Superhero films - 2013
| Thor: The Dark World | The Wolverine | Man of Steel | Iron Man 3 |
____________________
 |
Thor: The Dark World returns us to the more fantasy-oriented side of the Marvel cinematic universe and the further adventures of the Asgardian prince, Thor. The plot in this second installment was almost incidental to the more interesting elements of watching our main characters and anticipating the repercussions of events in this film which are set into motion.
Dark World was released in the US in November of 2013. Alan Taylor, a director with mostly TV credits (Deadwood, Mad Men, Game of Thrones), took over from Kenneth Branagh, the director of Thor. Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor and Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, the would-be lovers separated by worlds. Tom Hiddleston also returns as the scene-stealing Loki. With its $630 million box office, Thor 2 is the 3rd highest-grossing film in the Marvel cinematic universe series, only behind The Avengers and Iron Man 3. But interestingly, it is the worst reviewed of the series on both Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
As the story begins we discover the Bifrost, the bridge allowing passage between the nine realms, has been restored after its destruction two years earlier. The Asgardians have been busy since, restoring peace to the neighboring realms. (Kind of makes one wonder why they never stepped in with Midgard - weren't we violent enough?) Loki is in prison for his actions in The Avengers. Thor keeps watch over Jane from afar, but otherwise stays away though it's unclear why. Jane makes some tentative steps to move on with her life. While investigating strange phenomena in London, Jane unwittingly releases an ancient all-powerful force (another one?) which in turn awakens the Dark Elves, who tried to conquer the universe with it ages ago but were stopped by Odin's father, Bor. Multiple fight scenes and strange alliances follow, leading to an ending which makes Thor 3 all but inevitable.
The successes of Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 are not big surprises. The Avengers was such a hit, they could coast on its success for quite some time. Honestly, when those two words "Avengers Initiative" were uttered at the end of Iron Man, all of these movies - even the ones only focusing on a single character - are Avengers movies. This is a good thing for Thor. Bonding Thor to the other characters, who are all science-fiction based (no matter how far-fetched), ground him a bit. Mishandled, Asgard could easily seem as lame and silly as Eternia in Masters of the Universe. Our storytellers say that what appears to be sorcery in Asgard is actually a form of technology. Right. It's about as technological as Hogwarts. Show me one engineer. Explain one piece of technology. But who cares? Suspend your disbelief. This is all just a fantastical backdrop for stories about larger than life characters. Fine by me.
The largest single weakness of Dark World is the underdevelopment of Malekith, the leader of the Dark Elves and the primary villain of the story. He is very 2-dimensional as a villain and he has very little dialog with those he opposes. As a result, the conflicts don't resonate that much. 'Yes, the universe may be at stake, but I barely know you . . . ' Were scenes edited out? I had the feeling that production of this film might have been rushed. Also, Jane's fellow scientists seemed so inept, it's hard to believe they could play much of a role in Malekith's defeat. And is anyone else getting sick of Loki? It will be good to see Thor without him in Avengers 2.
It's always good to be back in the Avengers universe again. Hopefully the weak reviews will make Marvel take notice and watch their writing and direction more carefully in future productions.
- JC
____________________
 |
It's difficult to discuss the latest Wolverine movie without putting it in perspective, so I'm going to give it a try. When the first X-Men movie came out in 2000, the storytellers used a common trick of introducing the audience to a strange new world by having them follow along with a character who was also new to it. In the case of the X-Men, the newcomer we got to follow was the screen version of one of the most popular characters from the comics - Wolverine. Through his eyes we were introduced to Professor Xavier, his X-Men, his school for "gifted" students, and Magneto and his evil mutant brotherhood. The fact that Wolverine/Logan is rude and almost willfully dumb was made tolerable by his friendship with Professor X and his assuming a bit of a tough, but warm foster uncle relationship with Rogue/Marie. There was also some attempt made to create romantic tension between Logan and Jean Grey. More about that later.
For the most part, Wolverine is really a pretty unlikeable character. He is only endearing when he actually stops being a prick long enough to care about someone and put himself in harm's way for them. In X-Men, he cared about Marie and fought to protect her. In X2: X-Men United, it was for her and all the young mutants at the school he had grown to care about. I suppose it was more or less the same in X-Men: The Last Stand, plus the added strangeness of Jean going homicidal . . . but most of us are just trying to forget that movie.
In X-Men Origins: Wolverine, we see Logan's origin - where he came from, the first manifestation of his powers, and his life roaming the world with his more bloodthirsty brother, until he finally decides what they are doing crosses the line even for him. This movie has been almost universally maligned by fans and even Jackman himself. However, the film shows Logan in the most genuine-seeming relationships that the character ever has onscreen - the long-standing one with his near-twin Victor and with Kayla, the woman he builds a life with and who motivates most of his actions in the last two thirds of the film.
Now, we have another attempt to do a Wolverine movie without the X-Men - The Wolverine. Set after the events in Last Stand, Logan (Hugh Jackman) is in self-imposed exile in the Canadian wilderness. His dreams are haunted by the image of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen), the last woman he loved and who he was forced to kill. Logan is sought out by a young Japanese woman, Yukio (Rila Fukushima), who takes him back to Japan to see a man whose life he saved in WWII. This story is inspired by a limited comic series from the 80s, though much has been invented as well. It is largely an excuse to match up Wolverine - the blade-wielding mutant - with similarly equipped Japanese samurai and ninjas. He winds up trying to protect the old man's grand-daughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), from a sinister plot. At the same time, something is done to him which dampens his healing ability so that he can actually be harmed.
As Skyfall gave me a better appreciation of Quantum of Solace, so The Wolverine gave me a better appreciation of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Logan seems far less likeable in this story than in Origins, where he was a rough guy but he still had a likeable side. In The Wolverine, he seems to have less of a personality range. There was precious little humor in this film either. Japan seemed to be a violent place with guns, arrows, and swords flying everywhere, pretentious Japanese men and deadly pixie-ish blade-flashing women. This version of Japan is like a cliche of an anime martial arts cartoon. Compare and contrast this Japan with the view of it in Lost In Translation.
As implausible as elements of Origins were, at least the motivations and actions of the characters seemed authentic. Not so much in The Wolverine. Logan's relationship with Yashida didn't seem significant enough to motivate him to go to Japan. The chemistry between Logan and Mariko is practically non-existent. The only character in the whole film that he had any spark at all with seemed to be Yukio.
Which leads me to the Jean Grey "thing." The "romance" between the two of these characters never made any sense to me and was never remotely believable, not in the comics and not in the films. It has always just been a lame attempt to pair the (sadly) most popular mutant "hero" with the main mutant female.
You may form the impression I didn't like this film. It was good enough to keep my attention. Hugh Jackman is 45 now and has been playing this character (and getting all the mileage out of it that he could) for 14 years. X-Men: First Class was a very good movie and only had Wolverine in it for about 5 seconds. Let's take a lesson from that.
- Swift
____________________
 |
I had a discussion with a friend about storytelling recently. She is a budding novelist with characters she feels deeply about. She had been very concerned about getting the story exactly right for her characters. I suggested that if you have good characters, their story can be told many ways. Certain timeless characters can have their story told and re-told many times to changing audiences. Such is the case with Kal-El / Clark Kent / Superman.
Man of Steel, directed by Zack Snyder (the man who brought us 300 and Watchmen), attempts to put a fresh spin on the Superman story. Some long-time fans of the man of steel will watch this movie and find things that don't fit the mythology they have known. This new story diverges from earlier movies, TV shows, comics, etc. I sympathize with this. I watched the movie and my inner voice was often saying "this is not right," "whoa, they really changed that," etc. But in the final analysis, so what? The writer and director adapted the basic lore to a Superman story which would sell to the current audiences. This has been done with other iconic characters over the years. How many versions of Sherlock Holmes have there been over the decades? How different is the Batman of the 60's from the Batman of the 2000's? No small changes there. Why shouldn't Superman be afforded the same flexibility if his stories can continue to be told? And the aspects of him that are the most important haven't changed. He is still too good to be true and mind-bogglingly powerful. He still comes from both Krypton and Kansas at the same time. Wow. The best of both worlds...
One of the greatest challenges to the Man of Steel, ironically, is himself. Every Superman movie will be compared to the original Richard Donner / Christopher Reeve film from 1978. It's a tough standard to live up to. People loved Reeve's portrayl of the character. Donner's direction was impeccable. And John Williams' score, on the heels of his work for Star Wars, is among the greatest of all time - the heroic Superman march, the touching love theme, the extraterrestrial music for Krypton and space travel - it's the gold standard.
So how did they do? The effects in the film are very impressive. It's nice seeing a Superman film with all the modern effects. The sophistication of the cgi is noticeably more advanced even than in Superman Returns (2006). Due to the threat posed by Kryptonian villains, there are several super-powered fight scenes and these look quite convincing. If I had a complaint, it would be similar to my comments about Wrath of the Titans. If there are too many extended action sequences, they can become numbing after a while. A bit more time for talking in the latter half of the film would have helped flesh out the characters, given us more of a chance to breathe between action sequences, and helped explain what was happening and why.
One noticable difference between this Superman story and most we've seen, is that this one is mostly humorless. Except for an incident involving a rude truck driver who earns the ire of the man of steel, most of the film is pretty grim. This may simply be an aspect of Snyder's directorial style. There weren't many funny parts in 300 or Watchmen either. But the Donner/Reeve Superman had several amusing moments which made the film more enjoyable. This film also places heavy emphasis on the fact that Superman is an alien and that he is something to be feared. He both expects to be feared and that is how people respond to him. It casts the entire film in a bit of a grim tone.
Hans Zimmer's score was good enough, but honestly not that memorable. There were several times when I could swear it contained hints of the Williams Superman theme and it sometimes seemed as if the music might change slightly and there it would be. Sadly no. It's still hard to imagine the character without it.
The performances were very good. Henry Cavill makes a pretty good Superman. Because of the earnestness of his character and physicality of his portrayl, he is very convincing in the role. It remains to be seen how well he can play a mild-mannered reporter, but perhaps that aspect of the role will be played down. Amy Adams gives us a Lois Lane who is less ambitious than earlier portrayls. She is already an accomplished reporter and very good at her job. She seems more courageous and not just dangerously curious as other Loises have been. Michael Shannon is a menacing Zod and Antje Traue does a fine job as a murderous lieutenant. Russell Crowe stands out in his portrayl of Superman's natural father Jor-El. In this telling of the story, Jor-El is quite the action hero in his own right. Kevin Costner and Diane Lane as the Kents, Superman's adoptive human parents, do a nice job. Pa Kent is the voice telling Clark (Superman) to be wary of a world which would be likely to reject or exploit him. Ma Kent is smart, nurturing, and occasionally funny - a blessing in this film.
Quibbles aside, it's great to see Superman back on the big screen again and I hope they will be able to keep coming up with good stories.
- JC
____________________
 |
So the question was, what comes after The Avengers? At least it seems to me that would be the topic at Marvel and Disney after the phenomenal success of that film last summer.
Quite sensibly they returned to the "beginning." But for Iron Man, there would have been no Avengers. But for The Avengers there wold probably have been no Thor or Captain America movies. Captain America has frequently flopped on film until the 2011 version. No one thought a Thor movie would be credible or sell. The Hulk would always have had limited appeal. The Avengers made Thor, Cap, and the Hulk credible. Iron Man did that for the Avengers. So this is how we begin the build up to the next big bang - Avengers 2 . . . with Iron Man.
In Iron Man 3, the world has changed. Our egotistical gadgeteer has faced down gods, aliens, metahumans and people just as smart as he is. Pepper has a strong place in his life and she is a formidable woman. The Tony Stark we see now is different than the one we first met. The Tony from before, even after he decided to be a good guy, was still incredibly arrogant, always sure he was right, and that he could handle anything. "New York changed everything." This has unsettled the man who had thought the world was his playground.
This story gives Tony plenty of real threats to deal with. He learns why a secret identity might actually be a good idea. He gets bitten because of past sins. He takes on the threat of a diabolical terrorist. He has to rely on others for help.
This tale has dangers coming from multiple directions, often guessing at who, what, or why. And while the old Tony Stark would have single-handedly iron-manned his way to victory, the new Tony relies more on his creativity and the people around him. Who is Iron Man? Whoever happens to be wearing that suit? Or does the man make the difference? They answer that question here.
There are aspects of this movie that are hard to discuss without spoiling things for those who haven't seen it. But I don't think it's too much of a reveal to mention that Iron Man 3 is the first Iron Man movie where the threats aren't solely akin to his own tech. In the first film, the threat was from a colleague who stole one of Tony's designs. In the second, it was rivals using similar designs. Here, he is fighting metahumans who seem like demons - strong, fire-generating, and nearly unkillable. This is the likely effect of following The Avengers.
Growing up reading comics, one realizes how other forms of fiction limit themselves so much. It isn't just the fact that any special effect can simply be drawn, it's that comics usually explore most fictional realms far in advance of films. After all, the Marvel stories they are so actively mining now go back 50 years. One thing comics never shyed away from was genre blending. In TV and movies, it is apparently assumed that the viewers can only accept one fantastic element at a time. So, mystical warriors only fight other mystical warriors, techno-armored men only battle other techno-armored men, monsters fight other monsters or monster hunters. All these little universes were limited in scope to their own little quirks. The Avengers broadened the Marvel Universe into film for us. A man in a high-tech super-suit, another with a magic hammer, a super-soldier, a giant green monster, and two ultra-skilled secret agents team up to repel an alien invasion. What is truly off-limits now? Nothing, I would say.
Iron Man 3 was great fun. It was exciting but it also had a lot of heart and some nice surprises. I'm looking forward to what they have in store for us next.
- JC
____________________