31 DAYS OF HORROR 2013-Introduction

Lovecraftian me.

The month of Halloween is upon us as of tomorrow and considering how much fun I had doing the previous two annual editions of 31 DAYS OF HORROR, I'm psyched to review 31 more FRIGHT movies to delight enthusiasts and alert readers to flicks they may not have seen before. There will be examinations of classics, thrillers that blur the line of what may be specifically defined as "horror," unbiased looks back at some of the "slasher" fodder that so defined my generation's horror movie experience, and a few outright stinkers, so get ready for anything to happen...

(CUE SCARY THEREMIN MUSIC)

YATTERMAN (2009)

Some films can rightly be described as live-action cartoons, and this 2009 effort from renowned wacko director Takashi Miike just might be the ne plus ultra of the form.

Based on the late-1970's anime series from the same company that gave the world SPEED RACER and GATCHAMAN, the story, such as it is, is simplicity itself: The Skull Stones, a series of magical artifacts, will reportedly cause a miracle to occur when united, and the stones are coveted by Dukorobei, a mysterious self-proclaimed "god of thieves." Using the ultra-goofy Doronbo gang to do the heavy-lifting in obtaining the items, Dukorobei mostly directs from the sidelines as the sexy and costumed Lady Doronjo (Kyoko Fukada) commands her oddball flunkies, the pig-like pro-wrassler wannabe Tonzura (Kendo Kobayashi), and mechanical genius Boyacky (Katsuhisa Namase), in the name of thievery. With wacky giant robots at their disposal — colossal mecha funded by various hare-brained schemes that shamelessly rip off the gullible general public — the gang sets off on a globe-trotting quest to snag the magic stones for their boss. But their efforts are opposed by Yatterman, a two-person team of mecha-assisted crimefighters consisting of boyfriend and girlfriend Gan (Sho Sakurai) and Ai (Saki Fukuda). With their badassed giant robot dog/transportation, "Yatterwoof" — think Clifford the big red dog as gene-spliced with Gigantor — and accompanied by Shoko (Anri Okamoto), the daughter of the missing scientist who initially discovered the stones, it's a race to see who will claim the stones first. But as things proceed, it becomes quite clear that uniting the stones could be disastrous for the time stream and the entire world...

YATTERMAN looks and feels exactly like a fun, funny, and colorful animated cartoon rendered into live-action, with considerable CGI assists to make its more outlandish elements visually feasible. There's loads of the leaping around, gigantic mecha battles with kooky robots, funky weaponry, and weird, hyper-stylized costuming inherent to the anime genre, especially that of this film's 1970's source-era, and while a quest is the main narrative thrust, the proceedings are also spiced by Lady Doronjo and Gan being quite obviously attracted to one another, which does not sit at all well with Ai, nor with the crushingly-smitten Boyacky, who regularly and sincerely professes his ardor to Lady Doronjo, who has no interest in letting him out of the friendzone. It's a love quadrangle as seen through the filter of cartoon emotions and as such it goes right for the viewer's guts, especially since the Doronbo are baddies cut from a very silly comedic cloth. Lady Doronjo's inner romantic fantasies are surprising (and shocking in their wholesomeness), which only drives home the tragedy of Boyacky's wholly-unrequited love for his boss. This isn't even a spoiler: If you're hoping for Boyacky and Lady Doronjo to have a happy last-minute "it was there all the time" love connection, forget about it right now.

Kyoko Fukada as the very sexy (and secretly sweet) Lady Doronjo, boss of the looney Doronbo gang.

As per usual with this kind of thing, especially with entries of this sort from the land of the rising sun, the villains completely steal the show, but that's not to say that the Yatterman team are not without their points of interest. Far from it! Imagine DC Comics Superman villain the Toyman if he were a male/female team that used their super-high-tech toy-making genius for good instead of evil and you've pretty much got it. The battles between the Yatterman team and the Doronbo gang are basically kids duking it out with their giant robot toys writ large. It's goofy, utterly logic/physics-defying, and just plain fun as hell. Plus, the heroes are refreshingly free of any of the dark and cynical edges that have been part and parcel to the superhero entertainment experience since the mid-1980's. They're simply very nice, very smart young people who fight the good fight, and that's all there is to it. In short, perfect heroes for a crazy kiddie movie.

Our heroes: Ai (Saki Fukuda), aka Yatterman No. 2, and Gan (Sho Sakurai), aka Yatterman No. 1. 

But, with all of this very fun and aggressively kid-friendly mishegoss going on, director Miike throws a gigantic curveball into the mix during the film's first giant robot set-to. As is common for mecha adventure stories, some of the robots are drivable vehicles that feature all manner of quirky designs and visual themes, often animal-based, but the Doronbo gang's initial mechanical juggernaut is "the Bridesmaidiot," basically a juggernaut whose feminine design is tied into the gang's fund-raising bridal gown scam. That's kooky enough, but once in combat mode, the Bridesmaidiot is revealed to be equipped with huge, ordnance-laden tits, complete with erect "nipples" for gun barrels/cannons.

The pendulously-dugged menace of the Bridesmaidiot.

During their first real battle with Yatterman, the Doronbos gain the upper hand and, in a moment of ill-advised victorious excitement, Lady Doronjo accidentally slams her gloved fist onto the robot's self-destrcut button. As the robot begins to shudder and shake, its motions start to resemble those of a highly-aroused lady on the verge of the Big O, the sight of which stokes the Yatterwoof giant dog robot to such a state of unbridled lust that he jumps onto the female mecha and makes with the humping. While screaming "I'M COMING!!!" — in English, no less — the Bridesmaidiot has what amounts to a very literal explosive orgasm, which wipes out both her and Yatterwoof (who is later rebuilt at larger scale as Yatterking).

Considering how every other element of the film is a kiddie cartoon writ large and loopy, I am completely at a loss as to understand why Miike threw a flat-out sex scene into this candyland of giant robots and anime-derived ultra-silliness. Yes, it's totally ridiculous and comedic and the only element of its kind in the entire movie, but it comes from out of nowhere to render what would otherwise be totally acceptable to most parents as something to sit the wee ones through into a movie that most Western parents wouldn't let their kids near until they're twelve or older. It may be a case of this aspect being suitable in its country/culture of origin, or it may be as simple as Miike proving he hasn't lost his signature outrageous edge, figuring that the little ones in the audience wont get what's transpiring at that specific moment. (Unless some of the kiddies in the audience have walked in on their parents having a good time making the beast with two backs, after which all bets are off.) Whatever the case, it's a tonally-jarring moment that I found greatly perplexing when weighed against the context of the rest of the movie. A real head-scratcher. (There's also a bit toward the end involving some loudly-decried ball-kicking, but shots to the nads are to be expected in this kind of bumptious comedy, especially a foreign one, while a full-on fuck gag...not so much.)

The bottom line on all of this is that I loved YATTERMAN from start to finish, even laughing my ass off at the explosive mecha orgasm bit, and I consider it the best of the rash of live-action anime remakes that have been cropping up during the last decade or so. (To be fair, that's not really much of a compliment since the vast majority of those films are either boring or outright shit that needlessly neuters or dumbs-down its source. For example, the ass-awful remakes of DEVILMAN and SPACE BATTLESHIP YAMATO.) The only other live-action anime films in recent years that are a very close second to YATTERMAN would be the two movies based on GE GE GE NO KITARO and a lone entry that updates CUTEY HONEY, but YATTERMAN takes the prize for being as close to a cartoon as this kind of thing can get and also for not having one slow moment in its entire running time. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED (with the aforementioned "cumbot" sequence being kept firmly in mind.)

Oh, and extra points for the hilarious fight song that's heard when Yatterwoof goes into action as the rebuilt Yatterking. If you've seen even a smattering of Japanese giant robot cartoons, you are no doubt familiar with how each and every one of them has a rousing theme song for the robot in question. Yatterking's song is an over-the-top parody of the form that may seem odd to those unfamiliar with the trope, but it's fucking hilarious for those in the know.

Japanese theatrical poster featuring the bad guys.

WASTED ON THE YOUNG (2010)

 Taking the concept of "mean girls" to a new and particularly loathsome low.

It's dawn and pretty teenager Xandrie (Adelaide Clemens) is seen passed out on an Australian beach, possibly left for dead by a trio of her private school classmates consisting of amateur videographer Jono (Tom Stokes), 'roid-rager Brookie (T.J. Power), and uber-wealthy, handsome alpha male Zack (Alex Russell), who all drive away. It's clear from the nervous glances exchanged among the boys that something bad has taken place and the narrative flashes back a few days to provide the preamble.

Zack, Brookie, and Jono are the popular golden boys of their posh private school, star athletes on the swim team, and essentially a pack of male "Heathers" who control the school's social scene. Complete and utter dicks and bullies, the entitled trio are secure in the knowledge that they can get away with pretty much anything and fuck everyone and everything else. The odd man out in their group is Darren (Oliver Ackland), a quiet, nerdy computer whiz whose mother remarried to Zack's gazillionaire father, so Zack and Darren are mismatched at best, with Zack lording it over Darren while the latter pretty much has to endure his step-sib's shit (and the shit of Zack's friends, especially bully boy Brookie) as they live under the same roof.

At school, Xandrie seriously crushes on Darren and the feeling is most definitely mutual, so Xandrie gives her number to Darren and the pair agree to meet later at a huge party thrown by Zack at his father's house. (Zack and Darren's parents are never present; they are always away, apparently jet-setting, leaving the boys completely unsupervised for extended periods of time and with approved  access to Zack's dad's cash.) Observing the obvious attraction between Xandrie and Darren, Zack and his pals — including a couple of mean girls, one of whom fancies Zack and notices Zack's interest in Xandrie — decide to ruin the innocent romance before it even begins, simply because they can and also because Zack is a greedy, self-absorbed turd. At the massive party, drugs and booze flow freely and the alpha teens make sure Darren's path does not intersect with that of Xandrie. The mean girls find Xandrie and her friend Ella (Geraldine Hakewill), and feign kindness while giving the unknowing friends drinks dosed with ketamine, stating "Let's have some fun!" As the drug takes effect, Ella wanders off as Xandrie is corralled downstairs to a private space where the swim team jocks await. As the party dies down and guests depart, Xandrie passes out on the couch and the trio take turns raping her, which they capture on video. (The filmmakers had the good taste to strongly imply the event in such a way that leaves no doubt as to what occurred, but no nudity or graphic depiction of the rape is shown, thank god.) While this foul deed is done, a dejected Darren, who was physically prevented from going downstairs by the thuggish Brookie, drifts off to sleep.

The narrative then skips past the opening scene of Xandrie being left on the beach and focuses on Darren's growing concern when she does not show up to school for about a week. No one knows where she is and Xandrie does not answer the door when Darren shows up at her house. Not being an idiot, Darren realizes Zack and his goons raped Xandrie, so he sets out to find out exactly what happened despite repeated warnings from Zack and crew. The entire school takes note of Xandrie's sudden mysterious absence and all manner of rumors and theories are shared by the student body's social media, which shapes the public perception to paint Xandrie as an unstable "trash bag" who willingly serviced the boys, couldn't hold her liquor, was unable to face the humiliation of being a "slut," and consequently switched schools. Then Xandrie suddenly shows up again, seemingly as chipper as ever, which puts the alpha males and the mean girls on edge. But what is really going through Xandrie's head? What does Darren make of all of this? And can Zack really not care one whit about what he and his friends have done?

WASTED ON THE YOUNG takes what would easily be grindhouse material and handles it with an intelligent, classy arthouse approach that utterly drags the viewer into its sordid world of morality-free privilege and keeps us riveted with its ever-mountng tension. Zack is a monster of the lowest order, a casual sociopath whose lack of concern for anyone other than himself is simply appalling. He's one of the most hateful cinematic villains I've ever come across and I especially despise him because he very much reminds me of some of the worst examples of the privileged youth I grew up amongst in southern Connecticut, only writ heinously large for the screen.

Definitely not for all tastes but featuring fine performances, a taut and intelligent script by writer/director Ben E. Lucas, and a level of intensity that is at times blood pressure-raising, WASTED ON THE YOUNG never cops out, remaining unrelentingly bleak from start to finish and wrapping up the proceedings in ways that I genuinely did not expect. A simple garden variety revenge film it ain't, and I strongly recommend it for those who can handle a story that's so nasty that it doesn't need graphic nudity, violence, or gore to make it stick uncomfortably in one's memory. Upon absorbing the film, I was amazed that it didn't receive a wide theatrical release here in the States, but when taking into account America's track record regarding high school bullying, the misuse of social media, and the ever-present spectre of armed reprisals in our schools, perhaps I shouldn't be...

Oh, and sometimes the dialogue is delivered sotto voce and can thus be hard to hear, so I recommend watching the film with the subtitles turned on so you don't miss any plot particulars.

Poster from the Australian theatrical release.

THE LONE RANGER (2013)

I just got out of Gore Verbinksi's THE LONE RANGER and I have the same feeling I used to get on the day after a full weekend of partying with copious amounts of booze, weed, and psilocybin mushrooms. I feel more than a little disoriented and confused, as though trying to awaken from a weird dream or process a vision quest that didn't work out quite right.

I'm a fan of the western genre. By no means an  expert like my friend Big Black Paul — aka "Big Black-Ass Cowboy" — but a fan nonetheless, so I've seen many of the classics of the form, both domestic and foreign in origin (Italian westerns definitely count). I know all the tropes, so the experience of sitting through this film was akin to watching a pastiche-happy film editor putting together favorite moments from about two dozen oaters, re-shooting them with different actors and modern filmmaking technology, then splicing it all together and unleashing the resulting horse-operatic chimera onto the screen. It's a well-crafted work populated by game professionals both in front of and behind the camera, but it's one fucking weird mama-jamma that tries hard to please and mostly comes up short.

The film features a framing device set at a wild west fair in 1933, in which a kid in a cowboy outfit and Lone  Ranger mask enters an exhibit featuring stuffed examples of conquered animals from the days of the west's then-fairly-recent yesteryear. His perusal of the displays comes to an abrupt halt when the exhibit of "The Noble Savage in his natural habitat" — a faux tipi against a painted backdrop that serves as a 1/1 scale diorama for a life-sized Native American figure holding an upraised tomahawk  — turns out to be an actual, living Injun (Johnny Depp in full old age makeup). The ancient Native American mistakes the boy for the Lone Ranger and once he sorts out that it's just a kid in a costume, the Indian, whom the kid realizes is the legendary Tonto, tells the kid the origin story of the apparently once-real Lone Ranger. Tonto's something of an unreliable narrator and his tale contains a number of questionable points (which his young audience points out throughout the film) but judging from what we are shown as the story unfolds, it's pretty clear to me that it's all a tall tale filtered through Tonto's possibly insane memories.

The story proper takes place in the Texas of 1869 as a railroad is being constructed. Long story short, sadistic outlaw/cannibal Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) escapes his looming date with the hangman,  rides off into the plains with his equally morally-bereft gang (including one who's apparently a homosexual frontier drag queen who "likes pretty things") and murders a bunch of Texas Rangers who pursue him. Among the Rangers is John Reid (Armie Hammer), who is the only one to survive the massacre, and he vows to seek justice for the murder of his revered brother, Dan (James Badge Dale), who previously nabbed Cavendish and saw him sentenced to prison. Dan lives long enough have Cavendish kill him and cut out and eat his heart (which is depicted with considerable restraint but it's made absolutely clear what happens), which is witnessed by John just before he passes out and is left for dead. Also on Cavendish's trail is Tonto, who has trailed Cavendish for twenty-six years in the wake of the outlaw's massacre of his people, due to a bad decision that the young Comanche made. Finding the apparently dead rangers, Tonto, being a decent guy, digs graves for all of them and soon discovers John is miraculously back from the dead and seemingly chosen for greater things by a stark white "spirit horse" that Tonto communicates with. Telling the resurrected John that he is now a spirit-walker who is incapable of being killed in battle because he's been to the other side and returned, the two team up after the usual cross-cultural misunderstandings common to this kind of tale, and they  share many adventures on the trail of Cavendish, with John adopting his iconic masked look. Complications and encounters along the way include John's youthful love and Dan's comely widow, Rebecca (Ruth Wilson), whom John still adores, a brothel madame with a scrimshaw/shotgun prosthetic leg (Helena Bonham Carter) who wants revenge on Cavendish for reducing her to her current one-legged status, an Injun-massacring cavalry officer who bears an intentional resemblance to General Custer (Barry Pepper, star of the infamous BATTLEFIELD EARTH), and corrupt railroad tycoon Latham Cole (Tom Wilkinson), who has a couple of dark secrets and defines the term "hostile takeover."

There's a ton of action and a surprising amount of percussive violence and gunplay, which at times lends the film the feel of "What if Sam Peckinpah directed a kid's western" (there are a few obvious nods to Peckinpah's epochal THE WILD BUNCH), plus we get Tonto providing no small amount of Indian mysticism, so it's pretty much a textbook post-Ford/Leone horse opera. That said, it's a dreamlike  (my friend Suzi called it flat-out boring) pastiche that at times defies one's willing suspension of disbelief and prompts the audience to ask aloud "What the fuck did I just watch?" The problems arise from a few factors, chief among which is the obvious attempt at scoring another PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN box office bullseye and the film's borderline-hallucinogenic length. It's visually lush and epic with gorgeous cinematography by Bojan Bozelli — who did the honors for one of my favorite comedies of the 1980's, namely TAPEHEADS (1988) — but that lushness cannot hide a certain meandering pace that compounds the length in the film's attempt at being more meaty that it actually is. I didn't find it boring but I did note how goddamned long the thing was. At two and a half hours, the movie's at least forty-five minutes too bloated, and once it reaches a certain point it feels like time has warped and the film just might go on forever. I swear it felt like it just. Would. Not. End. And when it does finally wrap things up after a spectacular two-train chase sequence that looks for all the world like the template for a tie-in videogame, it ends on a weird, mystical note that I don't feel works for the narrative, despite some of the other mystical touches on hand throughout. (The sight of the pale spirit horse inexplicably perched on a tree branch being perhaps the most perplexing. It's so weird that even Tonto tersely observes "There's something wrong with that horse.")

The Lone Ranger himself is something of a problem because the script can't seem to nail down just what his personality is. He fluctuates between being a righteous proponent of the letter of the law, a clueless moron, a wacky comedic lead, and, worst of all, a bit of a pussy. He could have been worse but those seeking a western hero to inspire them are advised to look elsewhere.

The elephant in the room, namely Tonto, was one of my favorite things in the film. Yes, he's not played by an actual Native American, but Depp is clearly out to rehabilitate Tonto — already a much maligned and misunderstood character — from his perceived stereotypical, broken-English-speaking stoicism and red-faced Uncle Tom(ahawk) side-kickery. I dug Tonto's bird-on-head and white face paint with symbolic black tears (believe me, he has very good reason to express the sadness in his soul), and he is by far the more interesting of the film's heroes. It was a bold move to tell the story from his (possibly skewed) point of view and I definitely appreciate that. However, would it really have been so hard to find a Native American actor to play the part? Sure, Depp is a box office draw and possesses a huge fan base, but it's 2013, people...

When the lights came up, my friend Daniel noted that we'd just seen $230 million bucks riding off into the sunset, and he could not be more right. The ending was clearly a setup for a hoped-for franchise, but that just ain't gonna happen. Some iconic properties are ripe for re-invention/reboots and some have that happen every generation or so, but, and I hate to say this, I honestly believe that the Lone Ranger's time passed once the 1950's ended. He's just too firmly-defined as a kid-friendly, ultra-squeaky-clean good guy who rides the range selflessly righting wrongs in a Wild West whose romanticized patina has been long washed away by the general acknowledgement of the horrific atrocities committed as the west was won, or rather stolen by lawlessness, faithless governmental dishonesty, unbridled racism, and still-horrific genocide. Our innocence/blindness in that department is long gone, and nowadays is anyone really going to buy a western hero who only shoots people in the hands? I say the Ranger and Tonto are a nostalgia item who are more or less doomed as our culture becomes more cynical with each passing day. The audience of roughly sixty attendees mostly consisted of moviegoers aged sixty and over, clearly fueled by fond memories of Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels,  and that demographic is simply not numerous nor box office-present enough to warrant the Lone Ranger and Tonto being given another shot by a major studio again. Sadly, this flick may be the final nail in their pop cultural coffin.

Bottom line: I didn't hate THE LONE RANGER, but I am not blind to its many faults (several of which I just couldn't bring myself to bother going into) and needlessly-oppressive running time. It looks great and Tonto is a lot of fun, but I cannot recommend it as a first-run ticket expenditure. When all is said and done, what we're left with here is yet another huge-budgeted disposable "product" movie that will look great on TV as one combats insomnia and gets lulled to dreamland by its aforementioned borderline-hallucinogenic pace. I suppose there are worse things to have than a western-inspired dream, so keep it in mind when you require a pretty cinematic soporific. And if you want to see a genuinely good western from Gore Verbinski, look no further than the animated RANGO (2011), which features Johnny Depp giving voice to the title character.

THIS IS THE END (2013)

So I had a free movie ticket that I earned via my membership in the Regal theater chain's club, and I figured I'd finally use it. The problem was that the local Regal theater, the beautiful but ghetto-licious Court Street Stadium 12, is deep in the throes of the early portion of the summer blockbuster season, so most of its auditoriums were taken up with multiple screenings of the current top hits, the major of which I have already seen, so it was between THE PURGE and THIS IS THE END as the flick I would expend my freebie on. I chose THIS IS THE END and I could not possibly be happier with that decision.

The biblical apocalypse suddenly happens, complete with The Rapture, and a number of current movie stars find themselves trapped together at the house of James Franco (playing himself), where a party was in full swing until the end of the world breaks out. We're talking the earth opening up, earthquakes, yawning chasms of what is presumably hellfire, violence and total lawlessness in the streets, demons running around...You name it, and if it's bad, it's happening, so our trapped celebs — Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Craig Robinson, and Danny McBride, all playing themselves — opt to sit it all out, safely (?) barricaded in Franco's house. Food and water are limited, nerves fray by the second, and as the group begins to accept that it's not just some horrific natural disaster but actually the motherfucking apocalypse, they also stop to ask why they, actors whose work supposedly brings joy to the masses, did not ascend to Heaven when the shit went down.

Once we're clear that the apocalypse has hit, there's really no plot to speak of, but the setup of the actors trapped together allows for an avalanche of hilarious character study featuring one of the most laugh-out-loud hysterical scripts to come along in ages. The performances are all good straight across the board and the cameos by a good number of celebs who are not the focus of the narrative are all a hell of a lot of fun. Here's the breakdown:

• What could easily have been a smarmy, winking vanity project for most of those involved is instead a terrifically vulgar, flawlessly-acted breath of comedic fresh air.
• The actors gamely make or submit to harsh-but-honest criticisms of their own cinematic career choices, with my favorite jabs being reserved for THE GREEN HORNET and the piss-poor stoner comedy YOUR HIGHNESS.
• Eternal wimpy nebbish Michael Cera completely and utterly destroys his onscreen image with the best out-of-control playing against type since Neil Patrick Harris in the first two HAROLD AND KUMAR movies, and that's really saying something. 

Michael Cera, kissing his usual image goodbye with a vengeance.

• None of the actors comes off as being a "better" person than anyone else, some of them even going so far as to portray themselves as selfish, annoying total assholes.
• Emma Watson forever distances herself from Hermione in the HARRY POTTER flicks with her no-nonsense survival-minded turn here.

Hermione no more!

• For once we see an apocalypse that features horrific demons on the loose — at least one of which is very horny, which is not a good thing —even going so far as to give us a Godzilla-sized Satan striding about on cloven hooves, with his thick volcanic cock a-swingin'.
• Speaking of things satanic, we get very clever and funny shoutouts/references to both ROSEMARY'S BABY and THE EXORCIST, the latter of which is put to solid comedic use.
• The heated Franco/McBride exchange regarding male masturbation as a territorial marking exercise is an instant classic.
• Channing Tatum, I applaud you for being the best of sports, and I won't spoil the reason why.
• How does one end a movie about the end of the world and the utter disintegration of law, decency, and humanity? By being totally ridiculous and turning what for all the world looks like a cop-out ending into a triumph of sheer idiocy and R-rated silliness...

Full of the contemporary stoner humor and bromance tropes that I've come to expect and mostly dread over the past fifteen years or so, the film nonetheless has a very active brain in its head and it treats its over-the-top goings-on with far more intelligence than something like this has any right to possess. Seriously, I wish more comedies were even half as genuinely funny as THIS IS THE END, so let's see if the love the film is receiving causes Hollywood to take note of just why it all works as well as it does and start making comedies that actually bring the laughs we pay good money to see. Enough with that Freidberg & Seltzer DATE/SCARY/EPIC/DISASTER MOVIE bullshit!

Original theatrical poster.

MAN OF STEEL (2013)

Henry Cavill, the latest actor to bring Superman to cinematic life.

Ah, Superman...

I'm a lifelong lover of superheroes and their adventures and I enjoy the many flavors to be found within the genre, but sometimes I like to keep things as basic as possible and once more return to the grand-daddy of them all. Superman owns a very large and warm piece of real estate in my heart and mind, a residence he took up about the time I first saw George Reeves in the classic THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN television series, and from there my enjoyment of the character grew exponentially with the discovery of his far-reaching world in the comics. At that point in my childhood — I was seven — DC Comics was issuing 100-page "Super-Spectaculars," which was a glorified way of saying "reprints with one new story thrown in for good measure," for all of their regular series and I devoured them like a starving man attacks a fresh plate of sirloin with all the trimmings. Cheap to produce from their existing back catalog, the 100-pagers probably seemed like a money-saving after-thought to the publisher, but to us kids who were hungry for material we had not been exposed to, those collections were a goldmine of old school lore and wonder. Yes, much of it was crazy and silly, but they were among the purest examples of the one element that made for perfect kid's comics entertainment, namely FUN, an element that is sorely lacking in most of the comics that are created today. (To be fair, today's comics are mostly being produced for now-grown kids who grew up on comics, and few publishers gave a damn about making comics for children anymore. More's the pity...) Of the DC stable of heroes, Superman's mythology was arguably the richest, flavored as it was with the sheer Americana of his immigrant origin (yeah, he's a space alien, but he still came to America from elsewhere), his always-do-the-right-thing attitude, the eternal two-person love triangle of Superman/Lois/Clark, all manner of fanciful and over-the-top antagonists — Lex Luthor, Mr. Myxyzptlk, Brainiac, Titano, the list goes on — and allies — Lori Lemaris, Batman (before he got "dark and gritty"), the Legion of Super-Heroes — which all added up to pure and colorful storybook fantasy updated for a 20th century audience.

Then came the Superman feature films, which are an admittedly mixed bag. There had been other adaptations of our hero to the silver screen before 1978's big-budget blockbuster, SUPERMAN, but those had been serials and animated shorts (plus "features" cobbled together from episodes of the old George Reeves show). The first true feature film was a spectacle that is now considered a classic, despite its uneven aspects, but the one thing that everybody, and I do mean everybody, agrees about when it comes to that film (and its spotty sequels) is that the then-unknown Christopher Reeve was simply born to play Superman, and his indelible interpretation shone brightly throughout his four movie adventures, even managing to come out of the toxic wreckage of both SUPERMAN III and SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE with the character's dignity intact. (No mean feat, that!) Then came SUPERMAN RETURNS (2005), a widely-reviled attempt at a series relaunch that was a creative and critical failure despite star Brandon Routh's game efforts in the title role. (He totally channeled Christopher Reeve for both Superman and Clark Kent, which in retrospect was a very good idea.) Special effects may have finally caught up to Superman's fantastic abilities, but even the mighty Kryptonian hero was felled by script that, well, sucked. And now comes the latest shot at kicking Superman into the 2000's, an effort no doubt spurred by the staggering box office success of Marvel Comics movies like the Iron Man films and last summer's mega-hit THE AVENGERS.

MAN OF STEEL is one of the rare movies where there's no real need to concern oneself with spoiler warnings when talking about it because, let's face it, it's a story whose basic elements we all have known since we were little. The particulars of Superman are so ingrained in us on a universally-shared cultural level that even immigrants whose command of the English language is far from stellar can communicate. In fact, I proved that very point last year to a friend as we drunkenly ordered a meal at a Brooklyn diner at Jesus o'clock in the morning. My friend argued that any reboot of the Superman franchise simply had to begin with the umpteenth telling of his origin story for those unfamiliar with the character, to which I countered that Superman is known everywhere by everyone, a state of affairs that goes back by generations, with parents explaining it all to their little ones even before those wee ones can read or see his adventures for themselves. To prove this, I told my friend to pick any person in the diner and I would bet that they knew Superman's origin. He scanned the eatery and settled on our waitress, a nice middle-aged woman of foreign Hispanic origin whose English was a tad problematic. When we called her over, I asked her, "You know Superman, right? Can you tell me where he comes from?" She processed my question and one could clearly see the translation circuits in her brain wrestling with the query, but then her eyes lit up with full comprehension and she responded with, "Oh, yes! Soopairmon! He come from..." She cut off her English description and mimed a rocketship falling to Earth. That was enough for me to win the bet and to prove the universality of the knowledge of Superman's origin. So, with a new movie we know the basic template, which can be boiled down thusly:

Superman is sent as an infant from a dying alien world, grows up in the American heartland with staunch "American" values, decides to use his incredible abilities to serve and protect mankind, and proves himself to be the world's champion during a time of dire need while also being one hell of a nice guy.

That's really all there is to it, and that's what MAN OF STEEL is all about, so the devil is in the details of this iteration's retelling. I won't bother with a detailed plot recap since what you just read above really is the movie in a nutshell, but I will state some pertinent points:

• Though essentially a remake/fusion of elements from SUPERMAN (1978) and SUPERMAN II (1981), this latest reboot of the Superman mythos is very much a Superman for the early-2000's and I'm shocked to find that I'm cool with that. In fact, I'm not just cool with it. I liked it A LOT.
• The cast is quite good across the board, with top honors going to Henry Cavill as Superman/Clark/Kal-El, who manages to make the character his own without aping Christopher Reeve's version. 

He's still the all-American farm boy we all know and love, but he's less fairy tale squeaky-clean/borderline sickeningly-sweet than he is a decent person who just happens to have powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men. He's the demi-god in spandex made relatable in a way that is, to me anyway, more intriguing than the Reeve benchmark. (Which is in now way a slight on Reeve; his Superman was about as perfect as you could ask for, but Cavill's take is just as valid.)

• The movie gets the Krypton stuff out of the way with expedience and briskness, though the "action hero Jor-El" reinterpretation struck me as rather silly. That said, this is a summer superhero movie for the 2013 audience, so I can't say I was surprised by that tweak.
• I was initially concerned about the casting of Amy Adams as Lois Lane but I should not have worried. 

This is a different, and in my humble opinion, better Lois than we've seen previously, and long before the end of the film I came to like her a great deal. Gone is the catty/bitchy/sneaky/suspicious Lois who, for a supposed great journalist, often struck me as shrewish and largely unprofessional. (Plus to say nothing of obsessed, stalker-ish, and occasionally more than a little bit mentally deranged.)Thankfully, the script ditches the sexist stereotypes that made Lois one of my least-favorite characters since childhood, and replaces those hoary tropes with a capable, tough, and smart reporter who is in her own way just as brave and heroic as Superman. I look forward to seeing more of her.

• Michael Shannon delivers a General Zod who actually possesses a motivation with considerably more gravitas than Terrence Stamp's undefined, take-it-for-what-it-is megalomania. 

Considering what we are told about how Kryptonians are bred and programmed at a genetic level for their society's tasks/classes, Zod's motivation makes a degree of admittedly twisted and fascistic sense, and if anything, I felt a certain amount of pity for him and his blind, genocidal single-mindedness.

• Kevin Costner and Diane Lane are the perfect Pa and Ma Kent for the 2000's, and the segments featuring them add greatly to the narrative's sense of heart.

• Christopher Meloni — one of my favorite actors, by the way — is on hand as U.S. military Col. Hardy, and he's pretty damned cool. 

During a lull in the first wave of violent carnage and destruction wrought by Superman's conflict with the bad Kryptonians, the at first understandably suspicious colonel witnesses Superman's efforts on behalf of his adoptive planet and his concern for the human soldiers and civilians and realizes that the guy in blue can be trusted. As his men lower their weapons while Superman frees himself from a burial mound of rubble, Col. Hardy takes a good, long, silent, appraising look at the earnest extra-terrestrial and utters the line that made me, as a lifelong fan of Superman and all that he stands for, tear up: "This man is NOT our enemy." The whole audience felt that one and a woman to my left let out a triumphant yelp (which she, embarrassed, immediately stifled).

• With so much of the story being devoted to Superman figuring himself out and earning the trust of humanity, the fake Clark Kent persona is not seen at all until literally the last two minutes before the end credits roll, and I'm fine with that. I'm hoping the new take on the bumbling reporter aspect of the character will be less exaggerated and more in keeping with the new status quo set up in this origin movie. With Lois's curiosity about Superman's secret identity being rendered totally and thankfully irrelevant, there's no need for Clark to dork himself up any further than by donning a pair of spectacles. (That's not a spoiler; a number of people discover Clark's secret throughout the narrative, and it makes sense in every case.)
• Regarding Superman's costume: I initially disliked the textured "alien" look of the outfit and was turned off by how dark and un-colorful it was, once again citing how it needs the red trunks as a design element to offset all of that blue, but I got used to the new look fairly quickly. It looks especially good when Superman is in flight.
• There is no Kryptonite to be found, which is only a good thing. Its presence would offer nothing to this particular story and it has been overused in many tired and sometimes outright idiotic ways over the years. (SUPERMAN RETURNS takes the prize for the radioactive material's worst narrative use. If you've seen that film, you know exactly what I'm referring to.)
• Lex Luthor is also refreshingly absent, though there are Lexcorp signs that pop up briefly. There are plenty of other adversaries of interest in Superman's lore, so it will be nice to see some of them pop up. Give me Brainiac and Maxima!
• The special effects are excellent and they actually serve the narrative, rather than overwhelming it or being the film's raison d'etre. The designs for the technology on/from Krypton are a lot of fun and owe a debt to what John Byrne came up with when he rebooted Superman in the comics during the mid-1980's, and there are several visual/design nods to THE MATRIX that work because we are now far enough away from that uber-cribbed-from film to no longer see stuff that was influenced by it as a bold-faced ripoff. And Superman in flight has never looked better!
• One of the problems I had with SUPERMAN II pops up again in this film, namely that a bunch of bad guy Kryptonians show up on Earth and instantly find themselves blessed with the superpowers that their species are granted by our solar system's yellow sun and our planet's lesser gravity. The script flat-out states that the Kryptonian body acts as a solar battery and converts that energy into kickass powers, but it would make sense for that battery to take some time to charge, after which training in the use of the powers in question would be a prerequisite to actually using them. Zod and his people very swiftly twig to their newfound super-ness and put it to immediate and devastating use, and though they have not mastered straight-up flying, they instead make prodigious leaps and deploy bursts of super-speed. I call "bullshit" on that, Superman has been honing his powers at least since adolescence, so I say he should be able to wipe the floor with a group that would amount to toddlers taking their first wobbly steps. Deadly, military-trained toddlers, but toddlers nonetheless.
• One genuinely disturbing aspect of the film that greatly affected me (and one of the dear friends who saw MAN OF STEEL with me) is how during the apocalyptic set-to in Metropolis, the wholesale destruction of skyscrapers and throngs of terrified civilians fleeing through the streets as buildings collapsed around and on top of them took me out of the film and dropped me right back into the elevated B train as it crawled past the burning stumps of the Twin Towers on 9/11. That was a sight and smell that brought real-life horror and devastation up close and personal, and for a long time I could not look at movies with tableaus of city-destruction as being entertaining in any way (which is a huge problem for a hardcore fan of giant monster movies, especially those of the Japanese variety). Now, our big-budget special effects spectacles are technologically equipped to depict cityscape devastation to an alarmingly-detailed degree, and as a New York City resident I have a hard time sitting through such stuff. In the case of what we get in MAN OF STEEL, the city-destroying battles are loud, percussively edited, and excessive to a numbing level, with the resulting effect coming off like being on the receiving end of a heavy-duty bludgeoning. If you or your kids might find such material distressing on the big screen and augmented with Dolby sound, I suggest waiting for cable of home video.
• My biggest gripe with the entire film is Hans Zimmer's utterly generic score. The music is about as rote as one can get from a big-budget superhero flick, and there's not even any signature motif that one can point to as a "Superman theme," per se. I'm glad they didn't use John William's absolutely perfect and unforgettable theme from the 1978 film. That piece will forever be synonymous with Christopher Reeve and applying it to any other iteration of Superman would be sacrilege, but it does suck that the Superman of the 2000's doesn't have a stirring theme tune of his own.

When all is said and done, I greatly enjoyed MAN OF STEEL — a film I completely expected to be the latest soulless and bloated blockbuster crapped from the puckered anus of the Hollywood factory, even going so far as to preemptively refer to it as "MAN OF STOOL" for the past few months — and I very much look forward to seeing what this creative team comes up with for our hero's further adventures. Some Superman purists may grouse, but they can suck it. The sequel has already been green-lit, so I hope the next installment is as much fun as this winning first salvo.

My favorite of the film's several theatrical release posters.

GUEST REVIEW: AFTER EARTH (2013)

A friend who’s an unimpeachable source just wrote to me about seeing a free screening of AFTER EARTH and ranted at length (possibly drunkenly) about its horrors. I would have had him post directly to my Facebook wall and vent his spleen but he signed non-disclosure agreements with the studio, so let’s just call him “The Phantom Audience Victim.” What follows is what he had to say, word for word, with only minor editing for spelling and grammar: You will never believe this but that new Will Smith movie, AFTER EARTH, is a fucking sequel to — drum roll please — BATTLEFIELD FUCKING EARTH!!! I wish, I WISH, I was joking but it's the same universe, the ships look the same, they mention the same alien species, and half the dialogue was basically a retelling of Dianetics. SCIENTOLOGIST PROPAGANDA!!! The whole movie is about the fucking XENU DIANETICS VOLCANO!!! They go into story time about how that volcano is the "origins of humans" and bullshit. I WATCHED THE WHOLE THING!!! I was shocked!!! I had no clue it was all the scientology bullshit. Like you gotta understand this isn't like me trying to make connections that aren't there. It is straight up a sequel or something to fucking Dianetics. I was horrified! I started making the connections in my head and they started talking about all the scientology crap and I was like... “What the fuck kind of bullshit trap did I step into?!!? That’s pretty much how it felt, slowly realizing it was scientology. So like the whole volcano thing from Dianetics is the central focus point of AFTER EARTH and the whole like "galactic federation" crap and them coming back to Earth and then their explanation as to what happened to the people on Earth was pretty much word for word the synopsis to Dianetics, and the whole "emotion control" thing is a central point too. I feel dirty. I'm unclean. I literally sat through the spiritual sequel to BATTLEFIELD EARTH. Columbia Pictures people made me sign all flavors of shit but even they were like, "Dude, when people realize what’s up with this, shit will hit the fucking fan!" NDAs and whatnot… You’re the only person I told but, seriously, it's fucking propaganda!!! The whole goddamn movie is all this scientology shit and the scientology shit is not even subtle. If this wasn't a movie you’d have to pay for, I'd possibly even recommend you seeing it, just to be fully taken in completely by the absurdity of it all. I don't know what else to say, other than it sucked and the acting sucked and the story was predictable as all shit and it was fucking Dianetics propaganda. It was bad. REALLY bad. BATTLEFIELD EARTH bad. Oh, and boring as sin. It was like watching someone play a video game. Go to a location, fight some animal. Next location, animal. Next location, animal. And Will Smith's acting was soooooo wooden. No fucking emotion, and the kid walked around with only one emotion of that mix between scared and about to cry. UGH. It was so bad, even the Columbia people were like "yeah..." To sum up: A vanity project loaded with nepotism and scientology overtones directed by M. Night Shamalamadingdong. If that doesn't sound like reason enough not to see it, then I don't know what is.