The Flash: A Review - Running on Empty

****THIS REVIEW IS MOSTLY SPOILER FREE BUT DOES CONTAIN A CLEARLY MARKED SECTION WITH SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A mess of a movie that is a major letdown. If you really want to see it wait a few months until it’s streaming on Max.

In the weeks and months leading up to the release of the DC film The Flash there was a relentless stream of industry people vociferously declaring it to be a superhero movie masterpiece.

James Gunn, filmmaker and new co-CEO of DC Films, said prior to release that The Flash was “one of the best superhero movies (he’s) ever seen.”

Warner Brothers CEO David Zaslav said that The Flash was flat out “the greatest superhero movie” ever.

It wasn’t just Warner Brother lackeys either, as none other than the Lord and Saviour of Scientology and Hollywood, Tom Cruise, allegedly called the film’s director Andy Muschietti after an early screening and raved about how much he loved it.

Even horror writer Stephen King got in on the action declaring of The Flash on Twitter, “This one is special. It’s heartfelt, funny, and eye-popping. I loved it.”

I went to see The Flash on its opening Friday and I can report that James Gunn, David Zaslav, Tom Cruise and Stephen King are all either shameless liars or mental defectives with severe cinematic taste dysmorphia.

The reality is that The Flash is, much to my deep, deep chagrin, at its very best, a sub-mediocrity, and at its worst, terrible.

Let me start off by saying that I really like the Flash as a comic-book character, and I think he’s very deserving of a major motion picture. Let me also say that I actually liked Ezra Miller in the supporting role of Flash in the previous Snyder-verse films…and on top of that I actually liked the Snyder-verse films (the director’s cuts anyway) considerably more than most…and on top of that in general I lean much more toward DC than I do Marvel.

That is a long-winded way of saying that I was predisposed to liking The Flash. And then I saw The Flash.

The movie is just a mess. Superhero fatigue is a real thing, and the abysmal failure of The Flash, both creatively and at the box office, is proof that the genre is running on fumes at the moment.

A big part of the problem with The Flash is that the story is convoluted and incoherent. There’s lots of talk about multiverses and time travel and such but the very core of the story, the murder of Barry Allen/The Flash’s mom, is a muddled and jumbled event that carries no weight because it makes zero sense.

Another major issue is that the CGI is egregiously abominable. The opening to the film features an action sequence where Flash has to save a bunch of babies falling from a collapsing building. The scene is reminiscent of the horrors of 9/11 but this time with babies in peril, which why I raised an eyebrow when Flash checks his watch during the action and it reads “9:10”. How odd.

The CGI in this sequence and throughout the film is just atrocious to the point of being ridiculous. Director Andy Muschietti has stated that the poor CGI was intentional as it gives the viewers the perspective of Flash…ummm…yeah, ok…and I intentionally failed trigonometry in high school so I could share the perspective of stupid people. Come on, that Muschietti claim is utter horseshit. The CGI is cheap and laughably bad and no manufactured, half-assed hindsight story is going to change that. The awful CGI matters because it undercuts the entirety of the cinematic enterprise from the get go.

On top of all that, Ezra Miller, who as I stated I liked in a comedic supporting role as Flash in the earlier Snyder-verse films, is simply not able to carry a feature film. Miller is a distinct type of actor, and he becomes more and more grating the more time you spend with him on-screen. That is only heightened in The Flash when you spend a great deal of time with him AND there are two of him…which is as annoying as it sounds.

To be clear, I actually don’t care about Ezra Miller’s much publicized legal issues – which have kept him from doing any publicity for the film, nor do I care about HIS preferred pronouns. I just find it mildly amusing and somewhat ironic that Ezra Miller is obviously batshit crazy and now stars in a movie featuring a bevy of Batmen.  

What made The Flash so frustrating was that it so easily could have and should have been not only so much better, but actually great. And the path to greatness, or at least making it better, is painfully obvious to anyone with half a brain in their head.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. SKIP AHEAD IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS!!!

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Much Like Spider-Man: No Way Home, which featured three Spider-men and a cavalcade of villains from previous film versions of Spider-Man, The Flash could’ve exploited the deep reservoir of DC films and tv shows to deliver fan service, laughs and drama. Instead, the film badly stumbles in its attempt to be clever and pay tribute to the superhero projects that preceded it.

The marketing of The Flash made it clear that both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton would be playing Batman in the film. Keaton’s return was, much to my chagrin since I like movies to keep their secrets, much hyped and given away in the trailers.

The prospect of two Batmen is pretty intriguing, but The Flash does nothing with it. It also does nothing with the cavalcade of other DC superheroes it very briefly visually references….like Christopher Reeves’ Superman, Helen Slater’s Supergirl, George Reeve’s Superman and Adam West’s Batman.

That The Flash is unable to adequately exploit DC’s back catalogue effectively for drama or comedy is cinematic malpractice criminal scale.

What the film should have done is Forest Gump (yes, I’m using Forest Gump as a verb!) the Flash’s red ass into quick scenes from the actual George Reeves Superman and Adam West Batman tv shows and get a laugh when Flash realizes he’s in the wrong universe.

Do the same and put Flash into Christopher Reeves’ Superman films (maybe even in a scene with Richard Pryor!). The same is true for the Nicholas Cage Superman movie that never got made – yes, Cage’s Superman is briefly seen in The Flash, but it could have been used in a more substantial way. Hell, why not use all the Supermen…like Henry Cavill, Brandon Routh (from Superman Returns), Tom Welling (from Smallville) and Dean Cain (from Lois and Clark) even if briefly and even if only for comic effect?

Same with Batman…why not exploit all the weird villains from earlier films, like DeVito’s Penguin, Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, Schwarzenegger’s Mr. Freeze and Jim Carrey’s Riddler? Maybe even get a cheer by putting Flash in the Val Kilmer Batman universe. You could even steal from Top Gun: Maverick and have an emotional scene with a sick Val Kilmer as an aged and beaten Batman on his deathbed meeting Flash yet unable to speak to him.  

And you could also do a brief crossover with the Flash tv show on the CW and have Miller’s Flash bump into CW Flash’s Grant Gustin in some weird speed force intersection. I’ve never seen the CW show but why not use and exploit all the IP in your power? Fans love that stuff and it would give this project a sense of scope and scale, and God knows Warner Brothers loves nothing more than self-congratulatory commercials for itself (see the LeBron James Space Jam movie…actually don’t, it’s awful).

As for the two Batmen most prominently featured in the movie, Michael Keaton and Ben Affleck, instead of having two Ezra Miller Barry Allen/Flash characters meet up, have Affleck and Keaton’s Batman characters jump into the other’s universe and meet up. It would be much more entertaining and much more dramatically and comedically satisfying to have Affleck and Keaton squaring off saying “I’m Batman” at each other and recounting how their parents died for the millionth time than to have Ezra Miller bantering back and forth with Ezra Miller for two hours.

Hell, imagine a fight between Affleck’s Batman and Keaton’s Batman, and then later they come together to fight against Zod or whomever. People would love that and come out to the theatre to see it.

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END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS END OF SPOILERS

See, the possibilities for plumbing the depths of the DC catalogue for comedy and drama are endless, and yet what The Flash comes up with is the least creative, least interesting, least intriguing of all the possibilities.

The bottom line is that The Flash is the most disappointing movie in recent memory because it really should have and could have been at the very least entertaining…and maybe even great. But it’s neither of those things. What it is, ultimately, is a rather cheap, completely empty exercise in squeezing the very last vestiges of life from the superhero genre.

 Follow me on Twitter: @MPMActingCo

©2023

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

On this special episode of everybody’s favorite cinema podcast, Barry and I don our bat capes and cowls and do battle over all things Batman, first and foremost Matt Reeves' new movie The Batman. We have a heated debate about the new Bat-film and rank our all-time top Batmans, Batman villains and Batman movies, with some shocking results.

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota - Episode 61: The Batman

Thanks for listening!

©2022

The Batman: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars (this is more a psychological character study than an action movie)

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An audaciously unorthodox comic book movie that is really a film-noir detective picture. This somewhat flawed homage to Fincher’s Seven and Zodiac, which boasts solid performances from Robert Pattinson and Paul Dano, is a satisfying superhero story for those with darker tastes.

Early on in writer/director Matt Reeves’ The Batman, which opened nationwide in theatres on Thursday March 3rd, the melancholy and morose lament of Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” establishes itself not only as an anthem for the film, but also as an accurate representation of the withered and wounded state of Batman/Bruce Wayne’s heart and soul.

This musical cultural symbol makes it clear from the get go that The Batman is not the nostalgic, family-friendly, fun fan service of Spider-Man: No Way Home, this is a very different beast entirely, as well it should be.

Some critics have lambasted The Batman for its “humorlessness” and “joylessness” and for being “too dark” and “too gritty”. Critics said the same thing about Nirvana when they hit the scene in the early 90’s too.

Who do these people think Batman is? He isn’t the goofy campiness of Adam West’s tv show, or Tim Burton’s and Joel Schumacher’s 90’s films. As the Batman comics of note, like The Dark Knight series, Year One, Year Two, The Killing Joke and Ego to name just a few, teach us, Batman is one dark, twisted son of a bitch.

This guy is a billionaire who dresses in a bat costume and goes out every night and beats the living shit out of criminals. Like a black clad Santa Claus, this badass brute wants you to think he sees you when your sleeping, he knows when your awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good so be good for goodness sakes, or he’s gonna jump out of the shadows and crack your fucking head open.

So yeah, Batman isn’t Spider-Man, he’s a “dark and gritty” character who lives in a “dark and gritty” world, which is why so many people connect with the archetype, since most of us live in a brutal world and wish we too could beat the hell out of everybody who deserves it.

The pop-grunge band Garbage’s breakthrough hit, “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”, came out in 1995, and the song’s catchy but dour Gen X lament was and still is a very accurate description of me. You see, I’m one of those people who revels in inclement weather and is seemingly allergic to both sunlight and human interaction, so much so that I prefer to spend the majority of my time alone, brooding in shadow and darkness.

According to The Batman, my meteorological and misanthropic proclivities would make me right at home in the Caped Crusader’s hometown of Gotham City.

While Robert Pattinson is the lead actor in The Batman, the real star of the movie is the gloriously decrepit city of Gotham.

The Gotham of The Batman is a bleak, rain-soaked, sun deprived, corrupt and crime infested shithole. If you’re a criminal or a morally conflicted crime fighter, Gotham is both Rome and Mecca as all roads lead there and you must make a pilgrimage.

As far as I know, The Batman is a stand-alone film not connected to any other previous DC properties, but it’s Gotham is eerily reminiscent of the Gotham in the masterful 2019 Todd Philips’ film Joker, just with more precipitation. But unfortunately for the denizens of Gotham, that precipitation, or even a biblical flood, won’t, as Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle once said, “wash all the scum off the street”, that job falls to Batman.

Batman, played with constrained intensity by the teen heartthrob turned indy-movie artiste Pattinson, is a vigilante less concerned with justice than with vengeance, so much so that he actually says, “I am vengeance” when asked who he is.

In the trailer for The Batman, it looked as if Pattinson’s crime fighter, with his dark eye make-up and perfectly tussled hair, were the love child of Morrissey and The Cure’s Robert Smith, but thankfully, in the actual film, the performance is much more masculine and magnetic than the trailer would have you believe.

Pattinson’s Dark Knight lacks the broad-chested physical presence of say a Bale or Affleck, but he does bring a vibrant and vivid inner life to the character that all previous Batman’s have lacked.

Pattinson’s glare and distant stare aren’t vacuous emo posing, but rather are filled with intentionality, which makes them both believable and compelling.

It’s intriguing that in The Batman, Bruce Wayne barely gets any screen time, as Batman dominates the festivities, which no doubt is an accurate reflection of Mr. Wayne’s disturbed state of mind.

The most compelling thing about the film though is that it is as staggeringly ambitious and audacious a super a hero movie as has ever been made. What makes The Batman so unique is that it’s a superhero movie that isn’t a superhero movie, it’s actually a film noir detective picture. Batman being a superhero is entirely incidental to the story of The Batman. It is in many ways to comic book movies what Blade Runner was to science fiction films.

Director Matt Reeves, who’s previous films include two stellar Planet of the Apes movies and the monster movie Cloverfield, has basically taken the David Fincher movies Seven and Zodiac and installed Batman as the protagonist. It would be absurd if it weren’t so mesmerizing.

The Batman looks and feels like a Fincher film, and Reeves is one of the few directors able to pull off such a feat. The key to doing so is that Reeves sets The Batman in as real and visceral a world as any superhero film has ever been set.

Years ago, when Christopher Nolan’s iconic Dark Knight trilogy came out, an older friend of mine, the inimitable Hollywood Gary, remarked that what made the film so compelling was that it dramatized what it would be like if Batman were actually real. I concur with Hollywood Gary’s assessment, but after seeing The Batman I can say that it is more ‘realistic’ than even Nolan’s films. That’s not to say it's better, just more grounded.

Nolan is as great a blockbuster auteur as we’ve ever seen, and his populist sensibilities served him and his audience extremely well on the Dark Knight movies. Reeves though eschews such an approach, and turns his superhero movie into a gritty and grunge infused character study and psychological thriller.

That’s not to say that the film is perfect though, as it can often-times be at cross purposes with itself as the nature of the genre forces upon the filmmaker restraints.

For instance, The Batman is constrained by its PG-13 rating, as the violence seems subdued and anti-septic, which undermines the power of the story, myth and archetype of Batman. If the movie showed in gory detail Batman breaking bad guy bones and smashing heads in response to gruesomely displayed murders committed by the Riddler, then the story and the characters would have had more depth and profundity to them.

Another issue is that Reeves feels the need to explain to a wider audience what comic book readers already know, namely the backstory of certain people and Gotham’s organized crime, using clunky exposition-laden dialogue.

These shortcomings are overcome by the film’s gloriously gritty aesthetic, most notably Greig Fraser’s cinematography, where sunlight is anathema, as well as with a superb cast.

Paul Dano is a formidable acting talent and a skilled artist. His Riddler, part Zodiac Killer and part Unabomber, would be right at home with Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix’s Jokers. He isn’t as good as those two astonishing performances, but he’d definitely fit right in in their neighborhood.

Colin Farrell’s Penguin too is a nice piece of work from an often-overlooked actor, and he looks to be a pivotal piece in the Gotham-verse going forward.

Zoe Kravitz may lack the playfulness of previous Catwomen, but she holds her own when it comes to being sexy, that’s for sure.

And you can never go wrong with Jeffrey Wright, and sure enough, he gives a sturdy and solid performance as good cop James Gordon.

The Batman is also interesting because of its subtle and nuanced politics. Class is an issue rarely brought forth in major movies, but in The Batman, the only thing separating Batman from Catwoman or the Riddler, is that Batman was born into wealth, and the other two were born into desperation and depravity.

In the 2017 film Justice League, Ben Affleck’s Batman is asked by The Flash, “what are your super powers again?” Affleck’s Batman turns and deadpans his answer, “I’m rich”. Damn right. And it’s fascinating that Reeves’ Batman feels the weight of his wealth and the frightening possibility of what he would’ve become if he grew up without it.

As for the potential outlook for The Batman, the bottom line is that this movie is not for everybody, which is a strange thing for a piece of comic book IP. I thoroughly enjoyed the film, but that’s because I’m both pretty well-versed in the comic books and have a cinematic palate that runs toward the dark.

I would be surprised, pleasantly so, if this movie makes beaucoup bucks at the box office. I think it will have a big opening weekend, but it being so unorthodox for a superhero movie and its three-hour run time will dampen word of mouth and thus substantially slow its box office in the following weeks.

In conclusion, my only wish for The Batman was that it be good enough for Matt Reeves to be allowed to make a second and hopefully third film, as I assume he will, just like with his Planet of the Apes movies, get better as he goes along. I think the film succeeded in that endeavor, and I think Warner Brothers/DC will make the wise choice and go all in with Reeves and Pattinson going forward.

If WB/DC wants to take on the Marvel behemoth, now is the time, as the post-Endgame cinematic Marvel-verse is floundering. And by going grittier and giving the keys to the kingdom to auteurs like Reeves instead of lackeys and hacks, WB/DC can gain some ground and maybe turn the tide against the Marvelization of modern cinema. Both Joker and The Batman, are quality first steps in the march towards toppling Mickey Mouse and his Marvel minions.

©2022

Zack Snyder's Justice League: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 3.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. An imperfect film, but if you like superhero movies, it’s worth the effort.

THE SNYDER CUT IS HERE AND IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT

After much consternation, speculation and hype…the eagerly anticipated Justice League “Snyder Cut” has finally premiered on HBO Max and I watched all four hours of it.

If you don’t know about the Snyder Cut then you’re probably a healthy human being living a normal life, but just to get you up to speed here are all the relevant details.

Zack Snyder, who has directed such notable hits as 300 and Watchmen, became the artistic force of the DC Comics cinematic universe in 2013 when he helmed Man of Steel, a reboot of the Superman origin story.

Snyder followed that up by directing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in 2016 and its sequel Justice League in 2017. Unfortunately, due to the sudden and tragic death of his daughter Autumn, Snyder had to drop out of post-production of Justice League, and was replaced by Joss Whedon.

Whedon, at the behest of the movie studio Warner Brothers, re-shot a lot of material and made substantial changes to the tone and tenor of Justice League in the editing process, thus obliterating Snyder’s original artistic vision.

When finally released in November of 2017, Whedon’s version of Justice League was panned by critics and performed poorly at the box office.

Ever since then rumors have swirled of a “Snyder cut” of Justice League which restored Zack Snyder’s original artistic vision. A group of hopeful fans started a movement, #ReleaseTheSnyderCut, in order to pressure Warner Brothers to do just that and let the world see Snyder’s version of the film.

After years of hemming and hawing, Warner Brothers finally relented and agreed to release the Snyder Cut, and even gave Snyder a rumored extra $70 million to reshoot some scenes and re-edit.

The result of all of this is Zach Snyder’s Justice League, now streaming on HBO Max.

Let’s be clear, Zach Snyder’s Justice League isn’t Citizen Kane, nor is it a superhero masterpiece like The Dark Knight, but it is a thoroughly satisfying and entertaining DC superhero movie that is infinitely superior to Joss Whedon’s Justice League.

As the end credits role in the Snyder cut a cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” plays, and it seemed very apropos considering the movie feels an answered prayer for long-suffering DC fans.

The greatest changes Snyder made to Justice League were restoring its dark theme and tone and doubling its running time from two hours to four hours.

Zack Snyder has always been much more a cinematic stylist than a proficient storyteller, and so giving him two extra hours to flesh out narratives and character arcs is enormously helpful.

The same was true with Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. The theatrical release of that movie was two and a half hours, but Warner Brothers later released a directors cut titled “The Ultimate Edition”, that added an additional thirty minutes and it is a far superior, and much more dramatically and narratively coherent movie than the original theatrical version.

The Snyder Cut’s four hour running time may be a barrier to those ambivalent about superhero movies or with limited attention spans, but it adds much needed depth, context and coherence to the story and I found the movie to be surprisingly captivating the entire time.

Another noticeable and needed change Snyder made was in giving more time to Ray Fisher’s Cyborg and Ezra Miller’s Flash in order to flesh the characters out. Both Cyborg and Flash got short shrift in Whedon’s version and in the new cut they prove themselves to be very compelling characters.

That’s also true of villain Steppenwolf, which went from being a rather dull cardboard cutout in Whedon’s version to being a powerful and multi-dimensional character in Snyder’s cut. 

The newly added scenes with DC supervillain Darkseid also resonated, and elevated the film by giving added context.

The recent crop of DC films have often been maligned by critics and audiences for being too thematically dark, unlike the supremely successful Marvel films which are often fun and light fare.

Joss Whedon’s Justice League floundered though because it tried to bring Marvel frivolity to DC’s existentialism. To its great credit, the Snyder cut unabashedly embraces DC’s dark roots and shuns any Marvel imitation.

While Snyder is no Christopher Nolan, he is an accomplished cinematic stylist, and regardless of what you think of his style, it is unquestionably true that both Batman v Superman and Justice League were considerably improved when the entirety of his vision was allowed on screen.

When the suits at Warner Brothers have meddled with Snyder’s vision, his DC films have suffered critically and financially.

If Warner Brothers were smart they’d learn to leave the artists they’ve hired to direct their flagship properties alone, because those directors are better at making good movies than any suit pushing banality and conformity over artistry.

The next Batman movie, The Batman, is being directed by Matt Reeves, who is terrific, as evidenced by his two fantastic Planet of the Apes movies that were exquisite blockbusters. Reeves could help Warner Brothers and DC start fighting back against the Marvel behemoth, but only if they let him do his thing and don’t meddle and muddle things up like they’ve done with Snyder’s films.

As for Zach Snyder’s Justice League, it isn’t for everybody. It may be too long for some, or too dark for others, but despite being an imperfect film, it certainly hit a sweet spot for me.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2021

Joker: A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4.75 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE. IT. NOW.

Joker, directed by Todd Phillips and written by Phillips and Scott Silver, is the story of Arthur Fleck, a mentally-ill, down on his luck clown-for-hire and stand up comedian, who transforms into Batman’s arch-nemesis, the super-villain Joker. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Fleck, with supporting turns from Robert DeNiro, Frances Conroy and Zazie Beetz.

Early Thursday night I put my life in my hands and made the dangerous trek to the local art house to see Joker in 70mm. Thankfully, no angry white incels were laying in wait for me, so I lived to tell the tale of my Joker cinematic experience…here it is.

I went to Joker with very high hopes, but paradoxically, because I had such high hopes, I assumed I’d be disappointed by the film. My bottom line regarding Joker is this…it is a brilliant film of remarkable depth and insight, a gritty masterpiece that is a total game-changer for the comic book genre, and a staggering cinematic achievement for director Todd Phillips and star Joaquin Phoenix.

Joker is the cinematic bastard son of Martin Scorsese’s masterpiece of 1970’s New Hollywood, Taxi Driver. Beyond being an homage, it is more an updated bookend to that classic, engineered for the corporatized Hollywood of the 21st century.

The film’s Taxi Driver lineage is hiding in plain sight, as it has similar music, shots, camera angles and even re-purposes the famed finger gun to the head move. Joker’s Gotham, is eerily reminiscent of Taxi Driver’s New York City of the 1970’s, which Travis Bickle aptly describes as “sick and venal”. I couldn’t help but think of my Los Angeles neighborhood when seeing Joker’s dilapidated Gotham, with its garbage piled high on every sidewalk and a layer of filth covering the city. In “sick and venal” Los Angeles, we are much too evolved to have garbage piled high on our sidewalks, no, out here in La La Land, even in million dollar neighborhoods, people are disposable and so we we have them piled high on the sidewalks instead, as homelessness is epidemic. Joker’s Gotham, Bickle’s New York and my Los Angeles also share a deep coating of grime as well as a thriving rat population that is disease-ridden and increasingly bold, both in and out of public office.

Joker’s depiction of Gotham as a Bickle-esque New York is fascinating bit of sub-text, as it is a throwback to a time before Manhattan was Disney-fied and Times Square turned from degenerate porn hub to hub of capitalism porn. Joker is also a throwback to a time before cinema was corporatized/Disney-fied, a pre-Heaven’s Gate age, when filmmakers like Scorsese could flourish and make movies like Taxi Driver, unhindered by suits blind to everything but the bottom line.

Joker ‘s genius is also because it is a “real movie”, a Taxi Driver/The King of Comedy covertly wrapped in the corporate cloak of superhero intellectual property. Unlike the sterile Marvel movie behemoths, which Scorsese himself recently described as “not cinema" and which are more akin to amusement park rides than movies, Joker is, at its heart, a down and dirty 1970’s dramatic character study, for this reason alone the film is brilliantly subversive and a stake into the heart of the Disney Goliath.

It is astonishing that Todd Phillips, whose previous films are the comedies Old School and The Hangover trilogies, was able to conceive of, and execute, Joker with such artistic precision and commitment. Phillip’s success with Joker is reminiscent of Adam McKay’s astounding direction of The Big Short (2015). Previous to The Big Short, McKay had basically been Will Ferrell’s caddie, making silly movies well, but they were still silly movies. McKay’s long term film making prowess is still in question, as is Phillip’s, but that does not diminish their mastery on The Big Short and Joker.

Phillip’s direction really is fantastic, but he is also greatly benefited by having the greatest actor working in cinema as his leading man. Joaquin Phoenix’s performance as Arthur Fleck/Joker is an astonishing feat. Phoenix famously (or infamously depending on your perspective) lost a great deal of weight to play the role, and his wiry, sinewy frame at times seems like a marionette possessed by a demon outcast from American bandstand or Soul Train. Fleck/Joker’s madness is seemingly chaotic, but Phoenix gives it an internal logic and order, that makes it emotionally coherent.

Phoenix is a master at connecting to a volatile emotionality within his characters, and of giving his character’s a distinct and very specific physicality. What is often overlooked with Phoenix is his level of meticulousness and superior craftsmanship in his work. Joker is no exception as his exquisite skill is on full display right alongside his compellingly volcanic unpredictability. Phoenix’s subtle use of breath, his hands, as well as his attention and focus are miraculous.

Phoenix is a revolutionary actor. He is so good, so skilled, so talented, that he is reinventing the art form. His work as Freddie Quell in Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master (2012) was a landmark in the art form, and his performance in Joker is equally earth shattering. If he does not win an Best Actor Oscar for Joker, whoever does win the award should be ashamed of themselves for stealing the statuette from its rightful recipient.

Contrary to establishment media critical opinion, Phoenix does not make Arthur a sympathetic character, but he does make him an empathetic one, and one with which we empathize. We don’t feel sorry for Arthur, we feel kinship with him as he struggles to maintain some semblance of dignity in a society allergic to compassion.

Joker was described by its detractors as being “dangerous”, and I can attest that the film is indeed dangerous, but not for the reasons laid out by its critics. Joker is dangerous because it dares to do something that corporate controlled art has long since deemed anathema…it tells the very ugly truth.

Joker has the artistic audacity to peel back the scab of modern America and reveal the maggot infested, infected wound pulsating in agony just beneath our civilized veneer. Joker’s chaotic madness is a perfect reflection of the sickness of our time. Think Joker is too “nihilistic” or “negative”? Turn on a television, read a newspaper or take a cross-country flight, and you’ll see that the nihilism and negativity of Joker are nothing compared to the madhouse in which we currently live.

Arthur Fleck is America, as the country, populated by narcissists, neanderthals and ne’er do wells, has devolved and self-destructed, rotting from the inside out after decades of decadence, delusion and depravity. America is rapidly degrading and devolving, and that devolution is mirrored by Arthur Fleck has he transforms into Joker.

Joker is unnerving to mainstream media critics because it shines the spotlight on the disaffected and dissatisfied in America, who are legion, growing in numbers and getting angrier by the hour. As I have witnessed in my own life, the rage, resentment and violent mental instability among the populace in America is like a hurricane out in the Atlantic, gaining more power and force as every day passes, and inevitably heading right toward landfall and a collision with highly populated urban centers that will inevitably result in a conflagration of epic proportions.

Joker, the consummate trickster, is devoid of politics and ideology and exists only to feed and satiate his own voracious madness. Fleck is an empty vessel and the Joker archetype co-opts and animates him. Fleck, born again as Joker, is adopted as a symbol for the struggles of the angry and the desperate, in other words, Joker is the archetype of our times, a Trumpian figure, who unintentionally inspires others, friend and foe alike, to release their inhibitions and unleash their inner demons. Joker is dangerous because he is an avatar for the rage, resentment and desperation of millions upon millions of Americans who have been forgotten and left behind and are utterly despised by the elite. Joker is both apolitical and all political. The populist Joker is both Antifa and the Alt-Right. Joker is everything and nothing to everyone and nobody all at once. The media in the movie, and in real life, make Joker into a monster, an icon and an iconic monster for the dispossessed, elevating him in the eyes of those desperately seeking a savior.

In a perverted and brilliant way, Phillips and Phoenix make Fleck into a Jesus figure, who as he transforms into Joker, becomes an unwitting Christ/anti-Christ. The line between messiah and madman is a thin one, and depends almost entirely on projection and perspective.

Arthur Fleck, like Jesus, is literally someone who is repeatedly kicked when he is down. Like Jesus, society ignores and despises him. Like Jesus he is berated, belittled and beaten…and yet all he wants to do is make people smile. Like Jesus, Fleck’s birth story is convoluted and lacks coherence.

What makes Phoenix’s portrayal so chilling is that his Fleck earnestly desires to bring joy to the world just like Jesus…and just as Jesus is actually a good magician/miracle worker, Fleck is actually a good clown, filled with energy and purpose. But Arthur soon realizes that there are two jokes at play in the universe…the one where he is the punchline, and the one in his head, of which he is self-aware enough to realize regular people “won’t get it”. Jesus makes the same sort of discovery during his temptations, he hears a “joke” in his head too, but it is the voice of God, and he comes to realize no one else will “get it” either. Fleck and Jesus are presented the same two paths, Jesus takes the one of self-sacrifice and becomes the Christ, and Fleck takes the road of human sacrifice, and becomes The Joker/Satan.

At its core Joker is a character study, and so there is not a lot of heavy lifting among the cast besides Joaquin Phoenix. That said, Frances Conroy, Robert DeNiro and Zazie Beets all do solid work with the material they have.

The film is shot with an exquisite grittiness by Lawrence Sher. Sher pays adoring homage to Taxi Driver by using certain specific camera shots and angles throughout the film. Sher also uses shadow and light really well to convey Fleck’s/Joker’s perspective and his tenuous grasp on reality. Sher, like Phillips, does not have a resume that would make you think he was capable of doing such substantial work, but in the case of these two men past was not prologue.

Joker is one of those movies that reminds you why cinema matters, as it uses the tired and worn comic book genre to draw viewers in, and then sticks the knife of brutal cultural commentary deep into their chests.

Joker has been at the center of of a cultural storm ever since it premiered to a raucous ovation at the Venice Film Festival in September. The film won the Golden Lion (Best Picture) at Venice and was quickly catapulted into the Oscar discussion, which created a fierce backlash against the film from certain American critics and woke twitter. The common refrain from those critics who saw it at Venice, and those who hadn’t, was that the film was “dangerous” because it would incite disaffected white men to become violent. In researching an article I recently wrote about the controversy, I came across a stunning number of articles with the imploring and weak-kneed headline, “Joker is Not the Movie We Need Right Now”. Of course, the converse is true because Joker is exactly the movie we need right now.

The critical opinion of Joker, especially among the critics at influential media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Guardian, The New Yorker and Time, is aggressively negative and dismissive, riddled with a belittling and condescending commentary. The criticisms leveled at the film from these effete establishment critics are obviously contrived, petty, personal, political and entirely predetermined. The amount of intentional obtuseness on display about Joker, its cinematic sophistication and its artistic merits, by these supposed important critics is stunning and revealing.

The critical malevolence toward Joker is undoubtedly fueled by a need to virtue signal and pander to woke culture, and is born out of personal contempt for the filmmaker (who dared defend himself against “woke culture”) and manufactured anger at the subject matter. The poor reviews of Joker by these American critics says considerably more about those critics, their dishonesty and lack of integrity, than it does about Joker. Make no mistake, Joker is a masterpiece in its own depraved way, and the critics who succumb to the myopic social pressure and cultural politics of the moment by reflexively trashing the movie as immoral and artistically and cinematically unworthy, will be judged extremely harshly by history.

In looking at the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Joker currently has a critical score of 69 and an audience score of 91. The disconnect between critics and audience on Joker is similar to the disconnect on display regarding Dave Chappelle’s recent Netflix stand up special Sticks and Stones. Chappelle’s show was pilloried by critics who were horrified by the comedian’s “unwoke” and decidedly politically incorrect take on the world, as the critical score is currently at 35, while the audience score is a resounding 99. It would seem that in our current age, bubble-dwelling, group-thinking critics in the mainstream media, are no longer interested in artistic merit, cinematic worthiness, skill, craftsmanship or talent, but rather in personal politics, woke ideology, political correctness and conformity, and are dishonest brokers when it comes to judging art and entertainment.

Joker is a watershed for the comic book genre. In the future film historians will look back on this time and say that there comic book films pre-Joker and comic book films post-Joker. There is no going back for the genre. That does not mean that Marvel will immediately crumble and fall into the sea, but it does mean that the genie is out of the bottle, and there is no getting it back in. Jason Concepcion and Sean Fennessy at The Ringer recently pondered if Joker is to the superhero genre what The Wild Bunch was to westerns back in 1969. They are not so sure, but I certainly think is as genre redefining or killing as The Wild Bunch. The Disney/Marvel model, post-Endgame and post-Joker, will only see diminishing cultural resonance and relevance, as well as financial returns, from this point forward. The superhero genre will not disappear overnight, but it has begun its long retreat from its apex, and God only knows what will eventually replace it.

In conclusion, Joker is a mirror, and it reflects the degeneracy, depravity and sheer madness that is engulfing America. Joker is an extremely dark film, but that is because America is an extremely dark place at the moment. Joker is unquestionably one of the very best films of the year and should be, but probably won’t be, an Oscar front-runner for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Screenplay. I highly recommend you go see Joker in theatres as soon as you possibly can, as it is must-see viewing for anyone interested in cinema, art or in understanding what is rapidly coming for America.

©2019

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Popcorn Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A well-made and fun exploration of the Spider-Man mythos that is original and unique.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, written by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman and directed by Rothman, Peter Ramsey and Bob Perischetti, is an Academy Award winning animated film that tells the mind-bending story of Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales and his introduction into Spidey-dom. The voice actors starring in the film are Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Bryan Tyree Henry, John Mulaney and Nicolas Cage.

This past Friday, March 8th, was International Women’s Day, so to celebrate this momentous occasion I tried to get as far away from women as I could, so I went to the movies. Much to my chagrin, when I got to the theatre I discovered that the female powered Captain Marvel had 36 showings going on that day and would no doubt draw a multitude of feminist harpies. Not wanting to get caught up in a tidal wave of man-hating and menses I instead chose to make a stand and rebelliously vote with my wallet, so I went and saw… Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse! Take that Girl Power brigade!!

Ok…to be completely honest, not everything is the previous paragraph is true. Yes, it was International Women’s Day. No, I did not go to the movies to escape being near women. Yes, there were 36 showings of Captain Marvel on the day at the theatre. No, I didn’t see Spider-Man as a form of protest. The truth is I figured Captain Marvel would be packed since it was opening day and I greatly dislike seeing movies in crowded theatres…so I chose Spider-Man because it had been out a long time already and probably wasn’t going to be crowded or in theatres for much longer. Sure enough, I was the only person at my screening for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which I was extremely happy about.

As for the film itself, I don’t have anything against animated movies, it is just rare that I actually see one. For this reason i really had no expectations heading into the theatre, so it was a nice surprise to discover that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was a really energetic and compelling bit of fun.

Animation is very creatively freeing as it allows audiences to suspend their belief to a much greater degree than with live action which is a very useful tool with a superhero narrative and the directors use it to great effect in this movie. Animation also allows for interesting world-building and the New York City the film is set in is proof of that. The animated city is so vibrant and visceral it becomes a character all its own.

Animation is also useful when it comes to superhero movies in that it enables the action sequences to be much more “believable”. In Spider-Verse the filmmakers play this up by not just focusing on what their animated creations can do, but more importantly on what they can’t do. The world and characters of Spider-Verse have limitations, and that is what makes them so satisfying.

The lead character of the film is Miles Morales, a Latino teenager trying to navigate the perils of adolescence which in his case include a strict police officer father and a new and academically rigorous school. I am not a teenager, although absolutely EVERYONE says I look young enough to be one, but this film does a remarkable job of transporting the audience into the immediacy of Miles’ world. Miles feels like a very real kid trying to juggle all the demands placed upon him while hormones torment his body and the world barely acknowledges him.

As I watched Miles Morales on screen I couldn’t help but think of my neighbor, who is also a Black Latino teenager named Miles. My neighbor Miles is just the nicest kid on the planet and is always very kind, patient and generous with my own toddler son even when he doesn’t have to be, and what I appreciated about this movie was that it gave me an impression of the world through his eyes.

Considering this is an animated movie I was stunned at how thorough and genuine the relationships were. The characters were all multi-dimensional, even the villains, and the world they inhabited felt entirely real. This dramatic foundation in human relationship is what allows the film to expand its narrative into more and more complex areas. The movie’s multi-dimensions and multiple realities colliding would seem like a muddled mess if it weren’t for the film’s grounding in genuine human emotion and its established reality.

To its credit, Spider-Verse does not ignore the oddity of its premise, and is also able to poke fun at the superhero genre and its formulas while also using them to its storytelling advantage. This is a delicate balancing act, but the filmmakers are able to acknowledge the absurdity of the superhero genre while also taking their subject matter entirely seriously.

The film has an undeniable charisma to it, which is a function of both the first rate artistry of the animators, as the film is beautiful to look at, and also the pulsating soundtrack which includes Juice WRLD, Post Malone, Swae Lee and Nicki Minaj among others. The popular music in the film is not my taste but it is undeniably infectious and extremely effective in developing Miles as a character and conveying his perspective.

I hope the success of this film, it has made $366 million with a $90 million budget, will convince studios to create more high-end animated feature films of their superhero properties. The DC canon (Batman, Superman Etc.) has been flailing around in their most recent live action Justice League ventures, and it seems to me that Warner Bros. would be wise to try and package those characters in high end animated features like Spider-Verse. This would give Warner Bros. an opportunity to create dark live action films, like The Dark Knight Trilogy, and offset that darkness with animated features that are sophisticated yet fun and geared towards kids 10 and up.

Another idea would be to do the darker material in animated form and the lighter material in live action. For instance, the film Sin City was a very dark, neo-noir animated drama that made a solid $158 million in 2005. The market for high end animation geared either partially or in full towards adults exists, and the studios, be it Warner Bros. or Disney, would be wise to exploit it.

At the very least, making quality animated superhero features helps to connect younger audiences with the characters and expands the life cycle of fandom. In addition, as Spider-Verse and the upcoming live action Spider-Man movie proves, you can have simultaneous story lines, one in live action and one in animation, that creates a scenario where studios can double dip into the wallets of superhero fans. As long as the movies are well-made, it is a win-win for everyone involved.

In conclusion, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is well-deserving of its Best Animated Feature Academy Award. While my son is far too young to go see a movie like this, when he gets older this is the type of film I’d want him to watch, not only because it is an example of well-made art, but also because it is a great myth for young adolescents to explore in order to help get them through the trials and tribulations of the teen years.

I don’t know how much longer this movie will be in theatres, but if you have a chance you should check it out, either at the cineplex or on Netflix/cable when it becomes available. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a joyous film that is perfect for kids 10 and up (your mileage for your kids may vary) that carries a message that even resonates with kids grown old…like me.

©2019

Justice League: A Review

***THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!!***

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT/SKIP IT: See it in the theatre if you are a comic book/superhero film fan, it is worth the effort. If you are lukewarm or ambivalent about comic book/superhero films then feel free to skip it in the theatre and see it on Netflix or cable. 

Justice League, written by Joss Whedon and Chris Terrio and directed by Zack Snyder (with re-shoots directed by Whedon), is the fifth film in the D.C. Extended Universe and is a sequel to Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice. The film is the completion of the origin story of the Justice League, which is a collection of superheroes who join together to fight evil. The film stars Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Mamoa, Ezra Miller and Henry Cavill. 

My experience of Justice League was very similar to my experience of 2016's Batman v. Superman (BvS). I did not see Batman v. Superman until very late in its theatrical run, therefore even though I do not read reviews, I had seen enough headlines to understand that the film was not widely loved…or even mildly liked. With my expectations very low I went and saw Batman v. Superman and much to my shock and amazement I joined the rarest of groups, the handful of people who actually enjoyed Batman v Superman a great deal. It wasn't a perfect movie but it was certainly better than all of the negative buzz that was floating around about it.

When Justice League came out last month on November 17th, I once again avoided reviews but was still exposed to a deluge of negative buzz surrounding the film before I saw it on December 19. And just like when I saw Batman v. Superman, the theatre for Justice League was deserted except for the three other people.  And…just like with Batman v. Superman, my expectations were in the gutter for Justice League and either in spite of or because of that, the movie was able to greatly exceed them leaving me most pleasantly surprised. 

Justice League is supposed to be DC's attempt (at Warner Brothers insistence) at "lightening things up" from the dark themes and tone of BvS and being more "audience friendly". While I am not a fan of "lightening things up" in general and was attracted to the darkness of Batman v. Superman, I was not turned off by the more approachable tone of Justice League. Would I have liked a much darker version? Most definitely…but Justice League held onto enough darkness that it maintained a certain superhero gravitas that I found compelling. 

It has been my experience that while the rest of the world adores the Marvel franchise, I am more temperamentally suited for the brooding DC universe. The DC films have on the whole been pretty uneven, with Batman v. Superman, Wonder Woman and Justice League being pretty good and Suicide Squad and Man of Steel being abysmally bad. What I liked about Batman v. Superman and Justice League are that they are both cloaked in a very heavy, existential angst that regular folk may find boring and impenetrable, but which I find very philosophically intriguing and creatively courageous. In contrast, I find the Marvel films to be much too light-hearted and frivolous and to be lacking in visual and narrative texture. Marvel films are made for kids while DC films, at least Batman v. Superman and Justice League, are made for tormented kids who've grown old. While Justice League is definitely not a great film, it is probably at best an average cinematic venture, but it is still considerably better than many of the Marvel/Avenger movies. 

Justice League benefits greatly from Zack Snyder's visual style that gives the film a distinct look and feel that the flat and cinematically dull Marvel films lack entirely. Snyder's Justice League world looks like something out of a Hieronymus Bosch hellscape, which is only heightened by its being populated  by hordes of villains, para-demons, who may very well have flown out of a Bosch painting. Snyder has always thrived when it comes to giving a film a distinguishing and original look, and so it is with Justice League.

On the other hand, Snyder has always struggled with narrative clarity and cohesion and while he doesn't excel at that in Justice League, he doesn't entirely flounder either. Justice League is more coherently structured than Batman v. Superman and flows better, that comes at the expense of dumbing things down and settling for a standard and generic approach over a more complex and challenging one.

I had a chance to see the extended directors cut of Batman v Superman and thought it added a great deal to the film and I hope that Warner Brothers releases an extended Zack Snyder cut of Justice League as well at some point as I think that Snyder can be at his best when he is free of the restraints of running length and focus groups. 

Justice League is greatly enhanced by a top notch cast that all do solid if not spectacular work. I realize I am in the minority here but I think Ben Affleck does a terrific job as Batman. Affleck's caped crusader is a grizzled, aching and aging icon struggling to keep up with his more supernaturally endowed colleagues and keep the undefeated father time at bay. Affleck is not an actor whose work I have been impressed with over his career, but his brooding Batman is second only to Christian Bale, and it isn't a distant second either.

Gal Gadot is simply sublime as Wonder Woman for the second time this year. Gadot is such a charismatic, magnetic and dynamic power it is impossible to keep your eyes off of her when she is on screen. Gadot's commanding screen presence never feels forced or disingenuous, but always feels grounded, earthy and forceful.  

Jason Mamoa and Ezra Miller do solid supporting work as Aquaman and Flash. Their roles are used to good comedic effect in Justice League (they do most of the previously mentioned "lightening up") but they could have been greatly bungled in the hands of lesser actors. Both Mamoa and Miller never push too hard and they make specific choices for their characters while never settling for half measures when bringing them to life. I don't know if Aquaman or the Flash will be able to carry a film on their own, but we shall see soon enough. 

As for my biggest issues with Justice League…the first and most pressing issue was that the CGI seemed to be rather sub par. Steppenwolf was the arch villain in the film and instead of using a human actor, they made him entirely of CGI. The CGI simply did not look real or believable and so it felt like the members of the Justice League were fighting a really evil cartoon character. 

Another example of bad CGI is such a remarkable tale it demands retelling. The opening scene of the film shows a flashback of Henry Cavill as Superman being interviewed on a video phone by some local kids. Cavill, who is impossibly handsome, looks very...weird in the scene. I couldn't place it at first, but there was something wrong with his face. As I looked closer I could see his mouth was deformed. I started wondering if Henry Cavill in real life had an accident or been sick and was left with some sort of facial paralysis or something. I noticed the same issue at other points in the film featuring Cavill as well and was completely distracted by it every time. When I got home I searched the internet and found out the story behind the bizarre look of Superman. 

The story goes that Cavill was signed on to shoot Mission Impossible 6 (God help us all) once he wrapped shooting Justice League. Justice League director Zack Snyder stepped away from the film in post-production due to the death of his daughter and Joss Whedon stepped in to replace him. The studio wanted Whedon to do a plethora of re-shoots to change the tone of the film which they feared was too dark like Batman v. Superman. Whedon complied and did a great deal of re-shoots to the sum of $25 million. Bringing back Cavill for Superman was tricky though because he was currently shooting MI6 and had grown a mustache for his role and was contractually obligated to not shave it off for the duration of that shoot. So Warner Brothers, the studio of Justice League, which had a budget of $300 million, was at the mercy of Paramount, the home studio of Mission Impossible, in regards to their star Superman. Paramount, not surprisingly since they are not in the business of making life easy for their competition, wouldn't let Cavill get rid of the mustache. So billion dollar company Warner Brothers, who was spending $300 million on Justice League, was not allowed to walk down to CVS and get a Bic razor for 99 cents in order to shave the face of the star of their movie. The movie business is completely and utterly insane. 

Superman and Steppenwolf's faces aren't the only missteps in Justice League. The enormity of the plot was a bit burdensome as well. All of these superhero movies now revolve around end of the world cataclysms that seem to me to be overkill. Whether it is the Justice League or the Avengers or anyone else, the threat of global annihilation is so overplayed as to be ridiculously redundant. And as much as I think Steppenwolf in theory is an excellent villain (although as stated he didn't look right in the film) and his minions the para-demons are quality Miltonian/Boschean foils, the scenario presented by their assault on Earth felt much too similar to The Avengers plots with Loki or Ultron. In execution I think Justice League pulled that scenario off better than The Avengers, but that doesn't make their lack of originality any less of a creative sin. 

The political subtext of Justice League is pretty interesting. Steppenwolf is a Putin-esque, power hungry warlord who begins his quest for total world domination in what is alleged to be a small Russian town but looks an awful lot like Chernobyl in Ukraine. Justice League accurately captures the divided mess that is our current world as we stagger and stumble from a uni-polar world protected by Superman/U.S. to a multi-polar world reigned over by God knows who, that acts like a bi-polar world. 

The Justice League itself is obviously a metaphor for the United Nations or the defunct League of Nations, in which the good guys protect the globe from the bad guys. Of course, life is never as clearly defined as that, and in our world it is becoming more and more difficult to discover who is good and who is bad. To Justice League's credit, the good guys aren't always so good and they struggle to find their place in the world.

After seeing Justice League I did something I rarely do, which is go read other reviews of the film. Critics have savaged the film with an unabashed glee and seem to have a pre-disposition against the movie. While it was never stated, I think that predisposition to critical displeasure with Justice League (and Batman V. Superman) may have to do with critics subconsciously comparing the film to the last "Batman" movies which were Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy which are a far, far superior collection of films. Any superhero films compared to the Dark Knight Trilogy will pale in comparison as Nolan has raised the superhero bar beyond anyone’s reach with those phenomenal films. To be extremely clear, Batman v. Superman and Justice League are not The Dark Knight series, not even remotely close, but that doesn't mean they are completely devoid of any redeeming value.

The mythic and archetypal energies at the core of all of these these superhero stories, be they DC or Marvel, is the same, it is just the window dressing that changes. The core archetypes at the heart of superhero stories are what resonate with our collective psyches. Just as the Greeks told stories of their Gods, we tell stories of our mythic gods…Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Flash. These comic book characters and the Greek gods are the same archetypes but are only wearing different masks. 

In conclusion, I found Justice League to be a pleasant surprise of a movie that wasn't great, but was certainly better than its buzz would indicate. Justice League is a solid companion piece to Batman v Superman and in fact enhances that film a great deal in hindsight. If you love superhero films then I recommend you go see Justice League in the theatre while it is still there. If you are lukewarm or ambivalent about superhero films then you can definitely skip it in the theatre and catch it at your leisure on cable or Netflix. And finally, in this holiday season when we anticipate a bounty of gifts beneath the Christmas tree, let Justice League be a lesson to us all, that low expectations are the golden key to a happy existence. 

©2017

Suicide Squad : A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating : 0.75 STARS OUT OF 5

My Recommendation : Skip it.

Suicide Squad, written and directed by David Ayer, is the third film in the recent DC comics cinematic universe (Man of Steel 2013, Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice 2016) which tells the story of a ragtag group of super-villains and anti-heroes who are thrown together to use their evil talents for good. The film stars Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Jared Leto and Viola Davis to name just a few.

Suicide Squad was released last week on the heels of last March's much maligned Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. I was one of those rare breed of people who, thanks to very low expectations, actually liked Batman v. Superman. Granted, I didn't think it was Citizen Kane, but I did think it was better than the horrible press it had received. Within that context, I was tentatively excited to see Suicide Squad when it came out. After having seen the film, I must report that my excitement was terribly, terribly misguided.

To put it as succinctly as possible, Suicide Squad made me want to kill myself…or someone else, namely the people who made it. If writer/director David Ayer or any studio executives from Warner Brothers are found in a shallow grave out in the desert, or wash ashore on Venice beach, or are discovered crucified to a Suicide Squad billboard, you'll know who's behind it. I am not worried about openly admitting my future crime as I am sure I can O.J. my way out of a conviction simply by showing Suicide Squad to the jury. No doubt a "justifiable homicide" determination would quickly follow.

From its marketing and trailers, Suicide Squad appears to be an anarchy and mayhem fueled, wild-ride rebellion of a film, which is right up my twisted alley. Sadly, in reality it is a relentlessly conventional, dull and formulaic film. Watching Suicide Squad is like watching someone else play a video game for two hours. The film is so vacuous it is little more than a commercial for itself and the films that will no doubt follow it. It is so sluggish as to be suffocating and is totally devoid of any intrigue, originality or life. 

Even though the stars of this film are villains (Harley Quin, Joker, Deadshot et al), the film suffers from the lack of a credible and interesting foil to oppose these superstar anti-heroes. The enemy that the Suicide Squad faces is the "Enchantress", who is an ancient mystical being from deep in South America who has possessed the soul of a young archeologist named June Moon, remarkably poorly played by the wooden Cara Delevingne. The Enchantress' minions are the people she has taken control over and turned into what look like faceless asphalt people who have zero self preservation instincts. Doing battle with endless tidal waves of amorphous asphalt people is a good way to make a film feel like a video game, of which I am sure there will be one on the market in no time. In keeping with the rest of the film, the fight scenes are terribly monotonous, predictable and asinine. 

The film is so shallow and thoughtless that it repeats itself numerous times over with recurring shots, lines and sequences. If I had to see the asphalt people attack Special Forces soldier Rick Flag one more time, and the Suicide Squad want to let him die and then decide to save him with the line, "if he dies, WE die!" I was going to die…and take every poor bastard in the theatre with me. 

The script and story are absolutely incoherent and absurd. There are character changes of heart that come out of nowhere, such as the whole El Diablo character arc, and illogical and repetitive narrative choices that drive the story from one ditch to another. The feeling I get is that the original script was awful, then they brought in other writers to punch it up who made it even more awful, and then the studio heads put their two cents in and completed the mountain of poop for which they had just paid hundreds of millions of dollars. In the end it is just a giant stew of human, horse and dog shit haphazardly slapped together.

Were there any bright spots? Well…you have to look very very hard, but the unconscionably beautiful Margot Robbie does a great, if flawed job as Harley Quinn. Her accent comes and goes a bit, but she does develop an actual and intriguingly genuine character of depth. Jared Leto does an admirable job as the Joker even though he is terribly underused. Leto is following in the footsteps of the late Heath ledger's iconic performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, so he has big, crazy shoes to fill. Leto's Joker is not a continuation of Ledger's (which is a mistake by the studio, but that is a story for another day), they are two totally separate entities from different DC universes, but Leto does the best he can with the very little what he's given. Leto's Joker is more ghetto gangster than Ledger's genius anarchist sociopath, but it works well enough. Truth is I think The Joker and Harley Quinn's story should have been it's own film. It is a pretty fascinating tale and both Robbie and Leto have the skill, talent and charisma to carry a film like that…especially if it is just a B story in a Batman v. Joker film, but obviously I am not as brilliant as the numb nuts running Warner Brothers so feel free to ignore my suggestions.

Another "good" part of Suicide Squad is actually very telling as to why the movie is so appalling, namely that Will Smith is one of the best things in it. I loathe Will Smith as an actor ( or 'rapper" for that matter). He is as contrived and manufactured as it gets. There is not a genuine bone or performance lurking anywhere in Will Smith's body. He does well in Suicide Squad though because he can pose and preen with just enough star power to make him seem at home on the big screen, which isn't always the case with all of the other actors, Robbie and Leto being the notable exceptions. Smith being a bright spot is a black spot for the film as it highlights the film's stultifying conventionalism. 

As for bad performances, there are many. Rick Flag is played by Joel Kinnaman and he is just atrociously dreadful. The only other thing I have seen him in is last seasons House of Cards, where he is equally dreadful, which makes me think Mr. Kinnaman is just a plain dreadful actor who has been the recipient of a charisma bypass. Did I mention how dreadfully dreadful his dreadful performance was? Speaking of dreadful, Viola Davis is unquestionably a great actress, she has been nominated for an Oscar and won an Emmy, this lady can act. But in Suicide Squad she is absolutely ghastly, just abominable. She is so wooden and lifeless I was worried she had suffered a major stroke during filming and was just being propped up in front of the camera and had special effects puppetry people moving her mouth for her. It was inconceivable to me prior to Suicide Squad that Viola Davis would be capable of being so appallingly bad in a role and so uncomfortable on screen, but sadly, Suicide Squad and director David Ayer brought Viola Davis to new lows.

The thing that I find so frustrating about Suicide Squad in particular, and the recent Warner Brothers - DC comics films in general, are that they really have the potential to be truly great. The source material is stellar, with the DC mythology being as psychologically rich and complex as any in modern storytelling. Yet Warner Brothers has stumbled all over itself on this recent spate of DC films. Why is that?

The biggest problem with the current crop of WB/DC films is that the studio has placed its trust in deeply flawed writers and directors like Zack Snyder and David Ayer. The earlier Dark Knight trilogy, which was so financially and critically successful, was directed by Christopher Nolan, an innovative and creative master. Snyder and Ayer are nowhere near the talent of a visionary like Christopher Nolan. In addition, the studio itself has meddled far too much with the films during every stage of production, creating a 'too many cooks in the kitchen' scenario. As limited as Snyder and Ayer are as filmmakers, and boy are they limited, it hamstrings them even more to have studio clowns sticking their fingers in every pie and adding salt to every soup. Nolan's films succeeded because they set out to tell a great story and make quality cinema. The recent DC films have failed because the studio has set out to make gobs of money while ignoring story, character and cinematic integrity.

What Suicide Squad and all the rest of the DC films need is a strong, ambitious and creative leader with a distinct visual and storytelling style at the helm to steer the ship. Watching Suicide Squad I couldn't help but think of David Fincher's iconic Fight Club, which is what Suicide Squad should have stylistically tried to emulate. Wrangling a top director like Fincher to sign on to direct or produce DC films would no doubt be a tough get, but something dramatic along those lines needs to be done in order to save this run of films, which is scheduled to go well into the next decade, from being a studio destroying debacle. Whoever the studio gets to try and right the ship, it is clear that Zack Snyder must go…and he needs to take David Ayer with him, but sadly, all signs point to Warner Brothers holding steady with Snyder and company running the show for the foreseeable future. 

The one positive that may come from this disastrous run of WB/DC films is that they may get so bad that a re-boot will be in order in our near future. Frankly, a re-boot is what they need. Get a top notch visionary to direct and/or produce the films and start over. Not all the errors of this Zack Snyder run can be corrected, such as the decision to not continue the story lines and universe of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy and expanding from there, but many of them can be corrected. For instance, Suicide Squad should have been made much further down the road in the series of DC films Warner Brothers is making. You need to establish the characters who star in Suicide Squad as villains in other films before you lump them all together in a big group film. WB, not surprisingly, got all of that backwards, while the folks over at Disney/Marvel have done it perfectly. 

In the end, Suicide Squad is making a ton of money, but it is fools gold. The studio may think they have a golden goose in their DC properties, but audiences will only tolerate so much garbage before the whole house of cards collapses. Warner Brothers is headed for a harsh reckoning in regards to their DC films, and the corporate bloodbath that will unfold will be eminently more entertaining than the slop they are putting on screen to sell to the public now.

In conclusion, Suicide Squad is a terrible waste of a film. It is an incoherent, tedious and annoying mess of a movie. Don't waste your money by seeing it in the theaters, and don't waste your time seeing it anywhere else for free. You'd be better served, and more entertained sticking your head in an oven for two hours than sitting in front of this dog of a movie for single second. 

©2016

Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice - A Review

****WARNING: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS!! CONSIDER THIS YOUR OFFICIAL SPOILER ALERT!!****

MY RATING : 2.5  OUT OF 5 STARS

MY RECOMMENDATION: SEE IT IN THE THEATRE, ESPECIALLY IF YOU LIKE SUPER HERO FILMS. IF YOU ARE LUKEWARM ABOUT SUPER HERO FILMS, WATCH IT ON CABLE/NETFLIX.

"LOW EXPECTATIONS ARE THE KEY TO A HAPPY LIFE." - ME…TO EVERY WOMAN I HAVE EVER DATED.

As a general rule I never read movie reviews before I see a film. In fact, I don't even like to see trailers because studios so often undermine the power of a film by giving away its content in trailers. When I see a film, I want to see it with as close to virgin eyes as possible. If I don't understand a film, I will take the time to actually see it again. I love film so I don't mind investing time into it in trying to understand the art and craft of it all.  I understand that I am an outlier in this area as most people look upon films as consumers looking upon a product they may potentially buy, so they want as much information as they can get before hand, not afterwards. This is why studios reveal so much (too much!!) in trailers, they want to give as much of the film as possible in a two minute movie because they believe that audiences want to know what they are getting.

In regards to Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice, I found it very difficult to keep my cinematic virginity oath by avoiding news and information about the movie before I saw it. One reason this was such a struggle was that I saw the film just this past week and it was released two months ago, so I am definitely way behind the times. Another reason is that for the last two months my internet homepage has been giving me headlines telling me how awful critics thought the movie, and Ben Affleck were. I never read the articles, but I certainly got the message from the headlines, Batman V. Superman was an epic failure and Ben Affleck was back to his old tricks of ruining movies. And thus…my low expectations were unconsciously inseminated, then gestated for two months and were consciously born this past week.

When you have low expectations, anything good that happens is a pleasant surprise and you find yourself more grateful for things than if you had expected them. And so it was with my experience watching Batman v. Superman. I expected it to be really awful…and it just wasn't. Maybe it isn't as good as I thought it was, but it was certainly better than I ever thought it would be. And guess what…you know what made the film good…I hope you are sitting down for this…it was Ben Affleck's intricate, internally detailed and vibrant performance as Bruce Wayne/Batman. I know you think I am bullshitting you, but It's true, I promise, I am not in any way, shape or form, bullshitting you.

"DO YOU BLEED?" - BATMAN

When I heard that Affleck had taken the role of Batman I thought it was a very bad idea for both him and the film.  Affleck had worked so hard to rise up from being a punchline at the nadir of his acting career and reinvented himself as a respectable filmmaker and passable actor. I thought he was squandering all of the good will he had worked so hard to generate by chasing the "movie stardom" dream that had been the cause of his previous great downfall. Chasing stardom and money was what had scuttled Affleck's promising career once before, and I was sure it was going to do the same thing again. But, to his credit, Ben Affleck proved me a fool because he is damn good as Batman. I think it is his best performance…ever. Which, you know, isn't a very high bar, but he brings a brooding gravitas to the role of which I simply didn't believe he was capable.  Affleck's performance throughout is solid, but his inner rage and fury during his fight with Superman is absolutely dynamic. Affleck imbues Batman with such a tangible psychological wound that it gives him a visceral and volcanic rage, which erupts during this epic superhero brawl. Affleck's magnetic and potent performance is shocking considering his tepid work in most of his previous films. 

Sadly, the "Ben Affleck is dreadful" meme is out there in regards to his work as Batman. Prior to seeing the film, I saw headlines and videos mocking Affleck for having stepped in it again with Batman V. Superman. Maybe it was my exposure to this criticism which lowered my expectations for his work, which is why I was able to appreciate him so much in the role. Who knows? Regardless, if Ben Affleck keeps doing the strong work he did as Batman in future films, the critics will eventually quiet themselves. With all of that said…as much as I disagree with the sentiment, I found this video to be absolutely hysterical.

Description

As much as I enjoyed the film, is Batman v. Superman perfect? Hell no. Director Zack Snyder can be pretty heavy handed at times, the abysmal Man of Steel being a perfect example, and he loses control of this film in the last quarter, but even with all his faults, he has a distinct visual style that works well here. Snyder also does a good job of keeping the storytelling coherent, which is no small accomplishment considering he is juggling multiple important narratives (Superman, Batman, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman etc.) that he must weave together. He does so, not seamlessly, but well enough for the film to make sense both internally and externally.

HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND

Another key to the film's success is that it is dark…relentlessly dark. And it never wavers from that dark vision. It is a credit to the filmmaker that, unlike in the recent Captain America movie, Batman v. Superman sets its heavy tone and commits to it, taking its subject matter very seriously. The film is a dark psychological study, and I found it to be authentically compelling. There are no witty one liners to water down the mood, and no winks and nods to the audience that this is all in good fun. Batman v. Superman is not in good fun, it is deadly serious business, which to me is the film's great strength, but may also be its greatest weakness in the eyes of critics and a large part of its audience. 

On the downside, one of the glaring problems with the film is that in the final quarter of the picture, it sort of goes off the rails when the hybrid villain appears and we get a generic city destroying, knock down, drag out donnybrook. The hybrid monster is supposed to be a hybrid between General Zod and Lex Luthor, but it really looks more like a hybrid between the most recent Godzilla and the Hulk….and not in a good way. The whole fight sequence with the hybrid is dreadful, this is director Snyder at his worst, and should be cut because it feels as if it is from a very different, and very horrible film (like Man of Steel!!). The fight between Batman and Superman, which precedes the hybrid nonsense, feels epic and climactic and should have closed the movie. That said, even the Batman-Superman fight had a flaw, namely that there is a huge emotional turning point for Batman at the end of the struggle that felt rushed, watered down, and ignored, which was not because of Affleck's striking performance, but rather Snyder's weak grasp of dramatic storytelling. It is a shame because there could have been a truly powerful moment captured there, but Snyder was in too much of a rush to get to the hybrid battle to let the audience sit with Batman in the apex of the deep torment that Affleck had so finely crafted from the very beginning of the film. 

Another problem with the film is Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Eisenberg is a good actor (see his work in The Squid and the Whale and The Social Network ), but he is distractingly bad as Luthor. The performance is shallow and showy, and Eisenberg feels small in the part. I understand what Eisenberg was trying to do, he was playing a wounded child, but he wildly misses the mark with his work. A more grounded and energetically focused performance, as opposed to the energetically frantic one he gave, would have given Lex a menace and power that were lacking and sorely needed. When you are walking among giants like Batman and Superman, you better bring a villain who can hold his own…Eisenberg's Lex Luthor fails to do so.

"MORTALS, BORN OF WOMAN, ARE FEW OF DAYS AND FULL OF TROUBLE." - THE BOOK OF JOB

The myths and archetypes on display in Batman v. Superman speak to all of us on some level. In some ways, at its core, Batman v. Superman is a comic book version of the Book of Job, with Batman taking the role of Satan (God's shadow), and Superman the all-powerful God (God's ego) duped into a battle with his darker self at the expense of mankind. 

From a psychological perspective, Batman, Superman and even Lex Luthor represents the various masculine wounds that men in our time carry with them and often pass down to their sons. Batman is the psychological shadow, a man, whose sense of self and masculinity is deeply wounded by the martyring (and thus absence) of the mother and father archetype in his life. Superman is the ego/messiah with a mother and father wound of his own, having been adopted by earth parents after his Kryptonian birth parents rejected him. Yes, his Kryptonian parents did it for his own good, but that disconnect with his home planet and parents dwells in Superman's psyche. Superman's struggle with the anima, the feminine, is also on display in the form of his relationship with his mother Martha and his girlfriend Lois Lane, as is Batman's in his absence of any genuine connection to a female in his life, including his late mother Martha. Even Lex Luthor, the tormented little boy, struggles with the masculine wound given to him by his own cruel father. These three men represent the different paths that can be taken when a boy is left to make the journey to manhood with the father archetype being absent because of martyrdom, paternal rejection or the father being wounded himself. All three men live in the shadow of their fathers, Batman/Bruce Wayne runs his father's company and tries to avenge his death, Superman wears an "S" on his chest, the symbol of his father's hope, and Lex Luthor tries to live up to the expectations placed upon him by his own wounded father. These men are all sides of the same multi-dimensional masculine wound coin, expressing their pain in different ways.

The myths of Batman and Superman, and the archetypes that they embody, are the reasons why these comic book stories resonate so deeply with wide swaths of the population. Batman v. Superman has gotten pretty poor reviews yet is on the cusp of making a billion dollars. Captain America : Civil War will no doubt do the same. These super hero stories can be fun to watch and entertaining, but they also speak to us on a deeply unconscious level. These stores also speak to us from our collective unconscious, telling us things we know but struggle to articulate.

For instance, is it a coincidence that in an election year we have two superhero movies about internal conflict between superheroes? In Batman v. Superman we have iconic heroes Batman and Superman squaring off, and in Captain America : Civil War we have two groups of "good guy" heroes doing battle. And also notice that these heroes are divided by contrasting color, Batman is blue, Superman red...Captain America blue, Iron Man red. This is not coincidence…for we as a people are at war with ourselves. In the wider world, civilizations are clashing, see the struggle for Islam to come to terms with modernity as an example. And in the west itself, societies are turning on one another…look no further than the rise of nationalist movements and parties of both the right and left in Europe along with the fraying at the seams of the European Union. Here in the U.S. the rise of Donald Trump in the U.S. is an example of that same clashing impulse. These civilizational battles are what are unconsciously on display in this years crop of super hero films. These films are an expression of our collective unconscious, which is explored and discovered by artists (writers, filmmakers etc.), who become artists in the first place because they are inclined to spend so much time in and around the unconscious, both collective and personal. (I have much, much more to say on this topic…trust me...but that is a posting for another day). Regardless, as mindless as these super hero movies may appear to be, and some of them are really mindless, they do have deep mythical and psychological meaning to us, which is why I appreciate it so much when these type of films take their super hero subject matter seriously.

"FOR WE WERE BORN ONLY YESTERDAY AND KNOW NOTHING, AND OUR DAYS ON EARTH ARE BUT A SHADOW." - BOOK OF JOB

In conclusion, much to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed Batman v. Superman : Dawn of Justice. Call me crazy, but I thought that the film and Ben Affleck's performance were well worth the price of admission. I realize I am in the minority on this one, and as my email inbox constantly reminds me, whether the subject be Chris Kyle, John Oliver or Terence Malick, I am almost always in the minority. It doesn't bother me though, as I myself have unlocked  my own super power, a key to eternal happiness…The Power of Low Expectations! Hey, if The Power of Low Expectations can do the unthinkable and make me really like a Ben Affleck/Zack Snyder film, then it really is a super power to be reckoned with!! With a true magic elixir like The Power of Low Expectations, I could be capable of anything!! Or nothing at all!! Either way I'll be happy…and that's all that matters…right?

©2016