Tag Archives: Superhero

Empty Calories – Problems with Narrative in Cinema and Television – Part 3

Posted by RibaldRemark on

Part 3 – Iron Man 3 or Why Character Motivation is Important

 

The third film in the Iron Man trilogy, Iron Man 3, is perhaps the most egregious in terms of the narrative convenience over-riding any attempt at nuance or agreeing with the facts and themes as established in the diegesis.  Given the numerous plot holes and narrative inconsistencies, it is also the hardest to re-create a semblance of consistency in without rewriting vast swathes of the narrative.  However, the major sections of the film establish that Tony is experiencing PTSD following the events of invasion of New York in Avengers.  He is obsessively creating new suits of armour with increasingly specialist functions and abilities.  Aldrich Killian, meanwhile, is a research scientist who suffers from villain-itis and the need to enact a completely ludicrous, over-the-top, sure to fail, overly complicated, scheme which makes no sense, has massive holes, and the goals of which could easily have been achieved by setting a lab up in a different country.  But sure, creating a fake terrorist group to threaten the president so that you could then capture War Machine in order to kidnap the President, execute him on TV so that the Vice President could become president and change a law so that you could run experiments on humans… it is a plan.   Not a good one.  But it is a plan.  Alternatively, he could have set up a lab in a country that didn’t have those laws, or not allowed the subjects of the experiment to freely wander around without supervision, or, especially as he is apparently a murdering psychopath, simply killed the subjects of the experiment so that he could move on to the next batch.

 

Ignoring the genuine mess of the plot and the gaping plot holes, there are three main points that could be altered to create a more seamless, more heroic, film that would fit with Tony’s character arc as developed by the first two Iron Man films, and the repercussions of the Avengers film.

Iron Man 3

The first concerns the treatment of the Extremis soldiers.  This is perhaps the most egregious example in Iron Man 3 in terms of forgetting or ignoring what was established at the beginning of the film in favour of a simplistic, overly reductive, action set piece, and, consequently, unintentionally casts Tony as a psychopath.  The film is at pains to show Tony uncovering the mystery of the Extremis soldiers and shows them to be victims of Killian’s experiments.  Let me repeat that, they are victims.  Wounded veterans.  Killian takes wounded military veterans and experiments on them leading to them exploding uncontrollably when they cannot ‘regulate’.  There is no suggestion anywhere in the film that the Extremis procedure leads to mental instability, personality changes, violent fits, or anything of that sort.  So the film presents these wounded armed forces veterans undergoing an experimental procedure to regrow limbs, in effect, they have been promised a ‘cure’ for their battle wounds, and not informed about the consequences.  This is a classic example of an evil scientist taking advantage of good, honourable soldiers, and using them as guinea pigs.  They are victims of Killian’s unethical experiments with an unfinished and unproven procedure, and who have no control over what happens to them.   Yet, for no apparent reason and without any explanation, these victims suddenly become psychopathic, murdering, mindless, aggressive, evil foot soldiers for Killian in the third act whom Tony, Rhodey, and the Jarvis controlled suits are allowed to execute without any moral qualms.  Nothing in the film even hints at why we should change from regarding them as unknowing victims and pawns of Killian’s unethical and unscrupulous experiments that take advantage of them, to seeing them as psychopathic, disposable, foot soldiers, who can be killed by soulless AI controlled murder machines, with only a light hearted quip, and no remorse, on the part of our ostensible hero.

 

Oddly enough, this point is once again easily correctable with an exceptionally minor change to the script.  If the film had established those soldiers undergoing the procedure as being ‘bad’ from the start, this would not be as significant a hurdle that needed to be overcome.  The action set piece at the end would not need rewritten in order to ‘save’ the victims, but could, at least according to Hollywood logic, carry on with simply executing bad guys without any moral qualms.  Instead of these being wounded veterans who presumably (for all the audience knows) have sterling service records and were wounded in the course of protecting America, especially as this is implied when Tony meets the mother of one of the ex-soldiers, they could have been the dregs of the Armed services.  Soldiers who were part of a secret, unethical, kill squad, or soldiers who had been imprisoned for war crimes, or any number of corrupt military or paramilitary types to whom Killian makes an offer exchanging superpowers in exchange for service.  They didn’t have to be wounded veterans with whom the audience would expectedly build sympathy for.  By simply revealing these Extremis soldiers to have been evil or villainous from the start the audience is not left wondering why they are suddenly all evil.

 

Alternatively, if the discussion of Extremis included dialogue that suggested a side-effect of the treatment was some sort of psychosis or change to the personality of those treated (making them aggressive, violent, and irrational), then they could still be seen as both victims, and as a danger that needed to be addressed.  As with Vanko in Iron Man 2, and Stane in Iron Man, there are several minor ways the representation could have been tweaked, with minimal interference with the scenes and story structure as established, that would have established a rationale for the villains, addressed Tony’s character arc, and supported a more consistent thematic story.  If they had been altered by the treatment, then we again could have had the heroes feeling resigned that there was no way to save them.  This would make Killian’s villainy all the more apparent as he turned good soldiers into evil monsters.  Tony and Rhodey could lament that there was nothing more they could do, and this would frame them as heroes having to make the tough choice.  Again, this was a chance to elevate their heroism instead of making it simply about killing mindless, nameless, featureless, CGI monsters with little or no emotional impact.

 

The treatment of the Extremis soldiers is made more egregious by the short, throwaway reference made in the concluding scenes of the film to ‘curing’ Pepper Potts a few days later.  As a result, this film portrays innocent military veterans, who have been experimented on and then turning villainous for no reason, being executed, when all it took for Tony to develop a cure for their condition was a couple of days thinking about it and caring enough about one of the victims.  A resequencing of the events could have seen Tony’s army of suits fitted with tranquiliser darts filled with the miraculous ‘cure’ for Extremis, thus the fight sequence could still have occurred, but this time, the victims of Killian’s experiments could have been saved.  By adding that all it took to cure Pepper was a few days, we, the audience, are immediately confronted with the thought that these soldiers died needlessly and in the name of expedience and Tony’s selfishness.  If Pepper’s ‘cure’ had been put off, and the audience were told that Tony had found a way to stabilise it and was searching for a cure, that would have been an easier pill to swallow.  As it stands, you only get cured if you are a friend or loved one of a hero.

 

While killing villains instead of incapacitating or capturing them and making them face justice has become a staple of action films, and we have all become somewhat numb to the ethical problems of slaughtering ‘enemies’, and the fact that action heroes exhibit all the tendencies of psychopaths and are rewarded from it, this film actually includes a moment that emphasises this problematic tendency.  The last significant plot point of the film that raises significant ethical questions, and again contradicts the character arc of Tony’s journey, concerns how he dispatches the guards at the Mandarin’s compound.

 

Bereft of his suit, technology, and superior weaponry, Tony knuckles down and improvises a set of weapons in order to take down the Mandarin (and by that we assume kill) in revenge for destroying his house and injuring his girlfriend.  Admittedly his reasoning could have been to protect America, but the film plays heavily on Tony’s inaction until his own personal property is destroyed and the vendetta becomes personal to him.  So once again the film inadvertently highlights that Tony is not a hero, and it is only revenge that motivates him to get involved, thus emphasising his selfishness and narcissism.  Again, sidestepping plot holes here, Tony improvises a series of weapons and then infiltrates the Mandarin’s compound.

 

At this juncture there has been no indication that the guards protecting the Mandarin’s compound are evil.  They are in causal dress, not uniforms or military tactical gear, and Tony has uncovered no information that these men are terrorists or evil, or, in fact, are involved in the Mandarin’s plans.  In fact, one of the guards, in what we assume is meant to be a moment of levity, surrenders and runs away as he doesn’t like working for the Mandarin and thinks they are ‘weird’.  Admittedly, none of the other guards get a chance to do this as Tony murders them all.  Long gone is any reference to Tony forsaking weapons and seeking to defend the world, to cover it in a suit of armour.  There is portrayed as straightforward vengeance, although the film would have you believe that this is justified and heroic.

 

Just to emphasise this point, one of the guards surrenders and runs away when given a chance because he is not a terrorist, he just works as private security for a presumably rich but very strange client, and has no idea what that client does.  If one of the guards feels that way, would not others?  Consistently we are encouraged to see the narrative solely from Tony’s perspective.  This focalisation ignores the fact that each of the other characters, even Nameless Surrender Guard, also have a perspective.  For all the audience knows, this could be a simple private security firm, that has done nothing wrong, and thinks that they are protecting a slightly odd cult leader, or wealthy foreigner.  Nothing presented in the film suggests that these initial guards are terrorists or willing participants in Killian’s plans.  Yet, Tony kills several of them with impunity, it is never mentioned that he faced charges for murder, or was even investigated for this.   At best this gives the impression that Tony is now careless as to whether or not someone is a bad guy, at worst it reaffirms that Tony is, in fact, a sociopath.

 

A very simple remedy to this problem would have been to have the guards dressed in tactical combat gear and removing the moment in which one of them surrenders.  That, at least, would have given the illusion that they were paramilitary or active combatants. That they were probably committed to the ‘cause’, and that Tony could be justified in shooting first and asking questions later.  Alternatively, a simple bit of dialogue between the guards as Tony is creeping up on them could have revealed that they were all part of the Mandarin plot and worked directly for Killian.  A further alternative would have been when Jarvis is giving Tony the location of the base it could have mentioned that the base has a number of heavily armed guards, and that they match some of the individuals that attacked the house.  While none of these alterations directly change the fact that Tony murders a number of people in cold blood while on an assassination mission, it at least provides a moral fig leaf to hide the worst of the sociopathic tendencies from the audience.

 

This was an effort to try to use minimal correction to remove issues specifically related to character motivation, thematic consistency, and to preserve character development and character arcs without rewriting the entire films.  To correct plot holes and all the narrative contrivances would require much more significant changes and would radically alter the films and storylines, and would be, in effect, creating entirely new films.  From these very minor changes, and admittedly they are not perfect and do not address a number of the plot holes and narrative contrivances found in the films, you can see how the theme, tone, and subtext of the films was ignored, and how character motivation and psychological realism were contradicted or dismissed, in favour of spectacle, action set pieces, and the need for simplistic black and white characterisation.  In effect, the film makers appear to have assumed that audiences would not be smart enough to spot the flaws in the narratives because they were dazzled by pretty special effects, and that audiences do not care about the ethics of their heroes.  It is easy to blame this on bad writing, but given that Executive Producers, Producers, Directors, Writers, and even certain Actors, can have a significant impact on scripts and story arcs, it is impossible to know if any of these issues were raised and over-ruled, or who made the decision to have characters behave in certain ways.  We don’t know if explanatory scenes were left on the cutting room floor because the editor or the director needed to trim time and didn’t realise that those moments were the ones that filled out the narrative beyond empty spectacle, or ethically compromised visions of their heroes.  We don’t know if there were rewrites due to actors being unavailable due to scheduling.  We don’t know if any number of external or internal production factors dictated changes.  What we do know is that the narratives as produced missed opportunities to correct simple errors leaving the films less than they could have been, more confused than they could have been, and far less rewarding to watch.

 

 

Empty Calories – Problems with Narrative in Cinema and Television – Part 2

Posted by RibaldRemark on

Part 2 – Iron Man 2 or Why Character Motivation is Important

During Iron Man 2 there are a number of issues set up that, over the course of the film, the audience is slowly let in on, as pertaining to Tony’s character.  He is slowly being poisoned by the arc reactor in his chest and is dying.  He is concerned about legacy (both his and his father’s).  He fears for the future of his company.  He is also concerned about who will take over the mantle of Iron Man once he is dead.  This fear of the future, and review of the mistakes of the past, is an acceleration and extension of the previous film’s emphasis on Tony changing his ways, rejecting being a weapon manufacturer, and wanting to see a better future.  In all, it makes a lot of sense as it continues the themes of the first film in a natural and logical progression.  However, Tony’s actions in the film, particularly with regard to Ivan Vanko, the ostensible villain, seem to run counter to the established character motivation and contradict the subtext and context developed in both Iron Man and this film.  This forms the crux of where the established subtext and character motivation are ignored in favour of narrative convenience, just as with Jackson’s use of Arwen in LotR.  The important point here is to remember that although much of Tony’s state of mind is revealed over the course of the film, it is meant to be present in his character from the start.

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Before getting into the details of this, let us first consider who Ivan Vanko is and how he is presented in the film.  As the MCU films clearly have no difficulty in taking inspiration from the comics but have no desire to adapt specifics or storylines faithfully and are perfectly happy to change, subvert, invert, or discard aspects at will, we don’t need to consider the comic history of the ‘villain’.  This is solely focused on the character created in the film.    Vanko is presented as the angry, bereaved son of a brilliant scientist who co-invented the arc reactor with Stark’s father, Howard Stark.  Yet, where Howard became a multi-billionaire, Vanko’s father was denied any sort of monetary recompense for the invention, thrown out of the country, and died in penury.  Vanko himself is dirty, poor, and Russian.  His hair is lank and greasy, his skin covered in tattoos, and his teeth aren’t the pearly pieces of perfection that are flashed in Tony’s well practiced smirks.  Apparently that is all we need as an audience to believe that he is a polar opposite (at least visibly) to Tony, and that is enough to establish him as a villain.  However, he has a justifiable reason for ‘revenge’ (which is usually the motivating factor for a superhero origin).  His father was not recognised as the co-inventor of the arc reactor, and has been written out of the history books.  He didn’t receive even a fraction of the money that Stark’s father received.  So we are presented with an origin story that in many ways mimics Tony’s journey in the first film.  With minimal equipment he designs and builds an amazingly powerful weapon, just like Tony, from scratch, using and refining the arc technology.  He is doing it, not out of a need or desire for money, but to right a wrong, at least as he sees it.  Again, the traditional revenge motivation of a hero origin and that closely mimics Ton’s own origin in Iron Man.

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Empty Calories – Problems with Narrative in Cinema and Television – Part 1

Posted by RibaldRemark on

Part 1 – Iron Man or Why Character Motivation is Important

 

Psychologically understandable character motivation within narratives has not always been prevalent in storytelling, especially as it ties to underlying themes.  One need only read The Three Musketeers to see plot contrivance trump psychological realism when d’Artagnan immediately forsakes his hithertofore, lifelong held belief that Cardinal Richelieu is a good man because some random guy in a bar tells him so.  It is a volte-face of such extreme that most modern readers would get whiplash and cry foul.  Psychological realism was not necessarily the style of narrative at the time, so contemporary audiences were fine with it, the fact that it promoted the plot was more than enough justification for that moment.  For the modern audience, however, we tend to expect a much greater deal of psychological realism (or believability) in our narratives.  Yet, there seems to be an increasing trend that when it comes to modern narratives that we are far more willing to accept plot convenience, or at least to acquiesce to plot convenience, as a more dominant factor than psychological realism, coherency of narrative subtext, or agreement with theme.  In fact, we seem far more willing to forgive completely insane character decisions for the sake of visuals, aesthetics, or some plot driven reason.  But plot, story, and character, are held together by subtext, motivation, and themes, and when they are ignored, contradicted, or circumvented (none of which is the same as subverted) the resulting story often feels shallow, hollow, and empty, as if it is bereft of true substance.  This can be across whole narratives, but often we can see it most clearly in specific scenes within a narrative that speak to the bigger problem.

 

A prime example of this can be seen in Jackson’s adaptation of Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring in the scene with Arwen, Frodo, the Black Riders, and the Ford of Bruinen at Rivendell.  In the book, Arwen is not present.  Aragorn and the hobbits are met by the elf lord, Glorfindel.  Glorfindel gives Frodo his horse and sends him riding toward Rivendell via the Ford of Bruinen.  Pursued by the Riders, Frodo is injured, weakened, and constantly tempted by the One Ring.  He makes it over the river and faces off against the Riders.  They tempt him.  The Ring tempts him.  But even in his weakened state, even with his wound from the evil Morgul knife, and even with the power of the Ring calling him, Frodo refuses them.  He shows courage, stoutness of heart, and fortitude.  Frodo falls to the ground, just as the river rises up and washes the Riders away.  It is arguably for this reason, his strength of character, that the Council of Elrond agree to let Frodo journey into Mordor accompanied by the rest of the Fellowship.

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In the film version of this scene, Frodo (badly injured with a Morgul knife) is unceremoniously dumped over Arwen’s saddle.  Arwen then carries him, much like a sack of potatoes, pursued by the Riders.  She then crosses the river with Frodo barely conscious, and presumably a bit bruised and battered from the ride.  When the Riders approach, Arwen refuses their temptation with the slightly clumsy line, “If you want him, come and claim him.” Arwen then summons the power of the river, the waters of the river rise up, and the Riders are washed away.  End scene.

 

Substituting Glorfindel with Arwen makes little difference to the story.  In fact, the earlier animated adaptation substituted Glorfindel with Legolas, and that made sense as one elf lord is pretty much the same as another, especially when Glorfindel isn’t really in the rest of the story, so you might as well use the one that is going to be there for the next thousand pages.  But what the animated adaption kept was Frodo riding away from the Riders on his own.  The reason for this is that this was the important part of the encounter.  Frodo refused the Riders and the Ring at his weakest, on his own, injured, with no support, and no protector.  He demonstrated his strength of character and proved himself to be a trustworthy ringbearer.  Unfortunately the Jackson adaptation completely misses this point.  If anything, following Jackson’s scene, the Council of Elrond should have sent Arwen on the quest (with or without Frodo… perhaps in a large sack slung over the back of her horse).   For all of Jackson’s attention to detail in adapting The Lord of the Rings, he seemingly missed the entire point of this scene.

 

Why would Elrond, Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir, Legolas, and Gimli support Frodo’s quest when thus far all he has done to their knowledge has either been to use the Ring and get stabbed on Weathertop, or be rescued like a sack of potatoes by an elf?  There is absolutely no reason to trust in Frodo or believe him capable of this quest at this juncture.  He has demonstrated no fortitude, no judgement, no agency, no power, and in fact had to be rescued in the first place because he was tempted by the Ring.  The characters are forced into this decision for plot reasons, not for any sort of narrative consistency, psychological realism, or earned status.

 

But to reiterate, this is not a problem with Arwen’s inclusion in the scene, as Arwen, Glorfindel, or Legolas, could all have been in the scene, but rather how she has been used, and how that ignores the subtext, theme, and underlying motivation that was in place in the original scene.  She completely robs Frodo of his agency and his power in that crucial moment.  If Arwen saved Frodo and was then included in the Fellowship this would be less of a problem in this specific sense, but that may create other issues, notably completely changing the make-up of the Fellowship.  Although, if she replaced Legolas and performed the same function, that would have been easier to explain than why Frodo is allowed to go in the first place.

 

So what we have here is a cinematic sequence, that looks great, that flows well, that is a fine action set piece, but that completely undermines the entire subtext of the scene and removes the major reason that anyone would trust Frodo to go on the quest in any capacity, let alone as the Ringbearer.  It ignores psychological realism in the characters involved in the Council.  It ignores the theme of the books and story that the strength of the individual, no matter what their background, can be enough to fight evil and change the world.  Jackson obviously had reasons for inserting Arwen at this juncture, but those reasons had nothing to do with character motivation or the necessary subtext created in that moment.

 

Character motivation and subtext can be a powerful tool in storytelling as it makes the narrative more compelling, more immersive, and more verisimilitudinous.  When directors, producers, writers, and production teams ignore the subtext and the characters’ motivations, that is when we find ourselves viewing something that can feel jarring or wildly inconsistent (depending on the severity of the infraction).  Viewers may not always realise why they feel that a character’s actions are out of place, or may not be able to exactly pinpoint why certain scenes felt unfulfilling.  But viewers are very vocal at expressing dissatisfaction when the finished narrative has not fulfilled their expectations.  So it is interesting that many filmic narratives and television shows seem to completely exclude the notions of subtext, character arc, psychological realism, and theme, when they are ostensibly trying to craft something that will please viewers.

 

Take the Iron Man trilogy.  Few would complain about Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark.  He seems to effortlessly portray a spoiled, narcissistic, genius, playboy and translate that to onscreen entertainment.  He has demonstrated time and time again that he also can portray the nuance of character on screen, and is occasionally given the opportunity to do so within Marvel’s juggernaut franchise.  But if we consider the character arcs created by the Iron Man trilogy (and the Avengers film that occurred between IM 2 and IM 3) we get to something of a stumbling block in which the character motivation seemingly vacillates and wavers for little apparent reason, themes get randomly changed mid-text, and the subtext strikes a strange discordant note across individual films and when viewed as a trilogy.

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In the first, Iron Man, leaving aside the problematic timing of Obadiah Stane, for no apparent reason, wanting to have Tony killed, Tony goes through a transformative arc.  He realises his weapons that he naively thought were being used to ‘protect’ American soldiers were actually being used to kill people.  For a genius that is a bit of a blind spot that is hard to swallow, but we will gamely soldier on.  As the film progresses he moves from a purveyor of weapons to wanting to protect.  He creates a suit of armour that will allow himto rescue people, to stop the bad guys, and to be a hero.  Okay, so he kills a few people, but they were bad guys and they shot first, or were holding hostages.  Oh, and he leaves a man to be torn apart by a mob.  But… yay for the good guys, I guess.  He could have arrested them, captured them, deposited them at the army base, incapacitated them and sent the co-ordinates to the allied forces, etc. etc. but vigilante justice is a problematic type of heroism that is wildly and widely promoted in the MCU, and Hollywood in general, as being good, just, and heroic.  No need to get into the double standards applied by heroes to important characters, and to the nameless chaff foot soldiers who can be incinerated with impunity, or the relative morality that is turned on and off like a switch when it is convenient.

 

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Review and Comments: Daredevil Season 2 (Netflix, 2016)

Posted by RibaldRemark on

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Review and Comments:  Daredevil Season 2 (Netflix, 2016)

Short Review:

Good, but not as great as the first season.  It has more fights, explosions, and killing than Season One.  It has gone more to the supernatural side of Daredevil stories and lessened the realism significantly.  Still does some very clever things with theme and character, but has a more complicated narrative structure that occasionally wobbles and feels a little overfull.

 

Longer Review:

I loved Season One of Daredevil.  I thought it was a gritty, ‘realistic’, down-to-earth superhero show that made the incredible seem plausible, did interesting things with character, and focused on telling a good story.  It was thematically consistent, and, in terms of genre, kept its sights firmly on the street crime elements that gave it an authenticity and credibility.   Season Two didn’t quite hit the same notes for me.  Don’t get me wrong, it is still better than the vast majority of other superhero shows, but the first season was so good that this time around my expectations were perhaps a little too high.   Of course you can’t really hold the show responsible for not meeting every viewer’s expectations, but when the first season creates them, you really hope that the follow up at least meets them.  But there are some aspects that just didn’t work as well for me this time.

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Spoiler Free Guest Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (dir. Zack Snyder, 2016)

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Spoiler Free Review: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (dir. Zack Snyder, 2016)
Guest Review by C Cooper

 

So three years after Man of Steel, and what feels like an eternity after announcing Batman vs Superman, the DC Universe has finally arrived.  I’ll be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this as I was distinctly underwhelmed by MoS and thought The Dark Knight Rises was dreadfully paced, overlong, and incomprehensible at times.  I also took a gamble by going with my wife whose only real exposure to Batman was watching me play Arkham Knight on the Xbox, and that Teri Hatcher and Dean Cain were the definitive Lois and Clark.  My expectations were pretty low for the film considering the negative press, but I hoped that the overwhelming hostility from critics was based on what they wanted the movie to be rather than how good it actually is.  The trailers hadn’t helped much either – could there be anything about the film not actually spoiled?  If this seems like an overlong preamble, all I can say is that it is pretty reflective of the movie.

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Superhero Fatigue or Second Wind?

Posted by RibaldRemark on

 

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Superhero Fatigue or Second Wind?

Without a doubt it is a good time to be a superhero geek.  Superhero comics are increasingly reaching out to broader demographics and trying to engage fans from all walks of life.  Comic Cons are basically mainstream media events with high profile guests and impressive production values.  Superhero films are smashing box-office records left and right, not to mention being churned out at a pace of three or four a year (or more), with no sign of stopping.  Superhero television shows are springing up on channel after channel and catering for different demographics and audiences.   And in the face of this we say, ‘Well it can’t keep going at this pace… It will have to end sometime… The public will get bored with the constant stream of superheroes…’ and on and on and on.  In a number of regards that is undoubtedly true, Hollywood has always had something of a cyclical nature to its production schedule.  The era of the Western, the era of the Musical, the era of the Noir and so on.  Each genre has its day to shine and dominate the box office, spawn televisual progeny, and then the market reaches saturation and the public moves on to the next craze.  Thus it was, thus it always will be, so speaketh the voice of experience.

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Review: Legends of Tomorrow (CW, 2016 – )

Posted by RibaldRemark on

 

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Review:   Legends of Tomorrow (CW, 2016 – )

 

Short Review:

If you like the other CW superhero shows, this is more of the same.  If you don’t like the other CW superhero shows this is more of the same.  Glossy American superhero action remake of Doctor Who.  Uneven writing, unwieldy ensemble cast with bumpy chemistry and the subtlety of a baseball bat to the face, and without the do-gooding charm of The Flash or the growling angst of Arrow.

 

Longer Review:

Take a group of supporting characters and guest stars from your airing superhero shows (some of whom are surprisingly famous), stick them in a dysfunctional team together, have them led by American Doctor Who-light on a haphazard trip through easy-to-costume historical settings, to fight an implausible bad guy… welcome to Legends of Tomorrow.  The latest DC based superhero property to show up on the CW, LoT features the time travelling rogue Time Master, Rip Hunter, played by Doctor Who alum Arthur Darvill.  Rip has journeyed back in time to assemble a team of misfit heroes and rogues in order to fight the immortal sorcerer and warlord Vandal Savage (Casper Crump).  Unfortunately, while only slightly more implausible than all the other teams of superheroes who fight ridiculous villains, there is a real lack of cohesion of vision to this show.  But for ease of description, think of it as Justice League: The C-listers, or The Diet Avengers.

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Review: Daredevil (Netflix, 2015)

Posted by RibaldRemark on

 

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Review: Daredevil (Netflix, 2015)

 

I recently reviewed Jessica Jones and it seemed only fair to give Daredevil a review too.

Short Review:
Great superhero show that borrows from police procedurals and organised crime dramas like The Sopranos in an order to create tension, drama and believable realism in a dark, gritty and action filled New York setting.  With its visceral, consequence ridden violence,  Daredevil attempts to show what superhero vigilantes would be like if they actually existed in the real world, never once hiding the emotional and physical wounds their actions cause.

 

Actual Review:
Matt Murdock, aka Daredevil, is a lawyer by day and a vigilante by night.  He lives a life focused on justice, and, with the irony only a comic book can use straight-faced, just as justice is blind, so is he.  Unlike the majority of Marvel’s other superhero properties on the big and small screens, Daredevil is less concerned with the grand epic battles of superheroes deciding the fate of the world in an orgy of cinematic violence and destruction, and it centres itself on individual struggles, believable conflicts, and the everyday crime and grime of the big city.

Set in the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York, shortly after the events of Avengers (2012), Netflix’s 13 episode Daredevil is part of the expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe but holds itself apart.  Like its sister show Jessica Jones, it will also (presumably) be connected to Netflix’s planned shows Luke Cage and Iron Fist.  Coming to Daredevil after seeing Jessica Jones certainly removes some of the power and impact of the series, but despite some strong similarities they seem to be two very different shows.  Jones was a compelling drama based in a detective noir vein that explored abuse, whereas Daredevil is more an organised crime drama that can’t resist action and a good scrap.   

Charlie Cox plays Matt Murdock, the titular Daredevil, a vigilante who stalks the streets and rooftops of his neighbourhood at night in order to stop the crime and corruption plaguing Hell’s Kitchen.  If this were not arduous enough, by day he is an attorney who has recently left a high price law firm in order to set up his own practice with his childhood friend Franklin ‘Foggy’ Nelson (Elden Henson).  The central antagonist for the series is Vincent D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin, a businessman and crimelord, with the main arc in the first season centring around Deborah Ann Woll’s Karen Page, who discovers some evidence of Fisk’s criminal empire and becomes a target whom Murdock must protect.

While there are several other supporting actors who, for the most part, turn in some great, believable performances, the weight of the show really rests on Cox and D’Onofrio’s shoulders.  Cox portrays Murdock as a deeply conflicted man.  On the one hand, as a lawyer he has a chance to pursue justice through due process and the law.  To take criminals down and put them in jail.  To be part of civilisation and help society heal itself.  On the other hand he sees how justice is routinely suborned and manipulated by the wealthy, the corrupt, and the criminally well connected.  His answer to this is to take the law into his own hands, to do the things that the police are unable to do, to fight for the heart and soul of his city, his neighbourhood and the defenceless, and ultimately become a vigilante outside the law.

Despite Cox being English his American accent is surprisingly convincing (well, at least to my untrained ear).  But that is the least of his accomplishments in the role.  It is a tough sell to convincingly pull off both the civilian role of the lawyer as well as the masked vigilante crime-fighter, and yet Cox manages to make both personae seamlessly match.  Coupled with this is Cox’s compelling character performance in his character’s moments of introspection and self-doubt, particularly in regard as to how his violent street fighting justice runs in conflict with his character’s Catholic beliefs and his role as a lawyer.  Cox also manages to convey both the vulnerability of being blind in a sighted world, but also how his disability does not define him.  Certainly there are a number of knowing moments when Cox plays up Murdock’s blindness and the audience knows he has a ‘radar’ sense of the scene in front of him, but for the most part Cox and the production team seem to genuinely try to portray his blindness with sensitivity and realism.  It is a surprisingly complex and nuanced role for those expecting the usual caricatures of superheroes and their melodramatic soap-opera personae.

As Daredevil there is a visceral realism to the scrapes and fights that he finds himself in and actively seeks out.  Each fight, each punch and kick, has a hard meaty content to it, so that every blow lands with a believable primitive weight, and part of that is due to the damage that his character takes over the course of the series, emotional and physical.  While many superheroes seem to be able to fight from morning to night without any real sense of damage or repercussion, Daredevil is visibly worn and exhausted by his conflicts and the evidence of his beatings mounts episode after episode, from cuts and bruises to cracked and bleeding knuckles.  Even more compelling is that these physical scars and markers are accompanied by emotional damage, both to Murdock and those who are close to him.  The price he pays for his heroism is steep, and to the credit of the show and the character, we see him questioning it and flinching at the cost.

An additional note in relation to the action and fight sequences concerns the brilliant choreography that reflects both Daredevil’s brutal, raw and yet effective fighting style, and the physical toll that such intense fighting exacts.  The show is also very careful to try to avoid boring repetition when it comes to the fight sequences and experiments with different styles of shots and approaches to keep the action feeling fresh and inventive.  As a result the action never feels as tired and samey as say 40 minutes of Superman throwing yet another villain through a building.   It really is rare to see superheroes this human, this weak, and this fragile.

Opposite Cox is D’Onofrio’s Wilson Fisk.  The reveal of Fisk, while telegraphed and hinted at in the first few episodes, is delayed until the viewer is really committed and has had a chance to identify with Murdock and settle into the storyworld created.  This means that a great deal of anticipation is built up around D’Onofrio’s eventual introduction, and he doesn’t disappoint.  As far as comic book villains go he is one of the most believable and realistic villains around.  He has no superpowers, no special abilities and doesn’t seem hell bent on world destruction or domination just for the hell of it.  D’Onofrio presents Fisk as a cold, calculating business man who has understandable goals, understandable motivations, but is undeniably morally reprehensible in his choice of methods in achieving those things.

D’Onofrio plays Fisk beautifully as a true villain, not a cackling baddie, and if anything he initially underplays him.  It is such a relief to see a character actor unafraid of leaving the audience wanting more take the role of a villain.  Fisk is presented as tightly controlled, soft spoken and is all the more chilling because of it.  There are constant hints of the depths of his rage and power that leak out at the edges of the performance, and because he refuses to chew the scenery his power is that more palpable.  It also adds weight and power to those moments when he does indulge his rage and anger.  He is the Tony Soprano of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and like Gandolfini’s Soprano, Fisk is not entirely without sympathy, even if he is the bad guy, commits evil, and is a brutal murderer.

A fantastic strength of the show is that Fisk and Murdock are set up as mirrors of each other and the show is at pains to show the viewer just how similar the two men are.  They are both criminals who break the law to get their own way, and aren’t afraid of using violence to enforce their will and vision of the area.  They are both locals who grew up in Hell’s Kitchen and want it to be better.  But while Kingpin is focused on the future with his grand plans of re-development and gentrification funded by organised crime, Daredevil stands for a more conservative, and perhaps nostalgic, approach that fights for the rights of the everyday citizen.  They are two sides to the same coin, and yet the audience is never in doubt as to who is the villain and who is the hero, even if the characters themselves are sometimes unsure.

When people talk about superheroes becoming grittier and more realistic, they usually mean darker, more violent, and aimed at an older audience, and yes Daredevil is all those things, but it is also more mature.  Psychological realism, fear and tension, trauma and repercussions for violence all figure in this show that borrows far more heavily from award winning HBO dramas than it does from colourful capes.  Daredevil is superheroes for adults who want more from the stories than disaster porn and sociopathic quips delivered while killing nameless bad guys.  Daredevil is about good storytelling, compelling characters, gripping drama, and believable action.  Watch it and you will see that the potential for superhero stories far exceeds what has so far turned up on the big screen.

 

Review: Jessica Jones (Netflix, 2015)

Posted by RibaldRemark on

Jessica Jones Logo

 

Review: Jessica Jones (Netflix, 2015)

Short Version:
A brilliant, mature, dark show that investigates the personal cost of abuse, violence, and notions of justice, and clearly demonstrates the range the superhero genre can encompass, all wrapped up in compelling drama populated by fascinating characters. Well worth watching.

Actual Review:
A TV show about the survivor of an abusive relationship who is a hard-drinking, bitter, and emotionally scarred private eye trying to take down her abuser, seems at odds with much of the public perception of superhero television, and in a number of ways Netflix’s Jessica Jones is as far from a traditional superhero series as you can get, and is all the better for it.

Jessica Jones, a Netflix Original series, is the 13 episode, live action superhero show based on Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos Marvel comic series, Alias.  Like its sister show Daredevil, and two planned future shows Luke Cage and Iron Fist, Jones is set in the same New York as the Marvel Cinematic Universe and occurs after the events of Avengers (2012).  But Jones eschews the grand, epic battle of heroes against countless nameless and disposable minions, and focuses intently, and uncomfortably, on the personal human cost of living, and surviving, in a world of superheroes and villains.  Make no mistake, this is not a children’s show, nor is it a rip-roaring excitement filled adventurous romp with no emotional consequence, this is a powerful show that examines the darkest parts of the superhero genre and the human condition.

 

Jessica Jones and Kilgrave

Krysten Ritter plays Jessica Jones, a hard-bitten, cynical, PTSD-stricken, alcoholic, running a shady one-woman PI firm in a dilapidated office situated in a grubby, and well realised, section of New York city.  Eking out an existence serving subpoenas, photographing cheating spouses in the act, and the occasional missing person’s case, in order to keep a roof over her head and her liquor supply constant, Ritter’s Jones is a far cry from the costumed heroes we are perhaps far more familiar with, yet the strength of her performance is that Jones feels more real, more substantial and more believable than even the grittiest superhero portrayed thus far, even if she has super-strength.  While Jones drops barbed comments and snarky come-backs like a jaded stand-up, Ritter imbues her performance with a vulnerability and fragility that highlights the character’s struggle to hang on and survive as a victim of extreme abuse.  Her very humanity and brokenness give the story its touchstone and allows for the tension, horror, and sense of threat to feel palpable rather than nebulous or cartoony.

Ritter manages to convey the complexity of Jones’ character with consummate ease and makes her portrayal seem both effortless and natural.  On the surface Jones appears crude, cold, callous and pragmatic, distancing herself from the world and those around her.  She is tough as nails and a no nonsense survivor ready to face down any physical threat and isn’t shy of a verbal put down or a judgemental swipe.  But underneath that calculated swaggering exterior Jones is a bundle of contradictory emotions and feelings, including guilt, self-loathing, fear, and extreme pain.  Despite this Ritter manages to convey that in her heart Jones is driven by a need to help and save people, that she is loyal to and protective of those she loves, and that she is a true hero doing the best she can to survive.  It is an impressive feat, and one that allows the audience to feel for Jones, to forgive her mistakes, and to become deeply invested in Jones’ development arc.

The main story is launched by a missing person’s case as Jones is hired to find Hope Shlottman by the worried young woman’s parents, but soon focuses on the re-emergence of a shadowy and abusive figure from Jones’ past, the despicable Kilgrave.  Played by David Tennant, Kilgrave is a master manipulator with the insidious ability to absolutely control people’s minds and actions, and possibly the most sinister and frightening of any Marvel villain thus far portrayed on screen.  While previous villains have had the ability to blow things up, wreak havoc and let slip the dogs of war, the invasive and disturbing power wielded by Kilgrave is far more intimate, and far more devastating on a personal level.  While other villains destroy buildings and bodies, Kilgrave destroys the mind, the soul and the heart of his victims, leaving them scarred, broken and screaming in his wake.  He calls into question their sanity, inspires paranoia, and rips apart their ability to trust anyone ever again.  He uses people as disposable puppets, and exhibits no compassion, remorse, or even an iota of guilt about his rape of their minds, and their bodies, and his destruction of their lives, even if he lets them live.

As the series delves into Kilgrave’s past with Jones the audience gains new and horrifying insight into what he is, what he did and what he continues to do to Jones.  A result of this is building admiration for Jones’ strength of will and huge amounts of sympathy and empathy for her struggle.  If we were perhaps hesitant at first to forgive her more egregious behaviour, seeing the monster of her past puts it in perspective.  As the extent and horror of Kilgrave’s plans and manipulations become more and more apparent, Jones’ paranoia, fear and trust issues become profoundly understandable and we gain insight into how destructive Kilgrave can be.  The more people he manipulates, the more twisted and sadistic his games, the greater the fear and paranoia of Jones’ character is translated through the screen and we soon start questioning the actions of every character, feeling tension every time someone knocks at the door or approaches Jones.

An amazing strength of the show, the writing, and Tennant’s acting, is that despite Kilgrave’s clear villainy, despite his sheer disgusting, depraved and evil nature, he is made understandable, watchable, and even entertaining at times.  Similar to how Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) was portrayed in Netflix’s Daredevil, the audience is invited to understand Kilgrave, to see his motivations and to get into his head, without ever once excusing his abuse or absolving him of his guilt.   Kilgrave has motivations and reasons that run deeper than the standard villainy for villainy’s sake, and it is refreshing to see comicbook adaptations produce genuinely disturbing villains whose evil is traceable, believable, and recognisably possible.  It is a fine line to walk, and Jones accomplishes it effortlessly.

Supporting Characters

Grounding the entire story are the relationships with and around Jones with a host of beautifully flawed characters.  Rachel Taylor plays Jones’ foster/adopted sister Trish Walker, a former child star (with all the drama that entails) and now popular talk-show host, who also happens to be estranged from her manipulative, unscrupulous mother and former manager and agent, Dorothy (Rebecca De Mornay).  The dynamic between Jones and Walker is brilliantly realised, and the chemistry between Taylor and Ritter is fantastic to watch on screen as we slowly get deeper and deeper into their relationship and backstory, with all the complications and messiness of sibling love, exacerbated by the introduction of superpowers, child fame and an emotionally abusive parent.

Yet another of the complicated and flawed supporting characters is Jones’ main employer Carrie-Anne Moss’ calculating, cruel, yet polished and brilliant lawyer, Jeri Hogarth.  Easily viewed as villain, (she is a defence attorney after all) Hogarth is morally compromised due to being embroiled in an office affair with her secretary Pam (Susie Abromeit), while lying to her wife Wendy (Robin Weigert), she is willing to take risks at other people’s expense, is ambitious and wants to win at any cost, and yet, she is not all bad.  She takes on a pro-bono case at Jessica’s urging, and despite Jessica’s less than professional attitude, continues to hire her because she gets results.  Like so many of the characters on the show Hogarth has her demons and flaws but we are continually invited to understand her, even appreciate her.  The show is at pains to paint the characters as real people, warts and all.

Jessica’s life is made a little more complicated by bar man and fellow super-powered character, Luke Cage (Mike Colter).  While Cage acts as a love interest for Jones (or at the very least a lust interest), his character and relationship with Jones are deeper, more interesting, and certainly more involved than that.  A minor quibble, and something that rang as a little too neat and trite, is the convenient overlapping of Jones’ and Cage’s backstories and key events.  Despite this, Colter and Ritter have good chemistry on screen, and their halting exploration of a potential relationship, secrets and all, rings true, and seems far more believable and honest than most of the superhero fare out there.

The last two major supporting characters are Jones’ drug addicted neighbour, Malcolm Ducasse (Eka Darville), and tough cop Will Simpson (Wil Traval).  Providing something of a mirror of each other characters over the course of the show, Malcolm and Will explore the redemptive and destructive aspects of character development over the series, and how people deal with trauma, abuse and the aftermath.  How they each react to their experiences with Kilgrave is telling and provides a brilliant support structure to the main narrative.  (Personally I found both of their arcs a little too rushed with each character changing fairly dramatically over a short space of time, but this may be a side effect of binge watching the show and therefore not having the gap between episodes that would ease the transition.)

The greatest strengths of this show are the attention paid to character and the care with which realised, flawed and broken characters are portrayed on the screen.  No one person is without blemish, and those defects are genuine, deep, heartfelt scars, rather than glib or artificial flaws superficially grafted in an attempt to create slightly rounded characters.  Each of the characters on screen feels like a real person, and when the world portrayed contains super-powers this adds a huge element of believability and authenticity to the endeavour.  There is an honesty and integrity in how they are portrayed that grounds this reality and makes the tension palpable and resonate.  It is through the characters that the horror of the situation, the stakes, and the repercussions of the story find purchase.  Their misplaced guilt, their fear, the conflicting impulses of revulsion and desire, the self-loathing and blame, all these things become powerful hooks imbedded in each character that grab hold of the fictive reality and turn their characters into people.  People you care about.  People you are invested in.

As I said above, the setting is New York city, but rather than the glitz and glamour of the Big Apple Jessica Jones keeps its attention on the back streets, the alleys and the grittier side, much like Daredevil.  Given the detective noir beginnings it is also unsurprising that many of the scenes occur at night, or in seedy, slightly dilapidated surroundings.  The view is of the personal New York, the real New York, the lived in New York, and the people and individuals that create the story.  While there are moments when the bigger landscape swims into view, and some glimpses of famous locations, most of the time the show stays grounded in the characters and the importance of the people.  This is a story all about the individual and most of the locales are in keeping with this.

 

Conclusion

Jessica Jones is a superhero story, but it is one that uses the medium to do something more than recount a tired tale of derring-do or over the top action.  It uses superpowers and this modern mythic form to provide a lens to examine, explore, and understand the ramifications of abuse, to place the focus on how victims survive and the desperate plight that is created after the instigating event, and to illustrate the strength and heroism of survivors of trauma.  It does all this by providing a story set in an exaggerated world where allegory and symbolism take some of the shocking, debilitating horror away from a real world issue so that we can bear to look at it instead of turning our heads away with a sense of overwhelming helplessness.

Jones is great television, compulsive viewing, powerful and meaningful storytelling, and wonderfully demonstrates what a grounded superhero story can do.  Shows like HBO’s The Wire and The Sopranos took unflinching looks at real life issues to produce compelling dramas, and Netfilx’s Jessica Jones joins their ranks, shoulder to shoulder.  This is a show to watch and bodes extremely well for the future of Netflix and for superhero television.