Movie-Review 6 | unobtrusive lucidity

A Review of “The Amazing Spider-Man”

My first thought upon seeing the trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man was something akin to, “didn’t they just do this?” I am a big fan of the first three Spider-Man films, and found the thought of another re-visiting of Spider-Man’s origin to be overly trendy at best, and shameless studio profit-seeking at worst.

As the release date for the film drew closer, however, new trailers saturated the Internet, and seemed to hint that this was actually not a re-telling of Spidey’s origin, but rather a continuation of the films that have preceded it. Okay, I thought…this will be strange without the original cast, but I can give it a chance.

The hints in those trailers, though, whether they were intended to be there or were superimposed by me upon seeing them, turned out to be a sort of bait-and-switch. While this wasn’t technically a re-telling of the origin story, it was rather a re-interpretation of it. And, call me a purist, but the liberties taken were far too extreme.

You see, the theme of Spider-Man…the choice through which he embodies the nature of a hero, if you will…is Peter Parker taking responsibility for the new abilities with which he finds himself, especially in the wake of Uncle Ben’s death. The taking seriously of Uncle Ben’s re-telling of Voltaire’s claim, “with great power comes great responsibility,” is the process through which Peter Parker uses the Spider-Man identity to ultimately place the good of others before himself. This is the process that was illustrated so well in the original films, and is the development of the character in the pages of Marvel comics.

It is also, sadly, the component that is conspicuously absent from The Amazing Spider-Man. Ambiguous references to responsibility aside, this critical theme seems to flirt with the thought of materializing in the story, but remains teasingly just out of reach. This film is Spider-Man as a YA novel, the taking of a hero to whom we all so easily relate as he comes from humble origins like us, and simplifying him into an arrogant, love-struck teenager on a perpetual revenge mission that he attempts to disguise as the responsibility to rid his city of a villain that he has created.

Now, the movie isn’t entirely bad…just mostly. There were moments of awkwardness between Peter and Gwen Stacey as the two fall into sappy teenage romance that left me smiling, and the first-person perspectives of Spider-Man web-slinging through the city are quite breath-taking at times, especially in 3D. Also, to the film’s credit, it corrects the one huge downfall of the original three and removes the silly concept that Spidey’s webbing is a power as opposed to a technological innovation, placing web-slinging devices back on Spidey’s wrists where they belong. Parallel to this, however, is the complete lack of Peter discovering his abilities in any meaningful sense. Of course, this accompanies the completely loose re-interpretation of his beginnings. Ignoring a thief in a wrestling match to discover that the man has later killed Uncle Ben? That’s been morphed into Peter becoming complacent in an armed robbery followed by Uncle Ben being gunned down. After his spider-bite, Peter is in an awkward fight scene in a subway train that is just painful to watch. And, suddenly, he has a working costume, complete with web-shooters, and is taking down criminals less than 10 minutes later.

Oh, and speaking of the sappy teenage romance? The lines about being “bitten” will make you cringe. And, with Gwen Stacey as Peter’s teenage love interest, other critical characters to the Spider-Man mythology don’t exist at all in the film…notably Mary Jane or James Jonah Jamison (for that matter, the Daily Bugle is only seen in print in a single frame).

What’s most depressing about the film, however, is not only a complete lack of character development, but the attempt to transform Peter Parker into a completely different character than he is. He is a cocky vigilante who has difficulty believing that the police would not accept him. He wins the girl, beats up the jock (who later mysteriously indicates acceptance of him), and relentlessly chases after the man who killed his uncle. He manages to save a kid or two along the way, and we almost see a glimmer of heroism in those moments. Almost.

Until when, in the end, with his dying breath (a massive spoiler follows here, by the way), Gwen’s father makes Peter promise to leave his daughter out of Spider-Man’s heroic life in order to protect her. Peter makes this promise, and we think that the will keep it. We think that he will grow up, that he will finally make this truly heroic act that is so much more than the sum of his fighting abilities and revenge-seeking. In the end, however, he announces that this is the promise that he couldn’t keep, and we see the relationship begin to blossom again, in contradiction to Peter’s promise to a dying man. His one chance to truly be a hero in the entire film, lost to selfish desires.

Hollywood has great power to portray characters that have impacted the lives of so many in an accurate manner. With that power, comes a responsibility to seek to be true to the character, instead of being true to what will make the most money. The Spider-Man film franchise would be better off had this film never been made, because our friendly-neighborhood hero is no longer the self-sacrificial and insecure man who fights for those who cannot defend themselves at great risk to his own life. He’s simply a stronger version of the rest of us.

When you take the character who should be the hero, and reduce him to the same selfish choices that those of us need a hero make, the result is…not so amazing.

Photo Attribution: marvelousRoland under Creative Commons

A Review of “The Avengers”

This was it. This was the film that I had been waiting for since last summer, the film that nearly every comic book collector and everyone raised in a childhood of reading superhero adventures was waiting for. The Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, together in one film, in a super adventure extravaganza. It has been a while since I booked tickets in advance for an opening weekend show, even for a comic book adaptation. This however, was to be the film to end all superhero films. This was The Avengers.

It did not disappoint.

Marvel Studios put into practice in the Avengers what I trust they learned through the ill-fated X-Men films. First, the film began with a collection of characters that had already been at least introduced, and in most cases thoroughly developed, in their own films. Thus, no time was needed to be spent on backstory, with the exception of some history for the Black Widow and Hawkeye, which Joss Whedon and company accomplished nicely through expository dialogue. Secondly, each character was given enough screen time to shine, not only in action sequences, but also in character development. Only a very good director can accomplish this, and I don’t think any of us expected anything less from Whedon, but it was still wonderful to witness.

The plot is relatively simple. Loki, the so-called god of mischief and Thor’s half-brother, returns from the nether-realms into which he fell at the end of Thor, this time assisting an extra-dimensional race that we don’t see (until the end, that is…stay through the credits for the hidden ending) in order to enslave the human race. Nick Fury brings together our heroes into a team in order to stop the alien invasion that threatens to destroy most of mankind and enslave whoever’s left. That’s the story arc in a nutshell, and, with respect to other reviewers who found this to be disappointing, I would point out what any comic book fan knows: this is what the Avengers do. This, in its purest form, is the origin story of the team of super heroes: an evil too great for any one hero to defeat alone, results in the heroes joining forces to save the earth. Approaching it expecting something different is to approach it asking the wrong questions.

The beauty of a simple plot is what comic book writing accomplishes so masterfully: exploring deep themes within the context of the simple story. Whedon explores our ability to trust the government that is there to protect us, a government that has its own secrets that may or may not be better in the bigger picture. He explores the ethics of a society quelling its fear by building the bigger weapons. He explores the theme of individual talents having to overcome their own ways of doing things in order to work together with others for the greater good. He explores mankind’s freedom of choice, and the innate desire to fight for that freedom against one who claims that we “were made to be ruled.” Moreover, he explores the nature of a hero, and how those heroes who swoop in to protect us from those evils up to which we cannot stand ourselves work together to accomplish what no one of them could accomplish on their own. That, after all, is the better part of half of this film: how our favorite heroes’ personalities conflict with each other and what they have to work through in order to work together.

And, in true Whedon style, there’s even a faith metaphor or two (Iron Man likening himself to Jonah was particularly fun).

Whedon uses the exploration of powerful themes to develop the characters that we all came to the movie to see. And the characters do develop: Captain America begins the loyal soldier who reluctantly accepts the hesitation of his colleagues. Iron Man sacrifices his own stardom to become a team player. Bruce Banner moves past his own fear to work for the greater good. I’d go on, but I’m not into giving spoilers. All of the hidden nuggets of story that tie all of the previous movies together are unified nicely by Whedon here, by the way, and I’m sure there are going to be more visual goodies that you just can’t see on the first viewing but that will become obvious when I watch it again.

As expected, Whedon’s writing is snappy and complete with witty moments of comic relief that somehow avoid (with an exception or two) the cliche humor that can so easily trap a big action film. And, speaking of action, the special effects were breath-taking (Iron Man having his own armor catch him in mid-air sound interesting?), and the fight sequences that occur between our heroes as they work past themselves to become a team are quite literally the stuff of legend (want to know what happens when Mjolnir strikes Captain America’s shield? Or if Thor and the Hulk go toe-to-toe? Yeah, I thought so…). If you think that’s great, then wait until the aliens from the other realm invade Manhattan (where else would a huge-scale battle with the Avengers take place?) and the Avengers hold the city, cohesive as a team, complete with firefights, archery, aerial dogfights, the Hulk swatting spacecraft from the skies, and the heroes that you wouldn’t expect to receive the most screen time saving the day, leaving half the city laid waste in the process. This makes the Transformers look like lightweights, but is never overwhelming.

Speaking of the Hulk, incidentally, Mark Ruffalo turns in an outstanding performance as the only new actor in the group…arguably better than Edward Norton did in the Hulk’s own film. To accompany this, the new CG Hulk is even complete with Ruffalo’s facial features. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johanssen, and Samuel L. Jackson each perform beyond expectations as they reprise their roles, and while I didn’t think that Jeremy Renner looked the role of Hawkeye, he rounded out this all-star cast with flourish.

All in all, whether you are a super-hero fan or not, if you’ve enjoyed any of the previous Marvel films at all, this movie will be worth your ticket price. The audience in the show we attended applauded on several occasions. This is not another huge action film. It is the exploration of super heroes at its finest. And, it is a promise that those heroes will return to save us again in the future, because, as Fury so eloquently and simply summarizes, “we’ll need them to.”

A Review of “Captain America: The First Avenger”

The summer season of comic book film adaptations slows now with this final installment by Marvel (there aren’t any upcoming that I’ve missed, right?). We settled into the theatre with much anticipation for Captain America, an iconic character from the Marvel Universe that represents the classic Golden Age of comics as no other character can, at least not from Marvel’s side. The idea of the super hero began, at least in part, with Captain America, and it is that story that is told here in original and riveting form (that is, right after you survive all of the trailers…are they really re-making Spider-Man???).

Captain America: The First Avenger begins following a modern day crew recovering the wreckage of an old aircraft frozen in ice in the Northern nether-regions of the planet, and, within that aircraft, the discovery of the familiar shield. We are then thrown back in time to World War II, following the attempts of a brave but physically inferior Steven Rogers to enlist in the military in order to serve the cause of the Allied war against Hitler’s Nazi regime (and we are treated to snappy military dialogue from Tommy Lee Jones when Rogers finally makes enlistment). When exposed to a “super-solider” serum, Rogers is physically enhanced to incredible physical prowess. With costume enhancements by Mr. Stark (that would be Tony Stark’s father), Rogers eventually assumes the identity of Captain America, motivating the country to victory over Hydra, a special science division of the Nazi empire that has now gone rogue (the screenplay took some liberty here). Of course, the villain of the film is the Red Skull, because any comic book fan knows that you really can’t make a Captain America film with any other villain. This is because Captain America represents everything that is the USA, while the Red Skull embodies everything that is not.

Visually, the Red Skull looks fantastic, and Hugo Weaving turns in a great performance. I thought I would have difficulty accepting Chris Evans as Captain America (some fans remember him as the Human Torch, a character with a completely different personality) but he plays the role flawlessly. The costume designers have taken the classic Captain America uniform and made it just edgy enough, right down to some battle scars on the shield. The red, white, and blue aren’t cartoonish, and brown holsters and other gear accent the costume well.

What the movie does superbly is capture the time period. The period of World War II is one studied to exhaustion in U.S. history, because the character of the country was honed there. The use of media as it existed brought nearly every citizen to passionately pursue the cause of the war, and the concepts of patriotism and American exceptionalism were forged in those years as in no other since the country was founded. The film not only manages to make you feel the sentiment of the era, but actually manages to get the viewer caught up in the desire for Rogers to be able to fulfill his passion to serve his country. This was something that the movie had to do well, because that is what Captain America represents in the history of comic book literature: he embodies the national pride of America, and is the hero that personifies everything great and wonderful about the country. As an aside, I’d be curious to hear reactions from audiences in other countries to this aspect of American history as presented in the film.

Interestingly, however, the film contains at least two back-handed commentaries to American exceptionalism. First, the super-solider serum is developed by a German scientist who defects from the evil of the Nazi empire (this would be a historical nod to the Nazi scientists who defected to help the Allies during the war). More obvious, however, is the fact that the British girl is the one who really knows what’s going on throughout the movie.

The action sequences are balanced well, and focus on hand-to-hand, close quarters combat that befits the character, while not shying away form epic battles in the sky and flame-drenched fields when necessary. Character development is emphasized throughout the film. We leave knowing Captain America, especially in the poignant and very human ending to the film as he experiences his profound shock and disappointment (no spoilers from me, though!), in addition to knowing his role in forging the beginnings of the Marvel Universe. Other Avengers characters show up in the end, of course, with the proclamation as we saw in Thor that “Captain America will return in the Avengers.”

Which leads me to my greatest conclusion about this well-done movie. Marvel is handling the Avengers in the right way, the way that they should have handled the X-Men franchise (and they undoubtedly have learned from their mistakes here). When the Avengers film releases next summer, almost every character will have already appeared at least once in a feature film (often their own film), and will have been developed. The screenwriters will need to waste no time with backstory in the Avengers, but can build on the character development that has already taken place. If Captain America serves as any example, the Avengers will be the iconic film for Marvel, a title befitting the “world’s greatest super heroes.”

Until then, however, we have been introduced to the First Avenger, and how he becomes who he is. This is an outstanding film, possibly the best since Thor earlier this summer. Perhaps Marvel intentionally saved the best until last for the ambitious summer super-hero undertaking. In any case, make time to see Captain America. Perhaps more than once. And stay through the credits for a teaser for the Avengers that drew applause from our audience. I already can’t wait.

A Review of “I Am Number Four”

I Am Number Four was one that got away from me during its theatrical run. That is, I immediately knew from the preview that this was the kind of movie that looked as though it would fit my interest in new and innovative science fiction. But, I missed it. Not sure how…probably traveling or had other big commitments, but, ultimately, I didn’t catch it in theatres.

So, through the magic of Netflix (how did we live without that), I saw it just before writing this.

The film begins with an attention-getting attack sequence in which someone (we don’t yet know who) is hunted down and killed by an alien on what appears to the the African continent. We quickly cut to the Florida Keys, and learn that the person who just died was Number 3, an alien among a group of aliens that are being systematically hunted down and killed by a race of alien predators because of their abilities. The protagonist of the movie, of course, is Number 4 (played by Alex Pettyfer), and is on the run as the rest of them are. Number 4, however, is also busy being a teenager and trying to fit in as his warrior guardian rushes him on the move when he manifests strange abilities, whisking them away form the tropics and into rural Ohio, whilst scrubbing any trace of Number 4 from the Internet. The issue is that Number 4 (who is now dubbed “John Doe” as a cover identity to make him “invisible”) is busy coming of age in his teenage years here on earth, complete with a love interest, played by Dianna Argon, whom I am very happy to see in something other than the disaster that is Glee, and to appreciate her ability to actually do some substantive acting.

Thus, it was about thirty minutes into the movie when I began to be disappointed, feeling as though I was lost in a derivative of Smallville. This was supposed to be new and innovative science fiction, darnit, not another teenage “rescue the girl with my super powers” drama. Except, despite my disappointment, I was found myself continuing to watch with interest, cheering for the hero and unable to look away as the good vs. evil fight to survive escalated to a climax.

That was when I realized that I wasn’t disappointed at all, once I began to view the movie for what it is: the cinematic equivalent of a YA novel. This isn’t an adult film. There’s nothing new here as far as the plot, the character development is sufficient but not particularly erudite, and the movie as a whole isn’t complex in any way. The backstory is filled in during quick expositional dialogue between the characters, but somehow doesn’t leave the viewer wanting. We just understand that this is where we are coming into the narrative and keep rolling with the punches, because its the punches of the now (both emotional and supernatural) that matter most for this hour and 40-odd minutes.

I Am Number Four is not adult science fiction. It is YA science fiction, and it is very, very good YA science fiction.

Watch this expecting cool new near-future science fiction ideas along the lines of Push or Next, and you’ll be disappointed. Watch this expecting a coming of age, YA novel on film, and you’ll be very pleasantly surprised, because that’s exactly what this film is intended to be. The genre is fulfilled nicely: good vs. evil conflict, the hero growing up and standing for what is right at the expense of himself, the discovery that we cannot stand alone, and the pledge to always love the girl for whom he has inexplicably fallen for the rest of his life as he rides off into further adventures with a wide-open story arc that begs for a sequel (please, Hollywood, wait until you’re doing better than you have been with sequels as of late if you intend to give us one).

What’s particularly surprising is that the film is produced by Michael Bay. I say surprising because the action sequences are gripping and big in signature Bay style, but never once overwhelming (and, honestly, not even that big considering Bay’s usual fare). In fact, they compliment the narrative perfectly, and character development is never once overshadowed by the battles. The writers have inserted action sequences with excellent judgement, and the viewer never feels that they are there without good reason. That, from a fellow writer’s perspective, is a mark of good screen-writing.

Combined with this good judgement are excellent performances by all of the actors involved. You hate the bad guys and cheer for the good guys, but both are more complex and three-dimensional than that, and you feel as though you’ve come to know the characters through the actors’ performances by the time the credits roll. Further, the end is redemptive as Number 4 recognizes his calling, eschews his childish ways, and takes seriously his responsibility to live up to his gifting.

As I said before, the film does leave one a bit reminiscent of Smallville, and some of Number 6’s fight sequences smack of vintage Buffy the Vampire Slayer. None of this, though, happens in a bad way, and the movie honestly never attempts to do something new or daring. The goal here is to tell an excellent YA science fiction coming-of-age tale, one that will broaden the viewer’s horizons and leave you feeling the glow of redemptive positivity at the end. This is the sort of movie I hope my daughter enjoys when she is old enough to enjoy such storytelling.

I’m surprised that the film wasn’t billed for young adults, but I’ll just consider it a chance to find a hidden gem. I Am Number Four was as excellent as I had hoped, but in a different way than I had hoped. If this was one that got away from you in its theatrical run as it was for me, place it in your Netflix cue now. In fact, bump it to the top. This is just a basic, really good movie that you’ll be glad you (and your children) watched.