X-Men – Days of Future Past

So, Empire Magazine have done a trailer breakdown on the new Days of Future Past trailer.

Let me try to simplify this… a character played by Patrick Stewart has to marshall the forces of his crew across different time periods in order to prevent a catastrophe occurring in the future…

That doesn’t sound familiar at all…

On the other hand, Bryan Singer back at the helm of an X-Men movie, and with the cast of First Class thrown into the mix…

Yeah. This is gonna be legendary.

Deconstructing the Mandarin

Iron Man 3 pulled off one of the greatest slights-of-hand of modern movie history. Having taken the classic Iron Man villain, the Mandarin, and built him up as the in-universe Osama bin Laden, the movie then completely wrong-foots the audience: this ultimate terrorist is in fact a tiny, clueless actor hired to play the part by Aldrich Killian, head of defence contractor AIM, as part of a plot to maintain a state of war which will indefinitely enrich his company.

This was a substantial change to the character from the comics, and to understand that change we must understand what the character in the comics is, how he relates to Iron Man, what it is that has made Iron Man so successful a character so long after his creation and what message the movie is trying to provide.

Origins
Iron Man and the Mandarin both came into being in the early 1960s – America was deeply involved in both the cold war and the Vietnam war. Both characters are – or were – a product of those times. Iron Man was created as a remedy to the ‘red-scare’ threat that America – or at least those in power in America – was obsessed with in 1963. Based on Howard Hughes, he was an allegory to show the people how the terror of communism could be overcome by good old American capitalism. The Mandarin, introduced in 1964, was the natural flip-side to that – the villain who would stand in for the ‘yellow peril’ threat from the far east.

But as society changes, so its superheroes have to evolve. Iron Man evolved quickly – Stan Lee was wise enough to realise that toeing the party line on the need for war in Vietnam was unlikely to play well with the buyers of comic books, who were more likely to want to give peace a chance than to kill a commie – and so the comics moved away from the overt politics, considering instead Tony Stark’s character, his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. The Mandarin, not so much. So for long periods of the history of Iron Man, Mandarin, described by so many as his arch-enemy, simply does not appear.

So the character as presented in the comics, like Fu Manchu or Ming the Merciless before him, is a relic of a time now long-since past, and is now hopelessly irrelevant. A direct page-to-screen transfer in 2013 would be rightly decried as a racist caricature and would have no place in modern storytelling or in the Marvel Cinematic Universe[1]. Many have suggested this could be overcome simply by rewriting his history – I disagree. The very name ‘Mandarin’ inextricably ties the character to negative associations with the Far East in general and specifically China. No backstory whitewash could cover that, and an evil Mandarin would always equate with an evil China – whether that was the intention of the filmmakers or not. So the character, like all comic book villains and heroes alike, had to evolve to remain relevant.

Iron Man on screen
Iron Man’s latest evolution into the box-office god he currently represents was for two reasons – the first, obviously, is Robert Downey jr[2].

The second is the modern day relevance that Jon Favreau managed to find in this product of the darkest aspects of the ‘60s. The conflict between Tony Stark and Obadiah Stane in Iron Man was in some ways a reference back to the Howard Hughes origins of the story, particularly his legal battles with the US government in the aftermath of World War 2. This is made even clearer in the Senate commission scenes of Iron Man 2. Stark, then, becomes the libertarian poster-boy, the embodiment of the struggle of the individual entrepreneur against the state[3].

This presentation would have had limited appeal in 2008[4], but Favreau managed to find a rich seam of relevance in Iron Man’s character – his betrayal by Stane in selling weapons ‘under the carpet’ gives Stark a shuddering appreciation of how the military industrial complex works, and sets him diametrically against it. In the era of dodgy dossiers, illegal and seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and now mass unregulated surveillance of civilians, it seems there is no greater threat to the western world than its own military industrial complex.

It is this antithesis to the military industrial complex that makes Iron Man relevant, and it is no accident that all three of his ‘solo’ villains are drawn from it – for all that some criticise this aspect of the movies. It is this critical relevance that allows good filmmakers to make points about contemporary politics and culture in the way only good science fiction can[5].

The Mandarin on screen
Having explored the immorality of military industrial in Iron Man and its susceptibility to corruption[6] in Iron Man 2, the next necessary target was the misuse of intelligence and the exaggeration of the threat of terrorism. Shane Black made no secret of the fact that he wanted to say something of use in his portrayal of the Mandarin. By making him into nothing more than a figurehead, controlled by another avatar for military industrial, Black was able to illustrate the dangers of believing what we are told by the politicians, how the threat of terrorism is used to distract us from the real threat – those who benefit from our fear and the perpetuation of warfare, regardless of the cost.

Had the Mandarin been the mythic terrorist we were initially promised the movie would have lost the message it not only relied on but had inherited from its two predecessors, and perhaps worse have been open to criticism of naivety – to attack military industrial but to swallow its fictions about terrorism would ring hollow.

The fact that the portrayal gave the movie a critical end-of-second-act sting, and was hilarious in a Shane-Blacky way to boot, did no harm either.

So I do not accept that the portrayal on screen of the Mandarin was a betrayal of the character, rather in retrospect it seems this was the only way the character could be presented that kept him relevant and allowed the movie to make its political points.

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[1] That’s before you consider that he would be box office poison in China, a market so valuable that a special cut of this movie was released specifically to target it and which Joss Wheedon has said: “”China is on my radar. It can’t not be at this point,”
[2] Who combines a charisma and screen presence matched only by Harrison Ford or Chow Yun Fat, with a range and breadth of acting talent comparable with Peter O’Toole Geoffrey Rush or Robert DeNiro.
[3] And, on another reading, that of the NRAs declaration that “you can have my guns when you take them from my cold dead hands“.
[4] As can be seen from the declining fortunes of the Republican Party and the total failure of the movie adaptation of arch libertarian Ayn Rand‘s ‘masterpiece’ Atlas Shrugged.
[5] The way that Star Trek managed back in the ’60s.
[6] Less successfully in my opinion.

Melinda May – my 1 item wish list

I remain optimistic about Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I can see the potential behind the shortcomings[1] and, as I keep repeating, almost mantra-like, I trust Joss Wheedon in making this kind of character driven, ensemble comedy/action/mystery thing. It may be taking a few goes, but most of the cast seem to be finding their respective feet – Ward and Skye both seem to be developing, and even Fitz and Simmonds have found a workable level for their technobabble-comedy, even if they have still yet to come up with any definable character.

And yet…

I have one serious reservation, and that reservation is Melinda May. I like the notion behind the character – the strong, silent badass archetype, essentially Wolverine in high heels. I like the fact that the ultimate badass on the team, the legendary fighter, happens to be female – a classic Wheedon touch[2]. I love the fact that a woman in this role gets to be above 29 years old and still be useful – not often in this kind of show you’ll find that.

My problem is with Ming-na Wen. I don’t know much of her past work, but I don’t see what she is bringing to this role. No it’s not easy to be interesting when you’re projecting resentment, disapproval, disinterest, but then both David Boreanaz and James Marsters managed. In Wen’s hands, May is just plain boring. And that is unforgivable.

So my single wish? I wish they’d cast Kelly Hu instead.

In fairness, I’d cast Kelly Hu in pretty much everything every time, but when you consider that she protrayed more personality in X2 than Wen has managed in 3 weeks so far, and in that she was an automaton, you see why in this case it’s valid. You keep the racial diversity, you keep the age range, but you get an actor who not only has the charisma to make this character work, but when the time for the ass-kicking arrives, actually has the chops to carry it off.

Too late now, I guess, but I’ll always reflect on what could have been.

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[1] See previous posts

[2] Kitty Pride, Buffy, Kendra, Faith, Echo, River Tam, Zoe, etc etc.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The Asset

I came to the end of this week’s instalment with a deep feeling of “…aaaaaand we’re OFF!”

Much as I loved the cameos, much as I hope they return, our new band of heroes needed to get out from the shadow of its progenitor, and this week it finally did.

The development of the characters continues, albeit still so slowly – Skye and Ward both benefit from their mutual relationship, both being given the space stretch a little, but Fitz and Simmonds are still stuffed labcoats with little more to do than spout technobabble[1] and May is still on the wrong side of the inscrutable/dull as arse line. Give them time, give them time…

This time around we actually got some espionage for our spies to engage in. Granted, crashing a posh party isn’t the most original set-up, but they managed to put a Wheedony spin on it with Skye’s failure to open a locked door[2]. Skye also seems to have graduated from the Romanov school of interrogation – telling the truth, albeit a version thereof, to put the villain off guard. It looks cool and has the added advantage of creating a bit of tension for the audience.

Another hint about Coulson’s resurrection – the loss of muscle memory suggestive that whatever it was that survived his death, it wasn’t his body. Clone? LMD? This enduring (thus far) mystery is a smart move on the part of the writers – what could (and should) have been an embarrassment for the show instead gives us regulars a hook to hang on to, something to keep us talking about. The proof of this particular pudding will be in whether they actually know the answer, rather than just stringing us along, Lost style, and whether the reveal will be worth the build-up. This is something in which I trust Wheedon.

But the big news this week was the introduction of a new supervillain, and one divorced from the movie series[3]. This was the progression this show desperately needed and I’m glad to see it – it really felt like a coming-of-age moment. I hope we look back on this moment as the point where the show decided to swim, not sink.

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[1] Although I loved Fitz’ notion of training a tiny monkey
[2] Besides, posh parties with sexy heroes mingling and doing cool stuff is what espionage looks like on screen – this is less cliché, more screenwriting shorthand.
[3] But still, crucially, drawn from the comics history. This was important – a link to the comics independent of the movie series – and gives the show a touch more credibility.

Eucatastrophe

The concept of the eucatastrophe was first expounded by J. R. R. Tolkien. He posited the notion that in fiction, as in life, if we can accept the idea of the catastrophe, one single event which immediately and irrevocably changes everything for the worse, we must be able to accept the possibility of its opposite. Therefore the eucatastrophe is a single event which immediately and irrevocably changes everything for the better.

The concept is useful in drama, particularly but not exclusively in relation to stories of action or adventure. If, as Robert McKee suggests, your story is a sequence of turns, each of which increases the tension, the conflict and the peril, then just before you end you must release this tension. This can be done gradually, resolving small parts of the overall conflict, and this can be successful – BigTrouble in Little China, for example, has a series of confrontations in which the various enemies are confronted and defeated as our heroes make their escape from the villains’ lair – the main villain Lo Pan is only one of these and is despatched relatively early but this does not end the story.

By resolving the conflict via a eucatastrophe, however, the writer allows the audience to experience all the release of tension in one moment, heightening their experience of relief and elation.

To be a successful eucatastrophe therefore this terminating event must immediately and irrevocably resolve the whole threat faced by the heroes and, in most cases, the world in general.

There should ideally be multiple threats which should be independent of each other but all of which are resolved by the single act. The destruction of Gozer at the end of Ghostbusters for example arguably does not qualify as a eucatastrophe as the giant marshmallow man is the only threat left at that stage of the movie – it’s destruction only resolves that single jeopardy.

It must also, however, have been built up to by the plot – if this event occurs out of nowhere the audience will feel cheated, if the heroes have not earned their salvation by their own actions the feeling of triumph can be hollow. In that case, the conclusion is not a eucatastrophe but rather a deus ex machina, and such endings are seldom successful[1].

I will try to illustrate the uses if the eucatastrophe ending with some examples.

Lord of the Rings.
As noted above, it was Tolkien who first named this phenomenon and his most celebrated work ends in just this way. The destruction of the ring has the effect of destroying Sauron, the principal antagonist of the book[2] which in turn destroys his armies. This is even clearer in the movie, we see the hordes of orcs, goblins and trolls literally swallowed up by fissures in the earth and we are aware that prior to this our heroes faced an impossible fight: they were doomed to be vanquished and the world to be overthrown. But by Frodo destroying the ring this fate is immediately and irrevocably changed for the better.
The destruction of the ring is the main driving force behind every action of the protagonists and it is made clear to the characters and the audience exactly what is at stake. This then is the purest form of the eucatastrophe.

Star Wars: A New Hope.
The last act of Star Wars involves the rebels gathered at their hidden fortress on Yavin but with the Death Star closing in – they have the plans that enable them to isolate the station’s one weak spot, but if they don’t make it in time the whole moon, with them on it, will be destroyed – this is clearly shown to the audience by the graphic indicating how close the Death Star is to getting a clear shot at the moon. Luke finally makes his run down the trench and, using the force, makes the shot – and immediately and irrevocably the threat to the rebels is gone and the Empire is dealt a crushing blow.
It could be argued that the Death Star is a single threat at this stage of the story, especially with Darth Vader having been taken care of by Han’s redemptive return. I would argue however that the greater political background sewn through the story presents a wider threat which is resolved by the destruction of the Death Star.

This then is a true eucatastrophe, enhanced both by the countdown that we, and the rebels, are forced to endure and by the previous pilot’s failed attempt to make the shot. But the elements of this victory were there to be seen from the beginning – the plans in his memory being the reason R2D2 was put in the escape pod in the first place; Luke’s burgeoning power with the Force. The result is an overwhelming sense of relief and triumph, one genuinely earned by the characters.

The Avengers
Many regard the fact that the destruction of the Chitauri base ship by the nuclear bomb at the conclusion of The Avengers somehow also disabled those Chitauri already on Earth as something of a cheat. It has been compared unfavourably with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace[3]. I am willing to be more generous than this – the fact that the shadowy ‘council’ giving Nick Fury orders would be willing to give the order to use a nuclear weapon on a civilian population is in keeping with their intention to use the Tesseract to make weapons – making them no better than Hydra, this universe’s nazis. Beyond that, the notion that Tony Stark was going to have to face up to the responsibilities of being a hero, including possibly making the ultimate sacrifice[3], is foreshadowed in his arguments with Captain America earlier on. To my mind that qualifies this as a eucatastrophe even if the exact mechanics of what caused all those Chitauri to drop dead are never fully explored.
This also explains why, when the Avengers come to confront Loki in Stark’s apartment he has no fight left in him, despite Thor’s assertion that they are not finished. To have another peril to overcome would rob the eucatastrophe of its power.

As mentioned above, the principle is not restricted to action or adventure movies. Aaron Sorkin in particular is adept at building a eucatastrophe into his movies.

A Few Good Men.
By the time Tom Cruise’s Daniel Caffey gets to cross examine Jack Nicholson’s Colonel Jessop things are looking bad. We already know that making this kind of accusation against a senior officer, one whose political star is on the rise, without the proper evidence could not only destroy his clients’ case but could end his own career. Jessop therefore represents multiple threats – both to the case in court and to Caffey’s wider career.

Caffey has already lost his direct witness, Colonel Markinson, and straight away Jessop is able to deal with the circumstantial evidence Caffey had hoped would trap him. It all seems to be over – to the extent that Jessop has got up and is walking out.
Then – seemingly from nowhere – Caffey gets back into him and is able to trap Jessop in contradictory answers – a classic cross examination pincer. This wrong-foots Jessop to the point where, when directly challenged, he bellows a confession to having ordered the assault which is the substance of the film.

This may appear to be out of the blue but every part of this final cross examination is built up previously – the two answers which ultimately trap Jessop, the fact that Caffey understands Jessop’s arrogance enough to know he wants to admit to giving the order – all of this is already in front of us. It is Sorkin’s genius in hiding these facts in plain sight, in misdirecting our attention to the other lines of questioning, that allows him to create the eucatastrophe at the climax of this movie.

The American President.
The drama in The American President is built up of President Andrew Shepherd’s falling popularity in the run up to his second term election, exacerbated by attacks on his character by his opponent, Senator Bob Rumsen[5]. All of Shepherd’s staff, and his love interest and the stick Rumsen is using to beat him with, Sydney Ellen Wade, try to persuade him to engage in a character debate, but he remains adamant that to do so would be to give in to Rumsen’s ploy. The nadir of Shepherd’s year comes the night before the crucial State of the Union Address – his approval rating is at rock bottom, he has driven Sydney away by his political manoeuvring, he has even had a shouting match with his best friend/Chief of Staff. Again, our protagonist is beset by multiple, if interconnected, threats.

Sorkin resolves all of this conflict by giving Shepherd a speech – one of the best written speeches I know of – in which he confronts the bully, abandons his compromised crime bill and stands up for the environmental bill he had betrayed. The feeling of pure elation at the close of that scene is classic eucatastrophe.

So. The eucatastrophe may not be the only method of concluding the plot but when it is done correctly it greatly enhances the feelings of elation and relief as the story is resolved. And it is a more flexible technique than it may first appear.

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[1] I say seldom, for some reason Raiders of the Lost Ark manages to end in a literal deus ex machina which not only absolves Indy of the need to save the day or defeat his enemies, but also carries the inescapable conclusion that if he had just butted out, the Ark could have been opened in Berlin in the presence of Hitler, subjecting him to the face-melting apparitions. And yet it retains its power and has become recognised as possibly the greatest action/adventure movie of all time. How it manages this is a mystery.
[2] Book not books. Tolkien was very clear that he regarded it as a single book in several volumes.
[3] A comparison which, many would agree, amounts to fightin’ words…
[4] This universe’s Kobyashi Maru
[5] And who finishes each speech with the line “My name’s Bob Rumsen, and I’m running for President!” – apparently taken from a real life candidate, but giving Shepherd the perfect riposte at the end of his speech.

Man of Steel – the bad

Zack Snyder is not the man you go to if you need vision or originality. I say that with all due respect – I like a lot of his previous work, some of it much more than do others. But I would not make the mistake of considering him a visionary. I very much enjoyed his 300, but one must recognise that was a house built on Robert Rodriguez‘s foundations – what Rodriguez honed and perfected for Sin City, Snyder copied and adapted for 300. I like Watchmen, I like it much more than many Watchmen fans do. I think that simply treating the graphic novel as a storyboard was not only smart but the right thing to do[1], and I think that Snyder was the right man for that job: putting someone else’s vision on screen appears to be his strong suit. Even Sucker Punch, if you can ignore the horrendous, borderline misogynist objectification of the ‘characters’, has its merits, but originality is not one of them. The film is a study in imitation, different styles and genres thrown together by what by then had become Snyder’s trademark ‘live action comic book’ style[2]. So I do rate Snyder, I think that he has a specific skill set and that when he does what he does, he probably does it better than anyone else. But what he does is not originality. What he does is not vision. And that’s what Man Of Steel required.

Neither do I blame Snyder wholly for the mess that resulted. DC Comics clearly looks across the aisle at Marvel, sees what they have created and desperately want the same. This much is clear from their decision to make a Justice League movie, and to try to shoehorn this vision of Superman and Christian Bale as Nolan’s Batman[3] into it, regardless of how terrible an idea that is.  So they are trying to emulate Marvel’s success, rather than working on their own properties, but they are going about it the wrong way. Marvel created Marvel Studios, crucially allowing one man, Kevin Fiege, to act as producer to oversee the creation of their universe – this allows them to go to different directors, to get unique vision for each character, but to protect the various properties and to keep the overall feel of the movies intact. DC are still dependant on other studios, outside producers, to get their movies to screen, and one of those producers famously has no feel for the character and no hesitation in sticking his boot in at the story stage. This, together with their lack of faith in their own property, combined with a director who can imitate but not create his own vision, resulted in the Man Of Steel.

The movie opens on Krypton – immediately there are problems here, because this is unnecessary for the plot as designed by Goyer. How many alien invasion movies start on the planet of the invader? All the Krypton sequence serves to do in story terms is to show us a bunch of exposition that we’re going to be told in about 15 minutes anyway. But this must be what they thought we would be expecting[4] – exactly what Richard Donner did. The difference there was that Donner was trying to show us the very obvious Christ parallels[5] with his character, and was giving the audience something they had seldom seen before – a whole new world. Spin on to 2013, we’ve all seen new worlds now, and we’ve already seen much of what Snyder tries to show us here. So we get the flying lizards from Avatar, the drop ships from Star Wars – Attack of the Clones, and perplexingly what everyone refers to as a codex but which appears to be a monkey skull.

More mysterious still is why Jor-El decided he needed to steal the codex in the first place and why he thought the best place to hide it was in his son’s genetic code. You might think few would think to look for it there, albeit Zod seems to be one of them,  but honestly from Jor-El’s perspective what was the point? In terms of the story it gives Zod an animus against Superman but this does nothing to explain Jor-El’s motivation in the first place. This kind of sloppy loose-end should have been taken care of at the scripting stage, it should never make its way on screen. The whole sorry business appears to be an excuse to give Russell Crowe something to do.

We then get to meet our villain, General Zod. I like Michael Shannon, I have no doubt he has a great future, and he definitely has the look of a great villain. But then he opens his mouth and all that vanishes. Shannon doesn’t have the voice to match his look – at least, not yet. A face that craggy, that brutal, deserves a voice like Vin Diesel‘s, Clancy Brown‘s  or Michael Wincott‘s  and Shannon just doesn’t cut it.

The role of Zod is also woefully underwritten – where most great villains gain character and pathos from their backstory and their motivation, the film goes to great lengths to point out that Zod is this way simply because he was bred to be this way. All the talk of wanting to protect his people, rebuild his civilisation, is fatally undermined by the fact that Zod simply has no choice. He becomes wholly one-dimensional. This, together with the superb production design, has the odd effect that he makes a better action figure than he is a character.

The next phase of the film is Clark as a wandering vagabond/do-gooder. This is the most Nolanesque portion of the film – attempts at, if not realism, verisimilitude. The problem is that these sequences have no direction – I said about Batman Begins that it showed us exactly how you go from the boy crying on the street to the man in the cowl flying past the camera. There is none of that arrow-straight plot progression here, the story simply meanders through until we find Clark and Lois both at the North Pole, independently and co-incidentally. Co-incidence is possibly the laziest of writing sins, yet here it is. Lois is given nothing to do in the story, instead of showing us, she has to tell us that she is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist[6] and has to demonstrate that she’s tough and able to play with the boys by talking about dicks. This sequence just makes her appear arrogant, lazy enough to rest on her laurels, and above all, nasty and tacky. Nasty and tacky is not what you should be thinking when seeing Amy Adams in a role.

We then have a series of flashbacks to Clark[8] growing up in Smallville. These do nothing to assist in understanding the plot or the character and their placement appears to be random. Non-linear storytelling is a hallmark of Chris Nolan, and he does it beautifully[7], but mishandled it can be at best irritating and at worst distracting. And it is mishandled here.

Beyond that, the content of the flashbacks does little to drive or develop the characters – worst off is Jonathan Kent, who in this film is not the moral centre who drives Clark to want to be a better man, but is a small-minded, timid misanthrope. He encourages Clark to let people die rather than reveal his secret – the antithesis of everything Superman stands for – then dies himself, pointlessly, in a scene intended to establish conflict in Clark but which only serves to make Clark appear stupid and weak.

We then get the arrival of the aliens. In our ‘alien invasion’ movie, this should have been the standout scene – remember the ship cruising over the White House in Independence Day? Here, all we get is the message from the aliens being broadcast on every TV on the planet – again Snyder imitates, rather than innovates, his way through. Once the aliens arrive, aside from the shocked faces at the Daily Planet, the only involvement appears to be from Christopher Meloni and his few military types. A film which overtly draws parallels with the previous Superman films begs the question – where is the equivalent of Terrence Stamp’s confrontation with the President?[9] For that matter, where is the President? If this is the single most important event in human history, how is it he (or she) found something more important to do? Again – the film had a strong central premise, it just lost faith in it and ends up weaker for it.

Clark returns to the ‘fortress of solitude’[10] and we get what must be my least favourite scene of the film – Clark learning to fly. Why? Why has he not been able to before? Is it the suit that allows him to fly? The cape? The movie simply does not explain what this is about. Instead, we are presented with what they must have assumed we would expect to see – Clark learning to fly – without any context or meaning. Again – imitation of every other Superman movie we’ve ever seen, and it jars where it wanted to soar.

Clark then confronts the Kryptonians, heralding the end of the story and the beginning of the punching. This is unfortunate, given that the story had failed to resolve any of the things you might expect – character arcs for any of the characters, tying up of any of the ‘issues’ raised, etc. Instead we get 20 minutes of Clark and the Kryptonians punching themselves and each other first all through a small town, then through a major city (which looks surprisingly like New York). Where have we seen that before? In the hope of emulating the box office of The Avengers, Snyder simply emulates its climax. This simply does not work, and the reason is obvious – one cannot have that much carnage in a movie that po-faced. In The Avengers, the destruction was best described as A-Team violence – lots of property damage, but you know that every car that exploded and rolled over had the driver climb out through the window rubbing his head. It was pure comic-book fun. But Man of Steel wants us to take it seriously, and taking that kind of destruction seriously is horrifying. As a result is Snyder is torn between accusations of the massive body-count (which jars with the Superman we all know and love and stops us having any fun with the movie) and the inescapable conclusion that he just wanted to do what The Avengers had done before.

Problems also beset the relationship between Lois and Clark. Without establishing any chemistry between them we are simply shown Lois kiss Superman out of the blue, and again the effect is jarring.

Jor-El then shows Lois how to defeat the Kryptonians – no explanation is offered as to why he couldn’t have told Clark this over an hour ago  – so she and Meloni dispose of the vast majority of the villains. This smacks of giving Lois something to do, and again is suggestive of poor storytelling. In addition, where the nuke in The Avengers gave us the emotional release of a eucatastrophe[11], here we are left with Zod still tearing down buildings, so we don’t even get that feeling of relief.

Instead we have the final battle of Superman vs Zod. The culmination of this is Zod trying to kill a family huddled in a corner with his super-heat-vision. Superman then does the least Superman thing he can – he kills Zod, then cries about it. This appears to be an attempt at showing superheroic angst[12] but here it just looks like a childish tantrum.

I have noted the many positive aspects of the movie, but when the filmmakers lost faith in their own premise, when Snyder simply tried to copy every other movie he could rather than demonstrating his own vision, all of that potential was squandered. The result was a cynical, disjointed, derivative mess, and in spite of myself I still want it to be a better movie than it was.

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[1] I even like the changes to the conclusion of the story, but that is a subject for another blog.

[2] Even the overall ‘message’, one individual creating a fantasy of the events of her life in order to come to terms with the sacrifice she will have to make, is done much better by Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.

[3] Allegedly

[4] And exactly what Nolan didn’t do in Batman Begins.

[5] I know Siegel and Shuster would argue for the Moses parallel, but Superman is so obviously a Christ figure that just rings hollow.

[6] Has any journalist in any movie not won the Pulitzer Prize?

[7] Watch The Prestige and witness a true virtuoso use his various flashbacks to drive and give shape to the story. Then compare with what Snyder did here.

[8] The way they refer to Jor and Kal as if they are just first names, with El being the surname, annoyed me to no end. That may just be me. But it sounded wrong.

[9] Can you think of a single moment in this movie that could possibly rival the popularity of that scene?

[10] Another term never used in the movie

[11] A very important term in this kind of epic storytelling, and one I plan to blog about later

[12] If you want to see angst in a superhero, look at Christian Bale’s face as Rachel Dawes dismisses him in the hotel in Batman Begins, or in fact at the end when she explains why she can’t be with him.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. 0-8-4

Episode 2 – is it getting any better?

I’d like to say a qualified yes. The Bus is growing on me as a piece of tech and the team are starting to gel – I can name most of them now. The show still depends squarely on Clark Gregg’s unassuming charm, but when you have a quality like that, why the hell not?

Sure, some of the other characters are going to have to shoulder some of the load before long, but I still think it has time to allow them to grow into this.

The story was sufficiently broad to suggest SHIELD’s global reach – all the way down to Peru [1], there was action stuff for May and Ward to do and to highlight the problems dragging scientists along with them. I’m not convinced the whole ‘work it out as a team’ thing worked, I think the writers could and should have made it clearer what each individual was contributing before or during the operation. But it’s nice to have them at least talking to each other, Ward is less objectionable the more he tries to engage with the others and if May could stop looking so bored they may yet become a fun team.

The last minute reveal that Skye may not be what she seems was nicely sinister in a Wheedony kind of way, although even this is less effective than similar tricks he’s pulled in the past[2].

And then there’s the pre-credits appearance of Nick Fury – take a bow Mr L. Jackson. I loved the scene and I agree that just having him speak the names of the show’s stars gave them that bit of extra credibility, there’s just one thing…

With Fury this week and Hill last week, and with another MacGuffin[3] straight out of the movies, you are left with that nagging worry – what is this show going to be when they’re finally forced to carry it on their own?

Still, a bit of Nick Fury can only ever be a good thing, right?

Oh yeah. Sorry.

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[1] or the closest thing you can get within 10 minutes walk of the California studios
[2] Like Billy Fordham in Lie to Me, the Hands of Blue from Firefly or pretty much any time Carlos Jacott turns up
[3] Didn’t manage to avoid it this time.