Suicide Squad

WARNING: SPOILERS FOLLOW

Somewhere there's an alternate universe where alternate me didn't previously know about Suicide Squad's last minute re-shoots. Or that, for a time, there were two competing cuts of the film that stemmed from WB's anxiety over the critical response to BvS. One cut was of director David Ayer's grimmer original vision, the other was a lighter and more colorful ode to the well-received (and outstanding) trailers from earlier this year. But once I knew about them, it was hard not to see it. A victim of the struggle between the grimdark that WB had initially embraced for the DCCU and the lighter fun that moviegoers turned out to actually want, Suicide Squad is a confused and conflicted offering whose back-and-forth tonal disparities hurt an otherwise engaging flick.

The final cut is a mix of the two that were screened for test audiences, plus bits from the re-shoots, and that shows in choices that might not have been so odd if not for their placement together. In one moment, Enchantress is darkly conjuring her doomsday weapon while ominous music swells, in another she's shimmying her shoulders while monologuing for Amanda Waller. Meanwhile, El Diablo, a metahuman with pyrokinesis, states at various points that his powers came "from the Devil," but it's still jarring when he turns into an enormous literal fire demon in the climax. And a few members of the Squad get two different introductions, one loving and indulgent with lots of neon highlights, the other grimmer and stingier on time.

I don't know which cut deserves credit for the soundtrack. We should probably just thank Guardians of the Galaxy.

Despite the tonal problems, Squad soars with some excellent character work. Ayer and the actors push through limited screen time to outline some decent motivations and the film allows just enough space to showcase some strong personalities (it's almost like they're out of a comic book). Please excuse the bullet points.

• Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn was a worry for me going in because Harley is one of my favorite characters in comics and I recommend Amanda Conner's run on her book to anyone who will listen, but Robbie brings all of Harley's charm to the screen without making us sick of her. Actually, Squad could've used more of her. I had also worried, based on the marketing (and Hollywood's preoccupations) that Harley's ass would be at least as prominent a character as the rest of her. Her ass is certainly present, but not as much as I had anticipated. Still, it could take a backseat (I see what I did there) in her solo movie... or her team-up movie with Poison Ivy.
• I have personal problems with Jared Leto. I might explain those problems in writing one day. Until then, I will remember that he had the fearlessness to follow Ledger. And that the Joker's aesthetic probably wasn't entirely up to him (I don't see Joker sitting still long enough to get tattoos, do you?). And though he seemed to try too hard to put his own spin on the character, somewhere around the Ace Chemicals flashback, he had me buying in. The Joker-Harley relationship is horrifying and tragic. The romanticization of it is creepy and a bad-read and diminishes Harley. The spirit of that weirdly engrossing relationship is here, poking up through the rushed backstory. It's a highlight of the film. But then I recall Leto's moronic pranks during filming and I'm back to rolling my eyes. People will like you more if you stop trying so hard, Jared Leto. 
• Will Smith is impressive as Deadshot. 
• I didn't know much about Jay Hernandez or El Diablo going in, but his emotional trauma provided a nice touchstone, while also grounding a character that would've been crazy overpowered for this team. 
• Joel Kinnaman had a tough act following Tom Hardy's departure, but he holds up well in a role that could've been little more than hard-ass military dude trying to boss around a bunch of comic book villains. However, I wonder if either cut of the film had June Moone stay dead following Rick Flag's killing of Enchantress, adding meaning to that sacrifice. Still, I'll look on the bright side: Moone wasn't fridged. 
• Finally, holy shit Viola Davis. A movie that's not trying would depict Amanda Waller as a stoic government agent with access to a lot of important secrets. But Waller requires presence. She requires unspoken authority. She requires awe-inspiring dread and a Machiavellian will to play anyone and everyone like a fiddle until she doesn't need them to play anymore. Batman should be a little afraid of Waller. So I shouldn't need to tell you how gratifying it is to see that Davis nails the Wall. I know that Bruce Wayne/Batman is supposed to be the connective tissue for the DCCU, but that role could just as easily fall to Waller. And I kind of want it to.

Not all characters get the lingering lamp shade treatment. It's a very large cast. And I'd like to spend more time with each of them. The ones who are still alive, anyway.

I liked this movie. But I wanted to really, really, really like this movie. And that, I believe, is the DCCU's primary hurdle right now. The bulk of the audience for these movies was given grandiose adventures by the DCAU of the 90's and early 00's. Add in what Marvel's done with their properties in recent years and it's easy to see how an underwhelming movie becomes OMG TEH WORST MOVIE EVAR!!!1!!

If this sounds a lot like my thoughts following BvS, it's because I feel the same now as I did then: this is going to be a process and I'm willing to stomach some growing pains if the larger universe can grow in the right direction. There are some great elements here. In addition to Batman and Wonder Woman, we now have Harley, Waller, Deadshot, and the Flash. Meanwhile, Squad largely ditches BvS's cynicism. And while the tonal problems keep the movie from achieving more, the fact that WB is shifting its direction so openly, if also awkwardly, is a good sign.

Grade: B-

The Returned

This is the state I find the country in upon my return? Trump. Jon Stewart retired. Lemmy, Bowie, and Prince dead. Trump.

What were you guys doing while I was gone? Come on, I go away for just... fifty-nine weeks? Wow. That's a long time. Okay, maybe we've all been letting each other down a little.

There's a lot to catch up on, most of it stupid. But in the interest of being excellent to each other, I'm going to try for a quick wrap-up of some of the easier to digest bits from the last several months. (Not the election, though--not yet. I still can't manage to keep that down.)

Batman v Superman/DC on Film  
I gave most of my thoughts on this on the podcast. But just to sum up: Affleck was fantastic (cautious optimism pays off!), Gadot was damn-near a revelation, while Superman (and most everything else) was... Snyder-ific. I don't know how Zack Snyder got that job. More importantly, I still don't know how DC/WB subs him out for Affleck, who can bring more to a film than interesting action choreography. Your ambition to be the smarter Marvel is a perfectly fine one, DC--if you can pull it off. But thirty minutes of interesting thematic building cannot give way to a punch-fest that is pointless, devoid of character, and unjustified even within the scope of a thin story.

Zack Snyder as a child. Also as an adult.

The up-shot is that DC/WB has too much invested to pull out now, so they'll get a couple of shots to do it right. Suicide Squad later this year and Wonder Woman next year, followed by Aquaman. You can read a lot of negatives into the reshoots and the insistences that future movies will be more fun: desperation, for example. But the first step toward fixing a problem is admitting there is one. And I choose to believe that, somewhere, a tiny voice is shouting at DC/WB execs, urging them to right their ship.

Keep listening to those voices, guys. They'll serve you well. As Silby said on the podcast, Harley Quinn, you're our only hope. Luckily, she's a damn good character to hang your hopes on.

The Cubs
Last year was so much simpler. It was one of the most exciting seasons Wrigley has seen in a long, long, long time: 97 wins, the third best record in baseball, a drive to the NLCS behind a young team with a super-chill manager in his first year with the club. It didn't even matter that they didn't pull it out in the end because they weren't even supposed to have gotten that far. Not that soon, anyway. Then they had that so-unbelievable-it-became-funny winter. And now this year...

Yes, it's exciting as hell, I know. But I could do without the talk of how historic the 2016 Cubs have been to this point. I could do without the expectations. And the heart palpitations. It's only May. I know this franchise. I know that if any team could win 120 games with a run differential of +400 and then get swept in the NLDS, it's this one. It's only May. There's a lot of baseball left to play... too much.

I still have hope, of course. Always will. And this team has more than earned that hope (that they've struggled the last few weeks against bad teams while beating up on the good ones helps remind me that underneath it all, they're still the Cubbies). But I've been on this ride before--and I'm not sure that I've ever seen it go this fast. Because their ticket for October might already be punched...

And it's only May.

America Beer
Okay, now we need to talk about something that is deeply stupid. Something that is deeply insulting. Something that will be with us at least until November. You think I'm going to make a joke about the election here, don't you? I'm not. There'll be time for that later. Anyway, this is probably worse.

What the hell, Anheuser-Busch In-Bev?! No, shut up a minute. I don't actually care--that was rhetorical. Stop it. Just stop... everything. Ideally, everything you do would just stop but I'll settle for you not wrapping your iced stormwater runoff in a flag that's already had too much done to it in the last few months.

Used to be, they'd settle for slapping some stars and stripes to the can or bottle some time between Memorial Day and the Fourth (a lot of breweries have long done this, even some very good ones). That was fine, it was subtle. It didn't have to mean anything. But this country doesn't do subtle anymore. This time, they've dragged the very name into the slop, affixing the word right on the can: America. It can't be ignored anymore.

If a person walks into a bar and orders "an America," a thoughtful bartender will slide a ridiculously large glass of bourbon their way and all would be well. If the thought occurred to make the request a beer, I don't know, maybe something that's still American-owned, that takes chances and doesn't try to please everybody? Isn't that how we like to see ourselves? There are a lot of good options in that direction. But if the person orders "an America" and is expecting a Budweiser (he (and it'll be a he) will be wearing some combination of a visor, aviators, a polo shirt, and a smirk that says he knows what he's doing is pissing people off, but otherwise why get up in the morning?), a thoughtful bartender will shut the establishment down until the bar patrons and wider community can overcome the douche-chill shockwave.

There's an easy line here about me loving America more than In-Bev does. I mean, I do. Most everybody does; it's a low bar. That a Belgian company would use the name "America" to enhance the already-bloated brand of a watered-down slap in the face to Bavarian/Czech tradition probably says more about early 21st Century geopolitics than I'm capable of parsing. But, like Trump, it's not the fountainhead that concerns me: it's the people who will lap it up, ensuring we'll be dealing with this again next year. And the year after. Until "America" replaces "Budweiser" entirely and we'll all look at ourselves, not quite sure when we hitched our star to the wrong wagon, but picking up on the unshakable sense that alcohol had something to do with it.

It's good to be back, everybody.

The World's Only Podcast

Where the hell have I been?

Anyway: today marks the launch of the first episode of the World's Only Podcast (the Only Podcast in the World)!

In partnership with my dear friends at aois21, and their growing podcast network, Josh Silberman and I are co-hosting a monthly discussion/gripe-fest on the issues of the day. This month, we're talking about Donald Trump, comic book movies, sex-bots, and other harbingers of the downfall of our Republic.

I'm excited about this because I love podcasts and this is a pretty cool thing to be a part of. You can listen at iTunes, Sticher Radio, Google Play, and at aois21.com. We hope you enjoy! And if you don't, go to hell we'll do better next time.

Gotham

Far be it from me to lay into a series that hasn't yet aired.

There's so much that might be good here.

A Gotham Central-esque show could be fantastic. A slowly crumbling city, served by a still barely above board police department, that can work as a conduit for any crime story you want to tell. It's also some fertile soil for original stories and ideas because pre-Batman Gotham remains fairly well uncovered. I'm not sure audiences realize how amazing a character Jim Gordon can be, but he is well worthy of a central role in a TV show. And people love procedurals--just give viewers sixteen of those every year while slyly feeding us an overarching tale of decay. Like The Wire, but with occasional hints of Batman. Plus, Donal Logue as Harvey Bullock? Bill Rawls as... someone?! Yes, yes. Oh God yes.

And it could still be all of that. But.

Just after the one minute mark of the trailer, we see a freshly-orphaned Bruce Wayne hanging out, talking to Gordon. Nothing alarming so far. But then he's... standing on the roof of Wayne Manor? Prepping his rooftop posing routines? No. What? Why? Now those "occasional hints" are brushing against the backbone of the story, which is worrying because Batman's origin is a story that's not only already been told, but has already been told very well. It's precisely because we know what's coming that we don't need to dive into it immediately. There's something original and unique waiting to be told and it's very quickly succumbing to familiar yarns. Or worse, dull ones. Pubescent Bruce is about as un-Batman as Bruce gets. Maybe we'll delve deep into his goth phase.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: season one's finale opens with the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne and closes with Detective Gordon--a few months into his tenure in Gotham, a little less naive and a little more prepared to drag his adopted city out of the sewer--comforting young Bruce. If we have to wait to see that, it means the show has enough other things going on that it hopefully won't be using Lil' Batman as a crutch.)

Meanwhile, foreboding text shouts weird promises at us: "before Penguin," "before Catwoman," "before Riddler," "before Poison Ivy" in between smash cuts of the junior rogues because Fox is grittily rebooting the definition of "before," apparently. I wouldn't even mind, since these characters are a part of this universe in one form or another. An up-and-comer on the black market named Oswald Cobblepot, for example, could very easily be the focus of a strong season one plot line. But inside of two minutes we get written confirmation of four future villains, with Batman still some ten years from debuting in Gotham. Stay tuned for season two, when Joe Kerr, an albino child with a flair for card tricks and purple suits, confounds the GCPD's psychological profilers.

Why is thirteen-year old Selina Kyle dressing up as a cat burglar and standing on the edge of a rooftop (more rooftop brooding--is nothing sacred)? And what does it have to do with Jim Gordon? I'm going to have to watch to find out, aren't I? They're going to make me watch this thing, aren't they?

All we have is a trailer and already the Easter eggs are cloying. Like the worst excesses of Smallville (except Clark already had his powers). Or the shaky foundation of needless foreshadowing that the Star Wars prequels were built on. There is an assumption that we care about these characters from the start when in fact we need to be given a reason to care. And even when we do care, cramming them all together gives no one time to breathe and makes a lush, complex world achingly small. The more disparate elements you drag in, the less it resembles Gotham Central and the more it resembles Batman Babies.

Comic book mythologies are bloated because they've been developed over decades by dozens or hundreds of creators. The best stories pick a single conceit (or a couple of simple ones) and follow it to a new conclusion, inadvertently creating more mythology. They don't throw everything at the wall, desperately reminding fans that they haven't forgotten about everyone's favorite corner of the canon. They also don't shout out to the casual fans: "hey, don't worry, you already know this story," because they understand that those fans can sometimes care, even if they don't know exactly what's going on from the outset.

(Fan-fiction idea that nobody wants: GCPD Cyber Crime specialist Eddie Nashton grows slowly disgruntled as his efforts go unappreciated and starts a few elicit side projects trying to earn a name for himself. Casual fans get caught up in his slow turn from smarmy good guy to obnoxious quasi-villain before realizing who he's going to be. Meanwhile, diehard fans shit themselves upon recognition of his name--that's the kind of balance the Marvel movies excel at.)

Am I a pedant for reading too much into a trailer for pilot that's only just been picked up for a series? No. I'm a pedant for other reasons. Since this show is going to happen anyway, I can make but a simple request to an uncaring universe. I'm looking at something that could be a landmark for Batman storytelling getting bogged down in canon-service. Good Batman stories have already been told. Good Catwoman stories have already been told. Tell a good Jim Gordon story. Tell a good Harvey Bullock story. Tell a good Gotham story. And let the fans wind that into the rest of the mythology on their own.

Read This And Get a Free Thing

A few quick items, while they're on my brain.

• I reviewed Doorman's pilot a while back. I said at the time that I hoped you could watch it one day. Well, now you can. It's here and it's good and it's ten minutes long. Come on, you don't have ten minutes? You have ten minutes. 
• In my bookmarks tab, I have a subfolder marked "Blog material." I've touched that subfolder probably twice since last April. On my more recent visit, I rediscovered the (increasingly popular) webcomic Strong Female Protagonist. It's one of the more interesting takes on superherodom going anywhere in fiction right now. The dialogue gets a little heavy-handed and moralizing, but I'm not in a position to criticize someone else on that point, am I? 
• Oh right, this is where I tell you to get your copy of Nos Populus. And then you can like it on Facebook. You know, if you want. No pressure.
• Back in September, I predicted a Denver-Seattle Super Bowl. I probably shouldn't get to brag about that, but this is the first time to my memory that I've successfully predicted both Super Bowl teams. Basically, I'm now qualified to be a sportsball expert guy. I should learn how to get paid for this. Anyway, most would stick with their guns, but I have no faith in my guns. Adjusting my previous pick, I'm calling: Seattle over Denver, 28-20.

So, that's it for now. Your free thing? I just gave you several. Were you expecting a car? That was never realistic. Part of you knew that, didn't it? But you had stuck with your fanciful dream. And now we're both unhappy.

Batman: Arkham Origins

WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS

It would be easy--if accurate--to complain that Warner Bros Games Montreal has done nothing new with the Arkham franchise. On the one hand, Batman: Arkham Origins does give the impression of stagnation, as though the series has already become afraid to try anything new. On the other hand, more Arkham is fine by me.

Given a new studio at them helm of this installment, a brisk change of pace may have been unnecessary, anyway. It might even have made a great big glowing target of WBGM (God, the acronym is somehow just as cumbersome as the full name) because any significant change would've proved--at best--controversial among the fan community. So in Origins, it appears, the studio chose to prove they could deliver the same beloved product, plus a couple more things. In that, Montreal succeeds.

And Origins does tempt fate, allowing Batman to glide and run around "old Gotham City," which players will remember as the setting of Arkham City. And it looks here exactly the same as it did in the previous game if a bit less, um, decayed: same courthouse, same steel mill; a few buildings missing, a few more added, and Batman cannot interact with this portion of the city precisely as he did in the previous game. But it's undoubtedly Arkham City. The player can explore this area (and a brand new half of a city, as well) using the exact same orgasmically-intuitive game mechanics they've become accustomed to. If nothing else, it would be ballsy to remind players of a game they love while giving them a game they don't. Not going to lie: I smiled a bit, reliving old memories.

While we're tempting fate with a new studio trying to replicate near-perfection, we've gotten new voice actors to replace the near-unreplaceable Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill. But happily, Roger Craig "Ezio Auditore" Smith's Batman is a reasonable facsimile with a flawless criminal-intimidation voice. Meanwhile, Troy Baker (who you will not recognize from here) ratchets Hamill's unmatchable rendition into a younger, more eager Joker. Both are solid enough and talented enough that I almost wish they had been allowed to break free with their performances rather than imitate what's already been done. Origins gave me that feeling frequently.

At this point, I realize I haven't gotten to the Batmanning. But that aspect is mostly the same as it was before. Crime scene reconstruction is a fun, only occasionally tedious, addition. And the Batplane quick-travel is a nice relief when having to traverse a game world that verges on over-sized. Otherwise, no big surprises here. Players who didn't like the Riddler's scavenger hunts still won't like them, and still don't have to do them. And players who love fluid fights and challenging predator sections (that is, every player) will still love those. It feels good to be back in the cape and cowl again. 

Side note: a brief jaunt into the challenge rooms left me disappointed, coming off as more a series of structured stunt-performances requiring none of the creative criminal-bashing I loved about the previous games' challenge rooms. Maybe opening up a few more rooms will improve that experience.

Joker aside, Origins opts to showcase the more obscure segments of Batman's rouges gallery. From semi-knowns like Black Mask and Deathstroke to out-of-left-fielders like Copperhead (now a chick!) and Anarky (whose inclusion is worthwhile solely for Batman's walk-out on a mopey manifesto). Bane, in a pleasant surprise, is a decently well-constructed villain: an enormous, hyper-intelligent tactician with a mercenary focus on killing the Bat. However, it's tarnished slightly by reverting him to the over-muscled, lumbering Bane we know from past games for the climactic battle, which is somewhat more thrilling than previous final Arkham boss fights. On that note, boss battles are decent this time around (special mention to the Mad Hatter section), but nothing like the spectacular Mr. Freeze fight from City.

True, Batman's early years--being hunted by cops, the slow-building trust with Gordon, his first meeting with Joker--have been done before. Sometimes better than this. There's nothing new or canon-shattering here. We even get a brief Knightfall retread. Montreal is not trying for the road less traveled here. But if it works, it works. And Origins works.

If Rocksteady never gets another shot at the franchise, at least Arkham is in steady (hm...) hands at Montreal. If it ain't broke, yadda yadda. This can get old quickly, and Montreal will need to do something of their own eventually. But so long as future games avoid the trap, I can live with evolutionary lull for one installment.

Grade: B+

Bat-Affleck (at least it's not Nic Cage)

(via Modern Myth Media)

Okay, to be as fair as possible about this, shut up. Everyone just... shut up and let me think.

Deep breath... here we go. 

Ben Affleck really should've been behind the camera for Batman. We were denied that chance already. But by taking a promising if flawed Man of Steel franchise and throwing Batman into the mix immediately--all because Marvel has them chasing ghosts--DC/WB is already risking one unforced error. Might as well follow through.

Argo. The Town. State of Play. As stated, he's a better director than actor, but we decided that he had redeemed himself. We agreed to that as a society, didn't we? We let Matt Damon off the hook years ago. Scroll down Affleck's IMDb and realize how long its been since he deserved our derision. And by the way, Affleck is not what was wrong with Daredevil. Not that you or anyone has ever given a shit about Daredevil. He's a poor man's Batman who somehow got a movie in an era when studios still didn't know what they were doing with superhero movies. It was 2003--they were just throwing whatever they had at the screen, not really caring if it would stick. 

Maybe I'm hedging, fooling myself into believing that this won't fall flat on its face. Maybe it will, in which case, we still have the Nolan trilogy, unharmed. And here I remind myself of my reaction when Heath Ledger got Joker. Yes, it was a different (better) director who made that call, but we can't always see how these things play out.

All I know is that I'd really like to hear Affleck's Batman voice before I rule on this one.

Man of Steel

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

Man of Steel: in which Hollywood continues to insist on re-telling origin stories. I don't want to lean too hard on this point, as the temptation to re-tell Superman's iconic origin story must be strong, if only because it's the most obvious way to get the audience to identify with a character, something that's hard for Superman generally. And MOS handles Superman's origin reasonably well, but as with The Amazing Spider-Man before it, even when done well (and this is the most thorough film adaptation of the end of Krypton and Clark's youth in Kansas, narrowly beating out Superman: The Movie), there's a distinct feeling of deja-vu that brings the pacing to a crawl.

This origin has been told a thousand times. Grant Morrison told it in one surprisingly poignant page in All-Star Superman. Mark Waid's excellent Superman: Birthright tells the whole story with pathos, managing to fit the brunt of Superman mythology into a psychologically-realistic package. Some small examples: MOS ends with Clark getting hired at the Daily Planet, with no mention of a journalism background; S:B has Clark working as a reporter before becoming Superman is ever a thought in his head. S:B also features Clark fleshing out his identities (Superman and bumbling Clark Kent) with John and Martha, the Kents studying acting and costume design and working out all the kinks of Clark's plan before he goes and does it; MOS has Clark receive his costume whole cloth from the ghost of his dead Kryptonian father.

Side note: I wasn't a fan of them killing off Jonathan Kent again, and especially not a fan of Clark accepting that that was how it was supposed to be because he "trusted" his father; a personal thing, just rang false to me.

Now, are these metrics not fair because I've read the source materials? Yeah, probably.

But as though to apologize for treading old water, director Zack Snyder does what he was hired to do--the action in MOS much improved from the deeply disappointing Superman Returns. Especially worth highlighting is Superman's battle with Zod's lieutenants in Smallville, which earns special attention as perhaps the most exciting fight scene in recent superhero history. Many reviewers have focused on the relative lack of heart of the second half of MOS, and that's fair, because even viscerally exciting action will lose its soul if it goes on too long--something that Snyder can and will do unapologetically; he levels Metropolis with surprisingly little pathos. But at least this action is something new for the character on film. This is what we wanted after SR and Snyder doesn't disappoint.

But when the action is done, we're left with the character we were introduced to and kind of like (he is saving our asses, that helps) but, like the people he protects, we still don't really know him. He's not as accessible as Iron Man, not as fantasy-worthy as Batman. The focus on his Kryptonian backstory comes at the expense of Clark the human being (Ghost Jor-El tells him that he is equally from Earth and Krypton, which gives short stick to the place he was raised in and planet he identifies with); the Kryptonian aspect should be largely superficial not just because that makes the most sense psychologically, but because it's what makes us like him. We Superman fans revere Clark, not Kal-El. Warner Bros. is almost certainly going to expect sequels and the "who" of Superman has time to be fleshed out, but that needed to be done here, especially given a worldwide audience that has no innate reverence for the character. Henry Cavill mines a few moments of likability, despite a grin that often looks too much like a smirk; I'd love to see what he can do with a deeper script.

A related point: We know Superman wants to protect us, not dominate us; motivation is what makes him the hero and Zod the villain (quick word: Michael Shannon is a lot of fun in the villain role). And that's important because that knowledge is the difference between Superman and Nietzschean Superman for the viewer (that goes for superheroes in general, actually). But it's easy to identify with General Swanwick at the end of the film; this guy is asking us to trust him, when we don't know him. In light of the news out of the NSA these past weeks, could we trust him? Should we? MOS never gets into that, save a cameo from a Predator drone (funny: Gen. Swanwick complains about it costing $11 million dollars days after a major city is reduced to rubble). Again, probably a good basis for the sequel and that's what a character like Lex Luthor is meant to do. But a large problem for Superman the last few decades has been relative tone-deafness and I wonder how much longer his stories can afford to ignore present conditions.

Despite largely mediocre reviews, MOS is almost certainly going to warrant that sequel, if only because Warner Bros. really wants to get a jump on that Justice League project. And MOS may prove a decent base for a larger DC Universe. It's not hard, at this stage, to imagine some of the other heroes coexisting with Superman--Wonder Woman and Green Lantern in particular (watching Metropolis get flattened gives me some pause about Batman, but they're not going to attempt JL without him). However, we need a further look at this Superman first. Because for all the pretty, pretty fireworks, we've only just absorbed the first rays of yellow sunlight of why the hell we should care.

Grade: B

Character Allignment (explained via The Wire)

I played Dungeons and Dragons once, in high school, and I haven't had the desire to replay it since. I was too fat to be beat up over playing the game, so that wasn't it. Some have suggested I had a bad dungeon-master, which is possible (I don't even remember who the dungeon-master was, even though I remember most everyone involved). But for me, D&D is too much like writing on the fly in a group, which is never ideal for producing stories. Teamwork and imaginative problem solving, sure, but not so great for a narrative, which I somehow came to assume was the point of the game (it's not). And then there's characterization. While many imaginative players can and will create interesting characters, it's all too easy to wind up with characters who are dull, single-dimensional, and monomaniacally focused on a quest or a single, vague character trait, like being greedy or noble or drunk. I blame the D&D alignment chart.

As fun as the chart can be for we nerds to play with, it's a seriously flawed tool for character building. No real, live human being can fit into one square perfectly. Abstractly, one's personality might be most at home in a particular cell, say Lawful Neutral, but will tend bleed out into adjacent cells (Lawful Good, True Neutral) as the pressures of the world force different, non-dice controlled reactions out of them. Be honest with yourself: do you fit into one of those nine paradigms every day of your life? Do your friends?
 
And if a real person has no comfortable home on the chart, what chance does a compelling, realistic character have? Or at least a character that a writer wants to be compelling and realistic. Batman, for example, after seven decades of different creators and continuities, can be made to fit into all of the alignments at once. Superman can do it, too, but you have to stretch a bit more.

Then you have something like The Wire, one of the most compelling dramatic narratives ever allowed by the powers that be to grace our television screens, with characters based on real world drug dealers, cops, and politicians. Those who have seen the show (otherwise known as The People Who Should Be Allowed to Vote) know that many of the characters contain staggering shades of complexity, shifting back and forth as the crushing reality of the Baltimore drug wars impinge upon them, playing off of each other like characters in a really good novel. It shouldn't be possible to do an alignment chart of The Wire characters, right? Probably not, but here it is:

That's... actually not bad. I wonder about McNulty, though--Chaotic Neutral seems to fit him just as well, but as much as a self-destructive fuck-up as he is, he does typically work to benefit others.

Also, if Avon is Chaotic Neutral, I'm tempted to slide Stringer into Lawful Neutral; but then I get to thinking about D'Angelo and suddenly Stringer's placement here works a bit better. For balance, you could drop Avon into Chaotic Evil, since he's just as much a part of Baltimore's rot as Stringer, but no one beats Marlo Stanfield for that title (except maybe Snoop).

And Omar is about as True Neutral as they come ("It's all in the game."), but seems to me to slide across the middle, into Lawful ("A man's gotta have a code.") and Chaotic ("Well, you see Mike-Mike thought he should keep that cocaine he was slinging, and the money he was makin' from slingin' it. I thought otherwise."). Recall season two's "All Prologue," in which Omar casually obliterates Maurice Levy.

Real people, and realistic characters, have no true alignment. Fans are welcome to have fun guessing, but writers and creators must note that, for the same reasons that their creations can never be their own, dynamic character relationships will always be too messy to fit into the alignment chart. And that to try is to needlessly diminish a character's potential.

By the way, I did run Nos Populus characters through the alignments, after finishing the book. James Reso is generally Chaotic Neutral, with forays up and down the Chaotic wing. I'll let readers decide where they think the rest of the characters fall.

Iron Man 3

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

A note of praise to start, because the Iron Man franchise still earns this much: Robert Downey, Jr. is playing himself and that's a very good thing. His Tony Stark remains as endearing as he was the first time around. Iron Man 3 is funny and whimsical and comic book-y, as all the best Marvel films have been (which is to say, most of them). I'm on the record as an abiding fan of Christopher Nolan's Batman, but nobody with their head on straight wants to see that in every superhero movie. There's a bit of gloom to go around, but there's humor, too, and things end well enough for Stark and Gwyneth Paltrow. I can honestly say I didn't see willing, happy retirement in Stark's future. Sure, there will be some threat to bring Stark out of retirement (no Nolan trilogy, this), but for now, we're happy for him.

That last bit is saying something because, from my perspective, it's sometimes too hard to like Tony Stark. The quips as defense mechanisms ring too close to home for me and his ego seems often seems overly flippant for something that manifests as uncharacteristically stupid. Iron Man 2's biggest failing (aside from too much time dedicated to setting up The Avengers) was that Stark had clearly not retained any of the hard-earned lessons of the first film; he was still prone to proving his detractors right, alienating friends, and generally being a dick. We're supposed to like this guy. This time around, those lessons finally seem learned for good. Stark's voluntary retirement is a nod to a thoughtful, considerate, non-sociopathic hero who knows his limits. If When he puts the suit back on, it'll be for the world at large and not his ego; maybe a little for his ego, but the ratio will be respectable.

IM3 is also our first glimpse of a post-Avengers continuity and while I'm happy to see that all is well, I couldn't help but notice a small hangnail. Stark is experiencing panic attacks following the events of last year's team-up. And that makes sense: he nearly died and his world is now a lot bigger, which means (from Stark's perspective) that he's suddenly a lot smaller. The attacks are there briefly and then conveniently forgotten; vague enough that the filmmakers could ignore the details of a movie they probably hadn't seen by the time IM3 went into production. The attacks are referenced for a chunk of the runtime but never get bogged down in specifics, as though they were late draft callbacks. Meanwhile, IM3 gets to remind the audience that The Avengers happened and that if enough of us see this movie, we might get another (mission accomplished, I suppose). It's all... messy and unsatisfying; hopefully just an awkward step in this ongoing, ambitious project. It's hardly a devastating blow to the shared universe, but it's a fault line Marvel will have to watch for in the future.

I'm very happy to see Guy Pearce getting substantive work. The twist is ballsy (more in a minute), and requires the Aldrich Killian role to step up and fill in for what could be an irritating fake out. As usual, Pearce brought just the right level of smarmy unlikability and menace to a villain position that's been lacking thus far in the series. Despite the formidable talents of Jeff Bridges and Mickey Rourke, Iron Man's villains have remained either underwhelming (Bridges) or tacked on and under-utilized (Rourke). I don't count Sam Rockwell's Justin Hammer as a villain, because he was just too damn charming. The chronic weakness in that department was good enough excuse to bring in Iron Man's one iconic villain.

The filmmakers (plus Ben Kingsley) provided a clever and probably necessary new take on the Mandarin. We were never going to get the traditional Fu Manchu-style Mandarin--it's embarrassing enough on the comics page, not to mention the risk of alienating the Chinese market--but it's hard to leave him out of the franchise. So they first make him ethnically ambiguous, and then reveal him as a false face, a flimsy lackey to a character that was effectively a non-entity in the comics. Most of the time, such a shafting of a superhero's number one antagonist would be cause for fan outrage (and it probably is getting some--I don't care enough to look), but the reveal was wisely played and, given the options the Mandarin provides, much more interesting. Though, while "Trevor" was entertaining in his own right, it was a shame to see Kingsley's menace disappear so quickly.

One question: what exactly were the rules for killing the superhuman, regenerating Extremi? Electrocution seemed to do it. Severe enough injury, as well, I guess; Killian was done in by a blow from an Extremis'd Gwyenth Paltrow, after surviving an explosion. Killing Wolverine seems less complicated.

Anyway, I hope Iron Man 4 will have the stones to use MODOK. All I want is for Tony Stark's next existential threat to be a large-headed, tiny-limbed weirdo. Is that asking so much?

Grade: B+

How You Do A Justice League Movie, Part III

You don't, apparently.

The best part of this semi-decision is that it leaves Man of Steel room to breathe. The second best part is that a JL film won't get rushed into theaters in 2015 to take on Avengers 2 and Star Wars VII, avoiding a humiliating face-plant that the other nerd-subspecies would never let us live down. If there was no chance of the project becoming something amazing (there wasn't), better nothing than another Green Lantern.

My only question is, if the script really was that bad, why did WB/DC run with production for over a year? Putting the project aside doesn't seem half so canny a move when you merely defaulted to this position because you realized the story was no good. Nine months after Avengers made you take this idea semi-seriously for the first time. I'd say this is a good time for the studio to focus on the individual characters for a while, but given this and other recent fumbles, we might as well watch WB/DC tease JL further. Because that'll restore our faith in them.

This is part of an irregular, ongoing series that may finally be over. See Part I and Part II.

(Image courtesy Uncyclopedia)

Man of Steel teaser, Take Two

 
I'm think I'm going through a reverse of that Statler and Waldorf bit. It's the same process I went through after the first Man of Steel trailer. And the recent poster, come to think of it.

I know that Zack Snyder movies and Superman movies have each had great trailers, only for the films to turn out passable at best. And I know that with Batman on the shelf and Justice League looking like more and more of a cluster-fuck of decent ideas and bad ideas, MOS is a hot target for a lot of frustrated expectations that I'm wont to temper.

But it's growing on me, this new Superman. 

The Stark Knight Rises

Marvel Studios debuted the first Iron Man 3 trailer this past week. I liked it, though it's hard for me to say why. I mean, I'm seeing a grimmer tone, suggesting an emotional and tonal weight; indications that no character is safe from the stakes; a black and white/dark blue color palate; a wall-to-wall Zimmer-esque score; and a purposeful villian with a funny voice.

It seems so familiar but I just can't place where from.

While it's probably a good idea for the Iron Man franchise to return to its Nolan-aping routes after the underwhelming Iron Man 2. Marvel's carved out a very nice (and lucrative) niche for itself as the lighter, popcorn-y universe; I've written about this before. Suddenly shifting away from that--if that is what they're doing--seems unnecessary. But I applaud the ambition. Let's just hope something's not lost in the transition.

British vs. American Dystopia

The other day, a friend asked me about British writers and their fascination with dystopia. She referenced a scene in the television show Sherlock, which included an observation on CCTV cameras. That thought having been sparked (one might blame the framing of the question), a slew of synapses started firing, recalling works from Brave New World to Nineteen Eighty-Four to Lord of the Flies to A Clockwork Orange to V For Vendetta. These British works seem to come at a rate disproportionately greater than the dystopian output from American literature. Why?

The simple answer is that the Brits have more personal experience with dystopian hellscapes. The aforementioned surveillance cameras, the long history of British intelligence networks. There's the still barely-fresh memory of the dismantling of the Empire; all of that power--minus all but the ceremonial glory--turning inward, now bitter for what once was.

Then there's the way that British government seems to act so smoothly on matters of national security as to make our own post-9/11 measures seem like a Keystone Cops production. Americans will hyperventilate for a bit about the newest piece of Homeland Security meddling until the energy escapes our systems and we find another shiny object to focus on (seriously, though, when was the last time you heard anyone wring their hands about the full body scanners?). But the Brits, with that Keep Calm, Carry On ethos, prefer to stew in grim fascination with the creeping menace.

Maybe there's a vestigial American libertarianism at work: we understand government to be a blundering, inefficient thing. It might be a cumbersome, better-door-than-a-window type obstruction for many of us, but we're not exactly worried about a well-oiled Big Brother, are we? Only a misguided, paranoia-mongering ideologue could believe in an incompetent government that is also somehow all-powerful. But in Britain--where "socialism" is not so scary a word--they have a different relationship with government and, if asked to think about it, might nod their heads and say "yeah, I could see that happening" before shuffling on with their lives. This is the psychological aspect of it; the bit that, it seems to me, is the most decisive between American and British attitudes toward dystopia. 

See, the Brits have a greater comfort with grim subject matter and a more natural skill for dark, observational humor. Not that there aren't plenty of American artists who excel in these fields, but the subjects tend to play better with British general audiences than they do with American ones, so you get more of it over there (see Bill Hicks' success in Britain). British culture was incubated over thousands of years on a relatively small island, where there are few places to hide from the near-constant rain. The only attitude that survives something like that is: "well, what can you do?" The Brits, then have less qualms with fatalism, a concept that is anathema to most Americans. Indeed, the philosophy of fatalism--the lack of individual agency--almost rebuts the American Dream. The attempt by American culture to embrace a British-view of the dystopic has two potential outcomes:

1. (Not so likely, in my opinion) The rejection of some near-sacred American values, precipitating the collapse of moral, civic, and economic society. One must clap to keep Tinker Bell alive.
2. (Much more likely) We just won't buy it. A co-worker has commented to me that she could never enjoy dystopian works because she cannot fathom that a society would be allowed to degrade that far, that efficiently. Such a force would naturally be fought against, or crumble under its own weight, or any number of other factors that would keep a Big Brother from being so imposing.

As a dystopic tale gets moving, the Brits roll with the punches and more readily accept the premise. Americans must wonder "how was this allowed to happen?" And American stories often like to provide the answers (think on the V For Vendetta film adaptation, with its more explicit telling of the rise of neo-conservatism fascism, something Alan Moore preferred to leave to implication). I attempted similar explanations in Nos Populus, before I realized that the exposition was getting out of hand. Americans want the background, but that background takes up precious time that can better used on the story itself, a problem even the specifics-demanding reader will concede. We prefer a dystopia that shows us something more familiar.

You've probably seen this comic, outlining the differences between Orwell's fears as he explained them in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Aldous Huxley's fears, as laid out in Brave New World. They're arguments I've covered before. And I must agree, however strong my love of Orwell, that BNW is the superior dystopia. One of BNW's most intriguing conceits is the character of John the Savage, an outsider who can observe all the shallow and materialistic horror of the World State that the reader might. A British writer, authoring a classic of the genre, depicting a surviving mode of thought that rejects all the assumptions of a terrible future. It's almost enough to upend this theory of mine, if not for the fact that things don't end well for John; death is preferable to the loss of freedom and dignity--at least there's some agency in that. And interestingly, Huxley spent the last 25 years of his life living in California, attempting to attain U.S. citizenship. I'm speculating, but it seems likely that Huxley felt more at home among a less fatalistic bunch.

One can point to other exceptions. Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here (which was no small influence on a teenaged-me; Lewis is still one of my favorites) is a lesser-revered work among the dystopias, largely for the aforementioned problems of exposition. Lewis does his due diligence in transforming his contemporary American polity from the New Deal to the total takeover of the Huey Long-esque Buzz Windrip. No far-flung, sci-fi speculation in this one. As with much of Lewis' work, ICHH gets most of its mileage out of broad caricatures of middle-American nastiness, a farcical formula that works for a while, but quickly starts to hit too close to home, begging on the last nerve of the reader. And while ICHH is a thorough and convincing narrative of demagoguery, one has to want to believe in the possibilities, as I did in those nauseating Patriot Act days. It should be no surprise that the book experienced a significant revival during the Bush II Administration.

The Handmaid's Tale nearly fits, too. However, 1), Margaret Atwood is Canadian and, culturally speaking, Canada has nearly as much in common with the U.K. as it does with the U.S. And 2), Handmaid is mostly notable for its feminist take on the dystopic, an angle that at times seems more relevant than what most of the rest of the genre has to offer (the stream-of-consciousness crutch notwithstanding).

The Hunger Games seems to fit the bill. But how much of it's monstrous success is owed to the fact that Katniss Everdeen is exactly what Americans want to see in that situation, or imagine themselves being: an able and eventually-willing freedom fighter. A little bit of pathos goes a long way. Though, as I've explained before, I still have not read the third book, so I'm ready to take another hit to my theory should the book end poorly enough.

I may have to concede the point on Fahrenheit 451, pending a re-reading. However, it's not like we can't accuse Bradbury of just being a crotchety old man. 

As for my own work (just for comparison; my work has not earned mention alongside these others), Nos Populus started out as a dystopia of sorts--the idea first sprouted after reading It Can't Happen Here. But those elements were ratcheted back over the drafts, as I focused more on the building of a potential dystopian society and the struggle against that construction. Some of this was because of the verisimilitude I had striven to set up; Nos Populus takes place in something of a separate time-line from our real world, but the line only split a few years ago and it remains recognizable to us. I hope. There was only so much--logically and narratively-speaking--that I could allow President Ward to do while suspending the reader's disbelief. And I had included a fair amount of exposition as it was. So we get a despot who's only a fraction as powerful as he was originally conceived, but perhaps all the more terrifying because of it--we recognize Ward.

And perhaps some of it was also my American brain getting in the way, never allowing me to slip too far into bleak paranoia and cynicism. To recognize, at the very least, that I needed readers not to throw down the book in disgust. When my friends/editors commented that the book was rather bleak, I took it as a badge of honor (no pandering crowd-pleaser, me). And yet I still found myself fixing that where I could, attempting to balance plausibility with palatability.

And it's the plausible and the palatable that mark the difference. The Brits have a different sense of the plausible when it comes to government overreach (if that phrase means anything within the dystopic realm). So, too, their stronger palate for grim fatalism, which allows for a less diluted--or alternately less labored--realization of the dystopian state. With these elements working together, their dystopic myths can stretch and grow in ways that American literature won't equal. Not that we're interested in trying to.

How You Do A Justice League Movie, Part II

A while back, I wrote an obscenely long post about how Warner Brothers/DC Entertainment could do a Justice League film. This was predicated upon the understanding that a JL movie is now inevitable (however ill-conceived) and that since it's going to happen, they might as well try to do the project, erm... justice. My plan at the time was to return to the topic to discuss how the solo films could be built up to lead into JL. But as the chalk-slated 2015-16 release and the interest in signing Ben Affleck demonstrate--and aided by the speculation in Modern Myth Media's recent podcast--WB/DC may be more interested pushing for a JL movie first, capitalizing sooner rather than later and letting that film open the doors for the solo projects that, until now, have either fallen flat or failed to launch (the ones without Christopher Nolan, anyway).

Man Of Steel is due next summer--that much we know. And WB/DC seems to ready to move ahead with Wonder Woman. They may also dust off that old Flash project that was quietly canned after the dull thud of Green Lantern, a property they could try to reinvigorate (until further notice, I'm sticking with my character outlines from the first post, so I'd be hoping for a Jordan-Stewart team-up there). And a Batman reboot is inevitable, anyway. But this is a lot to do in a relatively short window, with little real news about any of it. Even WB seems content to merely speculate. I said in the previous post that not every character needs a solo film first, but there should be at least one or two. However, that's going to be harder for DC than it has been for Marvel.

Marvel Studios has the advantage of existing for the sole purpose of producing Marvel films (doesn't hurt to have Disney money, either). WB, on the other hand, has a whole lot of different things they want to be able to do. Harry Potter might be done and they might be in need of new tentpoles, but at least Harry Potter was a guaranteed property that could bankroll other projects. So on that level, it makes as much sense to go straight for JL now and see how that unfolds, rather than throw a bunch of smaller titles at the wall and hope something sticks. This means that MOS--still an unknown entity at this stage--may be our only glimpse at the DC Universe before going full-bore with the team-up.

Upon reflection, I was hasty in my initial opinion on the MOS teaser. From an artistic standpoint, it's actually a very good trailer that holds some promise about where this Superman story could be headed. We may finally have a team that understands that Clark is every bit as important as Superman. And I like that there were two different trailers out there, featuring different (and opposing) voiceovers from Kal-El's dual father figures. But I stand by my criticism that, from a business perspective, there's little to get the casual fan excited about Supes. And the business side will impact the artistic side if no one is interested in MOS; Green Lantern's quality was only part of the reason it tanked. So we'd go into the theoretical JL film with just one (admittedly very important) element established. That leaves a lot of work to do for the others. 

Why not start with a World's Finest/Trinity film, featuring Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman? Structure the film around Diana as the audience-identification figure; we explore and learn about the larger DC Universe as she does. You then throw in Henry Cavill's established Superman, building on MOS's themes of heroism, etc. And everyone already knows Batman (he's the one who's better than all the others combined); Trinity could demonstrate how and why Batman gets to hang with superhumans. These three are the core of the League and letting them battle together paves the way for JL. It also gives WB time to launch another hero--or possibly rehabilitate Green Lantern--before delving into the larger team-up. This should also help stagger the schedule so that a relatively un-tested JL isn't sharing the summer with the Avengers sequel.

Just a thought, DC Entertainment.

Man Of Steel teaser

The Man of Steel teaser debuted with The Dark Knight Rises this weekend.  In a word: underwhelming.  I'm not sure what makes WB/DC think that Superman is still regarded on the level of, say, Batman or Harry Potter. 

A Superman trailer needs to demonstrate why the movie and the character are still worth people's time.  Superman: The Movie demonstrated over thirty years ago that a man could fly--we're not impressed by that anymore.  We need mouth-watering action and something we know will be new and different; flashing Zach Snyder's name partially fixes the first half of that equation and Christopher Nolan's partially fixes the second.  But they're going to need more.  They can't just throw up the "S" logo and get people to excitedly bounce in their plush and fluffy theater seats the way they once would (when theater seats were a lot less plush and fluffy).  Comic-Con got a lengthier look at MOS and I can understand why you'd show it there first, but doesn't it seem easier to give us the same thing you gave them?  Especially since it apparently blew the roof off the place? 

Here's hoping the first full trailer gives us that kind of feeling and not the "again?" kind of feeling. 

The Dark Knight Rises

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

The best and worst part of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is the compulsory ending.  Rather than flaming-out, as film franchises often will, The Dark Knight Rises brings this Batman to an unambiguous close, leaving no room for another director to come in and foul it all up.  The trouble is that any definitive end risks ill-will.  With all arcs wrapped and all possibilities for future characters, storylines, speculations, and explanations finished, the finality can make some people feel abandoned, even betrayed.  Some who legitimately don't care for the ending will struggle to reconcile the ending the writer/director wanted for his story with the ending they'd have preferred.  This tendency is more pronounced among comic book fans, who can find a reason to hyperventilate over the slightest deviation from canon.  And they frequently forget that their preferred vision of Batman is always safe in old books or TV shows, or movies or, for many of us, in the individual versions of the character we've formed in our heads from the odds and ends of different source materials (my own ideal version is an amalgam of elements from the Nolan films, the 90's Animated Series, and a few others). 

Unfortunately, many will not countenance an end for Batman--it seems so un-Batman to "finish" his mission, after all.  But within the more plausible "Nolanverse," it takes a deranged mind to think that not only can Bruce Wayne continue doing his job, but that he must.  A character we ostensibly love must not be allowed to end his ordeal, cannot become happy.  And, admittedly, TDKR tows that line for much of the run time, doling out one gut-punch after another, to a degree that often seems unbearable, especially on a first viewing.  Such is the nature of viewing a psychologically-thrashed vigilante in a more "realistic" atmosphere; Batman may be mortal, yet what mortal can ever be Batman?  As Alfred points out, there was probably never anything for Bruce in Gotham except pain--and he finds it.  And this was always Bruce's arc, not Batman's.  But as we learned last time around, the night is darkest just before the dawn, and without Batman's (and Gotham's) greatest challenge beating him down again and again, it would be hard to buy the idea that Bruce has earned the right to overcome it, to settle down, unburdened by his past, enjoy a clean slate, and finally be happy.  "Why do we fall, Bruce?" 

But where would the fun be if our imaginations weren't allowed to run wild?  After years of saying he would never bother with Robin, Nolan threw us for one final loop.  After building up to the reveal with an intriguing, understated performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, police officer John Blake avoids the nasty pitfall of such a reveal: seeming cheap.  By quietly throwing in elements from comic book Robins (Dick's police background/years of experience, Jason's angry orphan, and Tim's straight-up reverence for Batman), it allows Nolan and Gordon-Levitt to make the slow-burn, giving us something we may not necessarily have expected, but that we can instantly accept.  And because they didn't take the even cheaper route of giving us Blake in the Robin costume fighting along side the Dark Knight, it never takes away from what is fundamentally Bruce/Batman's story.  We'll never get a movie with Gordon-Levitt as Robin/Nightwing/Batman II/Azrael.  While that idea might be fun, I think it would be bound to disappoint in the long-run.  But it always works in our dreams. 

Given about sixty seconds' more screen time, Anne Hathaway might have stolen the show entirely.  Catwoman (referred to in TDKR only as Selina Kyle) probably shouldn't be a tough character to pull off.  But because of comics' (and comics films') trouble with women, she sometimes is.  Once again though, the Nolan crew's adept handling of the Batman mythos gives us something true to the source while also giving us a genuinely good character.  Take note, comic filmmakers: understanding a character's psychology and worldview is infinitely more important than getting the costume right.  TDKR showcases the banter with Batman (and Bruce) that--done well--is always entertaining, as well as the visceral fanboy thrill of watching the two fight side-by-side.  It never disappoints on those more superficial levels, but always keeps higher purposes in mind.  A quasi-Occupy-esque Robin Hood, Kyle is a force for--forgive me--chaotic good.  She sees through the elites' obsession with order and takes the piss out of a system designed--intentionally or not--to domineer those who aren't born/luck into the upper echelons of society, here meaning people like Bruce Wayne who, while doing genuine good, sometimes misses the forest for the trees in his crusade to end crime.  But upon seeing the effects of Bane's gross and manipulated populism, she understands that this, too, is wrong.  And while this might reek of some vacillating on class stratification, the trilogy has never totally sided even with its hero on right vs. wrong.  Mistakes can be and often are made even by those with the most noble of intentions.  Would that we could all have a device to wipe the slate clean. 

Tom Hardy takes on the hardest job in the film, trying to live up to Heath Ledger's lighting-in-a-bottle turn as Joker.  It's to Hardy's credit that he never attempts to top Batman's greatest villain, instead handing in a new rogue on his own terms.  Half-reprising his performance from Bronson, he delivers a terrifying and strangely charismatic Bane.  With most of his face obscured, Hardy communicates volumes through very expressive eyes, conveying a pain and tenderness that's easy to miss for the device on his head and his harsh, cold voice.  Oh yes, the voice.  Nolan clearly acquiesced to studio demands at least a little, adjusting Bane's voice where and when the film needed it; in a few scenes (the plane-hijacking, the first fight with Batman, and the storming of the Bastille Blackgate), where Bane has exposition to parcel out, the voice becomes clearer, taking on a sing-song quality--a bold choice on Hardy's part.  Regardless, concerns over the voice neglect who and what the character is: a victory of function over form, a utilitarian monster who may not be easily understood but whose blunt brutality and driving force of will is unmistakable.  Not unlike another masked man who rose from hell to free Gotham from its torment, each in his own way. 

Among other praiseworthy elements: Hans Zimmer's finest work of the Batman movies ("Imagine the Fire" is my new go-to track at the gym).  Talia's death mimicking that of her father (Marion Cotilard lies to us so as not to hurt us).  The whole concept of that prison in the pit.  A really good (small) story for Alfred; the life of the stoic is not always a rewarding one and I've always loved the the idea of Alfred as a tragically loyal enabler to Bruce's psychoses.  And Jonathan Crane returns! 

The last few minutes of the movie are nothing short of spectacular and though I haven't shied away from spoilers here, I can't do them any justice by describing them.  Those minutes, more than any other part of the trilogy, will--and probably already have in come corners of the internet--prove divisive among fans for several years to come.  But, as previously discussed, no ending could possibly have satisfied the entirety of the Bat-fanbase.  And Nolan should never have been forced to do so.  What he demonstrated with this trilogy was that nothing trumps a solid vision and a willingness to tinker with the letter of the material, but never the spirit.  Not all Gothamites embrace Batman as their savior and not all Bat-fans are through-and-through admirers of Nolan.  That's okay.  Nonetheless: when a man with a mission is given the tools to see it through, he creates his own mandate.  When allowed to do his job the way he sees fit, he'll work wonders never thought possible.  And despite all the mistakes that came before, a man shows what can be done when he make the concerted effort to pull himself--and others--up, out of the pit.  Sometimes, a man rises. 

Grade: A 

The Amazing Spider-Man

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.  

It's not fair to compare a film from 2012 to an unrelated set of films that wrapped in 2006.  But that's more or less the way with comic book movies and probably doubly-so in this case, since The Amazing Spider-Man has rebooted the whole Spidey franchise before most of the world had the taste of Spider-Man 3 out of its collective mouth.  And, if anything, ASM can only stand to benefit from the comparison. 

First, a word about the Sam Raimi trilogy: poorly-aged (that's a hyphenated word and I'm counting it as one).  Like most of the world, I really dug the first two films.  On more recent watches, however, the pacing slows, the character motivations seem muddled, and the formerly charming eye-rolling cheesiness is... not so charming.  It doesn't help that we've since had Chris Nolan's Batman series and the Avengers franchise, films that strive not only to be good comic book movies, but good movies period.  And so while Sony's desire to reboot the whole thing is more than a little transparent (see here and here for the mess that is the film rights to Marvel characters), going back to square one was probably for the best. 

Among the more promising aspects of the early ASM trailers was that Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker/Spider-Man seemed actually, well, likable.  That's huge for a character whose biggest selling point has always been relateablity, something Tobey Maguire never quite managed in the role.  And the trailers did not lie.  Garfield almost-perfectly captures Parker's funny and sympathetic qualities, giving us a Spider-Man we want to root for.  That's the advantage of hiring a genuine fan of the character, I suppose.

About as good was Emma Stone's Gwen Stacy.  If comparing Garfield to Maguire was unfair, then comparing one actress to another actress in a different role is certainly unfair.  But screw it.  Stone kicks the hell out of Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane.  It's amazing what you can accomplish with a female lead when she's not selfish, overly-deified, and used for purposes beyond the distressed-damsel.  I don't know if producers plan to "Gwen Stacy" Gwen Stacy, but it would almost be a shame if they did, wasting one of the better love interests a comic book film has ever seen (it's a close competition with Hayley Atwell from Captain America: The First Avenger). 

Likable leads, however, are only half the equation.  It's at this point that the comparison to the previous films both helps and hurts ASM.  Spider-Man's origin story is one of the most iconic among superheroes, so I can understand the desire to rehash it better than I can with most other heroes.  And ASM does it much better than Raimi's Spider-Man did, with or without Macho Man Randy Savage (may he rest in peace), in large part because it doesn't fall victim to the pacing issues of that film: making Peter's trip to the location of the accident about more than getting bitten, getting the bite over with, letting his powers manifest quickly.  But even though it was moving faster, I was always aware that I had seen Peter do all this previously.  This problem continued, up through Uncle Ben's speeches on responsibility and Peter's realizations that being a superhero has its own built-in pitfalls.  Even the Peter's parents angle that was supposed to distinguish ASM was never really exploited (why shoot your load now, when there are sequels that need material?).  It felt too soon to see Spidey's beginning retold again and while that's not entirely the fault of the filmmakers, it does hurt. 

The villain, at least, should've been able to provide a marked contrast, but sadly never quite gets there.  Rhys Ifans' Curt Conners/The Lizard calls back to the motivational issues of Dr. Octopus and Sandman in the previous series.  He starts out typical scientist-doomed-by-his-creation, with a dash of big business forcing things that should never be, and that works for a while.  But the next thing we know Conners is thoroughly crazy (which we know because he's hearing voices, yes, just like Norman Osborne in Rami's first Spider-Man), which is a great excuse for Ifans to put on his evil-guy face; not that Ifans doesn't do that well--he handles the material like a champ--there's just not a lot for him to work with.  It would be one thing for Conners' transformation to make him think differently and understand that there could be something (good and ill) in his work that he had never realized.  I might even accept an evangelist/drug addict kind of angle, where he determines that everyone should experience the same Lizardy high he gets.  But when he's suddenly sympathetic and remorseful again at the end--after he's been cured, conveniently--his whole arc rings hollow. 

Sony is now promising a trilogy (stunning, right?).  The good news is that they have a decent base to build on and there's a lot in Spidey's world left to explore.  The bad news is that they only have the base and there's a lot in Spidey's world left to explore.  And while I think this crew has the skill to go places the last crew never could, they have some problems to sort out as they prepare to compete in an ever-improving field of comic book films. 

Grade: B-

How You Do a Justice League Movie

Because it's the sort of thing I think about when my wife is out of town, I was musing over the potential Justice League film that I've talked about some previously.  The project is almost entirely speculation, of course, even on the part of Warner Bros.  But given that they have about 1.4 billion reasons in favor, it's hard to imagine they won't give this a serious shot.  And, if it's going to happen, I'd prefer WB to not rush it for the sake of money.  If there's anything to be learned from what Marvel did--and what Christopher Nolan is currently doing for WB--it's that when you put time, heart, and soul into the work and focus on making the best, most entertaining film you can, the audiences will come.  And when you try to just put something out there for the sake of doing it, well... WB/DC Comics already know something about that. 

There was the TV pilot they did in the late '90s--you can watch the whole thing on YouTube.  Seriously, see how long you can make it.  It's hard to believe that this was just 3-4 years before X-Men and Spider-Man ignited the superhero movie era, after which time WB appeared ready to press their luck again, with an eventually-aborted venture titled Justice League: Mortal.  Never heard of Justice League: Mortal?  Lucky you.

But with Avengers steamrolling box office records, WB will gladly forget all that came before, and can hopefully learn from those missteps.  Of course, there will inevitably be accusations of copycatting Marvel, but a good result can and will overwhelm those criticisms (however valid they may be).  To combat the pitfalls of the kind of rank opportunism WB/DC could embrace, it needs to do a JL movie as organically as possible, with the same kind of care Marvel took, using its own formidable cast of characters (and in some ways, more formidable, the League featuring DC's finest, while Avengers left out the likes of Spider-Man and Wolverine, who were properties of other studios).  Those characters just need to be established and, in some cases, re-established.  So, at the risk of invoking the cruel wrath of the fan-fiction gods, here's how I would propose setting up a Justice League film (not that WB has ever asked me, regardless how many angry letters I write them): 

Next year's Man of Steel is the key.  Though director Zach Snyder and producer Christopher Nolan have said that this version of Superman exists on his own terms (Nolan has said similar about his Batman, but more on that later), WB won't let something as trivial as a couple of statements from the creative heads stop them--for better or worse and we're focusing on better here.  Unless MOS is an out-and-out failure at the box office, it will be the first step toward the larger movie universe and that's fine; unlike Batman, any version of Superman is perfectly compatible with the League--and any JL franchise would merely inherit the tone Snyder sets in MOS.  And so long as WB doesn't push Snyder to do things he's not comfortable doing, I don't predict any significant protest from him.  If the studio senses good hype from the set, they could recommend something like the post-credit scene in Iron Man (which would've led to nothing if that film had flopped).  A throwaway line about the discovery of an island of amazons back in the '40s, or a six-foot bat flying over Gotham is all you'd need and you can run with that later.  Supes has his own problems, of course; issues of relateability and relevance in a stranger, harsher, more complex world that seems to have passed by the Big Blue Boy Scout.  But that's Snyder's problem.  If he can't address those issues, it's back to the drawing board and JL itself could get lost in the redrawing.  But if Snyder can make the character relevant and make people want Superman again, we'll have an Iron Man effect, where a throwaway scene is seized upon and driven full speed to a new franchise, turning Henry Cavill into this universe's--this generation's--Superman. 

Wonder Woman has long always created problems for writers and fans alike.  From her creation as a psychologist's outlet for BDSM fantasies, to her days as a kung-fu expert, to heated discussions about leg-wear, she's never seemed to break out as she should.  As part of a group (ala Kingdom Come), she works fantastically, allowing writers to emphasize her fighting abilities and leadership skills, while downplaying her often wooden, unapproachable nature.  But as one of DC's Big Three, she deserves her own spotlight and, frankly, if they can't do her right, they shouldn't be bothering with the more problematic members of the League at all.  Something Joss Whedon ran into while working on his Wonder Woman script was that Diana simultaneously has too much mythology and too little.  A lot has to be done to set up Themyscira and the amazon race and all the little things that make up Wonder Woman (bracelets, lasso, lazy stabs at a token feminism, etc.), while separating her from a public awareness that's stagnated since the 70's TV show, and hasn't been allowed to stretch and grow much since.  And yet, how many Wonder Woman villains can you name?  Exactly.  Whedon's script, along with a couple of others, plopped her into WWII, pitting her against the Nazis.  An intriguing conceit, but Captain America: First Avenger kind of took that novelty for its own.  I recommend taking a cue from Brian Azzarello's current run on the Wonder Woman book and playing up her roots as part of Greek myth: illegitimate daughter of Zeus and straight-up demi-god.  The Greek pantheon is relatively accessible to most audiences and can still provide a draw of sorts.  And once Greek Gods are shown to be a thing, superheros seem pretty natural.  And vice versa.  Yes, Thor already covered some of this territory (one more reason DC should've been working on this years ago), but by making Diana interact with and protect denizens of Earth from her crueler cousins, she becomes a protector of Earth, refusing to join in the gods' gleeful tormenting of humankind or stand by indifferently, as the amazons often will.  That's what makes her a hero, every bit as much as (and sometimes more than) Superman's gentle-heartedness and Batman's money force of will.  And as a hero, she should get to wear pants. 

Green Lantern is likely out.  That is, Ryan Reynolds' Green Lantern is likely out.  In fact, Hal Jordan may be out altogether.  But, if some of that famous Film Studio Selective Memory can be harnessed for the power of good, we might get to have our cake and eat it too.  We can retain the mythology established by the Green Lantern film, because that was one of the few things the movie did reasonably well (that and Mark Strong's Sinestro, which we can also keep).  But now we'll have John Stewart as the Green Lantern of Earth, a changing of the guard that can be explained in a scene or two.  Stoic enough not to whine and moan about his responsibilities--as Reynolds' Jordan was wont to do--but with enough distrust of authority to give him an edge that most Lanterns lack, Stewart can deliver the intrigue and excitement of the space opera story that Green Lantern failed to give us.  Depending on how much time and money WB is willing to invest, they could even give Stewart a solo movie to establish his credentials, but given the current baggage of that franchise, it might be easier to let him establish his footing in JL first.  If Stewart takes off with audiences, he can even be reunited with Hal Jordan in a post-JL Green Lantern movie, hopefully with a better result. 

Perhaps even more than Green Lantern, the cool-factor of The Flash's powers is easily overshadowed by how hard they are to explain without sounding stupid.  For non-comics fans: he basically manipulates the laws of physics.  Using that, one can do a Dr. Manhattan-esque morality play, examining the life and psychological state of a man who can move fast enough to alter history and who's own powers sometimes threaten to obliterate him.  At least, that's the route I'd take.  Not all characters will require a solo movie first.  As with John Stewart, Barry Allen (I'm open to arguments for Wally West), may need to wait and see what kind of reaction he gets in JL.  If the reaction to Avengers' Hulk (featuring a new actor in the role, as a follow-up to a movie that relatively few people saw) is any indication, there's something to be said for not forcing too many of these characters down audiences' throats.  Some will need to be established on their own terms, but guys like Flash can wait for a testing-of-the-waters, so to speak.  If it works, then WB's stumbled into a new franchise. 

Martian Manhunter is out.  I know there are J'onn J'onzz fans out there, but in a cast already full of aliens and demi-gods, a green dude in a stupid costume (even by superhero standards) with powers all-too similar to Superman's might be a bit more than WB is willing to risk.  And I don't blame them (remember how well aliens worked for them in Green Lantern?).  Maybe for a sequel.  For now, there are other options...

Yes, Geoff Johns turned around common conceptions about Aquaman in a humorous way with the New 52 reboot.  And yes, Aquaman looks great when Alex Ross draws him like this.  But preaching to the fan-boy choir (made up of fans and people who want to be fans) and Alex Ross (who could paint a dry, pale booger hanging from someone's nose and it would be tempting to make a movie about said booger) aren't going to be enough to convince the everyday public that he's useful beyond the ocean and is anything other a joke who talks to fish.  The Super Friends created much turmoil and its legacy remains painful to many.  Those injustices will be healed in time.  However, as with J'onzz, let's not bite off more than we can chew.  He's out. 

Green Arrow's fate will depend on the reception of his new CW show.  Similar to Superman's situation in MOS, if Arrow doesn't catch on, we move on and forget all about Ollie Queen in this universe (for now).  But if it does become even a Smallville-level hit, then why waste an established and moderately popular character?  Of course, that's a lot of "ifs."  The guy playing Queen is Stephen Amell and I'm not familiar with anyone else involved either.  Not that that's a death sentence, but it's probably not best to rely on the success of someone who makes mainstream fans say: 1, "so, he's like Robin Hood?" (best case scenario), 2, "so, like Batman but not Batman?" (medium scenario) or 3, "so, like that guy in Avengers?" (worst case scenario).  He's probably out.

That leaves one last best choice.  When DC launched the New 52, they replaced J'onzz's role in the League with Cyborg, recently promoted from Teen Titans.  Cyborg's greatest advantages tie into his weaknesses: He's not very well-known, but he also doesn't come with the baggage that some of these characters do; he's almost a clean slate with which a writer/director could create banal crap, but could also write a new classic character.  Cyborg would also be a good in for the audience.  In a cast of gods and aliens, a relateable character--like a teenage-kid that's suffered a traumatic accident and come out of it a superhero--is a necessary and easily forgettable element.  Add to that what could be a unique look (there a thousand places this translation to screen could go wrong, but that caveat that applies to every paragraph in this post) and the League may have the grounding it often desperately needs.  Yes, grounding, from a character named "Cyborg"--moving on. 

What's that?  You say I've forgotten Batman?  Well, I haven't.  And fuck you for assuming I ever would.  The League needs Batman, both for in-story reasons (Bruce Wayne's finances, Batman's coordination skills) and to draw interest (people kinda like Batman).  However, he's sometimes had trouble proving that he fits into the League.  And Nolan's films haven't helped that image with their "de-powered" Dark Knight.  Someone who has that much trouble defeating Joker (and being forced to tarnish a part of himself in the process) probably shouldn't be going into battle against Darkseid.  But Nolan's franchise will be done after this summer, at which point WB will start anew.  And I have to think that they will do it with an eye toward JL.  While my reasoning on this will require a blog post unto itself (which I may well do after The Dark Knight Rises), I count this is as a good thing.  Nolan has given us a better series of films than Batman fans ever had a right to hope for.  Let's leave them be and try something different.  We survived Batman & Robin--we can survive anything.  Start the new franchise with Batman well-established in Gotham and confronting a slightly more fantastical plot (think the old Animated Series, which meshed gritty street drama with more than a few outlandish elements).  Suddenly it doesn't look quite so funny when Superman appears, floating above one of Batman's rooftop brooding sessions.  And with Batman League-ready, the sequel writes itself with a Tower of Babel story, demonstrating why he belongs in the group (albeit in the scariest way possible).

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  There's still the join-up story to consider...

Another time.