1) I haven't written since before "The Hunger Games," but after nearly a year in release there's nothing more to be said. It was surprisingly adequate for a director with only three movies under his belt. Lenny Kravitz was wasted (as in, he should've been given more to do). The director did not trust his own camera work, and would frequently cut away from something really interesting... the finale made it look like the entire games took place in a holodeck, and sending the contestants all together in the same shuttle, only to enter the field from different rooms, makes absolutely no sense. RE: THE BOOK. IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT. (though the twitter controversey was worth a headshake or two).
2) Let's just jump right to it: JJ Abrams directing Episode VII. That means the same man controls both Star Trek and Star Wars. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. This is not okay. As geeks we should rail against it. As "not geeks" we should not give a single FUCK, because the only non-SW or ST things JJ has directed are (1) Mission Impossible 3, (2) Super 8, and (3) Lost. Two of the three were total shit. Discuss amongst yourselves.
It'll be adequate, depending on the screenplay. Except for the fact that they have no story other than the one written by Timothy Zahn. (Heir to the Empire). Were any of us really clamoring for a sequel to "Return of the Jedi?" No. No, sir, we were not.
3) The Dark Knight Rises. From a non-geek perspective, it was quality entertainment with some grand characters and the style we've come to know from Christopher Nolan. From a Geek perspective, it was disappointing and a kick in the teeth. Look:
The ending of "The Dark Knight" raised many a possibility. Now he's not a mysterious crimefighter-- he's a vigilante, on the the run from the cops. This will make his job harder, this will truly test him. Four years later (and ten years later, in the context of the movie), we find out that... Bruce Wayne handled it by.... DOING NOTHING. This is the worst possible option. I recognize that Nolan probably didn't want to direct any more of these, if indeed he even wanted to do the third. But while the movie was fine, the premise was a cop-out. And Bane's death was incredibly, incredibly anti-climactic. Also Batman died. I don't care what Alfred saw in the restaurant-- it was the same restaurant from earlier in the movie, and there's no way he walked into it on accident. It was a fantasy sequence, and in making it real Nolan is essentially saying, "That's the whole story. Riddler? Penguin? Superman? None of that shit happened. He fought Joker, Bane, then he died." No, fuck you, he didn't. Read a comic book.
4) "The Justice League." ... There are two kinds of superhero movies. "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," and "Batman Begins." The fact that anyone even uttered the words 'Ben Affleck' should answer you pretty fucking well which category this will be in.
5) The Man of Steel. I don't care how good the trailer is, it was directed by Zack Snyder. And while I will forever be wowed by his visuals in "Dawn of the Dead," he has become so lazy since then, his every movie has been underwhelming and embarrassing. And before you mention "300," go back and watch it again. Take a drink every time you hear Gerard Butler slip back into his Scottish accent. If you finish the movie sober, I will give you $1,000,000 dollars. And no, you can't cheat by muting the entire film. I tried that once, and I passed out from masturbating.
6) The Avengers. WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
7) DAT. EVIL DEAD. TRAILER.
8) The Amazing Spider-Man: Andrew Garfield has no screen presence, and Marc Webb is a music video director who got lucky. I feel about it like I felt about "Batman and Robin" ... yes, there are people who will like it. These people never read a comic book. History is on my side here, people.
BUT THEN AGAIN, WE ARE LIVING IN A WORLD WHERE THE SAME MAN CONTROLS BOTH STAR WARS AND STAR TREK.
The state of being a geek is........... bad. Even with that White House response to the Death Star petition. Let's one of us make a billion dollars and buy back the rights to something, eh?
.... oh, and I know there's no trailer for the second Wolverine movie, but do we really want to live in a world where THAT gets a sequel, and "John Dies at the End" isn't even playing in theaters? C'MONNNNNNNNNNNNNN.......
*Warning, this blog makes references that not even Google may know, you have to be a GEEEEEEK
Showing posts with label marvel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label marvel. Show all posts
Friday, January 25, 2013
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Total Thor-Fest
NOT GEEK
It was a fun movie with the right amount of explosions and funny one liners.
That's it. That's all I have to say about it. Sometimes one side has more to consider than the other.
I give it a B, B-, depending on how much CGI BUGS the SHIT out of you.
GEEK
The director is Kenneth Branagh. Marvel made a big deal out of this and they were right to do so, because he's a Name. Not a Name in the sense of "He's a good film director" (he isn't), but simply a Name in the sense that.... you've heard of him, he's famous enough to generate buzz. Comic Nerds might not even cry foul because Branagh the Director has domain over a separate Nerd Kingdom: Shakespeare. So internet buzz was genuinely positive, or at least optimistic.
The problem with this, and I called it at the time too (did it still count if I didn't have a blog?), is that Kenneth Branagh hasn't had a commercial hit, OR a good movie, since before Clinton was President. He is not good at this. What little success he DID have came when he was in a relationship with the ethereal, expansively talented, Oscar-winning Emma Thompson. A woman who left him when he nailed Helena Bonham-Carter (hindsight, much?). ET went on to win an Oscar, KB went on to direct no-budget Shakespeare adaptations for Showtime. I've seen them. They are visually and conceptually below average. "As You Like It" literally lays there like a bloated corpse, daring you to poke it with a stick.
After the overblown, much-hyped, mediocre-received "Hamlet" in 1996, he didn't direct anything for four years, no doubt to lick his wounds and figure out what other pretentious, self-serving project he wanted to work on next. In 2000 and 2006 he did two other Shakespeare adaptations (Love's Labour's Lost, and As You Like It, respectively), the first of which had a higher budget than the second, neither were memorable nor interesting to look at. The acting was adequate, but that's what happens when you get good actors. Under no circumstances should you rent these from Netflix. Even if you're a fan of interesting Shakespeare productions (which I am), neither of these are good. This is a failed director trying to get a toehold back into the industry.
And so someone listened, and gave him "Sleuth" (2007), a movie which is only kind of not very good on its own, and then a complete failure when held up next to the original with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. AND YET THEY GAVE HIM THE THOR JOB ANYWAY.
All of these movies were bad, Branagh's last that was a big hit was "Dead Again" in 1990, which was 21 years before Thor. You know, when Chris Hemsorth was seven.
Anyway, in failing to be concise yet again, the upshot is this: Kenneth Branagh is a shit director. He might be able to direct theatre, yes, he seems to have a knack with actors. But that is only one small part of film directing, a job which also includes shot selection, lenses, depth of field and length of shot, all of which Branagh has proven time and time again that he is no damn good at, and he has shown no progress in getting any damn better. He simply doesn't care.
THOR: The first act of this movie is wasted. It opens on some humans in the desert, who then run into Thor. Then there's a brief flashback that shows how Thor got there, and this brief flashback goes on for 45 FUCKING MINUTES. It is the entire first act of the movie, and CGI is layered onto it like the producers never saw a single movie after "The Phantom Menace," they commit every sin except for a main character MADE of CGI (wisely, they make the head of CGI-bad guys an actual actor in makeup. This works spectacularly well and creates the only bit of menace in the entire overblown battle sequence). Watching cartoons bounce off each other for 45 minutes is uninteresting if you've ever played a video game in your life. It is every bit as awful as the first act of Spider-Man 3. Thor, Act 1: F.
Finally we get back to Earth. Character development actually begins here, and despite the films terrible track record up to this point, Branagh actually stands back and lets his actors emote, in a movie where they are not required to. Portman seems genuinely concerned, yet distracted by her work. Hemsworth seems bold and douchey, yet distracted by his lust for glory. And Tom Hiddleston as Loki bothers to give his character layers, when other action movies would just have him walk in and recite plot points. The jokes fly quickly, there's no one character just to be comic relief. The humor is situational, and it works. When it's time to get serious, everyone gets serious. The production design is quite lovely. The costume design is so lazy it looks like the non-Vikings just put on whatever was in their closet and went to work. Act 2: A.
The last third of the movie has a lot of shit blow up, which is fine, but then Thor goes back to Asgard and shit blows up there too, and it's all CGI bullshit and despite the city/planet looking absolutely fantastic, you're basically left with CG characters beating each other up on a CG rainbow bridge. I don't fucking care. The interesting stuff happens between the actors, and that's what any geek will be talking about the next day. Not Geek? You may not mind the CG so much. I am a geek, and I was there for Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi made many an enemy that day. Act 3: B-.
Hollywood movies know that as long as they finish strong, the audience will be happy and recommend the movie and maybe even see it again. The first act can be as weak as anything, as long as there's gigantic set-pieces in the end. Branagh doesn't have a lot of Hollywood muscle so probably had to do what he was told; Jon Favreau had insisted on models and such for the Iron Man movies, the Marvel execs probably just wanted a big CG movie to feel like they were doing their jobs. Well, they got their way, and it made the movie worse. Congratulations, you're a producer.
On the side:
Five credited screenwriters:
WRITTEN BY: Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz and Don Payne
STORY BY: J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Prostovich
Broken down:
Miller and Stentz worked on "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles." When that got cancelled, they went to work on "Fringe." Their geek cred is unimpeachable.
Don Payne used to work on "The Simpsons." When he eventually left that, he wrote "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." It is my theory they brought him in to add jokes.
There's nothing about the screenplay I find off or flawed, my only problem is that Branagh rushes through the entire first act as if he has to go to the bathroom, tilting the camera for no reason and point it at talking shots when he should be shooting reaction shots, and vice versa. Shooting a high-budget movie is NOT the same as shooting a low-budget play. The flaws in the movie lie solely with him; the writers are great. Online buzz say this "Thor" is closer to JMS's Thor in the comics, and I guess that seems to work out okay. Ultimately it's probably out of his hands, though: Prostovich wrote the script back in 2002 for a production that never got off the ground; its doubtful much of his script remains, but they probably had to credit him for legal reasons. JMS, presumably, didn't have much more input.
So from a Geek perspective, that's where we're at. But the thing is, I have a feeling... by the time Captain America rolls around, we'll have forgotten. All that we'll really remember is the "Not Geek" perspective, and that's all anyone can ask. If we're getting the Huge Stack o' Marvel Movies, like we were promised, they can't all be perfect. They just have to be good enough to (a) interest the casuals, and (b) not piss off the hardcore fans. And since there are no hardcore fans of Thor, this was the safest one to trust with a green director.
Onward to Cap, and then The Avengers.
Victory to Marvel, death to Michael Bay.
It was a fun movie with the right amount of explosions and funny one liners.
That's it. That's all I have to say about it. Sometimes one side has more to consider than the other.
I give it a B, B-, depending on how much CGI BUGS the SHIT out of you.
GEEK
The director is Kenneth Branagh. Marvel made a big deal out of this and they were right to do so, because he's a Name. Not a Name in the sense of "He's a good film director" (he isn't), but simply a Name in the sense that.... you've heard of him, he's famous enough to generate buzz. Comic Nerds might not even cry foul because Branagh the Director has domain over a separate Nerd Kingdom: Shakespeare. So internet buzz was genuinely positive, or at least optimistic.
The problem with this, and I called it at the time too (did it still count if I didn't have a blog?), is that Kenneth Branagh hasn't had a commercial hit, OR a good movie, since before Clinton was President. He is not good at this. What little success he DID have came when he was in a relationship with the ethereal, expansively talented, Oscar-winning Emma Thompson. A woman who left him when he nailed Helena Bonham-Carter (hindsight, much?). ET went on to win an Oscar, KB went on to direct no-budget Shakespeare adaptations for Showtime. I've seen them. They are visually and conceptually below average. "As You Like It" literally lays there like a bloated corpse, daring you to poke it with a stick.
After the overblown, much-hyped, mediocre-received "Hamlet" in 1996, he didn't direct anything for four years, no doubt to lick his wounds and figure out what other pretentious, self-serving project he wanted to work on next. In 2000 and 2006 he did two other Shakespeare adaptations (Love's Labour's Lost, and As You Like It, respectively), the first of which had a higher budget than the second, neither were memorable nor interesting to look at. The acting was adequate, but that's what happens when you get good actors. Under no circumstances should you rent these from Netflix. Even if you're a fan of interesting Shakespeare productions (which I am), neither of these are good. This is a failed director trying to get a toehold back into the industry.
And so someone listened, and gave him "Sleuth" (2007), a movie which is only kind of not very good on its own, and then a complete failure when held up next to the original with Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. AND YET THEY GAVE HIM THE THOR JOB ANYWAY.
All of these movies were bad, Branagh's last that was a big hit was "Dead Again" in 1990, which was 21 years before Thor. You know, when Chris Hemsorth was seven.
Anyway, in failing to be concise yet again, the upshot is this: Kenneth Branagh is a shit director. He might be able to direct theatre, yes, he seems to have a knack with actors. But that is only one small part of film directing, a job which also includes shot selection, lenses, depth of field and length of shot, all of which Branagh has proven time and time again that he is no damn good at, and he has shown no progress in getting any damn better. He simply doesn't care.
THOR: The first act of this movie is wasted. It opens on some humans in the desert, who then run into Thor. Then there's a brief flashback that shows how Thor got there, and this brief flashback goes on for 45 FUCKING MINUTES. It is the entire first act of the movie, and CGI is layered onto it like the producers never saw a single movie after "The Phantom Menace," they commit every sin except for a main character MADE of CGI (wisely, they make the head of CGI-bad guys an actual actor in makeup. This works spectacularly well and creates the only bit of menace in the entire overblown battle sequence). Watching cartoons bounce off each other for 45 minutes is uninteresting if you've ever played a video game in your life. It is every bit as awful as the first act of Spider-Man 3. Thor, Act 1: F.
Finally we get back to Earth. Character development actually begins here, and despite the films terrible track record up to this point, Branagh actually stands back and lets his actors emote, in a movie where they are not required to. Portman seems genuinely concerned, yet distracted by her work. Hemsworth seems bold and douchey, yet distracted by his lust for glory. And Tom Hiddleston as Loki bothers to give his character layers, when other action movies would just have him walk in and recite plot points. The jokes fly quickly, there's no one character just to be comic relief. The humor is situational, and it works. When it's time to get serious, everyone gets serious. The production design is quite lovely. The costume design is so lazy it looks like the non-Vikings just put on whatever was in their closet and went to work. Act 2: A.
The last third of the movie has a lot of shit blow up, which is fine, but then Thor goes back to Asgard and shit blows up there too, and it's all CGI bullshit and despite the city/planet looking absolutely fantastic, you're basically left with CG characters beating each other up on a CG rainbow bridge. I don't fucking care. The interesting stuff happens between the actors, and that's what any geek will be talking about the next day. Not Geek? You may not mind the CG so much. I am a geek, and I was there for Spider-Man 3. Sam Raimi made many an enemy that day. Act 3: B-.
Hollywood movies know that as long as they finish strong, the audience will be happy and recommend the movie and maybe even see it again. The first act can be as weak as anything, as long as there's gigantic set-pieces in the end. Branagh doesn't have a lot of Hollywood muscle so probably had to do what he was told; Jon Favreau had insisted on models and such for the Iron Man movies, the Marvel execs probably just wanted a big CG movie to feel like they were doing their jobs. Well, they got their way, and it made the movie worse. Congratulations, you're a producer.
On the side:
Five credited screenwriters:
WRITTEN BY: Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz and Don Payne
STORY BY: J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Prostovich
Broken down:
Miller and Stentz worked on "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles." When that got cancelled, they went to work on "Fringe." Their geek cred is unimpeachable.
Don Payne used to work on "The Simpsons." When he eventually left that, he wrote "My Super Ex-Girlfriend." It is my theory they brought him in to add jokes.
There's nothing about the screenplay I find off or flawed, my only problem is that Branagh rushes through the entire first act as if he has to go to the bathroom, tilting the camera for no reason and point it at talking shots when he should be shooting reaction shots, and vice versa. Shooting a high-budget movie is NOT the same as shooting a low-budget play. The flaws in the movie lie solely with him; the writers are great. Online buzz say this "Thor" is closer to JMS's Thor in the comics, and I guess that seems to work out okay. Ultimately it's probably out of his hands, though: Prostovich wrote the script back in 2002 for a production that never got off the ground; its doubtful much of his script remains, but they probably had to credit him for legal reasons. JMS, presumably, didn't have much more input.
So from a Geek perspective, that's where we're at. But the thing is, I have a feeling... by the time Captain America rolls around, we'll have forgotten. All that we'll really remember is the "Not Geek" perspective, and that's all anyone can ask. If we're getting the Huge Stack o' Marvel Movies, like we were promised, they can't all be perfect. They just have to be good enough to (a) interest the casuals, and (b) not piss off the hardcore fans. And since there are no hardcore fans of Thor, this was the safest one to trust with a green director.
Onward to Cap, and then The Avengers.
Victory to Marvel, death to Michael Bay.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)