SNOWPIERCER

Bong Joon-Ho is proving to be a director of considerable range. Since his breakthrough film Memories of Murder, he's ping ponged between somber procedurals and inspired popcorn fair. This apparent bipolar mindset is evident in the films themselves, all featuring broad slapstick humor, political undercurrents of varying subtlety and dark brutality, often in rapid succession. His latest film, Snowpiercer, loosely adapted from the French comic of the same name, aims itself squarely towards blockbuster crowds, skillfully combining the relentless action of George Miller's Road Warrior and the broad societal statements we might expect in a Fritz Lang film.

It's 2031 and mankind has inadvertently frozen the planet trying to solve global warming. The last remnants of humanity survive in the massive, titular train which endlessly circles the globe once per year. In such post-apocalyptic worlds, repressive social orders often assert themselves. Here the rich live luxuriously at the front while the poor live in horrific squalor at the back. The film follows Curtis (Chris Evans) as he tries to engineer a car by car takeover with his fellow caboose dwellers.

On the surface that hook might appear cloyingly simplistic, and would be in the wrong hands. It's easy to watch the trailer and recall last years insultingly dumb sci-fi allegory Elysium. But Bong and screenwriter Kelly Masterson (Before The Devil Knows You're Dead) make the goofiness work by rendering the world with countless bold, imaginative strokes that are often as mysterious as they are revealing. Take the strange, black cubes our heroes are forced to eat, or how the guards take people away based on maddeningly bizarre criteria, sometimes asking for trained violinists but more often for children of very specific heights.

Then there are the characters. it's a large ensemble, so some sadly remain generic archetypes (albeit all gamely played), but many are made memorable with wonderful little quirks. There's the kindly mentor Gilliam (John Hurt) who for reasons revealed late in the film is a limbless torso making due with improvised hooks and canes. An artist who draws propaganda for the poor and Bong regular Song Kang-Ho awesomes things up as a security expert addicted to a drug made from industrial waste. The film's greatest performance though undoubtedly belongs to Tilda Swinton as Mason, a blood thirsty Thatcher surrogate who has a heated, possibly religious fervor for the train and its 'sacred engine' and is taken gleeful condemnations of Curtis's incursion: "Precisely 74% of you will die!" she cries while watching a fight through opera glasses.

Indeed, while the rebellion initially proceeds with the clean precision of a heist, it soon becomes a battle of blunt force and attrition. Bong has always had a dexterous sense of blocking which he puts to good use on the film's inventive action beats. The best of which takes place entirely in a single car but but goes through six distinct phases including near derailment of the train, tunnels and even finds time for Bong to homage the famous hallway fight from Oldboy. So much action gets tiring because it only attempts one note. Bong's action succeeds by never doing the same thing twice, unafraid to suddenly upend things, furiously determined to milk every possible train related gag.

But the train isn't merely a place for cool fights, Bong's attempts at political subtext may end up being a bit literal, but it spawns some jaw dropping production design in the train. Each car serving a different purpose and is its own self contained world able to ignore those around it. Indeed one of the most unnerving details of the film is how the aristos eerily seem not to notice our ever dwindling group of increasingly blood-stained rebels. The film occasionally suffers from a few dully conceived character arcs (Curtis's sadly among them) that feel like they were pruned back from a longer script, and maybe having the villains state their philosophy a few too many times without enough progression. But it hardly matters, Snowpiercer is a film of such propulsive gonzo imagination that it can spare to have a few details fall off the track, so to speak.

Grade: B+

Note: Snowpiercer is currently playing in very limited release and will hit VOD very soon. It was intended for wider release before Bong got into a notorious battle with U.S. distributor Harvey Weinstein who wanted to cut 20 minutes of the film's completely reasonable 125 minute run time. Weinstein agreed to leave the film alone but in return will only show it on art house screens (where it plays to sold out crowds). It's a shame not just because it limits how many people will be able to see the film, but because this film is clearly meant for the full multiplex experience (a good 3D conversion would be fantastic). It's possible that Weinstein felt the film too dark and somber for the popcorn populace, or it could be just another example of Weinstein's apparent disrespect for Asian movies despite the money they've made him.

THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2

I knew Amazing Spider-Man 2, the sequel to the 2012 reboot which I defend with increasing faintness, was in trouble in its opening moments, which features characters we have no connection to in a dreadfully dull action prologue (never before has fighting on a crashing airplane felt this serene). But I expected the film to recover. After all Spider-Man is one of our most durable characters, but I was shocked to see that not only did it not recover but it got steadily worse over its extremely generous run time.

Almost nothing in this film works: the humor is off, the effects have no sense of weight (CG Spider-Man is often animated like a Loony Toon), the charm between Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) and Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) is weaker, but the worst problem is the script, the latest and reportedly final collaboration between Robert Orci and Alex Kurzman, which stuffs a plethora of subplots without the benefit of any connective tissue. At least Sam Raimi's overstuffed Spider-Man 3 had an emotional throughline. Worse still, while it's clear from the amount of fan service on display that returning director Marc Webb and co. know who Spider-Man is on a superficial level but have no understanding of who he is. They don't get him, they don't even try to get him.

Spider-Man is one of the most important characters in comic-books. The first generation of Superheroes (Superman, Batman, et all) were initially conceived as simple power fantasies. They're strong, wise, have amazing powers and represent the people we wish we could be. But creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko subverted that with Spider-Man by being honest about the emotional realities of being an ordinary person with superpowers. In the comics, TV shows and movies, Peter Parker is always on a path of emotional growth, learning that his powers are often a curse and come with, say it with me now, great responsibility.

But none of that ethos is present in this film, nor is it replaced with anything. This Peter Parker doesn't don the suit, which admittedly looks great, and use his powers for the greater good at the expense of his personal life, he does it because being Spider-Man is great ego trip. Take his introductory scene where he stops in the middle of foiling a plutonium robbery to give a meek scientist (Jamie Foxx) an inspirational pep talk, before going off to not just stop the robbery but needlessly taunt the ringleader. Spider-Man has often quipped while defeating his enemies but seeing him pull down Paul Giamatti's pants whilst humming his own theme song instantly made me side with J. Jonah Jameson.

Watching these scenes I expected this cruelty to be part of an arc about how Peter had let his powers go to his head and needed to tone it down, but no, he acts this way throughout the entire film with no sense of awareness. In fact the film does precious little to give him an arc of any kind. The closest it gets is a weird subplot where he occasionally sees the ghost of Gwen's dead father (Denis Leary) judging him for continuing to date his daughter. This leads to endlessly repetitive scenes of Parker and Stacy not committing to their relationship because being Spider-Man might put her in danger. The idea kinda worked in the Raimi films because it was based in 1) Parker's insecurities and 2) the fact that Mary Jane had been in danger because Peter was Spider-Man. But we don't get that in this iteration, Gwen is never in danger and when she finally is, it's not really Peter's fault.

The previous film had something with the chemistry between Garfield and Stone but this film doesn't do anything with their relationship but remind us (Spoiler Alert) that Stacy is the biggest fridge in comic-book history. The practice of killing off female characters simply to advance the hero's story is a hideously outdated trope that's only being used here because the comics did it 40 years ago. Worse still, that moment has no meaning. Sure Peter feels bad about it for a while but he gets a pass because the film carefully plays it so that it's entirely Gwen's fault for being there over Peter's objections. (End of Spoilers) Nothing in the film is Spider-Man's fault, he has no flaws, makes no mistakes and learns no lessons (except for how batteries work). For what it's worth, Stone does better than Garfield with the material (who is too twitchy), and my general feeling is that the franchise doesn't deserve her.

The villains are also a problem. Both Foxx's Electro and Dane Dehaan's Harry Osborn seem to have graduated from the Joel Schumacher school of subtlety: their motives and intentions constantly shouted yet change on a whim based on whatever the plot requires at that moment. After their first encounter Electro develops a Rupert Pumpkin style obsession with how great Spider-Man is until he hates him because – contrivances! The superfan angle could have worked but it would have required empathy and consistency, as it is, he could have been cut completely without losing anything. Osborn, dying from a mysterious skin illness that could perhaps be cured by Spider-Man's blood, fairs almost as bad. It's completely unclear what he's supposed to be: is he a tragic figure, pure evil from the start, smart, dumb, entitled, humble, does he know Peter is Spider-Man or not? Poor Dehaan is caught in the middle trying to mug his way through it, and his eventual transformation into Green Goblin is so completely unearned that he could, in a very literal sense, have easily shown up as Doctor Octopus or The Vulture.

If these were the extent of the film's problems, it would already be in trouble, but it continues on and on, for 142 agonizing minutes, to include other subplots that range from the inane (Aunt May is a nurse but has to keep it secret for no reason), to the damaging (the secret behind Peter's parents undoes even more of what makes the character special), all of which are handled by a tone deaf Webb who at one point the film literally goes from Spider-Man's first fight with Electro to a music video of Peter searching for his aforementioned parents, creating one of those string filled photo collages we see in conspiracy thrillers, set to an inspirational faux folk song from Philip Philips.

It is the expressed hope of Sony Pictures that this film will start a mega franchise á la Disney's Avengers. Indeed much of the plot seems designed to setting up not just a third of these things, but a spin-off staring Spider-Man's villains. But as mediocre and transparent as some of those Disney movies are, the Marvel suits at least know they need to deliver a semblance of a good time centered around a likable character. Instead Sony's corporate board seems to feel that if it puts a lot of shiny stuff in a box labeled Spider-Man, the unwashed masses will eat it up. One of the few chuckles I had during this film was recognizing that Sony's plan of creating wave after wave of shiny yet empty superhero movies mirrors OsCorp's evil plot almost exactly. For a second I thought maybe Marc Webb or someone had snuck a bit of meta commentary into the film but I discounted it, if that had been the case, the point would have been as loud and dumb as everything else.

Grade: D+

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER

Rarely has a franchise shifted gears so radically as Captain America. The character is, by far, the oldest in the Marvel Cinematic lineup, as testified by the decidedly retro tone of the original, a fun piece of jingoistic nonsense which saw Steve Rogers (Chris Evens) injected with super-serum and fighting rogue Nazi's. The sequel, subtitled The Winter Soldier, does away with the gee-wizz sensibility and thrusts it's boyscout hero into a much more paranoid and cynical world and even finds the time to cast the jingoism of the original in a colder light. There's still some retroness in this approach, but its 70's inspirations are carefully updated so that, until it goes completely nuts in the second half, it feels about as relevant and ripped from the headlines as any comic-book movie before it.

Part of the intrigue comes from Cap himself. Due to spending most of the last seventy years in stasis, he's about as removed from the modern world as it's possible to get. Sometimes that's adorable and winning (he keeps a running list of pop-culture to catch up on), but his rah-rah, straight arrow enthusiasm isolates him, he's almost friendless, and conflicts with his morally hazy missions for S.H.I.E.L.D., which often involve him flying into dangerous missions and busting chops of whoever he's being told is the bad guy that day. As the film starts, the once idealistic Rogers is harboring serious mistrust for his spymasters, a situation not helped when on one mission he discovers his partner Black Widow (Scarlet Johansson) has a few secret objectives of her own.

For a little while, directors Joe and Anthony Russo (known mostly for their TV comedy work on Community), construct a fairly interesting social, political backdrop for Caps disillusionment that plays like a very savvy update of 70’s political thrillers. Cap's mistrust and discomfort mounts when he learns of a major operation to build a series of drone like helicarriers that can take out mass numbers of potential targets from sub orbit, completely at S.H.I.E.L.D.'s discretion. The film takes all the implications of this more seriously than previous Marvel films do, resulting in some interesting, character revealing discussions between Rogers, Fury and Johansson who all have different views of how to serve America. We also get Anthony Mackie as an ex-paratrooper suffering from PTSD who has some nifty superhero gadgets to rival Cap’s shield and, in a clear nod to the Russo's inspirations, Robert Redford as a S.H.I.E.L.D. higher up who will in no way turn out to be evil.

There's also the titular Winter Soldier, for which we should be grateful that, for once we have a compelling villain in this series. He isn’t the focal point we'd expect him to be, but he’s good for a few solid revelations (though fans already know what they are) and he gets a terrifying entrance, emerging out of a cloud of smoke after attacking Fury in broad daylight in the streets of D.C. with a cadre of mercenaries.

Action is, unfortunately, a bit of a weakness here. The Russos' smartly don’t oversaturate us with beats, but when the action scenes start, the sparse, almost minimalist aesthetic they’ve carefuly constructed falls by the wayside and we get a lot of shakycam set against bland backdrops. It’s not the worst example of the technique, but while the scenes stand in considerable contrast to classicism of the first film, they lack showmanship and the approach feels like a choice made by a second unit director rather than one that fits in with the rest of the project. The climax feeling particularly clumsy, with characters in multiple locations executing complex, partially unnecessary sounding objectives that editing refuses to make clear. The action is saved almost completely by virtue of the sense of danger the Winter Soldier brings with him as a character, which is a step in the right direction for a franchise where the stakes of action scenes are often flat.

Also, after all the enticing allegory of the first half, the film almost effortlessly jumps into la la land with a twist that attempts to further link the idea of mass surveillance to old-school fascism, and set up events for Avengers 2, but is so comically on the nose that the film looses all semblance of credibility. I suppose that is to be expected in this kind of movie, which is a slave to pulpy thrills before anything else, but with such a great setup and all that great character development, it's a shame that it moves so sharply away from the relevance it started with. The film is another missed opportunity for Marvel, but the mega-franchise is getting closer to making a meaningful film.

GRADE: B+

OLDBOY (2013)

For months I've been trying to think of a production as ill conceived as a remake of Park Chan Wook's 2003 film Oldboy. I have no idea who'd want to see this. Most remakes are done, I suspect, because the original is famous enough that the marketing can coast on the general public's nostalgia for the title. But Oldboy is fairly obscure, has little brand name recognition to cash in on, and is too unpalatable for general audiences. Furthermore, the people who do know it are mostly film lovers who generally hold it as a classic and wouldn't want to see it remade, even by Spike Lee, a great (if uneven) filmmaker in his own right. The only hope is for Lee, who delights in provoking, to come up with something so different that it stands apart as a new vision.

Unfortunately, Lee mostly just walks the line between doing his own thing, and staying within the confines of the established story. The results are well made and somewhat distinct from the original without being truly distinctive. The film starts in 1993 when we meet Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin), a rakish ad exec who neglects his family and is on the verge of losing his job. One particularly drunken night he's snatched off the street and wakes up in the locked hotel room where he'll spend the next 20 years.

The scene where Doucett discovers his predicament is very well done and the sequence makes the best case for Lee's version as an alternate take. Many of the beats from the original are there, but instead of trying to outdo the sheer propulsiveness of it, Lee instead slows down for something more intimate. Doucett doesn't know who imprisoned him, but he learns through his TV that he's been framed for the death of his wife. As the decades pass he'll quit drinking, attempt suicide, get in shape, plot escape, eat a lot of bad dumplings and in one touching vignette (Lee's best addition) befriend a family of mice living in the walls before they meet a particularly nasty fate.

After he is mysteriously released, the film starts to lose me. He makes contact with his old bartender (Michael Imperioli) and Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), a pretty doctor who helps him track down his tormentors. He kinda wants revenge, but mostly he just wants to clear his name and be there for his daughter, meaning the film must now link the two goals if the plot is to move forward, leading to the intervention of his former captor who puts a timeclock on the investigation. The captor is played by Shartlo Copley as a series of cartoon affectations, his long fingernails and Draco Malfoy accent eliciting Python levels of laughter in my screening. He's not just in a different movie, he's in a different galaxy.

Copley's performance is emblematic of a major issue with the film, it has no idea what it wants to do tonally. Lee isn't interested in replicating the original's theatricality, but when the material is gothic, operatic Greek Tragedy, it doesn't respond well to the comparative realism Lee imposes on it and the film often seems to be fighting him. No mater how much Lee tones down his own distinct style to compensate, this needs to be a quirkier film. Copely and a warden played by Samuel L. Jackson are some of the remnants of the Park weirdness (albeit without the dark humor), but outside of Jackson, they don't work, partly because of cognitive dissonance, and partly because Copley is terribly miscast.

Further wonkiness results from just how much of the original structure remains. Lee may deviate and elaborate, but he doesn't improve or fundamentally change, meaning fans will find Lee's alterations  mostly distracting. Neophites will get the most out of this, but they won't confuse the film with being a masterpiece. The ending still packs a wallop, but I believe newbies will sense how Lee and screenwriter Mark Protosevich overcomplicate it and dilute its horrific consequences. While the film has more than its share of nastiness, frequently trying to outdo its source, it's much less daring too. The downfall of Oldboy 2.0 (3.0 if you count the original manga) is that it does nothing to break free of the original's shadow, there are pieces of a truly original take on the material, but they're stuck in a film that just doesn't have the guts to go all the way with them.

Grade: C

DEL TORO ROUNDTABLE: HELLBOY (DIRECTOR'S CUT)

Welcome back to Director's Roundtable. I'm Loren Greenblatt and joining me in this discussion of the directors cut of Guillermo Del Toro's 2004 superhero opus, Hellboy, is Max O'Connell of The Film Temple.

 Loren Greenblatt: We’re back with…(dramatic voice) HELLBOY!

Max O’Connell: (slightly frightened)…y-yes.

LG: Del Toro cites this as one of his most personal films, along with Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devil’s Backbone. And it’s easy to see why. It’s a Hollywood blockbuster, but there is a genuine heartbeat and emotional core to the film that’s really distinctive and indelible.

MO: I know Del Toro was a fan of the comic books, and a lot of that has to do with how much it’s into outsiders and misfits, something Del Toro has always been into.

LG: And the Mike Mignola comics are extremely gothic, yet darkly funny, they fit his sensibility so well that it’s natural that he’d direct it.

 MO: Basic background for anyone unfamiliar with Hellboy since it was only a modest hit- he’s from Hell, brought over by Rasputin (Karel Roden), who’s somehow still alive during World War II.

LG: He’s joined one of those fiendish Nazi experiments that Indiana Jones usually prevents, but Jones is busy that day, so they have Professor Bloom (played in the present day segments by John Hurt) doing the best he can with a group of American soldiers. The experiment is run by Rasputin and Kroenen (Ladislav Beran), a Nazi surgical-addict/clockwork man. They open a portal to Hell or Outer Space or something anyway it's where the seven gods of chaos live.

MO: It’s very Lovecraftian. I referred to all of those monsters on the other side as “Not Cthulu” (Del Toro’s trying very hard to get a film of At the Mountains of Madness going).

LG: Bloom and the soldiers stop Rasputin and seemingly kill him, but the portal was open long enough for infant Hellboy to get through. The film then jumps forward sixty years, where Hellboy is an agent for the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense, and a big celebrity among the Bigfoot/tinfoil hat crowd, appearing in blurred photographs and whatnot. The first Hellboy film is very X-Files-ish, where there’s a sense of paranoia where all the conspiracies are true.

MO: Hellboy is the sardonic version of Sasquatch. He’s beautifully played by Ron Perlman in what’s just about the best pairing of an actor with a superhero part outside of maybe Robert Downey, Jr. with Iron Man. It’s hard to see anyone else working in this role. Both Del Toro and Mignola wanted Perlman, which says something.

LG: The studio wanted Vin Diesel, which tells you something about studio mentality. We like Diesel fine, but no. Also in the idiot studio idea category- we have an unnecessary audience surrogate in this film, Agent Meyers, who’s there to babysit Hellboy and keep him from going out. He’s played adequately by Rupert Evans.

MO: Del Toro also considered Jeremy Renner and Jason Schwartzman, both of whom I like, but this is a pretty thankless role.

LG: He exists only to facilitate exposition and to give audiences a non-weirdo to latch onto, but it doesn't work. The character is Blandy McBlanderson, and it doesn’t help that the world around him is so bizarre and vivid.

MO: These films show Del Toro at his most Gilliam-esque.

LG: Meyers also doesn’t work because he’s not an outsider like the rest of the main characters. The film is very much about how one deals with being an other. We have Abe Sapien (played by Doug Jones, voiced by an uncredited David Hyde Pierce), a fish-man with psychic powers. He’s the most blasé about the outsider thing. He lives in a tank, and he’s just fine with his lot. There’s Hellboy, who resists being an outsider and tries very hard to pretend to be normal. He’s very arrogant about it, and his attempts to look normal just end up making him more eccentric. Then there’s Liz (Selma Blair), who looks human but has the least amount of control over her outsider status- she has pyrokinetic powers, and she has trouble handling it. Because she looks normal, she’s been hurt the most because she knows the pain of being outed, and she tends to recede from the outside world. It’s a wonderful combo- these characters give the film an aching emotional core. Even without knowing anything about Del Toro, one could sense how personal it is. If you’re a nerd or an outsider in any way, you'll connect.

MO: I love Abe’s line that “all us freaks have to stay together”. There’s a nice surrogate family here with those three. It’s lovely. Meyers doesn’t fit, so it’s nice that he won’t be back in Hellboy 2. Something I’d like to point out about the film is how Del Toro handles the villains. We have three villain: Ilsa (Bridget Hodson), the ultimate evil Nazi woman, there’s Rasputin, and there’s Kroenen, the clockwork-man Nazi character. It’s a wonderful combination of Del Toro’s view of evil- the organic, Ilsa,who we need more of. There’s Rasputin, the great supernatural villain. And then there’s Kroenen, the technological villain. He’s a wonderful villain who’s dedicated himself to removing his his humanity. He’s a literal clockwork man in that he has a clock on his body that he winds himself up with.

LG: He doesn’t even have blood - he has magic sand that keeps him alive. He has to wind himself up before he exerts himself too much. He’s also a very theatrical character. He has these ornamental masks- a different one for every occasion, and he has this very dramatic, balletic way of moving. We also have some third-tier villains- the monsters. One of the more notable ones is Sammael, the Hound of Resurrection. He functions similarly to the giant bugs in Mimic, but as with the Reapers in Blade II, there’s more personality and a better sense of how they work. Sammael lives in the sewers and lays eggs. I love also that Sammael looks like a tentacle-lion with double-joints.

MO: And I love that he’s the Hound of Resurrection- some Catholic and religious tropes flipped upside their heads. Whenever Sammael dies, his spirit splits in two and goes into two eggs.

LG: Good time to mention the Catholic stuff- the magical objects are very religious. We get rosaries, crosses, pinky bones in reliquaries, references to the Vatican. It doesn’t use these as an endpoint, but it gives the religious stuff a great weight and reverence.

MO: It’s notable that Bloom is a Catholic and that he’s raised Hellboy as his son. Something Frank Capra once said about Christianity is that it’s about second chances, and to a large degree that’s what the film is about. Hellboy is born with the ultimate original sin- he’s the offspring of Satan, with red skin, horns, a tail, and so on. Bloom has taught him religious and human lessons to give him a choice to be what he wants. He has a chance to reject his Satanic destiny.

LG: Which plays into the films wonderful emotional climax.

MO: What else is nice is that the Catholic material isn’t too full of itself, and the film has a nice balanced sense of humor coming from Ron Perlman’s delivery of sardonic one-liners. Rather than just have him say something self-righteous, Boondock Saints-style, when Rasputin says he’ll never fulfill his destiny, Hellboy says, “Well, I guess I’ll have to deal with that”.

LG: It’s a wonderful performance that’s conflicted, vulnerable and funny all at the same time, which is something considering that he’s under heavy make-up. Hellboy isn’t Del Toro’s character, but he is his to mold, unlike Blade, so Del Toro is able to take more potshots at macho material. Hellboy’s cool, but he’s very arrogant and pigheaded. Abe Sapien mockingly says that he’s doing “the lone hero thing”. This is a guy who doesn’t go outside much, so he’s probably learned a lot from TV. He has a gigantic bank of televisions in his room, which looks great visually. But this front of machismo gets him in trouble- he wants to ignore the bureau’s rules and go out alone, he gets hurt more than he needs to, and he ignores good counsel. A big part of the film is him growing up and Bloom trying to help him grow up.

MO: Bloom refers to him as a child, and there is something childish to the macho thing. Del Toro does a very good job illustrating that. And yet there’s some sensitivity there- he likes cats, he likes pancakes (which he adorably pronounces pamcakes), and deep down he’s a big softie. He’s also very aware of the flaws in his character. Earlier on, a couple of agent friends of his are killed in the line of duty, and he’s somewhat responsible because of his recklessness. There’s a sense of Catholic guilt, which is amplified after (spoilers) Bloom is killed by Kroenen because Hellboy was out spying on Liz, his not-quite-girlfriend. (end spoilers) She too has a sense of guilt, since she can’t control herself and how she could hurt someone. There’s a lot of Del Toro in here, since he’s a guy whose super-religious grandmother tried to exorcise him repeatedly because she didn’t like the monsters he drew.

LG: We saw the director's cut. Overall it's a much better cut, but some of the additions are superfluous.

MO: Everything added with Meyers, specifically, as we get more of a blooming “this isn’t going to work out because she’s going to end up with Hellboy” romance.

LG: It’s padding- false conflict to make Hellboy jealous, and we get plenty of it in the theatrical cut. But there’s one subplot that makes the Director’s Cut vital - earlier in the film, we learn Bloom is dying of cancer. It’s a nice scene - after he gets an opinion from the doctors, he pulls out a tarot card, which is his second opinion. It really colors the Director’s Cut. It gives a great arc to Hellboy and Bloom’s relationship, especially with Bloom trying to get Hellboy to grow up a little bit before he dies. It also changes his death scene - we knew it was coming anyway, but it’s a touching moment of self-sacrifice. The inevitability of death is all over this cut. We also check in with the villains more in this cut. In the theatrical, the second half has the problem of the villains’ plan feeling a bit nebulous.

MO: In this cut, we learn that there’s a timetable for their plan, which helps make things a little clearer. The little bits we get learning that there’s an eclipse coming that’ll open the portal to hell is essential. The director’s cut just makes a better film.

LG: And there’s a bit before Bloom’s death in the Director’s Cut that establishes that Bloom is angry with Hellboy just before he dies. It’s a real stab at our hearts. Can I mention that the score is fantastic?

MO: It’s Marco Beltrami, the same composer Del Toro had on Blade II and Mimic, but the score is a lot better here. There’s some nice emotional moments, but there’s also a sense of playfulness, which goes with Del Toro’s own sense of playfulness. There are some bits where Del Toro is playing with blockbuster and monster movie history. The lightning when Rasputin opens up the portal in the beginning reminds me of Metropolis. Del Toro evokes a pose from Watchmen as he did in Blade II, when a Nazi flies into the portal and looks like Dr. Manhattan blowing up, but this time he does it with the Wilhelm Scream thrown in there. There are a couple of Raiders of the Lost Ark homages, like Rasputin’s melting eyes at the portal, or Hellboy pulling his tail from under a closing door like Indiana Jones with the whip. When Kroenen kills Bloom, “We’ll Meet Again” by Vera Lynn, most famous for it's use in Dr. Strangelove, and it’s a nice touch because we’ve also got a clockwork Nazi like in the earlier film and because this is an emotional apocalypse for Hellboy. When Abe takes Bloom for a look back in time to see how Rasputin got Sammael into a museum, it reconstructs time events in front of them. It’s almost exactly like what Cronenberg did with The Dead Zone, and it’s great.

LG: One of the other characters we love is the Bureau chief, Manning (Jeffrey Tambor of Arrested Development). Tambor plays him as a guy who hates Hellboy, but he loves going on TV to explain away the photos of him as if they were nothing. He’s the one there to stab at Hellboy’s Catholic guilt, but I love that they become a bit more buddy-buddy by the end, as they discover they’re both cigar aficionados (macho stuff again!).

MO: Yeah, the “light a cigar with a match, not a lighter” thing might be a pretentious cigar-aficionado thing rather than a real thing, but it’s a nice moment. We talked about Blade II and how it only needed the scientific approach to monsters, rather than the religious. This film, on the other hand, is amplified by the religious/occult/scientific mix. The bullets in Hellboy’s gun have Holy Water in them, for God’s sake. It’s wonderful.

LG: Often I get annoyed by Christian themes in occult films (other religions have intricate mythologies too, guys), but it fits this movie very well. Should we talk about the action in this film a bit?

MO: I think Del Toro has become much more assured as an action director. There’s a comic book feel to the action in Blade II, but it's too post-Matrix for me. With this, it’s wise that he uses longer takes, and the fights between Hellboy and Sammael really benefit from that. They also benefit from the fact that it’s shot as Perlman vs. a guy in a suit, with a bit of CGI doubling later. It gives it more weight.

LG: I think that kinetic stuff worked for Blade II, but I’m glad they don’t do it for this. Hellboy and Sammael are big, heavy guys. They need to have a more lumbering feel. This is a good time to mention the other guy in a suit, Doug Jones as Abe, who’s one of Del Toro’s go-to guys, and a man who specializes in complicated body work under heavy make-up.

MO: Jones doesn’t voice Abe here like he does in the second film, but Pierce was so impressed with Jones that he went uncredited in order to not take away from Jones’ work. The effects work here is great, too. Even some of the shakier ones are kind of charming. I like Ivan, the half-skeleton guy Hellboy brings back to life as a guide who insults Hellboy in Russian.

LG: It feels like a living comic book. Everything feels brisk and cartoony and fun. And even though this is PG-13, Del Toro finds ways to have fun with the limitations. When Hellboy slams Sammael with a Payphone, rather than blood coming out, we see coins fly everywhere like in a videogame.

MO: Or how about inventiveness that’s moving. (Spoilers) Bloom’s death, it’s very cleverly framed as Kroenen steps behind him and stabs him. We don’t see it, but we hear it, and the impact is greater. (End Spoilers)

LG: It’s done so well that even if Del Toro could make this an R-rated film, he probably would have done it the same way.

MO: I love the fairytale-style narration we get at the beginning, as we learn where Hellboy came from and who he is. It fits right in with Del Toro’s sensibility.

LG: I remember when I first saw this film, my biggest gripe (apart from Meyers) was that there was a lot to digest, and it was a little too top-heavy with exposition. I’ve grown a little softer on it, since it’s a big world we need to set up. He's learned his lesson from Mimic and focused on the few characters that are important rather than trying to breathe life into an entire city. He’s also resisting the urge to drop in too many expository monologues.

MO: He sets it up so well that after the first twenty minutes we get to explore a lot of character bits rather than having more exposition. The relationship between Hellboy and Liz is one bit, and that’s one of the best superhero-girlfriend relationships in comic book movie history. There’s something very sweet about it. I think Del Toro can relate to being the big guy dating a woman he feels might be out of his league (not saying he’s an unattractive man). There’s a line Hellboy has when he’s courting Liz, “I can promise you, I’ll always look this good”. That’s something Del Toro really said to his wife when they met.

LG: It is a very earnest film. With another director without those experiences, it might feel false, but it works here, damn it!

MO: And that self-deprecation really fits in with everything else Hellboy says. Favorite Hellboy lines? Everyone loves his signature “Oh, crap”, but I also like the quick bits to Sammael, like “Hey…stinky…”

LG: “Didn’t I kill you already?”

MO: Or when Sammael plants an egg-sac in his arm, “He didn’t even buy me a drink”.

LG: “What’s a good, solid word for ‘need’?” “’Need’ is a good, solid word.” “Too needy.”

MO: “On a scale of one to ten, how confident are you about this?” “Two.”

LG: Or even one of Tambor’s lines, since he’s in the field for the first time in his life, after Kroenen attacks him- “Hey, what’s wrong with you?!”

MO: Probably one of our bigger complaints about the film is near the end, when Hellboy fights the big Not Cthulu monster that’s a hundred feet tall. Big build-up! How long is the fight?

LG: About a minute, minute and thirty seconds.

MO: The way he deals with the monster is nice, as he’s swallowed with a bunch of grenades (“this is gonna hurt”), but it is anticlimactic.

LG: It’s a boss fight that might not need to be there, or maybe it’s a problem with money, You got an expensive movie, you “gotta” have an expensive climax. But since the the action climax doesn’t match the emotional climax that came right before it and it feels perfunctory. But at least it has an emotional climax that actually means something. It works well enough especially compared to Blade II, but he still hasn't found a way to do both at once instead of in rapid succession. I used to think that Hellboy was just OK, but it’s grown on me over the years, and the Director’s Cut helps. And if anyone has the Director’s Cut DVD, for the love of God listen to the audio commentary. Some of it is about the film, but some of it becomes this TED-talk about 20^th century pulp literature, showing that Del Toro really is the poet laureate of pulp horror. He’s a relentlessly fascinating man.

Loren's Grade:  B+.

Max's Grade: B+

The theatrical cut of Hellboy (which I'd give a solid B)is available for streaming via Netflix Instant, iTunes, Vudu, Google Play and Xbox Live. If you enjoyed this review, please like us on Facebook.

Roundtable Directory:
Geometria
Cronos
Mimic (director's cut)
The Devil's Backbone
Blade II
Hellboy (director's cut)
Pan's Labyrinth
Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Unmade Del Toro
Pacific Rim

MAN OF STEEL

I have a colleague, the wonderful Micheal G. Smith over at White City Cinema, who has, in his indirect way, been trying to get me off of blockbusters. After seeing Zach Snyder's new Superman reboot Man Of Steel, I'm starting to see his point of view. As I watched Clark Kent/Superman (Henry Cavill) tossing General Zod (Micheal Shannon), through building after building in the "exciting" finale, I started to wonder just how many explosions can you see in a lifetime without getting bored, or even appalled that images depicting the deaths of hundreds of thousands of human beings are being peddled off as entertainment. 

It would help if the film was more effective at making me care about Superman and Zod. As I always say: a good Action movie isn't about explosions, it's about us being worried about the heroes in those explosions. It's hard to care about Clark Kent/Superman in this way as he's is essentially invulnerable. You can take his powers away with Kryptonite but it would be better if we cared about him as a person. It's not impossible to make Superman interesting, the 1978 Richard Donner film made the Blue Boyscout work by embracing the immigrant angle and maintaining a light, comedic touch. But of course modern superhero movies aren't allowed to be silly, so Snyder tires to give us a dark, gritty “realistic” character study of this flying alien who shoots lasers out of his X-ray eyes. But in zapping the silliness, Snyder and screenwriter David S. Goyer have neglected to replace it with anything worthwhile. The result is like Batman Begins if Bruce Wayne was really shallow and generic (It should be noted that the two projects share Goyer as a screenwriter).

To cover for the blandness at the heart of the film, Snyder amps up everything around Clark. The film begins with with an overcomplicated retelling of Superman's birth on the doomed planet Krypton. All the classic story beats are there, but now there's a sudden coup d'etat by General Zod, leading Clark's father (Russell Crowe) to jump on a flying monster straight out of Heavy Metal magazine so he can retrieve a magic skull fragment that tells baby Krytonians what they're going to be when they grow up. As stupid and convoluted as that sentence was, it's somehow worse in the film which doesn't explain why any of that was important till much, much later. It aims for enticing but it comes off as confusing and badly conceived. By the way, I love that even though Krypton is supposed to explode in "a matter of weeks," the government makes no attempt to evacuate and finds time to try and sentence Zod and his cronies.

We then jump forward to Clark as an adult, wandering around Canada like David Banner in the Incredible Hulk show. This is interspersed with clumsy flashbacks of young Clark learning to deal with his powers like we've seen in every Superhero movie, except now it looks like a bad Terrence Malick movie. Everything is these scenes is sun kissed and beautiful, but the angles are all wrong. This is a consistent issue I have with Zach Snyder (300, Watchmen), who has a wonderful visual style he doesn't know how to use.

It goes on like this for a long time. On the advice of his human father (Kevin Costner) Clark does his best to keep his powers secret, while a computerized version of his biological father tells him how he's really, really destined. Oy vey, how he's destined. He's like Jesus, but he can fly, a sort of SuperJesus if you will, but the film lacks the due diligence to make that analogy work and it resorts to cheep tricks like posing Superman in the crucifix pose without him really sacrificing that much. The film is lost in cheep style, unnecessary CGI face masks and senseless violence. I have no idea what Clark thinks of all this. He doesn't talk much, he just sort of stares stoically into space like a catalog model. It'd be tempting to call Cavil bland, but to be fair, the film doesn't ask much of him. He looks the part, and the Superman costume is fantastic, but the film isn't interested in performances. With the exception of Costner, everyone feels underused. The film casts great actors like Harry Lennix, Amy Adams, Christopher Meloni and Laurence Fishburne in supporting roles only to do nothing with them.

The violence in the film is a real issue. We've seen a lot of cities being destroyed on screen lately but there's a difference between the self-consciously cartoon carnage we saw in Avengers and what we get here. Because he's intent on giving us the “realistic” Superman, Snyder and Co. have decided to go really far out their way to invoke 9/11 imagery in appallingly specific ways. There are scenes of people trapped under rubble, covered in ash and crying for help as building after building topples behind them. The imagery is frankly uncomfortable and not a frame of it is earned. The Superman character is essentially a power fantasy, but instead of being able to share in the feeling of watching Superman triumph over evil and save the day, all I could think about was all the innocent people that are dying terrible, terrible deaths because Superman doesn't think to draw Zod away from  populated areas. We are told that the 'S' on Superman's chest represents hope, but this film has none. It's joyless, cynical plodding leading to tasteless destruction, darkness and despair. You know, for kids!

Grade: D

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES AND THE TRILOGY BELT

For many The Dark Knight Rises the most eagerly awaited film of the year. Its predecessor was one of the most well liked action films of the last decade and everyone want’s to know if Christopher Nolan has done the impossible and topped The Dark Knight. In part one of this series, I theorized that a trilogy that measurably topped itself with each entry would win a sort of trilogy belt. We’ll get to that, but first lets talk about the film itself.

It’s been 8 years since the catastrophic events of The Dark Knight. Hero district attorney Harvey Dent is dead, and Batman has taken the fall for his crimes. A law passed in the wake of all this has rendered Gotham essentially crime free, but for our heroes, things are not so good. Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) is racked with guilt that he’s had to protect the legacy of a man who tried to kill his family. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) is even worse. He’s got a bum leg and wanders around his once great mansion in a Howard Huges like solitude. Bruce is going to need all the help he can get because a new enemy named Bane (Tom Hardy) has moved into Gotham’s sewers with a secret army of mercenaries and one of the most diabolical evil plans to come along in a long time.

The film starts off a bit slower than its predecessors, taking a wider view of Gotham city. The slow burn nature of the plot feels necessary after the anarchic chaos and implication heavy ending of the last film and while not all of the plot’s multitude of moving parts work (the McGuffin is introduced very messily), the slower buildup gives us a better idea what Gotham, this city Bruce cares so much about, is like. We meet a young beat cop John Blake (Joesph Gordon Levett) who does a lot of the legwork putting the mystery together. We also meet Selina Kyle, A.K.A. Catwoman (Ann Hathaway), a mysterious cat burglar who knows more about what’s going on than she lets on.

Ultimately things get really dark. Without giving too much away, Gotham eventually becomes a dystopia of sorts. There is massive social upheaval and class warfare, but it’s not Occupy being invoked so much as the Reign of Terror, complete with kangaroo courts. The films have always had some sort of political subtext but it’s a shift in away from the Bush era Ends vs. Means undertones of the last few films. The second half of the film still plays out like the worst nightmare of the War on Terror generation. As such the film looses some moral ambiguity but surprisingly, it isn’t missed too much.

The actors all do a nice job. All the major supporting characters return and do a fine job even though some of them have less screen time. People who are bothered by Christian Bale's bat-voice will still find no relief. The new players acquit themselves well. Ann Hathaway is the best new addition and plays Catwoman as something of a female Han Solo. Tom Hardy was the perfect choice to play Bane. Hardy is an actor with excellent control over his physicality which is useful here as he needs to imbue a character who’s face is completely covered with a cold intellect.

Ultimately this is a better film than then it’s predecessors. It succeeds where Dark Knight stalls. There are no clunky action scenes and it seems that Nolan has, at long last, truly arrived as an action filmmaker. The film is full of beautifully done, lip biting sequences. The mid-air extraction that opens the film may be the greatest Bond style prologue ever captured on film. The siege of Gotham sequences at the end of the film make for some incredible, silent movie epic level spectacle that makes Avengers look like a mid-budget indie film.

Beyond showing us that Nolan has finally, unquestionably nailed his action scenes, Nolan has also grown as a dramatic filmmaker. The first half of the film has some legitimate issues, but Nolan builds to one of the best constructed third acts he’s has ever done. More importantly the film has an earned emotional resonance that hasn’t been present in his work since Memento and perhaps The Prestige. The tragic elements in this film work on an emotional level where as the same elements of the last film felt a little too “thesis statement” for my taste.

As for whether or not Rises is better than Dark Knight and earns the so-called trilogy belt I theorized about in part one of this series, the answer is a firm, absolute “debatable.” Rises is a better film than Dark Knight, but ultimately I’m not sure I like it more. The antagonism between Batman and Bane isn’t as intense as it was between Batman and Joker. That said, I don’t think it was meant to be. Joker’s plan was to expose Batman and his allies as frauds. For Bane, Batman is a minor concern. Someone to be gotten out of the way and that has a massive impact on the dynamic of the film. It’s not that the later approach is worse, but it’s different and it reveals that the city of Gotham is the real main character in the film. Then there is the ending. Without spoiling it, the finale takes a few unexpected directions. They are not bad directions and they are set up very well, but your satisfaction levels may vary.

The more I sit with this film, the more I like it, but I don’t like it enough to award it a Trilogy Belt, but that’s okay. The trilogy goes out with a bang and brings the series to a memorable and satisfactory conclusion. The Dark Knight Rises isn’t the film we wanted, but it’s the film we deserve. 

 Grade: A- 

Note: About 70 minutes of the film was photographed in IMAX and undisclosed percentage of the remainder was shot on traditional 70 mm film and the results are breathless. Seeing the film in the format, to the extent that Nolan uses it is a great treat that should be enjoyed by anyone who can. In an age where the industry is shifting towards lower resolution digital photography, it's reassuring to see Nolan moving the other way towards sharper, brighter, bigger images.

Be sure to check out our page on Facebook and to read parts one and two of this serries:

Entries in this series:

Intro /Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Rises 

THE DARK KNIGHT AND THE TRILOGY BELT

There’s a lot of hype and trepidation about The Dark Knight Rises as to whether or not it will conclude the trilogy with a bang or a whimper. If he does, Nolan will be the first director in 50 years to create a trilogy that tops itself with each entry. Such a feat is akin to a world heavyweight championship of film, to the winner goes the trilogy belt (explained more fully in part one of this series).

Nolan has more than history working against him, he also has the 2nd installment of his trilogy, The Dark Knight,which whatever its flaws is certainly one of the most unique and relentlessly entertaining blockbusters of late.

It’s been a year since Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) took up the mantle of Batman and hit the streets of Gotham to start a war on crime. In his crusade he has joined forces with Lieutenant Gordon (Gary Oldman) and the newly elected DA Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckheart) who's currently dating Bruce's love interest Rachel (now played by Maggie Gyllenhaal). Batman and co. have had some solid results. Together they’ve managed to deprive the Gotham mob of its accountant and along with him go all their finances, but there’s a new complication in the form of the Joker (Heath Leger), a punk rock, psychotic super crook bent on nothing less than the obliteration of Gotham’s soul.

Complication is the key word of Dark Knight. The film is a relentless series of horrors. The highly episodic plot never slows down. A great villain exists to put the hero through the ringer, Nolan understands this and treats the film like a Shock & Awe campaign, never letting the audience get comfortable. Many films use a sort of ticking time-bomb to accelerate the 3rd act. This film seems to have them every five minutes. Joker issues an ultimatum that people will die every day Batman doesn’t reveal his identity. Later, two main characters are kidnaped and Batman must choose who to save. Joker orders the city to kill a man in an hour or he blows up a hospital, etc. This tactic makes the film a wonderfully nerve racking experience. Every time you think Joker has run out of evil schemes, he pulls something even more diabolical out of his hat. The fact that the film doesn't collapse by the end or run out of juice is a huge testament to how well much of this film works.

What doesn’t always work is the drama. Dark Knight is ultimately supposed to be a tragic film about men who pin all their hopes on an all too human savior. This is all very thoroughly explained to us in the films worst scene where Bruce, Rachel and Dent sit around a table an talk to the audience about the films themes. It’s a shame that a film with such an ingenious structure has to resort to such condescending exposition. Also the tragic parts are underwritten. Perhaps I’m too familiar with the comics to be surprised about what happens to Harvey Dent, but I still should have felt something. It’s as if the characters invest more in Dent than the film is able to. It’s not as if the film doesn’t have time, Dent is on screen long enough, but that thread only works on an intellectual level and not necessarily an emotional one.

Nolan’s technical skills took a measurable step up with this film. He starts to play with sound in interesting ways. Being an action film, there are naturally a lot of loud bangs, but Nolan contrasts this by dialing back at times to the point that there are snippets of complete silence that really force us to look more fully at the image. Those images are better than ever, he and his cinematographer Wally Pfister have sharpened their visuals a lot for this film. The last film made a huge jump towards "realism" but still had a foot in the overly designed world of the old Batman films (the trains, the backlots). Dark Knight makes more extensive use of location shooting (mostly using Chicago as Gotham) and it really works like gangbusters.

Nolan’s ability to conceive and shoot action sequences has improved measurably. There are some memorable show stoppers here. The opening bank heist and the extraction of the mob accountant from Hong Kong are particular standouts. But while Nolan’s ability to edit these scenes aren’t always up to snuff (this video goes into excruciating detail as to why), they’re still extremely effective on a visceral level. The fist fights are better photographed this time out. The camera has been pulled back and you can actually see Batman hitting people this time. That said, there are still some clunkers. Late in the film there’s a gimmick involving sonar vision. Now there are some gadgets in these films that are totally plausible (sky hook), and some stuff that it’s better not to think to hard about. Of the later group, Batman’s sonar vision strains credibility the most. Worst of all it’s an ugly, disorienting gimmick that really detracts from the enjoyment of the film.

This whole scene is a headache.

Now whereas Batman Begins was an example of the superhero formula done about as well as it can be done (despite some flaws). The Dark Knight is all about changing perceptions of the genre. Dark Knight has very little to do with the standard superhero movie. It’s much more like a crime film that happens to have a superhero in it. It’s clear that it’s not Iron Man but film’s like Micheal Mann’s Heat that are the film’s closest cousin. Now in comparison to Heat it doesn’t quite measure up, but it’s a relatively fair fight most of the time.

One of the things evening out the playing field is Heath Leger as Joker. It's been 4 years since Dark Knight came out so there's nothing really left to say about the performance other than wowie wow wow! It's a very twitchy performance but his intense, calculating gaze keeps him down to earth. Also it's just an interesting character, he isn't evil just for the sake of it, he's an armchair shrink out to prove his theories of human existence and shake up the established order. Most of all he wants to expose Batman as a fraud. The thing is, Joker is kinda right. As the film goes on, Batman seems more and more willing to cross lines to stop Joker. Like Dirty Harry, he tortures suspects, breaks legs, even wire-taps the entire city and barely stops for a second to consider it. Like in the last film, he also has to decide if he's going to go all the way and become a murderer. (Spoilers for that 1 person who still hasn't seen this movie) First, he throws Joker off the side of a building but saves him. This is an improvement over his behavior in the first film where he left Ra's Al Ghul to an almost certain death. Perhaps he felt that he would have been more directly responsible for Jokers death seeing that it was him who personally threw him. Or perhaps Nolan didn't want to reenact the ending of Burton's '89 film too closely. Later, after the Joker has been apprehended, Batman learns that Dent has gone insane and has kidnapped Gordon's family. In that scene Batman finally, explicitly, directly kills someone. We can argue that it was justified, but again, the point is that Batman breaks his most important rule and he'll have more trouble rationalizing it this time, and even though Batman finds a way to salvage some dignity, it's very clear that Joker has essentially won. Batman gets torn down, he breaks his rules, loses his objectivity and discipline and even worse his legacy as a force for good is ruined. Batman finds a way to salvage a win, but it feels like a hollow one. (end spoilers)

The dramatic elements of Dark Knight are sometimes hit and miss, but Nolan still manages to tell an amazingly entertaining yarn. Like Begins, it feels a little essayish at times but is emencely entertaining with some interesting moral quandaries. It's a superior sequel that elevates the genre. 2008 was an important year for the comic book movies, Dark Knight and Hellboy II ushered the super-hero genre into more ambitious, more adult territory. It's a shame that the rest of the industry hasn't followed suit.

Grade: A-

Entries in this series:

Intro /Batman Begins

The Dark Knight

The Dark Knight Rises

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BATMAN BEGINS AND THE TRILOGY BELT

There's been a lot of excitement and trepidation about The Dark Knight Rises. Rotten Tomatoes has suspended comments on reviews because fans have been threatening critics who dared to not like the film. It's a bit presumptuous of fans to critique a review of a film that isn't even out yet, but the urge is understandable. Christopher Nolan has, over the past few years, completely redefined the superhero genre with his Batman films, and as fans we want him to blow us away one more time with this final entry, but we have a secret fear that it might not succeed. Over the next few day's we're gonna talk about Nolan's batman films, but first lets talk about trilogies...

Making a great film is hard. Many films that start out good seem to run out of steam and then by the end just feel perfunctory. The problem of keeping consistent quality escalates ten fold when dealing with trilogies. Making one great film is hard enough, making three interlinking ones is next to impossible. Most often any sequels are a series of diminishing returns (Back to the Future). Other times the first sequel is even better than the original installment but then the disappointment of the final part seems to leave ultimate greatness just out of reach. Take the original Star Wars trilogy. The first one is quite good. It dazzled the world with a whirlwind of stylistic, genre bending influences that preempt Tarantino by a good decade. Then Empire Strikes Back went deeper into the world and told a more emotionally resonant story. But then Return of the Jedi came out. It’s a good film, and it finishes off a lot of the lingering questions left from previous entries, but it’s just not as good as Empire.

This same pattern has been seen again and again in film trilogies, notably in Sam Raimi’s Spider-man films and perhaps most infamously with the Godfather films. Now the Godfather films are not failures, they represent two wildly impressive achievements in cinema. But what if the trilogy didn’t fizzle out? What if all three volumes escalated in quality? A trilogy that did this, that started strong and topped itself with each entry would be a huge achievement in cinema. With so many trilogies out there and so many film-goers actively interested in the results, one might call it the world heavyweight championship of film. To the winner of this prize would go the trilogy belt.

Like this, but for movies.

Having come up with this theory, I looked around for clear winners.  Now this theory is more for fun than anything else, but there are some rules applied:

1. Escalation of Quality.  The series has to start strong and each successive volume must be measurably better than the last. This excludes Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films as they are of such a consistent quality that choosing one over the other becomes a matter of personal preference.
2. It Must be a Trilogy. There must only be three installments in the overall series with a definitive resolution. Sorry to Star Trek II-IV which tell a self contained story but are part of a larger series (they would also not pass rule 1 as Star Trek III is not as good as II or IV)
3. No “Loose” Trilogies. The installments can tell standalone stories but must be connected in some concrete way, preferably following the same characters or sets of characters. This sadly excludes Park Chan Wook’s excellent Vengeance Trilogy or Spielberg’s supposed Running Man trilogy. In short, if you have to be told that it’s a trilogy—it’s not.
4. Continuity of Creation. All three installments must be said to be the work of one man, or at the very least, the same team. This disqualifies the Bourne films which switched directors after the first film, though it’s on the bubble because the films can be said to be authored by screenwriter Tony Gilroy who invented his own world rather than use the contrived doorstops he was supposed to be adapting (it’s all a moot point as a fourth Bourne film is coming out soon without it’s main lead, taking it out of compliance with rules 2 and 3).

Applying these rules to the great trilogies I find one, and exactly one, trilogy that satisfactorily meets the requirements. Sergio Leoné’s Dollars trilogy.

Started in 1964, A Fistful of Dollars is an engrossing western re-appropriation of Akira Kurosawsa’s Yojimbo (itself a reappropriation of Dashiell Hammett's novel Red Harvest). Fistful is an excellent film that reinvigorated a dying genre but its sequel For A Few Dollars More tells a more complex, more ambitious, and more rewarding story. The final installment in the trilogy, The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is a great, lightning bolt from the sky masterpiece that makes the first two look like field sketches for a great painting.

 It’s been nearly 50 years since that series concluded and no trilogy has managed to stick the landing and deliver on that promise of escalating quality. Of the incomplete trilogies out there right now, two can be firmly said to be in the running for the Trilogy Belt: Guillermo Del Toro’s Hellboy films and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy which we will be discussing here in a sec. Both films had entertaining but, flawed first installment’s and dynamite first sequels. The possibility of Hellboy III being made at all is very much up in the air at the moment, leaving it up to Nolan. If Nolan, who’s action filmmaking facility took a huge leap forward with Inception, has managed to make the impending Dark Knight Rises better than it’s predecessor he would have won the belt for the first time in nearly 50 years. Over the next few days I’ll be reviewing Nolan’s Bat-films to track their overall quality and post a review of Dark Knight Rises early next week.

Which brings us to Batman Begins...

Until 2005, big-screen depictions of the Dark Knight have had a spotty track record. The ’66 Adam West film is gloriously silly, Burton’s wonderful, but Prince filled, 1989 version was good but seemed more concerned with German Expressionism and Citizen Kane references than being about Batman. Burton’s films had great style but light substance. The Shumacer era was light on anything to recommend. For all the supposed darkness these films had, they seemed to always be harkening back to the campy 60’s era of Batman which was fun (and accurate to the tone of the comics of THAT era) but had little to do with the Batman that Bob Kane created in the 30’s, or the one of the contemporary world. There where some attempts, Darren Aronofsky and Frank Millar (author of two of the most important Batman books of all time, also Sin City) notably worked on a film that would have depicted Bruce Wayne as the borderline Travis Bickle level sociopath he'd be if he existed in the real world. It was a ultimately too bold a venture for a studio that wanted a PG-13, but the idea of a more grounded Batman would eventually gain traction with a different indi-darling director.

Enter Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins which finds Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) in a Chinese prison camp. Having left his 1% lifestyle to learn more about the criminal element he yearns to fight against. Call it “method crime fighting.” He’s rescued by a mysterious warrior named Ducard (Liam Neeson), a representive of an ancient order called The League of Shadows headed by the mysterious R’as al Ghul (Ken Watanabe). Under his tutelage Wayne learns all sorts of martial arts as well as the discipline he needs. But when Bruce refuses to kill a man the League has found guilty, he breaks away and Ducard becomes his enemy.

Upon returning to Gotham, Bruce reconnects with a childhood crush Rachel (Katie Holmes) and begins to create a separate persona under which to rescue crime-ridden city. He starts by gathering tools he’ll need from his parent’s company’s Applied Sciences division headed by Q – I mean Lucious Fox (Morgan Freeman). Fox provides him with a bullet proof survival suit, a cape made of memory-cloth for “base jumping” and an old prototype “bridging vehicle” called The Tumbler.  Bruce starts off fighting mob-bosses and quickly graduates to supervillian/shrink Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and his mysterious employers who wish to destroy Gotham city.

It's a lot of plot for one film, but if Nolan is good at one thing, it's finding ways to stuff a lot of plot into a film and make it flow. This is an excellent Batman film. It's true, we've seen origin stories like this before, but never with this level of detail. Where as Spider-Man takes the costume for granted, Begins takes it all seriously. Watching Bruce slowly build the Bat-suit from of off the shelf parts and create his cover identity is honestly more interesting than the actual plot of the film. It's also nice to see that despite all his training, Bruce isn't very good at being Batman at first. He doesn't make every jump he takes and, quite frankly gets his ass handed to him by Scarecrow the first time they meet. We can tell he's on the right track but the film isn't called Batman Knows What He's Doing. It's that constant adjustment to his methods and costume that make the the first hour so good. So compelling are these sequences, that when the full plot finally kicks in, it doesn't measure up.

Now it's universaly agreed that Katie Holmes is the weakest link in the film. Romantic interests have never been the strong suit of Batman stories on the page or the screen. He’s always been something of an asexual character. He’s looking for justice, not love. Still Nolan gives us a love-interest, making her an ADA was a smart choice, casting baby-faced Katie Holmes isn’t. It’s not that she’s a bad actress (she's a blast in Thankyou For Smoking), she’s just horrendously miscast.

But the film has other problems too. Nolan had made only two feature length films prior to this and neither one of them featured the kind of action spectacle required of a film like this. Unfortunately, Nolan's action beats are confusingly put together. I’ve read arguments that the fight scenes in Batman Begins are designed to disorient the viewer, to be impressionistic of how it feels to be attacked by Batman. That’s a good justification, but they resemble the standard 2005 Hollywood style too much for me to completely buy that, and besides at some point I’m gonna want to clearly see Batman punch someone in the face. The action scenes are not bad by any means (the car chase where the Tumbler jumps from roof top to roof top is fun), but they just aren't up to the standard of the storytelling.

What’s interesting about this film is Batman and his incredibly skewed moral compass. Early in the film, long before be becomes Batman, Bruce tries to kill his parent’s murderer. He fails but learns his lesson. later he refuses to kill another murderer because he doesn’t want to be "an executioner." But here's the thing about Batman – He doesn’t kill people, except when he does. The fact of the matter is that Batman’s refusal to kill is a bit of a half-measure in a city as corrupt as Gotham, and in both films, circumstances eventually play out so that he is pushed into doing so. In that executioner scene, Bruce gets out of it by setting fire to the building he’s in. A fire that may very well have resulted in the death of the man he was trying to save as well as several dozen other people. One could argue that he realized that the League posed a threat to thousands, perhaps millions, of lives and that sacrificing a few would be in the interest of the greater good. But that’s the point. Batman is completely inconsistent in applying his moral code. Batman may understand this deep down, but doesn’t want to admit it and it’s intriguing to see how he spins it. (Spoiler Alert) During the film’s climax, he tells R’as al Ghul “I won’t kill you; but I don’t have to save you,” and then leaves him to die in a train crash that he caused. I don’t know what crime Batman would be charged with, but it’s at least manslaughter (End of Spoilers). The huge fascination of Nolan’s films is, despite all the literalism, seeing Batman make progressively more hypocritical choices while still claiming to be a symbol of incorruptibility. We’ll see even more of this in The Dark Knight, and it’s these moral quandaries that make the Batman character special, even more important that he doesn’t seem to mind his obvious hypocritical nature. His flexible nature has served him well so far in the series, but at what point will to start to become a problem?

Now this level realism doesn’t rule the picture. It’s still a Batman film, and a pulpy one at that. The League of Shadows as a terrorist organization was very topical and well done (they even have an ideology reminiscent of Al Qaeda), but it’s still a terrorist organization made up of ninjas using hallucinogenic’s to poison a city. It’s very pulpy in a very old fashion way that harkens back to the characters origins as a thinly veiled rip-off of The Shadow, right down to Batman praying on the fears of his victims. 

Batman Begins isn’t the best possible superhero movie, but it’s done as well the pre-existing, origin story formula can be done. The film’s action sequences may be lacking at times, but the film’s thoughtfulness and attempts to ground the source material in something remotely resembling the real world is admirable and exciting.

Grade: B+


Be sure to follow g-blatt's dreams on Facebook, and check out part's two and three of the series to see how Nolan's Bat-films fit into the Trilogy Belt theory:
Intro / Batman Begins
The Dark Knight
The Dark Knight Rises