Marveling At The Past - Hulk (2003)

“Betty, I am 100%........more”

Is the now infamous Ang Lee directed version of the Hulk just a misunderstood classic, ahead of its time, not what anyone was expecting and far too intellectual for its target audience?

No, I’m afraid we are not talking about another ‘Blade Runner’ here.  While I will, and always have praised its actors, its unique editing style and the CGI creation of the Hulk, that cannot take away from the fact that the film is badly paced and structured as well as being emotionally detached from its story and characters.  I can totally accept that Lee made ‘Hulk’ as a drama first but no matter what genre it belongs to, it still needs to adhere to these basic rules to work as a successful piece of cinema.

I’ve been trying to get to the root of why the film doesn’t work as a ‘Hulk’ story.  I think the answer would have to be this.  The story of the Hulk, to me, at least in the earliest comics is a classic monster tragedy.  It is a tale of two lovers who seem destined to be together and to live happily ever after but pay the price for meddling in forces beyond their knowledge and comprehension and are forever torn apart.  In the film, the audience does not get to feel any tragedy because Bruce Banner and Betty Ross are already separated when we meet them.

Maybe somebody in the comments section can enlighten me as to why this choice was made because I cannot understand what the film gains by it.  The scenes between Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly play out pretty much as if their characters still were in a relationship.  The characters still clearly have feelings for each other.  Since Banner isn’t facing off against a super powered villain with plans for world domination or some sort of gamma bomb Armageddon, the only thing driving the character through the piece is the need to rid himself of the Hulk so he return to a normal life with Betty.

It makes too much sense that, since the Bruce we meet at the start of the film has had such an angst ridden upbringing (something Bana plays very well), Betty represents the light at the end of the tunnel.  The film should have introduced us to two people madly in love, united by their common bond of passion for science and their non-existent relationships with their fathers.  This way the audience is invested in the film right from the start.  We are paying attention because we know this relationship is doomed and it is only a matter of screen minutes before that happens.

I do enjoy the film’s central theme of why everything goes to hell for Banner.  The movie is primarily about fate and how it relates to the genetic pool.  It is a rather cynical viewpoint embraced by the film that individuals cannot escape the fate which is written into their DNA as passed down by their parents, both on a physical and metaphorical level.  Even though Bruce Banner has been separated from his real parents at an early age, changed his name and doesn’t even know about his past, he still ends up working in the same field of scientific research as his father.  Even though his is exposed to the gamma radiation as an adult, it only amplifies the formula he was injected with as a child.  No matter what, Bruce was fated to be the Hulk.

His father David Banner simultaneously admires the power his son has obtained and resents that he has not been the one to acquire it given that everything which has transpired as done so according to his design.  Meanwhile, from the perspective of Bruce and Betty, rather than reuniting with their children out of any sense of love or commitment, it has taken this tragic accident and the fear of its repercussions to bring David Banner and General ‘Thunderbolt’ Ross out of parental exile and back into their lives.  For all the reasons that the Hulk drives a wedge between Bruce and Betty, it is really these two failed fathers that seem determined to ensure their children will never lead a happy life.

As far as I’m concerned, this is all great stuff.  Rather than creating a one dimensional super villain or a barking mad military grunt to force the Hulk into a conflict, we have real characters with motivations.  Rather than creating a King Kong/Frankenstein clone where Hulk is chased by army vehicles endlessly for two hours, there is a really interesting story to be found in the film but the finished product just wears you down in the delivery.

I think there really is an obligation to have a Hulk origin story on a large scale with momentum.  You cannot introduce Bruce Banner and then spend another twenty five minutes on intimate conversation scenes before he has his accident.  You certainly cannot bombard Bruce with gamma rays and then spend another twenty minutes before he actually becomes the Hulk.  You cannot alienate and bore the audience with trippy dream sequences.  You cannot ask the viewer to accept the concept of a mutant dog when they are only just getting to grips with the Hulk creature itself.  You cannot cram all of your ‘Hulk vs. military’ action set pieces into the final act rather than spreading them evenly across the movie.

But the finished film does all of these and that is why it fails.  If we met Banner as an adult on the same nuclear test site he grew up on, carrying out the same research, caught in the blast of a gamma bomb not ten minutes after his introduction, transforming into the Hulk very soon after that and forced to go on the run with General Ross in pursuit, that would have given the film all the momentum it needed to hold our attention while still allowing Lee to tell a compelling ‘sins of the fathers’ story.

If only somebody could have leaked concept art of the ‘Hulk Poodle’ before they started shooting.  At least we would have known what we were in for.

Marveling At The Past - X2: X-Men United (2003)

“Logan, my tolerance for you smoking in the mansion notwithstanding, continue smoking that in here and you’ll spend the rest of your life under the illusion you’re a six year old girl.”

You can argue that there are better comic book movies than ‘X2’ but I don’t think you can find me a better example of one which completely serves the interests of the die hard fans while also being totally accessible to someone who knows nothing about the comic books.  ‘X2’ is the best wet dream a comic book fan could ask for.

It is also the Marvel movie among the least likely to date as the years and decades go by.  ‘X2’ is not a copycat product of other blockbusters of the period but almost an homage to ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’.  It does not rely on fake rubber doll CGI characters to pull off its action sequences and actually depends on little computer effects throughout.  It is not an allegory or commentary on modern times but deals with classic themes of isolation and persecution.  It is entirely focused on the relationships between its characters.  It actually has a plot driving it forward and the heroes have to save the entire world at the end.  As a film of its genre, it hits every single note perfectly.

That makes it a pretty tricky subject for this series of articles.  The whole objective of ‘marveling at the past’ is partially to reflect on the Marvel movies but this time we are dealing with one which has been fan-analyzed to death simply due to the fact that the film gives the comic book readers so much back in terms of being faithful to the established characters, perfectly translating new ones like Nightcrawler to the screen and being an adaptation of an actual Chris Claremont X-Men story. 

Then we have the Easter eggs such as the names and places from the comic universe to be found on Stryker’s computer and the tip of the hat to the paternal relationship between Nightcrawler and Mystique.  These are the things which reassure the vocal fan community that their beloved property is in the hands of people who care.  But these articles are also designed to look at where things went wrong.  How can you do that with something like ‘X2’?  Well, in typical style, I do have one problem with the film.

The first two thirds of the film are flawless.  It is only once we launch into the third and the showdown at Alkali Lake where things start to go a little awry.  It isn’t that there isn’t good stuff in there, nor that the film descends into mindless mayhem; quite the opposite in fact.  The heart racing climax we have been building to instead devolves into thirty minutes of our heroes running around the corridors of an underground bunker, almost aimlessly.

The Wolverine versus Deathstryke fight is frankly not very good.  Stryker’s entire private army is taken out with one hand gesture by Magneto.  The showdown between Jean and the drugged Cyclops (clearly meant to mirror the conflict they will be forced into during the Phoenix saga) is over in a few seconds.

Before we talk about solutions, it is important to note the constraints facing the filmmakers.  Firstly, Bryan Singer is simply not an action director.  It is not that he can’t stage an action set piece; he merely has little interest in them.  Secondly, it is refreshing to see an action film climax where the villain’s lair doesn’t self destruct in a ball of flame immediately after his defeat.  Thirdly, you are faced with the handicap of regular mortal men being pitted against homosuperiors, all of them with incredible powers.  No matter what weapons they have, they don’t stand a chance against the mutants.

But there are things that could have really made the third act smoke.  The whole crux of why the mutants are at Stryker’s lair is to snap Xavier out of his hypnotized state and stop him from using Cerebro to locate and kill every homosuperior on the planet.  The way the film is structured, Xavier begins to find them at about the same time the X-Men have infiltrated the base and for the next twenty minutes the film is constantly cutting between them.  We cut to Xavier finding the mutants.  We cut back to some minimal action.  We cut back to Xavier doing the exact same thing.  It removes any sense of urgency from the climax because it seems, at least to me, that our heroes have all day to stop the professor. 

I would have much preferred that Xavier not reach Cerebro so soon.  As the X-Men arrive at the base, the professor is, still within the illusion created by Stryker’s son, inching slowly but surely through the corridors towards Cerebro.  With the heroes’ arrival putting the pressure on Stryker, he organizes a military escort to accompany Xavier, completely oblivious to the man himself.  We even see his students crying out to him from across the way to stop what he’s doing and Xavier not even turning to acknowledge. 

Also, rather than Xavier concentrating on wiping out every single mutant at the exact same time, we could actually see him picking them off in groups.  We could see several mutants actually die.  Just touches like that would have greatly added to the tension and urgency of the sequence.

Singer does, however, know exactly how to place each of the characters in a situation most appropriate for them.  Storm is charged with rescuing the kidnapped children because she is the one we have seen most in the role of teacher at Xavier’s school.  We see Wolverine finally confronting his place of origin.  Nightcrawler, purely by faith and belief, is critical to stopping Xavier.  Jean and Cyclops go head to head, foreshadowing the events that will tear them apart in the Phoenix Saga (if only we’d be given it).  Magneto gets to be the one to actually stop Xavier from wiping out the mutants, allowing himself a moment to gloat as to how well Charles’ naivety has served him in this situation.  Rather than bringing mutants and humans together peacefully, he almost became the tool of their annihilation.

My only problem is that, though the context is perfect, the actual sequences are highly lackluster.  The Jean and Cyclops fight is over before it even begins.  It is never particularly exciting, at least for me, to watch super powered people simply standing still firing waves of magic at each other.  It would have been great to see the fight get a little rough.  Since so much of the film is about people being used as pawns, what better way to emphasize how these two lovers have no choice over their actions than to really see them beating the hell out of each other?

Then we have the not particularly exciting removal of Stryker’s soldiers from the film when Magneto pulls all of their grenade pins simultaneously and takes them out in a matter of seconds.  Yes it is one more demonstration of how monstrously powerful and amazingly cool Magneto is but it doesn’t create much conflict.  It occurred to me watching the film back how great it would have been to have Nightcrawler taking the soldiers out, mimicking the exact way he took out the White House guards in the opening sequence.  But instead of watching a brainwashed puppet, we are watching a free man turning the tables on his persecutors.  It would have been powerful imagery.

But in a film with so much powerful imagery, memorable scenes and a stunning ending that makes your head swim with the possibilities of where the series will go next, I really am just being greedy. 

Next time on ‘Marveling at the past’ it's time to get mean and green with an entirely different kind of Marvel movie; a film which pretty much needed a page one rewrite.  It is time for us to plunge back into the painful memory of ‘Hulk’.

Marveling At The Past - Daredevil (2003)

“Trust me Matthew, spend thirty years inside a confessional and there’s nothing I haven’t heard.”

“Well let’s keep it that way.”

I have hated 20^th Century Fox for the longest time and my colleagues here at TMT, Peter and Jamie, have often been puzzled as to why.  It started right here with their feature film adaptation of ‘Daredevil’.  After finally being able to compare the theatrical version of the movie to the intended director’s cut (a film for once deserving of that moniker), combined with decisions the studio later made with the ‘X-Men’ and ‘Fantastic Four’ franchises, I came to the conclusion that Fox was purposely ignorant of why these comic properties work and why they have endured.  So focused are they on making 90 minute action films for teenagers with short attention spans that two of Marvel Comics’ greatest sagas, ‘The Dark Phoenix Saga’ and ‘The Elektra Saga’ have crumbled to dust before our eyes.

But my attitude has mellowed over the years and, rest assured, this is not going to be one long rant against Fox and how THEY ruined ‘Daredevil’.  The fact remains that if they put up the money, they are entitled to do whatever they wish.  The fact remains that ‘Daredevil’ was more a victim of the success of Sam Raimi’s ‘Spider-man’ the previous year than anything else and any studio in Fox’s place would probably want to mould this very dark piece into something more commercial.  The fact remains that Fox has not locked the original version of the film away in a vault and looking upon that version we can see that ‘Daredevil’ is still a flawed film.

You can argue (and I am certainly on this side of the fence) that the first act of the film is practically pitch perfect.  The opening reveal of Daredevil, hanging for dear life and bleeding to death on the roof of a church after some brutal battle we can only guess at this point, perfectly dispels any notion that this is another ‘Spider-man’.  In bold and brilliant strokes, we are gradually enticed into the world of Matt Murdock; his accident, his powers, and how he survived and thrived on the streets and rooftops of New York.  In the space of a few minutes we get the downfall and redemption of Matt’s father who sacrifices himself, just to be an example to the boy he loves so much, to keep fighting and never fall down because they tell you to.  We get to see inadequacy of the justice system to protect the underdogs and why Daredevil exists to hand out otherwise undelivered justice.  And we get to see the private hell that Matt’s life really is, a life where fighting crime leaves physical scars, where his solid food diet seems to consist mainly of painkillers to keep him going and where he is forced to sleep in an isolation tank to block out the sounds of the city and its never ending wave of violence that he otherwise hears every moment of every day.

Where things start to unravel is in the film’s treatment of the Matt Murdock/Elektra Natchios relationship and the repercussion it has on the actual plot of the film (or lack thereof) and especially the third act.  In the film, this beautiful, amazing woman is presented as the ray of light Murdock so desperately needs in his otherwise miserable existence and, in that respect, it works very well.  After her father, a powerful shipping magnate with ties to the Kingpin of crime, is assassinated for trying to leave his organization by the deadly hit-man Bullseye, Elektra abandons Matt and a life of happiness to walk the lonely path of vengeance and retribution, leaving Daredevil no choice but to keep walking his own.  This set up leads into the clunker of a third act where Elektra is hunting Daredevil, Daredevil is hunting Bullseye and Bullseye is hunting both of them and, despite who knows how many rooftops there are in New York, they all manage to converge on the same one.  Any tragedy to be mined from this sequence is quickly rushed through so we can watch Daredevil and Bullseye fight each other on the world’s tallest, and least structurally sound, church organ.

The reasons for this not working are two fold.  Firstly, Elektra has not been down the path of revenge long enough for her actions or her death to have the impact it should.  In the comics, she and Matt meet each other as university students and fell in love before being torn apart by the death of her father.  The whole point of the character is that she arrives back into Matt Murdock’s life years later an almost completely changed person, a ninja assassin irrevocably damaged by years of violence.  Matt does everything he can to bring her back to the light over the course of their various encounters but is unable to save her.  By the time Bullseye finally kills her, the reader is actually conflicted as to whether she got what she deserved as she herself has ended so many lives by this point without hesitation. 

Secondly, there is literally no reason why Elektra needs to be a target of Bullseye in the film, save for some tacked on excuse that the Kingpin kills not just his intended victim but their whole family.  In the comics, Elektra is an established force to be reckoned with so far down the path of no return that she takes the mantle as the Kingpin’s top assassin with immediately brings her into the sights of Bullseye, desperate to take that position back and eliminate the competition.

In fact it is the villains which really suffer as a result of the changes to the source material.  Kingpin, despite being the main villain, is barely in the film.  We get no real demonstration of the power he wields, how large his organization is or how dangerous and feared he has become.  When Daredevil faces off against Kingpin at the end of the film, there is no electricity to it because he hasn’t been set up properly as someone to be reckoned with.  You get the feeling the filmmakers realized this as well and threw in the painfully arbitrary “you killed my father” plot device. 

The character is regarded as much of an urban myth in the city as Daredevil and yet the film makes it look like exposing his identity and bringing him down was quite easy.  The irony is you can do a far better job of conveying that mythic status as well as the threat of the Kingpin if you don’t even reveal him in the first film.  Just like Mandarin is the definitive foe of Tony Stark and the ‘Iron Man’ movies are eventually building up to that character’s appearance, Kingpin is at the top of the villain food chain for Daredevil and there is nowhere to go after that.  Kingpin is not just another foe to be conquered either.  Defeating him represents the accomplishment of Daredevil’s mission to bring true justice to the city and that is a struggle which is too epic to be accomplished on one film.

From what Mark Steven Johnson says, the reasoning behind including the showdown with Kingpin was, apart from wanting to cram everything he could as a fan into one film, that the film was about the underdog being able to topple the biggest fish in the city.  Unfortunately, trying to cram that theme into the same film that charges itself with telling the Elektra saga is folly.  There was more than enough story to tell by focusing exclusively on a torturous tale of two soul mates that seem made for one another but force each other apart, dooming themselves to a life of vengeance and violence they feel obligated to because of their fathers.

Imagine a film which takes us straight from Matt Murdock cradling his dead father’s body in Hell’s Kitchen to the brief tranquility of Columbia University where he meets both future law partner Foggy Nelson and the love of his life.  Imagine that the film’s romance scenes such as Matt being able to see Elektra in the pouring rain took place at this juncture.  Imagine that Elektra’s father is assassinated and framed as the mythical Kingpin of crime there and then leading to a parting of the ways, forever forsaking Matt’s chance to live a normal happy life and putting him on the path of Daredevil.  Imagine the real Kingpin off screen pulling the strings of everything that is about to unfold.  Imagine Elektra coming out of nowhere in the middle of one of Daredevil’s standard busts as something he barely recognizes (which goes double for her) and turning his life upside down.  Imagine Murdock and Nelson on their own against the odds trying to crack the real identity of the Kingpin, with Matt feeling that clearing Elektra’s father is the last thing he can do for her.  Imagine Kingpin hiring Elektra to take out these underdog lawyers for that very reason.  Imagine Bullseye being the only visible villain, an obsessive psychopath who turns up at every turn, destroying everything that matters to Murdock and pushing both of them into a grand final battle.  Imagine an epic.

I know it sounds like I’m being a comic book purist in the worse sense but the irony is that it was the Daredevil film that made it happen.  Because of Mark Steven Johnson’s passion project and because of the good things I found in the movie, I started reading Daredevil comics and found a character with a mythology so rich and brought to print by so many talented artists and writers, that he quickly became my favorite Marvel character.

When it comes right down to it that is the highest compliment I can pay him.  When it comes right down to it, ‘Daredevil’ is a film made with love.

As opposed to his next film ‘Ghost Rider’ which was made with something else.

Marveling At The Past - Spider-man (2002)

“Are you sure you won’t have a bite?”

“No thanks, I’ve had one.”

Please feel free to debate this with me but I honestly feel that, not only in the twenty film span of Marvel movies to date, but for comic book films in general, there is not a single one which has more perfectly captured the spirit and tone of its source material than Sam Raimi’s first ‘Spider-man’.  Coupled with the living breathing spirit of the Stan Lee/Steve Ditko comics of the 1960’s on screen is a wonderfully zippy energy and pace, a perfectly cast Tobey Maguire in the lead role, an intimate story entirely focused on the dynamics of two families and a few flaws to boot.

But no where in this article will I be dredging up the usual criticisms hurled at the film.  I will not be complaining about the Green Goblin’s costume or moaning about the miscasting of Kirsten Dunst.  The problems with Mary Jane and the Goblin have, in my opinion, nothing to do with those.

In order to discuss the Mary Jane character I have to start by confessing a not too popular view; I liked Kirsten Dunst in the first film very much.  You have to look at it this way; the first film is, exactly as Peter Parker says in the opening narration, all about a girl.  It’s about a kid falling in love with the most amazing girl in school, having to climb over that metaphorical invisible wall just so she’ll notice him (I’ve been there Peter), and earning her love and respect.  And just as he gets the girl, the hero has to make the toughest choice of all and give her up.  If you don’t buy Peter’s quest to win Mary Jane then the film doesn’t work.  Since the general consensus seems to be that ‘Spider-man’ was a good movie, the film must work and Kirsten Dunst must work as Mary Jane.

For me, the only problem in retrospect is that the character was called Mary Jane at all.  Even though Sam Raimi chose to skip past Peter’s first (and tragic) love Gwen Stacey due to not liking the character, what ended up on screen was a strange hybrid of both her personality traits and Mary Jane’s.  I have on friend who has always referred to her as ‘Gwen Jane’.  What I find strange about the fan reception to Dunst over the course of the trilogy is how she has been accused of not suiting the role of MJ at all and how the character is portrayed as vapid, self serving and unlikable.  I lose the part where this is Dunst’s fault.  It seems to be another one of those classic cases of the viewer not being able to distance the actress playing the part from the character she plays as written by somebody else.  She does give a terrible performance in the third film undoubtedly but I firmly believe that if she were playing the part of Gwen Stacey, there wouldn’t be that many fans complaining.  The character of Gwen, as depicted in the comics, was vapid and I think the readers were happy to see her die. 

By making the simple switch of having Dunst play Gwen Stacey, I think the fans would have happily put up with her safe in the knowledge that everyone’s favorite red headed bombshell, and Peter Parker’s true love, would be turning up on his doorstep eventually.  By turning MJ into Gwen for the film, the filmmakers would have also been able to bring in her father, police captain George Stacey and provide a much needed face to the law in the city (as well as set up his own death in the second film but I’ll get to that in a few weeks).

One of the most rushed plot points in the film is the sudden slandering of Spider-man, calls for his arrest by the public and the police trying to bring him in.  It is neither given a proper set up or any conclusion.  Just adding the presence of Captain Stacey in key scenes would rectify that.  For example, at the end of the Times Square battle between Spidey and the Green Goblin, just seeing him having to deal with the results of their clash as the streets are littered with dead/injured civilians and cops is enough to justify his personal motivation to stop both costumed characters.  Of course, all this time the Stacey’s are the family next door to Peter, further emphasizing the intimate nature of the film which makes it work so successfully for me. 

The film is very much about fathers and sons; the fractured relationship between Norman and Harry Osborn, and the surrogate father relationships between Peter and Uncle Ben and between Peter and Norman Osborn.  In the scene which crystallizes this motif, both Spidey and the Goblin break from a session of beating the hell out of each other in a burning building so they can both individually rush to Thanksgiving dinner with Harry, MJ and Aunt May.  Why not throw in Captain Stacey (who has also been at the scene of the burning building trying to bring in both Spidey and the Goblin) as well.  Then you have three fascinating characters, all devoted to a duty of some sort but also family men.  Setting up events for film two that are right out of the comic book, the audience would also get the impression, as Osborn has figured out Spider-man’s secret identity, that Captain Stacey is putting the pieces together as well.

But back on the subject of the Green Goblin himself, it is a lack of narrative drive which hurts his character and the whole second half of the film, not an admittedly silly costume.  Norman Osborn is a character pushed into a corner by others who want to destroy him and the company he built (both a rival company called Quest Aerospace and the members of his own board).  That’s something a lot of us can empathize with on a smaller scale I suppose but while we can only fantasize about getting payback, Osborn actually equips himself with hi-tech weaponry and bombs the crap out of his enemies.  The problem is that he accomplishes this by the one hour mark of the film leaving the character nothing to do but fight Spider-man (together with the obligatory “join me” speech).

Another simple change was needed to rectify this by having Osborn’s mission to destroy Quest Aerospace extend through the majority of the story.  For example, instead of the Goblin and Spidey facing off in a regular burning tenement block, move the action to Quest’s headquarters or research facility.  Further adding to the intimacy of the film, we realize by the end that Osborn, despite his insanity as well as his fondness for Peter Parker, is largely trying to ensure Oscorp’s survival to provide a legacy for his son and to ensure he will not have to face the same obstacles.  To that end, both Peter and Gwen must die.

But Gwen would not die.  Regardless of thinking that they should have used the character, it would make no sense to see her befall the same fate on screen during the Queensborough Bridge climax of the film.  Nor does it make any sense for her and Peter to be together after that.  I’ve always found it amusing to see people criticize Peter’s choice to not get the girl during the final scene of the movie.  I remember, just to call one person out, Mark Steven Johnson on his director’s audio commentary for ‘Daredevil’ mentioning how Peter’s choice made no sense given how much he loves MJ.  I love hearing it because Johnson is clearly saying he would make the easy choice.  He would immediately take the risk of living a double life which brings new dangers and enemies every single day and share that with another without them knowing what they were in for.  Peter makes the hard choice which is what makes HIM, not Spider-man, a hero.  And that final scene is what justifies the entire film.  Despite the mistakes with other characters, Peter Parker himself is 100% nailed.

Speaking of Mark Steven Johnson, he’s next on my hit list as next week we delve blindly and without fear (sorry, sorry, sorry) into his adaptation of ‘Daredevil’.  Have your director’s cut DVD at the ready.  You’re going to need it.

Marveling At The Past - Blade II (2002)

“Oh I get it; you’ve been training for two years to take me down and now here I am.  Oooooh, so exciting isn’t it?” 

Yes its exciting Blade but it’s not very interesting.  While Guillermo Del Toro undeniably brings energy and creativity to the vampire hunter’s second film, there is so little character development or thematic material to get your teeth into (excuse the terrible pun).  As per the law of diminishing returns, the first film does such a great job of introducing writer David Goyer’s reconceived notion of the modern vampire, how they operate, how Blade can defeat them, and how he is able to combat the nocturnal weaknesses within him that there seems to be little new ground to break.

I understand the film has its fans but, luckily for me, there seems to be a divisive split between fans of the first film who dismiss all that has followed it and those who believe the series didn’t find its footing until ‘Blade II’.  I do applaud the filmmakers for not making a carbon copy of the first in any way.  While Norrington’s film is brooding, desolate and insane, Del Toro’s is fast, fun and completely hollow.  Due to the fact that chasing monsters in sewer tunnels is never something that has held my attention and, following on from my piece on the first film, the return of the Whistler character is so quickly and nonsensically resolved, I find myself watching what amounts to a typical action movie.

For me, the film goes downhill from about the five minute mark.  As soon as the opening credits finish, we immediately cut to Blade chasing some boring Euro-trash vampires through corridors accompanied by some ear piercing thumping which passes for a score.  Well shot though the action is, the mindless drudgery of it goes on for another ten minutes before Blade uncovers Whistler’s body.  That is ten minutes wasted on Blade fighting the kind of boring goons that you can find in any action film.

I would have much preferred a complete overhaul of the first act of the film, following straight on from the opening scene at the blood bank where our villain Nomak has been revealed as an evolutionary new species of vampire which feeds on both humans and his own.  After the credits, Blade opens the door on that very same place not too long after Nomak’s attack.  Instead of a house of vampires waiting to be cleaned out, Blade finds halls and corridors littered with the blood and corpses of his immortal enemies.  The scene sets one of the principal themes of the film; of your enemies not being who you thought they were.  As Blade begins his latest quest, everything he thought he knew about whom to trust and who to drive a stake through is turned on its head. 

In the actual film, Blade is brought to the headquarters of the ruling vampire nation and is simply told about Nomak and this new species called the Reapers and what they can do.  A similarly expository scene introduces ‘The Bloodpack’, the A-Team of vampires if you will, who have been training for two years for the sole purpose of hunting down Blade.  It just seems to me that the rules of ‘show and tell’ work much better in a comic book movie if you show instead of tell.  So imagine, as Blade investigates the clinic and crawls over vampires with their throats torn out, those same corpses suddenly reform as Reapers and spring to life.  Just as Blade is facing the overwhelming odds of an enemy he’s never faced before and doesn’t know how to kill, the Bloodpack arrive on scene to even the odds.  Weakened from their need to feed, the Reapers have their fill of combat and disperse leaving Blade alone with the hunters and, despite their orders to go after Nomak, the more volatile members of the Bloodpack cannot resist the opportunity to take on Blade instead, though this eventually leads to a ceasefire.  Like I say; show instead of tell.  Rather than telling us about these new characters, we get to see them in action and figure things out for ourselves.

Having exhausted his arsenal on the Reapers, Blade is in no condition to fight a team specifically trained to kill him.  A smarter person would escape but Blade isn’t going anywhere.  After two years of searching, he has found Whistler and as the Bloodpack surround Blade, he keeps his back to the tank of blood containing his surrogate father, like an animal protecting its young.  After Blade locates Whistler in the film, there is a lot to enjoy about the initial distrust between the two and how, even after a dues ex machina is used to cure his vampirism, there is still the lingering feeling that it hasn’t worked.  I just wish that had turned out to be the case.

Having Whistler remain a vampire would have accomplished three things for me.  Firstly, it would retain the emotional resonance of his death scene in the first film.  As it turns out in ‘Blade II’, the detox thingy injection used to cure his condition actually does work and Whistler is his old self again as if nothing happened by about the 20 minute mark.  It always feels cheap to me when death has no consequences.  Even when they brought Spock back to life in ‘Star Trek III’, they made sure Kirk paid the price for it by losing his command, his ship and his son.  Secondly, by finishing Whistler’s arc in the second film we would be spared the utter pointlessness of his presence in ‘Blade Trinity’.  Finally, we could have removed the completely unnecessary romantic sub-plot between Blade and Nyssa (daughter of vampire overlord Eli Damaskinos) in order to focus on the climax of the relationship between Blade and Whistler, of father and son.

If there is a theme buried under all tunnel chases, nightclubs and throat ripping in ‘Blade II’, it seems to be about fathers and sons.  The film does have an intriguing dynamic between Damaskinos and the head Reaper Nomak, who turns out to be his son; a genetically engineered attempt to create the perfect vampire.  In Nomak we have a character that becomes a mirror image of Blade.  He too is a unique anomaly among his race.  He too is very hard to kill.  And he too is on a mission of retribution to kill his father (don’t forget that Deacon Frost practically was Blade’s father in the first film).  Damaskinos says himself that family ties mean nothing next to the preservation of his species. 

I would have loved to have seen that relationship mirrored between Blade and Whistler.  Whether his mind has become warped due to his mutation or because he genuinely believes it, Whistler is tired of fighting the war against vampires and wants it to end as quickly as possible.  To that end, he is willing and able to trap Blade so his body can be harvested and studied to create daywalkers and end the vulnerability of the species.  His love for Blade wins out in the end and Whistler helps his son win the day but by the end he chooses suicide rather than the vampire slayer’s sword.  Instead of an out of place death scene for Nyssa, disintegrating in Blade’s arms as the sun rises on a new day, Whistler says a final goodbye and walks into the morning light to his death with head held high.

I understand that ‘Blade II' is just an action film and its creative villains, colorful action and the way it made the character even cooler than he was in the first film was enough for a lot of fans.  All I think it needed was re-tooling of certain scenes, more focus on character and a stronger theme to make it click.  It wasn’t until the third film that things became overwhelmingly bad enough for everyone to agree on the flaws, and unfortunately I have no choice but to revisit the horror of ‘Blade Trinity’ in a few weeks time.  Don’t be afraid to join me.  We can lick our wounds together.

Marveling At The Past - X-Men (2000)

“We’re not what you think………not all of us”

Against all odds, it worked; that just about sums up how most of us feel about the first, and long time coming, major film adaptation of a Marvel comic book property.  Having been ten years since its release, the film’s strengths and weaknesses have been discussed to death and the only reason I will dredge any of them up again is to provide some positive solutions.

Looking back on the film, the biggest compliment I can give the filmmakers is that they were able to make an X-Men movie on a piddling budget of $75 million.  That won’t even buy you a summer comedy blockbuster these days (see ‘Year One’).  You could pitch a completely different film, on a more epic scale, that may serve as a better X-Men part 1; one where you see multiple mutants fighting on screen every ten minutes, with a team line-up including Beast or Gambit, or where Magneto is powerful enough to hijack nuclear warheads from a submarine and hurl them right back at Washington.  I hope come the inevitable reboot that we get exactly that kind of picture.  But right now I cannot suggest such things would have improved Bryan Singer’s film when he was able to make a good film out of a limited budget and rushed production schedule.

The basic spine of the film is the perfect introduction to the X-Men world and, with a little push in certain areas, it could have avoided the TV pilot mentality which brings it below the quality level of its immediate sequel.  Watching the movie you feel that introducing the world, the characters, and sowing the seeds of plot lines that were intended to be developed in future films was the primary focus.  There is nothing wrong with having the intention to make multiple films but each one must stand on its own legs.  Marvel movies such as ‘Spider-man’ and ‘Iron Man’ don’t suffer from this problem because their primary goal is to tell a singular story with an ending that is satisfying enough that the audience is not obligated to see the second film.  Of course having to only deal with one character makes this considerably easier.  But then again, X-Men wisely did the same thing by putting the focus solely on Logan and Rogue, and how their lives are irrevocably changed by being dragged into the conflict between homosapiens and homosuperior.

But the real conflict is not between two races, but between two men divided by totally separate ideologies and the pawns they use to achieve their goals.  Perhaps you don’t believe that Professor Xavier is anything other than the noble and gentle leader of the X-Men but that hardly makes for the most interesting of characters.  Both Singer and Brett Ratner, I believe, understood that a fight to live in a world free of intolerance and hatred is still a fight and requires tough decisions to be made.  Xavier, brilliant man as he is, cannot be a selfless individual who always make the right and inarguable choice.  The chess scene at the end of the film between him and Magneto clearly suggests that they are both playing the same game, but from different sides of the board.  Logan and Rogue are just the pieces that were moved around.  That is what the first X-Men film is really about.

I feel the scene which introduces them at the senate hearing could have emphasized this a lot more.  In a sequence which was deleted from the film, Jean Grey’s lecture on mutation and subsequent confrontation with Senator Kelly ends with her losing control of her powers, using her telekinetic powers to try and take his confidential document of unidentified mutant files.  Without that scene it isn’t clear for the uninitiated until later that Jean is a mutant herself but having her exposed on the senate floor to people who thought she was just a homosapien campaigner would have left a much stronger impression.  Jean’s credibility, being a mutant defending mutants, is destroyed.  Kelly’s position on the threat they pose is strengthened and both Xavier and Magneto, watching it happen, realize this is the turning point.  That moment exists in the film where Magneto leaves the hearing amid the cheers of mutant haters, ready to go to work and Xavier follows him, pleading with his old friend not to go down this path.  The battle they have been dreading to fight but inevitably preparing for is about to begin.

The only element missing is an actual physical confrontation between the two characters but I cannot really complain about that.  The filmmakers were drive into a corner by the fact that Xavier is too powerful to be brought into the climax of the film, given that he can simply control the minds of Magneto’s Brotherhood and end most of the conflict right there.  Still, it would just be dramatically satisfying to run the whole gamut of their relationship and bring it to its logical conclusion; two friends who started with the best of intentions, driven by the need to protect their own kind, and being forced by to kill each other because neither is able to back down from their point of view.

Looking at what we get in the film, there is a certain pathos to seeing Xavier’s students (his children if you like) going into battle against the odds and without his protection but determined to fight and die for his beliefs.  Which brings us nicely to Cyclops and Storm; woefully underdeveloped characters in a sea of otherwise perfectly nailed ones.  Looking back, the reasons are obvious.  Cyclops is supposed to be the leader of the X-Men but his only function in the film is to create a love triangle between Jean, Logan and himself.  Storm just does not contribute in any way. 

I think what bugs me about Cyclops is the scene where he confronts Logan about Jean.  Logan asks if Cyclops is going to tell him to stay away from her.  Cyclops, quite rightly, says that because she is his girl, he doesn’t have to…and then tells Logan to stay away from her anyway.  It’s probably meant to be a humorous moment but it really hurts the character.  I can understand why, for most of the film, we don’t see Cyclops in a leadership role as Xavier fulfills it and the X-Men have not yet been into battle.  Once Xavier is injured in the third act, Cyclops steps up to the role but still doesn’t actually get to kick any ass.  Once the team enters Liberty Island, Logan takes on Mystique and Toad manages to get the drop on the other three by himself.  Cyclops’ only contribution to the action is to get kicked across the room and zap some slime from Jean’s face.  Instead of Storm facing off against Toad I would have much preferred to see Cyclops unleashed in a fury of optic blasts determined to nail the scum that would dare to hurt the one he loves.

Most of my problems with Storm stems from the fact that the role was cast too young.  I’ve always seen Storm as the wisdom, experience and strength of the actual team; the one who never shows weakness.  In the film, she is just a blank space.  And rather than showing just physical strength, her defining scene could have been the one she shares with the dying and recently mutated Senator Kelly.  Given the confrontation she shared with him near the start of the film, Jean deliberately leaves Kelly to his fate, hinting at that malicious side that lies beneath the surface, waiting to be unleashed as the Phoenix in future films.  It is Storm who would have the courage to look the living embodiment of bigotry in the eye and be at his side as he endures the living nightmare Magneto has inflicted on him.  She chooses to help him, rather than being asked to.

The final element to address is the final five minutes of the film, which is what really cements that TV pilot feeling you leave the movie with.  Even though Magneto’s plan is foiled, Mystique escapes to impersonate Senator Kelly and literally walks off the screen into film two while the issue of the Mutant Registration Act is relegated to the background as if it were never an important plot point when all it required as a stronger end scene to make it work; a final confrontation at the senate where the senator publicly retracts his stance.  And rather than the X-Men finding out that Kelly is Mystique by pausing the television, Jean literally looks into the senator’s eyes and realizes what is really going on.  A terrorist mutant is now in a major position of power and there is nothing the X-Men can do about it.

But while I may have issue with the details, the basic brush strokes of the film lead so brilliantly into the second film and X2 was the biggest wet dream a fan could ask for.  But now isn’t the time to discuss that.  Next week I will be looking at a film which had a more problems, for me, than any X-Men movie; 'Blade II'.  See you next week.

Marveling At The Past - Blade (1998)

“You had better wake up.  The world you know is just a sugar coated topping.  There is another world beneath it; the real world”.  

Before you click on the magic red ‘x’ of your browser, thinking this is going to be a pointless review of a film you already have your own opinion on, let me reassure you.  This series of articles (of which there will be one to cover every Marvel Comics film adaptation to date) is really for the fans of the comics, and for fans of nerdvana generally.  I’m going to assume, if you’re reading this that you’ve looked at each of the Marvel film properties produced to date and wondered where it all went wrong.  It applies to practically all of them.  In this series, not only will we explore the reasons but dare to dream about the roads not taken and how different the path would look.  Once we get into 'Spider-man 3' and 'X-Men: The Last Stand' your internet may crash under the weight of it all.  Also, for the fun of it, we will be pondering how different each of the films could have been if they were all controlled and financed by Marvel Studios allowing them to create a cohesive film universe for every character.  Whether this turns out to be pointless, I will leave to your judgment.

I certainly can’t complain about ‘Blade’.  I remember very specifically how I had no desire to see the film but it became one of those commodities which I don’t see so much anymore; the “word of mouth rental”.  Everyone I knew missed Blade during its theatrical run but discovered it on home video and immediately fell in love with it, spreading the word to all their friends to see it.  Back then I was just taken aback by its sense of supercharged energy and visual flourish as well as its inky black sensibility.  Now I look back even more fondly.  I will launch into this assuming I don’t need to recap the plot for you.

‘Blade’ isn’t just an action film.  I myself find a message there which serves as the perfect introduction into the Marvel universe.  It takes a fantastical subject matter and grounds it in reality to the point where the audience can believe that the world exists. Since, as has been said by many people, comic book superheroes are our modern myths, ‘Blade’ is about turning an old myth completely on its head to make way for the new.  Vampires are not eccentric Europeans with a penchant for capes but powerful businessmen, living the American dream in plain sight.  To hammer the point home, THE creepy Euro actor of choice Udo Kier (a man who would be perfectly cast in any film about vampires past or present) plays the head of the vampire council.  You get the impression this is one cat who traded in his cloak a few decades ago for an Armani suit.  By taking one of the most well known myths of all, that of vampire lore, the filmmakers create something accessible to a wide audience and not something which requires tedious amounts of exposition, explaining all the rules of the world created.

The conversion of old to new is one which reverberates throughout the film.  Blade himself is a new breed of vampire, going against every cliché image once would associate with the term from his appearance to his physical attributes.  Blade’s mission is to completely destroy the vampire race, an ancient way of life which has supposedly existed for centuries.  The character of Karen, a hematologist dragged into Blade’s world after an unfortunate encounter with the damned, is determined to be the first person ever bitten by a vampire to cure herself before she can become one.  And on the other side of the fence, our villain Deacon Frost is determined to wipe out those centuries of tradition which the ruling body of vampires has lived by; killing his masters to pave way for the younger generation.  Oh, and wiping out the human race with the Blood God La Magra; small detail I forgot there.

Frost leads a new pack of vampires, all of them 20-30 something wild party animals totally ruled by instinct and lust.  It’s actually one of the elements that I find most memorable about the film that rather than Blade facing off against the traditional elegant, calm, controlled and boring vampires of old, he has to defeat a far more volatile enemy.  Frost and his crew are young, mean, ugly, unpredictable, scary and funny to boot.  They aren’t out to protect their way of life or their race in any way.  They have nothing to lose.  They just want to have a good time and unfortunately their idea of that is to unleash Armageddon and when that starts to happen in the third act of the film, you really get the impression of the villains as kids playing with fire, which makes it all the more scary, at least to me.

The character of Frost himself is quite interesting for several reasons.  Firstly, he was reinvented in the film as a young and cocky upstart, completely going away from the traditional vampire his comic book character was based on.  You can actually understand his motivation.  When he attacks the older vampires for the way they co-exist with the human race (implying some kind of arrangement they have with the higher ups in power to protect their anonymity as well as to feed on certain parts of the population without hassle) rather than just taking it over, you can understand his frustration, especially if you can’t stand back alley politics, which is all the traditional vampires seem to stand for now.  It’s ironic that while they are dealing real estate, the recently converted vampire is the one standing for centuries of tradition and then uses their own ancient prophecy against them.  And you could even (although this is a stretch given the character is an evil sob) feel some sympathy for Frost.  Since he wasn’t born a vampire, merely turned, the council of pure bloods looks on him with disdain and bigotry.   They probably have more respect for Blade than they do for him.  Frost’s plan to unleash La Magra will result in every human caught in its path being turned into vampires, thus eliminating that very prejudice.  And weirdly, Magneto would attempt the very same idea in X-Men two years later.

Looking back on the film, I found it to have quite a degree of cynicism, if not downright pessimism which makes it stand out from every other Marvel movie.  If you just take a look at the characters of Karen and Curtis Webb, the doctor she works with in her opening scenes examining the burnt corpse of a vampire, you see it clearly.  Both Karen and Curtis are bitten by that not so dead vampire and both end up on very different paths.  Karen is rescued by Blade and Whistler but is set loose the day after with nothing but a gun and a piece of advice to use it on herself if she starts to turn, which is apparently only a matter of time.  Karen is left with no hope and her only comfort is the realization of what the world around her really is; a place run by vampires.  What kind of comic book movie are we dealing with where the heroes rescue the girl but say they can’t save her?  Curtis Webb is killed in the attack we are told, only to make a surprise appearance near the end of the film as a vampire/zombie freak hybrid unexpectedly mutated as a result of his bite.  In a thoroughly creepy scene (which almost feels like it is from a different film), Karen is thrown into a dark and desolate pit and reunited with the hideous creature Curtis has become.  Before he even has a chance to consider eating her flesh, Karen smashes his face in with an implement and crawls out of the hole leaving Curtis blindly crawling on his belly screaming her name in agony, abandoned, alone and forgotten.  What happens to Curtis (who just comes across in his introductory scene as a harmless loser) puts things into perspective for the audience that getting bitten by a vampire, just in case they were under any illusions that it is nothing more than a ticket to an immortal rock and roll existence, can have horrifying repercussions.

And then there’s Whistler, who seems to have the most tragedy heaped upon him.  His family was butchered in front of him.  He has cancer.  And because he is the wise old mentor figure in a sci-fi action film, the villains have to kill him as kick off the third act and launch the hero on a mission of retribution.  It is quite disheartening to see a film which has displayed such originality up to that point fall back on that tired cliché.  What makes it worse if you are watching Blade as a trilogy is that the sequels rob the character’s death scene of any meaning.  It doesn’t resonate because we know Whistler will be back on his feet with everything back to normal by 30 minutes into the second film.  And the continuity between how he dies in the first film and returns in the second just does not match.  Whistler is found by Blade, bitten and bleeding to death, ready to turn into a vampire.  The irony of course is that he is faced with the very same no-win scenario that he posed to Karen earlier in the film.  Either he can turn or he can kill himself.  He tells Blade to hand him a pistol and then to walk away.  We don’t actually see Whistler’s head explode but we hear the gun shot and see his dead hand carrying the gun fall to the floor.  And then we find out in Blade 2 that Whistler has been turned into a vampire and is being held captive by some Euro-trash goons in a tank of goo.  I’m sure plenty of people will leave comments explaining how this makes a lick of sense and I’ll gladly listen but right now, it doesn’t.  It’s a move which smells of desperation to bring the popular character back for that very reason; popularity.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as the continuity matches.  And it could have been so easily fixed.  Imagine if, as Blade is walking away from Whistler as instructed, we hear the gunshot and then see him leap out of his chair in the background and run into the open.  Whistler had already turned by the time Blade arrived and has either become evil or simply doesn’t have the courage to take his own life (as you could probably say for most people faced with the choice).  Imagine the sight of Blade seeing his only friend becoming enemy and coward right in front of him, letting him go but full acceptant of the fact that he will one day have to track him down as well; ever faithful to the cause they started together.  It would feel like a much stronger lead into any sequel because now you have created anticipation for that inevitable showdown.  I’ll be talking more about this thread in my 'Blade II' article in a few weeks time. 

But how does a society seemingly overrun and controlled by vampires mesh with the rest of the Marvel universe and characters?  Maybe it doesn’t.  The film is actually set, not in New York but Detroit, although this is never mentioned and the point seems to be that this could take place in any city.  If the film were a part of the Marvel film universe, it would make sense to maintain a sense of distance from the more colorful characters like Spider-man.  Besides, Marvel’s version of New York has more than enough superheroes.  But it would have been nice to throw a few nods and winks to that larger world.  Blade tells Karen early in the film that if she has any sense she’ll get herself out of the city immediately.  It would have been cute to hear him suggest she move to a more tranquil city like New York; a joke only comic book fans would get.  Blade also has an ally who runs a Chinese medicine shop but secretly provides the serum which suppresses his thirst for blood.  We never see this character again and it seems to be begging itself for some kind of reference that the serum has actually been shipped over by Doctor Strange or Reed Richards; the kind of genius who could come up with a dues ex machina cocktail that keeps Blade alive.  I think fans really appreciate the notion that all these superheroes know each other and help one another out.

Apart from that moment though, I don’t think I would change anything about 'Blade'.  It’s an incredibly slick and confident piece of action filmmaking which still holds up (are you ready for this?) 12 years later.  Do you feel old now?  It is a good starting point in this series of article because, hopefully, it shows you the kind of crazy passion I have for the Marvel movies.  As we go further down the chain and discuss the, shall we say lesser films, we will be getting into far more detail about the roads not taken, the storylines and story points which could have saved their series’, the characters we wanted to see but didn’t, the character that never should have been used and generally use filmmakers’ hard work as a springboard to bitch and moan as if I actually know more about making films than they do.  But heck, it’s all just in good fun and what better place to venture next than Bryan Singer’s ‘X-Men’?  I hope you’ll join me for that next week.

MovieMoan Is Back!

As the song from 'First Blood' goes; "It's a looooooooong road..." and I know it has been a long haul for our friends out there who have been waiting for our podcast 'movie moan' to return.

You have my eternal thanks for your paitience while we got it up and running over at our new home of www.IESB.net.  While we had teething troubles getting the shows up, we didn't stop doing them and there will be a plethora of content on its way within the next few weeks.

The first of the new podcasts can be found right here:

http://www.iesb.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=8860:movie-moan-lou-vs-the-world&catid=41:news&Itemid=71

And to celebrate, I've put together a trailer reel of highlights from 2009 I thought you'd enjoy.  Here's to many more:

Moaning 'Bout A Movie - Closer

And here we go again:

Moaning 'Bout A Movie - Network

I'll say up front folks that this one isn't very good.  The night we discussed the film I just wasn't on form and kept tripping over my words, forgetting actors names etc.

But you'll watch it anyway right?  RIGHT?  WON'T YA?