Mar 07
AndrewMovies Comic Book Adaptation, Films, Movies
Maybe the big joke about Watchmen is how completely devoid of humanity the film itself is. Leaving the theater, it might be something worth pondering, or if you’re like me, you might inclined just to forget the whole thing ever happened.
I am a huge fan of well-told comic book adaptations, and I will credit director Zac Snyder and writers David Hayter and Alex Tse for having a thorough and unrelenting vision when it comes to Watchmen. The problem is, it is so saturated with intent, there is nothing really fun about it. The film is improbable in a way that defies the historical context within which it rests. The Watchmen are a group of retired, strung out superheroes shutdown by Nixon (apparently in his fifth term in office) who come out of hiding when it appears that someone is trying to kill them off one by one.
Except the truth is murkier than that. And by the time it comes to light that there is, in fact, no serial superhero killer, you don’t really care. By then you have sat through origin stories of all the principal characters and watched an almost three-hour morality play unfold that makes Gibson’s Passion a bit tepid after all. But that’s the joke really, Watchmen is brutally unpleasant to watch. The historical backdrop and cameo appearances by legendary figures (Lee Iacocca takes bullet in the film) serve as distractions and not in a good way. The main characters are street fighters, picking fights with the scourge of the earth and suffering almost without injury through battle after battle (though fortunately they can beat up on each other and do some damage). The film’s questionable moral center is less food for thought and more just a reason to turn away.
I was most distracted by the use of both film and superhero cliches. The ejaculation of fire when two characters climax during sex seems more like a fanboy’s fantasy of superheroes having sex than the real thing. And how come the heroes never seem to get hurt? None of them, except the atomic man Dr. Manhattan (played by Billy Crudup, whose blue penis needs its own film, honestly, more penis or less, please) seemingly have actual super powers. Yet they punch, kick, body slam and fire bomb their way through scores of villains and rarely take any damage themselves, armed as they all are with lightning quick reflexes, super(man)-strength and Mortal Kombat fighting skills. Even the film’s (in my opinion unnecessary) American-centric narrative perspective seemed to just emphasize how incongruous the whole story was.
Visually, the film is stunning. It’s gorgeous in the fashion of 300 and Sin City. And Snyder wisely moves the camera away once in a while instead of forcing us to watch one brutal retribution scene after another. Atomic explosions, hand saws, broken fingers, and scalding hot oil are just some of the treats on the Watchmen menu, dished out by our supposed heroes. The characters are well-developed, to the point that film’s most violent, unforgiving hero Rorschach (played brilliantly by Jackie Earle Haley who gets the best lines to boot) becomes its only heartbeat.
I have heard from fans that Snyder managed a laudable adaptation of the Watchmen graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. Having not read it, I was able to watch Watchmen with fresh eyes. There is no question that the film is a deliberate, thoughtful story. But it is also completely soulless and vaguely threatening, and not even a little fun at that.
Nov 06
AndrewMovies Adaptations, comic book, Comic Book Adaptation, Comics, Films, Heroes, Marvel, Movies
Let’s face it, Hulk never translated on to the big screen (call it the Lou Ferrigno ® curse) and the Uncanny X-Men films were brilliant in the hands of Bryan Singer but lackluster in the hands of director Brett Ratner, despite cranking up the action quotient in the third installment. (It’s funny because among Ratner’s other directorial credits is Rush Hour and Madonna’s music video for Beautiful Stranger. Or is that just funny to me?) The Punisher? You couldn’t even decide which version was worse, Dolph Lundgren’s or Thomas Jane’s (who by the way, I love but even he couldn’t rise above this one.)
But for all the Marvel adaptations that have flopped (Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Elektra) or just been [shrug] (either Fantastic Four, Spider-Man 3, Howard the Duck) there have been some shining moments. Among them Spider-Man, X-Men and, of course, the most recent blockbuster Iron Man.
Iron Man is the news these days, along with the now-confirmed first Marvel team-up of Avengers headed for theaters in 2011. The first hero movie of any franchise is a bit of a hit or miss affair. For people not familiar with comic books, the director and screenwriters have to infuse enough of the legend for people to understand the characters without completely alienating the fanbase that have obsessed about them since elementary school. Singer managed to walk the fine line (though notably at the expense of the action sequences, as I mentioned and with judicious use of Professor Xavier voiceovers.) Iron Man, directed by Jon Favreau, did it too, and better.
So it’s understandable now that the Iron Man mythology is firmly established in the Hollywood milieu (and by that, I mean that it is profitable,) the buzz is building around the sequel and Iron Man’s eventual starring role in The Avengers.
It’s easy to conclude that a good film really lies in the hands of the director (I’ve already skewered Ghost Rider for such things if you care to revisit that travesty.) So for whichever installment Favreau signs on for, there is a good chance the film is going to be worthwhile. (He is currently slated to direct Iron Man II and executive produce The Avengers.) And given the studio’s track record of releasing three hero films a year (except for 2006 but that was obviously a glaring mistake in scheduling) whether the films are good or bad doesn’t make much of a dent in the future of Marvel hero films.
Coming Attractions
Punisher
First up is the Punisher reboot Punisher: War Zone. A reboot just means the first origin film flopped, so they are telling the origin story again with a different creative team. Marvel already tried this with The Incredible Hulk which flopped but established Edward Norton to play Bruce Banner/Hulk in The Avengers film (including a brief appearance by Iron Man’s alter ego Tony Stark hinting at an Avengers team.)
The Punisher has been done before, and not well. Lundgren’s Punisher was a product of decade it was made in (the film was released in 1989) but Jane’s Punisher was just painful to sit through from start to finish. The fact that movie sucked had little to do with Jane himself, but that’s not really a consolation for anyone who made the mistake of watching it.
Punisher: War Zone, as a comic book, was grittier storytelling than the mainstream Punisher comic, and we should expect about the same between The Punisher film and the upcoming War Zone. Sadly, the story is going to sound remarkably familiar to anyone who has ever seen a hero movie: Mob boss is disfigured by superhero vigilante, adopts a supervillain persona and seeks revenge against said superhero. There is little to no buzz about the film despite a December 5 release date (though the film was pushed back from its original release date on September 12.) But here’s the question? The plot sounds wholly unoriginal, what is going to distinguish this from the past Punisher flops or any other retread hero flick? My guess: not a damn thing.
Wolverine
The X-Men franchise was handed over to Wolverine, care of Hugh Jackman, which is a good thing if you ask me. Jackman personified Wolverine in a way that still sends chills down my spine. Oh, but this is an origin story and features a veritable who’s who in the Wolverine universe. So many characters that you might be tempted to ask, who is going to direct the menagerie to make it work? That would be Gavin Hood (who?) Yeah, he is virtually unknown, whose directorial credits barely warrant him an inclusion in the imdb database.
Jackman himself had a hand in the script and supposedly pushed to emphasize a character-driven storyline. My guess: Jackman pulls it off.
Thor/Captain America
So in order to launch an Avengers franchise (with Robert Downey Jr. and Edward Norton already on board) Marvel Studios is bouncing around ideas for films that establish Thor and Captain America in Hollywood. The Cap film was delayed because of the writer’s strike but has been tentatively slated for a May 2011 release, sans any real details (though it is supposedly set during World War II.)
There is no real information about the possibility of a Thor film except that it has been in pre-production for several years. My guess: It will be interesting, assuming both films are released, to see if setting up the characters in their own films helps or hurts The Avengers. I would love to see The Avengers spawn infinite sequels -- it was always one of my favorite comics -- but I’m not sure how long Marvel can keep cranking out films and keep people engaged (particularly when their success rate is generously 50%.)
Future Film Adaptations
Sequels for Iron Man and Spider-Man are confirmed. Iron Fist, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Black Panther and…Ant Man? Confirmed in development at least. (There were reports a while back that Ghost Rider’s creator Gary Friedrich was appalled by the misuse of his creation -- though from the lawsuits that followed it may have been motivated more by money than anything else.) And there has been some spin around films for Nick Fury (inconceivably played by Samuel L. Jackson in the Iron Man flick) and Dr. Strange, in addition to spin-offs for Silver Surfer, Venom and Magneto. My guess: Good or bad, Marvel will keep the pace going for the foreseeable future. There is no way to run out of characters when you can always make a sequel or a reboot out of established film heroes or dig up some obscure character and try to make a bonafide box office hero out of him.
Feb 18
AndrewMovies Comic Book Adaptation, Ghost Rider, Nicholas Cage
Man, this movie was bad. I’m going to avoid (I swear) puns on the name of Ghost Rider or his alter ego Johnny Blaze and just say Man, this movie was bad!
While watching Ghost Rider, I got a weird sense of deja vu. It was very much the same feeling I had watching Daredevil, another Marvel comic book adaptation. Both films have some good action sequences, a hottie love interest for our superhero, and a nice mix of light and dark moments. But put those pieces altogether and both films were an unequivocal disaster from top to bottom. They are literally hard to sit through. You can almost (almost) spot the making of a good superhero movie in the finished product.
If you don’t know, Mark Steven Johnson was responsible for both movies, as both director and primary screenwriter. His other credits include Simon Birch, an impossibly mangled adaptation of one of the most spiritually uplifting novels of all time A Prayer for Owen Meany, and Jack Frost.
Ghost Rider has great visual imagery. The flaming skull and the transformation from human to hothead. The flaming motorcycle rides were the best scenes, causing senseless and extraordinary damage which is kind of what you would expect from a bike created from the flames of hell.
But aside from rare moments, the rest was a disaster. Okay, just to make this a proper review, here’s the plot: Mephistopheles (played by the cadaverous Peter Fonda) signs a blood contract with young Johnny Blaze (Matt Long) who grows up into Nicolas Cage. Mephistopheles eventually enlists the adult Johnny Blaze, haunted by twenty years of nightmares and Nicolas Cage-facial tics, to hunt down Blackheart (Wes Bentley, who also had an unfortunate role in American Beauty.) Problem, Cage, er, Blaze turns into Ghost Rider after dark and in the presence of evil which means he’ll never be able to take Eva Mendes, er, his love interest Roxanne Simpson, out on a date.
Oh wait, and then there’s the inexplicable appearance of Sam Elliott, playing the caretaker who knows all -- I won’t spoil the surprise for you but afterwards you will definitely think “where is he going?”
I really enjoyed Mendes in this movie, and I can honestly say I had no expectations because I have -- get this -- never seen another movie she was in.
And that is pretty much it. You know it’s a bad sign when you haven’t even gotten through the backstory and you’re already ready to leave. But on a positive note, I made it through this entire review without a single pun.
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