Kick-Ass (movie)

I know I’m the last person with an interest to see Kick-Ass — or as my ticket stub has it, “Kick A**” — but after all the good reviews, I decided to see it myself a couple of weeks ago.

I have little interest in the original comic book, which I haven’t read. I’m not a big fan of artist John Romita, Jr.’s post-‘80s work — after he started perfecting his own style — but he would have been the stronger draw for me. I have no sympathy for writer Mark Millar’s puerile (like CLiNT) cynicism and antagonism toward superheroes. If I hadn’t heard in Paul O’Brien’s comments that those tendencies were toned down, I still wouldn’t have seen the movie.

The superhero baiting is almost gone, but the cynicism is still strong. Kick-Ass (Aaron Johnson) is Dave Lizewski, a high schooler who turns to crimefighting after one too many comic books and casual muggings. His first foray turns out badly after he’s stabbed and hit by a car, but his second battle gets noticed after New Yorkers more concerned with using their phones to record the fight than call 911 post the fight on the Internet. After that, he becomes a celebrity — or, I suppose, Internet famous.

There is, of course, an OLI⁴⁴ — how could there not be, with high school and superheroes in one movie? But Kick-Ass handles romance like children handle everything, with a careless abandon that doesn’t care about fragility or value. Dave’s got a crush on Katie (Lyndsy Fonseca), and in a plot twist that would make the hackiest sitcom writer blush, Dave pretends to be gay when Katie is looking for a homosexual BFF. The relationship proceeds about how you would expect, given that setup and the romantic storyline’s secondary importance.

Let’s be clear: If this movie were solely about Dave as himself and as Kick-Ass, it would be forgettable. But two other very competent heroes steal the show: Hit-Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage). Big Daddy is an unjustly disgraced former cop, and Hit-Girl is his 11-year-old daughter. Hit-Girl and Big Daddy share a loving but disturbing bond, equal parts violence and sweetness. Big Daddy is a loving father focused on retribution for being framed by a mob boss, and Hit-Girl is a foul-mouthed prodigy of mayhem. Cage’s and Meretz’s performances are easily the best in the movie, and they manage to pull off the unlikely characters with a surprising ease. For some reason, Cage’s soft-spoken, caring character — who slips into an Adam West impersonation in his costumed persona — is no less shocking that Meretz’s high-pitched obscenities and endorsements of violence.

In interviews Millar has made many claims of realism, based around Kick-Ass’s non-superheroic hero. Do not believe those claims. There is little realism here. Yes, the movie stars a scuba-suited hero who gets the tar beaten out of him in most fights, but the movie also has a jet pack, an 11-year-old delivering debilitating punches to the face, and a bazooka attack in Manhattan apparently attracting no attention. That Kick-Ass doesn’t get beaten up simply for his stupid costume or by people wanting to prove they’re tough strains credibility.

But that’s not a criticism; that’s to the movie’s credit. The movie knows the superhero story, and it hits all the right notes all the way through. The action and stakes build until the cataclysmic end, and the fight scenes are exciting, well scripted and performed, and always filled with the promise of danger. Yes, the romance angle is forced, but the Katie’s reaction to one of Dave’s beatings is affecting. The violence is felt viscerally — each punch can almost be felt through the screen. The heroes are given stirring dramatic moments; at one point, the movie brilliantly uses an Ennio Morricone theme from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly as Hit-Girl begins the final assault. The origins, the learning curve, the secret ID, the family, the team-up, the betrayal — all the stock elements are here, and they’re here for a reason. The entire movie leaves a mark in the mind, taking the superhero story, reinforcing it, then punching you with it.

Is this as good as some comic fans are saying? No. But it is a very good movie, one that somehow manages to be better than the sum of (most of) its parts.

Rating: (4 of 5)

Iron Man 2 (movie)

I wonder: if Iron Man hadn’t been so good, would Iron Man 2 seem like a better movie?

It’s a moot question; I can’t unsee Iron Man, and I wouldn’t if I could. But without its successful predecessor, audiences might be more forgiving to the sequel’s weaknesses and be more apt to remember the good parts.

Iron Man 2 picks up six months after the first movie, and Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) has transformed the world: the presence of Iron Man has caused an unprecedented level of peace around the world, and the only threat is a whining senator Tony Stark can safely tell to kiss his ass — but in a very witty manner, of course. But then a Russian seeking revenge recreates the ARC reactor, which powers the Iron Man armor, and comes looking for revenge on Tony …

With electric whips that can slice through metal. Well, not all of a genius’s plans can be top notch — this one’s a legacy of the comics, and it’s nowhere near as stupid as it sounds (and I know, it sounds pretty stupid). Those whips could be seen as one of the many small flaws in the movie, which include the horrible, horrible quips that fall flat, the insistence of director Jon Favreau for an increased role for actor Jon Favreau (as Happy Hogan, Stark’s chauffeur), the horrible, horrible science, the lack of impact Tony’s illness seems to have, the use of a da Vinci code-style plot device …

Wait, what was I saying? Oh, yes, that those are minor complaints. I almost forgot for a moment. Those really aren’t important compared to two other problems.

The first is the lack of repercussions for Tony Stark’s obvious hubris. He’s created world peace — or so he thinks — he’s on top of the world, and he’s not going to let anyone forget it. Tony is begging — begging — for comeuppance, and to a degree, he richly deserves it.⁴² He should lose something precious through his arrogance or his drinking or something, but he doesn’t. Not really, anyway — he has a brief argument with his girl Friday, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), but it’s more a tiff than an argument. Even his best friend stealing a suit of armor doesn’t seem to have any consequences. Instead of ruin, Tony’s hubris leads to mild inconvenience.

The second problem is a bit of a surprise. Most superhero sequels experience Multi-Villain Syndrome (MVS), in which multiple villains get crammed into too small of a plot or running time; Spider-Man 3 is a prime example. But Iron Man 2 avoids that, using its two villains to complement each other, just as Batman Begins did. The two villains are both creepy, but in different ways: Anton Vanko (Mickey Rourke) is a dirty, ragged genius focused on revenge, while defense contractor Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell) is a smarmy, venal capitalist who aids Vanko and screws with forces he doesn’t understand.

No, in this case, the multiple heroes are the problem. James Rhoades (Don Cheadle) gets a pass — the character, if not the actor, was in the first movie — but neither Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) or Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johansson) add anything. Fury seems to pop up to remind us, “Yes, there will be an Avengers movie soon”; all of his exposition could have been delivered by a generic government stooge. Romanov is there for Tony to leer at and for an action scene almost unrelated to the rest of the movie — and, oh yes, for the audience to leer at Johansson in skin-tight spandex. There’s not much for Jackson to work with; Johansson seems lifeless and mumbling at times.

But that’s dwelling on the negatives, seeing the flaws that weren’t there in the first movie. In truth, a lot of the likeable stuff is still there. Downey is still the witty rich jerk we all secretly want to be — unabashedly cruel toward his enemies, unthinkingly generous toward his friends. Downey plays the role so well Stan Lee and all who followed him might as well have been writing it for him. Stark’s still a genius, and the character’s daddy issues come to the fore — naturally enough, since his mentor, his surrogate father from the first movie, betrayed him. Just like the original, Iron Man 2 is inspired by comics but not slaved to them. The action sequences are great again, and the final battle is better than Iron Man’s listless finale.⁴³ As I said, Justin Hammer and Anton Vanko are excellent villains, credible threats you can really hate, and Rockwell and Rourke do well with their roles.

So there’s a lot to like. It’s just Iron Man 2 doesn’t really add anything any positives that Iron Man didn’t have — except for the awesome suitcase armor — and it accumulates detriments the original managed to sidestep.

Iron Man 2 is a good but not great superhero movie. But I can’t see myself rewatching this one like I can the original.

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

Whiteout (movie)

Last week I reviewed the trade paperback of Whiteout, and I found it artistically interesting, although the story was a little weak: the mystery was not that complex, and the protagonist was not developed as fully as she could be because of the attention given to a supporting character. Still, it was a decent book, worthy of your time if you wanted something not from the Big Two comic companies or not superheroes.

I’m happy to say the movie version of Whiteout is better than the book. It sticks with the same formula: scientists murdered in the Antarctic, with a U.S. marshal investigating. Stetko, the marshal, is more fully rounded than in the comic version, and the investigation takes one or two more side treks than its inspiration. The movie made Antarctica more menacing than the comic as well; every time the protagonists left base, it was certain that something awful would happen to them. The cold bled through the screen into the theater, although the air conditioning at my theater might have had something to do with that.

Whiteout has received negative reviews, mostly because critics felt the mystery wasn’t all that strong (I can’t blame them) or the thriller aspects were weak (which I disagree with). Still, the final fight scene is not all that exciting, despite it being a duel with pistols and icepicks in a blizzard. The fighters have to be attached to a rope (they can’t see where they’re going, so the rope is the only way they can find their way from one building to another), but the ropes aren’t threatened enough, and it was difficult to tell the combatants from each other. Plus, you know, it’s supposed to be whiteout conditions. Part of me wished they had the guts to put up a pure white screen with a soundtrack.

But what really concerns me — what always concerns me about comic book movies — is how it differentiates from the source material. Now you get to know too:

Carrie Stetko: In the comic: Stetko is a widow exiled to Antarctica by the U.S. Marshal’s Service after she snapped the neck of an escaped prisoner who had surrendered. She takes no guff from anyone, and she probably is the most intimidating person in Antarctica.
Also: Stetko is short, freckled, and looks a little dumpy in her winter gear.

In the movie: Stetko is a U.S. marshal who takes a post in Antarctica after her partner sold her out. He let a prisoner free to kill her, but she subdued the prisoner and killed her partner when he tried to shoot her. She’s more diplomatic than the comic version, and even though she has a gun when she first encounters the killer, she runs like a frightened girl into the cold instead of fighting back.
Also: Kate Beckinsale never looks dumpy, not even in heavy winter gear.

Stetko’s boss: In the comic: Brett McEwan, who’s always insulting and putting pressure on Stetko to not screw up this case.

In the movie: Who knows? Stetko’s autonomous, baby.

The McGuffin In the comic: Gold, found by researchers taking random mineral samples.

In the movie: Diamonds found by the Russians in Antarctica but lost when the plane carrying them crashed after the pilots got greedy and tried to steal them. See? Foreigners can’t be trusted!

The secret agent: In the comic: Lily Sharpe, a British secret agent who’s even more hard-nosed than Stetko and a good deal taller.

In the movie: U.N. “operative” Robert Pryce, who knows more about the situation than Stetko at the beginning, but he works for the U.N., so eventually she walks all over him. I think it’s clear the moviemakers didn’t want to burden American audiences’ minds with the thought that Antarctica is open to all nations; they took everyone foreign (except the pilot, Haden) and converted them into Americans. You might argue the U.N. adds a multinational tinge to things, but it’s the U.N.: all good Americans know they’re toothless and useless.
Pryce is played by Gabriel Macht; you may remember Macht from the title role in the horrible The Spirit. He looks nothing like that in Whiteout, thank God. I need no reminders of that movie ever.

The conspiring scientists: In the comic: Five men from four different countries.

In the movie: Three Americans. Because American audience don’t want no damn foreign science.

Doc: In the comic: Bald, fat, bearded, and named “Furry.”

In the movie: Bearded, played by Tom Skerritt, and named “Fury.” Since he’s American already, he doesn’t need to be changed.

Delfy: In the comic: An old hand at flying in Antarctica, Delfy is an African-American and Stetko’s most trusted pilot.

In the movie: A young Iraq veteran in his first year flying in Antarctica. He’s still African-American, though.

Haden: In the comic: An Australian pilot introduced about halfway through to be suspicious.

In the movie: An Australian pilot introduced cleverly at the beginning of the film to look like a background character.

Guns: In the comic: According to Stetko, firearms are outlawed by treaty in Antarctica, although Sharpe carries one around. Guns can be expected to malfunction after short exposure to the extreme cold.

In the movie: Stetko always carries her pistol with her. The guns never fail, as rarely as they are used.

The eponymous whiteout: In the comic: During Stetko’s accident, which happens at the end of issue #1 and beginning of #2.

In the movie: Climactic final fight scene!

The fingers: In the comic: Gone.

In the movie: Gone, although a long time passes between exposure and revelation. We see the character deal with the loss as well, although if only he / she had kept his / her gloves on …

The weather: In the comic: Other the single whiteout and the cold, not really a factor.

In the movie: A huge storm is about to hit the base, causing an early winter evacuation (and a deadline to solve the mystery).

The bases: In the comic: Amundson-Scott (U.S., at the South Pole), McMurdo (U.S.), and Victoria (U.K.)

In the movie: Amundson-Scott and the deserted Vostok (Russian). I repeat: None of that damn foreign science. It’ll give you the socialism. Listening to Russian music in a deserted Russian station is bad enough.

Watchmen (movie) — No pun review

First off: Watchmen was never going to live up to expectations. It was going to fail critically, commercially, or fanboyishly, because very few movies can satisfy in all three of those dimensions. The Dark Knight did to some degree, as did the first two X-Men and Spider-Man movies. But neither of them were crushed by the expectations Watchmen labored under: the greatest graphic novel of all time, written by Alan Moore, who disowned the movie. Can anyone live up to that? Fans will tend to nitpick, critics will compare its depth unfavorably … it’s easy to get the feeling this won’t end well.

And that’s the problem. I enjoyed this movie. Let me repeat that, so it doesn’t get lost in the nitpicking to come: I enjoyed this movie. It’s not Citizen Kane for the costumed set, but it wasn’t boring, it told a great story, it was rich in details … Watchmen does a lot right. It’s just that when compared to the original, any movie will fall short, and Watchmen is so seminal, so important that many will have trouble separating the movie from the graphic novel. Including me.

Second: The sort of slavish devotion to the text that director Zack Snyder has been accused of isn’t always bad. Take the novel The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. The movie version most of us know — the one starring Humphrey Bogart, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Mary Astor, actually the third attempt to get the story onto film — is remarkably close to the novel. Snyder has been accused of using Watchmen’s art (by Dave Gibbons, who hasn’t disowned the movie and actually worked closely with Snyder) as a storyboard; Falcon director John Huston could have been accused of using Hammett’s novel as a shooting script, dropping only the metaphysical story about Flitcraft and toning down the references to Joel Cairo’s (Lorre) homosexuality.²⁶

Part of the reason Huston was able to do that was because the performances of the actors involved. Bogart, despite not being the “blond Satan” Hammett described Sam Spade as, left his indelible stamp on the movie. Greenstreet, in his first movie role, made fat man Kaspar Gutman even larger than life. Astor was perfect as the manipulative femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy, and Peter Lorre — well, when someone cast Lorre in a role, the audience was always going to remember Lorre for being Lorre.

Watchmen does not have that perfect all-star team of actors. The standouts are Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan, whose CGI-blue presence is muted by his soft voice and his distance from humanity, and Jackie Earle Haley as Rorschach, who nails the numbed sociopath who wants to avenge mankind’s sins. Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s Comedian is gleefully violent, which is all I needed from him. Patrick Wilson as Dan Drieberg / Nite Owl II was passable; it’s easy to argue Drieberg is such a non-entity, a normal guy, that there’s not much there for the actor to sink his teeth into. Matthew Goode, as Ozymandius, affects a bizarre accent, and as many (including my wife) have pointed out, seems a bit wispier than the role calls for. Malin Akerman is a lifeless bit of femininity who can’t keep up with her peers; her performance is easily the worst part of Watchmen.

Third: Snyder’s reputation precedes him. This movie is bloody — needlessly bloody — and Snyder goes out of his way to provoke action, which for a movie like Watchmen is asinine. Short action scenes are prolonged for no reason to try to “push” the characters and overstimulate the audience, with punches and kicks delivering unbelievably traumatic results. The fight between the Comedian and his killer at the beginning of the movie is barely a page in the book, with the older, tired, and already defeated Comedian being quickly dispatched, but Snyder develops a long set piece that is distractingly frenetic. Silk Specter and Nite Owl, while battling a gang of toughs, inflict wounds no unarmed assailant could inflict, and rather than have them use sonics to incapacitate the prisoners during a prison riot, as Moore does, Snyder has them punch their way through their difficulties.

I appreciate Snyder’s lack of quick cuts. I don’t like anything else he does with fights.

Snyder is not afraid of the human body and the things that it can do — or can be done to it. Besides the excessive violence, Dr. Manhattan is nude throughout most of the film (as he was in the graphic novel), with a full view of the front of his body. There’s nothing excessive about this, and given the amount of female nudity, it would be hypocritical to complain about it. There’s a sex scene that’s a little more intense (and long) than what I’m used to in a movie, even an R-rated movie; where most directors would have glossed over the physicality, Snyder revels in it. It’s an interesting choice, and I don’t mind noting that I was uncomfortable with it. (Although I thought it was a good choice to keep the female partner’s thigh-high, stiletto-heeled boots on for the scene, given the movie and graphic novel’s discussion of the fetishistic aspects of superheroes.)

Fourth: Snyder’s devotion to detail is remarkable, with the sets and costumes looking almost exactly like they were lifted from the graphic novel. (Nite Owl’s costume transformed him from a middle-aged lump to someone who actually looked like a hero.) It is astonishing to see the page on the screen. The opening credit sequence, where forty years of costumed hero history is compressed into a few minutes as Bob Dylan’s “The Times, They Are a Changin’” plays is rightly praised.

Unfortunately, when it comes to the overall movie, Snyder seems to be both note perfect and tone deaf. He can reproduce what is on the page flawlessly; ask him to improvise, and the result is leaden. Where Moore hints, Snyder points with a giant neon sign and hires a man to shout, “HINT!” The difference between Moore’s words and the dialogue added to the film is like the difference between Mozart and children banging on rocks. I also disapprove of some of the readings of the lines; Rorschach’s farewell to Nite Owl in their first scene seems too jaunty, for instance, and Rorschach’s final line came across as completely wrong for the character. This movie’s Richard Nixon is, as Lawrence Person says, “a spoof of a caricature” and comes across as more laughable than repulsive or powerful.

Don’t take my comment about “tone deaf” to mean there’s something wrong with the movie’s soundtrack. From “Changin’” to “All Along the Watchtower” by Jimi Hendrix (another Dylan song, used in the graphic novel) to Nena’s “99 Luftballoons,” the music was fantastic and fit the movie very well. Some of the songs — “Changin’” and “Unforgettable,” for example — are suggested by but not used by the graphic novel, but it really sounds fantastic.

Fifth: The source material is fantastic. Snyder doesn’t wreck it or sink it; his casting and fiddling with the text can’t do that. He just doesn’t live up to it.

Sixth: Don’t take my word for it:

• Howard Waldrop and Lawrence Person at Locus.
• An open thread at The Howling Curmudgeons
• Mighty God King
• The fine folks at Random Chatter

Rating: (3.5 of 5)

Ghost Rider: Sound and Fury, Signifying Nothing

The advance of special effects technology is the worst thing that could happen to the Ghost Rider movie.

You see, if there weren’t any special effects — or if the special effects were more difficult or expensive — then director and screenwriter Mark Steven Johnson would have had to come up with some sort of plot. Unfortunately, Johnson didn’t have to: Ghost Rider is merely a collection of effects, sets, and very brief fights. The motorcycle-riding protagonist zooms from one to another withouth having to slow down much for plot points, characterization, or making a whole hell of a lot of sense.

The story, based on the Marvel comic book of the same name, stars Nick Cage as Johnny Blaze, motorcycle stunt rider who sold his soul as a teenager to save his father from cancer. The devil (Mephistopheles, actually, played by Peter Fonda) gypped Johnny, as Satanic beings are wont to do, so Johnny tries to master the terror of knowing ol’ Scratch might call for him at any moment . For this reason, he casts away his teenage love, Roxanne, played as an adult by Eva Mendez. For his part, the life of Mephistopheles isn’t all pleasant blazes and exciting deals; his son, Blackheart, has gathered a trio of villains to find a mystical contract hidden away from Mephistopheles that gives him title to a thousand souls. To stop his son, Mephistopheles transforms Johnny into the demonic-looking Ghost Rider, Mephistopheles’s bounty hunter and general errand boy, during the night.

And that’s where the movie falls down, really. There’s a good movie in there, with Johnny battling with the devil — and himself — for his soul. You or I could probably find an interesting story, perhaps with Mephistopheles tempting Johnny with a chance to regain his lost love. Instead, it’s a race to find some hidden infernal McGuffin that does ... something. I’m not sure what, or why a contract for 1,000 souls equates to personal power. If you’re stockpiling souls, well, then you want that contract. But otherwise ... and for the ostensible Lord of Lawyers, Mephistopheles has a shaky grasp of contract law; for some reason, the contract is a bearer object, giving power to whomever has it, rather than just specifying Mephistopheles gets the souls.

How bad is this movie? More than bad enough. The FX Ghost Rider is stiff and delivers the most hackneyed lines in comics history — little more than dressed up catch phrases that aren’t catchy. Blackheart looks like Hal Sparks in clown white, and while that’s unsettling, it’s hardly my idea of supernatural evil. His henchmen look cool, but it takes Ghost Rider only a minute or so to dispatch the three demons, putting them at the level of video-game level bosses. When a hood stabs Ghost Rider, Johnny needs stitches, but Johnny suffers no ill effects when one of the demon hits Ghost Rider with a semi or when the SWAT team decides to use Ghost Rider as the object of a live ammunition test. Johnny’s attempts to control his demonic power are boiled down to a general sentence in a book and five seconds of concentration. Mephistopheles’s law follies continue when he considers Johnny to have signed a demonic contract when Johnny accidentally bleeds on the paper, but when he wants Johnny to pursue Blackheart, he offers to let Johnny out of the contract if he defeats Blackheart. Why have a contract if you’re going to bargain with your employees’ every time you want them to do anything? And why does the previous Ghost Rider, a cowboy from the 19th century, ride across the desert with the Blaze Ghost Rider to his final confrontation with Blackheart, then give him a shotgun and leave? Couldn’t he have done something in the final fight?

It’s very frustrating, and those complaints are just the beginning. I mean, this is a movie that doesn’t realize how far it is from one goalpost on a football field to the other; the movie keeps insisting it’s 300 feet (not yards, in which a football field is usually measured, but feet). It’s actually 360 feet — the goalposts are 10 yards behind the goal lines.

Cage is the most enjoyable part of the movie. He does his level best, making the good scenes work as well as could be expected and trying to rise above the worst of the writing. There are times when his acting seems more risible than respectable — while he transforms into Ghost Rider the first time, he seems to be suffering an epileptic seizure while his joints freeze — but his dedication to the project shows. Unfortunately, Mendes isn’t given much to do as Roxy Simpson, Johnny’s once and future love. Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles is a neat idea, especially since the motorcycle Mephistopheles gives to his new Ghost Rider is very similar to the one Fonda rode in Easy Rider. Fonda plays the Tempter with a quiet reserve, which is quite a change from the vicious scenery chomping of Wes Bentley (Blackheart). Unfortunately, the role doesn’t give Fonda much room to work with, and the script doesn’t really show how evil Mephistopheles is — compared to Blackheart, he’s practically a white hat.

This is part of Johnson’s blind spot: he doesn’t know how to show the evil and menace of his antagonists. He thinks quick flashes of the character’s faces, glimpses of their skeletal structure, and cranking up the reverb on their voices makes a character frightening; actually, it makes them freakish. Blackheart kills repeatedly, which does show he’s evil, and his resistance to Ghost Rider’s powers shows he’s soulless. But there’s no nuance and no craft there — he just kills everything in his way, which is boring, and his fight with Ghost Rider isn’t all that interesting anyway. Mephistopheles just speaks softly and asks Johnny to kill the evil demon, which makes him slightly sympathetic. (Yeah, I know he damned 1,000 souls a century ago in San Venganzas, but we don’t see any of that, and hey, maybe they weren’t very nice people to begin with.)

All the blame must lie at the feet of Johnson, who wrote and directed this roadburn of a picture. (He also wrote and directed Daredevil and managed to get someone to agree to let him write some part of Elektra.) There’s a good visual here, and the actors involved aren’t hopelss. But what arrived on the screen is impossible to take seriously on any level and possible to enjoy only as a farce.

Rating: 1 of 5

From comic to movie

Compare how the the Ghost Rider movie compares to the comic book.