Summer is just around the corner,
which means there are sure to be a whole new batch of superhero films for
American audiences to watch with troughs of popcorn and milk duds in their
hands. We will have the second sequel in the Iron Man franchise, for the first time with a director other than
Jon Favreau. Zack Snyder will also bring us a new vision of Superman with Man of Steel, which was also helped
along with writer and producer Christopher Nolan. Wolverine returns to the
screen again as well, this time traveling to Japan. It is difficult to remember
what a summer was like without superhero films, which is strange considering
how recently the genre became so popular.
When superheroes first arrived in
American culture with the prototypal emergence of Superman in 1938, they
quickly became a social role as a moral beacon to give hope and guidance
during difficult times, especially war. Comic book superheroes were often born
out of war, including Iron Man, who became a superhero through his experience
in the Vietnam War when he emerged in 1963. With this being the case it would
seem that there would have emerged new or updated superheroes recently, but the
success of the onslaught of comic book films on screen has mostly seemed a way
for studios to cash in on a popular commodity.
Superhero movies seem to struggle
most when they aren’t helping anyone, because after all, isn’t that what a
superhero is supposed to do? The recent past has seen its fair share of these
films, and an increasing number fail to appease the crowds or the critics,
seemingly most often when the fight is not clear. Daredevil was a complicated comic-book world where there were more
odds of encountering another superhero or villain on the street as you would a
normal citizen, Elektra became even
more muddled with plot and the superhero’s intentions, Ang Lee’s Hulk had an escaping creature never
given an opportunity to be selflessly heroic, and The Ghost Rider was about a man that stopped one criminal and spent
the rest of the film fighting otherworldly creatures in a human-barren city.
Only recently have there been themes relevant to our tumultuous times which
seem fitting for a superhero film. Perhaps this is why all of the films on my
desert island list were made after 2001.
5. Spider-Man 2 (2004)
Spider-Man was
one of the first superhero franchises to become a blockbuster success and set
the standard for so many others to follow. Not only was it a major financial
success, which insures sequels and copycats in Hollywood, but it did so with an interesting
choice for a director. Sam Raimi is best known for his contribution into the
horror genre, but his unique style proved perfect for the telling of this
beloved comic book story. If it weren’t for this trilogy which began in 2002,
Christopher Nolan may not have been chosen for the Batman franchise, and it is
likely Jon Favreau would not have directed Iron
Man nor Joss Whedon The Avengers.
Spider-Man was
one of the first greats, though we have come full circle again and ten years
later another Spider-Man franchise
has begun. Spider-Man 2 continues my
theory that the second film in a franchise is always the best film in the
series. Godfather 2 is better than
the first, Empire Strikes Back is
better than Star Wars and Sam Raimi’s
follow-up film has the best storyline and special effects of the three. The
romantic storyline also comes full circle in this one, leaving little but
disappointment for the remaining third film in the Raimi trilogy.
4. Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
Guillermo del Toro, who also directed
Hellboy but is probably best known
for Pan’s Labyrinth, seems to have
been given more freedom in making his Hellboy
sequel after his recent success, and the result was breathtaking and exciting. The
Mexican director’s talent in creating a magical and mystical world rival that
of Peter Jackson, George Lucas and the few others that have once reigned the
science fiction/fantasy world with a little bit of imagination and dedication.
There is no denying that del Toro’s style is uniquely his own, with creatures
that seem familiar to the designs he created for Pan’s Labyrinth, a very different kind of fantasy, but he also
manages to try a few new things such as a fantastic war done only with
puppet-like figures. The sequence in the Troll Market alone is a fantastic and
imaginative world that immediately reminded me of the first time I saw Star
Wars. In other words, ignore the fact that this is a sequel. If you haven’t
seen the first film, don’t worry about it, but whatever you do, don’t miss this
one.
The absurdity
about this brilliant sequel was the fact that it was very nearly made when Sony
decided to no longer fund Revolution Studios, which had made the first film,
selling the rights away to Universal. With as many sequels as there are that
don’t have the director’s dedication, and considering del Toro’s turning away
the offers to direct I Am Legend, One
Missed Call, and the forthcoming Halo
and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood
Prince, it is amazing that Sony didn’t realize what it was giving away.
Fans of del Toro can look forward to another imaginative blockbuster from him
this summer with Pacific
Rim.
3. Iron Man (2008)
Much of the
buzz for Iron Man surrounded Robert Downey Jr., an unlikely but extremely
successful casting choice that looks likely to revive the veteran actor’s
career just as Pirates of the Caribbean did
for Johnny Depp. Downey
stars as Tony Stark, the son and heir of a weapons manufacturing company on the
cutting edge of supplying new weapons that are becoming more and more distanced
from the battlefield. Stark is a technical genius reaping in all of the
financial gain from creating more and more deadly weapons, until he is taken by
a terrorist cell while in Afghanistan
showing Jericho.
After years of profiting from war, Stark is forced to witness it first-hand,
afterwards leaving him a changed man in more ways than one.
He awakes to find that a magnet is
placed in his chest, pulling the shrapnel away from his heart as the only means
of keeping him alive, but this physical change is no less significant than the
emotional change which has occurred in Stark after witnessing war. Stark
finally sees the damage he has caused with his inventions, and as if
inter-connected, coinciding with Stark seeming to grow a heart is the physical
representation of an invention in the center of his chest that is keeping him
alive.
Iron Man seems to be most impressive
when considering the elements that were most unexpected. Downey Jr. is a prime
example, beating out Tom Cruise and Nicolas Cage for the role, as is director
Jon Favreau. Favreau has consistently as a director been able to combine things
from the past with the relevance of today, and Iron Man is only the most recent proof of this. Favreau’s
theatrical film debut was Made (2001),
an independent comedy about incompetent men hired by a mobster in California to take a trip to New York. Made was followed by Elf (2003), a film that combines all of
the nostalgia of classic holiday entertainment (singing, stop-animation
characters in the North Pole, and continuing with family entertainment there
was the science-fiction adventure Zathura(2005),
which was adapted from the children’s book by Chris Van Allsburg. Iron Man
successfully brings Iron Man into modern day problems and issues, which were
handled and discussed in a responsible manner without sacrificing the spectacle
everyone has come to expect of superhero films.
2. The Dark Knight (2008)
I was one of
the few people unimpressed with Batman
Begins. I enjoyed it, but having been an avid fan of Christopher Nolan’s
filmography, it seemed to contain less of the complexity that I had come to
expect from the filmmaker. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but there was
no height that the follow-up film could not match in my expectations. Of the
three films in Nolan’s trilogy, this one seems to me to have the most complete
themes and concepts, paired with the coolest action and most impressive
performance in the series.
I knew from
the moment that Heath Ledger was announced dead that he was going to win an
Oscar, despite the fact that The Dark
Knight had not been released yet and the award ceremony was literally a
year away. It was clear that his performance as the Joker would be the
highlight of film, but somehow it doesn’t overshadow the film as much as
elevate it to greatness that the franchise could never reach again.
1. Watchmen (2009)
Director Zack
Snyder was at a high point after the phenomenal
success of 300, the epic graphic
comic adaptation which was violently rated R. This secured enough credibility
for Snyder to be allowed to adapt another violent graphic novel; one which was
often said to be the greatest of the graphic novels as well as completely
unfilmable. This was a script passed on by so many people because of the
violent content, everyone but the fans seemed surprised when the anticipation
began to build. There were lawsuits, the release was delayed, and ultimately
the film probably made less money than everyone had anticipated. Part of the
problem was the length at 2 ½ hours. Though it did not feel long while
watching, fewer shows could be booked in most theaters and anyone aware of the
length might opt for something less time consuming. Despite some excellent
reviews, Watchmen was not seen by as
many as anticipated.
The story involves a group of retired (or
forced underground) superheroes. They exist in a reality mostly similar to our
own in that superheroes are just regular humans in masks for the most part.
They might be extremely strong, but they aren’t endowed with special powers.
They began as cops wearing masks to fight the criminals who escaped the system,
eventually turning into an illegal pastime. The plane of existence is similar
to our own with some differences, which allows for the first superhuman to be
created when a scientist is altered by a mistake, and it is also a world where
Nixon has been re-elected countless times. The United States has power with the
superheroes, even using them to win Vietnam War.
This epic
cautionary tale of being a superpower, in more than one way, is extremely
violent but does not have much action. There are many fight scenes, but they
are never fair fights, instead making them sequences of pure violence. Men
punch and shoot unarmed women, attempting rape and escaping responsibilities.
When the men fight each other there is always a disadvantage to one side, the
superheroes able to break bones and splinter flesh while never becomes injured
themselves. An elderly man is beaten by a gang of thugs, and countless other
scenarios have one-sided fights that end in excessively violent ways. In other
words, this is not a fun film as much as it is a painfully poignant one.
