After watching Captain America and staying after the credits for a thrilling 20 seconds of teaser footage for the upcoming Avengers film, an incredibly brief trailer for the Dark Knight Rises, a photograph of the Man of Steel Superman reboot, and just now a teaser for the Amazing Spider-Man film, I thought it'd be time to muse on them and get my hopes up.
Avengers:
It think it's safe to say I'm looking forward to this film the most. It has all the characters from Iron Man up to Captain America, and I have to agree that every single actor playing a superhero in the Avengers films were just born for those parts, every single of their films I've gotten hyped for, and now that they're all banding together to save the world from Loki/Red Skull/HYDRA/The Skrulls (delete as appropriate), I'm definitely excited.
There are two additional reasons for this, one, I did actually read the Avengers comics, owning roughly the first three volumes of Essential Avengers (Incidentally, my favorite stories are the intro story with Loki and when the Hulk is part of the team, and the one where they defeat the Super Adaptoid.), and the fact that the personalities of each member clashes perfectly. Much like they initially did in the comics. Tony Stark and Clint Barton (Hawkeye.) will be the wisecracking pair making jabs at each other constantly. Thor and Steve Rogers (Captain America) will be the more serious ones, focused on the task at hand, and searching for the serious route, but Thor may play bad cop if he feels there is no other option. Natasha Romanov (Black Widow) I imagine will also play this role, or will be the one to put her trust more in SHIELD than in her fellow teamates. Bruce Banner I imagine will create an interesting dichotomy with Tony Stark in that they're both scientists who became who they are through their own doing, but Tony would be the more in control one.
I think the fact that I can write a large paragraph about characters I already know about should give a good idea that I'm looking forward to the heroes bickering more than watching them save the world. Because that was my favorite part of the Fantastic Four film, and Chris Evans was very good at that with a different character, so it will be interesting to see him play such a diametrically opposed role.
Dark Knight Rises:
As a lover of the first two of Christopher Nolan's Batman films, I'm very much looking forward to this one, as I'm very interested to see what storylines they'll explore. Popular rumour among my classroom at College seems to say that Bane (Who will serve as a villain.) will break the Bat's back at some point as he did in the comics. I also hear Ra's Al Ghul will be a villain, having being resurrected or rejuvenated by the Lazarus Pit.
I must admit though, the Lazarus Pit scenario is the one part I will be skeptical of, I was rather hoping that Ra's Al Ghul wasn't literally immortal in this film series, because it would definitely subtract from the realism by having an immortal dude. I liked in the first film, where Ra's Al Ghul implied that he was immortal through the passage of a legacy rather than being one person who lives forever. Because one thing he teaches Bruce Wayne, and I quote "A man can be locked up, but if you become an idea, you can't be stopped, you can become something else entirely, a legend." I took this to mean that the title of Ra's Al Ghul had been passed down from the first guy it appears to be, to Henri Ducard after he died, implying that the ideas and will of Ra's Al Ghul could not be killed, even if each individual person did, which I found far more interesting than "He's just immortal."
I'm also interested to find about what the central dichotomy of the film will be. In Batman Begins, the theme was Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow's use of fear as a weapon used to defeat the fearful, and Batman's use of fear on criminals people who take advantage of fear. In The Dark Knight, the central Dichotomy was Batman representing Order and respect for giving everybody a chance to redeem themselves, and The Joker and Two-Face representing Chaos, showing that for all the good Batman can do, he can be stopped by The Joker's sheer unpredictability and a lack of pattern on his crimes. Batman never kills because he believes he doesn't have that right, and The Joker an Two-Face believe they definitely do have the right if fate decides for them.
My guess is that the theme will be that if Batman's moral code and fearlessness can't be conquered. Then somebody like Bane can simply outfight him, despite Batman's quick thinking and intelligence. A kind of 'Intelligence VS Brute Strength' kind of thing. My second guess would be that Bane is a foil of sorts for Batman, as in the comics, Bane is easily as smart as Batman, an can definitely outfight him despite his ninja skills, except whereas Batman grew up rich and chose to make himself what he was after the death of his parents, Bane grew up in prison and had no choice in becoming what he was. But all this is just my speculation, so take all of this with a grain of salt.
Man of Steel:
The photo of the new actor playing Superman wearing the costume has definitely turned my head some. But not in a good way, more of a 'Train Crash waiting to happen' kind of way. The first thing that rubbed me up the wrong was the fact that the teaser photo is so bloody desaturated of colour. Leading me to assume that this film will be a darker remake in vein of Batman Begins and the Dark Knight, whch wouldn't surprise me because Christopher Nolan is producing this film. And while that easily works with Batman because he was always a dark character, I can't see it working well with Superman.
The first problem being is that Superman has no personal problems besides hiding his secret identity, he chose to be who he is because he believes it's the right thing to do and doesn't go much deeper than that (Apart from Smallville where he had no choice in the matter.). I could kind of see it working if they did it like Captain America, where bad things are happening all around him, but he retains a positive attitude because people can be like that, and that he was born to be a superhero before he gained his powers. But if Man of Steel goes for the darker route as the photo implies, I can't see it working without making Superman look like a naive idiot.
Amazing Spider-Man:
Again, this trailer looks like it's taking a dark and gritty approach to the Spider-Man series, and contains a photo on the internet of the new actor playing him wearing the costume, except with the saturation on his bright red and blue costume turned way down. Unlike Superman however, I can see this working with Spider-Man, because when the comics were first written, they were quite ahead of their time in terms of how dark and serious they were. For one thing, Spidey became who he is because he believe it's his responsibility, and a character driven by responsibility can be very serious business. Which does make me look forward to this film, as long as they don't go the whining degree as Sam Raimi's film, and also, I'm hoping that Peter Parker is actually funny, because I could not stand half thes cenes when Tobey Maguire didn't have his mask on because Peter Parker is dreadfully dull, even when he's in a good mood. Whereas the Peter Parker of virtually any other media is characteristic by being just as witty as Peter Parker as he is as Spider-Man.
In fact, there are several comics I've read that are so painfully despairing that only Spider-Man/Peter Parker's hilarious one liners are keeping me from just stopping reading lest I get more depressed, which I think is kind of the point, because he's despairing inside too, and he's just distracting himself with the jokes just as much as us, and I didn't get that from Sam Raimi's Peter Parker, he was despairing on the outside just as much as inside. So I'm hoping this film will use that aspect of the character.
Conclusion:
Well, congratulations to you if you read all my ramblings, I can't say I blame you for not reading this far. I might post me thoughts on yet to be released films at some point in the future if the mood strikes me. Until then, seeya readers.
Wednesday 17 August 2011
Sunday 14 August 2011
Rise of the Planet of the Apes.
So I just got back from watching The Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Being a fan of the original, in the week since I watched the original no less, I was curious to see the prequel having not seen Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which I'm told this is loosely based off.
I'm going to write my 'Tl;dr' first, and hope people don't just take that and then leave. I liked Rise of the Planet of the Apes the Official Film of the Film. It's a very good sci-fi/drama/animal film with very well written characters.
Most of the time anyway, the characters that matter, though well written, are largely very bare bones, everything is said about them that needed to be said, no more, no less. Which works well for the more prominent characters but makes the lesser shown characters seen shallow. For example, the main two characters, Caeser the Chimpanzee, motion captured by Andy Serkis in another role where he's in a quadrupedal position, and Will Something-Or-Other, played by James Franco. Caeser's character arc revolves around his relationship with Will vs his relationship with other Apes, and it's a very well written character too, I was wearing blinkers on my mind's eye throughout the film, because I knew he would perform a certain action very early on, but didn't want to believe he would do such a thing, because he's so nice and cuddly right?
Will is the more bare bones of the two, his motivations are simple, the film begins with him developing a cure for Alzheimer's to help his ailing father (played by the bloke who plays the father in 3rd Rock from the Sun), and when testing it on Chimpanzees, finds that the effects cause increased intelligence that carry on along the genetic line of one test subject, who's baby Will adopts. Throughout the film, he continually attempts to help perfect the serum as well as taking care of the Chimpanzee, who he names Caeser. He's easy to understand and a very likable main character, you might argue a little bit too likable, every single thing he does is on the behalf of his father or Caeser, but I suppose being too nice isn't much of a problem.
Back to Caeser. The entire plot of the film is basically this, Caeser was born with increased intelligence due to his mother being a test animal for Will's Alzheimer's cure, and the first half of the film is basically "Here is the life of Will and Caeser", since it takes place over the course of eight years, and it's nice, it shows that despite being an animal, he is very intelligent and manages to fit in with human society. However, his animalistic instincts kick in eventually and he is taken in by the authorities and treated like an animal, which he is not familiar with. He is forced to use his increased intelligence to cause an uprising amongst the apes he is kept with in order to free them all from captivity and live in the wild where he believes they belong. It's all very compelling stuff, helped by Andy Serkis doing an incredible job acting the balance between intelligence and sapience and animalistic instincts and tendencies, I especially like the fact that he does not learn to speak until late in the film, really helping the acting tell the story using only nonverbals from its main character.
Moving onto the special effects, special effects in my opinion,are finally reaching a point where you wouldn't know they were being used unless you were told. A good example of this occurs recently in the Social Network, where a pair of twins are neither greenscreened not played by actual twins, and you can't tell because of how seamless it is. This is also used to good effect in Captain America with Skinny Steve and Strong Steve, and finally in this episode, where you could really believe that all the Apes are just perplexingly well trained Animal Actors.
One final point I noted about the movie was both in its favour and against it. In the original Planet of the Apes, the morality of the Humans and the Apes were more black and white, the central message of the film (Let me state this is my interpretation.) was that humans were evil, thoughtless beings who would nearly destroy their planet by accident, and that the Apes were better heralds of the Planet, but just as evil due to their treatment of Charlton Heston's character. In this film, none of the events are explicitly the fault of either party, the Apes, while intelligent were acting through instinct and meant no harm to any of the Humans, and the Humans themselves, while treating the Apes much like they treated the humans in the first film, were at least trying to cure Alzheimer's and did indeed grant sapience to the Apes, if unintentionally. The film is more realistic in the portrayal of the morality of the two factions, being less black and white and more grey and grey.
And while this definitely improves the film and makes the actions of the characters much easier to swallow, it also (Again, my personal opinion.) undermines the message of the original film, because whereas the original film strongly implied that the humans were definitely responsible for the near destruction of their planet and that the Apes were somewhat justified in their treatment of them. The events of the film, looking back, make that film seem like one big misunderstanding.
Overall though, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes the Official Film of the film the Prequel the Phantom Menace was a very compelling drama, disappointing if the trailer tricked you into thinking that it was an action film perhaps, and you are definitely required to have watched either the original or Tim Burton's remake to catch all the references (Though I imagine even those who haven't would get the hillarious "You damn dirty Ape" reference.), but overall, it was a good film. Not a good film for getting into the series however, I would suggest watching the originals before watching this. Especially since the biggest failing of the film is that the very premise of the film assumes that you don't care about the original's twist ending being spoiled.
I'm going to write my 'Tl;dr' first, and hope people don't just take that and then leave. I liked Rise of the Planet of the Apes the Official Film of the Film. It's a very good sci-fi/drama/animal film with very well written characters.
Most of the time anyway, the characters that matter, though well written, are largely very bare bones, everything is said about them that needed to be said, no more, no less. Which works well for the more prominent characters but makes the lesser shown characters seen shallow. For example, the main two characters, Caeser the Chimpanzee, motion captured by Andy Serkis in another role where he's in a quadrupedal position, and Will Something-Or-Other, played by James Franco. Caeser's character arc revolves around his relationship with Will vs his relationship with other Apes, and it's a very well written character too, I was wearing blinkers on my mind's eye throughout the film, because I knew he would perform a certain action very early on, but didn't want to believe he would do such a thing, because he's so nice and cuddly right?
Will is the more bare bones of the two, his motivations are simple, the film begins with him developing a cure for Alzheimer's to help his ailing father (played by the bloke who plays the father in 3rd Rock from the Sun), and when testing it on Chimpanzees, finds that the effects cause increased intelligence that carry on along the genetic line of one test subject, who's baby Will adopts. Throughout the film, he continually attempts to help perfect the serum as well as taking care of the Chimpanzee, who he names Caeser. He's easy to understand and a very likable main character, you might argue a little bit too likable, every single thing he does is on the behalf of his father or Caeser, but I suppose being too nice isn't much of a problem.
Back to Caeser. The entire plot of the film is basically this, Caeser was born with increased intelligence due to his mother being a test animal for Will's Alzheimer's cure, and the first half of the film is basically "Here is the life of Will and Caeser", since it takes place over the course of eight years, and it's nice, it shows that despite being an animal, he is very intelligent and manages to fit in with human society. However, his animalistic instincts kick in eventually and he is taken in by the authorities and treated like an animal, which he is not familiar with. He is forced to use his increased intelligence to cause an uprising amongst the apes he is kept with in order to free them all from captivity and live in the wild where he believes they belong. It's all very compelling stuff, helped by Andy Serkis doing an incredible job acting the balance between intelligence and sapience and animalistic instincts and tendencies, I especially like the fact that he does not learn to speak until late in the film, really helping the acting tell the story using only nonverbals from its main character.
Moving onto the special effects, special effects in my opinion,are finally reaching a point where you wouldn't know they were being used unless you were told. A good example of this occurs recently in the Social Network, where a pair of twins are neither greenscreened not played by actual twins, and you can't tell because of how seamless it is. This is also used to good effect in Captain America with Skinny Steve and Strong Steve, and finally in this episode, where you could really believe that all the Apes are just perplexingly well trained Animal Actors.
One final point I noted about the movie was both in its favour and against it. In the original Planet of the Apes, the morality of the Humans and the Apes were more black and white, the central message of the film (Let me state this is my interpretation.) was that humans were evil, thoughtless beings who would nearly destroy their planet by accident, and that the Apes were better heralds of the Planet, but just as evil due to their treatment of Charlton Heston's character. In this film, none of the events are explicitly the fault of either party, the Apes, while intelligent were acting through instinct and meant no harm to any of the Humans, and the Humans themselves, while treating the Apes much like they treated the humans in the first film, were at least trying to cure Alzheimer's and did indeed grant sapience to the Apes, if unintentionally. The film is more realistic in the portrayal of the morality of the two factions, being less black and white and more grey and grey.
And while this definitely improves the film and makes the actions of the characters much easier to swallow, it also (Again, my personal opinion.) undermines the message of the original film, because whereas the original film strongly implied that the humans were definitely responsible for the near destruction of their planet and that the Apes were somewhat justified in their treatment of them. The events of the film, looking back, make that film seem like one big misunderstanding.
Overall though, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes the Official Film of the film the Prequel the Phantom Menace was a very compelling drama, disappointing if the trailer tricked you into thinking that it was an action film perhaps, and you are definitely required to have watched either the original or Tim Burton's remake to catch all the references (Though I imagine even those who haven't would get the hillarious "You damn dirty Ape" reference.), but overall, it was a good film. Not a good film for getting into the series however, I would suggest watching the originals before watching this. Especially since the biggest failing of the film is that the very premise of the film assumes that you don't care about the original's twist ending being spoiled.
Saturday 6 August 2011
Captain America: The First Avenger.
So I just got back from watching Captain America, and my opinion? An excellent film, better than Thor, and I liked Thor quite a lot too. I'd almost say it was as good as if not better than the Iron Man films, which next to the Nolan Batman films and Watchmen, are the epitome of a good superhero film.
The story is this, Steve Rogers, a dangerously skinny guy looking to join the army to aid the war effort against the Nazis is repeatedly denied on the grounds of making a stick figure look like it's put on weight. But due to his honesty and courage, is selected by a German Scientist to be America's first Super Soldier. The rest of the film is Steve, as Captain America, helping to defeat HYDRA, a superscience Nazi division, defected from the Nazis, whose leader Johann Schmitt AKA, The Red Skull, dreams of conquering Earth through use of their highly advanced technology.
There are several things I can say in the film's favour, the first and foremost being that Steve Rogers is a rather well written character to say he has absolutely no character arc in the film, a stark contrast to Thor, where the character arc is the main focus. Instead, in Captain America, he starts off as a likable good guy, ends as a likable good guy, and in the middle he does not compromise in this in the slightest.
You really get the impression that Steve was meant to be Captain America from the very beginning, my favorite examples being at two certain points. The first time, Steve is asked if he wants to join the army to kill Nazis, to which he replies "I don't want to kill anybody, I just don't like bullies, wherever they come from.", the second point is when Steve's drill sergeant throws a false grenade near him, and he dives on it to try and save everybody else from the blast at the cost of his own life, believing it to be a real one, while everybody else ducks behind cover. Both of these moments occur before he even becomes Captain America. Overall, Steve made me think "This is how Hal Jordan should've been written in the Green Lantern rather than being forced to be a goodie.".
Also in the film's favour is that the fight scenes are the truest to the comics I've ever seen, throughout the film, Captain America is jumping, thwacking his enemies with his shield and frisbeeing it into them, amongst other uses. And unlikable the last action film I saw, the action scenes were far more coherent, Captain America as well as his squad were always very visible, and what they were doing was always obvious, even in the wordless montage scenes.
The thing that kept me thinking long after the film had ended the most however, was how it related to the other Avengers film, because the way they all connect seem very clever, and this isn't even the things they state outright, many connections I noted were only vaguely implied, it was a lot of fun just noticing how the stories all interconnected, it made me want to watch those films over again. So not only do I want to watch Captain America again, but the rest of the films, because a narrative can be seen throughout all of the films, at least for me anyway.
Lastly, I really loved the Red Skull as a villain, while not as sympathetic as Loki, he's one of the most comic book-y villains I've ever seen in a comic book adaptation. Once he reveals his red face, he spares no expenses and just wears a long black cloak with a skull logo on it. I almost wanted him to tie Steve's love interest to a train track because that would seem very in character for him. My only problem is that while I was watching him, I was thinking of the contrast between how real the Iron Man villains are in comparison, who are in the same universe and act far less cartoonishly evil.
In summation, a fine example of a comic book film, ever since Iron Man, Marvel films have only been getting better, which gives me very high hopes for The Avengers, you might say it is silly of me in today's cynical days to have high hopes for a film, but I'd rather look forward to something and have it be good than not look forward to it and be surprised.
The story is this, Steve Rogers, a dangerously skinny guy looking to join the army to aid the war effort against the Nazis is repeatedly denied on the grounds of making a stick figure look like it's put on weight. But due to his honesty and courage, is selected by a German Scientist to be America's first Super Soldier. The rest of the film is Steve, as Captain America, helping to defeat HYDRA, a superscience Nazi division, defected from the Nazis, whose leader Johann Schmitt AKA, The Red Skull, dreams of conquering Earth through use of their highly advanced technology.
There are several things I can say in the film's favour, the first and foremost being that Steve Rogers is a rather well written character to say he has absolutely no character arc in the film, a stark contrast to Thor, where the character arc is the main focus. Instead, in Captain America, he starts off as a likable good guy, ends as a likable good guy, and in the middle he does not compromise in this in the slightest.
You really get the impression that Steve was meant to be Captain America from the very beginning, my favorite examples being at two certain points. The first time, Steve is asked if he wants to join the army to kill Nazis, to which he replies "I don't want to kill anybody, I just don't like bullies, wherever they come from.", the second point is when Steve's drill sergeant throws a false grenade near him, and he dives on it to try and save everybody else from the blast at the cost of his own life, believing it to be a real one, while everybody else ducks behind cover. Both of these moments occur before he even becomes Captain America. Overall, Steve made me think "This is how Hal Jordan should've been written in the Green Lantern rather than being forced to be a goodie.".
Also in the film's favour is that the fight scenes are the truest to the comics I've ever seen, throughout the film, Captain America is jumping, thwacking his enemies with his shield and frisbeeing it into them, amongst other uses. And unlikable the last action film I saw, the action scenes were far more coherent, Captain America as well as his squad were always very visible, and what they were doing was always obvious, even in the wordless montage scenes.
The thing that kept me thinking long after the film had ended the most however, was how it related to the other Avengers film, because the way they all connect seem very clever, and this isn't even the things they state outright, many connections I noted were only vaguely implied, it was a lot of fun just noticing how the stories all interconnected, it made me want to watch those films over again. So not only do I want to watch Captain America again, but the rest of the films, because a narrative can be seen throughout all of the films, at least for me anyway.
Lastly, I really loved the Red Skull as a villain, while not as sympathetic as Loki, he's one of the most comic book-y villains I've ever seen in a comic book adaptation. Once he reveals his red face, he spares no expenses and just wears a long black cloak with a skull logo on it. I almost wanted him to tie Steve's love interest to a train track because that would seem very in character for him. My only problem is that while I was watching him, I was thinking of the contrast between how real the Iron Man villains are in comparison, who are in the same universe and act far less cartoonishly evil.
In summation, a fine example of a comic book film, ever since Iron Man, Marvel films have only been getting better, which gives me very high hopes for The Avengers, you might say it is silly of me in today's cynical days to have high hopes for a film, but I'd rather look forward to something and have it be good than not look forward to it and be surprised.
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