First of all, some shameless self-promotion: if you haven't already, you should like this blog on Facebook! There's no real benefit or special content aside from the occasional snarky status update, but it gives me a vague idea of how many people read my blog. And hey, if I have enough readers, maybe I'll get off my ass and update more often.
Maybe once a week! Maybe more. Imagine the possibilities.
Anyway, on to my barely coherent ramblings:
A couple months ago, I heard about this new series from Image Comics called Morning Glories. It seemed to be receiving good reviews, and its description as "Runaways meets Lost" intrigued me enough to pick up the trade paperback on a whim. The basic concept, as described by Wikipedia, is as follows: "the series focuses on six 'brilliant but troubled' new recruits at Morning Glory Academy, a prestigious prep school hiding 'sinister and deadly' secrets."
The result was... underwhelming. To be honest, I should have read the Wikipedia summary first, because the wording they use retroactively sets off a few cynicism alarms in my head. Add in the art (which took a scenic detour through Uncanny Valley and decided that it was a marvelous place to live and so it stayed there forever) and it's just not a particularly great first impression. I wouldn't go so far as to call the series bad (after all, the trade paperback only collects the first few issues), but I do have several major problems with the way the story is told.
So! I give you a primer on how not to write a story, as made evident by Morning Glories:
First of all, a good writer knows what pacing is--i.e. letting plot points accumulate over time in order to build toward an effective climax, instead of allowing everything to happen at once. This series, however, suffers from a severe case of what one might call "premature accumulation." This occurs when an overeager writer blurts out a number of plot points before the audience is ready for it, often leaving readers confused and wholly unsatisfied. Morning Glories treats readers to a number of revelations that come way too soon in the story to be effective in any way. In the first twelve pages (before we even meet the main characters), we see a classroom explosion, a double escape attempt, a fight with guards, a mysteeeeeeeerious spinning cylinder, a ghost-thing that kills people by putting its hand through their brains, and a sinister but appropriately vague discussion between two teachers about the "grand plan."
Charlie's Inner Monologue: Okay, that's a bit much, but there's nothing wrong with a dynamic prologue to catch the audience's attention. It'll calm down soon enough.
But it really doesn't. Once the main characters arrive on the premises, all of this happens within twenty-four hours: the students notice that their parents don't acknowledge their existence anymore, they all get put in detention (two for fighting with a homicidal roommate, two for discovering a robed secret society in the basement, one after finding out that the school had murdered her parents [and then she was repeatedly tazed], and the last for attempting to escape and being held at gunpoint by his doppelgänger), and then the evil teacher floods the detention room until the blonde girl who got tazed answers a science question.
Charlie's Inner Monologue: Oh, for fuck's sake.
As far as narrative subtlety goes, that's somewhat akin to beating someone in the face with a blunt object labeled "THE MARVELOUS CRICKET BAT OF CONCUSSIONS AND EXPOSITION"--which will probably actually happen at some point in the series (this is Image Comics, after all). I'm sorry, Nick Spencer, but that's not good writing. I don't care if you've got the entire series plotted out and all this random bullshit will make sense eventually; Morning Glories has no sense of pacing and that undermines any sort of dramatic tension that you might have been aiming for.
And that brings me to my next point: having a complex story is not the same as good storytelling. Morning Glories has all of these bells and whistles in the form of reveals and MacGuffins, but hasn't bothered to give the main characters much personality beyond basic character types. There's the strong-willed leader girl, the slutty boy-chaser, the emo/goth (gemo?) girl who writes shitty poetry, the cute-nerdy quiet boy, the smug rich douche, and the Asian. Spencer gives each of the six characters about two pages of introduction to establish their respective gimmicks before they arrive at the school, and from that point onward, everyone acts more or less predictably. They feel less like humans and more like wind-up toys with backstories, and that's a rather large problem--because when it comes down to it, Morning Glories seems to be more about the bells and whistles and brain-gouging wraiths than about the characters at the heart of the story. Spencer is so focused on his brilliant mystery that he misses the forest for the secret tree society that is part of the GRAND PLAN.
See, complexity isn't bad in and of itself--for example, just look at George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. The books have multiple narrators, dozens of important characters, and countless schemes and power struggles going on at any given time, but the story works because the foundations are so fucking solid. The characters are believable because they're so undeniably human (for the most part), prone to hubris, anger, lust, scheming, and damn near everything else under the sun. If Game of Thrones didn't have compelling characters, it would just be another flat, useless fantasy novel--in other words, anything from the Wheel of Time series. (Blah blah nihil nisi bonum de mortuis blah blah whatever. I don't care; Robert Jordan was a hack. There, I said it.)
The point is, no one is going to have any emotional investment in your mind-bending mystery if you can't write believable characters. Embrace simplicity until you can tell a good story, and then start playing with monolithic spinning cylinders. If you're lucky, maybe someone will care.
But hey, the joke's on me, because Morning Glories is still pretty damn successful. Oh well. This is coming from the same company that gave us Spawn and Witchblade, so I suppose an evil boarding school is practically A la recherche du temps perdu.
Thank god for lowered expectations.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Cinema Snark: Super
The "do-it-yourself superhero" sub-genre has gained a fair amount of popularity in recent years as a way to deconstruct and subvert expectations from mainstream superhero movies. If there's a danger with these stories, it's the possibility to become too rooted in the mundane and lose the sense of over-the-top fun that makes superhero movies watchable in the first place.
That's what seems to have happened with Super. Like most DIY superhero films, it has a pretty bleak world-view and is punctuated with bursts of extreme graphic violence, though the inherent black comedy aspect is never really that funny. Rainn Wilson's main character is humorless and clearly mentally unstable, and Ellen Page's foul-mouthed sidekick is a shrill, whiny sociopath with a dash of sexual predator thrown in for good measure.
God, I hated her character.
Super is... odd, to say the least. There's nothing glamorous about this movie (even Liv Tyler, arguably the most attractive person in the film--though your mileage may vary on that--is drug-addict-chic most of the time), but that seems to be the point. Even the title is filled with hipster-worthy irony (and let's be honest, hipsters make up a good eighty percent of the viewer demographic for any film that isn't given wide release), because there's nothing "super" about anyone in the movie--least of all the main characters. The whole world of the film is mundane (or at least as mundane as you can get when you're dealing with people who dress up in home-made superhero costumes). To be blunt, I didn't really like Super--but I'm pretty sure most of the things which I disliked were done intentionally. It's supposed to be uncomfortable to watch. It's supposed to be the antithesis of most modern superhero movies, with witty bombastic escapism replaced by blood, futility, and grit.
This presents something of a reviewer's dilemma. If the whole movie is designed to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, is it really a bad thing when it achieves its desired result so spectacularly?
I had a similar problem when I read The Great Gatsby: I found Fitzgerald's prose to be practically orgasmic, but I hated all the characters because they were all horrifically vain, shallow human beings (yes, even the narrator). To this day, I still can't decide whether or not I actually liked the book. That being said, however, The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece of American literature and Super is a mid-budget indie which will probably fade into relative obscurity within a few months, so there's really no comparison. When you get right down to it, though, Gatsby is famous because it's exceptionally well-written, and there's nothing particularly exceptional about Super. I can enjoy movies that make you feel dead on the inside if they have beautiful cinematography and/or excellent scripts (e.g. Pan's Labyrinth and In Bruges, two of my favorite films of all time), but nothing about Super stands out enough to really excite me.
I suppose the problem with Super wasn't the fact that it made me uncomfortable so much as the fact that it never made me feel anything else. My main response to the movie can be summed up with a mildly perplexed, generally turned-off "....huh." I didn't really care about any of the characters, the violence tended toward the pointlessly gory, and it wasn't as darkly amusing as I had hoped. (PROTIP: Comedic sociopathy isn't funny unless it's so over-the-top that the only possible response is laughter. PROTIP #2: If the audience doesn't like said comedic sociopath, it defeats the entire purpose of having one to begin with. In other words, don't make her a shrill, obnoxious harpy.)
Of course, this isn't to say that the movie has no redeeming characteristics. There are a number of much-needed subversions of superhero/action movie tropes (the most notable being "Why doesn't anyone wearing a bulletproof vest ever get shot in the head?") and some clever ideas, but I don't feel like they're ever fully developed. It's established early-on that Rainn Wilson's character suffers from occasional hallucinations (sometimes involving divine tentacle rape), and I feel like the movie could have made more of the whole "he thinks the bad guys are actually demons" thing, but it only appears once or twice for the rest of the movie. It feels like a missed opportunity, especially given that his first inspiration to become a costumed vigilante comes from a Bible-themed TV superhero named the Holy Avenger (played with typical charm by Nathan Fillion). Similarly, the climactic action sequence features some Adam-West-ish BLAMs and POWs popping up onscreen, but the gimmick appears so suddenly and disappears so soon after that it really only made me scratch my head and wonder what the fuck the point was. If the comic book effects had been used through most of the movie (say, as a symptom of the main character's previously established hallucinations) then it could have come across as a fun stylistic choice (much like Scott Pilgrim's video game bits) instead of being jarring.
Long story short: if you're looking for a fun DIY superhero movie, skip Super and (re)watch Kick-Ass. It's nowhere near perfect (the title character's story is by far the least interesting part of the movie), but it does have Nicolas Cage doing his best Adam West impression while he brutally murders mafia goons and shoots his 12-year-old daughter in the chest. Now that's comedic sociopathy I can believe in.
That's what seems to have happened with Super. Like most DIY superhero films, it has a pretty bleak world-view and is punctuated with bursts of extreme graphic violence, though the inherent black comedy aspect is never really that funny. Rainn Wilson's main character is humorless and clearly mentally unstable, and Ellen Page's foul-mouthed sidekick is a shrill, whiny sociopath with a dash of sexual predator thrown in for good measure.
God, I hated her character.
Super is... odd, to say the least. There's nothing glamorous about this movie (even Liv Tyler, arguably the most attractive person in the film--though your mileage may vary on that--is drug-addict-chic most of the time), but that seems to be the point. Even the title is filled with hipster-worthy irony (and let's be honest, hipsters make up a good eighty percent of the viewer demographic for any film that isn't given wide release), because there's nothing "super" about anyone in the movie--least of all the main characters. The whole world of the film is mundane (or at least as mundane as you can get when you're dealing with people who dress up in home-made superhero costumes). To be blunt, I didn't really like Super--but I'm pretty sure most of the things which I disliked were done intentionally. It's supposed to be uncomfortable to watch. It's supposed to be the antithesis of most modern superhero movies, with witty bombastic escapism replaced by blood, futility, and grit.
This presents something of a reviewer's dilemma. If the whole movie is designed to make the viewer feel uncomfortable, is it really a bad thing when it achieves its desired result so spectacularly?
I had a similar problem when I read The Great Gatsby: I found Fitzgerald's prose to be practically orgasmic, but I hated all the characters because they were all horrifically vain, shallow human beings (yes, even the narrator). To this day, I still can't decide whether or not I actually liked the book. That being said, however, The Great Gatsby is a masterpiece of American literature and Super is a mid-budget indie which will probably fade into relative obscurity within a few months, so there's really no comparison. When you get right down to it, though, Gatsby is famous because it's exceptionally well-written, and there's nothing particularly exceptional about Super. I can enjoy movies that make you feel dead on the inside if they have beautiful cinematography and/or excellent scripts (e.g. Pan's Labyrinth and In Bruges, two of my favorite films of all time), but nothing about Super stands out enough to really excite me.
I suppose the problem with Super wasn't the fact that it made me uncomfortable so much as the fact that it never made me feel anything else. My main response to the movie can be summed up with a mildly perplexed, generally turned-off "....huh." I didn't really care about any of the characters, the violence tended toward the pointlessly gory, and it wasn't as darkly amusing as I had hoped. (PROTIP: Comedic sociopathy isn't funny unless it's so over-the-top that the only possible response is laughter. PROTIP #2: If the audience doesn't like said comedic sociopath, it defeats the entire purpose of having one to begin with. In other words, don't make her a shrill, obnoxious harpy.)
Of course, this isn't to say that the movie has no redeeming characteristics. There are a number of much-needed subversions of superhero/action movie tropes (the most notable being "Why doesn't anyone wearing a bulletproof vest ever get shot in the head?") and some clever ideas, but I don't feel like they're ever fully developed. It's established early-on that Rainn Wilson's character suffers from occasional hallucinations (sometimes involving divine tentacle rape), and I feel like the movie could have made more of the whole "he thinks the bad guys are actually demons" thing, but it only appears once or twice for the rest of the movie. It feels like a missed opportunity, especially given that his first inspiration to become a costumed vigilante comes from a Bible-themed TV superhero named the Holy Avenger (played with typical charm by Nathan Fillion). Similarly, the climactic action sequence features some Adam-West-ish BLAMs and POWs popping up onscreen, but the gimmick appears so suddenly and disappears so soon after that it really only made me scratch my head and wonder what the fuck the point was. If the comic book effects had been used through most of the movie (say, as a symptom of the main character's previously established hallucinations) then it could have come across as a fun stylistic choice (much like Scott Pilgrim's video game bits) instead of being jarring.
Long story short: if you're looking for a fun DIY superhero movie, skip Super and (re)watch Kick-Ass. It's nowhere near perfect (the title character's story is by far the least interesting part of the movie), but it does have Nicolas Cage doing his best Adam West impression while he brutally murders mafia goons and shoots his 12-year-old daughter in the chest. Now that's comedic sociopathy I can believe in.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Cinema Snark: Hanna
I'm not generally a fan of describing movies with the rather lazy formula "it's like X meets Y" (which makes sense, considering that one of my hobbies is writing needlessly long reviews)--but this time around, I find the comparison too fun to ignore: Hanna is The Bourne Identity as told by the Brothers Grimm. (No, not those ones, despite the coincidental presence of Matt Damon in both films.)
From the beginning, Hanna was advertised as a modern fairy tale, even down to the "Once upon a time" at the start of the trailer. Hell, the opening scenes of the movie are about a girl and her father living in a cabin in the woods, and I'm sure a number of those woodland bits wouldn't look out of place in that trashy new Red Riding Hood movie. So, yeah: fairy tale.
Take away the violence and spies and all the modern trappings, and this becomes even clearer: on a very basic level, Hanna is the story of a sheltered girl who suddenly has to embark on a journey of self-discovery through a world that's filled with delight and danger. Of course, this isn't some saccharine-sweet Disney fable--the dangers are real, the violence is brutal, and much of the movie is filled with dark symbolism relating to lost innocence. Much of the final third of the movie takes place in or around a gingerbread house, and both of the climactic action sequences take place in run-down children's attractions (a playground and an abandoned theme park, respectively). The man that Cate Blanchett hires to follow and capture Hanna is a violent, depraved pedophile who whistles a creepily cheerful tune (which is mimicked to unsettling effect in the score) as he hunts his prey. (Though I've never seen or read A Clockwork Orange, I was eerily reminded of Malcolm McDowell's Alex.)
It's interesting that so much of Hanna revolves around the idea of innocence when the title character was raised to be a merciless killing machine, but she really is an innocent girl. Hanna is experiencing the outer world for the first time; she wants to make friends, to fall in love, to experience life for herself--but her combat and survival training is necessary in order for her to stay alive long enough to accomplish any of those goals. All the same, she has to grow and evolve as a person in order to have any hope of living a normal life. The movie's tagline sums it up well: "Adapt or die."
I really enjoyed Hanna, but it's definitely not perfect. The movie leaves a lot of loose ends, including some pretty significant details about Hanna's backstory and the motivations of several characters. The question of how much you'll enjoy Hanna probably has a lot to do with how detail-oriented you are: I tend to be more interested in broad concepts and themes than with precise execution, and I found myself able to look past the holes in the narrative. There's a surprising amount of depth to Hanna, if you're open to it--and one could even make the argument that the details it leaves out aren't necessary to the plot anyway. Here's the thing: if you're looking for a taut, well-plotted spy thriller, Hanna is honestly not your best bet. Director Joe Wright seems much more interested in creating a pervasive atmosphere of dreamlike surrealism, punctuated by bursts of fast, brutal violence. As such, Hanna is easier to classify as a fairy tale--and that classification also makes it easier to excuse some of the narrative weaknesses. Audiences are always curious about characters' pasts, but the movie is honestly more about the journey (i.e., where Hanna is going than where she's been). Similarly, you could argue that Cate Blanchett's motivations are never fully explored (and they're really not), but that becomes less important when you apply fairy tale logic: an evil queen/stepmother doesn't need a reason for being a crazy, murderous bitch (unless you're Neil Gaiman); she just is.
From a visual standpoint, the movie is great. Joel Wright's biggest projects before this were Atonement and Pride and Prejudice--not exactly action movies--but he rises to the challenges presented by this project and acquits himself well. The fight scenes are impressively clean (Wright himself has stated that while he admires Bourne director Paul Greengrass, he wanted to avoid the latter's frenzied action style), and most of the movie has an admirably distinctive look. The visuals are aided immensely by the soundtrack, composed by British duo the Chemical Brothers, which added to the tension and emotion without overshadowing what was happening onscreen. Saoirse Ronan turns in a good performance as the wide-eyed but dangerous Hanna, Eric Bana is suitably badass despite not having too much to do, and Cate Blanchett is about as creepy as I've seen her since that one scene in The Fellowship of the Rings. Also, I'm pretty sure her character is a post-op transexual, but Julia doesn't agree with me (and I can't give too many details to back up my claim without ruining large chunks of the movie).
So yeah: interesting concept, good cast, and fun violence. It's worth seeing, I'd say, despite its flaws--but honestly, the lingering question in my head at the end of the movie is who would win in a badass-but-crazy-girl-fight between Hanna and River Tam.
Thoughts, anyone?
From the beginning, Hanna was advertised as a modern fairy tale, even down to the "Once upon a time" at the start of the trailer. Hell, the opening scenes of the movie are about a girl and her father living in a cabin in the woods, and I'm sure a number of those woodland bits wouldn't look out of place in that trashy new Red Riding Hood movie. So, yeah: fairy tale.
Take away the violence and spies and all the modern trappings, and this becomes even clearer: on a very basic level, Hanna is the story of a sheltered girl who suddenly has to embark on a journey of self-discovery through a world that's filled with delight and danger. Of course, this isn't some saccharine-sweet Disney fable--the dangers are real, the violence is brutal, and much of the movie is filled with dark symbolism relating to lost innocence. Much of the final third of the movie takes place in or around a gingerbread house, and both of the climactic action sequences take place in run-down children's attractions (a playground and an abandoned theme park, respectively). The man that Cate Blanchett hires to follow and capture Hanna is a violent, depraved pedophile who whistles a creepily cheerful tune (which is mimicked to unsettling effect in the score) as he hunts his prey. (Though I've never seen or read A Clockwork Orange, I was eerily reminded of Malcolm McDowell's Alex.)
It's interesting that so much of Hanna revolves around the idea of innocence when the title character was raised to be a merciless killing machine, but she really is an innocent girl. Hanna is experiencing the outer world for the first time; she wants to make friends, to fall in love, to experience life for herself--but her combat and survival training is necessary in order for her to stay alive long enough to accomplish any of those goals. All the same, she has to grow and evolve as a person in order to have any hope of living a normal life. The movie's tagline sums it up well: "Adapt or die."
I really enjoyed Hanna, but it's definitely not perfect. The movie leaves a lot of loose ends, including some pretty significant details about Hanna's backstory and the motivations of several characters. The question of how much you'll enjoy Hanna probably has a lot to do with how detail-oriented you are: I tend to be more interested in broad concepts and themes than with precise execution, and I found myself able to look past the holes in the narrative. There's a surprising amount of depth to Hanna, if you're open to it--and one could even make the argument that the details it leaves out aren't necessary to the plot anyway. Here's the thing: if you're looking for a taut, well-plotted spy thriller, Hanna is honestly not your best bet. Director Joe Wright seems much more interested in creating a pervasive atmosphere of dreamlike surrealism, punctuated by bursts of fast, brutal violence. As such, Hanna is easier to classify as a fairy tale--and that classification also makes it easier to excuse some of the narrative weaknesses. Audiences are always curious about characters' pasts, but the movie is honestly more about the journey (i.e., where Hanna is going than where she's been). Similarly, you could argue that Cate Blanchett's motivations are never fully explored (and they're really not), but that becomes less important when you apply fairy tale logic: an evil queen/stepmother doesn't need a reason for being a crazy, murderous bitch (unless you're Neil Gaiman); she just is.
From a visual standpoint, the movie is great. Joel Wright's biggest projects before this were Atonement and Pride and Prejudice--not exactly action movies--but he rises to the challenges presented by this project and acquits himself well. The fight scenes are impressively clean (Wright himself has stated that while he admires Bourne director Paul Greengrass, he wanted to avoid the latter's frenzied action style), and most of the movie has an admirably distinctive look. The visuals are aided immensely by the soundtrack, composed by British duo the Chemical Brothers, which added to the tension and emotion without overshadowing what was happening onscreen. Saoirse Ronan turns in a good performance as the wide-eyed but dangerous Hanna, Eric Bana is suitably badass despite not having too much to do, and Cate Blanchett is about as creepy as I've seen her since that one scene in The Fellowship of the Rings. Also, I'm pretty sure her character is a post-op transexual, but Julia doesn't agree with me (and I can't give too many details to back up my claim without ruining large chunks of the movie).
So yeah: interesting concept, good cast, and fun violence. It's worth seeing, I'd say, despite its flaws--but honestly, the lingering question in my head at the end of the movie is who would win in a badass-but-crazy-girl-fight between Hanna and River Tam.
Thoughts, anyone?
Sunday, April 3, 2011
On Cowards and Superstitions
A lot of writers just don't get Batman, and this saddens me--because honestly, he's really not that hard to understand.
At his core, Batman is supposed to be terrifying. I mean, think of it from a criminal's point of view: he's a grown man in peak physical condition who dresses in a black cape and cowl (fuck that blue and gray shit) and prowls the rooftops of his city, looking for any excuse to beat the shit out of someone.
An arsonist escapes from Arkham? Batman dangles him off a rooftop.
There's a murderer on the loose? Batman breaks the dude's ribcage.
Jaywalker? Batman curbstomps him. Nobody breaks traffic laws in Gotham.
The man's a borderline psychopath who happens to be proficient in damn near every form of unarmed combat known to man. That's pretty fucking scary, if you ask me. And hell--the entire reason that he chose a bat as his symbol was so he could strike fear into the hearts of criminals. (Maybe he should have picked something less adorable?)
That's why I liked Batman Begins so much: it was all about fear. Bruce Wayne conquers his own fears, Batman scares criminals shitless, and the Scarecrow traps people in waking nightmares. And Liam Neeson runs around with a ninja sword. It's certainly not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I actually like it better than The Dark Knight (the Joker notwithstanding) because it has a more streamlined narrative and the "fear" theme going on.
So, yes. Batman is a scary, scary man. He's the thing lurking in the shadows, waiting to snatch you up. I'd like to think that the mothers of Gotham use him to frighten their children into submission, whispering warnings of "Be a good boy, or Batman will come for you while you sleep" just before turning off the lights and shutting the bedroom door. He only attacks the wicked, so you're safe as long as you remain virtuous--but God help you if you fall from grace. He'll be there. Watching. Waiting.
One of this man's primary weapons is fear--and to paraphrase Carmine Falcone, people always fear what they don't understand. He's practically a walking nightmare to Gotham's criminal population, and you can feel his looming shadow even when he's not in the scene. Like most scary things, he's actually more effective when you don't see him. And that's another reason that I love Batman Begins: several of the action sequences aren't from his point of view. Instead, the camera focuses on gun-toting henchmen while something skulks around in the shadows and picks them off one by one. I would take the docks scene from Batman Begins over the climactic Batman vs. SWAT vs. Joker-thugs scene in The Dark Knight because the whole thing gets much less interesting when we actually see how Batman is doing that thing he does so well. He loses a certain amount of his mystique that way; it's like watching one of those shitty Fox specials where some douchebag stage magician reveals his secrets on camera.
So, here's my proposal. Someone needs to make a Batman movie that's not about Batman. Make the protagonist someone else entirely, set it in Gotham, and give audiences a chance to see the Dark Knight through a different set of eyes. One of the best damn Batman series I've read in years is Gotham Central, and Batman appears maybe three or four times in all of volume one--but you can feel his presence nonetheless. Gotham is his city, and everyone knows it.
That's what I want to see in a new Batman movie. It would need a respectable director (I mean, I'd love to see Robert Rodriguez's version of Batman, but for entirely different reasons) with a real flair for pacing, atmosphere, and use of light and shadow. Make it a crime drama or a thriller or even a straight-up horror film, and set it in Gotham City. We can see the man at work, but he needs to be used sparingly. Tastefully. He's fucking scary and he needs to stay that way.
Similarly, the less focus there is on gadgets, the better. Much as I like the Hellboy movies (let's be honest here--everything Guillermo del Toro touches turns to solid gold), they place too much emphasis on gadgets and underground lairs. The second movie tones down the sci-fi look quite a bit, but it's still a far cry from the comics, where Hellboy usually just fights evil with his Right Hand of Doom, the Samaritan, and whatever ancient artifacts happen to by lying around. In other words, take the route of simplicity. This isn't to say that Batman wouldn't use gadgets extensively--we just wouldn't have to see it. We don't always need to know how he does everything he does, as long as we know that he's capable of doing it.
So, yeah. Basically, I want to see a Darren-Aronofsky-directed crime noir thriller set in Gotham.
...Aaaaaaand there goes the nerdgasm. I'm gonna go clean up.
At his core, Batman is supposed to be terrifying. I mean, think of it from a criminal's point of view: he's a grown man in peak physical condition who dresses in a black cape and cowl (fuck that blue and gray shit) and prowls the rooftops of his city, looking for any excuse to beat the shit out of someone.
An arsonist escapes from Arkham? Batman dangles him off a rooftop.
There's a murderer on the loose? Batman breaks the dude's ribcage.
Jaywalker? Batman curbstomps him. Nobody breaks traffic laws in Gotham.
The man's a borderline psychopath who happens to be proficient in damn near every form of unarmed combat known to man. That's pretty fucking scary, if you ask me. And hell--the entire reason that he chose a bat as his symbol was so he could strike fear into the hearts of criminals. (Maybe he should have picked something less adorable?)
That's why I liked Batman Begins so much: it was all about fear. Bruce Wayne conquers his own fears, Batman scares criminals shitless, and the Scarecrow traps people in waking nightmares. And Liam Neeson runs around with a ninja sword. It's certainly not a perfect movie by any stretch of the imagination, but I actually like it better than The Dark Knight (the Joker notwithstanding) because it has a more streamlined narrative and the "fear" theme going on.
So, yes. Batman is a scary, scary man. He's the thing lurking in the shadows, waiting to snatch you up. I'd like to think that the mothers of Gotham use him to frighten their children into submission, whispering warnings of "Be a good boy, or Batman will come for you while you sleep" just before turning off the lights and shutting the bedroom door. He only attacks the wicked, so you're safe as long as you remain virtuous--but God help you if you fall from grace. He'll be there. Watching. Waiting.
One of this man's primary weapons is fear--and to paraphrase Carmine Falcone, people always fear what they don't understand. He's practically a walking nightmare to Gotham's criminal population, and you can feel his looming shadow even when he's not in the scene. Like most scary things, he's actually more effective when you don't see him. And that's another reason that I love Batman Begins: several of the action sequences aren't from his point of view. Instead, the camera focuses on gun-toting henchmen while something skulks around in the shadows and picks them off one by one. I would take the docks scene from Batman Begins over the climactic Batman vs. SWAT vs. Joker-thugs scene in The Dark Knight because the whole thing gets much less interesting when we actually see how Batman is doing that thing he does so well. He loses a certain amount of his mystique that way; it's like watching one of those shitty Fox specials where some douchebag stage magician reveals his secrets on camera.
So, here's my proposal. Someone needs to make a Batman movie that's not about Batman. Make the protagonist someone else entirely, set it in Gotham, and give audiences a chance to see the Dark Knight through a different set of eyes. One of the best damn Batman series I've read in years is Gotham Central, and Batman appears maybe three or four times in all of volume one--but you can feel his presence nonetheless. Gotham is his city, and everyone knows it.
That's what I want to see in a new Batman movie. It would need a respectable director (I mean, I'd love to see Robert Rodriguez's version of Batman, but for entirely different reasons) with a real flair for pacing, atmosphere, and use of light and shadow. Make it a crime drama or a thriller or even a straight-up horror film, and set it in Gotham City. We can see the man at work, but he needs to be used sparingly. Tastefully. He's fucking scary and he needs to stay that way.
Similarly, the less focus there is on gadgets, the better. Much as I like the Hellboy movies (let's be honest here--everything Guillermo del Toro touches turns to solid gold), they place too much emphasis on gadgets and underground lairs. The second movie tones down the sci-fi look quite a bit, but it's still a far cry from the comics, where Hellboy usually just fights evil with his Right Hand of Doom, the Samaritan, and whatever ancient artifacts happen to by lying around. In other words, take the route of simplicity. This isn't to say that Batman wouldn't use gadgets extensively--we just wouldn't have to see it. We don't always need to know how he does everything he does, as long as we know that he's capable of doing it.
So, yeah. Basically, I want to see a Darren-Aronofsky-directed crime noir thriller set in Gotham.
...Aaaaaaand there goes the nerdgasm. I'm gonna go clean up.
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