carell's Gru, and a slightly wacky accent couldn't have hurt, at least in my opinion. The new potential bad guy, Eduardo Perez, is a significant stylistic departure from the first film's nerdy villain, Vector, and there's something to be said about the new approach. Part of me regrets that the filmmakers discarded the recording of Oscar winner Al Pacino, who originally did the voice-acting for the character, but Benjamin Bratt, who had previously lent his voice to a character in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, was, to my mind a suitable replacement.
The visual design of the characters and locales, old and new, retained a lot of the flavor of the first film, which was basically a mix of the illustrations of the late artist Edward Gorey and some bright pastel colors, therefore much of its charm as well.
I would, of course, be remiss if I failed to mention the real stars of this movie, the characters who have already become the official mascots of Illumination Studios: Gru's minions. Even more than in the first film, the gibberish-jabbering, clumsy, and consistently hilarious little henchmen basically steal the film right out from under Gru's beak-like nose. They are even more prominent here than in the last film as they are actually now an integral part of the plot rather than just a constant source of laughs (though they are still that). As in the previous film, directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud lend their voices to these little critters, who are basically just vitamin pills with eyes, arms, legs, goggles and overalls, and to me it really is amazing how iconic these little creatures have become.
Unlike the last animated film I reviewed, Monsters University, DM2 is not about subtext or messages for adults but really is just about laughs, and this movie delivers plenty of them. While this is still basically a movie for the young and young at heart, I will go so far as to say that this a movie the whole family can enjoy.
4/5
Saturday, July 13, 2013
Pixar Takes on the Academe: A Review of Monsters University
I've been very busy lately, so unfortunately I was not able to review this movie immediately after I saw it nearly two weekends ago, but this was a solid entry in Pixar's library which definitely deserves a review, no matter how late.
Now, I love most Pixar movies, and a lot of other animated feature films from their competitors as well, because they are able to speak to my inner child, but most of the time, Pixar stands head and shoulders above its competition because it is able to address the adults in the audience as well, on a variety of themes, from mortality (Toy Story 2 and 3), to the challenges of single parenthood (Finding Nemo) to middle age (The Incredibles). Monsters Inc., was, surprisingly, one of the less "mature" Pixar hits as it posed the interesting hypothetical question -- "What if the monsters in our closet were more afraid of us than we were of them?"-- which basically captivated anyone who had ever been a kid dreading the bogeyman in the closet or under the bed. It was also one of Pixar's bigger hits over time, as it gained an enormous amount of goodwill over the years on home video and cable TV. While the decision to make a prequel was not something I, personally, welcomed as much as I would the decision to make a sequel to The Incredibles, I was reasonably enthusiastic about watching it the new installment, Monsters University, just the same.
While Monsters, Inc. was primarily about bigtime "scarer" James "Sully" Sullivan (John Goodman) and the relationship he formed with a little human girl, as well as his partnership with Michael "Mike" Wazowski (Billy Crystal) MU focuses primarily on a young Mike and how he chases down his dream of becoming a top-class scarer someday. Of course, he does what anyone aspiring to be a professional would: he goes to college, in this case, the scaring school of renowned Monsters University. He faces several challenges there, such as bullies, headed by alpha-male Johnny J. Worthington III (Nathan Fillion), head of the Roar Omega Roar, a legendary but extremely strict Dean of the School of Scaring, Abigail Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), and, surprisingly, the scion of a renowned clan of scarers, the talented but lazy James P. Sullivan. He also finds himself befriending several misfits such as Squishy (Peter Sohn), Don (Joel Murray), Art (Charlie Day) and two headed monster Terri (Sean Hayes) and Terry (Dave Foley). Mike soon learns that, if he wants to pursue his dream of being a scarer, he will have to learn to work well with others, including those with whom he has seemingly insurmountable differences.
Even more than its predecessor, this film tackles decidedly adult subject matter as it takes a swipe at the formal education system in the United States, particularly among the so-called "Ivy League" schools. Basically the adult subtext for this particular film is that the top universities in the United States, as represented by Monsters University, do not truly recognize nor can they properly nurture certain types of genius. It's pretty daring subject matter for a Disney movie, especially one geared largely for schoolchildren, to whom Disney is undoubtedly selling cuddly stuffed versions of these characters. The delivery of the message is a little heavy-handed here, and not quite done with the panache of Pixar's earlier movies, but this movie is still a fine return to form for Pixar after the debacle of Cars 2 and the slightly wobbly narrative of lats year's Brave.
Of course, in terms of character design and visuals, Pixar is still very much at the top of its game. In addition to familiar characters like Mike, Sully, and Randall (Steve Buscemi) from the first film, director Dan Scanlon and his crew have introduced a number of interesting new character designs which effectively straddle the line between cute and creepy, though my personal favorite of the bunch, the stern Dean Hardscrabble, basically made my skin crawl while not looking altogether terrifying. The hallowed halls of academe are not quite as interesting as the ocean floor in Finding Nemo, or the exotic jungles of south America depicted in Up, but Pixar does great work here nonetheless.
All told, this was a prequel that was worth making, and worth watching.
4.5/5
Now, I love most Pixar movies, and a lot of other animated feature films from their competitors as well, because they are able to speak to my inner child, but most of the time, Pixar stands head and shoulders above its competition because it is able to address the adults in the audience as well, on a variety of themes, from mortality (Toy Story 2 and 3), to the challenges of single parenthood (Finding Nemo) to middle age (The Incredibles). Monsters Inc., was, surprisingly, one of the less "mature" Pixar hits as it posed the interesting hypothetical question -- "What if the monsters in our closet were more afraid of us than we were of them?"-- which basically captivated anyone who had ever been a kid dreading the bogeyman in the closet or under the bed. It was also one of Pixar's bigger hits over time, as it gained an enormous amount of goodwill over the years on home video and cable TV. While the decision to make a prequel was not something I, personally, welcomed as much as I would the decision to make a sequel to The Incredibles, I was reasonably enthusiastic about watching it the new installment, Monsters University, just the same.
While Monsters, Inc. was primarily about bigtime "scarer" James "Sully" Sullivan (John Goodman) and the relationship he formed with a little human girl, as well as his partnership with Michael "Mike" Wazowski (Billy Crystal) MU focuses primarily on a young Mike and how he chases down his dream of becoming a top-class scarer someday. Of course, he does what anyone aspiring to be a professional would: he goes to college, in this case, the scaring school of renowned Monsters University. He faces several challenges there, such as bullies, headed by alpha-male Johnny J. Worthington III (Nathan Fillion), head of the Roar Omega Roar, a legendary but extremely strict Dean of the School of Scaring, Abigail Hardscrabble (Helen Mirren), and, surprisingly, the scion of a renowned clan of scarers, the talented but lazy James P. Sullivan. He also finds himself befriending several misfits such as Squishy (Peter Sohn), Don (Joel Murray), Art (Charlie Day) and two headed monster Terri (Sean Hayes) and Terry (Dave Foley). Mike soon learns that, if he wants to pursue his dream of being a scarer, he will have to learn to work well with others, including those with whom he has seemingly insurmountable differences.
Even more than its predecessor, this film tackles decidedly adult subject matter as it takes a swipe at the formal education system in the United States, particularly among the so-called "Ivy League" schools. Basically the adult subtext for this particular film is that the top universities in the United States, as represented by Monsters University, do not truly recognize nor can they properly nurture certain types of genius. It's pretty daring subject matter for a Disney movie, especially one geared largely for schoolchildren, to whom Disney is undoubtedly selling cuddly stuffed versions of these characters. The delivery of the message is a little heavy-handed here, and not quite done with the panache of Pixar's earlier movies, but this movie is still a fine return to form for Pixar after the debacle of Cars 2 and the slightly wobbly narrative of lats year's Brave.
Of course, in terms of character design and visuals, Pixar is still very much at the top of its game. In addition to familiar characters like Mike, Sully, and Randall (Steve Buscemi) from the first film, director Dan Scanlon and his crew have introduced a number of interesting new character designs which effectively straddle the line between cute and creepy, though my personal favorite of the bunch, the stern Dean Hardscrabble, basically made my skin crawl while not looking altogether terrifying. The hallowed halls of academe are not quite as interesting as the ocean floor in Finding Nemo, or the exotic jungles of south America depicted in Up, but Pixar does great work here nonetheless.
All told, this was a prequel that was worth making, and worth watching.
4.5/5
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Man of Steal (MASSIVE SPOILERS)
At the outset, I'd like to declare
one simple fact: Superman is the FIRST superhero ever. Without Superman,
whether as a comic-book character or a big-screen hero, there would be no
Spider-Man, no X-Men, no Iron Man, and none of the colorful characters whose
adventures I have enjoyed reading or watching on the big screen since my
childhood days.
It amused me quite a bit, therefore,
that when I watched the latest Superman movie, Man of Steel, I
recognized a number of plot devices/scenarios that had already been used in
other superhero or superhero-inspired movies.
1) The death of a father figure
following a cruel statement by the hero, from Spider-Man -This one was
the most glaring for me. In the 1978 Superman film, Jonathan Kent died of
a heart attack, and the poignancy of that death stemmed from the fact that for
all of his powers, there was nothing Superman could have done. That was
retooled a bit for MoS, with the elder Kent basically allowing himself
to get sucked up into a tornado so that Clark's superpowers could stay a
secret, with Clark looking on helplessly. Now, scant minutes BEFORE that
happened, there was an exchange of words between Clark and Jonathan in a car
wherein Clark, knowing his extraterrestrial origin, haughtily asserted to
Jonathan (and Martha, who was in the back seat), that they weren't really his
parents. Wow. Powerful stuff. At least that's what I thought when I first saw
this scene in 2002's Spider-Man in which Uncle Ben tried to engage in a
heart-to-heart with the now super-powered Peter Parker, also in a car, and said
"I know I'm not your father" whereupon Peter shouted "then stop
pretending to be!" When I saw it in MoS, for all of its tweaks to
differentiate it, all I could think was "hey, that was a lot like Uncle
Ben's death!" This wasn't the first similarity I noticed between MoS
and other superhero movies, but for me it was hands-down the most striking
because this was clearly meant to be a pivotal character moment, and the fact
that it felt altogether lifted from another script was more than a little distracting.
2) The small town battle from Thor
- In the 1981 sequel Superman II, General Zod, then played by Terence
Stamp, and his two flunkies wreak havoc in a small town, though Superman isn't
around to battle them. In Man of Steel, though Superman and two of Zod's
minions actually throw down in a small town in Kansas this time, basically
leveling the whole place with their punches, flying bodies and the resulting
explosions (although to be fair, the United States military helps the mayhem
along quite a bit). One of the minions, a computer-generated Kyptonian, looks
like he's about nine to ten feet tall. That kind of calls to mind the
slugfest in 2011's Thor in which the roughly-ten-foot-tall Asgardian
robot called the Destroyer is sent to kill Thor and ends up wrecking a small
town in New Mexico while duking it out with Thor and his comrades-in-arms, the
Warriors Three. Again, even with tweaks (and superior visual effects for MoS),
the similarity was pretty striking.
3) The babies grown on trees
from The Matrix - the idea of genetically-engineered babies, unless I'm
mistaken, is a concept that's new to the Superman film franchise, with all
Kryptonian babies grown in pods attached to what look like trees, all immersed
in what I assume is a gigantic artificial womb known as a "genesis
chamber." Now, The Matrix films, while not about a comic-book
superhero, were no doubt inspired by Superman's exploits given that the hero,
Neo, had fantastical powers, including flight. In fact, in one scene during
which Neo was flying around the Matrix, one of the operators said "he's
doing his Superman thing." Well, the whole concept of babies being grown
in enormous fields on mechanical trees was realized quite vividly in the very
first Matrix film, so vividly in fact that the moment I saw the genesis
chamber of MoS I remembered it.The fact that two Matrix alumni, Laurence Fishburne and Harry Lennix, were part of the MoS cast only reinforced the connection for me.
4) The climactic flying
fistfight from The Matrix Revolutions - Back when he reviewed this film
in 2003, popular (and sometimes infamous) geek guru Harry Knowles gushed over
the flying fight scene between the heroic Neo and the villainous Agent Smith,
and said something to the effect of "wouldn't it be cool if a future
Superman movie had a fight that looked just like this!" Apparently Zack
Snyder, Christopher Nolan and David S. Goyer, the respective director and
screenwriters of MoS, read Harry Knowles' review. Also, considering that the movie never really explained how a man who grew up on a farm in Kansas with no formal fight training managed to hold his own in hand-to-hand combat against people who had been training for combat all their lives, all of whom had the same super powers as he did, I can't help but wonder if, in the beginning, when Jor-El "downloaded" the Codex into Kal-El, he basically downloaded fighting skills as well, like the "plug and play" martial arts learning that took place in the Matrix films.
5) The cataclysmic, city-leveling
battle from The Avengers and Transformers: Dark of the Moon - Of
all the story devices which seemed to have been cribbed from other blockbusters
this one is perhaps the most understandable, considering that disaster porn is
always fashionable, but it is no less glaring considering that in past
incarnations of Superman on screen, specifically in Superman II, Supes
would have been appalled to have caused as much destruction as he did and would
have done everything to move the fight away from a populated area, something he
did not seem particularly interested in doing while smashing Zod into
buildings. To go back to the small town fight, at least he told people to get
out of harm's way and shouted "it's not safe," but when he got to the
city, he pretty much had at Zod without apparently sparing a thought for the
thousands of innocents inside the buildings they trashed. At least the Avengers
worked to get the civilians out of harm's way. If anything, Superman was more
like the Transformers, who like him didn't seem to give a shit about civilians
either when battling the bad guys. The subtext is disturbing; the Superman of
the film was more like an alien robot than an actual hero. Ironically enough, it was when he finally killed the bad guy that he actually started showing some concern for life again.
For all of this, and for all the
flaws I perceived in the script, I still enjoyed Man of Steel, but I
cannot help but chuckle thinking about how liberally the filmmakers borrowed
from movies based on characters whose existence was basically inspired by
Superman, especially the Marvel characters. Part of me wonders if the
makers of the Marvel movies recognize this, and if they feel like Pepsi did
when "New Coke" came out over twenty years ago.
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
So Superman Survived the Break-Up...What About Bryan Singer?
I find it rather striking that audiences were willing to embrace the new Superman movie, Man of Steel despite the stench left by Superman Returns, and the scathing reviews that gave audiences advance warning that this movie was nowhere near as cerebral as Nolan's critically-lauded Batman movies were, but I guess it just goes to show that all people really wanted was a nicely action-packed, if somewhat flawed Superman movie. The bottom line is that they got over SR pretty easily.
What I can't help but wonder, though, is whether or not they will forgive SR director Bryan Singer quite as easily when his first X-Men film since 2003, X-Men: Days of Future Past, hits cinemas sometime next year.
To me it feels like only yesterday that Singer was regarded as a demigod by fans of both comic books and comic-book-based movies. X2: X-Men United was a bona fide box-office hit and his stock was basically soaring, so much so that Warner Brothers was ready to lure him away from Twentieth Century Fox with a production budget north of $200 million and carte blanche to make the Superman movie he had always dreamed of making. Unfortunately, that happened to be Superman Returns. Since then Singer's directed two feature films, the offbeat Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as a Nazi who took part in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, and the recent Jack the Giant Slayer, neither of which was particularly well-received at the box office.
Singer is currently busy directing X-Men: Days of Future Past, and personally I am more than happy to welcome him back into the fold. I was a little surprised, however, to discover that not exactly everyone felt the same way; message boards were suddenly full of venom for Singer, and amazingly, films like X-Men and X2 had become retroactively terrible in many fanboys' eyes.
Now, it's always advisable to take internet posters' comments with a grain of salt; after all, if all of them were to believed, Man of Steel would have made a billion dollars by now and Iron Man 3 would have tanked at the box-office. The next X-Men movie will succeed or fail regardless of what a handful of internet fanboys think. But their comments, coupled with the lukewarm if not utterly poor showing of Singer's latest directorial efforts at the box office have given me pause, and I cannot help but ask; do people hate Superman Returns so much that it has retroactively erased every ounce of Singer's goodwill generated by his two X-Men movies? It feels unfair, especially considering that it was the first one that arguably began the Marvel Age of movies in earnest back in 2000. Even M. Night Shyamalan got more "second chances" from audiences than he arguably deserved, considering that the last commercially successful movie he made was 2004's The Village.
I, for one, believe that X-Men: Days of Future Past has a more than even chance of being a good, even great movie, even with a script by Simon Kinberg, a man of whose work I am not a fan.
Maybe it's not about Superman Returns; maybe X-men/Marvel fans are still bitter about Singer's having left the franchise for rival DC, and yet fans of Marvel Comics have regularly welcomed back writers and artists who would do stints, sometimes lasting years, over at Marvel's Distinguished Competition. I'm loath to think that this disdain over one creative misfire has anything to do with Singer's openly professed sexuality; I like to believe comic book fans on the whole are more evolved than that, even though many of them have proven me wrong time and again.
Well, whatever the reason some fans are not keen on seeing Singer back in the X-director's chair, I am more than happy to see the return of the guy responsible for bringing the X-men to the big screen. Welcome back Bryan!
What I can't help but wonder, though, is whether or not they will forgive SR director Bryan Singer quite as easily when his first X-Men film since 2003, X-Men: Days of Future Past, hits cinemas sometime next year.
To me it feels like only yesterday that Singer was regarded as a demigod by fans of both comic books and comic-book-based movies. X2: X-Men United was a bona fide box-office hit and his stock was basically soaring, so much so that Warner Brothers was ready to lure him away from Twentieth Century Fox with a production budget north of $200 million and carte blanche to make the Superman movie he had always dreamed of making. Unfortunately, that happened to be Superman Returns. Since then Singer's directed two feature films, the offbeat Valkyrie, starring Tom Cruise as a Nazi who took part in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler, and the recent Jack the Giant Slayer, neither of which was particularly well-received at the box office.
Singer is currently busy directing X-Men: Days of Future Past, and personally I am more than happy to welcome him back into the fold. I was a little surprised, however, to discover that not exactly everyone felt the same way; message boards were suddenly full of venom for Singer, and amazingly, films like X-Men and X2 had become retroactively terrible in many fanboys' eyes.
Now, it's always advisable to take internet posters' comments with a grain of salt; after all, if all of them were to believed, Man of Steel would have made a billion dollars by now and Iron Man 3 would have tanked at the box-office. The next X-Men movie will succeed or fail regardless of what a handful of internet fanboys think. But their comments, coupled with the lukewarm if not utterly poor showing of Singer's latest directorial efforts at the box office have given me pause, and I cannot help but ask; do people hate Superman Returns so much that it has retroactively erased every ounce of Singer's goodwill generated by his two X-Men movies? It feels unfair, especially considering that it was the first one that arguably began the Marvel Age of movies in earnest back in 2000. Even M. Night Shyamalan got more "second chances" from audiences than he arguably deserved, considering that the last commercially successful movie he made was 2004's The Village.
I, for one, believe that X-Men: Days of Future Past has a more than even chance of being a good, even great movie, even with a script by Simon Kinberg, a man of whose work I am not a fan.
Maybe it's not about Superman Returns; maybe X-men/Marvel fans are still bitter about Singer's having left the franchise for rival DC, and yet fans of Marvel Comics have regularly welcomed back writers and artists who would do stints, sometimes lasting years, over at Marvel's Distinguished Competition. I'm loath to think that this disdain over one creative misfire has anything to do with Singer's openly professed sexuality; I like to believe comic book fans on the whole are more evolved than that, even though many of them have proven me wrong time and again.
Well, whatever the reason some fans are not keen on seeing Singer back in the X-director's chair, I am more than happy to see the return of the guy responsible for bringing the X-men to the big screen. Welcome back Bryan!
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Reasonably Potent, If Not Quite Super: A Review of Man of Steel (Mild Spoilers Ahead)
Zack Snyder, the man who, with his breakout hit 300, reinvented the sword-and-sandals epic for the video-game generation, attempts something similar here for the first, and probably still most popular superhero of all time, Superman, with the new reboot Man of Steel. He benefits from a script co-written by Dark Knight auteur Christopher Nolan and longtime comics-to-film scribe David S. Goyer.
The story basically resets the clock on the cinematic legend of Superman and begins on his dying homeworld of Krypton, at the moment of his birth to Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer), the first natural-born child on the planet in centuries, with every other baby on Krypton having been grown, Matrix-style, in a giant underwater plant nursery called a genesis chamber. Jor-El tries to convince the planet's leaders that it's time to send Krypton's inhabitants to other planets to save them from a doomed world, and asks for something called the Codex, which is apparently the genetic blueprint for all Kryptonians. He is interrupted, however, by a coup d'etat being staged by the planet's chief military officer, General Zod (Michael Shannon).
Suffice it to say, notwithstanding the chaos, Jor-El is able to obtain the Kryptonian Codex and ship it, and his newborn son Kal-El, off to a suitable planet for Kal-El to grow up (which happens to be Earth) while Zod's coup is foiled and he is sentenced to exile in the Phantom Zone, apparently scarcely moments before Krypton gives up the ghost.
One abrupt cut later, Kal-El is now thirtysomething Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) wandering around America doing odd jobs, and saving people in mortal peril while he's at it. His formative years as a super-powered alien grown up in Kansas, with his foster parents, the stern Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and doting Martha (Diane Lane) Kent, are told in flashbacks, which show that it was not the easiest childhood, but one which would prove crucial to helping shape who he would eventually become.
Clark is also a man in search of something, and when, while working at a bar, he overhears a couple of military types talking about a strange, possibly extraterrestrial find in the Arctic, he decides on his next odd job. While there, he encounters feisty, award-winning reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), and, in finding out what the mysterious object is: his destiny.
As the second half of the story unfolds, it turns out that Clark's/Kal's destiny may also involve facing off against Zod and his minions including the fetching but deadly Faora (Antje Traue), who have escaped from their prison with the destruction of Krypton and are basically looking to make Earth their new home, even if it means wiping out everyone on it. Thus, Kal-El finds himself having to choose between the remnants of the world he was born into, and his adopted world.
The film doesn't open in the United States until Friday, but early reviews have come in and they are, for the most part, almost nothing like the near universal praise that was heaped on Nolan's reshaping of the Batman legend with his Dark Knight trilogy. A lot of the good reviews seem somewhat qualified by a number of reservations, and many of the bad reviews are downright scathing in their appraisal of the new Supes outing.
Personally, I find a lot of the bad reviews a bit unfair, and more than a few of them smack of pre-cooked disdain for the action blockbuster, but apart from the more snide comments, I appreciated some of the points they made against this film.
I'd like to get this out of the way right now: to me, this film is easily better than Superman Returns.
To my mind, Snyder and crew got a lot right here, starting with the casting. While I doubt British actor Cavill will win any major acting awards for his performance as the last son of Krypton, he does a decent enough job filling in Superman's redesigned tights (read: no red briefs), and more importantly, ably conveys the pathos of someone who belongs to two worlds yet is not really part of either, at least not until he makes a crucial choice. Credit must also go to the two actors who played the younger Clark in flashbacks, Dylan Sprayberry and Cooper Timberline, who did a commendable job of showing how difficult it was for Clark to grow up being different from everyone else. The strongest performance here comes from Crowe, playing the doomed Jor-El. I realize people regard the late Marlon Brando's take on the character as sacrosanct, but with all due respect I submit that Crowe is at least Brando's equal in the acting department, at least as far as this movie is concerned. Also, I highly doubt Brando could have squeezed into the tights Crowe rocked in this movie, let alone done an action scene in them, as Crowe did. Next up on my list are Lane's take on Martha Kent and Costner's take on Jonathan Kent. These are people who have no idea how to raise a Kryptonian but who do the very best they can, and I absolutely loved the humanity in their performance; their scenes with the actors playing young Clark are, for me, some of the very best in the movie. Even though the scene in which Pa Kent, in response to Clark's asking "can't I just go on pretending to be your son" tells Clark "you are my son" has been played over and over in the trailers, seeing it in the actual movie, complete with context, still left me a little misty-eyed. I'll have to respectfully disagree with one of the reviews I read which described this film as having no heart; to my mind that's one of the things it does have. I also enjoyed Amy Adams' take on Lois Lane, though I'll go into that a little bit more later. Shannon does a solid but not quite exceptional job as Zod, who is not quite as villainous as he is fanatical in this film. There is not a bad performance in sight here, even if some actors are more remarkable than others.
Another thing this film has going for it is the rather nifty visuals. It's been seven years since the last Superman movie and a full thirty-three since Superman II, the first cinematic appearance of General Zod, and there has been plenty of advancement in visual effects technology since then, a fact of which the filmmakers take due advantage. From the striking rendition of Krypton, previously just a bunch of crystals and staid interiors, and now a strikingly-rendered, Avatar-style alien ecosystem, to the depiction to Superman's powers, ranging from his x-ray vision to his flying abilities, to the truly massive action sequences in the last half-hour or so of the film, this film is, as a technical achievement, far and away the most impressive of any of the films in the series. The final fight sequence and the massive destruction it wreaks, while reminiscent of the Transformers films, are quite spectacular. Also, as an aside, it was gratifying to see the aftermath of all the collateral damage; one thing that really irked me about last year's smash hit The Avengers was how, even after all the destruction that the battle with the aliens caused, the New York skyline basically remained intact as shown by the long shot taken right after the battle. For gosh sakes, alien warships the size of blue whales smashed into buildings, and yet nothing seemed the worse for wear! Here, though, the cataclysmic effects of the final battle and of another crucially destructive story point (which I won't spoil) really leave Metropolis (played by Chicago, which also played Gotham City in Nolan's Bat-movies) in shambles. In the name of a PG-13 rating, though, the human face of this otherwise 9/11 style carnage is mercifully (many could reasonably argue insensitively) obscured.
Oh, and I daresay I liked Hans Zimmer's new theme. No, he's no John Williams, but the Zimmer's credit he doesn't try to be, and why he does here works. It played well throughout the film and punctuated the end credits quite nicely.
Unfortunately, the film had more than its fair share of faults. From a lot of contrived moments in the script to the done-to-death Christian iconography to the flaws in the film's internal logic, there were a lot of somewhat jarring moments in the film, many of which, again unfortunately, I cannot really elaborate upon as they involve spoiling important plot points. Now, as a fan of movies like this I take as a given the requirement of suspension of disbelief, but when a movie seems to have trouble sticking to its own internal logic then I have trouble accepting the movie.
The Christian overtones, though often present in this film's predecessors, were also a bit too blatant for my liking, like the fact that Superman is 33 years old, the same age as Jesus at the start of his ministry (and even older than Cavill actually is), a distinctly Christlike pose Superman assumes (I would argue unnecessarily) at a crucial point in the film, and the fact that Superman actually consults a priest when he is conflicted about an important decision, and actually stands in front of a stained-glass window depicting Jesus agonizing in the Garden of Gethsemane! To my knowledge, Superman's creators, the late Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both Jewish so I can't help but wonder at what point in the character's history, in film or print, did he start to be identified as a Christ-like figure. Also, in that connection, the declaration by Jor-El that artificial birth control had a hand in the destruction of Krypton feels a little heavy-handed and reminded me of the Catholic Church's stance against the same thing. I couldn't help but wonder if someone was pushing a bit of an agenda for a moment there.
Another of this film's sins for me was how utterly humorless it was, which is a pretty common critique, but one which, I will argue, is a valid one. A good friend of mine said "Superman is not Batman" and while I will dispute claims that the filmmakers tried to turn Superman into Batman here, I will agree that a lot of the fun of the earlier movies was drained out of this film. It's equal parts brooding and menacing towards the end, but there are next to no lighthearted moments in this movie, which just feels wrong for a hero as colorful as Superman. About the biggest laughs I got in this movie were from how over-the-top the action during the climactic fight scene was.
(Spoiler Warning)
Worse still, and along the same lines, there's virtually none of the banter between Clark and Lois (who incidentally have zero chemistry despite an earnest performance by Amy Adams) that was a staple of not only the earlier films but of depictions of Superman in general over his seven-and-a-half-decade existence. They kiss at the end of the film, but it feels more like a product of Lois' post traumatic stress (she fell from an airplane, after all, with Superman catching her) than any actual affection she might have had for him.
The good news, however, is that this version of Lois Lane is far more credible as an ace reporter in this film as she is able to figure things out a lot better than her previous incarnations. In short, we won't have to harp on how stupid she is for not being able to see past a pair of glasses.
(End Spoiler Warning)
My other problem with this film is one of style; I really was not fond of the conspicuously desaturated colors, which made the movie look as if the filmmakers were trying to film Saving Private Ryan with superheroes. The deliberately drab look of the movie muted what could have been some very interesting visuals for Krypton, which depicted mainly in shades of brown, gray and some murky blue, though given that Superman's homeworld was basically about to explode when we were introduced to it I guess it was tonally consistent. Less justifiable for me, though, was the lack of color all throughout the rest of the movie. Again, I thought Superman was supposed to be an icon for hope, so this color palette really kind of baffled me. The worst part was that I actually watched this in 2-D, so I can only imagine how devoid of color the 3-D version must have looked. I wouldn't recommend going with 3-D for this film.
All told, if nothing else, this film sets the counter back to zero, which the franchise needed after the disastrous Superman Returns, and did so with some solid performances from some very talented actors and the very best visual effects that money can buy, so for all my reservations, I'm still giving this a thumbs-up.
I just hope they make a lot of improvements, should they ever make a sequel.
3.5/5
The story basically resets the clock on the cinematic legend of Superman and begins on his dying homeworld of Krypton, at the moment of his birth to Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer), the first natural-born child on the planet in centuries, with every other baby on Krypton having been grown, Matrix-style, in a giant underwater plant nursery called a genesis chamber. Jor-El tries to convince the planet's leaders that it's time to send Krypton's inhabitants to other planets to save them from a doomed world, and asks for something called the Codex, which is apparently the genetic blueprint for all Kryptonians. He is interrupted, however, by a coup d'etat being staged by the planet's chief military officer, General Zod (Michael Shannon).
Suffice it to say, notwithstanding the chaos, Jor-El is able to obtain the Kryptonian Codex and ship it, and his newborn son Kal-El, off to a suitable planet for Kal-El to grow up (which happens to be Earth) while Zod's coup is foiled and he is sentenced to exile in the Phantom Zone, apparently scarcely moments before Krypton gives up the ghost.
One abrupt cut later, Kal-El is now thirtysomething Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) wandering around America doing odd jobs, and saving people in mortal peril while he's at it. His formative years as a super-powered alien grown up in Kansas, with his foster parents, the stern Jonathan (Kevin Costner) and doting Martha (Diane Lane) Kent, are told in flashbacks, which show that it was not the easiest childhood, but one which would prove crucial to helping shape who he would eventually become.
Clark is also a man in search of something, and when, while working at a bar, he overhears a couple of military types talking about a strange, possibly extraterrestrial find in the Arctic, he decides on his next odd job. While there, he encounters feisty, award-winning reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), and, in finding out what the mysterious object is: his destiny.
As the second half of the story unfolds, it turns out that Clark's/Kal's destiny may also involve facing off against Zod and his minions including the fetching but deadly Faora (Antje Traue), who have escaped from their prison with the destruction of Krypton and are basically looking to make Earth their new home, even if it means wiping out everyone on it. Thus, Kal-El finds himself having to choose between the remnants of the world he was born into, and his adopted world.
The film doesn't open in the United States until Friday, but early reviews have come in and they are, for the most part, almost nothing like the near universal praise that was heaped on Nolan's reshaping of the Batman legend with his Dark Knight trilogy. A lot of the good reviews seem somewhat qualified by a number of reservations, and many of the bad reviews are downright scathing in their appraisal of the new Supes outing.
Personally, I find a lot of the bad reviews a bit unfair, and more than a few of them smack of pre-cooked disdain for the action blockbuster, but apart from the more snide comments, I appreciated some of the points they made against this film.
I'd like to get this out of the way right now: to me, this film is easily better than Superman Returns.
To my mind, Snyder and crew got a lot right here, starting with the casting. While I doubt British actor Cavill will win any major acting awards for his performance as the last son of Krypton, he does a decent enough job filling in Superman's redesigned tights (read: no red briefs), and more importantly, ably conveys the pathos of someone who belongs to two worlds yet is not really part of either, at least not until he makes a crucial choice. Credit must also go to the two actors who played the younger Clark in flashbacks, Dylan Sprayberry and Cooper Timberline, who did a commendable job of showing how difficult it was for Clark to grow up being different from everyone else. The strongest performance here comes from Crowe, playing the doomed Jor-El. I realize people regard the late Marlon Brando's take on the character as sacrosanct, but with all due respect I submit that Crowe is at least Brando's equal in the acting department, at least as far as this movie is concerned. Also, I highly doubt Brando could have squeezed into the tights Crowe rocked in this movie, let alone done an action scene in them, as Crowe did. Next up on my list are Lane's take on Martha Kent and Costner's take on Jonathan Kent. These are people who have no idea how to raise a Kryptonian but who do the very best they can, and I absolutely loved the humanity in their performance; their scenes with the actors playing young Clark are, for me, some of the very best in the movie. Even though the scene in which Pa Kent, in response to Clark's asking "can't I just go on pretending to be your son" tells Clark "you are my son" has been played over and over in the trailers, seeing it in the actual movie, complete with context, still left me a little misty-eyed. I'll have to respectfully disagree with one of the reviews I read which described this film as having no heart; to my mind that's one of the things it does have. I also enjoyed Amy Adams' take on Lois Lane, though I'll go into that a little bit more later. Shannon does a solid but not quite exceptional job as Zod, who is not quite as villainous as he is fanatical in this film. There is not a bad performance in sight here, even if some actors are more remarkable than others.
Another thing this film has going for it is the rather nifty visuals. It's been seven years since the last Superman movie and a full thirty-three since Superman II, the first cinematic appearance of General Zod, and there has been plenty of advancement in visual effects technology since then, a fact of which the filmmakers take due advantage. From the striking rendition of Krypton, previously just a bunch of crystals and staid interiors, and now a strikingly-rendered, Avatar-style alien ecosystem, to the depiction to Superman's powers, ranging from his x-ray vision to his flying abilities, to the truly massive action sequences in the last half-hour or so of the film, this film is, as a technical achievement, far and away the most impressive of any of the films in the series. The final fight sequence and the massive destruction it wreaks, while reminiscent of the Transformers films, are quite spectacular. Also, as an aside, it was gratifying to see the aftermath of all the collateral damage; one thing that really irked me about last year's smash hit The Avengers was how, even after all the destruction that the battle with the aliens caused, the New York skyline basically remained intact as shown by the long shot taken right after the battle. For gosh sakes, alien warships the size of blue whales smashed into buildings, and yet nothing seemed the worse for wear! Here, though, the cataclysmic effects of the final battle and of another crucially destructive story point (which I won't spoil) really leave Metropolis (played by Chicago, which also played Gotham City in Nolan's Bat-movies) in shambles. In the name of a PG-13 rating, though, the human face of this otherwise 9/11 style carnage is mercifully (many could reasonably argue insensitively) obscured.
Oh, and I daresay I liked Hans Zimmer's new theme. No, he's no John Williams, but the Zimmer's credit he doesn't try to be, and why he does here works. It played well throughout the film and punctuated the end credits quite nicely.
Unfortunately, the film had more than its fair share of faults. From a lot of contrived moments in the script to the done-to-death Christian iconography to the flaws in the film's internal logic, there were a lot of somewhat jarring moments in the film, many of which, again unfortunately, I cannot really elaborate upon as they involve spoiling important plot points. Now, as a fan of movies like this I take as a given the requirement of suspension of disbelief, but when a movie seems to have trouble sticking to its own internal logic then I have trouble accepting the movie.
The Christian overtones, though often present in this film's predecessors, were also a bit too blatant for my liking, like the fact that Superman is 33 years old, the same age as Jesus at the start of his ministry (and even older than Cavill actually is), a distinctly Christlike pose Superman assumes (I would argue unnecessarily) at a crucial point in the film, and the fact that Superman actually consults a priest when he is conflicted about an important decision, and actually stands in front of a stained-glass window depicting Jesus agonizing in the Garden of Gethsemane! To my knowledge, Superman's creators, the late Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were both Jewish so I can't help but wonder at what point in the character's history, in film or print, did he start to be identified as a Christ-like figure. Also, in that connection, the declaration by Jor-El that artificial birth control had a hand in the destruction of Krypton feels a little heavy-handed and reminded me of the Catholic Church's stance against the same thing. I couldn't help but wonder if someone was pushing a bit of an agenda for a moment there.
Another of this film's sins for me was how utterly humorless it was, which is a pretty common critique, but one which, I will argue, is a valid one. A good friend of mine said "Superman is not Batman" and while I will dispute claims that the filmmakers tried to turn Superman into Batman here, I will agree that a lot of the fun of the earlier movies was drained out of this film. It's equal parts brooding and menacing towards the end, but there are next to no lighthearted moments in this movie, which just feels wrong for a hero as colorful as Superman. About the biggest laughs I got in this movie were from how over-the-top the action during the climactic fight scene was.
(Spoiler Warning)
Worse still, and along the same lines, there's virtually none of the banter between Clark and Lois (who incidentally have zero chemistry despite an earnest performance by Amy Adams) that was a staple of not only the earlier films but of depictions of Superman in general over his seven-and-a-half-decade existence. They kiss at the end of the film, but it feels more like a product of Lois' post traumatic stress (she fell from an airplane, after all, with Superman catching her) than any actual affection she might have had for him.
The good news, however, is that this version of Lois Lane is far more credible as an ace reporter in this film as she is able to figure things out a lot better than her previous incarnations. In short, we won't have to harp on how stupid she is for not being able to see past a pair of glasses.
(End Spoiler Warning)
My other problem with this film is one of style; I really was not fond of the conspicuously desaturated colors, which made the movie look as if the filmmakers were trying to film Saving Private Ryan with superheroes. The deliberately drab look of the movie muted what could have been some very interesting visuals for Krypton, which depicted mainly in shades of brown, gray and some murky blue, though given that Superman's homeworld was basically about to explode when we were introduced to it I guess it was tonally consistent. Less justifiable for me, though, was the lack of color all throughout the rest of the movie. Again, I thought Superman was supposed to be an icon for hope, so this color palette really kind of baffled me. The worst part was that I actually watched this in 2-D, so I can only imagine how devoid of color the 3-D version must have looked. I wouldn't recommend going with 3-D for this film.
All told, if nothing else, this film sets the counter back to zero, which the franchise needed after the disastrous Superman Returns, and did so with some solid performances from some very talented actors and the very best visual effects that money can buy, so for all my reservations, I'm still giving this a thumbs-up.
I just hope they make a lot of improvements, should they ever make a sequel.
3.5/5
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
"Troubled Productions"
As a fan of the television series The Walking Dead, I find myself genuinely interested in the upcoming adaptation of Max Brooks' popular zombie novel World War Z, and upon reading about it was a little surprised to find out that the production has hit a number of roadblocks, some of them logistical in nature, but more than a few of them stemming creative issues. It's seen its script rewritten, its ending re-shot, and its budget skyrocket.
It got me thinking about the whole concept of the troubled production, which is hardly new in Hollywood, but which, in this day and age, feels a little silly. Script rewrites aren't new and neither are re-shoots for that matter. Heck, with the whole concept of test audiences, alternate endings have been around for a while too.
What's the difference, then, between then and now? Why should "troubled productions" be less common than they used to be?
Well, apart from the fact that most Hollywood scripts are practically written by committee these days, which by itself should provide plenty of opportunities to review and correct errant storytelling, there's also an oft-used technique nowadays called "pre-visualization" which, if I understand correctly, takes the whole concept of the storyboard into the 21st century. I first saw the "pre-viz" process on the DVD of the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which the filmmakers, using a computer, basically mapped out how a given scene would look without shooting a single frame of footage. It was a way to test the contents of the printed page in a moving, sort-of-living environment, and they got to work out everything from blocking to optimal camera angles. Almost every big-budget movie these days utilizes pre-visualization; take the time to watch the credits of any effects-heavy film and one will see a sizable portion of the credits often goes to the pre-visualization department. These guys are as integral to any blockbuster as any visual effects vendor, with the only different being that they create their computer-generated imagery before and not after a film is shot.
Between script reviews, "pre-viz," and dailies, I'm hard-pressed to imagine why any major film production, after the conclusion of filming, would have to undergo extensive re-shoots that jack up the budget. Sure, if I were the mayor of the city where a particular film is shot or re-shot, or any of the local crew I'd probably be happy to have the extra income. Like I said in my previous post, lots of people can benefit from film shootings in general.
But then, often re-shoots are attempts to pander to the films' intended audiences. It's some of the most expensive second-guessing around; as this re-jiggering of the story are often initiated after a handful of people have seen the movie and delivered a verdict on it. Motion pictures being such expensive affairs these days some filmmakers are more than ready to hedge their $100 million dollar bets, even if it means spending MORE money with no ironclad guarantee of success. And the thing about pandering is that it is rarely, if ever, a purely artistic decision, but is often brought on by the machinations of the suits behind a film's production, whose sole purpose is not to tell a story but to turn a profit, regardless of the actual quality of the story involved, and so it's not unheard of that story quality is one of the first casualties.
Of course, it's never really wise to generalize, but the thing about original endings is that, for better or worse, they often represent the filmmakers' uncompromising vision of what they want to put on the screen. Revised, often sanitized endings or sometimes scenes inevitably dilute this vision, and sometimes the disconnect between what the filmmakers intended and what was forced upon them is painfully evident. For example, I found Ridley Scott's 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven to be an unholy mess of a story, but when I read about a much longer director's cut that explained a lot of things that didn't make an ounce of sense to me in the drastically pruned theatrical cut, I looked more kindly on the film, even though I have yet to see that longer, more sensible version. Scott had wanted to tell a story, but the suits at 20th Century Fox had wanted to sell a summer movie, and in the end they both lost.
So as World War Z nears its opening, questions linger as to what kind of quality viewers can expect from a film that has been obsessively tinkered with, most probably in the name of ensuring a handsome return on investment. The mere fact that this is a zombie movie touting a PG-13 rating already screams "watered down" considering that most hard-core zombie-centric movies like the George Romero films, their remakes, and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later were all rated "R" and considering further that The Walking Dead would have enough gore and profanity to flirt with the dreaded "NC-17" rating if it were a movie, but the monumental production delays could represent another level of creative butchery altogether. There's naught left to do but wait and see.
It got me thinking about the whole concept of the troubled production, which is hardly new in Hollywood, but which, in this day and age, feels a little silly. Script rewrites aren't new and neither are re-shoots for that matter. Heck, with the whole concept of test audiences, alternate endings have been around for a while too.
What's the difference, then, between then and now? Why should "troubled productions" be less common than they used to be?
Well, apart from the fact that most Hollywood scripts are practically written by committee these days, which by itself should provide plenty of opportunities to review and correct errant storytelling, there's also an oft-used technique nowadays called "pre-visualization" which, if I understand correctly, takes the whole concept of the storyboard into the 21st century. I first saw the "pre-viz" process on the DVD of the 2005 film Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which the filmmakers, using a computer, basically mapped out how a given scene would look without shooting a single frame of footage. It was a way to test the contents of the printed page in a moving, sort-of-living environment, and they got to work out everything from blocking to optimal camera angles. Almost every big-budget movie these days utilizes pre-visualization; take the time to watch the credits of any effects-heavy film and one will see a sizable portion of the credits often goes to the pre-visualization department. These guys are as integral to any blockbuster as any visual effects vendor, with the only different being that they create their computer-generated imagery before and not after a film is shot.
Between script reviews, "pre-viz," and dailies, I'm hard-pressed to imagine why any major film production, after the conclusion of filming, would have to undergo extensive re-shoots that jack up the budget. Sure, if I were the mayor of the city where a particular film is shot or re-shot, or any of the local crew I'd probably be happy to have the extra income. Like I said in my previous post, lots of people can benefit from film shootings in general.
But then, often re-shoots are attempts to pander to the films' intended audiences. It's some of the most expensive second-guessing around; as this re-jiggering of the story are often initiated after a handful of people have seen the movie and delivered a verdict on it. Motion pictures being such expensive affairs these days some filmmakers are more than ready to hedge their $100 million dollar bets, even if it means spending MORE money with no ironclad guarantee of success. And the thing about pandering is that it is rarely, if ever, a purely artistic decision, but is often brought on by the machinations of the suits behind a film's production, whose sole purpose is not to tell a story but to turn a profit, regardless of the actual quality of the story involved, and so it's not unheard of that story quality is one of the first casualties.
Of course, it's never really wise to generalize, but the thing about original endings is that, for better or worse, they often represent the filmmakers' uncompromising vision of what they want to put on the screen. Revised, often sanitized endings or sometimes scenes inevitably dilute this vision, and sometimes the disconnect between what the filmmakers intended and what was forced upon them is painfully evident. For example, I found Ridley Scott's 2005 film Kingdom of Heaven to be an unholy mess of a story, but when I read about a much longer director's cut that explained a lot of things that didn't make an ounce of sense to me in the drastically pruned theatrical cut, I looked more kindly on the film, even though I have yet to see that longer, more sensible version. Scott had wanted to tell a story, but the suits at 20th Century Fox had wanted to sell a summer movie, and in the end they both lost.
So as World War Z nears its opening, questions linger as to what kind of quality viewers can expect from a film that has been obsessively tinkered with, most probably in the name of ensuring a handsome return on investment. The mere fact that this is a zombie movie touting a PG-13 rating already screams "watered down" considering that most hard-core zombie-centric movies like the George Romero films, their remakes, and Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later were all rated "R" and considering further that The Walking Dead would have enough gore and profanity to flirt with the dreaded "NC-17" rating if it were a movie, but the monumental production delays could represent another level of creative butchery altogether. There's naught left to do but wait and see.
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