I previously wrote that 2011 would be the Year of the Alien. As there were so many films coming out that were, well, about aliens. But there is another trend this year, especially in the blockbuster season: the summer of 2011 is the summer of the uninteresting b-grade super hero. The source of all this mayhem? Characters have become ‘properties’, commodities owned by studios to wrench out as much cheap money as possible. And if your movie studio is, owns or cooperates with a comic book publisher, you have a lot of ’properties’.
Marvel, for instance, is pillaging its back catalogue so that we can be given an ‘Avengers’ film next year or in 2013. But before that can happen The Hulk and Iron Man must be joined by Thor and Captain America. Who? A Norse God who has fallen to earth to combat stupid super-robots and a pumped up White Anglo Saxon Protestant in a spandex suit made out of the United States flag. Who’s going to take on a red-skulled Nazi by the name of, you guessed it, Red Skull. Disgusting. The little appearance of Tony Stark (Iron Man) in The Incredible Hulk was a nice joke, but the way Iron Man 2 was a mere commercial for the other Marvel films was sickening.
But let’s not just blame Marvel alone. DC Comics have wonderful ‘property’ in Superman and Batman, although Superman to me has always been something of a bore. But can someone explain to me what the appeal is of ‘Green Lantern’, an inter-alien cosmic police force who can just about summon anything they like using a red ring?
And what are all these good directors doing making these films? Martin Campbell (Goldeneye, Casino Royale) doing Green Lantern, Kenneth Branagh directing Thor? Are these guys deliberately torpedoing their own careers? Like Michel Gondry did with The Green Hornet earlier this year?
And it’s getting worse: the Superman reboot, directed by Zach Snyder and produced and written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan sounds really cool. But with The Dark Knight Rises just about to start shooting, Warner Bros. and DC are already thinking of another Batman reboot. I hope it’s not going to be as dreadful as the idea of making new Spiderman movies, in which Spiderman is a teenage high school kid. It will please the main demographic for these films perhaps, but it is a bad omen. High school kids can’t be superheroes. Look at Kick-Ass. (Although it must be noted here that the casting of Andrew Garfield was a strong move by the producers of The Amazing Spiderman.)
Other ‘properties’ that DC is now considering for the big screen: Wonder Woman (and you thought Superman is a bad name) and The Flash, whose superpower is that he can run really fast.
Run really fast, yeah, away from your multiplexes when this hits the screen in inevitably eye-blinding 3D.
Okay. So that’s it. It is the first of September, and although some big loud action movies are still to premiere on Dutch screens, I call it a day for the blockbuster season of 2010. September is the month in which we’ll get to see Machete and Piranha 3D, but it is also the month of the Venice Film Festival and, interesting for the locals here, The dutch Film Festival in Utrecht.
And what a weird blockbuster season it has been. Whereas other years were actually good (2008 saw The Dark Knight, Iron Man and only had The Incredible Hulk to cry about) or very bad (2009, if only for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and GI: Joe) 2010’s summer saw its major titles sink, but saw other, unexpected, films deliver.
Of course, Inception was great. If my review seemed critical, it was only because I set the bar higher for that film. Three other films that I really enjoyed were Centurion, Kick-Assand Salt. Big pictures of course, but not the movie events that dominated the summer. The A-Teamwas a delightful guilty pleasure, but it disappointed at the (U.S.) box office, so unfortunately there will probably not be a sequel.
So, apart from Inception, what was the blockbuster season of 2010 about? Well, to be honest, it was not really about big loud action movies. Of course Inception was big and loud, and an action film, but it does not belong to the same league as Armageddon or Transformers. The other films that drew large crowds this summer were, well, kids movies.
Toy Story 3was amazing; the only film in 3D that was worth the extra bucks so far. It deserved to be as successful as it was. Shrek Forever After(also in 3D) was a disgrace, but it was a popular success. Let’s just hope that Dreamworks will leave Shrek alone now, and in time I may forgive them. Finally, there was the remake of The Karate Kid, which was far from faultless, but was carried by great performances and had a sincere heart.
The big debates now will focus on two questions: is 2010 an exception, or are family films the future of the blockbuster season? Harry Potter will of course finish with two big bangs, but what’s next? The other question: what to think of 3D? Is it the future of the business? The savior of cinema? Some studies suggest otherwise. I think it will only work as an added attraction for films that were from the first moment thought of as 3D pictures. Avatar for instance, or Toy Story 3. Turning ‘normal’ 2D films into 3D, sometimes with the help of inadequate conversion processes, only helps to kill of the hype and the audience willingness to pay extra.
So this was it: the blockbuster season. One film I’ve yet to mention is Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, which has had its American and UK release, but will only hit Dutch screens this autumn. I don’t expect too much of it. It seems immature fatiguing nonsense, with an unlikable hero who thinks the L-word refers to lesbians. Geek stuff I guess. Must be, with Michael Cera doing that Michael Cera thing that some people seem to like.
(This trailer is so annoying that I want to see and then hate this film)
So, let’s ease into the autumn, towards the Holiday season films and the first contenders for awards season 2011. Just a few titles you may already want to look up: The American, 127 hours, Four Lions, Tamara Drew and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life. Terence Malick? Yes. Terence Malick. Also, there is the ‘new Slumdog Millionaire’ with Africa United. I’m looking forward already.
I missed Public Enemies in cinemas last year, so here is a review, based on the DVD, of Michael Mann’s historical crime film.
Public Enemies follows the last year of Public Enemy nr. One of the United States in 1933: the equally famous and sought after bank robber John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp. It also gives attention to the man charged with arresting him: FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Christian Bale). As such, Public Enemies recalls Mann’s older film Heat, which pitched robber Robert de Niro against cop Al Pacino. However, Public Enemies does not come close to Heat, in any respect.
First of all the film is shot in a very high definition digital format. And although this provides great detail and a sharp and clear image, it is completely inappropriate for a period piece that not just references 1930s gangster films, but actually incorporates them in its narrative. Films like this are much better served with a soft, classical lighting and cinematography.
Second, the plot is unstructered and all over the place. It introduces the characters of Dillinger and Purvis, and that of Dillinger’s girlfriend Billy Frechette (Marion Cotillard), but every other person in the film is unrecognizable, exchangeable and disposable. This includes even J. Edgar Hoover and Baby Face Nelson, another famous criminal. This is infuriating. People in the film are constantly talking about Baby Face Nelson, but it is only after 90 minutes that I actually find out who of all the interchangeable criminals surrounding Dillinger actually is him.
(Don’t you think this trailer is brilliant? A pitty the movie does not deliver)
Dillinger’s relationship with Frechette is built up in the second half hour of the film, but then ditched and forgotten for another 45 minutes, before Billy is brought back for a supposedly emotional last act. Due to this intermission their romance never really sets of, and is not believable. Cotillard works hard and delivers where possible, but Johnny Depp fails completely. He is unlikable and does not allow any identification or engagement with his character. This is of course normal for Depp, who has always excelled as the eccentric outcast, but never as a leading man. It does not help that Dillinger finally gets killed when going out with two other girls while Billy is in jail for helping him. Maybe historically correct, but entirely inappropriate for a lead character we’re supposed to identify with.
Christian Bale gets way too little to do as Melvin Purvis, a man who – as we learn in the ending credits – quitted his job at the FBI after Dillinger was shot dead by one of his agents and one year later committed suicide. Now that is a story that I would be interested in, but Mann does not even give us a hint of what motivates or drives Purvis, or of what sent him over the edge finally. Instead we only get a strange, stitched on Southern accent.
The film would have been much better if it were centered on the likable Purvis, giving Bale the opportunity to anchor the audience in the world of the story, and Depp the opportunity to shine as the eccentric, fame digging outlaw, without the burden of emotions and relationships. But Michael Mann has missed this opportunity, interested as he apparently was in design (it must be said, the set design and costumes are gorgeous) and prlonged and loud action scenes.
Two scenes stand out. Billy Frechette being interrogated and tortured by the FBI and not giving up Dillinger, and one scene in which the famous criminal walks into the FBI field office to have a look at Purvis work place, while the agents present do not notice him, caught up as they are in the radio commentary of a baseball match. But two scenes do not save a car wreck of a film.
“Hello, my name is Jasper and I am an A-Team addict”. “Hello Jasper”. It could very well be a scene in the biographical movie someone is someday going to make about me. And it is set in the first act of this film, when I am approximately nine years old. You could not drag me away from the television when that camp little series was on. Well, you could, and my mom regularly had to, but I wish you couldn’t.
Looking back on a rerun, years later, I did not quite understand what was so cool about it. Being used now to 24 and Prison Break, the A-Team plots were ridiculously slow. There was a lack of real suspense and the characters were one-dimensional. But I still treasured it as a beautiful memory from my youth. So I was not too happy to hear that some pitty fool had decided to make a movie version. I was, actually, rather pissed off. Film had already spoiled my favorite childhood book (the Dutch book De Brief voor de Koning was adapted to a abominable wreck of a film) and now they were going to do the same to my favorite television series.
I was a little relieved when I heard that Ridley and Tony Scott were producing. At least the aren’t total hacks or studio suits. I was pleasantly surprised when I learned about the casting. Liam Neeson as Hannibal, Bradley Cooper (The Hangover) as Face, Ultimate Fighting Champion Quintus ‘Rampage’ Jackson (what’s in a name?) as B.A. Baracus, and, best of all, District 9’s South-African star Sharlto Copley as Murdock. Hell, this could actually work.
And when the trailer blew my mind when I saw it before Kick-Ass, I was convinced. This was going to be THE BEST MOVIE EVER™.
Exploding planes, parachuting tanks, escape scenes, the theme tune and those four guys having a great time doing it all. Magnificent! Of course there is always the grave danger that a trailer presents all the best moments in a film (see Iron Man 2), and that usually means the film sucks. But not this time
Sure, the trailer does present the best moments. But only moments of these moments. The parachuting tank scene takes a couple of minutes (at least, that’s what it felt like) and its comic pay-off line is a surprise and a great tribute to old WW2 films. There is also a brilliant parody by Copley of an unnamed Mel Gibson film (hint: it involves blue paint), and lots more moments of outright fun. Actually, there is as much fun as there is action.
The plot is actually one that forces you to stay with the film and stay concentrated, as the conspiracy that puts the A-Team in military prison ‘for a crime they did not commit’ is an encompassing one, involving paramilitary mercenaries, CIA spooks and army generals. There is a smart critique of the ‘blaming it on the Arab terrorist’ plot as well. The pay-off of the film is brilliant: the A-Team have cleared their name, but are still on the run. So if you have a problem, and if no-one else can help you, and if you can find them… As the best of this decades’ action movies, The A-team sets up the heroes’ background before their real adventures start (see also: Batman Begins, Iron Man, Robin Hood).
Summarized: Brilliant casting, fantastic acting, very funny, very spectacular and absolutely not mindless. Flawed slightly by a chaotic last act, but resolved very well. The A-Team is one of the absolute highlights of this blockbuster summer!
My name is Jasper and I am an A-Team addict. Seriously, I’m going out now to buy the box set of the old series.
First of all there is not and will not be a review of Sex and the City 2 on this blog. Whatever I could possibly have to say or want to say about it has been said much better and fiercer and more eloquent and with a perspective I could never have by Lindy West in her piece for The Stranger.
So: to the theme of this post: the blockbuster season mid-term review. A brief look back on the films that have graced the first part of the summer. Which is not yet the summer at all; blockbuster season has not just expanded on the calendar: it has literally exploded. The blood and guts of a gazillion multi-million dollar action movies now cover the cinema listings from March until September.
I have previewed the season previously, and I have been right on some, and wrong on many accounts. Already.
Green Zone was indeed Jason Bourne in Iraq, including the masterclass shaky hand-held cinematography. It was not very successful. It was not too political, its politics were just a bit outdated. And it was not too difficult, except for the last act, in which the shaky camera made it impossible to follow the characters’ actions and care for their fate.
Iron Man 2 was indeed top heavy, with too many characters, of which some (Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson) only existed to kick-start another franchise. In that I may have been right, but in a retrospectively painful moment of total delusion I argued that Clash of the Titans seemed more balanced than Iron Man 2. Clash of the Titans was only balanced in its outright, no-holds-barred awfulness. It was the paradigm of terrible. It was the ultimate example of a bad bad film (as opposed to the good bad film, like From Paris With Love and the bad good film, of which Green Zone can be considered an example). I predicted that these two films would be the tent-pole pictures of the summer, and by now I certainly hope they are not. In a moment I will discuss some films I have set my hopes on to save the summer of 2010.
The main criticism I have heard of Robin Hood was that it is not Gladiator. Which is an unfair criticism. It is like saying that London is not Rome: sure, it misses the mythical grandeur, but it is still a nice city to spend time in. Robin Hood was fine, bordering close to good and weakened only by a talky second act. Although its battle scenes were impressive, there was a little too little Big and Loud for it to be a major BLAM (Big Loud Action Movie).
I predicted that Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time would be rubbish, and in considerable ways it was. However, on its own terms it provided ample entertainment.
The big surprise was Kick-Ass. I had not even thought about including it in a blockbuster preview, as I though it was a small, independent satire of the comic book genre. It was certainly independent and satirical, but it was also a big action movie, and the best I’ve seen this year, with proper character work and impeccable story arcs.
Mark Strong should stop playing bad guys. He does this great, in Kick-Ass and Robin Hood and in a number of upcoming films, but I’d like to see him doing nice and friendly now. His father-son scenes in Kick-Ass show that he can deliver on this as well.
The general idea of the blockbuster season so far, with the exception of Kick-Ass, is a ‘failure to detonate’. A lot of fuzz, a lot of marketing, very promising trailers and in the end a lack of coherent, well-crafted films. Coming out of a BLAM or blockbuster, you should have the feeling that you can take on the world. The film should linger in your brain and pop up in your dreams at night. None of the films of this summer have managed to achieve this so far.
I have my hopes up for Centurion (also not Gladiator, but lots of bloody battling by horror specialist Neil Marshall), Knight and Day (a Tom Cruise/Cameron Diaz action flick that almost passed under my radar unnoticed) and of course The A-Team. The last theater trailer for it proved lots of laughs, explosive action and hardly any eighties nostalgia. Which is good.
But the film of this summer, and the trailer shows that it is a lot more BLAM than I would have expected from the plot summary, is Christopher Nolan’s Inception. Right now I would bet money on it being the new Matrix. But I’m not a betting man. And I have already been wrong on a number of films this season. But the trailer looks, well, just have a look:
Video game adaptations have, until now, never worked out well as films. There are plenty of examples of film makers ‘getting it wrong’. Hitman (Xavier Gens, 2007) is one, as well as Max Payne (John Moore, 2008) is another, and the absolute low must be (although I’ve never seen it) Uwe Boll’s 2007 adaptation of Dungeon Siege: In the Name of the King.
If turning a video game into a film has proven difficult, the very idea of turning a theme park ride into a blockbuster movie seemed bordering on the insane, but producer Jerry Bruckheimer believed in the idea of Pirates of the Carribean. And it proved a commercial success. So if anyone would be able to produce the first successful video game adaptation, it should be Bruckheimer.
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is based on the hugely popular platform game from the 1980s and 1990s, in which the player controls a hero whose main task is to climb steep walls and jump booby trapped pits. And it must be said: such scenes feature extensively in the film and are engaging and at times even sensational.
Also good are the central performances of Jake Gyllenhaal (ridiculously beefed up) as the titular prince and Gemma Arterton, whose role is similar to that in Clash of the Titans, but much better written. Comic relief is provided by Alfred Molina, as a black market organizer of ostrich races. Ben Kingsley does the typical Ben Kingsley thing on routine and there are very creepy assassins in the form of historically misplaced Hassansins. Mike Newell is a surprising choice as a director, but a good one: as he manages to get the characters work out.
The plot is completely bonkers. There is a mythical dagger that contains the Sands of Time, which, when released, turn back time a few seconds or minutes. But there is also a huge stack of time-sand that can turn history even further back, but with the risk of starting an apocalypse. Arterton’s character is a princess-priestess who guides Gyllenhaal’s prince on a quest to safeguard the dagger and the sand, while he is also seeking to uncover the frame-up in which he got blamed for the murder of his adoption father, the King.
The bonkers plot is complicated by references to the war in Iraq and the search for secret weapons. This is completely misplaced and unnecessary. The climax in the third act produces an awful conclusion that completely plays against the logic of the quest that filled the preceding hour. The reaction to this contrived solution is: “No, they did not just do that. They can’t have, it’s a cheat.” And as, we all know, cheating ruins gameplay.
Another video game element that is very prominent is exposition. Basically, this film has two types of scenes: action sequences, and scenes in which one character (mostly Arterton’s) tells another character (mostly Gyllenhaal) what they must do in order to achieve or prevent something, so that subsequently this or that may or may not happen. These scenes really get on your nerve halfway through the film.
Still, as summer entertainment, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time succeeds. It has got exotic locations, beautiful leads, comic relief, threatening bad guys, convincing and sometimes impressive action sequences and a noisy climax.
The film will be a commercial success, and the first video game adaptation that worked out. Despite the cheating. Bruckheimer and Newell can credit themselves with that.
By the way: I previously predicted that the film would be rubbish because video game adaptations always are. I am not quite certain whether I was right or not.
The expectations were immediately abnormally high for Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe, when they set about making Robin Hood. The success pair had made Gladiator in 2000, thereby reanimating a genre pretty much brain-dead since the 1960s. Gladiator was fierce, intense, overwhelming and, despite its historical incongruities, convincing. It was emotionally effective in having as its protagonist not a warrior-king, but a warrior-farmer.
Gladiator was followed by a number of less effective and sometimes outright awful sand-swords-and-sandals epics, the last one (and the most awful one) being Louis Leterrier’s Clash of the Titans. Others include Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, Oliver Stone’s failed masterpiece Alexander, comic book adaptation 300 and Ridley Scott’s own Kingdom of Heaven, which had the crusades as its subject.
So when Robin Hood was announced, years ago already, expectations were immediately abnormally high. If anyone could save the genre, which already experienced a second chance in the mainstream, than it would surely be Ridley Scott. And where Kingdom of Heavenwas flawed by its boyish and dramatically-challenged protagonist Orlando Bloom, Robin Hood would see Crowe return to his Maximus character, the biological bulldozer, as one Dutch critic named him.
Originally, Crowe was set to play the Sheriff of Nottingham: a decent man caught between a corrupt regime he is bound to serve and the popular outlaw who challenges his authority. However, as the script evolved over time, this version gave way to a more typical setting of the story, be it one in which ‘common archer’ Robin Longstride returns from the crusades to become the outlaw Robin Hood.
Although the original idea seemed fresh and interesting, the changes have probably been for the better. As it is, Robin Hood already suffers from the weight of too much politicking, in the second act. After a breathtaking first act, which sees the English army plundering its way through France on the way home to Britain and shows Robin Longstride to fall out favour with king Richard Lionheart (who for once is not portrayed as a hero), the second act is a bit dull. Robin has to go to Nottingham to deliver the sword of deceased knight Robert of Loxley, and for the sake of convenience takes in the place of Loxley at his estate. This involves faking a marriage to Cate Blanchett’s emancipated Maid Marion and reviving a poverty-struck village. Meanwhile, in London, Richard’s successor John (Aaron Isaacs) is misguided by his treacherous advisor Sir Godfrey (Mark Strong, again as a villain), who secretly conspires with the King of France, planning an invasion of England. The second act feels strangely ambiguous, combining feel good comedy (the Nottingham sequences) and political thriller. It is saved only by the strength and charisma of the cast, which also includes Scott Grimes (the red bearded doctor from ER) as Will Scarlet, Eileen Atkins as the queen-mother and Matthew McFadyen (Tom Quinn in Spooks) as a slightly comedic Sherif of Nottingham, who should receive more attention in a possible sequel.
Ridley Scott leaves the character work to his actors, who manage the job, and is as usual at his best in the visual department. As in Alien, Blade Runner and Gladiator his achievement lies in the creation of the world of the story. Medieval London looks very impressive, and in the big action set-pieces, including the raiding of a French castle and a battle at the beach which reminds one of Saving Private Ryan. It is in these scenes, in the first and the action packed third act that the film gains and keeps its momentum, which it somewhat loses in the second act. Looking backward in comparison, Gladiator’s big strength was the way in which action sequences, in an ever increasing intensity, were equally distributed over the time-line of the plot. Robin Hood lacks this convenience.
Nonetheless the film delivers. Of the big tent pole pictures that we have been offered this summer it is by far the best, beating the likes of Green Zone, Clash of the Titans and Iron Man 2. It is not flawless, but this only feels as a problem in the comparison with Gladiator, which is just unfair. It does not set a new standard, but it shows that, if properly done, the historical action epic has a place in current cinema. It makes one looking forward to more, but hopefully we will not have to rely on Scott and Crowe alone to deliver in the future…
Iron Man was the surprise hit of the summer of 2008. With all the attention directed towards The Dark Knight and The Incredible Hulk, this less known character from the Marvel comic book stable came in under the radar to surprise critics and audiences. Which does not mean that it was a small film: it had famous actors and lots of explosions and special effects to bring the budget over a 100 million dollar. The film was exciting, light-hearted and filled with action and comedy. Perfect summer fare.
The success of Iron Man inevitably lead to a sequel, also directed by Jon Favreau, and starring Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow. New in the cast are Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Don Cheadle (who replaces Terrence Howard), Samuel L. Jackson AND Scarlett Johansson. I previously predicted that this would be too much, and unfortunately my prediction came true.
Iron Man 2 is in many ways just more of the same. Much more. More men in metal suits banging each other on the head. Which is just not that entertaining. Also more witty dialogue and innuendos, mostly depending on Downey Jr.s charismatic Tony Stark, which is very entertaining.
Of course the action and special effects look and sound good. There is a bit too much AC/DC on the soundtrack, but that is still better than the obligatory horns and strings of other franchises.
But plot wise the film derails halfway. A fantastic first act brings together mad Russian scientist Ivan Vanko (Rourke, with a hilarious accent) and competing arms dealer Justin Hammer (Rockwell on top form) as opponents to Tony Stark, who has to learn to depend on and work together with others. But the second act takes another direction, involving Stark’s personal and medical problems, and his deteriorating friendship with army colonel James Rhodes (Cheadle), who wants Stark to give up his iron man suit to the government. The third act just manages to bring these two plot threads together, but at the expense of a satisfying end for the maniacal Vanko, who was so beautifully introduced.
The feeling I’m left with is that this should have been two films. One about Iron Man vs. Hammer and Vanko, and the other about Iron Man vs. Rhodes, with a sideline involving the not-even-yet-mentioned-in-this-review SHIELD organization of Jackson’s Nick Fury. Disappointingly, and the ending of Iron Man 2 gives this away, there is not going to be a Iron Man 3, only a SHIELD centered ‘Avengers’ project also involving The Hulk, Captain America and Thor. Which sounds like uninteresting overkill to me.
The lack of balance and plot thrust is not just a failure of the script (or the concept, or the marketing plan for that matter) but also of director Jon Favreau, who did such a disciplined and clean job on the first film. Perhaps he was too busy playing comic relief character ‘Happy’ (Stark’s redundant driver). Or, he noticed there was so little directing to do that he could easily take on the role. For movies like these defy direction. They satisfy the big crowds – and therefore the studio managers – with famous stars and impressing visual effects. This redundancy of not only the ‘Happy’ character but of Favreau-the-director as well is best symbolized in the scene in which he and Johansson’s Natasha Romanoff take on a bunch of security guards. When Happy is finally done beating his opponent in a fist fight, Johansson has already gone off, having disposed of seven thugs with martial arts in the mean time.
Plot wise, Scarlett Johansson is absolutely not necessary in this film, and thank God she does not have to talk and act too much. She is there to look hot getting in and out of her leather suit, and thereby please the 12 to 30 year old (40 perhaps?) male demographic of the audience, because, as one studio suit must have said to another: Gwyneth Paltrow does not do that trick anymore. And that is such a depressing thought, as Paltrow is such a better actress and an actually human looking beautiful woman.
There is still much to enjoy about Iron Man 2, but I had set my hopes up much higher for a film with such a nice, quirky and entertaining predecessor.
There is no need to not get to the point immediately. Clash of the Titans (2D, as it was originally intended) is awful. Terrible. It isan incoherent ramshackle waste of celluloid. It is ridiculous, ponderous and fails to even go over the top in its camp, as the original from 1981. Most disturbing, it is only 95 minutes long but feels like it will never end.
Director Louis Leterrier gained some praise for his The Incredible Hulk film from 2008, which I never understood, as it was as a boring a superhero movie as they come. So it is a good thing he abandoned superhero movies. It is however disappointing that he moves from there to demigods.
The plot, for as much as there is one, revolves around the demigod Perseus, whose human adoption parents are collateral damage in a war beteen the Olympian gods and the city of Argos, which has defied them. Driven by revenge he goes on a quest find out how to kill Hades’ pet monster Kraken, which will be set loose upon Argos within ten days. He takes with him a number of uninteresting soldiers and a female demigod, Io. They are joined by ancient man-trees, Djinn, who also want to rise up against the Gods. The quest is most of all a series of battles which CGI monsters; giant scorpions, the Stygian witches, Medusa and finally the Kraken. Yawn.
Sam Worthington is completely out of place in the mythical epos. Even his performance in Avatar was better. But from his big breakthrough year we will most of all remember him as the least terrible thing in Terminator Salvation. The rest of the cast is wasted on poor scriptwriting and terrible dialogue. Pete Postlethwaite and Mads Mikkelsen don’t get enough to do. Gemma Arterton is annoying as Io. Polly Parker does a one minute imitation of her role in Rome and Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes make themselves ridiculous as Zeus and Hades.
The cinematograpgy is somewhere in between too shadowy and too shiny. One minute you’re in the dark about what’s going on, the next you’re blinded almost permanently. The music is conventially pompous and instantaneoulsy forgettable. The sound effects are painfully shrieky.
Of course, expectations aren’t high with a blockbuster like this, but the one thing you’d go to see this film for, the monsters, are not threatening or scary at all. The quality of the CGI is far behind state-of-the-art. The Kraken is a boring imitation of the one in Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest. The scorpions could have potential, but are disposed of too easily. Medusa is potentially a perfect horror monster, but looks like Angelina Jolie with a bad hair day. So perhaps she is the perfect horror monster after all, the film is granted that.
Nothing more needs to be said.
PS I previously stated that the cast and story of Clash of the Titans seemed more balanced than that of Iron Man 2. Let us hope I was wrong. I will see this weekend and review it my Sunday or Monday.
A long time ago, in a kingdom far, far way, the blockbuster was simply a movie that stood out in terms of its box office result. Gone With the Wind is the classic example. Later, when cinema attendance fell dramatically due to suburbanization and the introduction of television as the form entertainment pur sang for the masses, the blockbuster became an event movie, planned extensively by studio executives. They were historical or biblical epics, or when these started to fail in the 1960s, musicals or disaster movies. They were populated with a large number of a-list Hollywood stars. But they did not save Hollywood from the television. Neither did the artsy films of the ‘New Hollywood’ generation, the Scorseses, Coppolas, the Ciminos and the Altmans. The Godfather notoriously was the huge success that Francis Ford Coppola did not want to make in the first place, because he though that Mario Puzo’s book was trash.
Then, in 1975, there was Jaws. Its production history almost guaranteed a flop. The director was a relative unknown, and his three lead actors (Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss) were not exactly typical Hollywood stars. The book it was based on, by Peter Benchley is an exercise in misanthropy, and therefore not exactly a crowd pleaser. Once shooting the film, the shark did not work in the water and an increasingly annoyed and agitated crew were stuck on location for weeks.
But Jaws became a blockbuster. It ‘ate up’ all its competition, consuming the screens of the summer 1975. It was the first of its kind, soon to be followed by Star Wars (and its follow ups), Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (and its follow ups), Alien (and its follow ups), the Terminator films, the Die Hard franchise, Jurassic Park (and its sequels), Speed and ultimately the One That Could Not Have A Sequel: Titanic. Films that were more than just films: they were advertisements for fast food, toys, lunch boxes, computer games, pyjamas and theme park rides. They, eventually, made more money abroad than in the US. And, also eventually, more on video and tv than in the cinemas.
The films listed above are of course but a fraction of what has been served to us as blockbusters over the past decades. They are I think the most significant ones though. I think it was Speed that reached the ultimate in what a blockbuster could be, in terms of breathtaking action thrills and almost no character development (because there is simply no time for building a true romance when you’re on a bus that’ll explode if it slows down). I also think that from that moment on, with Titanic as the ‘ahead-of-the-wave’ prototype, blockbusters became ‘epic’. The possibilities offered by Computer Generated Images of course helped, but ‘epic’ means more than just ‘grand scale’. It is a deliberate reference to those old time (1950s/1960s) historical and biblical films, that, apart from a grand scale, offered a historical, moral or even religious lesson, character development, politicking and social relevance. The non-stop action movie as a powerhouse blockbuster had outrun its possibilities, perhaps because its target audience was at home behind their Sony Playstation. A fin-de-siecle sentiment at the end of the millennium may have played a role as well.
So we got Gladiator and its numerous unsuccesful rip-offs, the Star Wars prequels, the Matrix films and the Lord of the Rings trilogy. And we got numerous comic book adaptations that took their subject matter seriously, and introduced ‘darkness’. The Spider Man and X-men films for example, but also Batman Begins, by Christopher Nolan. No wonder that people, in the summer of 2003, were happy to see a film without a number attached to it. That offered almost no character development and noon-stop action. One that was epic only the sense that it was set in a historical period. And one that, perhaps most significant, was not followed up by a theme park ride, but was inspired by one. Pirates of the Carribean: Curse of the Black Pearl was the delightful guilty pleasure for film fans all over the world who were tired of morals and heroes with troubled histories, and who craved for a hilarious cardboard character like Jack Sparrow.
Of course the success of the film inevitably led to a sequel and a ‘three-quel’, filmed at the same time and basically two parts of one long movie. And as all serious, and less serious, film critics agree, they are overlong, over-written and most of all, overplot. Really. The plot is all over the place. Or should I say ‘plots’. For not only every major character, but also most supporting characters, have their own agenda, which are all played out in the third film ‘At World’s End’. The general idea is that it probably makes some sense, but it is hard to figure out what sense. It needs constructed set pieces like the one described in my previous post ‘The Guitar Chord Effecting the Mix Up of Right and Wrong‘ in order to work out. Basically, there is so much plot that it does not matter. It might be argued that there is no plot at all. As British film critic Mark Kermode argues, in an incredible condemnation of the film (check it out on youtube), it is three hours of ‘stuff happening’, and its success signified the inevitable downfall of Western civilization.
I disagree with Mark Kermode. I think that Pirates at the Carribean: At World’s End is, intended or not (probably not), as a modern reincarnation of Once Upon a Time in the West. Not in that it is as good, which it of course is not, but in that it is about a) the end of the age of piracy (Jack Sparrow actually contemplating eternal damnation just to be ‘the last pirate’) and b) the end of this series, the ultimate end of this type of movies as a major blockbuster potential. The no-content-all-action blockbuster was already displaced with the epic one when Gladiator and The Matrix came along, but Pirates 3 is its definitive salute, its ‘in memoriam’. From now on, this type of film can only exist in the b-league, honourably alongside From Paris With Love or last year’s Taking of Pelham 123 remake (what does it say that John Travolta is in both?). It is a full round circle back to Jaws, because the machinery of the Black Pearl, in its final battle, in a maelstrom, did not have to work in the water. The water was computer generated afterwards.
To seal the closed gate between major blockbuster and b-rate action film, one year after Pirates 3 there was The Dark Knight. Taking in over a billion dollars worldwide (which are just its cinematic earnings) it finally set the mark for the new type of blockbuster movie: action packed and with sequel potential, certainly, also but dark, ambiguous and socially or philosophically relevant. This is why there may very well be a Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, and it may even be very succesfull, but it will inevitably be a b-movie, or a genre-flick. And of the major blockbuster films to look forward to this spring and summer, the ones that will stand out are probably not Clash of the Titans or Prince of Persia and the Sands of Time, but a politically charged Robin Hood, and the darkly tinted Iron Man 2.
Hell, there is even already a stream of commemorative films, dedicated to and reinvoking the ‘all-action-no-brains-required’ summer film: The Expendables, The Losers and of course, The A-Team.
I previously wrote that 2011 would be the Year of the Alien. As there were so many films coming out that were, well, about aliens. But there is another trend this year, especially in the blockbuster season: the summer of 2011 is the summer of the uninteresting b-grade super hero. The source of all this mayhem? Characters have become ‘properties’, commodities owned by studios to wrench out as much cheap money as possible. And if your movie studio is, owns or cooperates with a comic book publisher, you have a lot of ’properties’.
And it’s getting worse: the Superman reboot, directed by Zach Snyder and produced and written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan sounds really cool. But with The Dark Knight Rises just about to start shooting, Warner Bros. and DC are already thinking of another Batman reboot. I hope it’s not going to be as dreadful as the idea of making new Spiderman movies, in which Spiderman is a teenage high school kid. It will please the main demographic for these films perhaps, but it is a bad omen. High school kids can’t be superheroes. Look at Kick-Ass. (Although it must be noted here that the casting of Andrew Garfield was a strong move by the producers of The Amazing Spiderman.)
