2 posts tagged “comic books”
This movie is hard for me to judge fairly because I've read the original comic book and the film is very different than the source material. The comic book is based on the premise: "What if the supervillains won and ruled the world?" In this world it turns out that all the supervillains teamed up and killed the heroes. Then, to make sure that no one would ever try to take them down, they made everyone in the world forget that superheroes ever existed and the control the world in secret as a kind of super-mafia.
In the movie the villains have been replaced with a league of assassins who have almost superhuman abilities. They have been around for a thousand years and kill people in order to guide the fate of the world.
Both films feature a man who is in a dead end job and one day finds out that his absentee father was the best killer in the world and has just been killed. He is then indoctrinated into the world behind the world.
Both the film and the comic feature some over the top murders and action scenes. However, they work better in the comic book because while the police don't know about the supervillains, the know enough to not ask questions and the villains can kill with impunity. In the film, however, they are secretive and the police are theoretically after them but they act as if they are above the law and there's never anything more than a newspaper headline to indicate that their over the top highly public murders have garnered any attention from the police.
There's also the fact that in the comic book the lead characters were drawn to look like Eminem and Halle Berry. In the film they are played by James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. As good a job as Jolie does, I can't help but be distracted by the difference and disappointed that they had to get a white woman to play a role created for a black woman. McAvoy also kind of irritated me but I'm not sure why. It wasn't a big deal in his situation but it did come up from time to time.
As a stand alone film, I guess it was good. However, it could have been much more. It starts off very Fight Club-esque and it seems as if there will be some attempt to make a comment on the inanity of corporate life and the "waning of affect" that Frederic Jameson says is occurring. There is even a mention of an Ikea table -- which oddly isn't a table at all but rather a cheesy laminate counter top island.
After that interesting beginning, however, it quickly turns into Jumper. Full of special effects -- which to be fair were a million times better and more exciting than Jumper -- but basically being yet another story about daddy issues and fulfilling a destiny. Substitute Jamie Bell's mentor/teacher role in Jumper with Jolie in this and Samuel L. Jackson's older wiser potential mastermind who is one step ahead with Morgan Freeman's character and you've basically got the same film.
It is that notion that the main character is "fulfilling his destiny" that is perhaps most tiresome in this day. I wonder why it is that in a country where we worship the rugged individualist who can pull himself up by the bootstraps we have so many stories about the man who is born to a destiny and heir to become powerful because of his parents. Of course, to be fair the original story was written by a Scott and not an American so to ask why he wouldn't subscribe to American mythologies isn't fair.
The end is fairly close to the comic book and has an entertaining gun fight and is also surprisingly final. Had they tacked on a fairy tale ending it would have been much worse.
three thumbs up
the ending saves it
and Jolie is pretty good
different from the source
In the movie the villains have been replaced with a league of assassins who have almost superhuman abilities. They have been around for a thousand years and kill people in order to guide the fate of the world.
Both films feature a man who is in a dead end job and one day finds out that his absentee father was the best killer in the world and has just been killed. He is then indoctrinated into the world behind the world.
Both the film and the comic feature some over the top murders and action scenes. However, they work better in the comic book because while the police don't know about the supervillains, the know enough to not ask questions and the villains can kill with impunity. In the film, however, they are secretive and the police are theoretically after them but they act as if they are above the law and there's never anything more than a newspaper headline to indicate that their over the top highly public murders have garnered any attention from the police.
There's also the fact that in the comic book the lead characters were drawn to look like Eminem and Halle Berry. In the film they are played by James McAvoy and Angelina Jolie. As good a job as Jolie does, I can't help but be distracted by the difference and disappointed that they had to get a white woman to play a role created for a black woman. McAvoy also kind of irritated me but I'm not sure why. It wasn't a big deal in his situation but it did come up from time to time.
As a stand alone film, I guess it was good. However, it could have been much more. It starts off very Fight Club-esque and it seems as if there will be some attempt to make a comment on the inanity of corporate life and the "waning of affect" that Frederic Jameson says is occurring. There is even a mention of an Ikea table -- which oddly isn't a table at all but rather a cheesy laminate counter top island.
After that interesting beginning, however, it quickly turns into Jumper. Full of special effects -- which to be fair were a million times better and more exciting than Jumper -- but basically being yet another story about daddy issues and fulfilling a destiny. Substitute Jamie Bell's mentor/teacher role in Jumper with Jolie in this and Samuel L. Jackson's older wiser potential mastermind who is one step ahead with Morgan Freeman's character and you've basically got the same film.
It is that notion that the main character is "fulfilling his destiny" that is perhaps most tiresome in this day. I wonder why it is that in a country where we worship the rugged individualist who can pull himself up by the bootstraps we have so many stories about the man who is born to a destiny and heir to become powerful because of his parents. Of course, to be fair the original story was written by a Scott and not an American so to ask why he wouldn't subscribe to American mythologies isn't fair.
The end is fairly close to the comic book and has an entertaining gun fight and is also surprisingly final. Had they tacked on a fairy tale ending it would have been much worse.
three thumbs up
the ending saves it
and Jolie is pretty good
different from the source
So this is the second week this film is out and it is already in Kerasotes' Five Buck Club, so you know it can't be all that great. And the millions of people who didn't see it weren't wrong.
The film starts off ok with a setup showing how the main characters knew each other and how Johnny Blaze ended having to do some soul searching. I would have been a lot more interested if the movie would have stayed with these younger characters and done sort of a Smallville-style movie. Instead we suddenly flash forward a few years later to when Johnny Blaze turns into Nick Cage.
This is where one of the first problems turns up. The transition from the younger guy to Cage is made with one of those cliched shots where we zoom into the face of the younger Blaze and they crossfade with Cages face and we zoom back out and we are now in the present day. This signals that there isn't going to be any originality in the direction, placing, or plotting of the film. It is standard filmmaking by committee. For example there's one scene where someone hits Ghost Rider with a big truck and of course they have to linger on the "How's my driving? Call 1-800-555.5555" sticker on the rear end of the truck. Then there's a scene where we first see the main villain walking through the desert. The camera zooms up to him and he does one of those "rawl!" roars to the camera where we see his true self. Umm, who is he supposed to be roaring at???
Then there's the stupid use of quick flashbacks to what we just saw ten minutes ago. This only happens twice, but it is still incredibly irritating. Once when Eva Mendes first shows up after her character having not seen Blaze in years, because there are so many other Hispanic characters in the movie they feel like they need to show a quick flash to the character as a young girl so we know that this is the same person. Except of course that not only are there no other Hispanic characters in the film, there aren't any other women with speaking parts (except the ditzy goth girl in from the commercials).
The other is when Ghost Rider has his first night out reposessing souls we see this fiery montage of the bad things the criminal did. Then ten minutes later when Blaze returns to normal he says, "Now I remember what happened last night" and they show a quick flashback of that exact same thing!
Another big problem is that Blaze is this stunt motorcycle guy and yet, with the exception of one stunt where we get reintroduced to the older character and another stunt where he gets reintroduced to Mendes' character, there aren't any motorcycle stunts. Sure, Ghost Rider drives up a building, but he doesn't actually kill any of the bad guys while he riding the motorcycle. He rides the bike to where the bad guys are, and then he gets off the bike. Come on! We want some kick ass fighting on motorcycles! Knightriders kicks Ghost Rider's ass when it comes to fighting on motorcycles!
Finally, there's the fact that the bad guy and his minions are the tired old goth-type. That was getting old when Blade did it and it is beyond lame now. It was funny that the wind-type guy looked and fought so much like the twin albino-ghost-type guys in the second Matrix movie. And we know how well that went over...
However, the film is largely harmless, and Mendes' character has a seeming inability to correctly button her clothes, so there's that always that.
one thumb up
so forgettable
That's why there will not be a
Ghost Rider part two
The film starts off ok with a setup showing how the main characters knew each other and how Johnny Blaze ended having to do some soul searching. I would have been a lot more interested if the movie would have stayed with these younger characters and done sort of a Smallville-style movie. Instead we suddenly flash forward a few years later to when Johnny Blaze turns into Nick Cage.
This is where one of the first problems turns up. The transition from the younger guy to Cage is made with one of those cliched shots where we zoom into the face of the younger Blaze and they crossfade with Cages face and we zoom back out and we are now in the present day. This signals that there isn't going to be any originality in the direction, placing, or plotting of the film. It is standard filmmaking by committee. For example there's one scene where someone hits Ghost Rider with a big truck and of course they have to linger on the "How's my driving? Call 1-800-555.5555" sticker on the rear end of the truck. Then there's a scene where we first see the main villain walking through the desert. The camera zooms up to him and he does one of those "rawl!" roars to the camera where we see his true self. Umm, who is he supposed to be roaring at???
Then there's the stupid use of quick flashbacks to what we just saw ten minutes ago. This only happens twice, but it is still incredibly irritating. Once when Eva Mendes first shows up after her character having not seen Blaze in years, because there are so many other Hispanic characters in the movie they feel like they need to show a quick flash to the character as a young girl so we know that this is the same person. Except of course that not only are there no other Hispanic characters in the film, there aren't any other women with speaking parts (except the ditzy goth girl in from the commercials).
The other is when Ghost Rider has his first night out reposessing souls we see this fiery montage of the bad things the criminal did. Then ten minutes later when Blaze returns to normal he says, "Now I remember what happened last night" and they show a quick flashback of that exact same thing!
Another big problem is that Blaze is this stunt motorcycle guy and yet, with the exception of one stunt where we get reintroduced to the older character and another stunt where he gets reintroduced to Mendes' character, there aren't any motorcycle stunts. Sure, Ghost Rider drives up a building, but he doesn't actually kill any of the bad guys while he riding the motorcycle. He rides the bike to where the bad guys are, and then he gets off the bike. Come on! We want some kick ass fighting on motorcycles! Knightriders kicks Ghost Rider's ass when it comes to fighting on motorcycles!
Finally, there's the fact that the bad guy and his minions are the tired old goth-type. That was getting old when Blade did it and it is beyond lame now. It was funny that the wind-type guy looked and fought so much like the twin albino-ghost-type guys in the second Matrix movie. And we know how well that went over...
However, the film is largely harmless, and Mendes' character has a seeming inability to correctly button her clothes, so there's that always that.
one thumb up
so forgettable
That's why there will not be a
Ghost Rider part two
