This one is the law

Dredd
My rating:

Confession time: I actually enjoyed the 1995 Sylvester Stallone-starring Judge Dredd at the time. Stallone was a pretty good choice to play Dredd, Diane Lane was at the peak of her hawtness, and even Rob Schneider was still somewhat fresh and funny. Only the direction and the action scenes were somewhat lacklustre, but overall it was a fun time at the movies (for an excitable teenage TMBF who wasn't too discerning about what he paid to watch). And not being a huge fan of the comics, it didn't bother me that Dredd took off his helmet. But 17 years later, it's a franchise ripe for a reboot, one that's more faithful to the source material. And with Alex Garland - frequent collaborator with Danny Boyle - on writing and producing duties and a British production company and crew (the 2000 AD comic where Judge Dredd was introduced is based in the U.K.), it looked like the franchise is in good hands.

It's certainly entirely different from the first film, and it comes with strengths as well as weaknesses.

In the future, America is an irradiated wasteland, and the survivors live in Mega-City One - a vast dystopian metropolis that houses 800 million inhabitants. Law and order is upheld by the Judges of the Hall of Justice, who are authorised to act as judge, jury and executioner, and the most feared among them is Judge Dredd (Karl Urban). Dredd is partnered with and tasked with evaluating rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), who is inexperienced but possesses unique psychic powers; their first assignment is to investigate a murder case at the Peach Trees tower block. The 200-story slum tower is controlled by the psychotic gang leader Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), who also controls the production and distribution of a new drug called Slo-Mo. When Dredd and Anderson arrest Kay (Wood Harris), one of Ma-Ma's lieutenants, she orders the entire block sealed in order to trap the two Judges inside - and for her men to hunt them down and kill them.

The main thing this adaptation gets right is the tone. This is grim, moody, stylish and ultraviolent action, just as the comic was. Ma-Ma's drug is called Slo-Mo because it makes the brain feel as if time is moving at a crawl, which is an excuse for director Pete Travis to employ extreme slow-motion in shots that look pretty awesome - especially when it is also used during hard-R-rated action scenes. I'm not one for cinematic gore, but Dredd actually makes a bullet ripping through a guy's jaw - in Slo-Mo - look beautiful, and that is some feat. There's some gorgeous visuals here, married to a unique approach to action scenes that's reminiscent of John Carpenter's Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13; a slow and deliberate doling out of violence rather than the usual frenzied, rapid-fire pyrotechnics. It's almost not even an action movie, closer to a thriller.

Which had the unfortunate effect of leaving me somewhat cold. I can respect the creative decision to be different, but I rarely found this movie to be thrilling or suspenseful. Maybe because I'd just watched The Raid: Redemption (a severely marred version that is totally not worth watching, that is), which has a near-identical premise of cops trapped in an apartment building full of murderous criminals, but the film never really gripped me the way a good action thriller should. I feel like in its commitment to avoid all the usual action film clichés, it also left out a lot of the genre's tropes that make it fun; intricate and creative action sequences, cheesy witty one-liners, even opportunities for the titular character to display some awesome badassery. And Judge Dredd is a character who absolutely needs to be awesomely badass. It relies too much on Karl Urban's performance to deliver the awesome and the badass.

But Urban delivers. He is clearly aware that he is playing an iconic character and does a deliberately mannered performance, in his body language and the lower half of his face not obscured by Dredd's trademark helmet. As befits the comicbook character, Dredd seems like he's always in complete control of the situation, yet it does not undercut the sense of danger inherent in the plot. And Ma-Ma makes for a pretty dangerous situation; a none-too-physically-imposing woman like her is a unique villain, and Lena Headey gives her an unhinged viciousness that makes her effectively threatening. But personally, I thought Olivia Thirlby's Judge Anderson stole the show. Her psychic powers were cool, and though Thirlby looks tiny and vulnerable next to Ma-Ma's psychotic goons, she keeps her nerves under control and her wits about her enough to kick plenty of ass.

So a great cast, some terrific visuals, a unique (albeit a little too low-key) tone and a much greater respect for the source material; all these are enough to make Dredd a better movie than 1995's Judge Dredd. Unfortunately, it falls short in one respect, and that's in the realization of the dystopian future of Mega-City One. This is a low-budget British/South African co-production, and it shows - in the cars on the highways during the opening car chase scene (especially the van that Dredd chases, that looks like a 1979 Mitsubishi Delica), in the design of the Judges' Lawmaster motorbike, and in how Mega-City One looks just like the modern-day slums of Johannesburg where it was filmed. Judge Dredd had flying cars and stuff, and even the comics played up the bizarre futurism of its setting. Its lack of a big budget is probably why they chose the premise of being trapped in a single building, but during the scenes outside of it, it shows.

But I can respect Travis wanting to give it a more real, gritty look. I can respect them doing away with the giant eagle epaulettes on the Judges' uniforms in favour of a more utilitarian body-armour look. I can respect them designing a Lawmaster that is actually road-worthy, instead of Judge Dredd's bike that can't actually steer. And I can totally respect a faithful adaptation of 2000 AD that gets the cynicism, the fatalism, the stylishness and the graphic violence right. I'd be down for a sequel that would get a bigger budget to play with and give us more Dredd and Anderson - but it looks like that's not going to happen, seeing as the movie was a major flop and didn't make much money even in the U.K. That's sad. I could've liked it better, but it deserved better than what it's getting.

(By the way, I just got done watching a few clips of Judge Dredd on YouTube. Man, TMBF circa 1995 had terrible taste.)

NEXT REVIEW: Untuk Tiga Hari
Expectations: hanya kerana anda, Afdlin Shauki 

A hero rises, and a story ends

The Dark Knight Rises
My rating:




I'm sure my readers are quite tired of hearing excuses for my tardiness by now. I had watched The Dark Knight Rises on Saturday the 21st (of July), just two days before it officially opened in cinemas, hoping I'd get my review up early for once. After that viewing, I decided I needed to see it again; I found the picture at GSC 1Utama to be somewhat distractingly dim, and thought it the fault of a run-down projector. It was over a week before I got the chance to watch it again, this time at GSC Tropicana Mall, and it was the same. Seems it's due to the overly-bright Malay subtitles on the Digital 2D print that washes out the rest of the picture. Feh and fiddlesticks, but I couldn't watch the new Batman movie on anything other than Digital 2D. I think I may have become spoiled by the extra crispness and sharpness of the format now; I shudder to think what a normal analog-projected movie would look like to me now.

Oh, and the movie? The movie... is not as good as its 5-star immediate predecessor. But it is still very good.

Eight years after the death of Harvey Dent, crime in Gotham City has almost been eradicated. But the Batman has not been seen since, and Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) has become a virtual shut-in. A burglary on Wayne Manor by a professional thief named Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) gets Bruce intrigued enough to start investigating, causing concern for Alfred (Michael Caine) who fears his latent death wish may lead him to suit up as Batman again. But Bruce may not have a choice. A shadowy figure known as Bane (Tom Hardy) is gathering an army of fanatics in the sewers of Gotham, and Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) barely survives an encounter with them. A young police officer named John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) - who has already sussed out Bruce's secret alter ego on his own - seeks his help. Wayne Enterprises CEO Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) tries his best to hold the family fortune together in the wake of a disastrous clean energy reactor that Bruce invested billions into - a passion project of board member Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard) who is trying to get close to Bruce. And all the while, Bane's apocalyptic plans for Gotham City continue unabated - and the aged and weakened Batman may not be his match.

There are two main things I want to say in this review. The first goes something like this: The Dark Knight Rises is not as good as The Dark Knight. It is noticeably flawed in more ways, and the flaws more noticeable, than that film, which is itself not entirely flawless. But that does not make it a bad film. What with the online chatter consisting of comments like "It really annoyed me when etc. etc.", "I couldn't believe Nolan decided to etc. etc.", or "That mind-bogglingly stupid part where etc. etc. etc.", you'd think this movie is a total bust. And if you honestly disliked it, I can't really argue. But there's so much Nolan, Jonathan Nolan and David Goyer did right that the detractors are completely overlooking in their fervour to nitpick the little things they did wrong. This is not Prometheus in which the plot holes are reflective of lazy filmmaking that undermines the entire film. This is a highly ambitious endeavour (in many ways, more so than even Prometheus), and its flaws are those of overreaching its grasp rather than ineptness.

It is not as unrelentingly gripping as The Dark Knight; there are distinct dips and troughs in its pacing, and it feels slow at times. It is not as tightly-written; it attempts to juggle too many characters and subplots and does not do justice to all of them, e.g. the part Blake plays in the climax. As good as Anne Hathaway is as Catwoman - and she is good enough to put paid to her many detractors, even before the movie came out - the character is also largely peripheral. Certain parts strain disbelief, e.g. the infamously hellish prison in an unnamed country that operates under no apparent governing authority, and does not seem all that unpleasant to boot. In fact, I felt that that entire prison sequence is the weakest part of the film, and not just because the resolution of it is even more disbelief-straining. It's largely because, in telling a story of how Batman suffers a terrible defeat and then painfully recovers from it (adapted from the Knightfall comicbook storyline), the plot tries to accomplish too much within a traditional three-act screenplay structure that isn't quite suited to that kind of story.

But once again, that's just how daring and ambitious this film is. And more often than not, it succeeds at what it dares for. Where The Dark Knight evoked the post-911 fear of terrorism, The Dark Knight Rises uncannily mirrors the class resentments and wealth inequalities that gave rise to the Occupy movement. (Uncanny, because the Nolans and Goyer had been writing their story since before the movement even began.) And yet, the uprising of the common people against the wealthy and powerful is led by the villains, their revolutionary rhetoric clearly stated as Bane's ruse to destroy the very Gothamites he pretends to lead. Once again, Nolan straddles that fine line of appropriating social and political issues without taking sides, creating a story that is thrillingly relevant. But it's by no means short of traditional thrills either. The two Batman/Bane face-offs, Tom Hardy's fearsome performance, the all-action finale, the new Bat flying vehicle, getting to see more of the Batpod's oh so cool double-axis wheels... there's plenty here that's just straight up comicbook superhero action, and it's terrifically well done.

A lot of people also dislike the film for being not entirely faithful with the comicbook Batman. Which brings me to the second point I want to make: no, it isn't entirely faithful. Anyone familiar with the character will likely find something slightly bothersome about his portrayal here (for me, it's the fact that Batman has been retired all this while, which means his career lasted all of two years). But Nolan isn't out to slavishly adapt the comicbooks. He's as good as reinventing the character wholesale, in the same way as DC might reboot Batman and retell his origin in a limited series. That hadn't really become clear till this third instalment of his trilogy - in which Bruce Wayne's story ends, definitively. Comicbook superheroes can never end. Certainly not one as timelessly popular - and timelessly profit-making - as Batman. There will always be another issue next month, even if it's a new storyline and new direction with a new writer-artist team. But what Nolan has done here is bring a final, unequivocal conclusion to the story he started in Batman Begins. The Bruce Wayne in the comics may go on forever. This one, in these movies, won't.

And why can't he? Why, in fact, can't Nolan reinvent and reinterpret Batman the way he sees fit? Dozens of comic creators, from Frank Miller with Batman: Year One to Geoff Johns and Gary Frank with the recent Batman: Earth One, have put their own spin on the origins of the character; why can't Nolan? So Batman never teams up with Robin. So Bruce Wayne was Batman for only two years before an eight-year hiatus that ends with one last adventure. So there's no Dick Grayson or Jason Todd or Tim Drake. (Or Riddler, or Penguin.) I've decried Hollywood's lack of faith in the comic properties they try to adapt before, but who could possibly accuse these three films of not respecting Batman? I think what Nolan has accomplished here - created a mature, intelligent, tremendously well-realized cinematic portrayal of Batman that's as good as the absolute best comic stories - qualifies him to take the liberties he took.

And it behooves us to give him his dues for it. Yes, it's not as good as The Dark Knight, and by a fair margin. But it is a fine film on its own, and even better as a conclusion to what will now be known as Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. The execs at Warner Brothers have a truly unenviable task ahead in deciding where to take the franchise next, but the trilogy ends in as wonderfully open-ended a manner as anyone could expect. A Batman fan could walk out of the cinema dreaming of how to continue this story, in this Gotham City and with these surviving characters who are bound to have adventures yet ahead of them. (And I can still dream of my casting of Natalie Portman as Harley Quinn.) Which is what the finest stories always do: leave us wanting more, and stimulate our imagination to satisfy that desire - awakening in us the delicious possibilities of story. The Dark Knight Trilogy has ended, we shall never see its like again, and the future is uncertain for Batman and any other DC superhero movie. But for now, I'll be content to simply appreciate what Nolan has left us - the highs, the lows, and the dreams.

NEXT REVIEW: Total Recall (2012)
Expectations: the trailers looked good, but the reviews...

The Dark Knight revisited

By the time you read this, you will probably have seen The Dark Knight Rises - and by the time I post this, I will definitely have seen it. I'd meant to finish this post before it was released, and when I first started writing it, I was feeling pretty pumped for the movie. The Dark Knight is my choice for greatest comicbook superhero movie of all time, and I'll say it upfront: it's a 5-starrer for me. So hell to the yeah, its sequel and conclusion to Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is a film I am hugely anticipating, in a year that has already seen a pretty great The Avengers, a disappointing Prometheus, and will bring The Hobbit and the new James Bond movie Skyfall in coming months. So here's my Retro Review of the first two in the trilogy - but I'll say it upfront, I could not possibly do a better job than ComicsAlliance's excellent and exhaustively in-depth commentary on both of them. Seriously, those are required reading for any Bat-fan, and I shall have to strive mightily to say anything about these movies that Chris Sims, David Uzumeri and Andy Khouri did not cover already.


Batman Begins (2005)
My rating:




I remember being somewhat underwhelmed by this movie when I first saw it - probably because I saw it on an IMAX dome screen. Which, I believe, is a particular kind of IMAX screen that I can attest is far from the best way to watch a movie, particularly action movies. (Yes, I know Christopher Nolan is a pioneer in shooting his movies in the IMAX format. That only started from The Dark Knight onwards, and again, not for dome screens.) Despite that, I knew I was watching something good. Batman Begins made its initial impression by being a complete tonal 180 from Joel Schumacher's, and even Tim Burton's, treatments of the classic DC superhero - a film that takes the Batman mythology entirely seriously, and creates a world in which a man who dresses up as a bat to fight crime on the streets is entirely believable, and a story of such can take itself entirely seriously. This film is Exhibit A in my theory that the most important thing for a comicbook superhero film to get right is tone.

It is also first and foremost an origin story - which, incidentally, the 1989 Batman was not. Burton's first movie started with Bruce Wayne having already become Batman, and the formative murder of his parents childhood told through flashbacks. Batman Begins also employs a flashback-heavy, non-linear structure (at least in its first half) - but the present-day sequences starts with Bruce in a Chinese prison, slumming it in a rather vague and aimless attempt to "understand the criminal underworld." That is until he is introduced to Ducard, Ra's Al Ghul and the League of Shadows, their philosophy, not to mention their kickass ninja training - which is only one of many things that set him on his destiny. Where the film succeeds more than anything else is as an exploration of Bruce Wayne's psychology, and how his motivations and inspirations for becoming Batman are far more complex than merely a childhood tragedy. And Nolan's and David S. Goyer's screenplay is just as satisfyingly intelligent, emotionally and thematically.

It is certainly more successful as a character study than as an action movie. Oh don't get me wrong, there are plenty of action scenes. It's a full hour in before Batman makes his fully-costumed entrance, but before then the pace is propelled by some deliberately terse editing (the thing that noticed most on this rewatch). The new Batmobile, a.k.a. the Tumbler, is way cool; hang the naysayers, I can no longer imagine Batman operating any vehicle that has fins or wings or is anything other than ruthlessly utilitarian. But Nolan has always been criticised for being terrible at filming fight scenes, and this one has a lot more hand-to-hand fights than The Dark Knight - and yes, they're all messy and dull. Also, there's something about Jim Gordon driving the Tumbler that doesn't sit right with me; I think it undercuts Batman's mystique. And finally, the big evil villainous plan that Batman must foil at the end strains the credibility - and credulity - that Nolan had been so carefully building up throughout the film.

But although it's a movie that didn't grab me the first time, it is one which greatly rewards rewatching. It treats a comicbook superhero with more respect, intelligence and depth than ever before, not to mention the finest cast ever in a comicbook superhero movie. Christian Bale and Michael Caine get all the credit, but the other thing I just noticed most is Cillian Murphy's deliciously creepy, just-ever-so-slightly-unhinged Dr. Jonathan Crane a.k.a. the Scarecrow. Yes, the sole exception to the otherwise fantastic acting is Katie Holmes, although more because she was out of her depth than actively bad; she does get one great scene when she learns Bruce intended to murder Joe Chill. And the A-list cast is just part of the overall top-notch filmmaking on display here. (Wally Pfister's cinematography, man.) I still wish it was a more viscerally exciting film - and I would've probably liked it more if it weren't for that damn IMAX dome screen - but as a reboot of the cinematic Batman, this is probably as good as anyone could expect.


The Dark Knight (2008)
My rating:




I'm slightly ashamed to admit that when I first watched the 1989 Batman, I found it genuinely scary. Slightly ashamed because, as time and Nolan has proven, that movie was actually quite campy and not at all a "dark and serious" portrayal of Batman that people thought it was. I chalk it up to it being my first introduction to Burton's macabre style; also, 13-year-old TMBF was probably just a wimpy little kid. I was reminded of that experience watching The Dark Knight as a grown man and functioning adult. This movie was practically as terrifying as a horror movie. I left the cinema shaken and disturbed, knowing that I had watched a great film but not at all keen on watching it again anytime soon. I did rewatch it for this Retro Review of course, and of course on rewatch it could no longer deliver that same sheer gut-wrenching terror. But as an amazingly, nail-bitingly tense and powerful film, it can still bring to mind how harrowing that first time was.

And a great deal of it was due to the late Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker. For all the praise that it's gotten, there isn't a thing overrated about it; everything from his hideously slipshod makeup, to his vocal delivery of his lines, to his habit of licking his lips, to even the way he walks, goes a long way toward creating an absolutely terrifying villain that very nearly turns a comicbook action movie into a horror film. But it was the screenplay, written by Nolan along with his brother Jonathan this time (Goyer gets a story credit), that started the journey. The brilliantly twisty opening bank heist scene - and later on, the pencil trick, oh God the pencil trick - establish what an implacable force of nihilistic chaos he is. Always several steps ahead of Gordon and even Batman, who are near-helpless most of the time to counter him; even when he's been captured, beating and torturing him does no good, and killing him would only mean he wins. He's damn near undefeatable.

Of course, the Nolans find a way to defeat him in the end, and let me go on record saying that the finale with the two ferries was brilliant. The entire film was brilliant, both as a relentless action thriller (making up for the pacing problems with Batman Begins, and how) and a dense, weighty, tightly-written story that juggles multiple themes and character arcs and even flirting with timely social and political issues. I won't delve into them here; there are other places on the net you can go for that. (Again, I recommend ComicsAlliance's excellent five-part review.) But to make a poignant character study and an incisive political satire within the bounds of a comicbook superhero movie is ballsy beyond belief - and that its political themes mesh so well with Batman is ingenious beyond belief. The fact that both sides of the U.S.'s left-wing/right-wing divide went on to claim the film as a champion for their particular viewpoints only goes to show how well it works as a mirror to the fears of post-911 American (and world) society.

But above all, it is an amazingly effective film that had me riveted from practically the first minute. The Tumbler/Batpod chase, a new contender for best car chase scene of all time. The shocking and, to me, completely unexpected death of Rachel Dawes. The bravura performance of Aaron Eckhart, unfairly overlooked in the wake of the (rightful) acclaim given to Ledger. Its depiction of an entire city gripped in terror by the machinations of a single madman. I can still vividly recall how I felt watching it, and in particular how I felt after watching it - shaken, disturbed, emotionally and physically exhausted ('cos of how tensed-up my body had been for 2-½ hours), and speechlessly awed. It is an improvement in almost every way over Batman Begins (Maggie Gyllenhaal should've played Rachel from the beginning), which was already a fresh and fascinating new take on Batman. This one takes it to a level never before seen in a comicbook superhero movie, and may never be seen again.

-----

Yes, I know it's taken me ages to write this, just as it's taken me almost as long to write my The Dark Knight Rises review; it's hard for me to wrap this up without including my thoughts on the trilogy's concluding chapter in here. But what's clear is that with two movies alone, Nolan has elevated the genre to the level of not just great Batman movies, but great movies period that are also Batman movies. The label of "great movies that happen to have Batman in them" are also bandied about, but it implies that Batman is a secondary element - or that Nolan is not a true Batman fan and merely used the character as an excuse vehicle to make his own crime thriller films. I'll have no truck with that kind of fanboy carping. What Nolan has done is not just to adapt existing Batman comics (even if Batman Begins and The Dark Knight drew inspiration from classic stories such as Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween and The Killing Joke), but to reinvent and reinterpret them - as comics often do - to tell wholly new Batman stories. Or to be precise, a single wholly new Batman story, in a trilogy of films. So yeah, let's get down to The Dark Knight Rises already.

It's less amazing the second time round

The Amazing Spider-Man
My rating:




As good as it was, Batman Begins - the first of Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy - heralded an unhealthy trend in Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking: that of the reboot. I say "unhealthy" because I like continuity. After Batman & Robin, precisely no one wanted Joel Schumacher to make another sequel - and after having gone through Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer and George Clooney, precisely no one was begrudging Christian Bale his turn as a more serious, realistic Batman. But after Batman Begins' success, studios quickly learned that they could recast and reinvent and reboot lucrative film franchises as and when they liked; as long as the property is popular enough, the movie - any movie - would always make money. The Amazing Spider-Man, Sony/Columbia's reboot of the Spider-Man franchise from Raimi's 2002-2004-2007 trilogy, has already made a respectable (if not outstanding) figure at the box-office, so it looks like the lesson still applies.

Which is sad, because it still doesn't prove that Spider-Man ever needed to be rebooted.

Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) was only four years old when his parents disappeared under mysterious circumstances, leaving him in the care of his Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen) and Aunt May (Sally Field). Years later, as a high school senior, he finds his father's old briefcase and some scientific papers hidden inside, leading him to investigate his father's former partner, Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). Connors is researching cross-species genetics in order to discover a means to regenerate lost limbs - specifically, his disabled left arm. It is at Connors' lab at the Oscorp corporation that Peter gets bitten by the fateful spider that gives him his spider-like superpowers - although this time, his web shooters are mechanical devices based on an Oscorp-developed "biocable." But as he continues exploring these powers - in between romancing Connors' head intern and schoolmate Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone), whose police chief father George Stacy (Denis Leary) is no fan of masked vigilantes - Uncle Ben is shot and killed by the criminal whom Peter could have earlier stopped, but didn't. And whilst Peter struggles to deal with his guilt, Connors is also facing pressure from his corporate superior, Dr. Ratha (Irrfan Khan) to deliver results - pressure that leads him to test his reptile DNA-based formula on himself.

See, the thing about Batman Begins (and I really hope I'm not talking too much about it now; I'm planning a Retro Review soon) is that it was different enough from the series it was rebooting to justify its existence. This movie does not. The all-too-familiar parts of Peter Parker's origin story feel like a rehash, and engenders a feeling of restlessness and impatience to just get it over with already. And the new stuff aren't so much departures as they are omissions; no Harry Osborne, no J. Jonah Jameson, and no "with great power comes great responsibility." I once ranted that it's unfair to deem a film "unnecessary", but I now have to issue a mea culpa. The Amazing Spider-Man is unnecessary, because we've seen this story before - even if it is well-made, and even if Spider-Man is still fun to watch.

Andrew Garfield is already being praised in some circles as being a major improvement over Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker. I'm not seeing it, although I thought Garfield did fine. (Mostly I'm just surprised there's so much dislike for Maguire's version. Since when?) The movie doesn't belabour Peter's downtroddenness; he's just an average gawky and awkward teenage boy with occasional hints of cockiness and arrogance. Garfield plays this well; this Peter Parker is perhaps a more well-rounded character than in Raimi's films, which again, tend to portray him as life's butt monkey. On the other hand, the simple purity of his character arc gets diluted here, to the point where Uncle Ben's death doesn't even seem like the catalyst for his dedication to a life of selflessness. He puts on the costume and the web shooters and goes out beating up criminals at night, primarily to find his uncle's killer, and somehow by and by decides to help people instead.

There's no avoiding comparing each cast member, since that's the most visible difference between the two versions. Martin Sheen has more personality than Cliff Robertson, but Sally Field seems wrong - although that may be due to the script giving her far too little screentime, reducing her to a non-entity after Uncle Ben's death. Emma Stone is one of the biggest improvements; where Kirsten Dunst's Mary Jane Watson was dull (and extremely ill-served by her scripts), Stone's Gwen Stacy is irresistibly cute, has great chemistry with Garfield, and lets her exercise her considerable comedy chops. Unfortunately, the villain is no improvement at all. Rhys Ifans creates gravitas and sympathy for Dr. Connors, but when he becomes the Lizard, things get murky and his characterisation gets slapdash. How does a guy go from wanting to regenerate his disabled arm to trying to turn all of New York into mutated lizard-monsters?

And that brings us to the world in which these characters live in. The one Raimi created was clearly a comicbook world; the characters were deliberately campy, the emotions deliberately heightened, the drama deliberately corny, and the audience's disbelief deliberately suspended. It's a fine balance to walk - and Spider-Man 3 in particular took a nosedive off that line - but it was still a clear and consistent artistic vision. Director Marc Webb doesn't quite succeed in creating his own new vision. The movie seems to be taking a more serious, realistic tone, up until people start turning into giant lizards. I've said before that tone is the most important thing for a comicbook superhero movie to get right, and while Webb doesn't do anything wrong per se, the fantastical elements still don't quite seem to gel with the more grounded ones. (To be honest, it feels like the studio re-edited Webb's cut.)

But besides a much improved female lead character, the best thing it's got going for it are its action scenes - a critical factor for a superhero movie. While there's nothing here that beats the inventiveness of the subway train fight in Spider-Man 2, this Spider-Man looks, and moves, a lot better than the first Spider-Man at least. The action choreography is also terrific, and the way Spider-Man uses his web shooters as close-quarters-combat weapons is very cool. Most of all, the web-slinging scenes are beautifully done, and bring to cinematic life the pure kinetic thrill of swinging across city streets like Spider-Man. I don't know how many shots were live-action and how many were CGI, but the seams are invisible; it all looks real, and not like an obvious CGI figure. If there's any reason at all to reboot the franchise, it would be this: to take advantage of current special effects technology and make a Spider-Man that lives up to every comicbook-reading kid's imagination.

Then again, Raimi's Spider-Man 4 could've done the exact same thing. And that would have the huge advantage of being a fresh new chapter in Peter Parker's life, which, goddammit, is what we want to see: something new. According to reports, the (inevitable) sequels to this reboot would focus more on the mystery of Peter's parents and why they disappeared so suddenly. Which, okay, that's something we haven't seen before, although it's not exactly an iconic part of the character's story and the hints of it that we see here don't really have anyone salivating in anticipation for more. (Which is precisely also the effect of the post-credits scene. It's completely meaningless. Learn from Marvel, guys!) But for better or worse, that's what we're gonna get, and that's what we're getting right now: a Spider-Man movie that is pretty good, pretty fun, pretty enjoyable, but just isn't what anybody really wanted.

NEXT REVIEW: 8 Jam
Expectations: tiru Merantau Warrior sekarang ya, Ahmad Idham?

The Spider-Man that was

Yeah, let's do this! It's been ages since I last posted a Retro Review, even though I enjoy doing them. And a retrospective look at the Sam Raimi Spider-Man trilogy is in order, since a reboot of the entire franchise has just come our way. The initial news of which was greeted with, in our uniquely Malaysian vernacular, "aiyoo, whaffor?" Indeed, it seems like a very short five years between Spider-Man 3 and this new The Amazing Spider-Man; it took seven years after the much-(and justly-)maligned Batman & Robin before the much better-received (and just plain better) Batman Begins came out. Thing is, despite the fan backlash towards the last installment, no one really thought the Spider-Man series went off the rails the way the Batman franchise did under Joel Schumacher. All its elements - from director to every cast member - seemed solid enough to deliver a much better Spider-Man 4, which was what we were all hoping for. Yet here we are, with a total reboot and a completely new creative vision, with all the uncertainty that brings. So before we check out what Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone hath wrought, let's see what baggage they have to contend with.


Spider-Man (2002)
My rating:




This is the only one I watched in cinemas, and I wasn't that hot about it at the time. I went with a friend who's a Spider-Man fanboy and he was pretty ecstatic about it (then again, he doesn't have the greatest taste in movies - sorry Ray), but I just thought it was alright. My opinion hasn't changed much watching it 10 years later. In fact, the opening scenes seemed terribly contrived in making Peter Parker the world's most put-upon high school student, beleaguered by everything from evil jock bullies to a school bus driver who drives past him for no good reason. But thing is, Raimi is going for a deliberate tonality here: a broad, purposefully corny approach that faithfully adapts the original Silver Age Spider-Man comics of the early 1960s, in all their wide-eyed earnestness and trademark Stan Lee bombast. It takes a bit of getting used to, which I eventually did - but those early high school scenes are still annoyingly on-the-nose.

It got better after Peter gets bitten by that famous radioactive genetically-engineered spider, and starts being a superhero movie. Watching him explore his newfound powers is fun, as are his initial exploits at superheroing; the circa 2002 CGI effects look a little cartoony when it comes to animating human figures, but there's a palpable sense of joy in the web-slinging and crime-busting. In between, there's the death of Uncle Ben, the tragic event that defines Peter's destiny - which didn't really affect me much. Much more effective are the Daily Bugle scenes with a pitch-perfect J. Jonah Jameson in J.K. Simmons, perhaps the entire series' greatest asset. Raimi's cornball tone works better at broad comedy than broad drama, and that includes the somewhat soppy romance between Peter and Mary Jane Watson. The romance factor is a big part of the film (as well as the other two), with MJ portrayed as the one great love of Peter's life. Yeah, and she goes through no less than three guys in one movie.

Kirsten Dunst gets flack for being the weakest member of the recurring cast; although she's not great, the fault lies more in how the character was written - needy, shallow, and ever the shrieking damsel in distress. Tobey Maguire fares better, and he earned quite a bit of acclaim for his performance - although I found him a little inconsistent. He, along with James Franco as Harry Osborn, seem like they don't quite get Raimi's precise tone, though both would improve in the next two movies. But the one actor who got it off the bat is Willem Dafoe, as a sneering, cackling, deliciously scenery-chewing Norman Osborne/Green Goblin. Now that's how you do a broad comicbook movie villain; I enjoyed him more than any other member of the cast (aside from Simmons). And I enjoyed this movie just fine, up to and including the fun superpowered action/fight scenes. But ten years ago, it didn't make me keen to watch its inevitable sequels - and which I didn't, not in cinemas. I only like it just a little bit more now.


Spider-Man 2 (2004)
My rating:




Widely regarded as the best of the trilogy, as agreed upon by fans, RottenTomatoes (93% approval, although the first film also garnered a respectable 89%) and even Roger Ebert (who gave it a perfect 4 stars over the first one's 2-½). I agree it's an improvement over its predecessor, but in subtle ways. The cornball dialogue remains, as does the cartoonishly heightened world it's set in; we have here a genius scientist working on a fantastic, world-changing piece of technology, and oh by the way, he also has this other fantastic, world-changing piece of technology lying around that he just uses to work on the first fantastic, world-changing piece of technology. The scene in which both are introduced would induce eye-rolls in most discerning viewers, if it weren't for the fact that what preceded it carefully laid the foundation for suspending your disbelief for it. Raimi is asking - nicely - that you just go with it, and most people did.

Because there are plenty of rewards in store once you do. The action scenes for one, including one of the best superpowered fight scenes ever filmed in live-action. Dr. Octopus is a marvellous work of character design and special effects, and never once do his mechanical arms not look real. And Alfred Molina's performance doesn't imitate Dafoe's, but matches him in essaying another pitch-perfect comicbook villain - one that engenders real sympathy and pathos. But it is in its portrayal of Peter Parker that this movie succeeds best as the definitive cinematic Spider-Man, capturing his angst, his dire financial straits, and his difficulties in balancing an ordinary life with his superheroing exploits. Spider-Man has always been hailed as the first costumed superhero to deal with ordinary true-to-life concerns in addition to fighting supervillains, and Spider-Man 2 captures it superbly.

Of course, the corniness and on-the-noseness is still there, as seen in a scene where Peter debates his life choices with a fantasy figure of Uncle Ben in what looks like a vision of heaven - and it isn't even a dream sequence. But the tone succeeds at endearing us to our hero rather than making us roll our eyes. Somewhat less successful is MJ who ends up the damsel in distress for Spidey to rescue again. Still, even when she spends the entire movie pining after Peter whilst engaged to another man, she comes off better than in the last one. (Can't blame a girl for moving on after the guy she gave her heart to turned her down.) The grand romance between Peter and MJ is another thing this sequel does well, and ends the film on an anticipatory note of big changes in both their lives. And yes, since this is the one that left me wanting more of Spidey, I'd definitely agree to putting it among the best superhero movies of all time.


Spider-Man 3 (2007)
My rating:




And this is the one that spoiled it all. Although, as you can probably tell from my rating, I don't think it's the trainwreck that everyone says it is - but before we get to the good parts, the bad parts are pretty bad. It starts off with Peter being popular and well-liked, in a relationship with MJ, and on top of the world for once - a nice development from the status quo of the first two movies. But this quickly turns into both of them becoming remarkably unlikable. Even before Peter starts strutting down the street like an idiot, he's already insensitive and inconsiderate of his girlfriend - who doesn't earn our sympathies either, being all whiny and petulant. (And who then sucks face with her ex. Seriously, can this woman ever stay faithful?) And here's the thing: this is all Raimi. It's all in the same vein with his broad, cornball tone. He can blame the studio for forcing Venom into the movie, but emo hair Peter, jazz-dancing Peter, and a Peter who flaunts a new girl in front of his recently-broken-up girlfriend - all the most hated parts of Spider-Man 3 - are definitely Raimi's ideas.

Of course, the inclusion of Venom is another huge problem - namely, there's too much going on. Bad enough that Flint Marko a.k.a. Sandman turns out to be Uncle Ben's real killer - an unwise retread of Peter's origin story, methinks - there's also the alien symbiote that at first infects our hero, then finds a more welcoming host in Peter's photographer rival, Eddie Brock, Jr. And while Raimi and his writers valiantly attempt to tie it all together, both Marko/Sandman and Brock/Venom are reduced to sadly underdeveloped characters and poorly-resolved subplots. (Despite Thomas Haden Church's and Topher Grace's performances; the series has never lacked for great casting.) The seams are stretched to breaking point when Brock just happens to be where Peter is while the latter is getting rid of his black costume, thus allowing it to jump from hero to villain; you know the plot is in trouble when it has to resort to such a wild coincidence. And that's not even mentioning the movie's third villain: Harry Osborne, Peter's best friend-turned New Goblin.

Which is actually one of the things it does well, largely because it's the third act of a storyline that had been building since the first movie. Their teamup in the climactic battle is fun, and the well-choreographed action scenes benefit from the series' biggest budget to date. (Unfortunately, MJ gets kidnapped by the villain yet again; seriously, can you guys ever find something else for her to do?) Which ends the movie on a not-entirely-unsatisfying note - hence 3 stars - but it's a movie that gets worse the more you think about it. The damage it does to the character of one of comics' most beloved superheroes is galling, as is the waste of one of his most popular villains from the '90s. Which Raimi, being a fan of the Silver Age Spider-Man, has no love for, and it shows; even Venom's design is a simple recolouring of Spidey's usual digs, and doesn't even look like the strikingly matte black costume from the comics. No, I didn't hate it, but I can understand all too well why the fans did.

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Despite fan disapproval, Spider-Man 3 is actually the most financially successful of the trilogy and Sony/Columbia's highest-grossing film to date. Which clearly indicates that the split between the studio and Raimi had to have been acrimonious; why would they fire him after he delivered such a huge hit? But fire him they did, and with him went Maguire and Dunst and therefore the entire franchise - or at least, this iteration of it. How successful Webb's reboot remains to be seen (and by the time you read this, I will already have seen it and be writing my review), but having seen the entire Raimi Spider-Man trilogy, it's definitely a shame that he wasn't allowed to keep helming the series. No matter how bad the last one was, I don't think any Spider-fan was angry enough to not give him another chance, or who wasn't eager to see his Spider-Man 4. But that's one for the Movies That Could've Been Awesome (But Never Got Made) list now.

Assembled at last

Marvel's The Avengers
My rating:




Sigh... yes, it is indeed released as Marvel's The Avengers, as if we would not know by now that the superheroes in this movie are from Marvel. (And it's not a foreign-markets-only thing either, that's what it's called in the States.) It would appear that they are taking no chances with how familiar the general (read: non-comicbook-reading) audience are with their intellectual property; even after successful movies starring Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America, they still think the Avengers brand name needs a little extra push to achieve equal recognition. That's indicative of how carefully Marvel has been developing their shared universe - something that's never been tried before in cinema, after all. And given that every film they've made so far has been box-office successes - and more importantly, good movies - their efforts have certainly been paying off.

But this, this is the payoff. And it is every bit as good.

Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the Asgardian god of mischief, has returned - and his mischief has become far deadlier. He steals the Tesseract, a source of massive unlimited power and a portal to other worlds, from a SHIELD facility, and brainwashes Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) into his loyal servants. A desperate Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) calls for help from Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans), Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Dr. Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), summoned by Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) from his hiding place in India. They are later joined by Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Asgardian god of thunder, who has come to stop his brother Loki and bring him home. All the heroes are brought to SHIELD's massive helicarrier, where Fury and agents Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) are waiting to brief them on their mission. But this is the first time that such disparate personalities are forced to work together - and while they bicker and fight, Loki's army of alien Chitauri are on their way to invade the earth.

It's already being hailed as the greatest comicbook superhero movie ever, but it's not; not really. The need to juggle so many larger-than-life characters renders it unwieldy at times, particularly in the first half. It's a little slow - not in the sense of "too much talking, not enough fighting", a comment that never fails to annoy me - but in the sense that it spends too much time on our heroes not dealing with the world-shaking threat that has been introduced. It's become a comicbook cliché that when two or more superheroes meet in a crossover, they will invariably fight each other before teaming up against the real villain, a cliché that this movie adheres to. But the clashing personalities is a little contrived, especially since the only two who really can't stop bickering are Steve Rogers and Tony Stark; Cap and Iron Man seem to have gotten a maturity downgrade since their respective movies. And the plot involving Loki's invasion plan is rather simple - perhaps by necessity.

Aaand that's about it as far as flaws go, 'cos the rest is aaall good. Turns out Joss Whedon's flair for character-based drama and humour-laced action fits perfectly within the Marvel cinematic universe; every movie in it has aimed for the exact same blend of thrills and fun anchored by strong lead characters. And in maintaining continuity with the three previously-established superhero franchises (well, one franchise and two franchise-to-bes), it also serves as a semi-sequel to all three - possibly even a fourth, although the connection to the two previous Hulk movies is clearly weaker. Cap, Tony and Thor are recognisably where we left them at the end of their respective last movies; Cap alienated from a time no longer his own, Tony starting a new relationship with Pepper Potts, and Thor still pining for Jane Foster. (Although that only gets dealt with in a quick throwaway scene.)

And then it allows every member of its huge ensemble plenty of moments to shine. This is a remarkable trick to pull off in a movie, and Marvel's The Avengers does it with flair to spare. I was initially worried that Tony, who leads the most successful of the Marvel movies to date, would overshadow the others; the trailers certainly made it seem like everyone else is going to be the butt of his non-stop quips. But no, he didn't at all. Everyone else gets plenty of chances to endear themselves to the audience - from Thor conflicted over his enmity with his brother, to Cap emerging as the true leader of the team, to Tony momentarily losing his snark when a tragic event leaves him unexpectedly shaken. Even Black Widow, pruriently played by Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2 but making no greater impression than eye candy, gets some much-needed characterisation here - and Johansson finally proves herself worthy of playing an action heroine and comicbook character.

Because another great strength of the Marvel movies is pitch-perfect casting. It's not just the heroes who need it, it's also the villains, as Tom Hiddleston's Loki proves. He runs the gamut from tyrannically arrogant to gleefully devious to ragingly sadistic - he has a positively Hannibal Lecter-ian scene with Black Widow in which he delivers an awesome speech (I really wanna know who came up with "you mewling quim!") - yet still manages to show his hurt and angry side with Thor. Hiddleston is as much an essential part of the ensemble as any of the heroes - but the breakout member is definitely Mark Ruffalo, the third actor to play Bruce Banner/Hulk and the best. Ruffalo plays him as someone not only always trying to control his anger, but also saddened by that fact; as if he knows his greatest curse is not any gamma-ray mutation but his own character weakness. That combination of underlying uncontrollable rage and sadness is something neither Eric Bana nor Edward Norton figured out during their turns at the bat, and it's amazing that the character finally came alive in a movie that's not even his own. It helps that when the Hulk emerges, he provides some of the most awesome action moments.

Which brings us to the action scenes - which are the biggest and most spectacular by far amongst the current crop of superhero movies. I've said before that superpowered action scenes are exactly what people want from comicbook movies, and Whedon gives it to us in spades through an almost hour-long climactic battle against the invading Chitauri in the streets of Manhattan. If there's one quibble, it's that it sometimes seems to take pains to allow each of the Avengers a chance to contribute; Thor, Iron Man and Hulk have all the superpowers, but it just so happens that both Hawkeye's arrows and Black Widow's pea-shooter handguns can take Chitauri down handily. But it's a small nit to pick when you're getting an awesomely massive battle that perfectly translates comicbook action onto the big screen.

And if there's one thing that Marvel's The Avengers proves, it's that everything that's been done in comics translates pretty damn well onto screen. Everything from the over-the-top superheroic action to the goofy world with the colourful costumes and cheesy monikers and fantastical powers borne of hoary sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural clichés. It all works in a movie, as long as it's done with the same amount of care and respect for its source material as Marvel has been doing. Which is practically revolutionary, considering it wasn't too long ago that Hollywood studios still thought of iconic comicbook properties as needing "reinventing" - e.g. a Superman who doesn't fly, and a Batman who lives in a junkyard with a black version of Alfred named Big Al. In particular, what this film proves is that the comicbook concept of a shared universe, where stories and characters criss-cross between franchises, works just fine on film - more than fine, in fact. The fact that Iron Man resides in the same world as Thor or Hulk or Captain America, and that they can appear in each other's movies and maintain continuity with each other's ongoing stories, enriches them all and makes their world an even more appealing one. Why did it take Hollywood so long to figure this out?

And so, four stars - on par with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger and what I would've given the first Iron Man had I reviewed it here. It fulfilled the promise of all those earlier movies, but did not exceed or transcend them. For as much as I've been raving about it - and as much as I've banged the drum on the need for superhero movies to be faithful - this article (about the Thor movie) makes a damn good point about how superhero movies also need to be innovative, as opposed to being too faithful. Zack Snyder's Watchmen comes to mind, and while Marvel's The Avengers is by no means as slavishly dull as that one, it doesn't do anything that 30-plus years of Marvel comics haven't already done either. Which is still great for anyone who's never opened the pages of a Marvel comic in their lives - which I can possibly count myself amongst their number. So, a very good movie, but by no means the greatest comicbook superhero movie ever. That honour still goes to The Dark Knight.

NEXT REVIEW: Chow Kit
Expectations: another Songlap?