Category Archives: Wanted

Abraham Lincoln: WTF Generator

Posted on by

If you’re a subscriber to this blog, there’s a chance you wince whenever you get an email saying there’s a new post, or when you click the link to the main page and then scroll down to see how long it is, and scroll, and scroll, and scroll again, and head past a few images that haven’t even started to load yet, and then keep scrolling, and by now you feel like Ed Harris at the end of The Abyss, because you keep scrolling and Jesus Christ, the space-age lung goop is drying up or something, where are the glowing aliens with their magical water technology? Well worry not. You won’t have to dive too far. There’s not going to be much in this review of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, because there’s not much in the movie.

Based on Seth Grahame-Smith’s novel of the same name, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter creates an alternate history in which Abraham Lincoln becomes a vampire hunter. Now, I want you to ponder that idea. I want you to think beyond your initial reaction, which is probably, “I wonder what the hashtag game is”. Imagine now that you have to expand that, and come up with a story with three acts, antagonist/protagonist relationships, an inciting incident, and all the other important storytelling elements, extrapolating from that initial absurd collision of history and fantasy fiction.

I bet you come up with a story involving a tragic past, a quest for vengeance, a mentor with a dark secret, and some smattering of historical elements, adding plenty of winking references to the absurdity of the premise because it’s just so silly. You’ll start to write a synopsis down, and it’ll go okay for a bit, but after a while you’ll feel like you’re wasting an opportunity to do something with some oomph, and you’ll think that there’s possibly more to this idea than just some daft jokes. Perhaps there’s something deeper to be said, drawing a parallel between the mythical relationship between vampires and their prey, and the real-world relationship between Southern plantation owners and their slaves. Maybe there’s more to this story. Out go the jokes, in come the metaphors.

Which is what has happened here, though this can only be said with a million caveats. AL:VH has been reshot and recut so extensively that it’s impossible to judge it accurately with any confidence, because any clues to the filmmakers’ original intentions have been lost somewhere in the editing room. Alarm bells ring early on with some clumsy time-skipping and conveniently expositional voiceovers; they become klaxons midway through when Lincoln’s narration fills in large character arcs with a single line, and we go from Senate-debating Lincoln to president to civil war in the space of approximately 30 seconds.

So perhaps a longer cut, or an earlier cut, exists in which the connection between slavery and vampirism is made clearly, instead of here alluded to at times as some kind of equivalence, with slave traders sharing space with monsters who feast on the blood of the slaves — the merest hint of an idea, and not a particularly interesting one — but usually ignored in favour of generic monstery evil. Nevertheless, even if this metaphor worked more clearly — the repeated line, “as long as one man is a slave, no man is free”, is obviously meant to bear the weight of the imagined comparison — it’s still a miscalculation that cannot be fixed, at least as far as I can see.

This is not to say genre fiction cannot represent complicated and controversial themes. I’ve previously argued that genre fiction is often the best way to tackle such things. Artists freed of the obligation to depict real situations accurately — which never works out well and only creates discord between opposing sides of an issue — can tackle complex themes through metaphors that speak more forcefully than mere hectoring. Blade Runner‘s commentary on slavery, X-Men‘s metaphorical portrayal of the effects of racism and/or homophobia, The Handmaid’s Tale‘s horrific and timely parable about the subjugation of women, Attack The Block‘s depiction of protagonists ignored by society until they can only find self-respect through criminality, before finding a real cause by defending their neighbours against a force that, as one character says, “is so black you almost can’t see it” (I’m paraphrasing a bit from memory).

The genre fiction-as-gateway-to-truth argument doesn’t apply with AL:VH, and in fact detracts from it. The real Lincoln fought against slavery already (I think that’s a well-known fact), but instead of this being Abe’s own ideological conviction, albeit a more complicated position than is often depicted, now we’re presented with some needless alternate history in which he hates vampires more. Lincoln’s position, one which was controversial enough that it tore a country apart, was a brave one, and to depict it here as being as much an act of revenge against the vampires who killed Lincoln’s mother as an effort to right a disgusting injustice is incredibly problematic.

Even worse, it recasts real world tragedies as the consequences of inconsequential fictional events. The battle of Gettysburg is almost lost because of the presence of Confederate vampires who burst through the lines and massacre Union soldiers. The trade and abduction of slaves into the South is merely an appeasement gesture to keep vampires from invading the North. Lincoln’s mother Nancy died of “milk sickness”, and his son Willie died of typhoid, but here it’s because of vampires; in the latter case the boy’s death is an act of vengeance from the vampires who want to strike at Lincoln for opposing their plans to subjugate all of America.

Yes, not only is the actual death of the actual son of an actual president of the actual United States used as a manipulative plot point, his murder is avenged by Mary Lincoln, who shoots the murderous vampire with a silver bullet. A woman who in real life suffered from clinical depression caused by her grief is here cast as a vengeance-stricken action-hero-in-waiting, who gets to re-balance the scales of right and wrong with yet another tedious slow-motion mini-action scene. These people may be dead and may have no descendants, but even so, this was real tragedy, turned into a predictable dramatic beat in an undistinguished action movie. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding,” doesn’t even cover it. [1]

AL:VH is wrong on so many levels that by the middle of the movie I was openly saying, “What the fuck?” out loud at the screen in the hope that the manager would notice my anguish and set fire to the projector. [2] It’s possible that the movie would be easier to swallow if it played the premise for laughs, even though the central conceit would struggle to fill out a College Humor skit. That might mitigate the gratuitous co-opting of real-world tragedy, replacing the tasteless dabbling in humourless social commentary with plays on the action-horror genre, or by appropriating Grindhouse exploitation tropes in much the same way Tarantino managed with Inglourious Basterds — a cheeky riff on real-world events that so obviously existed within an alternate universe beholden to cinematic rules that Tarantino could shockingly assassinate Hitler at the end and miraculously pull the moment off.

But Timur Bekmambetov and Seth Grahame-Smith (and the one known re-writer, Simon Kinberg, credited on the poster but not in the film) don’t seem interested in trying to derive any fun out of that thin jokey idea, and instead doubles-down on the seriousness. Again, theoretically this approach could work, but only if dealing with a fictional premise. Grahame-Smith kickstarted this sub-genre of fiction with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and that may be easier to swallow. But it doesn’t matter that this doesn’t present itself as historically accurate (only an idiot would think it was, of course); using tragic historical events as raw material for a frivolous action movie made by people deluded enough to think they’re making a statement is a colossal misjudgement.

The end result is ponderous, derivative, dull, and nauseating. It’s not even interesting as a Timur Bekmambetov movie. He’s never made anything good, but he has a visual imagination that has its own pleasures. He specialises in hollow treats, but what treats they can be. Anyone hoping for something as delightfully silly as the Loom of Fate or bullet-bending a la miserable nerd wank-fantasy Wanted will be very disappointed. Those signature moments are few and far-between here, likely a consequence of the (relatively) low budget. Instead of his usual bravura set-pieces, there’s so much ramping that it should immediately be retitled Abraham Lincoln: Rampire Hunter.

And yet this could become the most beautiful unnecessary movie of the year. Whoever decided to hire Caleb Deschanel as the cinematographer deserves a medal, or censure; I’m not sure which yet. The last thing he worked on was Jim Sheridan’s appalling Dream House; two movies before that the ethically muddled My Sister’s Keeper. Both terrible, both luminously shot. It’s heartbreaking seeing him squander his talent on this chaff, and I hope that William Friedkin’s Killer Joe is a break from this trend. Deschanel’s work on AL:VH is flashier than his stunning, ASC Award-winning work on Roland Emmerich’s The Patriot [3],  but there is pleasure to be derived from these autumnal colours, the American past repainted with a palette of auburn and rust, piercing blue moonlight serving as contrast.

It doesn’t matter, though, and neither does the commendably focused work from star Benjamin Walker [4], co-stars Mackie and Simpson, and underused acting titan Alan Tudyk. Even if you’re not troubled by the misappropriation of real events, there’s nothing else going on here. It’s not educational [5], it’s repetitive, and the use of vampire mythology is confounding. The vampires have magical rules about not killing each other that exist only to power a silly mid-movie twist (involving that hoary old trope, the vampire hunter’s trainer), they can be hurt by silver, and can walk around in daylight, meaning there’s no reason they can’t just take over the world. They’re barely even vampires, merely inhuman cannon fodder to be dispatched by our axe-spinning hero.

This is the kind of soul-deadening guff that defies mockery, though one outburst by Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a bad-movie-hall-of-famer. Otherwise it’s just an Underworld prequel with a silly punchline gimmick, less interesting than even the second Blade sequel, as competent as Scott Charles Stewart’s Priest but with a dodgy historical aspect, as poorly edited as an Uwe Boll Bloodrayne movie; just another crappy vampire movie that has no reason to exist, and probably no audience to desire it. The reason this one stings the eyes more than the others is that it thinks it has the right to play with tragic events that haven’t quite scarred America, because in order for the wounds of slavery and civil war to be scars they’d have to heal first.

Return 1. One example among many: the character of Joshua Speed, one of Lincoln’s circle of friends, is obviously meant to have mixed feelings about Lincoln’s urge to stop slavery; there are hints that this version of Speed (played by future Old Dependable Jimmi Simpson) has similar doubts to the real Speed, but this sub-plot has been utterly removed so that at one moment he’s seemingly hostile to Lincoln’s African-American friend William Johnson (played by current Old Dependable Anthony Mackie), and the next they’re besties. Ten seconds later, he’s gone from being oblivious to vampires to being a member of Lincoln’s mysteriously efficient vamp-killing gang, with one hasty line of exposition to paper over the poorly edited excision.

Return 2. For those clutching their pearls, don’t worry; the rushed release of this movie, which betrays the studio’s shame at making it in the first place, meant there was nobody sitting anywhere nearby. Or maybe the room filled up after I got in and they were struck dumb by the hypnotic monotony of this film’s familiar rhythms.

Return 3. A movie that also distorts history but only just enough to seem like truth, which is even more insidious and despicable than this gallumphing failure’s gauche error.

Return 4. I look forward to seeing Benjamin Walker play Young Bryan Mills in Taken Begins, because dang, he’s the spitting image of Liam Neeson in this, making me even sadder that the aging pretend-pugilist isn’t playing the actual non-vampire-hunting Abraham Lincoln in Spielberg’s forthcoming biopic.

Return 5. Actually, there is evidence that some effort has been put into depicting some elements of Lincoln’s life in a new context. In real life Lincoln put off marrying Mary, which some have thought to be proof that the president was gay, but here Lincoln’s reticence is borne of his fear of involving the woman he loves in his vampire hunting. As for William Johnson, the free African-American who acted as Lincoln’s personal valet, he just fills the role of Falcon to Abe’s Captain America, on duty for exposition-delivering needs, providing proof of Abe’s liberal credentials, and getting in a little bit of vampire hammering at the end. His actual history isn’t mentioned, and even his past is fictionalised; here he features in Abe’s past in order to dramatise the future president’s first encounter with slavery and vampires. The stories of slaves and even free men once more sidelined.

Coming of Age, With The Help Of Cathartic Violence

Posted on by

Of all the sub-genres still being explored by filmmakers, the coming-of-age tale is the one that interests me the least. Far too often we see the worst kind of growing-pains tale, a personal vision that substitutes insight with universalities and sentimentality. When such a tale hews closely to the standard coming-of-age template, I tend to tune out, with extra indifference if it’s obvious the tale is autobiographical. Sometimes, though, it feels as if critics and audiences are unable to resist the lure of those rose-tinted glasses, leading to some baffling praise. Earlier this year I watched with confusion as An Education was showered with plaudits for pushing an electrifying yet wasted Carey Mulligan along a pre-set track of moral quandaries and difficult life choices before we got to a final scene that would only have been worse if she had turned to the camera and said, “So you can see, my experiences with that fey and needy art thief, and those terrible choices I once made were certainly… An Education!” This is the kind of clanging nonsense that passes for quality drama these days? Dearie me…

Pretty much every coming-of-age tale I’ve seen has rubbed me up the wrong way, possibly because my childhood was infinitely tedious to a degree that makes romanticising an impossibility. Films like The Secret Life of Bees, Cinema Paradiso, or My Life as a Dog might pretend there was something precious about crossing a line from innocence to adult rapture, with golden photography and swelling music, but my own memories of childhood were of listening to a lot of terrible music on Radio 1, riding my bike into very hard objects, repeatedly re-reading issues of 2000AD and Star Wars Weekly (featuring StarLord, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Adam Warlock!), avoiding punches thrown by bullies of both genders, and waiting for Battle of the Planets to start. What is there to reminisce about? Being a kid was the worst.

Which is not to say I’m completely immune to the genre’s charms, when it’s done right and the urge to romanticise the past is resisted. Gregory’s Girl is as unambitious a film as you can imagine, but Bill Forsyth’s superb comic timing, and the excellent casting, make it a classic of the sub-genre. Last year’s Adventureland was another beautifully judged example, with writer/director Greg Mottola keeping things low-key, even managing to keep Ryan Reynolds’ japery in check so that he could deliver his best and most winning performance, even though he was ostensibly playing the “villain” of the piece. Usually, though, my ADHD brain can only cope with this semi-autobiographical, navel-gazing genre when things are amped up past the point of universal recognition. Previous favourites include Alexander Mackendrick’s A High Wind in Jamaica (coming-of-age on a pirate ship), Heavenly Creatures (coming-of-age with added murder), and Léon (coming-of-age while working as an assassin’s apprentice).

To this list I can happily add Drew Barrymore’s lovable Whip It, and Matthew Vaughn’s frankly astonishing Kick-Ass. Whip It is a film you have to try hard not to like. Its ambling pace, low-key crises and endearing cast make it a joy to watch, helped by a performance of such easy charm from Ellen Page that her cooler-than-thou shenanigans in Juno are easily eradicated from memory. Playing frustrated teen Bliss Cavendar, Page’s quiet sadness, resigned as she is to a life living out her mother’s dreams of a good life, and her eventual triumphant rebirth as roller derby champ Babe Ruthless are beautifully layered, her transition between the two states done with such delicacy and charisma that any reservations I’ve had about her in the past have been blown away.

She’s not alone. Director Barrymore knows enough about acting to give her excellent cast room to breathe, which means the quirks of each character seem to have grown out of smart acting choices, not the contrivances of some fourth-draft script-polisher jamming jokes in to liven up the script (which was solely written by roller derby athlete Shauna Cross, aka Maggie Mayhem). It reminded me of Peter Berg’s Welcome To The Jungle, where stock characters were played by character actors who knew enough about the craft to play around on set, bringing things to life in a way no amount of on-set revisions or post-production reshoots can ever do. It’s hard to single out anyone for extra credit on Whip It: from Daniel Stern as Bliss’ content but attentive father, to Alia Shawkat as her confident best friend, to the rollergirls including the superb Kristin Wiig, bad-ass Zoe Bell, Barrymore herself, and a wonderfully vicious Juliette Lewis. They’re all great.

Among the many things Barrymore does right is finding out how to use Andrew Wilson and Jimmy Fallon. Wilson’s stoner dude should lapse into parody, but his canny sense of tactics, belief in his team, and focus on the game save him from being some loser with long hair, and Wilson plays his frustration and eventual elation just right. Even more surprising is Fallon, a performer who usually seems unable to focus on what he is supposed to be doing, staring off into the distance or barely suppressing giggles (a recent rewatch of Taxi was rendered unbearable by his hapless mugging). Here he manages to make the lamest sporting cliches or come-ons funny by playing them absolutely straight, while somehow twisting them. Augh! It’s impossible to accurately describe what he brings to the table here: you just have to see it.

Even better than that is the ever-reliable Marcia Gay Harden, cast as the mother figure that Bliss rebels against. It’s a part that could so easily devolve into cartoonish unsubtlety, which Harden can play about as well as it can be done, as shown in Frank Darabont’s The Mist. Here she dials it back, in keeping with the genial tone, and manages to make her character frustrating, believable, and ultimately admirable, as she comes to realise that the small town pleasures she once had will not suffice for her restless daughter. As someone who could not wait to get out of my own hometown, and was supported by a mother who found my departure painful but necessary, this hit me hard in the gut. Tears were shed at several points.

Perhaps the most heartening thing about Whip It is the feminist tone, which is reinforced by truly inclusive sisterhood, strong independent women, supportive men who mostly take a back seat, and zero tolerance for bullshit from anyone. Many happy reviews have already pointed this out (at Feministing, fbomb, Equal Writes, and Yoruba Girl Dancing for a start), so I won’t go into it much, other than to say it was refreshing to see a movie get on with broadcasting this message with no hesitations or caveats. Women rock, they do what they want, they get a kick out of all of it, and they can compete with each other on a professional level without it being about impressing the hot guy. It’s pretty simple. How depressing that Whip It feels more like a happy accident than the normal state of affairs.

Most of the praise Barrymore deserves is for making a movie that is paced in such a peculiar and unique way. Despite the inclusion of hipster songs from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Jens Lekman, much of the film outside the game is quiet and reflective, meandering and unforced. Stephanie Zacharek and Scott Tobias liked the movie but felt Barrymore could have made the movie cohere more, but the pace struck me as dreamlike rather than accidentally slack. Lovely scenes like the underwater seduction scene or the chaotic party felt unforced, which is a godsend as Cross’ screenplay bangs on the coming-of-age buttons with all of its force. Finally I can see this as a plus: the blend of cozy familiarity and off-beat execution make the movie more than the sum of its parts. It should be a slight diversion, but its positive energy, quirky atmosphere and committed performances transform it into a triumph.

Much as I loved Whip It (and I did love it a whole heck-of-a-lot), it was inevitable that Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of the comic by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. was going to elicit an even more visceral response. Whip It managed to triumph over my apathy towards both coming-of-age movies and sports movies, and thus deserves praise, but Kick-Ass was already cross-breeding the first of those genres with superheroics, which automatically raises the stakes for someone who has lived with comics all his life. Riding on a wave of praise, Kick-Ass was nevertheless hobbled by my frustrations with Millar’s obsession with base wish-fulfilment fantasies, and my equal disdain for Vaughn’s lifeless directorial style. Layer Cake and Stardust were both professionally made films that generated not a single erg of emotional electricity, and the previous Millar adaptation – Wanted – was an annoying failure hiding behind shiny visuals. I was either going to be impressed by Kick-Ass, or left to futilely point out the nakedness of the Emperor.

It never occurred to me that I could be turned into a shaking, sobbing, ecstatic mess, eagerly and breathlessly proselytising about this movie to all and sundry, so desperate to see it again that I almost walked out of the cinema to buy a ticket for the next performance. Not since The Matrix has a film hit every single crowd-pleasing beat with such confidence and such good humour, resulting in a final act of such joyous, rousing energy that it took every bit of strength to not give the movie a round of applause as the credits rolled. How did Vaughn get it so right? Or his co-screenwriter Jane Goldman? It’s as if he sucked some of the life out of their previous collaboration Stardust, and injected it into this film. It’s like a rocket going off in your face, it’s so vibrant.

Those wish-fulfilment buttons are pushed with even less subtlety than in Whip It, and again the film is better for it. Protagonist Dave Lizewski is a loser who decides to become a superhero after being mugged one time too many, but it’s not revenge that powers him: it’s an urge to do some good in the world. While critics and moralisers froth at the mouth about the violence in Kick-Ass, they miss that the film is a clarion call to citizens to take more care of each other, to endeavour to do some good for our fellow man. Regular readers will know that heroes who never even seem to be interested in doing anything heroic, preferring instead to just obsess over their antagonist, often drive me into steaming rages.

And yes, Kick-Ass is coming under attack by those who fret about the effect this terrible, immoral piece of trash will have on the behaviour of an infinite league of Hypothetical Idiots, those imaginary dullards who are unfortunately primed by nature to respond to violent visual stimuli with an orgy of terrifying horror unleashed upon all of the village greens and duck ponds in all of mighty Albion (or baseball diamonds and apple pies in all of the U.S. of A.). We hear over and over again about how arms and legs are lopped off in the movie, how childhood has been perverted for cheap and easy laughs, how black humour has now progressed to a point where empathy has all but evaporated and society is on the brink of catastrophe just because a little girl says the C-word, but the beating heart of this movie is not lying on the floor in a pool of blood: it’s inside the chest of an inspirational person who seems as happy to look for lost cats as he is willing to risk his life for complete strangers. Every movie I love has a moment that makes me realise I’ve fallen for it, and Kick-Ass’ speech to three muggers – dissuading them from attacking him and the man he is trying to protect – is that moment. I did the little clapping thing I do when I get excited.

Roger Ebert’s disappointing, judgemental review (WARNING: BIG SPOILERS!) seems to be written from the point of view of someone so desperate to point a finger of horror at the film and scream at it for crimes against childhood that he has decided against even paying attention to the film: the worst kind of moralistic, thought-lite thinking imaginable. You expect it from a lemon-sucking, addle-brained twit like Christopher Tookey, but I expected more from Ebert. His sneering dismissal of the motivations of all the major characters, as well as one of the most important plot-threads in the film (the battle for Hit-Girl’s soul, painted with light touches that nevertheless do not render that battle trivial), show him up as someone who just could not be bothered to give the movie a chance, or to see if there was a message there at all.

Even if there wasn’t one, the plotting and character work is airtight. The motivations of every character are believable and human while also recognisable as the beats of the action and superhero genres. Much of the joy of the film is seeing the old made new again by looking at it from this slightly skewed perspective. The final act reckoning between the “good” guys and the “bad” guys is such a perfect homage-to and joke-at-the-expense-of the action genre that somewhere in Hollywood Shane Black’s heart grew three sizes. It helps that wonderful performances and an excellent grasp of the adolescent mindset make the characters so likeable, even the villains. These are humans in a cartoon world, and every choice and mistake and desire is recognisable and tragic.

Much of the last hour was excruciating to watch, as you fear for the safety of everyone involved in the misunderstandings and unfortunate betrayals of the clockwork plot, especially as many of the characters are utterly incompetent. Kick-Ass himself is no fighter. He has good intentions and no way of acting out on them. Watching him come to understand this is painful for him and the viewer. More than anything else, this makes you empathise with him, because no matter what he gets hit with, he keeps coming back for more, powered by righteousness and the desire to do better. Also great is how all of these characters are saved by each other, with loneliness being the worst threat to their sanity. It’s thrilling to see a movie embrace the insane concept that maybe, just maybe, kids today are equally at home using social media AND actually socialising with their friends, and are actually quite healthy and empowered by these twin modes of companionship.

None of this matters to our moral guardians. If Ebert’s review is a disappointment, Tookey’s is an abomination. Though it’s not unexpected that he not only dislikes all of the icky violence and “uncalled-for” profanity, or that he assumes the movie is a satire on comics and thus judges it a failure for not being one (which is, of course, easily explained away as the movie isn’t a satire and never ever sets out to be), his disgust at the character of Hit-Girl is extravagantly hyperbolic even for him. Railing against what he sees as the “sexualisation” of the character, he claims she is “sexually aggressive”, “sexy, like an even younger version of the baby- faced Oriental assassin in Tarantino’s Kill Bill 1″, “made to look as seductive as possible”, “shown in a classic schoolgirl pose, in a short plaid-skirt with her hair in bunches, but carrying a big gun”, and “one of the male teenage characters acknowledges that he’s attracted to her”. Awful big accusations from the Mail’s “film critic”.

Well, yes, she does dress like a schoolgirl at one point, but this is not a sexualised image, as she is meant to be playing innocent to fool some bad guys (in fact, if she were to play a “sexy schoolgirl” at this point, her plan would fail utterly, so from a plot and character standpoint, there is absolutely no reason to do this). And yes, a character claims to be attracted to her, though it’s more because she is a badass than because she is a sex object, as revealed in the exchange that follows in which his claim is ridiculed by his friend because of her young age. As to her sexualised image, let’s just say that the formless costume she wears looks more like ill-fitting body armour than some fetish-gear fantasy. Her comments about “sex” are mere swearwords divorced from any sexualised context, spoken as if she doesn’t truly know what she’s saying.

As with Ebert, Tookey has brought his own preconceptions into the cinema with him, seeing Hit-Girl as sexually attractive even though there is nothing onscreen to suggest anything of the sort. Not that I’m saying Tookey found an eleven-year-old actress sexually attractive, of course, or that he’s projecting all of his confused feelings about schoolgirls onto this character. That would be a terrible misunderstanding on my part. It’s obvious that he’s thinking of the Hypothetical Idiots out there who don’t have his moral fiber. To paraphrase Chris Morris, Tookey is thinking of those less stable, less educated, less middle-class than him. He, of course, was too busy tutting at the depravity onscreen to pay any real attention to the goings-on.

Anyway, enough about the hand-wringing. I need to praise everyone involved, especially Chloe Moretz, whose turn as Hit-Girl might make our moral guardians weep into their roast dinners, but will ensure her position as an icon and cult figure for years to come. Moretz is simply amazing, playing both the invincible bad-ass and the doting daughter, brainwashed into operating as a killing machine and only vaguely aware that there is a normal life out there if she is willing to go for it. Everyone else in the film is terrific, especially the brilliant Nicolas Cage (A proper Full-On Cage Experience even though he’s not in the film much) and an impressive Christopher Mintz-Plasse, but it’s Moretz’ show. Her work here is the real deal.

As for Vaughn, I can only hold my head in shame for doubting him. His control of the movie is masterful, wringing every drop of emotional charge out of every moment, playing to our memories of childhood hopelessness, dashed dreams, and eagerness to make the world a better place in order to make the final act play out with clockwork precision. Not only does he get the tone exactly right, and treat the subject matter with the correct amount of seriousness, he also makes it incredibly fun. Part of that is his inspired music choices. Many of the pieces included are familiar or populist (Morricone’s scores for Leone, Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation), but the context they are used in is always perfect. Even better are the choices you don’t expect, including Elvis’ American Trilogy (a moment that nearly made me dance around the room with sheer joy) and best of all, the wonderful cover version of the Banana Splits theme by The Dickies. It comes in at exactly the right moment, and totally fits the scene.

Vaughn’s direction of action is also exemplary, editing clearly, using geography cleverly, and adding enough little tricks and jokes to make it more than just another John Woo pastiche. His imaginative staging offers up two highlights: a first-person-shooter moment in a darkened room that becomes a strobe-lit nightmare of suspense, and a methodical takedown of numerous goons by Big Daddy that looks like it was filmed in one shot and then, perversely, edited into a staccato series of time-slices. It’s less weird than it sounds, but the effect is dizzying. Vaughn also knows enough about the iconography of the superhero genre, and some of the finest moments come from his subversion of those, none of which ever make fun of the subject matter. It’s a fine line he walks between parody and realistic reinvention, and he gets it just right all of the time.

I think I just used up all of the hyperbole. Just go see these two wonderful films. They do one thing that all coming-of-age movies should aspire to: they made me want to go back to my childhood and experience it again. For that, I am oddly grateful. And glad that I don’t actually have to.

I Semi-Promise This Will Be The Last Oscar-Related Poll…

Posted on by

One last poll before the big day (Feb 22nd), when some really mediocre movies get handed awards, and hopefully, just to make the whole thing not a total disaster, Mickey Rourke and the FX teams on Benjamin Button get their gold-plated just desserts too. By now it’s probable that even though Slumdog has mysteriously been hit with all sorts of unsavoury accusations of child exploitation and dismissal by India, it’s going to romp home. Though I am on record as not being best pleased about that, I’ll just be happy if people stop referring to it as the longshot. It really isn’t. By now people desperately want it to succeed, and it will. Benjamin Button will go home with some technical stuff, and Slumdog will get the biggies, a decision that will be the sanity-twisting equivalent of this…


…and, eventually, just as regrettable and embarrassing for the Academy members and the folks at home as this.


That inevitability aside, there are some actual longshots in that list. The ones no one thinks to bet on. In some awards the longshot occasionally wins (no one expected Bryan Cranston to get an Emmy for his Breaking Bad work as there were other, better known nominees there), but with the Oscars it pretty much never does. That doesn’t mean they should be ignored though. Hence this new poll. Which longshot nominee would you most like to see score an upset and win?

  • Richard Jenkins (Best Actor for The Visitor)

  • Melissa Leo (Best Actress for Frozen River)

  • Michael Shannon (Best Supporting Actor for Revolutionary Road)

  • Viola Davis (Best Supporting Actress for Doubt)

  • Gus Van Sant (Best Director for Milk)

  • Thomas Newman (Best Soundtrack for Wall*E)

  • Martin McDonagh (Best Original Screenplay for In Bruges)

  • Peter Morgan (Best Adapted Screenplay for Frost/Nixon)

  • Wally Pfister (Best Cinematography for The Dark Knight)

  • Kung Fu Panda (Best Animated Feature Film)

  • The Baader Meinhof Complex (Best Foreign Language Film)

  • Milk (Best Picture)

  • Iron Man (Best Visual Effects)

  • Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Best Makeup)

  • The Dark Knight (Best Sound Editing)

  • Wanted (Best Sound Mixing)

    • I will admit, I have no idea if Wanted really had amazingly well mixed sound. I just want to know if anyone out there is eager for a movie featuring a Loom of Fate, bullet-curving, and bomb-rats to win an Oscar. If anyone votes for it, I’ll assume Mark Millar popped by. Anyway, have at it, my pretties.

    Listmania! The Films of 2008, Part 4

    Posted on by

    I think this shall represent the final purging of the trivia rattling around my brain from 2008.

    Welcome Miscellaneous Events of the Year: Nicholas Stoller and David Koepp making good use of Russell Brand and Ricky Gervais


    I’m not really a fan of either British comedian, but in Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Ghost Town both were great, playing to their strengths and their public personas perfectly. It’s even made me like them a bit. It’s miraculous.

    Honourable Mentions:
    Kate Beckinsale’s strong performance in Snow Angels. So much better when not modelling rubber pants.
    Seeing RADA-trained Shakespearean actor Adrian Lester playing a gun-toting hardass in Doomsday and seemingly relishing it.
    The arrival of Rebecca Hall as a formidable screen presence.
    Tim Roth’s excellent performance as Emil Blonsky in The Incredible Hulk (usually I’m not a fan of his).

    Unwelcome Miscellaneous Events of the Year: Fox being the biggest assholes in the world for trying to ruin the release of Watchmen. Will there be a boycott of X-Men Origins: Wolverine as a result? I’d like to hope it happens.


    Dishonourable Mentions:
    The incomprehensibility of the action scenes in Quantum of Solace and Eagle Eye.
    The truly disheartening career choices of Al Pacino.
    Taraji P. Henson’s bizarre stereotypical acting choices in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
    George Lucas’s decision to make the character of Ziro the Hutt a weird lisping cross-dresser with Truman Capote’s voice in Star Wars: The Clone Wars. An entire planet says, “WTF?”

    Best Poster: The Dark Knight

    Worst Poster: Bangkok Dangerous


    Best Advertising Campaign of the Year: Cloverfield


    After the trailer from last year, the campaign never really put a foot wrong. By the time the movie came out, there was no way even the worst reviews would have stopped us watching it.

    Worst Advertising Campaign of the Year: The Incredible Hulk

    Slender trailers, a couple of crappy TV spots, an inability to control the grouchy star (other than a funny bit on Jimmy Kimmel), and eventually, just before the release, a huge emphasis on the appearance of Robert Downey Jr., and the end of the movie being re-edited to give that tiny scene more prominence. No wonder the movie didn’t make as much money as hoped. It all made the movie look like this rush-job trying to find an empty weekend during the busy summer season, but even a cursory look at the extras on the DVD show the astonishing amount of hard work and thought that went into it. Such a shame. Anyway, here’s the Kimmel thing. It’s the only vaguely good thing to come out of the shockingly mishandled campaign.

    Least Discreet Advertising Campaign of the Year:


    Wanted‘s many trailers gave away pretty much every WOW moment of the film. As the plot (minus the crazy Loom of Fate and exploding rats stuff) was very similar to the comic, it felt like a waste of time actually sitting through the movie. I can see that the movie was a tough sell, but couldn’t they have kept some more stuff back for the film?

    Coolest and Most Apt Cameo Sadly Relegated to a Deleted Scene on a DVD: Ghostface Killah in Iron Man

    Most Deliriously Batshit Action Movie of the Year: Rambo


    Honourable Mentions: Vantage Point, Eagle Eye, Chocolate

    Vocal Sound Effect of the Year: “Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!” (Clint Eastwood – Gran Torino)

    Catchphrase of the Year: “Let! Us! Fuck!” (Zack and Miri Make A Porno)

    Most Welcome Trend of the Year (Other Than The Grudging Critical Respect Aimed At The Superhero Genre): The New Horror Renaissance


    It’s been going on for a while now, but even so, this year we were lucky enough to get Eden Lake, [Rec], The Orphanage, Let The Right One In and, arguably, the interesting adaptation of Scott Smith’s horror classic The Ruins, all of which were of varying degrees of quality but definitely in the “very good” column. I feel like adding Neil Marshall’s hugely entertaining Doomsday to that list, for being in such debt to John Carpenter, James Cameron, and George Miller, who all know how to make a suspenseful or horrifying movie. Marshall has shown he can duplicate those talents with ease. If I’m going to add that, I’ll even make a case for Stuart Gordon’s excellent Stuck, which is macabre, ghoulish, nail-biting suspense, as well as being a terrific comment on poverty and the pressures put on the working class, and features an excellent performance from Stephen Rea. It’s been a long time since I was excited by the horror genre, and it’s an odd feeling.

    Least Welcome Trend of the Year: Post-Modern Cinema-Verite Movies about the War in Iraq

    Don’t get me wrong, it’s vital we keep our eye on that war, and never forget that people are suffering there in simply horrible ways, but whereas documentaries like No End in Sight, Taxi To The Dark Side, and Standard Operating Procedure do their best to illuminate by giving voice to as many different observers as possible, Nick Broomfield’s Battle For Haditha and Brian De Palma’s Redacted try to create a different kind of “truth” by either recreating an atrocity or by staging a po-mo video collage of a fictional atrocity based on a real one. Both movies come from an honest place but mangle the truth through their different approaches; Broomfield with his docu-drama retelling, De Palma with his formalist tricks (fake French documentary footage, YouTube videos, CCTV, hand-held camera shots from soldiers documenting the events). Both movies intentionally feature non-actors playing unconvincing characters (more like avatars) saying clunky expositional dialogue, and featuring some bizarre choices.

    For instance, Broomfield invents a composite character who is a major protagonist during the horrifying massacre of innocents. If you don’t see the accompanying documentary (the name of which eludes me, regrettably) then you wouldn’t know this, and you would assume that somehow that person had given his consent to Broomfield that he could show him in the film, or had had some hand in telling Broomfield what he was thinking and feeling throughout. As he didn’t, all of that is now suspect, and whatever horrors the film presents are dulled by that knowledge. Just as annoying, Redacted is not based on a real event, due to legal difficulties, and as such seems like little more than a remake of Casualties of War. Even though we know there was indeed an incident similar to this, the film just muddies the waters and makes it harder for the viewer to figure out what is really going on over there.


    As for the hand-held camera, it’s not a convention I usually object to. I just think it really only works in movies like Cloverfield and [Rec], where using the participant frame as a method of generating new ways of delivering shocks to the audience is far more tasteful than, say De Palma’s use of it. Even more annoying is that is has been proved that a docu-drama can be made that hews as close to the objective truth as it is possible to. Paul Greengrass’ astonishing United 93 should be a template to follow, made with as much attention to detail and first-hand accounting as it is possible to. Admittedly Broomfield couldn’t get the same level of access to the real participants as Greengrass, but still, there are avoidable choices made that damage his movie.

    It’s doubly frustrating because these are stories that need to be told and, especially in the case of Haditha, were done with such incredibly good intentions. This article by Broomfield shows how committed he was to telling this story to the best of his abilities. Unfortunately, in the telling of them, by blurring the lines of fact and fiction, and by filling the characters’ mouths with words that no normal person would ever say, they have inadvertently distanced the audience from the real horrors. They’re still essential viewing, though.

    Most Relentless Use of Religious Imagery in a Science Fiction Tale: Dante 01


    Dishonourable Mention: Wall*E

    Best Hair: Viggo Mortensen’s face fuzz (Appaloosa)


    He looks like a bit of a dandy but he will fuck you up, for reals.

    Worst Hair: Nicolas Cage (Bangkok Dangerous)


    Does using shampoo ruin his deadly assassin’s aim or something?

    Most Improbably Styled Hair: Camilla Belle’s pristine dreads in 10000 B.C.


    Apparently we’re descended from Rasta Valley Girls.

    Best Use of Kristen Wiig: Ghost Town


    Worst Use of Kristen Wiig: Cutting her entirely out of the cinema release of Forgetting Sarah Marshall

    Adorable Screen Couple of the Year: Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow (Iron Man)


    Honourable Mentions:
    Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks (Zack and Miri Make a Porno), Mos Def and Melonie Diaz (Be Kind Rewind)

    Crap Screen Couple of the Year: Vin Diesel and Mélanie Thierry (Babylon A.D.)


    Dishonourable Mentions: Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan (Eagle Eye), Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson (Jumper)

    Inappropriate and Just Downright Creepy Screen Couple of the Year: Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson (Let The Right One In)


    “Oh Man, At Last!” Couple of the Year: Harrison Ford and Karen Allen (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull)


    “Jesus, Just Split Up Already!” Couple of the Year: Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel (The Happening)


    Dishonourable Mention: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road), Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman (The Strangers)

    Most Awkward and Unconvincing Couple of the Year: Edward Norton and Liv Tyler (The Incredible Hulk)


    Utterly Improbable Couple of the Year: James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie (Wanted)


    Dishonourable Mention: Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth (21)

    Most Gratuitous Kissing Between Two Hotties Just So The Director Can Get His Rocks Off: Penelope Cruz and Scarlett Johansson in Vicky Cristina Barcelona


    Worst Ending to a Relationship: Kate Beckinsale and Hott Sam Rockwell in Snow Angels


    Dishonourable Mentions: Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (Revolutionary Road), Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman (The Strangers)

    Likeable Manic Pixie Dream Girl of the Year: Rachel Jansen (Mila Kunis – Forgetting Sarah Marshall)


    Honourable Mention: Chloë – (Clémence Poésy – In Bruges)

    Unlikeable Manic Pixie Dream Girl – Valentina (Natalya Rudakova – Transporter 3)


    Dishonourable Mention: Fox (Angelina Jolie – Wanted)

    Convincing Lust Object of the Year: Daniel Craig (Quantum of Solace)


    Honourable Mention: Javier Bardem (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)

    Unconvincing Lust Object of the Year: Al Pacino (88 Minutes)


    Dishonourable Mention: Kate Bosworth (21)

    “Kate Winslet In Little Children” Award For Least Believable Unattractiveness: Marisa Tomei in The Wrestler


    We’re supposed to think Tomei, as stripper Cassidy, looks so old that no one wants her to dance for them? Bullshit. She’s looking as good as ever, though kudos to her for selling that plot point.

    Okay, I reckon that should be enough. Normal service can be resumed now.

    Hancock Defeated By Wuxi Finger Hold And Awesomeness

    Posted on by

    I was really really rooting for Hancock. Shades of Caruso loves Peter Berg, and wants his movies to make enough money that he can salvage the many box office disappointments from his back catalogue. We also wanted Hancock to be good enough to silence the doubters who have been complaining about it since it was announced, and, possibly most of all, wanted to see Will Smith being generally excellent. Well, it’s made a boatload of money (and its overseas gross is big too), and Will Smith was great, but his performance was not what we expected. In fact, the film is not what anyone would have expected, and for that, we have to blame the marketers for making this look like a funny film about a self-loathing superhero when it mostly isn’t, and also we need to point a finger at writers Vincent Ngo and X-Files ace Vince Gilligan, and director Peter Berg, for not knowing how to make the material they had work.

    I’ll go into details after the spoiler marker, but consider this my capsule review. John Dykstra’s effects are pretty undistinguished and messy. Berg’s decision to film this the same way he filmed Friday Night Lights and The Kingdom might have made some sense thematically, but it’s a horribly ugly film with a sickeningly grey palette that made my head hurt (not helped by seeing the jawdroppingly beautiful Kung Fu Panda first).


    I didn’t totally hate it, though. The three leads are great, which is a big deal for me as I’m not a fan of Charlize Theron but was impressed by her in this (Canyon was less impressed). Jason Bateman is so likeable in this he steals the film, adds a lot of emotion that would otherwise be lacking, and though he at first seems to be nothing more than Michael Bluth after marrying Rita, comes good in the otherwise frustrating final act. His dramatic role in The Kingdom was no fluke, it seems. Will Smith comes out okay too, and the box office gross suggests we are still on our way to renaming the next thousand years the Willennium. That said, in terms of his career, he just made his Golden Child, or Far and Away. I hope his next project is a 100% success. FYI, I will never apologise for being a Will Smith fan. Get used to it.

    Even better than those little pleasures, my personal superhero movie bugbear didn’t come into play; Hancock might start the film as an asshole, but he is really a hero, a proper hero who helps people and doesn’t just fight supervillains with whom he has a personal connection. One of the main themes of the movie is about wanting to do the right thing even though it doesn’t seem to be worthwhile. That character trait really pleased me, and made up for a lot of the unfocused events in the latter half of the movie.


    Anyway, time to carp. Kung Fu Panda praise follows later.

    ————–Hancock spoilers follow————-

    The biggest problem in Hancock is the mid-movie twist, which, after we left the cinema and discussed it, isn’t really a twist, more a shift in story perspective that makes the first half of the film seem like a pre-inciting incident sequence stretched to 45 minutes. That section of the movie, concerning Hancock’s depression and attempts to better himself and become a beloved hero, contains many funny moments and unexpected pathos, but if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen a lot of the best parts. However, the trailers will make you think this is the whole point of the film, and give no hints as to what it really is. The depression and bad behaviour of Hancock are the set-up for the big reveal later in the movie, and if you thought you were going to see a superhero spoof, you’re wrong. It’s a straight superhero movie with a mythology that might have made more sense in the first draft (though some people are not too keen even on that), that has been mistakenly seen as a twist movie whereas it is a story different than the one we were sold, one which has its emotional centre buried in the final moments of the film, which then crawls over the finish line with zero energy and a frustrating lack of resonance. That’s a problem with the script, but also with the handling of it. It’s fair to say that Berg, who re-edited the finale several times in order to beat the bad feedback from test screenings, had to change even more than just the underwhelming ending, considering how the original script featured Hancock having ejaculation issues, something that is totally absent from the movie.

    Too much of the movie is lying on an editing room floor for it to make any sense. Perhaps a two hour version would work better. This ninety minute version feels like two episodes of a TV show called Hancock shmushed together to make a feature film (just like in the 70s when Glen A. Larson was trying to squeeze more money out of his creations), but sadly the Hancock showrunners have ineptly combined a mid-season comedy episode and an end-of-season high drama episode, not realising they don’t quite go together. With two halves battling against each other, what’s the story it’s trying to tell? Even once we had picked it over while eating an excellent burger just off Abbey Road neither of us had a clue, and after tinkering with it for a long time, I doubt Berg knew either.


    The second half of the movie concerns Hancock discovering that he is one of many millennia-old heroes created by the Gods to protect humanity, but forced to be apart from them due to his immense power. Luckily, the Gods knew that their minions were bound to want to settle down eventually, and so created them in pairs, where each one of them acts as a power dampener for the other, allowing them to live as a human couple if they so wanted. That’s happened to every other hero on the planet, except for Hancock and his opposite, Charlize Theron. All of the others are now dead, for reasons not clearly explained. It’s either old age, accidents, or “Them” that have picked them off. Who are “Them”? You’ve got me. Neither of us could understand that plot point, or if the evil Red, played by Eddie Marsan, is one of these “Them”s that are important enough to be referred to but not important enough to be explained. One thing that is stressed very late in the film, however, is that proximity to each other sets off the power drain, and only living as far apart as possible allows them to remain super.

    I can get behind the idea of a mythology not being fully explained, so as to generate some mystery (as in Unbreakable), but if the events of a movie make no sense (as the actions of the main characters seem completely mysterious without a full explanation), you cannot connect with the events on the screen. One gets the idea that editing the movie into this empty mush has taken out a lot of exposition that might have helped. To make things worse, a lot of the information I explained above is all delivered just moments before it becomes relevant in the last five minutes of the movie, so you spend the majority of the movie not really understanding what the hell is going on, or why you should care.


    It’s like the latter hour of Atonement, with a lot of things happening for no explicable reason, and then the final scene comes along to straighten everything out, except that here, nothing really gets explained properly. Again, it might have been in order to generate mystery, and curiosity about the mythology, and in that sense it works, as I’m inspired enough by the vagueness to want to read the previous drafts, and hopefully see a longer DVD cut to find out more about these individuals, but as it stands, the film falls completely apart at the end of the second act, and the third act did nothing more than annoy me greatly. Contrary to the marketing, the movie is not just about a drunken hero, but with a second half as ill-formed and messy as this, I guess it might as well have been.

    Even worse, some iconic moments in the trailer are either omitted or just breeze by, so badly edited is the film. It felt like every decision made in post-production was a mistake. John Dykstra’s effects are rushed and unappealing, the action scenes have no oomph as the editing obscures events, and the soundtrack is horribly misjudged, either trying to generate the emotional connection that is missing onscreen, or being brassy comedy plinky-plonks you’d expect on NCIS or something equally silly. As for the leads, I liked them, but their efforts often make no sense at all. The best thing I can say about it is that I went along with it simply because they obviously believed in what they were doing, but I have no idea what that thing they were doing was. Is Hancock about loneliness? About responsibility? Does Hancock do the right thing at the end to save Theron? Or is he still out for himself? I can imagine we’re meant to think of his actions as selfless, but that’s just because we expect the film to follow certain conventions. As it stands, the movie doesn’t make it clear enough on its own. When it was over, we were approximately this nonplussed.

    ———————Spoilers Over——————

    I think I liked it more than Wanted, and probably less than Jumper, another compromised movie from a director I like from a concept I loved, but it didn’t help that prior to that we saw the eagerly awaited (by me) Kung Fu Panda, which was not only way better than anything else I’ve seen this year, but thousands and thousands of times better than I had hoped it would be. The opening scene alone was better than I thought Dreamworks/PDI would ever aspire to, the sequence so funny and clever and eye-blisteringly beautiful that I was helpless in the storytellers’ grip. The voice casting is spot-on (especially my main man Jables, who is utterly sincere and hysterically funny), the direction perfectly judged, the action more exciting than most action films I can name, and the emotional arcs totally satisfying. The showdown between Shifu and Tai Lung was a magnificently cinematic moment, with genuinely resonant power. Make no mistake, the studio might not have made anything worthwhile before, but this is Pixar-good. I’d even put it above Cars, Finding Nemo, and maybe A Bug’s Life, and possibly on a par with Toy Story 2, it’s that good.


    Some UK critics have treated it as a mildly amusing spoof of Hong Kong cinema (the increasingly off-target Peter Bradshaw reckoned it was dumbed-down and less sophisticated than the first two Shreks!!?!?!!!). However, the majority of critics got what it was aiming for. Even the perenially grouchy Cosmo Landesman loved it, which means we have seen eye-to-eye twice this year. The other time was Speed Racer; he was pretty much the only UK critic to like it, though the Times website has decided not to reprint it, thus making me seem delusional.


    It’s no wonder even critics who often turn a blind eye to genre movies understand the ambition of Kung Fu Panda. the opening ten minutes of Kung Fu Panda should have clued any viewer in to its utter sincerity. This is a real movie, a simple tale beautifully told by people who understand not only the conventions of the genre and the signifying details that make it distinct (watch the wonderful Master Oogway’s final scene under a peach tree and tell me they don’t love the genre and want to do right by it), but they also understand how to tell a story. Perhaps this story is less complex than what I assume the makers of Hancock were aiming for, and perhaps it is more straightforward than Wanted (a movie with a similar character arc involving destiny and self-belief), but it is almost infinitely better than either of them for one simple reason; everyone involved in the making of this film knew how to tell a story, knew what worked and what didn’t, and just made it knowing the audience would be right there with them. Sometimes that’s all it takes.


    So yes, I recommend Kung Fu Panda with every fibre of my being. And Canyon’s too! We loved it so much we’re hoping to see it again this week, this time on IMAX. Something this beautifully crafted and sumptuous to look at needs to be seen on as big and clear a screen as possible. If I could describe its level of quality in one sentence while resisting the urge to just wail nonsense sounds of joy, that sentence would be, “It does everything right.” It really, really does. If you’ve ever enjoyed a martial arts movie, you must not miss it.

    Unwanted

    Posted on by

    Hey squid brains! Are you increasingly frustrated by unimaginative gunfights in movies? Has action cinema seemed rather uninspiring since John Woo went back to Hong Kong? Do you think the visual envelope hasn’t been pushed far enough by opprobrium-magnet Michael Bay, a man who has nitroglycerin running through his veins? Well it’s your lucky day, because Timur Bekmambetov has adapted eternal teenager Mark Millar’s sleazy and oddly sentimental liberal-baiting comic Wanted, taking the eyeball-punching overstyle he perfected in his Russian vampire movies, and combined it with uncharacteristic, though very welcome, coherence. Yay, right? So why is the film so disappointing?


    I was in two minds about Millar’s original comic, in which the main character graduates from an underwhelming life stuck in a veal-fattening pen ((c) Douglas Coupland in Generation X) to become a supercool supervillain who kills, maims, swears, fucks, and sneers through six issues of overkill, with the odd bit of rape humour thrown in for good measure, because everyone loves rape humour, right? [Insert sarcasm tag here]. Like a brat kid throwing a urine-soaked breezeblock through a church window, Millar wilfully flings poop at society, creating a world where supervillains rule and do every amoral and forbidden thing you can think of, usually with much relish and faux-cool dialogue to point out to the slower readers just how fucking cool the whole thing is FUCK YEAH!

    It’s a typical wish-fulfilment fantasy, though hyper-accentuated, dripping with cynical attitood and aimed at the brats who make online gaming such a chore, and while I both resist the childishness and understand its appeal, the most charming thing about it is that at heart it it can be seen as a tribute to older, less gritty comics, which are often spoken of in hushed tones by comic fans horrified by the darker status quo established after the publication of Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. While I’m quite happy reading light or dark comics, I liked that Millar was trying to say, “You want dark? I’ll give you the darkest fucking comic you’ll ever read,” even while groaning at the obnoxious arrogance of much of his style. That’s not to say I don’t like his work; his Ultimates run remains one of my favourite things ever, and there were enough imaginative concepts in Wanted to mark it as a qualified success. I just feel like patting him on the head when he’s trying to write tough guy dialogue, because it’s funny hearing a nerdy white guy trying to create characters that are the Kings of Cool (see also: Quentin Tarantino).


    ———-Wanted spoilers follow————-

    The movie reigns in almost all of the overt offensiveness of the original, leaving only hints at its darkness, while retaining the wish-fulfilment premise and nihilistic finale (though it is more open than the comic, and doesn’t have the famous “This is me fucking you in the ass!” last line). As I’ve moaned before, the movie revolves around a league of assassins, not supervillains, which is a shame, though it didn’t bother me as much as I thought it would. What did bother me is that I couldn’t care less about any of it. When something as wilfully bratty as Millar’s comic contains more emotional charge than your big budget movie, something has gone very wrong.

    One of the major problems with the movie is that very nearly every major WOW moment has been featured in the trailers, and as they have been around for months, all that could possibly seem new is the plot, and that runs along such predictable lines that the whole thing seemed cliched even with the visionary stylings of Bekmambetov littered throughout. I loved a lot of those visuals a while back, but now even the bullet curving and wacky car stunts look old hat. By the time the audience finally finds out that, ZOMG, Morgan Freeman is a total bad guy, fatigue will have set in.


    Writers Michael Brandt and Derek Haas (who were joined this time out by Chris Morgan) may have been responsible for the eminently forgettable The Fast and the Furious, but they also scripted James Mangold’s excellent remake of 3:10 To Yuma (a Shades of Caruso favourite), which effortlessly mixed emotional power, convincing character arcs, and kick-ass showdowns into a resonant, moving tale of redemption and the human condition. Wanted fails to generate any empathic connection with the viewer (at least, I should say, this viewer) as the beats are ticked off with depressingly mechanical precision, despite the appeal of the wish-fulfilment premise potentially mitigating that. There are obvious holes left throughout the narrative that can only be filled by assuming the true villain of the piece is Sloan (Freeman, and not Ron Rifkin, which would be apt considering the slight similarities between this and the first couple of seasons of Alias). Also, the trailer shot of McAvoy bursting through the textile factory window gives away the bullet-strewn vengeance-powered rampage he is inevitably going to go on in the final act.

    In addition to that, the film backs away from the gleeful naughtiness of the comic by having him turn his back on both good and evil, choosing to be a free agent instead. Having Wesley’s arc end with him gaining the freedom to be who he wants to be is fine, and touches on a theme from the comic, but it’s underdeveloped here, as are all the plotlines about fate and destiny, while Bekmambetov concentrates more on the wacky visuals and ‘splodey and Angelina’s nekkid buttox.


    Plus, as much as the comic’s nastiness grated on me, I did like the sheer amorality of Wesley’s acceptance of evil. I can understand why the movie avoids that outcome, and am not so crazy as to assume any studio would allow the release of a movie where the “hero” is even more unrepentently anti-society than Tyler Durden, but it would have been nice to see it. McAvoy’s final address to the camera loses some of its power because the writers and/or studio are obviously eager not to have the film end on a note advocating sociopathic non-engagement with the world. Though hey, no rape humour, which is a very wise decision.


    Perhaps the film will work better once the memory of the oversaturated trailer onslaught fades, but I can’t really see it. There’s a lot that isn’t actually wrong with the movie, but isn’t quite right either. Much as I like James McAvoy (he was great in Shameless, charming on a recent Daily Show, and the only memorable actor in Atonement), he drove me to distraction for a long section of the movie, as he freaks out at all of the carnage and insanity around him. Understandable reactions to being abducted by Angelina Jolie and being repeatedly (and pointlessly) beaten up by both Marc Warren and a knife-wielding jerk who looks like Peter Jackson, but his babbling, high-pitched yelps of teror went right through me like a violin bow being drawn across my nerves. When he finally accepts his abilities, I found his performance much more tolerable as he shuts up and gets on with it, but for the first half of the film, it’s hard-going. Still, though I might not be crazy about the film, I hope it does well just for his sake. He’s an appealing actor, and it would be great to see him go far.


    As for Jolie, her role as Alpha Female is totally phoned in, requiring her to do nothing more than pout, pose, and look terribly bored. The only reason to have her in that I can see (other than that her celebrity might get more bums no seats) is as a further example of wish-fulfilment, as Wesley gets to move from his evil ex-girlfriend to The Hottest Woman On The Planet, but as the romance sub-plot hinted at in the trailers seems to have been edited out (it probably tested badly, considering how the movie ends with her sacrifice), she doesn’t get to do anything interesting. She does mack on McAvoy in one scene, where she kisses Wesley just to make his ex-girlfriend feel bad, and I can imagine any jilted guy watching Wanted would really really connect with it, but otherwise she’s just wandering around, blank-faced and seemingly counting money in her head. It’s a very disappointing performance. Anyway, hasn’t Tina Fey been crowned Hottest Woman On The Planet by now? I reckon Wanted would have been an even more gratifyingly weird movie with Fey doing all the bullet-curving. Am I right, people?

    No one else gets time to register much, with the movie focusing almost exclusively on McAvoy. Poor Thomas Kretschmann gets to be blank and then tragic, Common looks relentlessly angry to the point of getting frown fatigue, and Morgan Freeman does his now-patented father-figure-with-a-bad-secret role without expending much visible energy. It was nice to see Chris Pratt, aka Ché from The O.C. as Wesley’s shithead best friend, as he is very funny, and he features in some of the best moments in the film, especially the wonderful visual when Wesley wreaks revenge on him with an ergonomic keyboard. It’s immensely satisfying and precisely the kind of WTF idea that Bekmambetov does so well.


    There were other things to like about it, even if the whole left me cold. The concept of The Loom of Fate is so bizarre and out of left-field I couldn’t help but be impressed, though I’m frustrated at how half-hearted the movie’s exploration of what fate and purpose are. Perhaps that’s mostly because I can’t help but compare the film to The Matrix, another wish-fulfilment fantasy that deals with the problem of free will and determinism, with the Wachowskis picking the quandary apart to such an extent that audiences the world over got bored and forgot about it (not this nerd, though!). Also great was the “I’m sorry” running joke, a fantastic set-piece on a train, and the staggeringly nasty death of Marc Warren, a scene so gratuitously unpleasant I barked gales of laughter around the crowded auditorium (sorry, fellow movie-goers). I’d give the movie an extra star or thumbs up or whatever just for that insane moment alone.

    Even taking that into account, it’s still half-baked. By the time the final showdown comes along, with McAvoy reduced to wandering around a shattered factory bellowing, “Slooooooooooan!!!!” over and over and over again, I was waiting for the wrap-up. I’d had enough of cool pouting Angie, and shakily-shot action scenes, and McAvoy spitting up blood (really, did we need to see him getting beaten up for so long when there really isn’t much reason for it?), and telegraphed plot twists, and the endless, seriously endless shots of trains. Does Bekmambetov have a train fetish? They should have changed the name of the movie to Bullet Train, or Off The Rails, or Buffet Carnage. Because, I’m not kidding, there are a lot of trains in this movie.


    Not that I’ve got anything against trains, of course, and I’m not just saying that because in a couple of days I will be spending a lot of time on one, and don’t want to offend them.