6 posts tagged “christopher nolan”
Picking the gristle of the Fantastic Four debacle from his teeth is Fox studio exec Tom Rothman. And by all reports it’s his repeated interference in the production of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ that has resulted in this mediocrity.
Look at the title. It’s bad enough they’re going down the now wizened route of origin story, one that disperses the final wisps of mystery and punctures resulting tension, but this title babies an audience of presumed idiots. Those who have already forgotten this movie is the result of a successful franchise.
What’s worse, one of the worst flaws of this film rests on dumb irony. Trying to tie it to current continuity and give it more resonance they’ve muddied the waters further with adamantium bullets that turn Logan’s amnesia into goofy contrivance, a young Cyclops and, inexplicably, new character Emma Frost, a mutant that we have yet to see again.
Fox’s lack of faith in the comic material they have in front of them seems baffling when you consider Warner Bros. and Christopher Nolan’s artistic freedom and faith in Batman’s history or Marvel striking off on their own with ‘Iron Man’ and set to produce a connected movie universe.
Instead of those blockbusters, Fox gets a complete mess. Striking an uneven tone right from the start, all the epic potential from the trailers is dumped into the opening credits: a vigorous war montage that suggests exciting action, bold cinematography and a ferocious pace.
Why then are we instead introduced to Team X, supposedly a black ops unit and yet they walk right up to a mission objective looking like a bunch of narked-off strippers. Why go for subterfuge when a gay wisecrack in a lift would be far more apropos. And it’s like this for the rest of the movie: a cinematic scrap between studio-approved banality and fleeting moments of drama.
There’s no doubting Jackman’s presence, and Wolverine is one of, hopefully, many defining roles for the actor. Unfortunately he’s hamstrung by a script that spreads all of his character’s facets amongst the supporting cast. Whether it’s the motormouth merc Wade Wilson (Ryan Wilson, reprising his Hannibal King routine), later the mutant menagerie Deadpool, the tragic Bolt (Dominic Monaghan, probably the best thing in the movie) or the mysterious Gambit (Taylor Kitsch), each of them evince more humour, emotion and wolfish charm than Jackman’s Logan.
Even Liev Schreiber (a massive improvement on the previous actor), playing villain Sabretooth, has more bite and animalistic energy, leaving Jackman to pull off ferocious poses that look rather absurd surrounded by this puff piece. In fact, rather than elevate the character, it’s a regression, declawing the rebel with dubious morals and turning him into little more than Superman in a bad leather jacket.
The uneven tone aside, the script is a mess of moral platitudes, perfunctory twists, and an all too familiar redemption theme as Logan fights to prove he is not the animal a better film would have willingly indulged and still succeeded in ensuring the audience’s sympathies. Instead of rounded characters, it’s a who’s who of mutant kind that rather than sating the fans and thrilling the audience, instead, annoys and confuses them both equally.
The defining moment, the torturous baptism of liquid adamantium that transforms Logan into Wolverine, is less excoriating and more a disappointing signal of the film’s turn. Rather than let our hero suffer for a moment in the wilds, we’re inflicted with a moment of goofy comedy as an old couple spots him streaking across their ranch.
In between moments of slapstick as Logan examines his new metal claws and destroys a bathroom, sage advice is imparted by the wise old man. Fortunately he is able to gift that familiar leather jacket before the couple is cut to pieces by one of Logan’s pursuers.
While the climax is grounded in the reality of the Three Mile Island meltdown, the location for the mutant equivalent of Guantanomo Bay, it’s undercut by the hysterical comic book destruction wreaked by the characters. It’s this strange back and forth in the script, this schizophrenic setting up and then breaking down of logic that runs through the whole film and truly scuppers the movie.
In fact, when a small moment involving Monaghan’s Bolt early in the film expresses more sad humanity than all the heroic posturing in the climax, you realise this movie was doomed from the start.
It’s awards season and as good a time as any to take a look back over the releases of 2008 and then peek into the future at the coming movies of 2009.
I’ll quickly preface this by saying that unlike most movie audiences, the burden of expectation on critics and movie buffs is equivalent to Atlas with a full bladder and jock itch during mosquito season. Thanks to the trailers, TV spots, script reviews, production art, set photos, test screening reviews, we’ve seen 60% of the movie before its hit the cinema and as you’d expect it almost never matches the one you’ve got playing in your head.
A Knight to Remember….
What a shock then that not only was 2008 an upturn in movies, I’d be surprised if it didn’t warm the hearts of even the most inveterate cynic.
To really credit the comic book film as a genre, it reached its apotheosis this year, but most importantly, in the form of Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Dark Knight’, received much deserved critical acclaim. Building on the promise of the first film, ‘Batman Begins’, that breathed new life into the stale superheroics of the once great ‘X-Men’ and ‘Spiderman’ franchises, Nolan and Warner Bros brought an edgier crime noir feel to the next in the series. Immersing us in a crafty marketing campaign and waking us to the idea of a comic villain, in the form of Heath Ledger’s menacing Joker, snagging Award nominations.
If ‘The Dark Knight’ was the dark, scuffed side of this cinematic coin, John Favreau’s ‘Iron Man’ was the light, irresistibly bright reverse. Coming second only to Bats as the biggest US grossing film of 2008 and giving us yet another wonderfully charismatic performance, this time from the now redeemed actor, Robert Downey Jr.- matched only by the one he gave in ‘Tropic Thunder’.
While some of the other movies in the genre didn’t do quite so well filling the studio coffers, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ at the very least, realised the potential of a 9ft tall Emerald powerhouse that uses cars for sparring practice and puts out a Chinook engine fire with some mild applause. Similarly, while not breaking big at the box office, ‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army’ surpassed its predecessor for breadth of imagination and wit.
I could go on to discuss the relative merits of Angelina Jolie’s tattoos in the absurdly enjoyable ‘Wanted’, the disappointment of ‘Indiana Jones and the Empty Skull’ and ‘Hancock’ or the ridiculously violent fun of Rambo’s return, but besides all that, the other great thing about 2008, is that while the Oscars have become, and almost certainly always will be, a soulless, glad-handing vacuum of a personality contest, this time around we have a raft of movies to actually cheer for.
A number have been critiqued on this very site, and whatever your thoughts on ‘Milk’, ‘The Wrestler’, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’, ‘Frost/Nixon’ and ‘Benjamin Button’, you couldn’t call them boring. Each one, a burst of diversity, accomplishment and entertainment. Something that we now have to cross our fingers will be repeated as we move ever further into 2009.
Watchmen will be the movie of the year……
Considering I’ve discussed the success of the superhero in such depth above, it seems necessary now to tear it apart with fine textual scalpels.
Not that I have much work to do as coming in March (and that seems a sure thing now, as I’ll explain in a moment) we have Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon’s ‘Watchmen’. A seminal masterwork of the comic medium, as deconstruction of the superhero, a movie version has been gestating for years and recently hit what can only be described as a legal clusterfuck as the production studio Warner Bros came under fire from Fox over rights issues.
I’d very much like to bore you to tears with an overview of what will probably go down as a neat bit of publicity (and quite frankly, I can’t think of a movie more deserving of it) suffice it to say, a suit was filed, a court date booked and thankfully, after much legal wrangling and expensive lunches later, we have a positive result.
In short, ‘Watchmen’ will be the movie of the year. If everything onscreen matches the quality of the stuff drip-fed from the production over the past couple of years, this will be both an astonishing creative accomplishment, vindication for the studio after they bravely took on a property no-one wanted to touch, but most importantly, a movie that combines the depth of thought of a literary novel with the lavish production values of a Golden Age epic.
Set in an alternate America where superheroes have been outlawed and political tensions with Russia have set the Doomsday Clock at 5mins to Midnight, the uncompromising vigilante Rorschach brings together his former teammates over the savage murder of a former colleague, the resulting investigation revealing well kept secrets that could have a catastrophic effect on our world. Alternatively you could call this a movie about a luminous blue penis, attached to an atomic God, but that’s kind of the point. The movie’s got something for everyone. Check it out over at:
http://watchmenmovie.warnerbros.com/
and
http://rss.warnerbros.com/watchmen/
and for the ultimate Watchmen resource, check out this site:
http://www.watchmencomicmovie.com/
Terminate the Transformers? Make it so…..
After gushing for far too long over that movie, I’ll get right into the next couple of picks, sidestepping, with a neat dismissal, another big movie hitting in June. Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen’ or ‘Transformer 2: Because You Mugs Paid For the Last One’ will hopefully fail big time in the action department, bringing an end to this rape of our respective childhoods. It’s the only way this won’t drag millions into the cinemas to see another round of shallow characterisation, lame jokes, and non-existent story. Just because it vaguely resembles the vehicle/robot couplings we zoomed across our living room floors as kids doesn’t make it Transformers. Avoid.
Instead, get your fix of hyperactive camerawork, glossy visuals and gung ho patriotism from the far less obnoxious, though dumber sounding McG and ‘Terminator: Salvation’ (subtitles are for morons). Not only is this a continuation of one of the most beloved science fiction franchises of all time. Not only does this have Batman himself, Christian Bale, as one of the most recognisable names in cinema. Get this; it also has a load of new, and Transformer-resembling, machines for you to rush out to the shops and buy in toy form on the movie’s release. The footage looks promising too, albeit with a rather unnecessary reprisal of the classic line, ‘Come with me if you want to live’, voiced by what looks like a prepubescent (Anton Yelchin) playing the legendary, Kyle Reese.
Jumping from Kyle Reese to yet another beloved genre character, Mr Yelchin is also playing the vowel mangling security officer Chekov in J.J. Abrams reboot of the Star Trek franchise in May. Long overdue would be the best way to describe this, and based on the trailer, that both grounds the story and then sends it rocketing into a new frontier, it looks set to appeal to both old and new fans alike. There’s also that cameo that’s sure to send the partisans into paroxysms of geekgasms.
Sam Worthington, another face from ‘Terminator: Salvation’, stars in the new James Cameron epic out in December. The sci-fi ‘Avatar’ sees him in the lead role as a paraplegic marine forced into a mission of exploration and exploitation on an alien world. Looking set to push the boundaries of cinema far beyond anything we’ve seen before, it’s sure to be a breathtaking mix of pioneering 3-D action and memorable characters. A ‘Blade Runner’ for the new Millennium?
From Wizards to Weepies…..
Powering down for just the sake of word count rather than quality, we have a raft of other releases to pique your interest.
After being pushed back from its usual Autumn slot, the next entry in the Harry Potter series, the Half Blood Prince, is released in July, and based on the almost exponential growth in both maturity, level of performance and effects work; this too will prove to be a smash hit.
Two films that might never have hit the cinemas: ‘The Wolf Man’, the reimagining of the Lon Chaney classic (November) and the perennial childhood favourite, ’Where the Wild Things Are’ (December). The former due to a director walk-out over creative differences. The latter down to bizarre studio pressures. Fan favourites, it looks like both will do their source material proud.
Moving into edgier genre territory we have Vampire myth revision in the shape of already cult Swedish horror, ‘Let the Right One In’ (April) and the surprise return of Quentin Tarantino (surprising only because he seems more interested in collecting projects than actually filming them) with the knowingly misspelled WWII Men on a Mission flick ‘Inglourious Basterds’ (August).
With trepidation I include ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’, slashing through cinemas in May. While it has the talented Gavin Hood at the helm, it has had a very troubled production history, including reports of the infamous Fox Studio head, Tom Rothman, getting involved. And while the recent trailer shows some potential, it looks a little too bargain basement. Adamantium claws crossed for this one.
Other than that, it’s a burst of bare knuckle boxing sleuthing, as Robert Downey Jr. returns to this preview in Guy Ritchie’s, no doubt, cockneyfied ‘Sherlock Holmes’ (November); a no doubt heartbreaking take on loss in Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s excellent ‘The Lovely Bones’ and finally the Heath Ledger’s last film, ‘The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus’ (TBC). Directed by the legendary Terry Gilliam, it also stars Verne Troyer so Big Brother fans are catered for. In fact, if there’s not a movie for everyone this year, I’ll eat Michael Bay’s hat.
Please note that some of these release dates are TBC in the UK and subject to change.
All over Empire Online apparently. Hilarious. Anyway, looks like the web version of Empire magazine is going to have a crystal, spanking, brand new, all exclusive photo of the Joker from The Dark Knight very soon. So soon, you can see a glimpse here, as three playing cards that obscure the full image have already burned away to reveal a pair of shoes, classy socks and the purple troosers we know and love. Keep a look out as more and more cards will disappear until the Joker in all his glory is finally displayed.
What next? Oh yes, a bloody full trailer maybe?
Such a tenuous, but the rise of viral sites in the cinematic community continues with this interesting selection for Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Check them out here at Joblo.com
Some of them make sense with the nice clash between the Gotham Times and the Joker's vandalised version while others, Remembering Gina, offer up more questions than they provide. Like any good viral should.
As they're calling it. And also, do my powers of perception I've come to the conclusion, that, rather than it being a separate entity it's simply the result of the Tumbler (Bats' previous mode of transport) exploding...or possibly appearing to explode.
After that clever use of viral marketing gave us the first look at the new Joker we'll be seeing in The Dark Knight, two more photos have popped up on the net, both clearly attached to the production. Looks like the Joker won't just be exploding in all his manic pasty faced, green bouffoned glory, instead we'll get betting a slow progression from mask wearing, gun toting hood to the full glory of slit grinned clown later on in the film. I imagine just like with Burton's film Batman will have a hand in this transformation. It makes sense in terms of their connection and will have even bigger impact when I'm sure Harvey Dent is turned into Two Face by the Joker's acid projectile.
In further news looks like Chris Nolan (the director, as if you didn't know) 'is filming four of the big action sequences in The Dark Knight with the Imax 70mm cameras, including the introduction of the Joker.' This is fantastic news for cineastes and as you can see from the stills, the look of the film is still just as powerful as the original.
Check this link for AICN news and here for where the story broke.
Here are the photos. Not completely clear in the first pic who the Joker is; many believe it's the shooter in the background:
