TV Review: Homeland, Season 2

Normally, it's best to review a television series once the program is over because you can reflect on the entirety of the story. This is more for serialized shows like The Shield or Breaking Bad, and so relevant for anthology series or closed-ended episodic series (American Horror Story and Law & Order respectively), but the second season of Homeland is worth breaking the rule largely because of the ending of many of its major and minor arcs, and also because of its downright bizarre developments.

For the uninitiated, the series is created by Alex Gansa based on the Israeli series Prisoners of War created by Gideon Raff. Gansa is the co-showrunner alongside Howard Gordon, and Chip (wassat?) Johannessen (co-executive producer, eventually executive producer) is part of the writing staff; all three of these guys were behind 24 for the majority of its run. What set Homeland apart was that it didn't rely on action the way 24 eventually did; it didn't share 24's whimsical techno-thriller mentality. Homeland wasn't necessarily realistic, but it was more character based, intimate, grounded and prone to showing Morena Baccarin naked. The series never shied away from showing Islamic fundamentalism and a certain amount of ethnic profiling that agencies often use (Saul: "Is he Muslim? No? Then he's not a suspect"). In that way, the series was refreshingly honest, its depiction of law enforcement and al-Qaeda methodology felt plausible, clever, if somewhat convenient, and at times scary (post-9/11 paranoia hasn't gone anywhere, it's just taken on new and more intricate forms). The brilliant season two trailer emphasized this with its creepy children's choir rendition of "Every Breathe You Take," to the surveillance footage, characters in hiding with long concerned glances (see: all pictures in this review) fearful of movement on the periphery of their vision (or just symptomatic of good old fashioned paranoia), the enemy you can never full see but instinctively know is there and probably always will. Watch below.

Arguably, writing the second season to a series is harder than the first. If your show didn't do so great the first time out, you have to reconfigure the show somewhat, use a scalpel or in some cases a butcher's knife to excise what didn't work from what did, and in that second season you need to essentially reintroduce the show. However, in the case of Homeland, which had a wildly successful first season, the notion becomes--how do we top what we did last year? The scope generally gets larger, more risks are taken, and the old adage of "Bigger is better" comes into play. 24 was in many ways a victim of its own success, with the writers trying to outdo themselves every year and consistently writing themselves into a corner every few episodes, and this season of Homeland drew from the worst elements of 24--when we can't come up with anything, throw in a shootout; when we don't have the budget for a shootout, a twist is more interesting than plotting; if the plot doesn't make sense, just edit the scenes to make them shorter and fragment them over the episode--keep the plot moving and keep the actual details from processing in the mind of the viewer. Let's detail the main flaws of the season cited the most by critics and fans: Dana's story, the infiltration story, and the pacemaker. (Note: Homeland was the show that overtook Mad Men and Breaking Bad's six year uninterrupted reign over the Emmys and the Golden Globes.)

Since 24 was a definite ancestor to this season, we'll start with Dana, our younger, less attractive but more shrill Kim Bauer understudy. When the protagonist on TV is a parent, the child is, these days, expected to have a storyline as well. Audiences have come to expect this because we're supposed to be shown that the kids are real people as much as their parents and they deserve development as well, which is a nice enough of an idea on paper. However, most audiences have also come to realize that these stories are never that interesting and often drag down the main plot. How many times this season did we get a tense Brody/Carrie scene only for that excitement to disappear and a half drained bottle of Dewar's chucked at the screen because the focus shifted to Dana feeling guilty because she was in the passenger seat while the Vice President's punchable son Finn ditched their Secret Service detail (!) and committed a hit and run? Let that sink in for a moment. In fact, I'll repeat it: Dana feels guilty because she was in the passenger seat while the Vice President's punchable son Finn ditched their Secret Service detail (!) and committed a hit and run. (*Winner--Critic's Choice Award for Best Drama Series). Not only was the story ludicrous, but the reaction of Finn's parents was, well, enviable. His mother shrugged it off and said that she would handle it, his father--the Vice President--said: "What are we going to do with this kid?" with the shame, horror and disappointment usually reserved for Beaver Cleaver.

While structurally different, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine taught us how to deal with kids on television. The lead protagonist, Ben Sisko, was a single father. His son Jake was there to primarily set Sisko apart from the previous Captains we'd seen, and was generally an ancillary character used to help flush out the character of his father. That's not to say that Jake wasn't given room to become a developed character--he was given his own plots and episodes sporadically as time went on--but the writers felt that just because he was the son of the lead didn't mean he needed to be in every single episode and constantly have his story put on the screen. Dana's role in Homeland is to be a teenager, which she does well. She's loud, impulsive and awful, but she really is only there to give Brody a family member that he can connect to. I understand the desire to explore kid, barely a teen, already forced into the public eye because of her returning hero father, in a family that was having trouble financially, now going to school with the kids of people who run the country. Sometimes it's good to have a story that's a bit of a palate cleanser, but this story was drinking Clorox after eating steak.
 
Moving on, we have my personal favorite flaw from this season: the theme of infiltration. This includes the all-knowing, all-seeing heretofore unknown mole (a favorite plot device of 24), the random plot device enemy SWAT team (see previous parenthesis), and Abu Nazir's vacation to the United States.The mole is the biggest plot device in thrillers, and was really brought to mainstream awareness in the majority of 24's run. The fact is that in the history of the FBI and CIA, there haven't been that many moles. Homeland in its way learned from 24's mistake in not making the mole-story an onscreen subplot, put used the device itself to pad out scripts and come up with logical reasons why certain events took place; it's a short cut that has its own name, and it's a way of flaunting lazy writing. The fact that Gansa has said that he has no idea who the mole is, and says we probably haven't met the character yet (especially considering the way the finale ended) shows this to a be knowing and willful decision to allow for any kind of extreme development to prolong the story by giving us a flippant "It must have been the mole" reminder from time to time rather than take a step back and really consider the flaws in the story that would need to use such an old plot device as often as they had this season.

 Look, I'm not saying that plot devices are inherently a bad thing--every story no matter the genre is going to use them at some point: boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back; an unlikeable character has a sudden change of luck and learns a lesson about empathy; everyone roots for the underdog; the character is an asshole but he has one redeeming quality that makes him an anti-hero; tragic past means the person is a good guy or a bad guy; introduce a gun in Act One, it goes off in Act Three. Every writer uses a plot device, good writers know how and when to use them. To return to a single one repeatedly and essentially rely on it as a get out of jail free card, then it's shallow, lazy, and talks down to the audience. The showrunner or someone on staff needs to take a step back and the story needs to either be retooled or entirely discarded for a fresh start.

The second issue is what we'll call the infiltration story. We touched upon this earlier in mentioning the mole but it goes on further than that. This season we saw Abu Nazir's American implanted soldiers don full SWAT gear--armor, helmets, machine guns, and despite nobody questioning how the hell they managed to get all these wonderful toys (they've come a long way from two guys with box cutters apparently), nobody ever thought try and trace back how it was that they managed to get said wonderful toys. If the armor and the helmets were purchased legally through army surplus, you can check the cameras and records of shops in a two hundred mile radius and look for "probable suspects." Since America does have strict gun laws despite what the media would have you believe, the machine guns were probably purchased illegally. So how about you ask the FBI for a list of suspected or convicted arms dealers, contact informants (Carrie has one that could magic you out of existence--more on that later) and get the ball moving that way. It's unlikely that they could get the real names and addresses of Nazir's soldiers, but you can maybe get an alias, a description, a blurry screen-cap from a surveillance video. We could do that or we could get another scene of Dana being frumpy. Let's go with frumpy.

It's Abu Nazir himself that rounds out the the ridiculousness of the infiltration story. Now, for almost two full seasons the writers built Nazir up to be someone very much akin to Osama bin Laden--this almost mythic ghost who is behind all of these terror attacks, but is so mysterious and enigmatic, you can't be certain of anything he does or anywhere he is. He's quiet and commanding in his presence, and as Carrie put it, "needs to do something big" when planning an attack. In one of the biggest reveals this season, Brody is captured by Nazir's men and taken to an abandoned shit hole where from out of an Escalade (or maybe an F-150; either way the man knows how to travel) comes Abu Nazir. The man who is the fictional analogue to bin Laden, who in the world of Homeland is as infamous as bin Laden, who was behind the first terror attack on American soil since 9/11 last season is in Virgina and nobody noticed. Because he's in disguise. He shaved and took off his glasses.

Of the major flaws this season, I'm most inclined to give this one a pass because in its own way, the writers have sold us already on the fact that Nazir lives for these big, public, shocking moments, and he even says that he plans on dying, but not like bin Laden did. He wanted something that would make his fellow whackos really whack out. Blaze of glory like Butch Cassidy and Sundance (just with terrorism), but it is the logistics of it that keep the moment from being taken seriously and once the reveal is processed it's jarring to see Nazir on American soil because it all just seems so unlikely. Yes, in some way, he would want to go out guns blazing, but this just seemed too improbable. If bin Laden had arrived in America, just without his beard and turbin, anyone would say--"Hey, that's Osama without the beard and turbin." They're just too recognizable, too ingrained in our psyches to get past. Crossing the border illegally from Mexico or Canada seems possible, boating over here in a shipping container seems impossibly dangerous and stupid (The Wire season 2), and it's the unanswered question of how that rankles, though admittedly, an answer to that question could have been as equally ridiculous as seeming him in America in the first place.

In the scope of the story, Nazir's appearance is just another element that takes us out of the reality of the series; we're reminded that we're just watching a TV show. Things like that happen in every television series, don't get me wrong, but when this season has already stretched plausible to a thin white line that the writers may just inhale, seeing the shaven Nazir detach from the shadows isn't the oh shit moment of the season but just another reason to change the channel. Alex Gansa freely admitted what a risk it was to have Nazir in America (from a writing standpoint) and when he managed to kidnap (!) Carrie it seemed as though the risk was done simply for the epic confrontation--Carrie vs. Nazir live and in technicolor. This is the man that Carrie has obsessed about for eight years, and was considered to be the expert on the man--having filled in his life almost completely in a color coordinated mural of that wasn't so much an acknowledgement of the difficult nature in fighting a war on terror than it was a memorial to the years she's lost trying to put the paperwork in the correct order. If taken from that perspective, that of a more Dickensian narrative, then it's fitting that Carrie and Nazir's relationship ends less like gangbusters and more like Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce. Despite being at Nazir's mercy, Carrie finally meets Nazir face to face; Nazir is acutely aware of her and her obsession with it. The scenes should write themselves. Apparently they didn't. At no point did either one of them try to work a mind game on the other--these, the two more manipulative characters in the series--and what little bits of dialogue they do share amounts to the usual tripe you'd expect: "You'll never get away with this," "You're crazy," etc.

We come at last to the moment where the audience's patience and suspension of disbelief was struck down like a peasant by some douche named Finn--the moment where Abu Nazir remotely manipulated Vice President Walden's pacemaker and forced him into a heart attack. In a lot of ways this could be considered the climax of Brody's time on the show; the end of his journey as a member of al-Qaeda because finally he was able to confront Bill Walden, the man he felt was responsible for Isa's death--a moment that was the critical turning point in Brody's life: he became a traitor because of Isa's death, and now he has the ability to confront Walden before killing him. Brody, naturally, doesn't really see fit to mention Isa and speaks only in vagaries about how much of a dick Walden is before mentioning the drone program in passing. (*Golden Globes Winner: Best Drama.)

The idea of using the pacemaker as a weapon comes from real life science. A laptop could be used to hack into a person's pacemaker and send a deadly 830-volt shock that would easily kill them. Of course, the range is limited to 30 to 50 feet, and considering Bill Walden is the VP, one would assume he would have the top-of-the-line pacemaker in his chest. Even if he didn't, he would be on the top of the list to have it replaced or have some sort of safe guard to protect him. That and Nazir was able to do this from miles and miles away. (The article on these device flaws can be found here.)


Watching simply as a fan or even out of context, the scene itself is farcical. It's not the acting, as Damian Lewis and Jamey Sheridan do an admirable job considering what they're dealing with but there is almost no way to view the scene as something other than funny. That being said, had the aforementioned article come out earlier in the year and received a large amount of coverage from the media would we have reacted the same way to seeing it in Homeland? It might have made a difference for some, and as scary and suddenly real life as the article makes the flaw seem, to see it carried out is surreal and schlocky--a development that belonged more in the flamboyant middle years of James Bond than the grounded drama that questions our own moral certainty in the war on terror.


One of the less touched upon flaws of the season was the treatment of David Estes. A trend that has caught on recently is that of the mean character. You'll see this in genres like horror, thrillers, whatever--it's where there is a character who is thinking logically, making a rational and cold decision and rather than be listened to is treated by both the writer and the other characters as a villain. Here David Estes decides that no matter what happens, after Brody helps the CIA, he'll have Brody killed (despite the promise of immunity and witness protection for him and his family). As the audience, we are prompted to view this negatively, especially as Carrie and Saul--the series' moral compass--fight this because it is the wrong thing to do. Estes' point is that what Brody has done in the past would not be cancelled out by the things he's doing now. Brody is a wildcard and it's hard to see where he stands--is he helping the CIA because he feels guilt over the wrong he's done or because they have him by the balls? It's simply not worth the risk of keeping him alive. What's funny is that Saul even admits this to Carrie when hearing that she plans on being with Brody. "He'll always be a terrorist." Despite all logic, including the fact that the CIA mole could still find out where Brody was hiding and have al-Qaeda make contact with him again to either re-convert or force him into working with them again, we are repeatedly forced into believing that Estes was in the wrong. Quinn, Estes' hired gun who has the people skills of sandpaper, managed to be turned around in his decision to kill Brody after spying on him and Carrie and finding them to be a cute couple. (*Emmy Award winner: Best Writing.) Digest that for a second.

The writers double down on this by making David Estes look worse. When Saul refuses to let this go, Estes threatens him, then arrests him, then threatens him with bodily harm and jail time. This is done to put Estes over as some kind of bad guy by bullying everyone's favorite character while also distracting us from the fact that Saul was defending the life of a terrorist and Estes didn't like loose ends.

Other head shaking moments include the odd timeline of the show and Carrie's James Bond impression. Rather than 24's idea of never saying the year so the series can always be in the perpetual now (which no matter what would have made Jack an old man by season 8), we're given clear indication in the series that 9/11 happened ten years ago (said in the opening credits by Carrie), and that season 2 takes place in the 2012-2013 area. Via the opening credits we still see that the presidencies of Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bush Classic, Bill Clinton, New Bush, and Barack Obama have all taken place. So where does Homeland's presidency come in?

Second is Carrie's super secret "out" strategy. Apparently, being a CIA case officer currently stationed in America is so dangerous that she needed a strategy in place in case she would ever need to go on the lam. Carrie felt that there was a decent enough of a chance that at some point she would need to flee the country; she thought at some point she would push things too far and the CIA or some other law enforcement entity would have to take her in, and she would have no choice but to disappear, so she has a super secret storage locker where she keeps guns, fake IDs, and thousands of dollars in cash (on a CIA analysts' salary). You could play the crazy card as you would with most of Carrie's life decisions but this plan was overseen over the course of several years, while she was on her meds. I know that the meds aren't a 100% cure, but it is still--one would assume--enough to enact rationality. Instead, her rational thought is "Yes, eventually I will go too far." This was a magnificent eleventh hour plot convenience to get rid of Brody and set up season 3.

Now all this sounds pretty harsh, and it sounds as if this season was possibly the worst of any television show in the last twenty years. That's not the case. The first two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation, every season of Star Trek: Voyager and Enterprise, seasons six and eight of 24, the second season of Friday Night Lights, season eight of All in the Family are all certainly worse. What the second season of Homeland managed to do correctly does not cannot overtake what it got wrong, but there are several moments where the series reminds us that there was a reason why it won its awards, why after only a single season David Nevins referred to it as Showtime's flagship series.

She isn't Wonder Woman; god fuck us all.

One of the high points of the season--and of the series so far--actually involves Jessica (Morena Baccarin) wearing clothes. To have a scene involving her wearing clothes often leaves the audience hesitant that any good can come out of this, but both the writers and Baccarin hit a home run, where we see Jessica throughout the season acting as a rational character. Despite her eccentric circumstances she's just a woman trying to keep her family together and trying to keep her kids safe. While her sudden decision to fuck Mike again seemed...well, sudden--it was still easy to find sympathy for her not only in our knowledge of Brody's reignited affair with a mental patient, but also because Jessica, at that moment, finally realized that no matter how much she loves/loved Brody or how much she wanted her family living under one roof, her marriage was toxic.

Jessica's best moment was a series best moment in "State of Independence" where she gives a speech about the difficulties facing returning veterans and their families. It is sad and sobering, and rings of a truth that most of us couldn't imagine; most of all, the speech--without being preachy--lets us know that we need to reevaluate how we treat our veterans. Jessica is shaken yet relieved, finally being able to release feelings that she's worried about, that she's afraid of, and even somewhat ashamed of. Baccarin is an unsung actress who uses subtlety and nuance more than anything, and finally the writers gave her something to work with, and she fills the scene with so much visceral emotion that the speech feels more like a confession than a scene in a spy-thriller.

Other great moments involve the interrogation of Roya which saw a great dissection of her and Carrie, as well as a great twist on these CIA interrogation scenes. Saul doing just about anything. Despite whatever unlikelihoods went on this season, Mandy Patinkin always kept us grounded and added emotional resonance whether we were celebrating the death of a monster, dwelling on the sheet covered dead in a horrific and evocative act of terror, or feeling his slight sense of relief at seeing Carrie alive all tethered this season to the emotional core that made Homeland as popular as it is.

However, the season's best moment came in the form of the Carrie/Brody interrogation in "Q&A." The Carrie and Brody relationship is a controversial one among the fans, and their interaction that goes one throughout this episode was probably the best hour of television in 2012. Not only do we see the codependent, destructive, and ultimately impossible to maintain affection for each other finally out in the open free of any lies or shifting agendas, but we also see Carrie and Brody in their stripped down to their essentials. Carrie is the master manipulator, making Brody as dependent on her as he once was on Nazir; Brody meanwhile is seen as who is he--the manipulated, dependent, someone to be led. We'll probably never see what he was like before his capture by Nazir so we don't know if he was always so malleable or if his experiences in captivity have truly broken him as a person. We see them together as two people remarkable especially in their flaws desiring to make a connection with someone with matching scars and corresponding scars and finding each other through lies and truth.
 
Fixes for Season 3

1- No more Mike and Lauter: Boy Detectives.

2- Take a break from the Brody family (including from Nick Brody himself).

3- Less "high octane" stories; settle for something smaller--shock does not a story make.

Crumble.

4- Reveal the mole and break the dependency on the trope. It will lead to more honest writing (theoretically).

5- Map the season out deliberately and in detail, with regards for what may happen in the fourth season. What we learned this year was that scripts were being finalized at the very last minute, even while filming. Sometimes the running clock can be an excellent motivator as it leads to outside the box thinking, and sometimes the Vice Presiden't son runs over a peasant.

6- The adherence to reality and character development made Homeland accessible and exciting in its first year. Go back to that.  

7- In Mel Gibson's voicemails to his then-wife Oksana Grigorieva, Mel offered his advice. "You are a fucking whore...stop being that." Replace 'fucking whore' with 24, and you have my advice for Homeland; this opinion is further bolstered by Jim Norton (comedian, philanthropist, urine enthusiast) who recently said: "Homeland is the best sci-fi show on television. Ugh."

Agreed.


Being somewhat generous, Homeland season two is a 3 out of 5. 


P.S. I know that I haven't posted much on here recently. Part of the reason is because typing with a broken wrist is excruciating, and partially because of a lack of material. Right now, however, I do have ideas for posts, so hopefully 2013 will be more productive. My wrist is still recovering, so for now postings will take a little longer to come out than before (I began this article before Christmas), but I will do my best to get quality work out on a more frequent basis.

Next time: Antiviral by Brandon Cronenberg.



   

How I Would Have Remade "Red Dawn"

The original Red Dawn is a very Cold War era film. It's jingoistic, pro-gun, and redolent with paranoia and vague xenophobia. It's a movie that certainly could not be made today without an even greater outrage tantrum from liberal mouthpieces. That's not to say that the film is intrinsically good because of its controversy, because it's really sort of bland; an actioner with a slight twist on the formula. It's simply a movie that is forgotten not because of its "agenda" but because things changed once the wall came down and, well, as I said, Red Dawn is ninety minutes of meh. For some reason now, everything 80s must be revitalized, so we have a remake.

Rather than use my usual formula of reviewing both of these movies separately or concurrently where I slam the dumb stuff--Adrianne Palicki's character is named Toni Braxton, the lead isn't even American--in this article, hence its title, I'm going to tell you what I would have done.

One of the most difficult methods of writing is metatextual--which is breaking down the fourth wall. For a clear definition, I'll quote TVTropes: "Breaking the fourth wall is when a character acknowledges their fictionality, by either indirectly or directly addressing the audience. Alternatively, they may interact with their creator (the author of the book, the director of the movie, the artist of the comic book, etc.). This is more akin to breaking one of the walls of the set, but the existence of a director implies the existence of an audience, so it's still indirectly Breaking The Fourth Wall. This trope is usually used for comedic purposes." 

This is a real postmodern method that you will see often, but rarely see it done well. For those interested, the ones who have done it right: Community, South Park, The Venture Bros., Arrested Development, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the Christopher Guest films. Some shows will use this device as a quick punchline or even as a one-off episode (Supernatural and Beast Wars: Transformers used it excellently), but these shows and movies live on the ashes and dust of the demolished wall, and that is how I would handle a Red Dawn remake--a fourth wall breaking black comedy.

Since, for some reason, Chris Hemsworth is the man who you go to when you think of blue collar Americana, take it a little further. Let him use his Australian accent, cast his brothers to play his brothers, and cast Liam Neeson as their dad. Let them use their accents and never have it brought up--even utilize it as a joke. "Our family has roots tracing back to the Mayflower!" and bits like that.

Have Palicki's character consistently make references to Friday Night Lights, and have other characters bring up her failed Wonder Woman TV show. Since her name, for some reason, needed to be Toni Braxton, utilize that--have her dialogue reference Braxton's songs.

Have their militia cross paths briefly with another. This other group will be the actors from the original feature--they come face to face with their character analogues. Since Patrick Swayze has taken his role in Ghost too seriously, Hemsworth will mutter "Where's mine?"

There needs to be a statue of Charlton Heston in the center of town.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan plays the role of a former colonel in the remake. Since this sounds dull, we're going to add some flavor to it. When the militia encounters him, they immediately recognize him as Jeffrey Dean Morgan, the actor, only to find out he's insane and thinks that he actually is Edward "the Comedian" Blake, his role in Watchmen. He is in character all the time, but trips up once in a while and the militia will try to call him on it. He'll demand that people call him Eddie. He's wearing a homemade Comedian costume, is consistently using lines from the graphic novel, believes that this is a plot by Ozymandias, and is always chomping on a cigar. He tells Hemsworth's character that he looks like a C-list superhero. Everyone is creeped out by him.

Some lines and scene pieces:

(Upon seeing a low flying plane and paratroopers jumping out)
 Palicki: "What is that? A plane?"
Neeson: "Maybe it's Superman."
Hemsworth: "It's sure as shit not Wonder Woman."
(Palicki glares.)


Neeson: "They're North Koreans."
Hemsworth: "They look downright Chinese to me..."
Neeson: "We changed it in post."
Hemsworth: "What?"
Neeson: "Nothing."

Hemsworth: "I've got bad news."
Neeson: "Albanians have kidnapped my daughter again?"

(Talking in his sleep)
JDM: "No! Get that broken bottle away from me!" 

Peck: "What should we call overselves?"
Hemsworth: "The Avengers sounds cool."
Palicki: "That sounds totally gay."
Peck: "Yeah, it kinda does."

Hemsworth: "Watchmen wasn't even that good."
JDM: "Have you read the fucking graphic novel?! I mean, shit. Fuck. I mean, I bet you think you're the smartest guy on the cinder, don't you?"


Neeson: "I think I know who's behind this."
JDM: "Woodward and Bernstein?"
Neeson: "What? No."

(JDM asks Palicki back to his cabin)
Palicki: "No."
JDM: "Spelt Y-E-S?"

 
Peck: "Why did you guys break up?" 
Palicki: "He wasn't man enough. Look, I don't want to talk about it. It's just another sad love song."
Peck: "There was singing?"


(Her bracelet deflects a bullet)
Palicki: "I fucking knew that would work!"







(Upon hearing JDM's plan)
Neeson: "Have you ever done this before?"
JDM: "Only once..."


(While reading the Watchmen prequels)
JDM: "What the fuck were they thinking?"
(Immediately hides it when someone comes into his tent)

Palicki: "Come on, guys--clear eyes, full hearts!" 
Hemsworth: "Was that from the show?"

 
Hemsworth: "So you're Edward Blake, right?"
JDM: "Right."
Hemsworth: "Then you should be dead, right? You were thrown out of the window on the first page. Then they buried you. So, what, was it magic?"
JDM: "That reminds me of Magic City, it's a great show." (addresses the audience). "Check it out on Starz. It's like Mad Men. Only there's Jews."

Palicki: "Maybe if they could un-break my heart I could breathe again."

JDM: "The truth is, you're the closest thing to a friend I got. What the fuck does that say?"
Hemsworth: Was that you or was that another line from the movie?"
JDM: "What do you mean?"
Hemsworth: "Oh, for God's sake. You are an asshole, you know that? I swear by Asgard when this is over--goddamnit, great, now you've got me doing it too."
JDM: "Just a matter of time, I suppose..."

Palicki: "We should hit the freeway."
Peck: "Enough! We get it!"

 

Short version: the original has aged but has its charms, the new one is dull.  

Batman on Film Part 6: The Dark Knight Rises

Always, spoilers.


First of all, if you haven't read my articles on Robin and Dick Grayson, you should do so before reading this review. Trust me on this, it'll be important.


The third time was the charm here, for Nolan and company in their send-off to the Batman franchise. After an uninspired Begins and a self-important Dark Knight, Rises turned out to be the best of the three--not that that's saying much--largely because this film actually embraced the source material. For the first time, it actually seems like the Nolans have actually read Batman comics, that they don't seem embarrassed to make a comic book movie.


There are references to The Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, Knightfall, and No Man's Land--some of the most celebrated Batman stories (though KC is more of a Superman story) and they gel together perfectly in this film because they all share the same themes: sacrifice, death, rebirth. Rises is not nearly as clunky in delivering these themes as the last two movies, and adds to a layer of depression and failure that surrounds the characters of the film.


For Bruce, it's about the death of hope. He failed to save Harvey Dent and Rachel Bitchesalot; Dent who was supposed to take over for him, and Rachel who he wanted to spend his life with; as Batman, he failed to be the hero and was forced to take on the role of villain. That and his isolation caused the bankruptcy of his company.  For Gordon, he failed his friends--specifically Batman who had to take the rap for Dent's crimes, he failed in his marriage, and he failed to tell the truth about Dent.

Nolan again adapts some portions of real-life to add to the movie's world: some exciting force shown in CIA interrogations, and the Dent Act, which is essentially the Patriot Act. The fact that America tends to demand much of its heroes only to turn on them for doing their job is also on display here. The most obvious is that of Batman, but also with Jim Gordon. It's mentioned that he was being pushed away from his position because he was a "war-time" commissioner and it was now "peace-time." This is an effective motif, but doesn't exactly stand up to logic. You don't fire a man for doing an exemplary job. The changes that were made were because of Gordon's implementation of the Dent Act; arguably, if he is pushed out for someone else who is less aggressive, you'll wind up with the same problems you had before.


Alfred also has his failure to deal with. In keeping the existence of Rachel's letter secret, he had hoped to spare Bruce from extra heartache. He had hopes that Bruce would start a life, be done with this desire for revenge, but as he runs further and further into depression and starts taking up crime-fighting again, Alfred realizes the best thing for him to do is to leave a powerful unstable billionaire to his own devices, which can certainly never end poorly.

What also sets this film as superior to its predecessors is the attention to character as much as to plot. Everyone gets a moment to shine here, to reveal things about themselves, others, their beliefs, their desires. It's all laid out for us in ways that are never clunky and always welcome. Batman's bedside conversation with Gordon, Bruce and Blake conversation in the mansion, Miranda Tate's history (both versions), even Bane is given some room to become a living being.


What's funny is that yet again, Nolan defers to Batman Returns to help flesh out his characters. Once again, Bruce and Selina find themselves at a costume ball, playing a back and forth game, matching wits and playing verbal chess. It doesn't have the sad nuance of the conversation in Returns, but this scene takes place early in their interaction, so it's an entirely different animal. They're made to mirror each other, while also wanting some of the same things. Namely, a second chance. They both want a normal life, but they have different methods. Selina is willing to commit increasingly dangerous and violent crimes, ever blackening her soul, while Batman takes on more dangerous but sacrificial missions. Not only does he want a second chance, but he wants Gotham (which Nolan finally realized is meant to be New York) to be given one as well.

"I said stay in the fucking kitchen!"

Speaking of Selina, Hathaway is excellent as Selina/Catwoman. Comparing Ann Hathaway's Catwoman to Michelle Pfeiffer's is the same as comparing Michael Keaton's Batman to Christian Bale's. They are the right actors/characters for their respective universes. While Pfeiffer dripped sex like Catwoman, she didn't have the right attitude; she was a Burton character so she was damaged and off-center; Hathaway's character isn't very sexy, but she's at the base of Catwoman--she's a thief, brilliant, and casually brutal.


Invariably, what makes a hero is his villains. Something the film does well is tying in a lot of what happened into the first two features into this one. It brings the story full circle and allows for us to see the consequences of the actions the characters have taken--Bane revealing the truth about the Dent coverup, having Blake be the kid Bats saved in Begins, the dynamic between Talia and Bane, the reason behind their actions again Bruce. Hell, the Nolans even call themselves out on their own shit, finally owning up to the fact that Batman did technically murder Ra's al Ghul in Begins. 


The scene that truly brings the story full circle, however, is where Bruce is held in the Pit. He must climb his way out of the through a hole that is essentially, in height and design, the cave entrance he found in Begins. He was always that little boy lost in the cave. Now, as a man, he's climbed out and accepted his place, his role in life. He's come to terms with the loss of his parents, and is ready to deal with the emotions that come with their deaths. He's an orphan, he's sad, he's angry. 


Delicious actress Marion Cotillard plays Miranda Tate/Talia with nuance and mystery; the impossible to place accent, the dress she wore at the end, the cold cynical psychosis of Talia is brought to life perfectly, but there was something in her dialogue--whether written poorly or preformed poorly that came off a little B-movieish. Cotillard's crazy stare from Inception makes a triumphant return in Rises which can also describe my state of arousal whenever she applied it. Her best moments are character pieces: fireside with Bruce, and again during the "slow knife" scene. For a while during her speech you couldn't help but empathize with her. Unfortunately, there isn't much more to say about her considering she wasn't Talia for very long. 


Tom Hardy had the unenviable task of having to act solely through his eyes for three hours, but he does a pretty strong job. This incarnation of Bane is a motivational speaker OWS hero terrorist. Again with the terrorists. At least his and Talia's stories are personal ones, and it allows for both of them to be fully realized. Bane and Batman's fight scenes were truly great in scale and choreography, and Nolan is making some progress in learning to film action. Bane's best moment is a toss up between his solitary tear in hearing Talia's recitation of their lives, and his casual toss of the broken Batman mask into the sewer.

Like I said, it's almost impossible to act through a mask like that. Hardy needed to be eyes and body language and he did great. Unfortunately, his dialogue was often unintelligible due to the mask, the accent and the ambient noise of the speakers in the theater. Almost any time he spoke it was a great moment of much needed levity. In the end, my friend Rob said it best: Bane sounds like Dr. Killenger from The Venture Brothers. See below.  

A great deal of the movie is enjoyable because it is structured as an actual movie. It's not as tediously explained as the previous two features. We weren't given a long winded explanation of how Bruce got back from the pit, how Talia found her father as a child, we weren't given some bullshit technobabble about how the fusion reactor or Bruce's electronic knee-brace works. The fact that these things just happened makes the movie more fluid which is important for a movie that's just under three hours long. Now that Nolan wasn't so beholden to the extreme realism of Begins and TDK, we can enjoy character beats involving dreams, hallucinations and flashbacks, important pieces of personal history and movie magic that makes the emotions of the characters evermore relevant and present. Perhaps this shift in tone had something to do with the push back of people being tired of heavily realistic superhero movies especially in light of Marvel's bombastic films or the realization that superheros stop being realistic the second they have superpowers or put on a mask and cape.


Finally, we come to the negatives about this movie. For me, it starts and stops with John Blake, who, as we find out, has a Christian name of Robin. Now, Nolan and Bale have made their incredible distaste of the character of Robin abundantly clear over the years. This, I think, has had a detrimental effect on the character in the eyes of non fans. For example, upon seeing Blake ascend in the Batcave, a mouth breather sitting in the row behind me said, "Yo I don't want to see that nigga Robin. Robin could suck my dick." I'm sure he would, sir, were he real, gay, and if you had something other than a GED and micropenis. Moreover, to spitefully add character traits of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, only to have Blake, this stranger, take up the cause is the film version of having Jean-Paul Valley as Batman in the followup to Knightsend. It's a disservice to the characters who do have a fanbase despite Nolan's blind hatred, and disrespectful to the fans themselves. It's the fans that supported Robin that ensured his survival over the last seventy years, it's the fans that made Nolan's features a success, and it's the fans he actually seemed to finally appreciate in this movie, up until this Blake nonsense.

To go so far as to explain Blake as an orphan like Dick Grayson, to even have that dialogue Blake and Bruce have about being orphans, angry alone and without direction, goes to the very heart of the Batman & Robin dynamic. But then, because fuck you, it's not Dick Grayson (who in the comics was a beat-cop in Bludhaven for several years), nor is he Tim Drake (who in the comics figured out Batman's identity himself and helped Bruce find his way again). It would have made more sense at the script level to have "John Blake" be a pseudonym for Grayson or Drake, and have him be a source of info--a spy or agent even--for Batman, rather than have that clunky scene with the secretary to ham-fist this bullshit about Blake's real first name being Robin.

Now, the argument is that Nolan wanted an amalgamation of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake. Sure, fine, no problem. Just have him use one of their names. Batman: The Animated Series did the same thing when they introduced Tim Drake. They gave him Jason Todd's background (Todd being the second Robin in the comics) but Drake's name and personality (Drake being the third Robin). This was done to appease all twelve Jason Todd fans (fan appreciation) but not have to deal with the uncomfortable aspect of having the character named Jason Todd (who was beaten with a crowbar, and blown up by the Joker) making its way into a children's cartoon. (However, the bloody violence, Charles Manson and sex jokes were fine).

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but a part of me thinks--and wants to believe--that Dan DiDio, whose distaste for Dick Grayson has been made apparent over the last eight years had something to do with this. He's often said that his influence doesn't extend to the film section of DC Comics/Warner Bros., but he had over the last several years leading up to the Green Lantern movie campaigned to have Ryan Reynolds play Hal Jordan. So, it's something to think about.

On the 501st day of Summer...

Grayson, if properly written, could be DC's answer to Spider-man (especially now that Wally West seems to have fallen through a crack in the universe; the crack itself used to be bigger, but Judd Winick smoked it). Grayson is beloved and respected by the heroes of the DCU; he's agile, fast, and has a great charm to him, much like Spider-man. Though Grayson is about thirty years Spidey's senior, and who had these traits before Spider-man, Grayson has rarely been allowed to "steer the ship" outside of stories like The Black Mirror, Gates of Gotham and Tree of Blood, while Spider-man is Marvel's go-to guy. Part of it is poor direction (DiDio) and the other part is his lack of rogues gallery. The villains he has aren't great. Arguably, Deathstroke should be his main nemesis, considering the heinous still he's done to Grayson--and what Grayson's done back--but he's being repackaged to be the main nemesis for Green Arrow. Green fucking Arrow. A title that Nightwing dominates in sales every month. But fuck us, I guess.

 
Other complaints are mostly nitpicks:

--Does anyone do any kind of background checks on anyone who wants to get onto the board of Wayne Enterprises?

--Secret motorcycles in the stock exchange. 

--Blake knows the city is about to be nuked...go send some kids to go warn everybody in a city full of escaped prisoners, psychopaths, and well armed terrorists while the rest of us wait around.

--"The Bat." Considering you've lessened the grip on the oppressive realism, could you do us the favor of actually calling it the Batwing or the Batplane? And how about making it look like an actual plane and not a post-modern art defecation?

--Why would Lucius Fox say to Bruce that someone with his mind would be able to fix The Bat? We've established that he's not exactly a technical genius in these features, and he's never had any experience with this one of a kind prototype plane.

--Teasing us with a Lazarus Pit, but it only turns out to be a subterranean prison. 

--Batman: "Hey, Catwoman. I know you led me into a trap where you knew I was supposed to be killed, but now I'm going to trust on a hunch that there's a good person in there despite having no evidence over any of our encounters to prove this theory."

--Suggesting the firing of Jim Gordon for doing a good job.

--Kitty doesn't have claws. Or a whip.

--So Bruce fakes his death and lives abroad the rest of his life. Bruce Wayne is a famous playboy and we live in an era of social networking, TMZ, and smart phones. He'd have fooled people for about ten minutes.

--Why is Bruce so beaten up if he was only Batman for a year and has been on an eight year vacation?

--Gordon was actually surprised by Batman's identity. What a dummy.

--His name is Roland Daggett, not John Daggett.

--Once again, Ra's al Ghul is pronounced Ray'sh not Raazzzz.

--Gordon: "If you want to kill us, fine. But if you think we won't put up a fight if you want to exile us, you're mistaken." First of all, you should be putting up a fight either way. Second, when Gordon and co. are exiled, they don't put up a fight at all.

--What was the point of that airplane scene at the beginning? Fine, you wanted to get this guy. Why don't you just wait until they land or attack before they take off. The entire scene was one needless risk after another. Has nobody heard of sniper rifles?


The ending of the film was perfectly made, as there is no way that the Batman legacy can end in anything other than death. Only this time, Bruce manages to survive to lead a normal life, free of the insanity and the violence. It's the happy ending you can never give Batman in the comic books. All in all, this was a satisfying end to a shitty series, and a comic book movie that done without most of the common Nolan pretensions.


The Dark Knight Rises: 3 1/2 out of 5

Midnight Movie Review: The Avengers

There will be spoilers.

In many ways The Avengers is both every action movie you've ever seen, and in many ways its the first of its kind. Like many action movies, it's a bit thin on plot--and this film once again was just a stall for the next (the villain is revealed to be Darkseid Thanos)--but there's never been a truly superhero team-up movie like this. In animation, sure, but live action, with the kind of budget and a six year slow burn of anticipation and presumed mapped out story that would cover about nine features altogether. A lot has been built up into this, and it largely lived up to the hype. But what really sells it is the character work. In between massive action scenes is Joss Whedon's great eye for poppy dialogue and character beats. We'll take each character starting with Captain America/Steve Rogers.

Cap is still in a pretty bad way, transplanted decades and having lost all of his friends and his true love to time, and, hell, I'd be mad too if I was a virgin in my seventies, but that's neither here nor there. The world he's in now is vaguely familiar at best, and it's played well here. He's not only lost on pop culture and technology, but almost everyone seems to revere him as some kind of deity. His simplicity is almost quaint in this world of complexity; even his patois and black-and-white way of thinking (he couldn't even fathom the idea of Nick Fury and SHIELD having ulterior interests) is just out of date. However, there are some things that just never go out of style. His Loki/Hitler comparison rang true, as did his dialogue with Nick Fury. I can't quote it word for word (it's 4:54AM as I write this), but it's to the effect of:

Nick Fury: "That's kind of old fashioned."
Steve Rogers: "Considering how complicated things are these days, don't you think a little old fashioned would be good?"

Now, if only my beloved GOP would use that as a slogan, give God a rest, and stay out of other people's bedrooms we just might be able to get our stuff together. Or better yet, go the Libertarian route and let's put Gary Johnson and James Gray in the White House.

Sorry about the tangent.


Moving on to Iron Man, we finally get some serious character beats, along with the usual spastic behavior. (In a perfect world, DC would be able to draft him and Bucky Barnes over. It would be worth it for his interactions with Batman, Superman, Guy Gardner and Hal Jordan alone.) Cap really takes Stark to task for his narcissism and combined with the sudden death of Phil Coulson, Stark really takes it on the chin and we get to see if he's capable of making the "big sacrifice" as Cap put it.

Black Widow, introduced in the bloated and meandering Iron Man 2, gets a great deal of development among moments of violence and tasteful shots of her ass. Her mind is structured and organized, she's cold (which is good for Scarlett Johansson's range) but has deep seated regrets and a desire for some kind of redemption. On top of that we get to understand just what a great spy she is from her out-flanking Bruce Banner and her deceiving of Loki (a real nifty trick considering, you know, he's Loki).

Thor, meanwhile, has grown up in some way. He's not nearly as brash or indignant; he's fighting for humanity, while being genuinely hurt that his brother has repeatedly betrayed him and still hoping against hope for some kind of happy family reunion. 
 
Plot wise, something I really appreciated was the idea of a council that oversees SHIELD, and when you think of someone that could give Samuel L. Jackson shit and seem like a legitimate threat, it's Powers Boothe. It's also a great idea to have some oversight on, you know, a guy who has a giant invisible flying aircraft carrier and was in possession of an incredibly powerful weapon that even demi-gods frown at. I also appreciated that even though human beings were considered low-threat, our weapons--bullets, nukes--proved to be effective. Unfortunately, that's at the expense of the Chitauri army. More on the negatives later.

The Eddie Flow Chart

While the free-for-all of Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, and Thor fighting each other seems to pad out the story and provide a necessary fan-wank, these two confrontations manage to still show us a great deal about these characters--how they react to situations and how they react to each other--and is all part of feeding you action and a little bit of character work as well.

Finally, we come to Nick Fury. What makes him really come to life as a war general is his constant ability to adapt. If we can't arm ourselves accordingly, let's do something loud and blast a shot across the universe's bow. That'll learn 'em. He's a master manipulator and strategist, and incredibly resilient, navigating a moral gray zone that's full of drunken billionaires, armchair warriors, unstable doctors, demi-gods, and an ice cold spy with an ass that won't quit and tits that'll leave you begging for buttermilk. In the middle of all of this, he's calm, he's self-assured, he's unwavering. He's the Nick Fury we've seen hinted at since 2008 in full view. He lived up to the Sam Jackson legend.

The high point of the film is the scene in the lab where Loki's pimp cane starts to effect the Avengers and they not only start arguing and talking over each other, but they start to chronically tell the truth. What follows is some sad truths and human weakness; something Whedon is a master at capturing and expressing.

Now, this isn't a perfect movie. As I said, the plot is thin and its villain is awful, which is a shame because Tom Hiddleston plays Loki with such zeal and hidden layers of complexity that almost came out a few times here and in Thor.

For some reason, Loki has an army and they can be taken down by some asshole with a bow and arrow. We learn almost immediately that Loki now works for some higher beings (the Other, played by Alexis Denisof), and Loki himself is repeatedly outsmarted or beaten up by Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, Cap, Hawkeye, Phil Coulson, and Black Widow. Hell, some old German guy doesn't even worry much about him. So if he's getting his butt kicked constantly, how are we supposed to take him as a serious threat? If Thor was about to beat him in his movie, would Loki really have much more luck against a team of people who won't go easy on him because they grew up together?

Since Loki doesn't work as a villain, The Avengers falls into the same trap as all of Marvel's other movies fell into (minus The Incredible Hulk, X-Men First Class and the first half of Iron Man): a total lack of suspense. At no point do you ever really feel that the world is coming to an end. The pieces and exposition and the odds are all laid out for you but it just doesn't add up to anything. At no point do you feel a sense of foreboding, of something impending. It's the Iron Man 2 syndrome, where there's a lot going on, but it's nothing of substance. No sense of danger.

"Durrr."

The Dark Knight Rises trailer is a good example. As much as I dislike the movies as well as Nolan's pomposity, the trailer looks like some shit is about to go down. Between the music and the voice overs and the pale sky of Gotham, it makes you really wonder if Batman might actually die this time around. And that's the problem with Marvel's movies. There's a little too much camp, a little too much fun and not enough of the heavy stuff to ground it.  

Now that I mentioned him, the floodgate is open. Hawkeye. No, not my nickname for Stevie Wonder, but Clint Barton. He runs around shooting at people with a bow and arrow. The world is coming to an end and he's running around with a bow and arrow. He's a ripoff of Green Arrow who is a ripoff of Batman and Robin Hood. Fuck him and his Chris Jericho haircut.

While we're on the topic of shit characters that add nothing to the movie--the Hulk makes an appearance. Good god, what a waste this guy is. He's a brute who hits things indiscriminately. The only thing incredible about him is the fact he has a fanbase and has had longevity in the industry. It's a real shame because Bruce Banner--and the germ of the idea--is pretty interesting. Banner repeatedly refers to the Hulk as "the other guy" who has messed up his life; this seemingly malignant entity that's ruined his life and keeps him from banging Jennifer Connelly/Liv Tyler. Instead of a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde thing, the character is a one-note barbarian. The Incredible Hulk managed--thanks in large part to Edward Norton--make the Bruce Banner character more at the forefront; make it more about the tragedy of one man's life who must live with and eventual use this monster. Whedon and Penn do their best and Ruffalo is admirable as Banner--the revelation about his suicide attempt was a strong, sad, understated moment that the film has plenty of--but it doesn't change the fact that whenever he goes full retard and becomes imbued with his requisite retard strength, the tragedy of Bruce Banner ends and the slapstick awfulness of Hulk begins. 

That cellist sounded like a bitch, anyway.

I understand that killing Phil Coulson would resonate with the audience. He's a fun character that we've gotten used to seeing, we've gotten used to his snark. However, Zak Penn and Joss Whedon wanted to use his death as a way for the Avengers to come together. The problem is, Coulson never really had a relationship with these people. Stark always treated him like a case of the clap, when he met Thor briefly in, well, Thor, they weren't friendly, and he only met Cap a few hours before he died. Cap even seemed a little creeped out by his fanboyism. I'm willing the let the Cap thing go because Fury wisely pulled at his heartstrings a bit, and Cap's really a nice guy so, there's that. Meanwhile, I still don't think he ever shared much screentime with Jericho or Widow, so it's not like this is really going to resonate so much with the characters as it would with the audience.

So, as an audience experience the death of Agent Coulson was a bit of a wake up call and gave the proceedings a much needed sense of urgency. Coulson, thankfully, managed to go out on a note that was both snarky and prescient. It was his unfinished thought that gave Fury the idea and means to manipulate the team to working together. 

 Here's a list of smaller complaints. Some of them are nit-picks.

1) Considering the speed of the glider, Black Widow's arm should have been torn off when she grabbed on.

2) Coulson is wearing a Rolex watch with a President bracelet. That bracelet is used only on their gold or Platinum pieces, which in mens size start at about $30,000; I doubt any government employee has that kind of spending money. A scene later, it's now an Oyster bracelet, used on their stainless steel or steel and gold pieces. It certainly is never used on their white-gold or platinum pieces.  It's a moot point, I guess: he went back to the President bracelet in the next scene anyway.

3) Good thing Banner fell within driving distance of New York. He must have taken Plot Convenience Road on the way to I-90.

4) When Widow manages to get the info out of Loki, she talks into her earpiece, presumably to Fury. However, when we next see Fury he has no idea that Widow got him to talk. Who was she talking to if not Fury?

5) You can undo brainwashing by getting hit in the head.

6) Widow really beat Hawkeye pretty savagely. He doesn't have a bump, bruise or scrape.

7) Gwyneth Paltrow.

8) The air-base is taking off, eventually in the air. Considering the altitude, it's sensible that the outside workers are wearing oxygen masks. However, their jackets are windbreakers despite the fact it'd be incredible cold and windy, nor are they wearing protective footwear that would help them walk on the surface to keep them from blowing away. You know. Because of the wind. 


Son of a bitch, it's raining again.

The only villain he can't beat is baldness.

 I know that this sounds like chest pounding of a DC Comics fanboy, but it's not like I'm actually finished praising what the film got right. From small things like Tony's drinking to his thinking three moves ahead, to Cap actually using a gun, to Thor's reluctance to torture/question his brother even after everything that's transpired between the two, to Banner's immediate fear about hurting innocent people after he's calmed down, it's those minor character beats that turn these characters into people; flawed and good.

I said before That you'll notice a film's soundtrack either when it's really good or really bad. In this case, It's exceptionally good. From the classical interludes to the AC/DC (I personally don't care for them but I appreciate the nod to continuity), to shutting off the ambient noise and letting the music play over the battles, to those sad near-tragedies and close-up character moments, the soundtrack is perfect for every moment.

Finally, we come to the directed action. A pretty important factor in an action movie. Again, like the soundtrack, it's perfect. Kinetic and speedy yet easily discernible. It's up close and smash-mouth but as no point are you every questioning what it is that you're seeing. It's really no surprise. Whedon cut his teeth on these vast battles on Buffy and the under-appreciated Angel, but it was nice to see him really cut loose here with an ample budget. Whedon has had experiences in dealing with ensemble casts of divergent and antithetical personalities. For a job like this, he's the perfect man for the job; if it was almost anybody else, this very well could have been a disappointment.

The question this comes down to is: Was it worth the wait? As a casual viewer, I greatly enjoyed it. I imagine that the invested viewer/Marvel reader will either treat it as the word of God or as something to nit-pick to death until Avengers 2...like every other comic book fan over every comic book movie.

Just like me and Batman.

It's stopped raining. Again.

The Avengers: 4 out of 5.

Film Review: John Carter

I knew very little about the story of John Carter going into this feature. I knew that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote the stories, that they were before the advent of superheroes like Superman--hence the reference in the pilot episode of Justice League and that if it wasn't for John Carter of Mars (or the first novel A Princess of Mars) there would not have been Star Wars, so I guess we know who to blame now.

Considering the talent involved in the film--Dominic West (McNulty!), Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, James Purefoy and the eclectic Bryan Cranston, I was excited for the film. I was even excited to see Taylor Kitsch (despite his limited range) because of Friday Night Lights. 

For some reason, Disney decided to spend two hundred fifty million dollars on this film to make the CGI characters and action not only seem real but interact seemlessly into the equally CGI landscape around them--it's a movie that's almost worth seeing just for its beautifully rendered images. Then there's the essentially all star cast and hiring Pulitzer prize winning writer Michael Chabon to co-write the script along with the highly talented Andrew Stanton directing (Finding Nemo not withstanding), only to dull up the title (going from the far more interesting John Carter From Mars to the antiseptic and non-revealing John Carter, leaving only die-hard fans to really know what it's about, and leaving others who might be interested in the film without any real information as to what it's supposed to be about. There's a rumor that the film (Stanton's first live-action attempt) was over budget and the script was not as clear as it should be in its plot and characterizations. Well, that didn't stop Paramount from releasing Star Trek (2009) and blitzkrieging us with its promotional campaign. So what was Disney here? Embarrassed? Like the never put out a flop?  Please.

The story follows the eponymous Carter played by Kitsch, a former Confederate soldier, dealing with the loss of his hot wife and young daughter. He's disaffected--he lost a war he believed in, he lost his family. Truly, he himself is lost and doesn't really care about much of anything. It's that journey, from this nihilistic dispassion to finding something to live and strive for that is at the heart of this story--it's what really sells it, but unfortunately it isn't developed appropriately (like many of the other stories going on here).

We're given Carter's back story largely through exposition and blink-and-you'll-miss-them flashbacks. As I said, his story is about trying to function, trying to care again after these severe and concurrent losses. We see him change, warming to Dejah slowly. He was protective of her, then lost patience, then began to feel a certain affection for her and empathy for the situation she was in. She feels for her kingdom the way he feels for his lost family and that's why he chooses to stay and help her. The only problem is that at the very second the war with McNulty is over, he asks to marry her, and we jump-cut from their wedding to their honeymoon. At first I thought I had a stroke, but since I didn't smell any burning toast, I assume it was poor writing and editing. We were given too little information and character moments to really understand Carter, and when we finally were starting to get it, when we notice some small changes, he suddenly floors it and gets hitched. It was jarring.

While the marriage seemed forced and contrived (Disney demands that if they're going to fuck they need to be married first, but didn't mind letting us know Carter's first wife and daughter were burned alive), Taylor Kitsch and Lynn Collins (who plays Dejah) do have a natural chemistry so as their relationship and feelings for one another change, the change from ally to love interest doesn't feel shoe-horned.

The world of Mars/Barsoom has a number of different cultures at work here, they're all very different and well thought out. You can tell from what we're given that a lot of work went into giving these aliens their own patois, beliefs, nuances, values and quirks, but we saw very little of it here; they're trying to sell us on the diversity of the planet, of the fish-out-of-water that Carter is, but the story just ends up feeling incomplete. We don't really get to know or understand the Tharks, the Therns, or the people of Helium and Zodanga. We know they're different, we know they don't like each other, and what little detail is given just makes them seem more alien and less relatable. In short, the movie's scope was as broad as its limitations, which at a two hour run time is inexcusable.

Often, we're left to fill in the gaps ourselves, as far as answering how and why. Why was there a portal on Earth in the first place? Who built them? The Therns don't need them to travel; they exist to reap chaos. Why? Why are the (advanced?) weapons on Mars ineffective against them but a bullet works? Given how the "red people" and the Therns look and considering their sexual compatibility to humans, one would assume the question of common ancestry would come up, right? Nah. I know that I should cut this film some slack because it's meant to be the first in a trilogy of films so a fair amount of exposition and unanswered questions are bound to exist. It looks as if that the meat of the story is how Mars/Barsoom is dying, and John Carter has to save it from the Therns. That's fine. The only problem is that the screenplay essentially resolved nothing. There was a the war between the red people that still remains open, the Tharks have their own stuff going on, nothing has actually changed. If anything, the movie needed to end with the warring red and the uninterested Tharks coming together once the machinations of the Therns is exposed, uniting the planet under their common desire--survival. We can still keep the cliffhanger of Carter returning tens years later to find the planet having changed a great deal already, leaving the door open for a much different and darker sequel.

The dialogue in this film oscillates between good and ridiculous, between clear and expository. Some things seemed to be there for the sake of reminding us this is a sci-fi franchise (white apes, body copies) and it seems Hollywood has decided to finally make the change over from all non-Americans talk with British accents to aliens also now do to. It seems that they think we're entirely stupid now.

The acting is pretty standard: everyone does their job well enough. On the other hand, anytime Kitsch attempts to emote instead of just squint and smolder, he sounds more like a half drunk frat boy than a war general, West chews the scenery, and Lynn's accent made me embarrassed for humanity.

Already there is speculation on whether or not there's going to be a sequel. John Carter flopped in terms of its budget making $100,000,000 of its $250,000,000-$300,000,000 budget. Honestly, I really wouldn't mind a sequel so long as they keep what worked and excise what didn't. There's a fine story here, ripe for franchising. This very well could be a slow start to an epic actioner. You see, the thing is, John Carter is a frustrating film: I neither like it or hate it. I sat there, sometimes interested, sometimes not, and then I went home. What the matter comes down to is potential. In this situation, John Carter did not live up to its potential as a movie, but the story does still have the potential and room for growth.

John Carter: 2 1/2 out of 5

(Early) Film Review: Justice League: Doom

For the first time in almost ten years, we have the voice cast of the Justice League Animated Series reuniting with Bruce Timm, Andrea Romano and Dwayne McDuffie. This obvious can be the last complete reunion since McDuffie tragically passed away last year. So with this being the final written work--the adaptation of Mark Waid's seminal JLA: Tower of Babel--to say that DC fans wanted this final curtain call to be a classic is an understatement. To make myself clear from right now, Doom is not a classic. It is an entertaining and able movie, but it could have been much more. What's complicated, however, is that the problems with this feature are not entirely McDuffie's fault. Get ready your flasks of cheap but effective alcohol and your flashlights, gentle reader, as we will be traveling into the heart of darkness: DC Comics Editorial.

This is Tower of Babel: Ra's Al Ghul wants the Justice League distracted while he enacts his endgame. Knowing that Batman is the most disturbed and paranoid well-prepared superhero in the JLA, he hacks into Batman's computer and steals all of Batman's emergency protocols to incapacitate the JLA in case they turn bad. Meanwhile, to keep Batman busy, Ra's digs up and kidnaps the Waynes' and holds them hostage while Batman scours the globe searching for the old bones (his parents, not Karen Carpenter). After all is said and done, JLA saved the days, the Waynes are back in their grave, and the league is forced to deal with the fact that their closest ally--one of their own--has been keeping tabs on them for years; not only that, he has files on every metahuman (hero and villain) on the planet, and has taught the members of the Bat-family how to incapacitate--fatally or not--these walking gods in case they got "out of control." In one particularly dark scene, Tim Drake even tells a Teen Titan what the limits of her powers are--a fact she herself didn't even know. But Batman did.  

In return, Batman is thrown out of the Justice League. This causes a destabilization within the group which led to the team being disbanded and was a major factor in DC Comics for several years, even playing into Infinite Crisis which was published several years later.

What's funny is that this theme--of Batman worrying about the seemingly absolute power of the Justice League--was the uniting thread of the Justice League Animated Series. The arc was thought up and written mostly by Dwayne McDuffie. On top of all of that, McDuffie also wrote the JLA title in DC Comics proper (the story of what was going behind the scenes is even more interesting than his run), as well as the well-received adaptations of Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths and All Star Superman so one would assume that McDuffie would be the perfect man to adapt this classic tale. And you'd be right; under different conditions this could have been a perfect DC feature, but it's obvious that while he did write this feature, he was given specific orders on how.

DC's New 52 has been great in many ways. It's revitalized a lot of properties that were in the shitter, given a lot of lesser known characters a chance at becoming something bigger, and put Marvel back in its fucking place. Characters like Hal Jordan, Barry Allen and Cyborg have either returned from death or obscurity and have found themselves in the spotlight of the DCU. However, Tower of Babel was written in a time when Wally West was Flash, Kyle Rayner was Green Lantern, and Cyborg was fifteen and a member of the Teen Titans. So, mind you, the Justice League Animated Series was also written in that mind set--no Cyborg because he was on the Teen Titans show, and Wally West was Flash. So why suddenly would McDuffie write in these new characters. He wouldn't. However, with the New 52 being developed as much as a year ago, it's likely mandates were given to McDuffie that things would have to change. That's why Barry Allen acts just like Wally West (and was even voiced by Michael Rosenbaum who voiced Wally West/the Flash in the series!), and that's why Cyborg was shoe-horned into the plot randomly. While I do understand the reason behind wanting to toe the line for the New 52--and I swear this isn't one of those times I'm going to lambast Dan DiDio like he skins and boils unchristened babies--but this idea did damage to the foundation of the story. What's more unfortunate is the fact that the screenplay wasn't exactly perfect as it stood.

I honestly have no problems speaking ill of the dead, but that's only when I didn't like them in the first place. I loved Dwayne McDuffie, and I'm not just saying that because he was a cardiac patient and I feel an obligation to our fraternity, but when you consider the work he put into Justice League--the sheer number of episodes written, the scope of the stories, and the ballsy direction into serialization that he took it, I feel that he is every bit as responsible for the success of the DC Animated world as Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, and I find it very uncomfortable that I have to tear apart a lot of this story. 

What made Tower of Babel great was that it was a Batman story that barely featured him. It was a character piece on Batman and he was only active in small pieces of it. What we saw was the horror of the superheros--the friends--of his that were being tortured nearly to death because of him. This was Batman's problem caused by one of Batman's villains and his own paranoia. We see Batman using science, ingenuity and innocuous-seeming conversation to learn about his friends' strengths and weakness. In the end, he was able to turn even the strengths--like Wonder Woman's force of will and spirit--and turn them into ironic methods of torture. In Doom, some of the traps are specific but not nearly as cruel or clever--and while Martian Manhunter's trap was very effective, everyone else's seemed dull, repetitive (Wonder Woman and Hal Jordan are tripping balls) or downright silly (see previous aside).

The villain change from Ra's al Ghul to Vandal Savage and the Legion of Doom was another mistake. By keeping it to Batman's rogue's gallery, Mark Waid managed to keep the focus on the fact that this really was Batman's fault. ToB gave us several great moments--Ra's tempting Batman with the resurrection of his parents via the Lazarus Pit, the reactions of the JLA when they realize it was Batman who created these protocols, how they overcame Ra's or the extended debate they had in deciding what they should do with Batman once the ordeal was over--and these moments don't exist here. I understand the idea of using two mainstay JLA baddies in Vandal Savage and the LoD, but how many times have we seen that already? Like several things in this movie, it just seems repetitive.

On the other hand, Vandal Savage's plot is worthy of Vandal Savage and McDuffie was very clever in its resolution, really dialing up the suspense and tricking us with several cliched solutions before showing us the pretty cool real one he had up his sleeve. Hal Jordan's relationship with Carol Ferris is even explored somewhat. Though it is brief you really get a great feel for the maudlin affair those two have had over the years and the guilt that Jordan feels about it. 

The animation is similar to Crisis on Two Earths, but with a stronger hint of anime. So, if you're a fan of that sort of thing you'll appreciate the angles. I'm not an anime person so I didn't.

God bless Andrea Romano for getting the old Justice League cast together again. That's what happens when you get competent actors--quality. And having Nathan Fillion as Hal Jordan was a great fan service. It's a shame we couldn't have had him (or competent screenwriters) in the live action feature.

On the whole, Doom is a by-the-numbers DCU animated movie. It's not slow like Apocalypse or feculent as Batman: Year One and its not the classic it could have been considering its pedigree and on staff talent. It's definitely a fun film, but I'd prefer to think of All Star Superman as Dwayne McDuffie's last work. It's simply a better exit.

Justice League: Doom 3 out of 5.