Much Ado About Whedon

The film many die-hard Avengers fans have been waiting over a year for was not Iron Man 3. It was not even Man of Steel. No, many fans of last summer's blockbuster were waiting on director Joss Whedon's next movie. And what does an overnight sensation like Whedon do when he's given the keys to his parent's kingdom? The answer is: anything he wants, which in this case involves taking some of his favored actors and filming a modern-set, black-and-white adaptation of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which he filmed at his Santa Monica residence in a span of twelve days. Just to set the record straight; the man behind legendary and cult favorite science fiction shows Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse, not to mention the most beloved superhero movie of all time, took time to create a stripped-down version of one of the Bard's best comedies for the big screen. I'm not sure what's more surprising: that the above is 100% true, or that over two hundred theaters are now playing a movie that likely wouldn't have made it into twenty just two years ago.

Hey, it's Fred from Angel!

For those unfamiliar with this particular Shakespeare play - it's not quite as well-known as Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar or Hamlet - it focuses on a villa in Messina, and on two pairs of lovers. When Don Pedro (Reed Diamond), the prince, visits the home of Governor Leonato (Clark Gregg), his companion Claudio (Franz Kranz) falls in love with Leonato's fair daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese). Meanwhile, they conspire to pair Leonato's foul-tempered niece Beatrice (Amy Acker) with the roguish lothario Benedick (Alexis Denisof), though the two can't stand each other's company. Just as things are beginning to look happily-ever-after for Claudio and Hero, however, Pedro's bastard brother Don John (Sean Maher) seeks to cause mischief that would cause the two houses to go to war. In between, there's a lot of drinking, music and dancing. I think Whedon might have added that last part.

Hey, it's Agent Coulson from The Avengers!

There's quite a bit to like about this newest rendition of a Shakespeare classic. Whedon almost word for word translates the original play into his film, and he also arranged the music to two songs Shakespeare had written for the play, performed by past contributors Maurissa Tancheon and Jed Whedon (Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog). His choice to film in black and white denotes the classical elements of the play, while the modern settings and set pieces succeed in creating an ultimately modern feel to the world he presents. Also, as the director (who also wrote the screenplay), Whedon infuses the tale with a theme of sexuality that goes hand in hand with the original love story. Doing so really helps modernize the play, and makes Much Ado more enticing to the audience as a whole, and not feel quite as old-fashioned as it could have. It's one of Whedon's few additions in a largely faithful screenplay, and alongside his penchant for physical humor (in absence of his usual clever dialogue, which is understandable), he makes a Shakespeare flick that everybody can get into.

Hey, it's Mal Reynolds! And that little guy from Buffy and Angel!

Whedon fans will also spend about 90% of the movie pointing out characters from several of the director's films or shows. With a few exceptions, just about everybody here has worked with Whedon, whether it was ten years ago or just last year, and you may experience intense bouts of nostalgia or just sudden outbursts ("Hey, that's the waitress from The Avengers!") while watching this in the theater. But beyond that, and while most of the actors here aren't particularly well known, there are a number of quality performances to be found from seemingly unlikely sources. Tops among them are The Cabin in the Woods star Franz Kranz, whose role as Claudio at first seems ill-fitting until you actually pay attention to him for a moment. If Cabin was the only thing you've seen him in, you might not expect Shakespeare to be his forte, but he works the audience beautifully, and has one of the best showings I've seen so far this year. Amy Acker is also excellent, proving her adeptness at switching between dramatic and comedic at will. Though nobody else quite reaches up to that level of quality, the film is positively full of good performances by the likes of Alexis Denisof, Nathan Fillion, Clark Gregg, Reed Diamond, Sean Maher and Ashley Johnson.

Hey, it's Wesley!

But for a movie filmed in a little under two weeks, there are bound to be some problems. One of the big ones is... it's Shakespeare. Yes, the Bard is arguably the most prolific storyteller of all time, but his use of the English language can be barely coherent to modern audiences in this day and age. Fortunately, viewers can get used to this after a short time and follow along well enough, but there's no hiding that some of the actors were just not cut out for reciting Shakespeare. There are a number of offenders, but the worst might easily be newcomer Jillian Morgese, who doesn't appear to be acting so much as she is reading off of cue cards. Poorly. This is why Kenneth Branagh brought in an all-star cast in his 1993 adaptation of the same play: Morgese is certainly no Kate Beckensale. There are moments where the film feels entirely amateurish, from (purposely?) missed lines to the camera lingering a bit long on a comedic bit. But that's also part of its charm, and what makes it so enjoyable to audiences in the first place.

Hey, it's Topher from Dollhouse!

And that's the word to describe Whedon's latest effort: charming. Not perfect in the least, and not quite up to the snuff of better indies released this year (The Place Beyond the Pines or Mud, for instance), but Much Ado About Nothing definitely has its charm, and is certainly impressive when you consider it was done on a lark during a vacation from the post-production of The Avengers. If anything, this film proves the kind of loyalty a great director can garner from his actors when he's concerned more with putting on the best story than he is at breaking box office records. It's a fun, funny, smart and sexy movie that all of Whedon's fans should see, and others should check out when they get the opportunity to do so. It won't be playing everywhere, but seeing a cool, modern adaptation of Shakespeare should not be a difficult choice to make if it does come to your theater. And Joss Whedon is most definitely a bonus.

Mashup in Manhattan

I try not to make snap judgments when I call a film my favorite so far of the year. I generally attempt to step back from the initial rush I felt in the immediate aftermath of the movie in question and ask myself as to what made that particular title so great. That was certainly easy when the films in question were the relatively unremarkable Haywire, The Secret World of Arrietty and Friends with Kids. Much as I enjoyed each of those titles, they were absolutely the best of what was a swath of mediocre releases beginning in January that has continued largely unchecked in 2012. Having a clear frame of mind became more difficult in March, when the first great film of the year was released in the Hollywood remake 21 Jump Street, and again in April with the horror spoof The Cabin in the Woods. As opposed to simply enjoying myself at the theater, I was actually having  rip-roaring times, firsts for the year. When I stood back and declared them #1's, I had to force myself to look past what I loved about them and see them for what they really were. Fortunately, that still made them excellent films, though I now find myself in an even more difficult position today that I did in those past two instances: a great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed to the tune of it easily catapulting to the top of my 2012 rankings. But does Marvel's The Avengers truly deserve to be known as the #1film of the year? Following is a list of the big and little things director Joss Whedon did right in adapting the popular comic book superhero team to the big screen.

Joss Whedon Success #1: A Classic Tale

I'm sorry, it's still difficult to believe that Chris Evans is that big...

When the Marvel Comics super-group The Avengers was first formed back in 1963 by creative minds Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, it was to unite several of the characters the two men created to battle villains no one hero could defeat, in this case Loki, the Asgardian god of mischief and brother and arch-nemesis of superhero Thor. Knowing this, Whedon gleefully pits Loki (Tom Hiddleston) against Earth's mightiest heroes, or at least those who have had successful film runs to this point. When Loki steals an alien power source with limitless potential, the Tesseract (Sorry, purists, but I'm glad they didn't call it the Cosmic Cube), from the hands of international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D., director Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) calls together the strongest and smartest known heroes in an attempt to prevent Loki from subjugating the world's population. It may not be all that easy, as it will take the combined strengths of super-soldier Captain America (Chris Evans), genius in a metal suit Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr), thunder demigod Thor (Chris Hemsworth), gamma-irradiated scientist/monster Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and master assassins Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) to prevent the bad guy from using the Tesseract to summon an alien army to pacify the Earth for his rule.

Funny, he doesn't LOOK particularly angry...

Whedon knew what he was doing when he wrote this script; each character has their own stake in what happens, and the balance between characters is such that never does anyone gets too much attention in comparison to the others. Placating the egos of big-name actors is never an easy task, though that was perhaps made easier by presenting them a tale that starts off with huge consequences and that keeps raising the stakes, never allowing itself to falter even in the face of necessary plot exposition or character development. Keeping a steady pace throughout means the audience never feels lost, even if they've never read a comic book in their life or seen any of the preceding Avengers films. Still, I have no doubt that the die-hard fans will have the best experience, as this is a story that hearkens back to the golden age of comic book heroes and villains.

Joss Whedon Success #2: Hero Cooperation... and Conflict

It's a good thing the god of thunder doesn't sucker-punch...

One of the great thing about the Avengers comics over the years was that you had a constantly-rotating group of heroes who fought gallantly to protect the world from evil. Of course, the unsaid portion of that statement is that this group rotated their members because the erstwhile allies didn't always get along. Whedon did good by not making this a seamless transition from a number of solo heroes into bad-ass super group; these guys have little in common, and early on they make it vocal what they despise about one another. What Lee and Kirby knew, and Whedon wisely picked up, is that when the strongest people on the planet have a beef with one another, rarely will words win a fight where fists do quite nicely. In often clashing with one another, the characters' eventual uniting under a shared threat is made far more amazing, especially when those fights prove to be far from over in the heat of battle. Great acting is simply a great topping, as Downey Jr, Evans, Hemsworth et al make the whole thing work, good or bad, in their characters' interactions with one another.

Joss Whedon Success #3: The Hulk Done Right

Okay, NOW we run!

As a film franchise, The Hulk has not really been much of a success by the standard set by Thor, Captain America and Iron Man for Marvel. Failing to gather much traction either in 2003 or 2008, the reason for Hulk apathy is as simple as the hero's premise: Bruce Banner gets mad, he turns into Hulk, repeat as necessary. But what makes Hulk bland as a solo act grows new life when he's thrown against other heroes, whether he's hunting Black Widow through the bowels of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s  Helecarrier or duking it out with Thor. And when he takes his "Hulk Smash" bit out on an invading army... well, let's just say that seeing is believing. Thanks equal parts smart storytelling from Whedon and the casting of Ruffalo (which has proven to be a masterstroke of genius), not to mention unprecedented CGI/motion capture work which finally allow the not-so-jolly green giant to live up to his namesake, The Hulk finally feels like a force to be reckoned with. Combine that with Whedon's liberal use of comedy to disarm your senses, and he appears to finally be coming into his own as a movie character.

Joss Whedon Success #4: Suitable for Your Children

The new Michael Ball fashion show begins with a twist.

Remember last summer, when Transformers 3 hit the big screen? Besides being a jumbled mess thanks to director Michael Bay, the destruction of Chicago (the film's only worthwhile bit) was tempered a bit when scenes were shown of the evil Decepticons gleefully firing on fleeing civilians and turning them into bones and ash. Or Green Lantern, in which Parallax's invasion of Earth began with the disintegration of several people? The fact that these films easily got themselves PG-13 ratings while recent documentary Bully was repeatedly saddled with an R is kind of bullshit, but what makes those films' actions so reprehensible was that the filmmakers KNEW a lot of young kids and teens were going to beg their moms and dads to see these titles, and the actions of the directors left a poor taste in responsible parents' mouths. That isn't a real risk in The Avengers; while there is certainly plenty of exciting action to go around, parents can be reassured that there will be no violent depictions of mass murder to clog their children's minds, only the kind of fights that will inspire them to mock-fight with friends in their yards afterward.

Manhattan has never looked better!

Marvel's The Avengers is frankly a film with few flaws. It's strongly written, loyal to its fanbase without being disingenuous to those who perhaps aren't on the bandwagon, and amps up the action at all the correct moments. The actors are great, the humor is hilarious, the heroes are larger than life and there really isn't any better film to open the summer movie season. The only thing I can honestly say I didn't like was a factor most Whedon fans are intimately familiar with, and even THAT was done for the right reasons, whether or not we agree. Whedon's classic superhero world might not have the brilliant bleakness of Christopher Nolan's Gotham City, and might not stand up in quality to Nolan's upcoming Dark Knight Rises. It's a different animal, but never will there be a moment when The Avengers doesn't get SOME kind of reaction from you, whether good or bad. For now at least, it's not only the best movie of 2012, but the Marvel Comics movie to rule them all. Marvel's reign of dominance shows no sign of letting up, and I can't wait for the next entry to this franchise, as The Avengers left me wanting even more once the credits had stopped running.

An Original American Horror Story

At the beginning pf the film I saw with Todd and my father this past weekend, we meet two industrial office drones (played by Academy Award nominee Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford) going on about seemingly everyday things, from cabinets at home to the importance of their company's secret project. Seems like they're competing with others around the globe, though the goal itself is not mentioned in this opening scene. This would be glaringly normal for a modern-day drama, and it certainly feels out of place at the opening of The Cabin in the Woods, the horror comedy that serves as the directorial debut of Drew Goddard, who also co-wrote the script with every fanboy's hero, Joss Whedon. It's been an interesting career for Whedon; he started out modestly, writing for Roseanne and Parenthood before we witnessed his career go through highs and lows leading up to 2012 and his upcoming blockbuster The Avengers. The Cabin in the Woods was actually filmed way back in 2009 and probably would be remembered as one of the low points of Whedon's career when the studio distributing it, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, preventing the film from being immediately released. Following were a number of delays, including the purchase of the property by Lionsgate Films and a stated intent to convert the film to 3D. Eventually 3D talk was tabled, and to the joy of Whedon fans everywhere, The Cabin in the Woods finally made its release last weekend.

Hey, hey, the gang's all here!

On vacation from college, five students make the long trek to a cabin recently purchased by the cousin of school football star Curt (Thor's Chris Hemsworth). He, his girlfriend Jules (Anna Hutchison), and their friends Dana (Kristen Connolly), Marty (Fran Kranz) and Holden (Jesse Williams) are preparing for a good time, away from the rigors and demands of the modern world. But in this cabin lie secrets, and the five unwittingly unleash a horror that threatens not only their lives, but the lives of everyone on the planet were it ever to get loose.

"Man, I am looking GOOD."

On the surface, one would be forgiven to thinking that this is a standard horror flick with nowhere to go but down. To those I have the following to say: Goddard and Whedon. It's strange to see Whedon NOT in charge of the film, as Goddard worked for Whedon as a writer on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin-off Angel. Yet when the script is as good as the one that these two have produced, it's easy to see that Goddard wouldn't necessarily have the most difficult time handling his debut film, thanks to excellent pacing, hilarious dialogue and twists that you won't (or gleefully do) see coming. Those office workers played by Jenkins and Whitford that I mentioned in the beginning? They ARE important, but you won't know how until just the right time. I had been worried that too much of those characters would spoil the narrative of the story, but Goddard and Whedon did an excellent job of not giving anything away until you absolutely needed to know what was happening.

The Jehovahs Witnesses have gotten a little more aggressive lately...

And the dialogue... if you've EVER watched an episode of Buffy, Angel or Firefly, you probably know what to expect from a Joss Whedon production. Goddard and Whedon obviously put a lot of themselves into writing the script, and that means there's always some choice quotes designed to illicit the absolute most laughter it can from the audience, even while gruesomely violent actions are occurring. And it's not just the script, but the perfect execution by the collection of actors that bring it to life. I'm not just talking Jenkins and Whitford, whose individual accomplishments by 2009 would have eclipsed even the combined might of their younger co-stars, but those young unknown actors themselves, who diverge themselves from typical horror movie tropes by playing fully-realized characters instead of caricatures. They're not all great; Connolly and Hutchison make good scream queens and Williams seems to only have one facial expression, though all three do more than is required in fulfilling their roles. Cabin was filmed Hemsworth was even cast as Marvel's thunder god, but even this early in his career he was more than a good actor. But the standout of the cast is Krantz, who was probably the best-known of the five principle actors when filming began. Krantz's pot-smoking jokester serves as the voice of the audience, and delights in every moment he is on the screen.

We know blondes have more fun... now it's time to see if they live longer.

The spoof nature is what makes The Cabin in the Woods both a throwback to the old-school horror films like Friday the 13'th and simultaneously a whole new experience in itself. Both Todd and I loved how the end result was a unique look not only at the horror genre but the horror movie industry in general. I won't give away any major plot points, but this is one of those films I would LOVE to see a second time around, knowing that Whedon and Goddard likely planted dozens of Easter eggs that we missed the first time around. It was a close finish between this film and 21 Jump Street for the best I've seen in 2012. In the end, it's Cabin as the year's #1 film by the slimmest of margins. Funnier than The Three Stooges, more honest than The Lucky One and less predictable than Titanic 3D, this is a film you shouldn't miss even if you aren't a fan of horror. Whedon and Goddard have produced a smart, funny and clever film, one that should reign at #1 for a good, long time.

Yup. You're gonna die.