Don't Call Me Superman

What a turnaround it has been in recent years for both comic book movies and Marvel Studios. In the early years, they sold the film rights to their best-selling titles to studios such as Paramount, Sony and Fox. In doing so, Marvel often saw their franchises treated with disdain or indifference by major for decades. For every excellent X2 or Spider-Man, there was a Ghost Rider or a Fantastic Four that would ruin everything you might have liked about the characters. But while Marvel still doesn’t own the rights to some of their biggest comic titles, their perfectly-executed “Phase One” plan reversed their fortunes almost immediately. By taking several of their titles and placing them within the same overall universe and timeline, they created a force of nature that started with 2008’s Iron Man and finished with The Avengers, not only one of 2012’s best movies but the biggest blockbuster not directed by James Cameron (coming to a rest third on the worldwide box office behind Titanic and Avatar). Between that and Marvel’s purchase by Disney, the studio is locked in to deliver more greatness with their “Phase Two”, which began this summer with the extremely popular Iron Man 3.

What a day to not be wearing shorts!

DC Comics, meanwhile, would love that kind of success right now. Once seen as the creative superior to Marvel when it came to the film medium, their output the past decade has consisted of two-thirds of a great Batman trilogy (thanks to director Christopher Nolan) and a string of disappointments that includes Catwoman, Watchmen, Jonah Hex, Green Lantern and arguably the biggest bust, Superman Returns. A sequel to the first two Christopher Reeve classics (and ignoring Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace), the Bryan Singer-directed Returns was in fact moderately successful. Unfortunately, moderately successful doesn’t cut it with a film that costs over $200 million to put together, and plans for two future sequels were scrapped as a result. Now DC (and their resident film studio Warner Brothers) has attempted to recreate the success they had in rebooting their Batman franchise with their other major comic superstar, giving Supes a grittier, more grounded origin and dripping the story in emotional layers in Man of Steel. In doing so, they want to build the DC film universe to the point where they can answer Marvel’s challenge and issue their own superhero-team flick with The Justice League. And while the director they assigned this task – Zack Snyder, of Watchmen and Sucker Punch infamy – wouldn’t seem like quite the right guy for that job, DC did good by getting Christopher Nolan to produce, placing the best director they’ve ever hired just behind the shoulder of the flashy, style-over-substance Snyder.

Is he getting jealous?

The result of this pairing? Well, it’s good, for the most part. Man of Steel has some great moments, especially the early flashbacks of a dying planet Krypton and scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) saving his infant son by placing him in a rocket and sending him to the distant planet Earth before his home can be destroyed. Growing up knowing he is different from the people around him, Clark Kent (The Tudors’ Henry Cavill) travels around the world, helping people through his actions (and enhanced strength and abilities), and trying to discover where he comes from and his purpose in life. In flashbacks, we see how Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) encouraged his adopted son to keep his powers a secret, feeling that the world would be unprepared to accept Clark’s abilities. These are beautifully captured moments, mixings of bittersweet emotion, artistic camerawork, and excellent CGI when required (not just when it would look cool). Looking back, with the exception of the fall of Krypton, there isn’t a real action sequence until almost the last act of the movie, and the fact that you can forget and forgive that transgression from a supposed Summer blockbuster is a testament to how invested we become with the characters themselves.

Absolutely terrifying.

Those characters are the backbone of the film and its greatest resource, and Snyder (with perhaps some cajoling from Nolan) does an excellent job of using them to the best effect. Cavill and Amy Adams (who plays tough-as-nails investigative reporter and intergalactic love interest Lois Lane) are excellent both together and apart, with Cavill showing (often without dialogue) that he is an actor on the rise. Adams has arguably never done a bad performance, and her veteran presence is not only the best-ever interpretation of Lane, but a stabilizing agent for the up-and-coming Cavill. As for the rest of the cast, both Crowe and Costner do excellent jobs as Clark’s biological and adoptive fathers, respectively. Crowe seems born to play Jor-El, and Costner’s homesy look and drawl make for an excellent Papa Kent (Diane Lane however is kind of boring as mother Martha). Michael Shannon takes up the Terence Stamp’s mantle when he plays the Kryptonian General Zod. To look at Shannon on paper, you wouldn’t expect him to be so frightening a character as someone with all of Superman’s strengths and none of his morals, but the veteran actor really carries Man of Steel in the second half. As a result, he’s definitely going to be a tough act to follow in any potential sequels. My only disappointments in the cast were located in the Daily Planet, Lois Lane’s newspaper. Lawrence Fishburne plays the first ever African-American version of Editor-in-Chief Perry White, while Rebecca Buller plays intern Jenny Olsen, obviously the adaptation of the comic books’ Jimmy Olsen. The problem I have is that these characters are largely pointless, taking part in some expository scenes but otherwise not contributing much to the overall movie. I don’t care if Perry White is black or if Jimmy Olsen is a woman; I just wish that wasn’t the beginning and end of their character development.

Lois Lane: Kicking ass and taking names since 1938.

But Man of Steel’s biggest problem is not its development of poorly-scripted secondary characters or even the strangely wide-open plot holes that are scattered about the script, but an abrupt change of pace in the final act. That’s when the action strikes, and while it contains beautiful imagery, excellent CGI and character-defining moments, it’s just not that much FUN. Snyder’s direction has always been visually-appealing, even when the product was the mind-numbing horror of Sucker Punch. I’ve said before that Snyder should direct music videos, as his ocular palette works wonders in spurts a few minutes at a time. By the time we’ve gotten through twenty minutes of action sequences involving bright beams of light, explosions, rescues, destroyed buildings and a ton of violent acts, we just want the whole thing to be over with. The filmmakers also make the questionable choice of changing a major aspect of the caped crusader – in other media, you’ll never see Superman put defeating the bad guys in a higher priority over protecting innocent bystanders in big fights. Here the term “bystander” appears all but ignored in the script, resulting in simplistic good-vs-evil battles that never break the mold, and feeling almost like a typical Jerry Bruckheimer production. The film never gets Great Gatsby boring, but there’s still no excuse for such beautiful action that is so generic that we almost don’t care about the outcome.

Maximum security just got an upgrade.

The limp finish is really the only major thing wrong with Man of Steel, but it’s still enough to turn a potentially great film into a merely good one. I’ll give credit where it’s due: Snyder, Nolan and their crew succeeded in creating a Superman movie more grounded and realistic than anything done before them, and it’s the next-best thing in the DC film universe to Nolan’s first two Batman projects in terms of quality. Obviously Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are high watermarks to cross, and expectations of the like from Man of Steel are definitely unwarranted, though you can still have a good time should you see this on the big screen. In the battle of Marvel vs. DC, Man of Steel is a long way away from being as iconic as The Avengers or Iron Man, and is probably closer to Marvel’s second-rate Captain America movie. That’s not a bad place to be, however, and if the folks at DC and Warner Brothers can build upon its early successes (and bypass its weaknesses), then this might just be the first step in its own “Phase One”. Can a Justice League movie be far in the future? Give me a Wonder Woman I can get behind, and that’ll be a step in the right direction. Just like Man of Steel. 

Double Feature: 'The Words' and 'The Cold Light of Day'

Last weekend was something of an historic moment for Hollywood. While the beginning of September has kids going back to school and is often a weak time for theaters in general, and production companies shove out what they believe to be some of their less prestigious fare, a feat was achieved in the release of ensemble drama The Words and action thriller The Cold Light of Day. The pair of new releases added little to a weekend in which the top twelve grossing movies brought in only $51.9 million, the worst since 2008 and one of the lowest weekend grosses in recorded history. Both films featured rising stars and proven performers, so why did nobody turn out to see them? Where did it all go wrong?

Of the two releases, The Words was felt to have far more potential. Beyond the original story (centering around the harmful effects of plagiarism) that would on the surface appear to agree with the literary-minded set of Hollywood, this was a time-traveling ensemble piece that more than a few people expected to contend for awards this winter. Pulling it together is the talented cast led by The Hangover's Bradley Cooper but also featuring Jeremy Irons, Zoe Saldana, Dennis Quaid and Olivia Wilde, with Cooper giving a surprisingly soulful performance that stands far out from his previous, more light-hearted efforts. The only negative thing I can say about Cooper's work is that the script does its best to get away from him in order to tell the story; when he's center stage, however, he's electrifying.

Don't worry; you're not forgotten, Mr. Irons.

But if there's one performance that will be remembered this award season, it will be Jeremy Irons as the nameless Old Man from whom Cooper's desperate author accidentally cribs in creating his best-selling novel. It's funny how Irons has reinvented his career in the past year, with his success on the Showtime series The Borgias likely a major factor in his casting. The Old Man vocalizes wide swaths of the tale, but that's no problem; if Irons' throaty rasps could do all narrative voice overs for the rest of time, I'd never complain about them again. The work he puts in here is exemplary, and cannot be easily defined by a few lines of text. He's easily redefined himself as one of Hollywood's go-to scene-stealers.

Yup, this is me at crunch-time.

But The Words' rookie co-directors Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal just don't have enough narrative clout to make this film work overall. While most of the movie takes place in Cooper's present and Irons' past, a third time frame presenting the preceding events as a work of (maybe autobiographical?) fiction from ANOTHER author (Quaid) falls flat, although I can at least understand why the storytellers felt they had to go in this direction. However, the result is a choppy narrative that tries to delve too deeply into what shouldn't be all that difficult a message. Some great dialogue is wasted on a mediocre movie, though at least The Words was not the worst widely released movie to come out last weekend.

That distinction gets to belong to The Cold Light of Day, a low-tech action thriller that riffs off of the Bourne series without any of the charm and excitement that made those films such unexpected hits. The story pits an everyday guy (Immortals' star Henry Cavill) in an unbelievable situation; despite the extremely long odds, we've no doubt as to who will come out on top. When I first saw trailers for this film I was under the assumption that this would be the one to catapult Cavill into recognizable status leading into next year's Superman reboot, but apparently it wasn't even going to get a wide release in the states following the drubbing it got overseas. But with The Words as their only competition, it seems Summit Entertainment had a change of heart and started throwing the film at whatever theater would carry it. Honestly, they probably would have been better off going the limited release route.

Simply put, this is a dry, unoriginal action piece that has some decent actors rattling off inane dialogue and performing stunts that have been done to death in better, more groundbreaking productions. French director Mabrouk el Mechri certainly knows how to work his chosen genre (as he proved in the surprisingly good JCVD), but this movie has none of fun, charm and wit that is needed to carry a really good action flick. I get that every director needs to pay their dues until they get a REAL Hollywood job, but making films like this just because you don't want to give someone a shot just yet is kind of ridiculous.

The most awkward father-son chat EVER.

To make things worse, most of the veteran talent seems intent on cashing their paychecks, for all the enthusiasm they shrug into their performances. This should have been a big year for Bruce Willis, but between the last second delay of the GI Joe sequel, the "been there done that" of Expendables 2, and his uninspired performance here, it's been a mixed bag for the action star. Moonrise Kingdom has been his only legitimately good gig lately, and he might earn some points sitting across from Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the upcoming Looper, but overall this has to be a disappointing year for him. Likewise preening for the camera is Sigourney Weaver, which is a personal pain for me. In recent years Weaver has stopped caring about the roles she takes, and for every great cameo in Paul or Cabin in the Woods is matched by even more godawful dreck not fit for public consumption. What on Earth happened to Ellen Ripley and Dana Barrett? This used to be an actress I loved to see in movies; now she's little more than a famous face brought in to spruce up a sorry paint job. Finally, Cold Light does little to showcase Cavill as a potential action star. He's definitely working harder than his veteran cast-mates, but still lacks that special something that makes someone a movie star. Maybe that will change come Man of Steel's arrival next year; maybe it won't. But for whatever reason he doesn't have the inhuman strength required to carry this particular movie all that far.

Trying to hold a nonexistent audience hostage is not a good idea...

Hmm, normal guy whose existence is stripped away with the revelation that his family is not what he thought it was? And then in Bourne-like fashion he fights against all odds to retain his life, only to succeed thanks to highly irregular coincidences? Where have I heard of this before? Oh, that's right, that was the same story as Abduction, one of the worst films of 2011! You know things aren't right when you're copying the mission statement of a Taylor Lautner vehicle, but hopefully Cavill's career won't take the downward spiral that will siren-call Lautner after the final Twilight film releases. Cavill has the talent and potential to be a bigger star than most of the current "Next-Gen" actors currently working their way up the Hollywood ladder. Thankfully, nobody really sat down and watched this film, so he is in no danger of becoming the next Brandon Routh just yet. But it does raise yet another red flag in relation to the upcoming Superman film; with almost nothing (especially director Zack Snyder) pointing towards a positive experience with Man of Steel, can everybody involved in the project really step up and do a better job than they've ever done before? Because for that movie to even meet the insanely high expectations placed upon it, Snyder, Cavill and company are going to have to do just that. And The Cold Light of Day does nothing to allay those fears that it won't.

Brawl of the Gods

They just don't make sword and sorcery epics like this.

Well, to be fair, they've never really made sword and sorcery films like this in the past, period. 3D epics are a relatively new thing in this day and age, beginning with 2010's remake of Clash of the Titans, and continuing this year with the Conan the Barbarian and now Immortals. It was this newest title that drew me to the theater quite recently, the latest release amid a season in which very few films have done much to stand out from a sea of mediocrity. Trying to solve that problem with gore, sex, and the face of the upcoming Superman reboot, Immortals had the potential to fall somewhere between the huge strides that the similarly-violent 300 made in 2006 and the crater left from the Conan sequel. In other words, it really could have gone anywhere. I personally was interested in seeing how this title would translate to 3D, and whether British lead Henry Cavill would prove able to lead a major motion picture two years before Man of Steel hits the big screen. I hadn't heard any good things heading in, but that's hardly a new concept, and I wanted to judge for myself whether this title would deserve remembrance years from now.

Robin Hood and her merry men, no doubt.

In the ancient past, a war amongst immortal beings was waged, with the two sides discovering that they could indeed kill their formerly invincible foes. When all was said and done, the victors christened themselves Gods and reigned high on Mt. Olympus. The vanquished were resigned to imprisonment in Mt. Tartatus, called Titans. Now the evil King of Crete, Hyperion (Mickey Rourke), seeks the fabled Epirus Bow, a weapon designed to release the Titans from their imprisonment and set them loose upon the world. The only people standing in his way are Theseus (Cavill), a bastard low-born guided by the gods, the virgin oracle Phaedra (Freida Pinto), and their mishmash of followers, all of whom would follow Theseus to the ends of the Earth.

That's not a face you ever want to look up to

Any student of ancient mythology of course will see that the plot of the film is loosely based on the Titanomachy, or the war between the Olympians and the Titans, and the myths of Theseus and the Minotaur. As in last year's Clash, however, that only means that the names were kept intact while the story was made more suitable for mass consumption. Actually, I thought that director Tarsem Singh did a good job with interpreting the myths presented in this storyline. Many people, Theseus and Hyperion included, have no faith in the gods due to them having not answered their prayers even in their darkest moments. This is a theme that is relevant even today, and is the reason so many people call themselves Atheist or Agnostic. The Gods don't interfere because Zeus (Luke Evans) wants to have faith in the humans as many of them do in the Gods. Beyond that, the Minotaur is not a mythological creature, but a giant warrior wearing a mask in the shape of a bull's head. While there are still several almost mystical elements involved in the story (the Gods and Titans themselves, Phaedra's premonitions, and the Epirus Bow's magic arrows chief among them), it's impressive that Singh binds them with a certain amount of realistic interpretation of mythology at the same time.

Real bad-asses don't wear helmets

Probably where Immortals excels the most is in the visual and action departments. Even without 3D (and this is another film that doesn't really benefit from 3D implementation) the distant visuals are as beautiful and meticulously designed as any big-budget film I've seen in the past decade. It would be easy to write it all off as computer generated, but it's extremely difficult to tell the difference, and there is no doubting the effectiveness it has in setting the tone of the story. Singh's previous efforts (The Cell, The Fall) have been largely visual-based, and he knows how to set a film so that you are ensnared by the what you see while following the tale. The action is also surprisingly compelling, as Singh rarely falls in the trap of filming so close as to obscure what is happening in front of you. Often the camera is set on a rail and follows Theseus as he fights dozens of enemies in a realistic, awe-inspiring sequences. It's refreshing to see action done in this manner, and while special effects can mask a number of things (body doubles, gore, etc), that it is so different from what other films offer is really what makes all the difference.

She may not be the best actress, but mama mia!

The acting would have probably been better, but the script as it is didn't leave a lot of room for silly things like "exposition" or "character development" when creating so much eye candy. Henry Cavill is at least interesting as the film's lead, finding himself perhaps on the same page Sam Worthington found himself last year. Theseus is a warrior first, orator second, and as such Cavill will be better remembered after Immortals for his rippling six pack rather than the flexibility of his tongue (get your minds out of the gutter). Still, it took Worthington a full year and The Debt to prove he could really act, and maybe Cavill just needs that time to build a resume before he can be relegated to action roles. Freida Pinto once again is better than some, worse than others, and it's really her looks that secure the multitude of roles that she has landed of late. But as any veteran actress will tell you, beauty fades (and plastic surgery isn't always for the better), so unless she ups her game the big roles WILL dry up. She does show potential, so hopefully experience will get her to the level where she should be. Mickey Rourke is certainly effective in the role of evil overlord, but in all honesty he doesn't stretch very far from his comfort zone. It's obvious that the part was written with him in mind, as he never gets a moment like the one in last year's The Expendables in which he reminds us that he really is a good actor. Stephen Dorff could have stood out, but in the end we all realize that he's the witty sidekick who will doubtlessly die heroically in the end. And he's not even that good at the witty part.

One of these things is not like the others...

Possibly most disappointing is that the Gods, arguably the most central figures in this film, are barely covered as characters throughout the course of the film. Luke Evans tells the others what to do a lot, so that makes him Zeus, and we know that Isabel Lucas is Athena because someone calls her that once, but the others are never actually named and we can only guess as to their identities. Kellan Lutz MIGHT be Posiedon, since he carries around a trident, but we're not really sure. And who knows who any of the other immortals really are. It's a shame since the finale sees a raging battle between Gods and Titans that  is amazing but in which it would have been great to be able to keep score. But since they mostly look alike, the effort to introduce them as actual characters is completely lost.

"Man of Steel" is of course a euphemism

Still, when what you're expecting is an action-packed pseudo-myth with mood, violence and gore-a-plenty, it's hard to argue with what the film doesn't additionally give you. While it may not be the best movie of 2011 (or even close), Immortals is at its best an exciting, go-anywhere story that feels as epic as it seeks to be. If you're into the genre, don't wait until DVD; the visuals alone make it worth seeing on the big screen, even if you (wisely) forgo the entire 3D routine.