Captain America:Perverse Criticism

It’s fair to say that the reviews I’ve read of Captain America have been mixed. They have ranged from abusive vilification to implausible eulogy. Something has niggled at me as I have read them though. While some of the criticisms may be fair others seem distinctly unfair. It’s a metaphor I have used before in other contexts but some of them seem to be kicking the dog because it barks.

For example to criticize the movie's top-and-tailing with present day scenes  on the grounds that they are there to tie it to the forthcoming Avengers movie is to miss the point that I made in my review. Captain America IS about two different versions of the character: the war hero and the modern day superhero. It’s true that those scenes will link it to the Avengers but they are also, to my mind, a crucial part of the character and it was far better to do it in framing sequences than trying to tell both stories. And together they are around five minutes long. Hardly a major intrusion.

To criticise it for having too many forgettable characters , by which I can only assume we are talking about the commando team, is to ignore the fact that this isn’t any old commando team - it’s Sergeant Fury’s Howling Commandos – as much an essential part of the WWII Captain mythos as his shield is.

And criticising the patriotic tone of a movie that is a fairly faithful retelling of a tale that was by its very nature designed to be nothing but patriotic seems as perverse as what amounts to a criticism of a comic book movie for being, well, comic-book-like

Captain America

*** WARNING - MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS ***

Walking back from the Cinema it occurred to me that the four most recent films I've seen have all been superhero adaptations - X-Men: First Class, Thor, Green Lantern and now Captain America. All those other films were to some degree or other flawed. X-Men had some serious plot holes and some unnecessary historical exposition, Thor was spectacular in the true sense of the word and very enjoyable but suffered from sequences that were clearly there solely to set up the connection to the forthcoming Avengers movie and Green Lantern was an object lesson in how to make a very bad superhero film.

So what about Captain America?

Well it isn't the first attempt to bring it to the screen, not even the first live action attempt. None of the previous versions were successful so why should this one be different? The problem lies in the very nature of Captain America's story- not the one in the comic books but the one in the real world. It isn't really one character but two. The character was originally conceived as a super-patriotic strip in 1940 to rally the folks back home during the war. He fought alongside such characters as the Submariner,  the Human Torch and Sergeant Fury's Howling Commandos, and together they took on the evil might of the Third Reich. That incarnation was cancelled in 1954.

The character was revived in 1964 —  having been frozen in the ice since defeating the Red Skull — and started his more modern lease of life, The problem the movie makers have always had is that they try to tell both stories in a single movie. And it doesn't work. One version I saw on TV collapsed the entire WWII story into a single mission where he was created, fought the Red Skull and got frozen, begging question of how he is such a well-known and recognisable icon when he eventually gets thawed out if no one had ever heard of him in the 1940s.

The new version boldly sets everything —  apart from two very short framing sequences —  during the war, allowing time for the character to be drawn in rather bolder strokes than any previous version, and it's all the better for it. In fact it's extremely faithful not just to the original concept of the character but to the style, look and atmosphere of the original comic books. The plot is straight-forward, action-filled and even the inevitable (given the character and setting) triumphalism is tongue-in-cheek and self mocking. It may not be thought-provoking or intellectual fare but it's a jolly good romp. If you're a comics fan then you may enjoy it just a shade more, but most people should enjoy it anyway.

So of the four recent superhero movies, I'd say it's the clear winner.

And now can we please have some movies that aren't based on comics?

Watchmen:The Motion Comic

I had my doubts about the worth of the Motion Comic version of Watchmen. After all I've seen the live action film and I read the actual comic - of which this is simply a slightly animated version - years ago. It's worth seeing though. Though it is panel for panel and word for word the same as the original with just a little added movement there is something about it, something about the narration that focusses the attention on the words. As with all projects based on his work you will not find Alan Moore credited anywhere, it's his policy not to allow it, and while I respect his consistency it is certainly the words that are important here. Read out loud they are not realistic dialogue but they are almost hypnotically poetic. The narration draws you in even more than reading the words on the page draws you in.
You should buy the comics, the film, the extra DVD of Black Freighter and Under the Hood and you should also buy this. All of them tell the story in their own way but if you don't like comics and don't fancy the movie you should certainly take a look at this. Unlike the movie it doesn't alter the ending and it doesn't skip on detail. It is the comic but in a form that you can watch.

I was wrong. It is a worthwhile addition.

Wargames

Once again I am sitting working at my computer on a Sunday morning while the BBC discussion program "The Big Questions" is on. The question that they are discussing is whether violent video games are harming society. They are talking specifically about the game Modern Warfare and creating more hot air than the Montgolfier brothers. There are so many things wrong about the debate that it's tough to know where to begin, so let's begin with the way that so many of the anti-gamers seem not to know the difference between evidence and hearsay. They talk over and over about the amount of evidence there is showing that violent games make people violent but never cite anything that actually IS evidence. Their evidence is always that "people know" that it's true, that they have "heard of" people who have commited violent acts, that they have "seen" children acting out violent scenes.
None of this is evidence. This is speculation and hearsay. It's claiming that opinion is fact to support your own viewpoint. In the whole debate no one has actually referenced any kind of study into the issue.
I am no wiser now that the debate is coming to an end than I was at the start of it as to whether studies support or contradict their viewpoint.

One other aspect of this that has been mentioned by one panellist but subsequently ignored by host Nicky Campbell (who has a habit of only pursuing the points that will generate heat rather than light) is the historic aspect. One of the panelists pointed out that when he was a boy the same charges were being levelled at horror comics. This is part of an important wider point. There is always something that is "destroying the values of society". I'm a little younger than the panelist and when I grew up it was violent horror films. I remember the fuss that surrounded films such as "Driller Killer" or "Texas Chainsaw Massacre". The Sunday papers were filled week in and week out with stories about how those movies were making people violent and how they should be banned for the good of society.
In the case of comics it led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority and the censoring of comics for many years.

The fact is that the game in question is designed for adults not children. If children are playing it then that isn't a reason to ban it, it's a reason for exercising better control over how easy it is to get hold of. The logical conclusion of going the other route is that everything should be made child-friendly - books, theatre, magazines, films and TV as well as video games. The historic fact that all of these things have been blamed at one time or another for an increase in violence makes computer games just the latest scapegoat.
I, for one, have read a few horror comics and seen an occasional horror movie - though I can't claim to be a fan - but never played a violent video game. I don't want to live in a world where everything that I am exposed to would be suitable for a ten-year-old.

The future wears spandex

On the plus side all of the following are now listed as being "In Production".

Iron Man II
Green Lantern (sadly not the one with that awesome faux trailer)
Captain America
The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn
Jonah Hex
Spider-Man 4
Thor
The Avengers
a new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

and the following are all possible projects

a new version of The Crow
Doctor Strange
The Flash
a new version of Flash Gordon
two more Tintin movies
Green Arrow
Nick Fury
two more SIn City movies (God help us!)
another revamp of the Superman franchise
Wonder Woman
no less than four new X-Men franchise movies

and many more. Buy the magazine and read all about them.

Holy Discrepancies, Batman!!!

It's quite remarkable really.
Yesterday I bought a special edition of the science fiction magazine SFX that focuses entirely on cinema and television adaptations of comics. The bulk of it is taken up with an A to Z of such adaptations with reviews. What is quite remarkable about it is how many of those reviews have reached the exact opposite conclusion to mine. Some films that I like, they hate. Some films that I hate, they like. It isn't universal, and it's more marked for the films that they disparage, but it's noticeable enough.We do have some common ground on the middling stuff.

To just pull a few examples (not quite) at random.

Let's start with Blade:The Series. They are pretty disparaging about it in comparison to the first and second Blade movies (although, to be fair, they are even more disparaging about the third movie) but it's a decent enough piece of work. As with something like Robocop (not part of this sub-genre) the levels of violence that are in the films were never going to be shown on television but it does handle itself pretty well. They also don't like the way that the focus is often off Blade himself and on the other characters but then rather confusingly add that when it focusses on those characters it's actually better.
By contrast they quite like, though not whole-heartedly, Sin City - a movie that I found so totally devoid of heart and soul that it was almost unwatchable. It may be a visual treat but on screen it shows up the total lack of sympathy of the source material. Scoring a similar half-hearted plus in their review is Constantine which, though it's so heavily adapted that it bears almost no resemblence to it's source material, I really liked. And for a Keanu Reeves movie that's rare enough to merit mention in itself.
It's sequels that they most often go to town on. The Crow, a movie that they mostly like (though not as much as I like it) spawned three sequels. In the case of City of Angels, they give it the thorough slating that it deserves but for entirely the wrong reasons. It is, they claim, no more than an inferior re-run of the first movie. I beg to differ. Given the set up the basic plot outline of any Crow movie has to be similar but what City of Angels does is add a level of unpeasant fetishism to the procedings that is totally at odds with its setting. The two remaining movies Salvation and Wicked Prayer they like even less and this is just plain wrong-headed. Sure they all have similar plots. Certainly the budgets and stylised set pieces from the first film are missing but so what? The films are well enough played and a damned sight better than City of Angels.
Moving on Elektra they really dislike but I think it's a competent - though by no means wonderful - and entertaining flick. Flash Gordon (the Sam Jones version) gets a good review and the reasons listed are all the things I don't like about the film - its arch campness, its ridiculous action sequences, its inconsistent special effects, Brian Blessed: to name just a few.
We are however almost in agreement about Hellboy which has to date produced two terrific films. They prefer the second one to the first which is, in my view, back-to-front but its six of one, half a dozen of the other really. On the same page they give the customary one star to Howard the Duck but once I got past the terrible duck suit, I thought it was enjoyably daft.
It goes on and on. The TV movie of the Justice League is a weird blend of Superheroes and Friends but it's OK, though SFX disagrees.
They actually give the same, indifferent three stars to Ang Lee's Hulk and to Louis Leterrier's The Incredible Hulk though the former deserves no stars and the latter four stars.
Judge Dredd they hate though it deserves a couple of stars just for the look of the film and another for how many of the comic book elements they managed to shoe-horn into a confusing plot. Doctor Strange, which I have recommended for years as really having the spirit of the original they call "woeful". The Mask they love but I see it as being just more of Jim Carey's irritating schtick.

I could go on (and I'm aware that I already have) but all any of this goes to show is that a) nobody really agrees about this stuff anyway and b) you should never pay too much attention to reviews.

Even mine.