Marvel is a well built universe of comic characters. Most of them reside in real locations, New York in particular, and throughout the history of the company characters have constantly appeared in each other’s respective stories. Now I know DC has had plenty of Superman/Wonder Woman/Batman interactions and the Justice League has been around for damn near ever, but well DC has never been as cool as Marvel. I’ve been waiting for an Avengers movie for the better part of my life, and when my particular favorite Iron Man came out in 2008 I was given the first little tease that the dream of an Avengers movie was soon to be a reality.
Now over the course of the last four years since Iron Man proved to be a hit there were a lot of things that could have happened to make this Avengers movie either never happen or be a disaster. Not all Marvel movies are created equal (Daredevil, Fantastic Four, Ghost Rider which all seem to have gotten uncalled for sequels), but this new batch was sticking to the comic format of interacting. It was clear that this was a long term plan and I’d have to anxiously wait for everyone to get their proper introduction before the big show. It’s not really like the X-Men who were always a group and grew as superheroes and learned their powers as part of a group. The Avengers were formed by a group of already established super heroes who when necessary would band together to tackle major problems.
Some people might wonder why the Hulk would be part of this group. After all he’s by far the least social member of the group and his power is generally a sign of severe chaos, but well way back in 1963 he was a charter member of the group. Granted he quit almost immediately (by issue #2 to be accurate) but yes Hulk was an original Avenger. So was Hank Pym (aka Ant Man, Giant Man, Yellowjacket, etc) and his wife The Wasp but well not too surprised they didn’t make the cut.
The films although acceptable to a mass audience seem particularly geared with the nerd at heart. We got a glimpse of Hawkeye in Thor as he grabbed a bow and arrow, Terrence Howard looked at the suit of iron and said “Next time”, here patience was the key. My point is that not only do these films benefit from prior knowledge of the comics (the Leader origin in the last Hulk film, the Mandarin teaser in the first Iron Man), they also benefit from having seen all the previous films. In the same way Star Wars helped build on what came before and how the pre-quels were supposed to serve as the backstory of things mentioned in the good films. Walking into one of the random films might be fine, but it would be better if you saw what came before. The fact that there virtually is no origin for the Avengers, simply the assembling (pardon the pun) of the group from previously established characters. It helps allow the film to dig into the action more or less because by now we should know all about S.H.I.E.L.D and Nick Fury, we’ve seen Loki in action, and we know all about the cosmic cube (or whatever they decided to change the name to here), the fact that Captain America was thawed out, Hulk and his knowledge of gamma radiation, Iron Man and his self sustaining energy source, etc. Likewise without knowledge of these things, a few times you might be inclined to scratch your head.
This is in direct contrast to last year’s X-Men: First Class which went back to establish the group and how the mutants fit on each side. Which made it infinitely better than the first X-Men film made in 2000 which seemed to skip right past a lot of those little details that made the last film so fantastic. So perhaps because I'm measuring the film on a different level that I hesitate to say it is a masterpiece. For once though I do feel like Hulk in CGI form just might work, although I still would prefer some juiced up body builder to play him.
Now I’ll admit the time I started writing this and the time I’m posting it has turned out to be quite a difference so if I’m re-treading on familiar ground my apologies. As we hit Memorial Day, The Avengers has finally been toppled at the box office by a rather unwarranted Men In Black sequel, but whatever, does anyone outside of a movie studio give a shit about box office these days? The thing I was reading in a recent Tribune article mentioned that The Avengers was crippling the competition as films like The Dictator, Dark Shadows and Battleship in particular opened to disappointing returns. Well I wanted to mention this and say that it is hardly the fact that The Avengers is just this all powerful beast that’s keeping those films from finding their audience, the fact is no one really seems to give a crap about those films.
For starters The Avengers was an idea as a film that’s been brewing for a good four years, meaning in that time you’ve gotten little teasers and slowly building to a monumental release. Not to mention even without the prior film’s tying in I’d still be stoked as shit for an Avengers movie simply because I’ve been an avid comic fan for the majority of my life. So let’s look at these other three films and why they aren’t living up to expectations:
The Dictator - I’ll be honest I actually do want to see this. For starters I didn’t even know when it was released. Avengers I had my calendar marked for months waiting for it, and well I’ll be certainly on top of the next Batman film when that comes out. Now this isn’t anything new with Mr. Cohen’s films. Borat I saw probably two months after it was released, and was one of only two people in the theater. Bruno I likewise saw several weeks after release so you might say for various reasons I’ve never made a point of catching his films opening weekend, despite the fact that I am a fan. Other people I know have mentioned that the film looked rather terrible in previews and the fact that the character is an entirely new one (as opposed to his other three characters that came from Da Ali G Show) it doesn’t have a built in fan base or familiarity with it. Instead of seeing Bruno or Borat because of the skits with those characters on the show, here you’d be seeing it largely because you liked what he did before, completely separate of this character. Truthfully the film seems to be making steady money, so if anyone thought this would be some $300 million juggernaut they were probably kidding themselves.
Dark Shadows - Where do I begin? Ok there are plenty of people of the older generation, or at least my parents and anyone in their late 50s-early 60s that remember the soap opera with vampires from it’s original run. Perhaps you have a fondness for it, or even remember the prime time reboot of the show in the early 90s. Ok but that’s where the familiarity ends, I can’t imagine too many people thinking that would be a fantastic thing to drag up for another reboot on the big screen. Then we have the “please make them stop” combo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Ok, Edward Scissorhands was great and so was Ed Wood but can you honestly say another one of their collaborations was spectacular? The Corpse Bride was the only remotely original idea these two have made in the past decade, and Tim Burton’s best film of the last 15 years is not surprisingly the only one made without Mr. Depp (Big Fish, go see it if you haven’t). This is simply another reminder that once upon a time Tim Burton used to have a great vision and was a clever inventive filmmaker. Now he simply rehashes someone else’s idea, casts his wife and Mr. Depp and proceeds to put him in pale creepy makeup and act eccentric. Considering how boring and downright bad Sweeney Todd and Alice in Wonderland were, I’m giving up on Mr. Burton for now. I mean how many times can you be burned with the same lackluster duo. I mean Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have been churning out gold for the past decade, but even they decided to take a break while Scorsese made Hugo, but well comparing any director to Scorsese isn’t exactly fair. This film bombing is simply inevitable. Up next for Tim Burton, another remake, this time of his own film Frankenweenie. I mean really how long before he decides to remake Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure with a 56 year old Johnny Depp? I’m shuddering because I could totally see him doing it.
Battleship - Ok in the long line of movie based on board games we pretty much have Clue and . . . . Ok so maybe the sub-genre of board games turned into movies is about as remarkable as video games turned into movies, so this one is really a head scratcher. Let’s make a movie about the game battleship but let’s put aliens in it, wtf? Who comes up with this shit and who decides it’s a good idea. It’s like someone did some market research and realized their studio somehow bought out Milton Bradley at some point and wondered if those games could make good movies, then they got a focus group together and decided that aliens are cool, and people seem to really like this Rihanna singer, so let’s throw it all together and make a big pile of putrid filth and charge people $12 a pop to torture themselves. Well apparently overseas the movie is going considerably better, so much for the rest of the world having better taste than Americans. I admit I only saw one preview for the film but I really, really wanted to wash my eyes out with bleach after those five minutes of agony. I’m not sure I’ve seen a film look worse since Jack and Jill.
So how could the Avengers bury all this “competition” well I’m amazed these films made any money. Now who knows if Rock of Ages can clean up?
Is there hope?
Well around the mid-point of the year I find it necessary to offer some insight as to the best films I’ve seen thus far. Typically I expect to find a couple of decent pictures by this point but well pickens are slim this time around. In fact the few good films that can be considered 2012 releases I actually saw last year. So I’ll offer a few recommendations of films that good or great are at least worth watching.
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia - Ok I’ll come right out and say it, I didn’t get it. This film can try your patience as not a lot happens in any dramatic sense. Incredibly long shots and scenes of real time boring police procedural work, it does start to slowly build to something and if you have the patience to get through it you will be rewarded, but it’s a film I somewhat hesitate to recommend because well it’s not for everyone. If you saw Distant or Climates and enjoyed them, this would be worth checking out if you’ve never heard of those films, rent them first then decide if you want to proceed to this.
The Kid with a Bike - Belgium’s Dardenne brothers have been making neo-realist dramas for quite awhile now. Maybe you saw La Promesse, Rosetta, L’enfant, The Son, or Lorna’s Silence but either way they’ve done some damn good work. I was particularly fond of Lorna’s Silence and it just missed my top 10 in 2009. This film damn near made my top ten from 2011 until I realized that technically it’s a 2012 release, but sometimes foreign DVDs make their way here before an American distributor decides to release a film. Opinion on this film is somewhat divided, but I consider it one of their strongest efforts.
The Turin House - Well if you know who Bela Tarr is I don’t need to say anything else about this film. If you don’t well you may or may not find this to be a groundbreaking masterpiece. Again Tarr loves his infinitely long takes, and in 1987 he pretty much decided he was never going to shoot a film in color again. So if you’re partial to slow paced black and white Eastern European films with extraordinary cinematography he might just turn out to be your favorite director. I’ve seen his 7 ½ hour Satantango twice so that might tell you how much I enjoy even his longest work. I found this film to fit in with his canon quite well, some thinking it’s his finest film in ages, and most agreeing it was an improvement over The Man From London. Either way I’d watch this 25 times before I sit through even the trailer for Battleship again.
Kill List - This film has me in a bind. I can’t recall the last time I saw a film where I really, really, really wanted to discuss it with every living soul I could find, but this is that film. Unfortunately I don’t personally know anyone else who has seen the film. This puts me in a bind. I’m not sure if it’s a masterpiece, and despite the brief description I read of the film before watching it, I wasn’t entirely convinced it was a horror film. When something new, original, and ambiguous hits the horror movie circuit people generally seem to lose their minds over it. After all no genre is more starved for anything worthwhile quite like horror. This is why some people may go overboard with praise of an original idea (I admit I was perhaps guilty of this with Paranormal Activity). I won’t say a damn other thing about the film, except, see it now, immediately and then we shall discuss.
And that’s all for now, I’ll have the month of May’s film journal up in the next couple of days so stay tuned.
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