Ntuple Indemnity

I know, I know. I still haven’t written up my detailed analyses of how The Passion of the Christ can or cannot be approached objectively, the gall of bathing Omar Sharif in the two hours of mediocrity that is Hidalgo, and a valiant attempt at deciphering the villain-side plot of the otherwise entertaining Hellboy – but a man’s got to have priorities.

Step up to the witness stand, Jonathan Hensleigh: you have to answer for The Punisher.

Let’s get this out of the way, first of all: The Punisher is not the sudden and untimely demise of Marvel’s cinematic renaissance, nor is it the coming of the apocalypse with respect to comics on film, as a lot of websites out there would have you believe. It has some pretty bad moments, but by no means are they, say, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen bad. Unlike that particular “movie”, I will not be making fun of The Punisher in every subsequent weblog entry I write concerning comic book adaptations. It has some very serious problems, but is not without merit.

In the spirit of being critical, let us first examine the problems.

The biggest issue with The Punisher is tonal inconsistency. To frame it more comprehensibly, it is in all likelihood impossible for anyone to enjoy the entire movie, given how certain sections of the film are diametrically opposed in their ideological approach. The first act of the film, which sets up the revenge tragedy with the obligatory family-killing that happens in every piece of this sort, does everything in its power to avoid being a comic book. The destruction of Frank Castle (Thomas Jane), played straight-up, comprises some of the work’s most brutal and genuine moments of high tension. There is some good filmmaking going on for a few patches here, completely removed from the costumed heroics of the Marvel Universe.

Within minutes, we are suddenly an intederminate period of time ahead of ourselves, when Hensleigh and co-writer Michael France suddenly decided to fast-forward and reveal that like this here reviewer, yes indeed, they have read a Punisher comic – specifically, the Marvel Knights Punisher #1: Welcome Back, Frank by Garth Ennis, complete with Castle’s new neighbours Joan the Mouse (a very miscast Rebecca Romjin-Stamos), Spacker Dave (Ben Foster), and Mr. Bumpo (John Pinette). Without interruption, at this point the hitherto decidedly un-comical film places itself in the midst of three individuals straight from a two-dimensional arrangement of inked and coloured panels – which, incidentally, are the three most human characters in the whole 123-minute sittting. That should not be mistaken for saying much. The worst is when The Punisher exists in a void where it is unsure of whether it should be comic-like or not, and softens itself up to ostensibly be less offensive; for instance, there is no “death by Bumpo” in sight. That’s a minor adaptation complaint that this here author is unqualified to make, but the inconsistent waffling is more than fair game.

Then there’s the matter of story construction, which is, for lack of a better descriptor, illogical. Without spoiling too many of the details, here’s how it goes: Castle makes his intentions of vengeance known to chief villain Howard Saint (John Travolta) via standing around, throwing money out a window and mouthing off to the cops. This results in a death toll of roundabout two. Before you know it, Saint is in a rage about Castle ruining his life and immediately sends out heavy-hitters such as a guitarist who fails to be sufficiently ominous and a hulkster known as “The Russian” (Kevin Nash) – the latter straight from Ennis, minus the superhero obsession and the “suffocating” demise. Then after a lot of sneaking around and double-crossing not really characteristic of an angry guy with a white skull on his shirt out for blood, Castle starts gunning down trivial henchmen in nontrivial quantities.

There is a problem here. The proper order for a back-from-the-dead revenge story is: raise a lot of hell to make yourself known, then reap the hard-earned ire of the chief villain, then start fighting the minibosses and getting really nasty. It’s called a “linear progression”. Case studies: Maximus Decimus Meridius in Gladiator fighting, nay, earning his way up to the bout with Tigris of Gaul. Mike Sullivan in Road to Perdition having a properly ominous miniboss meeting with Jude Law’s crooked photographer. The Bride slicing her way through the Crazy 88s at the House of Blue Leaves before taking on O-Ren Ishii – but let’s save the Kill Bill discussion for later, shall we.

So we are left with a weak and inconsequential villain whose closest associates dress like the Men in Black, but act like they have no idea they are in a comic book adaptation. You can’t have it both ways, folks. We have a story that suffers from what is quickly becoming something that can be termed “Marvel Syndrome” – a severe imbalance between the origin story and the pilot-episode story, and with an unclear dividing line between the two, to boot. By having no secrecy of identity in place, a lot of conventional assertions about the hero mystique fall flat.

But I think I’ve punished this movie enough; time to look at its better aspects. Thomas Jane is a well-cast Frank Castle. He plays the role with the composure of a broken man and the voice to match his ruthlessness. As was mentioned earlier, the first act of the movie has some terrifying moments; there is a very real sense of fear for the lives of doomed characters in the critical scenes where they meet their ends. One would think that of all the overdone revenge-flick conventions, the inciting incident that triggers everything – particularly when it involves the deaths of a wife and child – would be the most stale. Here, the opposite is true. While Joan, Dave and Bumpo seem very out of place in the context of much of the rest of the movie, the interaction between the three and their relationship to Castle are an enthralling dynamic to observe.

The end product: a wishy-washy adaptation of an already trashy comic that intermittently tries not to be so trashy, and instead ends up without a clear sense of identity. It is far from disastrous, but considering its position at the nexus of several subgenres that have been done far better, The Punisher has nothing new to add.

Kill Bill, Vol. 2, on the other hand, is a different story.

Alas, it appears that my personal ambition to direct the world’s first A-list movie based on a video game may be in jeopardy. John Woo, who has emerged the Hong Kong to Hollywood transition with only mild vocational injuries compared to the likes of, say, Tsui Hark, has optioned the rights to Metroid. John Woo will never read this post, but here are some comments regardless.

Metroid is a unique challenge in that the games are a series of solo pieces with no character interaction – just a silent heroine running around exploring a mysterious and atmospheric sci-fi environment and shooting up silent enemies. The plots are voyages of discovery, an expository technique that does not transfer well to a film placed in front of an audience with no control over what is going on.

This is an opportunity to establish a video game movie renaissance – though I suppose “renaissance” falsely implies that game movies have ever been worthwhile – not unlike the market’s current saturation with comic book adaptations. The reason why the comic book movie is such a popular genre right now is because for the most part, the material is treated with respect and visual acumen; let’s ignore the Halle Berry pseudo-Catwoman for a second. Marvel Comics saved itself by entrusting its franchises to the likes of Sam Raimi and Ang Lee, directors with a track record of knowing a thing or two about visual communication. This is why the hottest comic book property in development right now is Batman Begins: Chris Nolan knows how to make a movie. John Woo is the first really estalished director to attach himself to a video game franchise, so this opportunity had best not go wasted.

The other reason for the success of the current rebirth of bringing comics to film, regardless of how watchable the films are themselves, is because the showpieces in the genre capture the colour and vibrance of the comic book medium without treating comics as silly, juvenile or inferior. If something is to be stylistically faithful to its source material, it must respect its source material’s medium and adjust accordingly. For instance, The Lord of the Rings worked on the basis of taking a fantasy world very, very seriously.

Yet some frequent mistakes on the part of comic book movies are similarly in need of being rectified, should Metroid go ahead. We are essentially talking about an adventure starring a solo costumed hero, so there are two approaches. One, the 1989 Batman route of diving right into the hero’s mission and carrying it through the entire movie, with only passing connections to the hero’s origin. This is the preferred route. The danger with the second approach – the Superman and Spider-Man method of focusing on the origin story for half the movie, and leaving fully-fledged good-evil conflicts to future instalments – is that it tends to result in movies that are heavy in the first half. Superman and Spider-Man delivered their best in the origin stories, leaving paper-thin hero-villain conflicts underdeveloped. This basically ruined the first X-Men, but thankfully, X2 picked up the ball. However, Metroid does not have the guarantee of a sequel. If there is no attempt to gamble on a multi-part franchise right from the beginning – and there probably shouldn’t be one – we need to see Samus make it all the way to Mother Brain in the span of two hours. The titular character of Daredevil made it all the way to Wilson Fisk in ninety minutes, origin story included, which killed any prospects of developing either a story or a franchise.

Now, nobody pretends that in the public at large, the Metroid franchise is intrinsically a ticket-selling franchise. In terms of name recognition, it is equivalent to a Hellboy or Punisher at best. That should give Woo some room to manoeuvre when striking a balance between an atmospherically faithful adaptation (i.e. not Super Mario Bros.: The Movie) and making a coherent film. However, everything about John Woo’s development as a director since his entry into the American system rings alarm bells about his possibly ending up with the equivalent of a Hulk on his hands, a movie that moves in the right direction but goes further than what a mainstream audience can handle, and stumbles into the gap. Mission: Impossible 2 is one such red flag.

Metroid is one of those projects that needs to be a success. Having Woo’s name attached indicates potential, but that also represents a potential danger. Let’s see how this all unfolds.

As I pointed out in the preceding post, April Fool’s came and went without anything truly worth mentioning on a humour front except for the odd joke only comprehensible to CUSID debaters, but these guys thought it would be clever to use it as a launchpad for a letter-writing campaign to get a film of The Hobbit greenlit for production. As it is an initiative by TheOneRing.net, the most-read Tolkien website on the Internet (and with good reason), it already has a few thousand supporters in its pocket. Remember, this is the same site that strikes fear into the hearts of those who dare to include The Lord of the Rings in any poll, for fear of being swamped. Any obscure site it links to on the front page can expect to have bandwidth trouble for weeks.

But popularity aside, people should really take a few steps back and wonder if a film adaptation of The Hobbit – even (or especially) one by Peter Jackson – is really that great an idea. The book is a very linear and episodic adventure in many ways, which could land it in the same adaptation trap as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. While it’s been turned into everything from a stage production to a video game with varying degrees of success, the prospect of a top-notch film project is, at this time, unconvincing. At the same time, there is the danger of the film having to choose between being faithful to the oft-forgotten fact that the novel is a children’s story, and the demands of the audience demographic riding the post-The Return of the King fallout. In terms of playing to the audience and fulfilling expectations, it faces the same challenges as the Star Wars prequels have thus far. As far as a Jackson film goes, the reason why so many fans are clamouring for one is out of the desire for stylistic continuity. But The Hobbit has little stylistic continuity with The Lord of the Rings in the first place, except for perhaps the first eight chapters of the latter, from which Jackson took arguably the biggest departure.

I saw Hellboy tonight and was suitably entertained, if not outright impressed. It never sinks down to being outright nauseating and oblivious to basic cinematic technique like some Leagues we know, but also feels second-class in the face of the A-list adaptations of the Marvel renaissance. Aside from an incomprehensible villain-story that boils down to a lot of occult symbols, reincarnation and an apocalyptic desire to set the entire world on fire, it was an entertaining piece and worth two hours of my time. I will elaborate further if I ever get around to it, but between Home on the Range, The Alamo, Kill Bill, The Punisher and a whole lot of exams, April is going to be a busy month.

While on the subject of Dark Horse Comics, I have yet to acquire The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #1, which was finally released in late February after months of legal delays. Considering the extent to which this here writer has been eagerly anticipating the title since its announcement, a purchase, reading and review are more than a little overdue.

This comes a bit late, but since Friday there have been reports of Disney going ahead on Toy Story 3. This is, in a word, problematic.

When Pixar’s contract extension negotiations with Disney fell apart earlier this year, one of the stumbling blocks just begging for trouble was Disney’s retention of sequel rights. This is the result: the possibility of a second-rate, non-Pixar Toy Story movie – and one likely going straight into cinemas.

Let’s be very clear about one thing: second-rate sequels of any sort have no place existing at all, but given that studios nowadays are greenlighting such hotly-anticipated titles as Baby Geniuses 2, let’s accept that they are a very real threat. The least you could do is relegate them to a second-rate medium (i.e. direct-to-video) where you can exploit the pocketbooks of uninformed parents all you want without disturbing the peace for the rest of us. Franchise projects like this are a veritable sinkhole for a studio’s marketing dollars and come bundled with a theatrical print release strategy known as “clogging the rivers with their dead.” In the end, nobody wins, except for the execs who point to the opening-weekend figures and think they made money, ignoring the fact that said figures are nowadays more indicative of hype than lasting appeal. The result: Toy Story 4.

Worthwhile sequels in general are rare enough, and when it comes to animation, there is perhaps only one, that being Toy Story 2; and before you heckle “The Rescuers Down Under?” let’s not pretend for a moment that it is on equal parity with John Lasseter’s seminal masterpiece. The point is, the reason why Toy Story 2 escaped DTV Hell at all was because to understate its quality, it was a cinema-worthy project made by cinema-worthy storytellers.

Apparently this sent the Mouse House the message that DTV-quality sequels can still make a lot of money at the multiplexes, hence the silver-screen treatments of The Jungle Book 2 and Return to Neverland, which nobody remembers, and with good reason. This is backwards thinking. The other form of backwards thinking we’ve seen recently is how Pixar’s nine-digit returns on every single film has sent Disney the message that CG is automatically salable. What they are forgetting is that the likes of John Lasseter, Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton actually know how to make movies, while the only in-house CG feature we’ve seen from Disney tried to rip off The Land Before Time and couldn’t even do it right. But lest I waste more valuable keystrokes flogging this deceased equine, I will defer to this editorial entitled “Why Pixar’s films are more ‘Disney’ than Disney’s”, which explains it a whole lot better than I could here.

The best solution, of course, is a coup at the top of Disney’s chain of command like the shareholder revolt last month, only successful. Ejecting Michael Eisner could mean repairing the Pixar-Disney relationship, which implies there will thankfully be no Toy Story 3 unless and until there’s a worthy idea to back it up. Furthermore, as explained in a lot more detail in this Jim Hill article, this may resolve the issue of which distributor picks up Ratatouille in time for a projected 2006 release.

That was the most predictable Oscar ceremony ever, but at the same time, entirely devoid of controversy. Most of the vitriol this year can be directed at the shortlisting stage, and was already covered in the previous post.

If there was one film to finally hit the eleven mark again, it was The Return of the King. The clean sweep was clear as soon as it took Adapted Screenplay, the one that was most likely going to hold a consolation vote. But in the context of rewarding the entire trilogy – for after all, it is one movie, only with a split release sequence – well done, Academy.

The big question is, what conceivable project will next hit the eleven mark, or even break it? This may not be as impossible as it seems, given that The Return of the King was a rare winner that received no acting nominations. The sweep, though, could be attributed to both the onus to compensate for the losses of the first two – something that should have been done from the start, and was three years in the making – and a weaker, less competitive field this year. Facing facts for a moment, if The Lord of the Rings was not in the running, it would be a much tighter race, with the well-crafted but just shy of worthy Mystic River taking the prize, but win counts maxing out at five or six. Needless to say, it would be indicative of a relatively sparse year. On the other hand, if that opened the door to Finding Nemo, I would not complain – until it failed to win, that is. But this is all idle speculation.

To hit such an astronomical nomination count, let alone a win count, you need to work with built-in epic material from the start. Ben-Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings are all epic pageantry material. The Last Samurai, on the other hand, is not. It needs to be something that makes everything before it look small.

That said, the one to watch out for next year is Troy, not because it will get eleven Oscars or even eleven nominations, but because it is based on exactly the kind of source material that should poise itself for those numbers, from possibly the one cinematogenic storyteller bigger than Tolkien. But it doesn’t have ten hours to work with, now does it?

What we can expect in the film industry over the next few years is an influx of people trying to make the next Rings, like certain attempts to make the next Titanic (see: Pearl Harbor). The attempted-epic market already saturated itself this year, so let’s not see this trend spiral out of control.

The moment of the evening, of course, was Michael Moore in the midst of a “fictitious war” in the Pelennor Fields.