*Fair warning right here and now -- this entire post is heavily nerd-centric and deals with comic books and movies in its entirety. Consider this your trigger-warning, nerd-alert, or whatever you wanna call it*
*Second warning - before reading this, you should probably go here and read it so you know what I'm responding to, exactly*
And now, on to the blog...
My
very dear friend Preston recently wrote a massive essay regarding the state of
comic-book movies. Focusing mostly
on comics movies made within the past 13 years, he does touch on some of the
early shining stars that helped give rise to today’s legitimacy of the
super-hero genre, like 1978’s Superman and 1989’s Batman. I’d recommend reading the essay, even
if I weren’t about to disprove several of his points, because he obviously
cares about what he’s writing about and he’s got some decent insights.
However,
as is often the problem with the folly of youth, he’s missed the mark on a few
points, which I will illustrate and correct below.
It’s
not entirely Preston’s fault – as I said, he’s young. As a fresh-faced 23 year-old just a year out of college he
simply wasn’t alive for several failed attempts to make comics a viable
multimedia market outside of the bookshelves. Early TV shows like Wonder Woman, The Hulk, and the
live-action Spider Man were groundbreaking in many ways for their time, but
suffered from the society in which they were produced. TV shows back in the 70’s were simply
susceptible to too many guidelines and rules to be true to the comics. The Hulk was the closest, and while
Wonder Woman is remembered fondly for what it was, Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno
enjoyed regular work as the character well into the 80’s through a series of
poorly-produced, low-budget, made-for-TV movies. So while there were more failures than successes, it’s important
to remember that in the early years of comic-books-on-screen, DC dominated the
theatres while Marvel ruled the airwaves.
Also, as an aside –
the new Spider Man films don’t look very promising, they look terrible. The acting is reminiscent of the Star
Wars prequels, they completely missed the mark on the style and attitude of the
central character, and the whole “missing father” storyline is from a point in
the comics that is well after his origins and was never a part of the
character’s foundation. Sam Raimi
got it 100% right in the Tobey Maguire films – the new Spider Man tries to take
several different versions of the character across different storylines and
alternate universes and amalgamate them into one character without realizing
how those versions conflict with each other and so far they’ve only succeeded
in making a mess of the character and his history that’s, quite frankly,
embarrassing.
Interestingly
enough, that trend has seen a reversal of late with Marvel taking over the
movie theatres while DC has established itself as the clear winner on the
small-screen. The poor performance
of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., when measured against the tremendous success of
Arrow and Smallville, and then coupled with the moderate success of, say, Birds
of Prey, shows that DC is making great strides on television screens, and the
rumors of the upcoming Flash and Streets of Gotham shows just cements their
success.
I
did find it curious as to why one would think that Batman Begins is the
superior entry in the Nolan trilogy when The Dark Knight is clearly the
superior film; especially for most of the selfsame reasons quoted as to why
Spider Man 2 was better than its predecessor.
Now
at this point in his missive, I can’t disagree with Preston a whole lot about his
postulations. He makes some good
points, but he’s leaving out quite a bit of information to support his
assertions. Why skip directly from
Iron Man to The Avengers? Every
Marvel movie produced between those two was absolutely crucial to the creation of
The Avengers and they all deserve equal mention in outlining exactly how
Marvel’s oldest team of superheroes came to conquer the cinema. Iron Man 2 added tremendous depth to
the character and introduced the world (at large) to the Black Widow. The Incredible Hulk was a wonderful
apology for its predecessor and did everything right that Hulk got wrong. Thor, while a bit heavy-handed and
clunky with its “thrown in at the last second and rushed through to the point
of incomprehension” love story still did a great job of defining the character
for this day and age, not to mention introducing us all to both Hawkeye and the
inescapable awesomeness of Tom Hiddleston as Loki. Captain America, again, established the character and did a
great job of incorporating emotional depth and conscience into a super-hero
punch-‘em-up movie (and it has so far done the absolute best job of setting up
its own sequel without actually letting anybody know that it did so (except the
hardcore comics fans, of course, but what can I say? We’re a smart bunch, us fanboys)).
So
while The Avengers did create the best superhero
team-film, I think it’s a bit dismissive to say that that “what Avengers did more than anything is
it showed how to make a team film in the best way.” The Ocean’s Eleven series of films is arguably the best of any “team” film, for exactly the reasons
you quoted for The Avengers – and they did it with double the cast.
The
next point to contend with is the assertion that Heath Ledger’s Joker was a
poor “comic-book” Joker. First
off, you can’t split the character into two competing versions. If you allow there to be a “movie”
Joker and a “comic-book” Joker then you would have to allow the same for every
character and then we’d just be stuck in an unholy mess that gives filmmakers
leeway to freely tamper and re-interpret these characters as they see fit. It’s this kind of storytelling and
filmmaking that gave us movies like 47 Ronin and World War Z, which had pretty
much nothing to do with the source material.
That
being said, Heath Ledger’s portrayal of The Joker is the ONLY true version, and
every other actor who has ever attempted it has gotten it wrong.
That’s
not to say they’ve been bad – after
all, Jack Nicholson totally stole the show back in ’89 when he put on the
purple suit and tangoed with Michael Keaton, but it wasn’t fundamentally Joker.
It’s
an easy mistake to make, though, after all the Joker in comics is flamboyant
and huge and goofy and extravagant, while Heath Ledger was more moderate and
toned down (not to mention a good deal darker than what people typically think
of when they read a Joker story).
But that’s exactly what it got right. See, in order to even make a contention as to which Joker is
better than the other you have to first understand what’s at the core of The
Joker – which is simply chaos.
Joker is the perfect antithesis to Batman because while Batman is all
about order (that’s why he’s “the world’s greatest detective,” not “the world’s greatest leg-breaker” or “the world’s
greatest cock-puncher”), the Joker is all about breaking down that order and
descending into madness and anarchy.
So all of the flamboyance you see in the comics; the elaborate schemes,
the party favors, the wild-and-zany gadgets and gizmos – that’s all done in the
name of sowing confusion and chaos, not showmanship. So while Heath Ledger’s Joker was distinctly lacking in
oversized mallets or pop-guns or poker-based scheming, he finally came through
as the character he was at his core.
He even says it himself – “I am an agent of chaos.” Plain and simple.
Regarding
the “worst of the worst” movies pointed out in the article, I’d agree with the
inclusion of all three, but you’ve used the easy-answers here when there are
far worse movies that could and/or should have been listed. Don’t take the easy way out, you’re not
in college anymore, make it stick and make it strong.
For
one thing, Arnold Schwarzenegger was entirely 100% wrong for Mr. Freeze. I’m sure you have fond memories of
watching this movie as a small child and thinking that he was cool (pun
intended), but this is another one of those cases where the producers and
directors desperately misunderstood the character and thus hoped that by
cramming a big-name star into the role they could overcome their own inability
to comprehend the role. His
performance was neither honest nor sincere, it was a paycheck. Similarly, I’m pretty sure the rest of
the cast was sleepwalking their way through the film out of some hidden
obligation – maybe they lost a bet, maybe Satan called in his claim on their
souls, whatever; whoever ate their Alpha-Bits and shit out a script did no
favors to the cast or characters or source material. Couple that with a psychotic director who, apparently, had
never read a comic book in his life, much less a Batman comic, and you have a
recipe for disaster from the get-go.
George Clooney was the only watchable thing in that entire movie because
he’s simply just that talented. He
played one of the best Bruce Waynes in cinematic history, and under a better
director with a decent script he could have been one of the greats.
And
while I don’t disagree that Fantastic Four was a bad movie, you weaken your own
point by admitting that it’s a “mixed bag.” If it’s bad enough to be on this list of yours, it shouldn’t
have any redeeming qualities – a movie like Hulk (which I’ve talked about
already), or The Punisher: War Zone, The Punisher (Dolph Lundgren’s version),
or Spider Man 3.
I
was surprised, though, that you’re actually the second person I’ve seen pulling
the race card on Jessica Alba to denounce her in the role of Sue Storm. Maybe I need new glasses or something,
but her Latino genetics weren’t apparent anywhere at any time on screen. Again, maybe it’s just me – but I’ve
never considered The Invisible Woman as some Aryan poster-girl for white
supremacy with platinum-blonde hair and porcelain skin. She was just another white girl, and
until someone pointed it out to me I wasn’t even aware that Jessica Alba was
supposed to be classified as Latino.
That
being said, her acting was fine.
She was easily as good as Michael Chiklis or Chris Evans.
Michael
Shannon, however, was a different Zod for a different time. If you read any of his appearances
throughout the Superman universe in comics over the last decade or so, you’ll
see that DC has adapted the character to the modern-age and made him more of
the soldier than simply the leader.
He’s a boots-on-the-ground kinda leader, and one who actually cares about
his troops in his zealotry, which makes it very easy to accept his actions in
Man of Steel. Then again, Man of
Steel had so many other problems (more on that later) that it’s really
impossible to pin the failings of that movie solely upon his head.
Okay,
now we have a real issue with your
“Underrated Movies” section. First
off, Hulk was not underrated. It
was a terrible, terrible film throughout and I think you’re confusing shoddy
storytelling and confusing narrative with “a cerebral story that shows the
struggle of the Hulk and makes you feel the pain and anger that Bruce has and
where it comes from.” The only
thing cerebral about that movie was the collective consciousness of audiences
worldwide who watched it and thought “What the fuck is this shit?” and the pain
and anger came from that self-same audience wondering if their money wouldn’t
have been better spent getting a back-alley amateur colonoscopy.
I
agree that Daredevil was highly underrated, however, but Elektra is, at worst,
forgettable. I don’t think she
actively detracted from the film at all, but she really didn’t contribute much
(if anything) at all. What that
film did so well (and also probably alienated the majority of the audience who
don’t know any better) was capture the non-stop shit-storm that is Matt
Murdock’s life. As a now-regular
reader of Daredevil (and long-time fan of Frank Miller’s work with the
character), the compelling element of Daredevil stories is the fact that pretty
much NOTHING goes right for him.
His life sucks, he’s always about a second away from going completely
broke, he gets his ass kicked early and often throughout his adventures, and
he’s forever teetering on the edge of utter failure…and yet he never stops,
never gives up, and never backs down.
With Daredevil you have a character who’s sheer spirit and
indomitability is what makes him a hero, while the super-powers are just so
much set-dressing.
On
a personal note – thank you for being 100% correct about Superman Returns. That being said, I disagree with your
earlier statement that “you cannot compare any modern portrayal of the
character because Christopher Reeve did it right the first time.” Brandon Routh absolutely did it right,
and I support that statement by virtue of the fact that Christopher Reeve and
his widow both TOLD HIM SO.
At
this point I must applaud you for your bold willingness to assert that pretty
much everybody on the planet has been pissing you off lately, as your list of
Comic Fans, Movie Fans, Actors and Directors, and Writers and Artists pretty
much encapsulates all of humanity.
Although I did enjoy the delicious irony of you condemning all of these
groups and then immediately showing your hand as one of them in your
condemnation of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman. You did do that on
purpose, didn’t you?
Speaking
of which, I would like to point out a few things:
·
Christopher Reeve was a medium-build (at best)
soap opera and romance-movie actor when he was cast as Superman
·
Tobey Maguire was the scrawny, big-screen
equivalent of the Squeaky-Voiced Teen from The Simpsons when he was cast as
Spider Man
·
Heath Ledger was an Australian soap-opera star
and pretty-boy surfer-dude when he was cast as The Joker
·
Michael Keaton was a half-midget comedic actor
when he was cast as Batman
Your own condemnation of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman is
hypocritical short-sightedness, especially when you immediately go on to say
that Marvel “gets it right” simply because they’ve cast actors you, personally,
enjoy in their movies. You just
got done decrying the fanboys who are blindly excited at the prospect of Wonder
Woman in a film simply because it’s Wonder Woman, and now you’re saying Marvel
movies are inherently better simply because they cast actors you like? Dude…
Ultimately you scratch the surface of
the issue in making the assertion that superhero movies have to be more than
just guys in suits punching things, but it’s never as simple as it seems. Remember that Hollywood is a
money-making machine first and foremost, with art and creativity and story and
character all falling well short of “can it turn a profit” on the list of reasons
to make a movie. When you have a
director like Jon Favreau or Bryan Singer or Christopher Nolan who understand
the characters and stories as well as how to make a movie you get box-office
gold that gets the fanboys wet while still drawing a crowd. You need a production team that knows
how to put the thought-bubbles and narrative-text-boxes from the page to the
screen without being overt or corny about it *cough* ANG LEE – HULK *cough*. Not that it’s entirely the production-team’s fault – Eric Bana can’t hold
a candle to Ed Norton, but combining a mediocre actor with a bad script and
poor directing produces a perfect storm of atrocity that is terrible to anybody
and everybody who might be your potential audience.
What
we ultimately need is more movies that understand the source material. The reason why the Marvel movies have
all worked so well is because they captured the fun elements of the books,
along with the darker, more serious elements, and wove them all together into a
rich tapestry of storytelling that just works. Batman, by contrast, is not a fun book. It’s dark and gritty and while there are fun and funny moments, it’s not the
kind of thing you read to get a laugh and feel uplifted at the end of the day –
and that’s why Chris Nolan’s interpretation of it worked so well. Conversely, you’re absolutely right
that Superman is a shining beacon of hope, truth, and justice and Zack Snyder’s
interpretation, while interesting, was not Superman. With one snapped neck he single-handedly destroyed the
character and turned a Superman movie into something else entirely. At that point you may as well have just
called it “Superguy” or “Ultra-Dude” because it wasn’t Superman anymore. At all.
But
don’t worry about beating up on Superman – he can take it, you can’t hurt him
anyway. *grin*
