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Aug 26 2012
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My Least Favorite Superhero Films. #4: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

As previously noted, I am well aware of the fact that including the Transformers franchise in a discussion of superhero films is not uncontroversial.

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#4. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)


(Pictured: what should’ve been happening for THE ENTIRE FRIGGING MOVIE.)

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. It wasn’t just disappointing because I liked the first film, it was disappointing because I have, on occasion, enjoyed the medium of film.

In my review of Transformers (2007), I alluded to the fact that almost everything good about Transformers was bad in Revenge of the Fallen. Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. It would be more accurate to say that every bad part of Transformers was magnified, and the good parts nearly disappear.

I’m going to talk about the good things this film does first, because that’ll take about thirty seconds. Steve Jablonsky is back, and actually collaborated with Linkin Park on the score which was pretty cool, although I didn’t really notice any tracks as stunningly awesome as “Arrival on Earth” from the first film. Starscream’s servile but antagonistic relationship with Megatron is wonderful and should’ve been given more screentime. The film has two outstanding scenes: Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen)’s death (in which he is able to temporarily singlehandedly fend off several Decepticons in a brutal fight) and Optimus’s resurrection (featuring the film’s only touching character moment, between him and Sam.)

You could actually make a good film out of this film’s few good scenes, the problem is it would only be about half an hour long. Major Lennox (Josh Duhamel) and Sam would be the only human characters in it, Optimus Prime would be the only Autobot with any real dialogue, Mikaela (Megan Fox) wouldn’t paint a motorcycle while bending upside down at an awkward angle so she can show her ass off to the camera, the combined forces of the U.S. military and Autobots wouldn’t blow up half of Shanghai to capture a Decepticon that seemed to be doing absolutely nothing of any consequence, and a whole lot of non-white characters wouldn’t have been introduced as ethnic stereotypes. Certainly, one of the first film’s stronger characters (Agent Simmons, played by John Turturro) wouldn’t have been turned into an ethnic stereotype.

Yeah, let’s just dive right into this. Toward the beginning of Transformers, we actually had a very positive portrayal of a Qatari man helping Lennox and his soldiers find safety and the use of a telephone. Apparently that didn’t test well with audiences or something, because every single non-white character in Revenge of the Fallen, including Sam’s roommate Leo (Ramon Rodriguez) is a shockingly transparent ethnic stereotype. We don’t even limit the fun to human characters, as there are two Autobots (given the most dialogue of any Autobot other than Optimus) that many fans refer to only as “the Racist Twins.” Because, you know: not being white is hilarious.

No, you know what? That’s not enough. Let’s throw in some sexism, too! Like the fact that every single woman at Michael Bay’s idea of what college looks like is throwing themselves at every male with a pulse. Or that a college “party” apparently resembles an upscale strip club. (Women don’t party! They dance around so men can enjoy looking at them while they party!) We’re even willing to throw logic right out the window, because Sam is attacked by what at first appears to be a sexually aggressive girl but turns out to be a Decepticon in disguise. Yep! Decepticons can take human form! Good thing this is the only time they use that ability. (Seriously.)

Yeah, this film is a giant mess of racism and sexism. But it isn’t just that it’s racist and sexist (there are some examples of both in much better films), it’s that the racism and sexism were so clearly part of a calculated decision to appeal to the kind of lowest-common-denominator humor that exploits these kinds of things. And even when the film isn’t being racist or sexist (which does happen… occasionally), much of the dialogue and many of the situations are so forced that enjoying this film would require actual effort on the part of the viewer.

Finally, the bizarre decision to give the human characters an expanded role in the sequel is one I will never quite understand. Having the first film be a sort of “human-eye” view of the Transformers made a lot of sense, because it introduced us to them in a way we could relate to, and gave us an idea of the incredible scale of these titans. The logical next step there was to ditch Sam, Mikaela, and friends (or at least dramatically scale down their role) and make the giant robots the movie is named after do the heavy lifting.

It really feels like Michael Bay took a look at his main characters from the first film and thought, “Okay, I have all these characters, so I guess I need to figure out something to have them do in the second film.” This is most glaringly obvious in Mikaela’s part in the film. There’s actually no reason for her to be in the film at all, so Bay concocts a subplot for her that actually breaks the logic of the film entirely. As a result of her solo adventures, when she meets back up with Sam she has a piece of the AllSpark in her purse. You know. The AllSpark. The thing that the Decepticons use a similar shard from to resurrect Megatron? Clearly it could’ve been used to resurrect Optimus, but the film seems to completely forget that Mikaela has it. It’s never mentioned again.

I imagine the film’s action scenes are supposed to make up for this, but for all the slow-motion footage of Megan Fox’s boobs, the action scenes all seemed to be in blurry fast-motion. You can never really tell what’s going on. I was willing to forgive this in the first film to some extent, but it really got old in a hurry here.

The cliché with film series is to say after the first film, “Okay, we got the introductions out of the way, now we can get into what we really want to do.” In Bay’s case, the audience would’ve been much better off never seeing Bay with that kind of freedom, because one of two things happened. Either he had no idea what he wanted to do, or what he wanted to do was just plain bad.

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Jul 18 2012
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My Favorite Superhero Films. #17: Transformers (2007)

Over the next few weeks I will be counting down my favorite (and least favorite) superhero films. For the purpose of this list, the only “rules” for what constitutes a superhero film will be that it reasonably seems like a superhero film. I won’t be applying any ridiculous standards that end up making Batman not a superhero because he has no super powers, or anything like that.

For those of you thinking, “Wait, 23? Isn’t that kind of a lot?” Keep in mind, the past few years alone have seen Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Bryan Singer’s X-Men films, Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, and the unprecedented Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy reading!

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#17: Transformers (2007)

First of all, let’s get this out of the way: yes, this film’s status as a “superhero film” is subject to considerable debate. There are a lot of reasonably good arguments on both sides, but (in my opinion) no true “home run” arguments one way or the other. I decided to include the Transformers as superheroes because they have a lot of attributes in common with most superheroes. I have no problem if anyone strongly disagrees with this assessment, but it’s what I’m going with.

I’m really wondering where all of these people I’ve met recently who “always hated” Transformers were in 2007. I can’t help but be reminded of all the people who suddenly were “always” against the Iraq War, which is perhaps a bit overly on-the-nose given this film’s opening setting in the Middle East and penchant for glorifying militarism. The point is, I didn’t know anyone in 2007 who hated this film. I wasn’t especially excited to go see it until everyone I knew wouldn’t shut up about how good it was. A good friend whose taste I can always rely on referred to it as “Nerd Porn.” (I would later agree, with the slightly modified term of “nerdgasm.”) Everyone from hardcore fans of the Transformers franchise to people like me who had almost no experience with the franchise came away from this film with a nearly universal message: it rocked.

Transformers took the nerd world by storm. In retrospect, we might observe that a large part of this might have more to do with the film’s marketability than anything deeper, but at the time it was just a fantastically fun film with a great deal of promise for sequels (oh, those were the days…)

Usually the fact that the first film of a series has to spend a great deal of time introducing characters, concepts, and the world at large is seen as an obstacle, sometimes even a source of great frustration that prevents the filmmaker from really doing what she or he wants to do with the film. In the case of Transformers, however, I actually think it helped hide many of its flaws, which would become glaringly obvious in the sequels.

We all know the biggest problem with Bay’s Transformers series. These are films that look at women the same way pre-Danica Patrick NASCAR did: they look great in tight or revealing clothing splayed across a fast car, but they shouldn’t talk too much. It wasn’t as pronounced in the first film as it would be in the other two films. Why? Because Bay needed to introduce his main characters, Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) and Mikaela Banes (Megan Fox), and their budding romance. From that point on, the two were on screen together almost constantly, they both had an almost equal amount “to do”: almost nothing. They ran around from plot point to plot point being protected by giant robots. (Incidentally, if you have to have human characters have a central role in a Transformers film, that’s probably what they should spend all their time doing.) It wasn’t until the sequels needed to give both characters something to do that Bay’s sensibilities became obvious. That, and when you’re doing “first movie” world-building, you don’t have time for Sam to go to a “party” that looks like a combination between a strip club and a supermarket. (“Yeah, I’ll take that one. No, the blonde to her left, with the leather skirt.”)

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We’ll talk about that (trust me: we will) when we get to Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on (spoiler alert) the other list.

Although this film’s status as the opening act of a (poorly-conceived) trilogy helped conceal larger problems that would become endemic to the franchise, there was one pretty clear warning sign: the character of Maggie Madsen (Rachael Taylor.) I honestly had to look that up. To be fair, she was actually in the film for multiple reasons: 1) To explain how the Decepticons hacked our files (which didn’t actually need to be explained, but that’s okay), 2) Michael Bay didn’t think Megan Fox’s boobs were quite big enough, 3) Bay wanted a blonde around (diversity!), 4) … okay, I guess that’s about it.

Yeah, the problem is this character makes no sense. She’s introduced when the Secretary of Defense introduces a huge group of high school (high school) computer science wizzes who have apparently been recruited because we don’t have better computer experts at the National Security Agency??? (Or, you know, any with a college degree?) Oh, yeah, she’s also Australian. This character was my biggest (and, for the most part, only) problem with the first film, but I should’ve taken her as the flashing “Trouble Ahead!” neon sign she was. But (silly me), I was under the impression that Bay’s audiences would point this out and it would be largely corrected in the sequel. Instead, basically everything about the sequel was this dumb. But, again, more on that later.

To see how this film’s “firstquel” status actually benefitted it, consider the sources of its appeal. The Autobots’ arrival on earth was awe-inspiring, and easily one of the best scenes of the series. This is where having a “human-eye” view of the Transformers really spectacularly paid off. Having the first film be about two puny humans and how they’re protected by giant robots while running from other giant robots and how surprisingly sexy (No? Just me?) that is? I’m find with that. It’s easiest to show Optimus Prime (voiced by Peter Cullen) as a father-figure when he has not just the other Autobots, but a human we can relate to to reassure and offer his wisdom to. The entire structure of this film seems to function to show us how big and impressive the Transformers are, and it does an excellent job of that.

Although Bay will inexplicably abandon this in future installments, Sam is actually a pretty sympathetic character in the first film. You get the “geek” vibe from him pretty solidly, and things really don’t always go his way. (In fact, they usually don’t.) Mikaela initially gave me a pretty strongly negative vibe, but once Sam drags her into the larger plot of the film she effectively disappears (while giving the illusion of still being involved to negate what could’ve been another “Trouble Ahead!” sign.)

Josh Duhamel as William Lennox actually largely justified this film’s military fetish due to his character’s bravery and how believably Duhamel played it. His performance was one of the few strengths that would actually carry from this film into the sequels. Jablonsky’s score, which as already mentioned was consistently great, really reached its heights with the Autobots’ arrival on earth and the moments when the film showed dramatic acts of heroism.

Sector 7, the covert government organization tasked with investigating extraterrestrial activity, was one of the best things about the film (so, naturally, was swiftly jettisoned for the sequels.) They serve as both a plot device and one of the most genuinely interesting things about the film. John Turturro was excellent in the role of the half-comedic/half-serious Agent Simmons. And the conflict between Lennox and Simmons when they meet is one of the best little moments in the film.

The casting for supporting characters in this film was shockingly awesome. Jon Voight plays the Secretary of Defense, while The West Wing veteran Michael O’Neill is absolutely perfect for the role of Sector 7′s director. (I hope you’re sensing a theme by now when I say that neither returned for the sequels.)

This film’s simplicity is its great ally. My takeaway lesson from the Transformers franchise is that Michael Bay can absolutely do simple. Transformers basically has three beats: action, wry humor, and (very seldomly) solemn sentiment (usually from Optimus Prime, but Lennox had one moment with Sam in the film’s final act.) All of these beats are dramatically enhanced by Steve Jablonsky’s impressive score. “Oh wow, that was awesome” moments are strewn throughout this film (many of these are performed by Lennox, like his trick with the motorcycle in the film’s final battle.) Yeah, okay: this film really hit its stride when it was, essentially, robot action porn. But that’s what it was supposed to be! And that’s what the sequels should’ve been.

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Jul 09 2012
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My Favorite Superhero Films. #23: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Over the next few weeks, I will be counting down my favorite and least favorite superhero films. I will try to be somewhat symmetrical in posting entries about each, but it won’t be perfectly so because I seem to have far more favorite superhero films than least favorite.

I already know what you’re thinking: “23? Isn’t that kind of a lot?” Well, not to spoil things, but keep in mind that the 21st century alone has featured Bryan Singer’s X-Men films, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man films, Christopher Nolan’s Batman films and, oh yeah, The Avengers and the massive series of origin films leading up to it. And I’ve heard a rumor there were a few superhero films made in the 20th century, too.

Before I begin, let me say that this list was not easy to assemble. For one thing, I had to set the parameters of what exactly constitutes a superhero film. There is no formal, authoritative definition as far as I can tell, but there are plenty of people who have very strong opinions about this. The problem is, most of those end up producing silly results (Superman and Thor aren’t superheroes because they aren’t actually human, Batman and Iron Man aren’t superheroes because they don’t have powers, etc.)

After agonizing over the question with no reward but confusion and frustration, I decided to settle on a policy of inclusion: if it seems like a superhero story, it is.

Even after settling the question of definition (mostly by avoiding it), I found it extremely difficult to organize these films in any kind of order. When I actually sat down to write reviews, describing why I liked a film made me want to move it higher on the list, and the top few films felt like a hopeless jumble of awesome I could never sort out. I like to think I’ve done at least a reasonably good job of doing so.

Anyway, without further ado, #23: Iron Man 2 (2010)

Yes, count me among those who actually liked this film a whole bunch. The follow-up to 2008′s smash hit generally vies with The Incredible Hulk as the most pedestrian of the films leading up to The Avengers in most fans’ estimations, and it isn’t really difficult for me to understand why.

I’ll get my major complaints out of the way first. Mickey Rourke as Whiplash is a surprisingly forgettable villain, but Sam Rockwell is absolutely hilarious as Tony Stark’s industry rival Justin Hammer. Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow isn’t even a shadow of who she’ll later be in The Avengers. Her performance, which could’ve added a lot to the film if it had been anything like what Wheedon got out of her, just felt absolutely phoned in. Finally, my biggest frustration is with the recasting of Don Cheadle as James Rhodes, played by Terrance Howard in the first film. I respect Don Cheadle quite a bit, but I have to say I greatly preferred Terrance Howard’s performance as this character. His chemistry with Downey Jr. was fantastic, and he seemed to fit the tone of the films much better.

The film doesn’t really do anything new except for a bunch of world-building in anticipation of The Avengers, but that actually leads to two of my favorite things about the film: Nick Fury and Agent Coulson. I love those two whenever they appear, and having them be such a big part of this film really helped tie the universe together when we eventually got to The Avengers.

I also loved the expanded role of Pepper Potts both in Tony’s personal life and in Stark Industries. And although I would’ve greatly preferred Terrance Howard to be playing him, I loved seeing James Rhodes become War Machine.

Robert Downey Jr.’s performance as Tony Stark/Iron Man continues to be the most compelling thing about these films, and once again is easily worth the price of admission.  The subplot with Howard Stark was an excellent inclusion that gave the film a bit more emotional depth, and Tony’s palladium poisoning and development of a new element both tied in nicely with this subplot and added to that depth. I was glad the film hinted at the serious themes of Tony’s head getting a bit too big and his emerging alcoholism without “overdoing it.” I still don’t know how much I want the films to get into his alcoholism, because while it’s certainly a story that could be valuable to tell, it would really weigh things down, which hasn’t been the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s M.O.

This film isn’t higher on the list because it didn’t surpass the first film in any meaningful way, but it’s on the list at all because it was an entertaining continuation and gave me pretty much everything I wanted (except Terrance Howard.) While there are some justifiable complaints about this film, it was a fun ride and I can’t wait for more.

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Jul 03 2012
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The “Amazing” Spider-Man

When I heard they were rebooting Spider-Man, a decision that seemed unconscionable with the spectacularly successful Sam Raimi series so fresh in everyone’s minds, I joined most of America in asking, “Wait, what?” I’ve generally considered the popular sentiment against remakes and reboots to be rather silly, but this is certainly one of the most egregious examples I’ve seen.

Then the trailers started coming out, and I found myself (against my better judgment) thinking, “Actually, this doesn’t look half bad.” The more trailers I saw, the more cautiously optimistic I became. Then an enterprising fan cut together all of the publicly available footage of the not-yet-released The Amazing Spider-Man into an “abridged version” of the film itself. The idea was that there was so much publicly available footage of Amazing Spider-Man that the entire movie was basically already out there. (This was basically right, incidentally.) And what I saw in this 25-minute reel did not please me. It was here that I first saw what I imagined would be my biggest problem with the film: who the heck was this guy in a Spider-Man outfit, and why was everyone calling him Peter Parker when he clearly wasn’t Peter Parker?

This is never a good sign, but like an elementary school teacher I want to talk first about what Amazing Spider-Man did well. The trailers made heavy use of “point of view” footage of Spider-Man web slinging, and my brain screamed, “Gimmick! 3D! Money!” pretty much every time I saw one of those shots. That being said, having now seen the film (in 2D, thank you very much), I have to say those shots were extremely well done, and integrated well with the more conventional shots of Spider-Man swinging on his webs. They were actually some of the best shots of the film.

There’s a scene where Spider-Man saves a child, and in the process of doing so he has to encourage the child to help him even though he’s very scared. The way he goes about this is genuinely awesome.

The action scenes were pretty well done, and the film’s final act in particular was (I can’t believe I’m using this word) excellent. Not so much the final confrontation which was somewhat anticlimactic, but an injured Spider-Man having to struggle his way across the city was pretty much the only time in the entire film that he seemed particularly heroic. Really, it was the only time he seemed interesting in any way–oh, sorry, I forgot this was the part where we were being nice. The soundtrack was also pretty great, especially during the action scenes.

I actually really liked the character of Captain George Stacey. He was a bit one-dimensional, and clearly there because the scriptwriters needed someone to initially dislike Spider-Man and then change his mind about him since they lacked the nuance to actually take any kind of “show, don’t tell” approach to the character. Actually, it’s pretty clear that I shouldn’t like him at all since he’s there just for the sake of convenience (just like everything else about this film), but for some reason that I can’t quite put my finger on I really did like him.

Finally, we come to the most backhanded compliment I’m going to give, but the decision to take an extremely minimalistic approach to the film’s romance was both merciful and very, very smart. There was actually quite a bit of Peter/Gwen footage in various trailers and television spots that doesn’t seem to have made it into the film. I obviously don’t actually know this, but it really leaves me with the impression that during editing the film’s creative team realized, “Okay, wow. These two are just not that interesting,” and decided to essentially gut that part of the film. Maybe that’s what happened, maybe it’s not, but the upshot of it is we got a very streamlined love story, the centerpiece of which was the pair’s first kiss followed by Spidey jumping off into a great action sequence. You know what? It really worked for me.

As I alluded to earlier, I thought my biggest problem with this film was going to be that Peter Parker wasn’t in character at all. That may still have been my biggest problem with the film, but it actually has a major competitor: a general lack of logic that pervaded the entire film, especially evidenced in glaringly unclear character motivations. Throughout the entire film, my internal monologue went a lot like this: “Why did Peter follow that random guy?” “Why did Peter walk into the spider chamber?” “Why is this gang of random thugs chasing Peter onto the roof when he’s clearly superhuman?” “Why are Gwen and Peter hanging out by football practice?” “Why did Lizard go aboveground and get shot up when he’s shown he can move underground with impunity?” “Why is Captain Stacey focusing on capturing Spider-Man when Lizard is literally destroying the city and his police force and Spider-Man doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone?” “Why didn’t Aunt May call Peter at all during a citywide catastrophe?” “Why is there liquid nitrogen on the roof of a skyscraper? That doesn’t even work. You have to fill those things from trucks.”

The real answer, in every case, is “convenience.” Peter followed the random guy and walked into the spider room because he needed to become Spider-Man. The random thugs chased Peter because the action scene needed to continue. Gwen and Peter hung out by football practice (something no one who isn’t friends with someone on the football team ever does ever in real life) because it gave them an interesting backdrop for their conversation and so Peter could use his reflexes to catch the ball and chuck it into the goalposts and have a cute “oops” moment. Lizard went aboveground so he could be shown to be in possession of the cloud of green gunk that turned people into lizards. Captain Stacey chased Spider-Man so he could make his dramatic turn. Aunt May didn’t call Peter because then she might put two and two together and realize he’s Spider-Man. And we all know why there’s liquid nitrogen on the roof.

The problem is, that makes the in-story answer, “…” Nothing anyone does in this movie makes any sense at all. I’m willing to forgive the usual lapses of logic (“It’s very important to Peter that he find an opportunity to change into his silly costume before continuing his fight with the giant lizard destroying his high school.”) because that’s just what superhero movies “do,” and because there’s at least a certain cinematic necessity to these lapses in logic. Outside of this? The rest of the film should make sense. And don’t tell me it’s “just a superhero movie.” The Avengers came out this summer, okay? Okay.

Now, my other huge problem with this film: just who the heck is this guy and what did he do with Peter Parker? One of the things that has made pretty much every version of Spider-Man successful (notably the Animated Series and Sam Raimi’s films) was that people in general, and especially geeks, could relate to Peter Parker. He was a nerdy, generally good-natured guy with normal problems. This film couldn’t decide who Peter Parker was, but he definitely wasn’t that guy. He was a punk, a hipster, an emo, a skater, a bully (at times). We’re told he’s smart but don’t ever really see that as a defining part of his character, it’s just something we’re told is true so it must be true. It just never really feels “right.”

But the truly unforgivable part of this film? It seems like they tried to show Spider-Man “joking around” during fight scenes like he did in the cartoon show, but instead he ends up coming off as a sadistic bully. At one point, when he already has a criminal immobilized against a wall, he keeps shooting webs at him, hitting him over and over (including in the crotch) and finally covering his nose and mouth, before checking to see if the criminal is Uncle Ben’s killer. Only after discovering that he isn’t does Spider-Man remove the webbing from his nose, enabling him to breathe. The implication here seems to be that Spider-Man would’ve let him suffocate if he were his uncle’s killer. And, you know, either way he definitely sort of tortured him.

Right, speaking of Uncle Ben. First of all, Martin Sheen was not an especially great casting choice. Don’t get me wrong, I love Sheen as an actor, but he seemed much more intellectual than the character he was portraying. Even in this universe, it’s kind of clear that Uncle Ben was supposed to be wise, not intellectual (he even says so in the film, more or less), so I don’t really understand casting Sheen in that role. If only that were the biggest problem with this part of the story. For some reason the creative team decided they needed to drastically alter the circumstances of Uncle Ben’s death, and the role it plays in Peter’s eventually becoming Spider-Man. Really, the entire focus of the film seems to shift from Uncle Ben’s death and Peter’s responsibility for it (which the film essentially glosses over) to Peter’s obsession with his missing parents (actually mostly just his father, he doesn’t seem especially interested in his mother, which sort of mirrors how the film doesn’t seem especially interested in Aunt May) which leads him to help Dr. Conners (while taking credit for his father’s formula for no apparent reason), which leads to the Lizard, which leads to Peter’s sense of responsibility. Do you see how this dramatically changes the character? Uncle Ben’s death isn’t the reason he makes his dramatic turn into a “good guy.” Really, there isn’t all that dramatic of a turn. It’s just, “This is my fault, I have to fix it.”

The thing is, even if I were going to buy that, even if I were going to shrug my shoulders at the character’s defining attributes being completely changed… it still doesn’t work, because for as much as it’s supposed to be essential to his character’s motivation, it was hyped up by the film’s promotional material much more than it was ever actually dealt with in the film. Dr. Conners’ dramatic line in the trailer, “If you want the truth about your parents, Peter, come and get it”? Never spoken in the film. It seems like that was exclusively to make the trailer more dramatic.

Which brings me back to my original question… why a reboot? Even if you don’t want to continue Sam Raimi’s film universe (understandable), why tell Spider-Man’s origin story again? Even if this is a separate continuity, there’s no reason to tell Spider-Man’s origin story again. We have comics and cartoons and a film series that happened basically yesterday. Can’t you trust as as an audience at this point to know who Spider-Man is? (Especially since most of us appear to know better than these filmmakers.) Why start at the beginning? If you must, give us a two-minute voiceover of, “Hey, I’m Peter Parker, I got bit by a spider and then my uncle got shot…” and then jump into something awesome like the Sinister Six or a more faithful adaptation of Venom. Instead, you end up completely bungling the origin story of one of the most iconic superheroes of all time for no real reason.

Don’t worry, though, they’re turning this thing over to the writers of Transformers, so I’m sure it’s all uphill from here.

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Jun 02 2012
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Black to the Future

Men in Black III was a lot better than Men in Black II, and I’m not even one of those people who hates on Men in Black II. The reasons why it’s better are fairly transparently obvious. For one thing, the concept is more original. Perhaps more importantly, though the surprise twist at the end of Men in Black II was one of the underappreciated film’s strengths (and really the emotional heart of the film), the twist in Men in Black III was much better. It was more interesting in and of itself, much more well-executed, and, while Men in Black II‘s twist had a profound emotional impact on Agent J, Men in Black III‘s had a defining effect on both main characters and their relationship.

Going into the film, one of my biggest concerns was that, based on the trailers, Tommy Lee Jones would not be playing Agent K for a majority of the film. The entire time travel angle seemed pretty gimmicky and potentially cheesy to me. So, naturally, Josh Broslin was brilliant and it was one of the biggest strengths of the film. Seriously: Broslin absolutely nailed Jones’ character. In fact, my biggest complaint about the film is that K seemed badly out of character during the act of the film, during which Tommy Lee Jones was playing him.

Agent O (Emma Thompson), the new head of the MIB, was one of my favorite side characters, and I would love to see her developed more. Emma Thompson is a wonderful actress, the character’s possible history with K gives him much more depth as a character, and (warning: this is highly superficial) she seemed to be doing a bit of Hillary Clinton channeling. (It wouldn’t be the first time.)

One of the coolest (and most likely to end up being underrated) parts of this film was the character of Griffin (Michael Stuhlbarg), an alien who is able to see all possible futures. This is the best evidence in the film that the creative team realizes that they’re supposed to use their imaginations to show the audience things that make us say, “Now that is freaking cool.” Really, it’s one of the best examples I’ve seen in any recent film.

Was this film perfect? Well, no. As I already mentioned, K was bizarrely out of character at the beginning of the film, but that’s indicative of what kind of problems the film had: most of the things it got wrong deal more with the franchise than they did with its success as an action comedy film. Really, I can’t think of any way in which it fell short by that measure.

Before I get into the slightly nitpicky problems I had with the film, it only seems fair stop here and coment on a silly thing I liked a whole lot. This might be the most trivial comment I will ever make about any film, I love the fact that Men in Black isn’t one of these franchises jumping on the “let’s stop numbering our sequels and just use subtitles even if the previous sequels were numbered.” Seriously. That bugs me so much.

Now. As one of the few people who actually liked Men in Black II, let me say this: one of the coolest things about the movie was Agent J asserting himself as a veteran, experienced agent. He was basically running the MIB, and it was clear everyone was looking up to him as the sort of role model that K had been. The thing is, the rest of that film (and this film) basically took a hammer to that entire concept to reestablish him as K’s clueless partner. I understand that dynamic works for them, but there would have been plenty of ways to have that dynamic while still playing up the fact that J was one of the top dogs now. He does mention being a Senior Agent, but there’s a “show, don’t tell” problem here. Men in Black II showed clear evidence of his growth, III doesn’t really in any way show him as that sort of agent.

Which actually leads me nicely into my next complaint. There’s a throwaway mention that J might encounter some racism in 1969, and then that happens exactly once. Now, when it does happen, it is admittedly one of the best and most hilarious scenes in the film by far, but it literally never comes up again. I realize they don’t want the film to be “about” this, especially with it being as lighthearted as it is, but it easily could’ve been part of the background noise. At the very least, there should either have been some overt racism at 1960s MIB Headquarters other than the easily missable fact that there were only white employees (there was overt sexism), or an explanation for the lack of racism.

These complaints might sound like nitpicky things, and you might justifiably accuse me of expecting too much from an action comedy. (Though, good luck convincing me of that, because it’s basically my favorite genre. Especially when you throw in scifi.) The thing is, the first Men in Black was perfect. All the film and narrative elements (plot, pacing, dialogue, character development) were excellent, it was laugh-out-loud funny at times, emotionally deep at others. And it introduced us to what could have been an unbelievably good franchise, which hasn’t quite cashed in on its potential yet. Again: what they’ve done here isn’t bad. It’s actually quite good. But it isn’t as good as it could be.

My last, and least nitpicky complaint: this film was almost entirely about humans. Any scenes with incidental alien characters felt fairly lazy, like the writers couldn’t wait to get back to the human characters. A symptom of this problem is that MIB headquarters has been getting progressively less interesting in the sequels. There are fewer aliens, more humans, and definitely less “going on.”

Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad this film explored these two characters in greater depth, and explained their relationship. But can we please get back to them (and their world) being awesome? The best part about the first film was the way it gave you the impression that there was this huge, interesting, quirky world beyond everything you saw in the film. What you saw was brilliant, but there was this feeling of unlimited potential. It’s something the franchise hasn’t managed to recapture, but hopefully they’ll have another go of it. I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.

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May 29 2012
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Film

You Sunk My Expectations-ship!

My experience with Battleship began long before I found myself sitting in the theater waiting for the film to start. It began when I saw a trailer for it and said, “… wait. They’re making a movie out of… Battleship? Battleship the board game?” It continued with retweeting jokes about the video game adaptation of the film (“Hey, look, it’s Battleship: the board game: the movie: the first-person shooter. That makes perfect sense.”)

Throughout most of my “experience” with the film I hadn’t seen, I also operated under the impression that Michael Bay was either producing or directing the film. Why? Because everyone (everyone) said he was! I have absolutely no idea how that popular misconception started, but I didn’t even bother looking it up because it sounded true. I mean, just look at what we knew about the movie. It was an action film with similar aesthetics, attractive people… and it was about a board game. That doesn’t sound like the Michael Bay we all know and loathe?

So, anyway. There I was, sitting in the theater, watching a film I (along with the rest of America) had already made up my mind was going to be a trainwreck, but possibly a fun trainwreck. The thing is… the film wasn’t directed or produced by Michael Bay. It was directed and produced by Peter Berg. If that name sounds familiar, congratulations: you’ve seen Friday Night Lights, one of the most critically acclaimed sports films of all time.

Not knowing this at the time, I was still fully prepared for this movie to be everything that I had been told it would be. I had been told this by internet buzz, by my own prejudices, by critics… it seemed like a perfect storm. It wasn’t until the ending credits were rolling that I found myself sitting there thinking about what I had just experienced. “Well,” I thought, “that was a pretty proficient action film with a great soundtrack, good acting, and… and… wait. Was that good?”

Is this a masterpiece with a complicated plot and intense character development? Of course not! It’s an action movie based on Battleship! The board game! But as I already mentioned, it’s a really, really good action film based on a board game. How good? Well, remember for me if you will a time when Transformers was actually a pretty great film that didn’t have any inexplicably bad sequels. Now imagine someone smarter than Michael Bay doing that. That should give you a pretty good idea.

You can safely turn your brain off before watching this film, sure. But that seems to be the only criticism everyone is consistently latching on to. I repeat: this is an action film. Why do we always need things to be something they aren’t? Films should be judged by how well they accomplish their objectives. And as this is an action film, I don’t go into it expecting to do a lot of thinking. Copy?

This film had all the necessary strengths to make it the joyride it was. Acting? How about Liam Neeson as the intimidating admiral in charge of the fleet? How about Rihanna (yes: Rihanna) as a shocking revelation as a female badass in the mold of Michele Rodriguez? In fact, why isn’t a Michele Rodriguez/Rihanna buddy cop movie (or “versus” movie, or…) in preproduction right now? Someone get on this! We need more action films with female leads!

But I digress. The special effects and overall cinematography made this an incredibly visually appealing film. The soundtrack by Steve Jablonsky was superb, but you already knew that if you’ve seen Transformers. Both of these elements (and the acting, remember the acting?) conspired to enhance the film’s dramatic beats. Again, the script wasn’t Shakespeare, but it was beyond proficient. It was clearly written by someone who knows how to write an engaging and fun action film.

Most essential to this film’s success was that its action scenes were actually fun to watch. Transformers 3 is one of the most egregious recent examples of this trend of action films getting extremely heavy and… well… boring. It’s pretty remarkable how often filmmakers don’t seem to realize that no matter how much money you pour into special effects, the fights in action films still need to be fun. I don’t care if you show the entire city of Chicago being destroyed building by building with frightening realism. If the battle seems three hours long, and the tone completely sucks the life out of the audience, no one is going to enjoy it.

In the end, what you have with this film is a well-made action film with perhaps a bit too much of a hard-on for the military, few (if any) cringe-worthy moments, and whose filmmaking elements enhance the experience as a whole. I feel really bad for people who made their minds up in advance (like I did) and either didn’t see the film or were too locked into their original opinions to enjoy it like I did.

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