Marvel Movie Project #13: Iron Man 2

Aimee's Take:

Iron Man 2 was a very highly anticipated release, due to the success of Iron Man and the general asshole-ish likeability of Robert Downey, Jr as Tony Stark. We all filed in to see it, expecting more of the same fast-paced, tightly maneuvered fun we had enjoyed before. We were... disappointed.

Not to say that the movie is all bad. It's not. It's decently watchable. The problem is... it's too much. 

It's as though the filmmakers took everything we loved about Iron Man and hooked it up to an amplifier. Unfortunately, that amplifier has been dropped a few times and has a tendency to make very annoying noises at very inopportune times. Pepper Potts has had her neurotic stress level turned to 11; SHIELD and Nick Fury involvement has been turned to 11; and Justin Hammer has been introduced and doesn't need additional volume to be incredibly annoying and terribly unfunny. Rhodes as War Machine is unnecessary and ill-used.

At the same time, we're given a surprisingly toned-down version of Tony Stark, who is struggling with a life-threatening problem and dealing with daddy issues. 

When you plug all this into a flimsy plot that is frankly all over the damn place, you don't have much opportunity for fun and excitement.

Remove the SHIELD subplot--now we're getting somewhere. There's almost no reason for it; Tony could have dug into his father's past alone. Let's not make the "new element" subplot so convoluted, ok? It's too tidy for all of the wild factors; I guess we should all be happy to find that Pepper was throwing away that giant city model right at the best possible time for Tony to find it--like something that huge was maybe in the coat closet? Why was it not in archives? You want me to believe that Stark Industries doesn't have archives? 

Whiplash is fairly compelling, why not create an escalating hostility between him and Tony, ultimately culminating in a showdown? Why is Justin Hammer in this?

This is another film that is shamed by the masterful execution of The Avengers. It had too much going on and not enough "meat" to hold things together. Sure, the characters are (mostly) fun to watch. Yes, there's eye candy. Yes, I get it, everyone loves Sam Jackson. But this effort is solidly sophomoric and deserves its low spot.

What Stan Says:

Sequels are tricky things.  When the first film is great, a follow-up must extend the glory of the original, introduce something new, and maintain the status quo that has been established.  When done well, you get Godfather Part II, when done poorly you get Iron Man 2.

As Aimee says, Iron Man was incredible.  It blew every possible expectation I had for it out of the water.  Honestly, I don't care for Iron Man.  I have always found the character to be a bit unrelatable and boorish.  But Robert Downey Jr's portrayal of Tony Stark made me like Iron Man, and what's more, made me care about the character...(for the rest of this paragraph see the upcoming Iron Man entry in the Marvel Movie Project.)  Iron Man 2 managed to undo a lot of the good work Iron Man worked so hard to accomplish.

Oh my dear lord.

The first film was simple, straightforward, and pure.  Iron Man 2 is none of those things.  The story wanders all over the place from Whiplash's origin to a car race to the introduction of Black Widow (I am IN LOVE with Scarlett Johansson's Widow, too bad there is no reason for her to be in this film) to Justin Hammer's ridiculous factory to Tony Stark's birthday party to a giant park and on and on.  Pick a story and go with it.

How about a simple one where a rival developer is stealing Stark designs and turning them into weapons contracts?  That story is in there somewhere and it would be great, but instead we clutter it up with an uncharacteristic (and considering the source that's saying something) drunken birthday brawl, some kind of SHIELD subplot, the Black Widow and War Machine.  None of which are things we need.  This could be so easy.  Justin  We also get a secret film of Howard Stark who just happened to invent the very element Tony needs to save the day.  All Tony has to do is find a treasure map with an X on it in the form of ridiculously giant model, the build a thingy to create the element.  You can see the slippery slope that leads us to doom, can't you.  I could have been so easy.  Try this on for size:  Hammer steals Stark designs, sells them, hires Whiplash to work for him and keep Iron Man off his back and then he uses his power to leverage whatever his bigger agenda is. Theisre are plenty of big fights between Iron Man and Whiplash, and Iron Man and Hammer's Iron Men. We don't need the rest of it.  Well, maybe Scarlett...

But worse that all of that, is that I don't really like any of the characters I came to love in the first film.  Pepper is just freaked out all of the time and her hysterical anger and whining is old 5 minutes into the film.  Her bizarre rivalry with Black Widow is forced and feels like it.  Stark is Stark, but he's also being a douche and not in the good way like in the first film.  Cheadle is a fine substitute Rhodey, but he is given the worst possible things to do, so he's not as likeable as Terrence Howard.  Plus, despite the set-up in Iron Man, I do not believe for a second that he ever gets in that War Machine suit, not until the very end anyway.  Black Widow too is wasted here and would have been much better had we waited to introduce the character in The Avengers where she is dyno-mite. 
So a dismally convoluted plot, unlikeable characters, and way too much unneeded clutter, what is there to like in this movie?  Must be Spectacle.

The film is big and action-packed.  It is a thrill ride, but the ride is without any of the substance that made the original Iron Man such an unexpected treat.  It's a blockbuster type film but it lack the heart to be more than a flash and is ultimately unforgettable.  It is only on the back of  Robert Downey Jr, and the incredibly high production values (the suit still looks amazing!) that Iron Man 2 makes it this high on the count up.  For my money, IM2 is the "Best of the Worst" on our list.

Marvel Movie Project: #15 Captain America

Aimee here!

I bet you're surprised to see that today's special Memorial Day edition of the Marvel Movie Ranking Project is Captain America. C'mon, you know you are--it was heralded like the second coming of Jesus last summer and everyone but everyone was all too happy to throw movies (like, say, Thor) right into the trashcan after observing this movie's amazing majesty. It was a red-blooded All-American hot dog of a country-fried eagle, wrapped up in Summer Blockbuster fare, and distributed accordingly to all the happy peoples ready to charge into a short-lived bout of July fireworks-boltered American patriotism.

If you don't like this movie, you're a damn commie. I guess that means I'm a commie.

I'm not here to tear down the concept of patriotism on Memorial Day; on the contrary, I'm here to remind you why this film does not honor the patriotism and history it really seems to want to embrace.

Now, be forewarned. I was raised by a history enthusiast and went on to earn a degree in history. I'm also kind of a hipster in that I like retro design aesthetic, and one of my favorite pastimes is watching old informational filmstrips. When I watch a film, it can get ruined in a heartbeat by pervasive and nonsensical anachronisms. Not to say that a movie must be perfect--far from it. But when the tone of a film is being presented in a certain way--for example, Captain America seems to want me to take it seriously--and its set design, props department, costumers, scriptwriters, etc are presenting the film in another way--"It's a retro-futurist piece!"--I simply cannot hold it in.

I wanted to write this like a research paper, but I decided that, for simplicity's sake, it would be better if I just hit the high points. Let's begin!

1. It's Retro Future!

 Let's remove that "retro-futurist" bullshit right now. I heard "retro-future" tossed around a lot around the release of Captain America, and it doesn't work. It was said in an effort to remove movie-goer doubts about the amazing number of anachronisms.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Metropolis, and The Rocketeer are or have elements of a "retro-future" story and design aesthetic. Captain America  is a period piece and cannot have these elements. Why?

Because Iron Man, Hulk, Thor, and The Avengers are all set in the "real" world. They are fantastic stories, sure--but they are grounded in the everyman, everyday American experience. If Captain America comes from the same continuity as Iron Man, it can't take liberties with the development of that continuity--meaning, the WWII experience of Tony Stark's world had to be roughly the same as the WWII experience of our world. This means some of the more blatant anachronisms, if explained as "retro-future" would had to have effected the continuity.

2. Closed-circuit TV!

This was the first thing that really set me off, because I had, up to that point, been willing to accept a few anachronisms and move on. But once that pressure gauge hits a certain reading, I can no longer accept anything, and seeing this particular anachronism was too much.

Hydra uses it in their base. It is visualized on roughly rectangular screens that *kind of* have a retro design aesthetic as long as you don't remember that the proto-TV's of the era looked like this 1939 Philco:

 

This awesome scan comes from http://www.jitterbuzz.com/indtv.html

The average TV of the pre-War era contained a kinescope tube so long that the only practical way to present the image was to face the screen to the ceiling and reflect the image by mirror for those gathered in your parlor. Oh, and they were absurdly expensive considering that TV didn't really get started in earnest until the Post-War era. TV would begin making extreme improvements immediately following WWII, both in the sense of the actual appliance and the broadcast itself.

So when I see this:

I want to lose my mind. HYDRA boasts closed-circuit TV that displays on impossible screens. Plus, these freaking cameras MOVE. Remotely. Red Skull had to have had these things before the Cosmic Cube dropped in. No, I don't think anyone invented this stuff. No, I don't think he made them using the Cube!

3. The Cosmic Cube does NOT explain it all!

Ok, whatever the Cosmic Cube/Tesseract does in the comics, it does not do those things here. It is presented and used ENTIRELY as an energy source, a position that has only been backed up by the release of The Avengers. 

A dear friend of mine keeps going back to the Cube. Saying that all the stuff that doesn't look right or is an anachronism? It's the damn Cube. Well, I have news for you. You know how when, you see a movie like, Back to the Future Part 2 for example, the future looks suspiciously like the year the movie was filmed in? That's how our brains work. Design evolves slowly. True vanguards are usually regarded as strange until their designs are watered down and integrated. When we conceptualize a new invention, we do so using the design aesthetic of our time--or at least, design aesthetics we have seen before.

This is a 1943 Dumont. This is what "video" cameras looked like.

My point is, Red Skull would have, at the very least, conceptualized anything he got from the Cube in the design aesthetic of his era, or close to it. And maybe you can make the point about the surveillance cameras... but how can you make that same point about the blue-glowing HYDRA laser guns? I think they'd probably look either like real projectile weapons or they'd be laughably campy tributes to the budding sci-fi serials of the day. In short, if it was going to be a laser pistol, it'd be the first kind we all "knew" about. Flash Gordon level stuff.

4. New York, Land of Plenty... of Gasoline

Ok, so, why would there be a World's Fair type event all night when the Eastern Seaboard was under a blackout restriction because of the real threat of U-Boats? Why are there SO MANY CARS on the street without gas rationing stickers on them, and in addition to that, where are they coming up with all that gas? They sure are shiny, new-looking cars. Doesn't look like the war affected anyone.

It certainly didn't affect that guy in the theater that made an ass of himself about not caring about the war. I assure you, Cap did NOT have to go beat that guy down--every mother and child in that place would have jumped him. The newsreels were one of the only sources of information for those on the home-front starved for even a glimpse of what their sons, husbands, fathers, uncles and friends might be going through out there. We live in a post-nationalistic era and we are, thankfully, more free to express anti-war sentiment than we used to be. But you know something? During WWII, that wasn't the kind of thing you were likely to encounter. Not saying it didn't happen. But the wave of patriotic spirit and national pride that accompanied the sacrifice and bravery of both those in the service and those at home keeping them supplied and keeping the homeland safe was hard to ignore. That guy was going to have a purse crashed over his head, minimum.

Captain America does it as a plot point. It's entitled to make that kind of call. But it's symptomatic of the most glaring problem the movie faces:

5. Nazis. I hate these guys.

We all know Nazis are bad. We all agree Hitler is a bad, bad man. No one likes seeing a swastika. It is hard for us, now, to believe that such incredible hate and suffering ever marched across Europe. It is hard to visualize the kind of environment that fostered. The world knew that Hitler had to be stopped, and through a long and costly war, did exactly that.

These are concepts that are uncomfortable in the post-modern era. And we've done our best to remove uncomfortable subject matter in certain movies for quite some time. Rather than watch heroes take actual lives--uncomfortable--we watch them cut down wave after wave of "drones". They aren't alive or don't look like they are, so we never understand the cost in human life--on either side. Some movies, those specifically meant to be poignant or painstakingly historical, don't pull those punches, and try to remind us that these are the conflicts of humanity.

Captain America, however, lets us all know that the war is... what? We never see any real combat. We never even understand who he's fighting--not just as Cap, but as an American. He "punches" Hitler a few times in his little stage act, but hey--no big deal. This and ONE NEWSREEL are the only places we see Nazi symbols like the Swastika. You don't even see much on the uniforms of the Germans meeting up with Red Skull.

And by the way, Hitler is so bad that even Red Skull seems reluctant to throw in with him--and with that we promptly forget that there is ANYTHING else going on in Europe and we only fight HYDRA from that point on.

How does this honor WWII as a setting? How is this patriotic? Captain America takes the heart of the WWII Era and removes all the teeth and all the meaning, and leaves us with an irrelevant action flick.

6. Summing Up

I'm afraid that I just flat out think this movie fails on every level except one. The actual character of Captain America. He's exactly what he needs to be, and he's absolutely wandering around in a movie setting that is as flimsy as the fake apartment SHIELD puts him in at the end. He shines in the Avengers  because he's the same, likeable, lovably old-fashioned Cap that we see in Captain America, but he's been removed from all the bad film-making decisions. I don't like the forced romance, and I think the crash sequence that comes at the end is very forced. Surprisingly, a similar sequence from Star Trek (the new one) brought me to tears, where this one just made me groan. Heck, the slow type-out of "LOVE YOU WIFE" is enough to make me blubber a little when watching the Abyss. Cap and Peggy? Just crash and go to the future already.

It's a fine movie if you can stand the problems. It's certainly not the worst. But there are FAR better movies out there, and as we move up the list, I hope you'll understand why one of the Marvel Movie Darlings wound up sucking up the dead middle.


Stan's Take
Aimee does a good job of giving you the play-by-play of what is wrong with this film.  She wanted to lead off this time around because she had such a strong reaction to the film.  And she's right.

What I wanted in a Captain America  movie was either a good WWII period piece OR a "man-out-of-time" story.  What I got was goofy sci-fi set against a flimsy quasi-historical backdrop.  So, I got neither.  I was more forgiving of some of the historical problems Aimee detailed, but as soon as the blue laser guns show up and the Nazi's vanish into the background, I'm out.  I'm just out.  Any chance of a period piece are just gone.  Like Aimee said, the movie should look like it took place in WWII, even if you have fantastic elements, it should still fit in its time.  The blue laser guns destroy any chance of that happening.  I fail to see why Cap would ever feel like a man out of time when he wakes up in the future.  He's already seen things far more fantastic than a jumbo-tron.  He's seen a stealth submarine, a super-jet, all kinds of fancy computers, laser cannons and guns, and a machine that turns 98 lb. weaklings into super-heroes, how is a big TV going to throw him for a loop?  Dumb.

Chris Evans' Stever Rogers and Cap are the only saving graces here.  Evans is likeable and believable, which is particularly challenging when you consider how little he was given to do.  The Cap fights are fun, but they also are bereft of meaning since his enemy is an unrealistic fictional entity created to avoid making modern Germans angry or sad because 80 years ago their country was led by a madman who convinced enough Germans to join his bizarre hate crusade.  History is ugly, but it happened.  If we have to create fictional villains to avoid upsetting someone who might be connected to the real villains, then maybe we need to not make a period piece to begin with.  Indiana Jones had no problem going after Nazis.  Nazis were EVIL.  EVIL EVIL BAD.  It is OK to say that and it ok for Captain America to go fight them since THAT IS WHAT HE DID IN THE COMICS FROM THAT ERA.  Pack up your touchy-feely postmodern bullshit and go home.  Or, you know, don't make a period piece and insult anyone with an education past the fourth grade.

I'm sorry, as I was saying, Chris Evans is the only reason to see this movie, just turn it off after the blue laser guns show up.

Marvel Movie Project #17 Fantastic Four 2

This is the movie where the Silver Surfer comes to Earth for no reason, wastes all of our time, and then kills Galactus and leaves.  That's it.  I kid you not.  Look, you know by now I like to take the comic book source material and tell you where the movie went horribly wrong.  This won't take long.  The Silver Surfer CANNOT kill Galactus.  At least not out right.  The Surfer's power is literally a fraction of the World Eater's power cosmic.  It is that fact that creates the conflict of the Surfer's story.  He leads Galactus to Earth so the big guy can eat it, but then learns that Earth is full of people who are much like the home planet he left behind to save.  He must then enlist the help of the FF to save Earth and rebel against his master.

Does anything in this movie even remotely look like that?  No.  What we get is more of the same recycled crap from the first movie, even Doom comes back for absolutely NO reason, with some more interesting Special Effects.  Alba is still unbelievable as Sue, and she is a total bitch.  Reed is still a weak, mealy mouthed nerd who is marrying Sue because I think he is scared of her.  Ben is less pathetic this time around and Alicia is a welcome and likable female character in a movie with far too few.  Johnny, again, steals the show and creates the films only enjoyable moments.

The film is plagued by more forced family squabbles, but this time it is set against the tired device of having the four swap powers due to yet another freak accident, which only confuses an already overly complicated and needless plot.

The Special Effect, er Silver Surfer, looks really good and has the makings of being an interesting character, but he is given absolutely nothing to do, except show up, get captured and misunderstood and then released to go KILL GALACTUS, which he cannot do.  He is as cardboard as they come and it is too bad.

Perhaps the biggest flaw in this film is the lack of an actual villain.  Like I said before, Doom returns to menace everyone and do something, but what that might be is never clear.  Steal the surfer's power, steal Galactus's power, who can really tell.  His agenda is no more clear in this film than it was in the original.  Galactus is even less of a villain, and I get that he is cosmic-sized so he's hard to put into perspective, but he could at least be a credible threat.

I remember liking this movie a lot more when it came out, but I think, like the original, I was just excited to see the FF on the screen.  Johnny and Ben have some nice moments and overall, the story is somehow better than the original movie, but this is not a good movie.  It is far too confused and aimless and the performances are far too shallow to make this anything better than a moderately painless waste of a Saturday afternoon.  The movie is watchable, but only watchable.

 Aimee's Take:

This is more Fantastic Four in every sense. Sue is bitchy, Reed is boring, Johnny is perfect if overblown, and Thing is moody. They fight even more, you're left to wonder WHY Reed would ever marry someone who so clearly hates him. The Silver Surfer shows up and saves Sue for no reason. Doom appears for no reason. And then, the Silver Surfer kills Galactus. That's right. It's not unwatchable--I actually liked it in the theater, but unfortunately I was not able to locate whatever drugs I was smoking at that time for the repeat viewing. It is definitely better than FF and the rest of the schlock we've covered so far. But once again, it's entirely on the back of Johnny Storm played by Chris Evans. There's no way I could sit through another one of these things without stabbing Jessica Alba in the face with a pencil. I should point out that I actually love Ioan Gruffudd--although primarily for his work in the A&E Horatio Hornblower series that has nothing to do with trying to pair him up with a poorly-styled faux-blonde super bitch.

Honestly, there's not much to say. We're treading near interesting territory, because the next few movies actually have something incredibly likable if not loveable about it. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer is neither bad nor good. It has likable moments but nothing to make the experience very worthwhile.

For this reason, I have elected to fill the rest of my "take" space with pictures of my dog. Enjoy!

Marvel Movie Project #18: Blade Trinity

Blade Trinity feels like a spin-off movie with the Blade character appearing only as a cameo.  That is about how involved Blade and I are in this movie.  It is no surprise to read the trivia on this film and find out that Wesley Snipes was seriously pissed about the direction of this movie and his lack of involvement, frankly so am I.  As we will get into a little further up the list, Wesley Snipes is the most likeable thing in the Blade franchise, and he needs to be.  So when you make a Blade movie and you marginalize the best aspect of the series, you are setting yourself up for a problem.

Aimee will take up the dissection, perhaps evisceration, of Ryan Reynolds, but suffice to say that he is miserable and ruins the film pretty much single-handedly.   The rest of the performances of the "supporting" cast are equally forgettable and dismissed.  Jessica Biel is likeable enough, but not enough to carry the film or make a troubled plot and script enjoyable.

The other big problem is that after Blade II, the stakes were raised so high that finding a new vampiric menace for Blade to combat becomes next to impossible.  This latest threat is beyond comprehension and requires more suspension of disbelief than should really be expected of the audience.  Not to ruin it for you, but apparently Blade, armed with a vampire killing virus, must go after THE Dracula.  There are plot twists, but they are either too predictable or they fail to twist sufficiently to keep the film interesting.  The Nightstalkers sub-plot steals too much of the spotlight and as mentioned above, Blade is so marginalized that it is barely his story at all.  Never mind the miserable vampire serum plot or the complex vampire lineage that we are supposed to follow from Dracula down to the modern day vamps, this movie somehow tries to do so much and succeeds at doing so little.

It is no surprise that the Blade franchise dies with this film.  Snipes is enjoyable as always, but due to his lack of screen time is unable to salvage the last hurrah from this series.  As a matter of fact, both Snipes and Kristofferson are very likeable and have the chemistry that made the first two movies so much better than this one.  It is everything else that makes Blade Trinity #18 on this list.

Aimee's Take

My loving husband is, as usual, quite astute in summing up why a movie doesn't really work. I agree with him entirely. I'll even go so far as to say I liked Jessica Biel's role in this film, and I'll go so far as to say that Wesley Snipes is enjoyable, as always, in this film. All the problems Stan pointed out are too much, though. There just isn't enough Blade.

Now to eviscerate Ryan Reynolds. 

I've seen him around for years. He's got that look; could be wholesome like a boy next door, could be the boyfriend who is secretly controlling, or could just be a miserable smart-mouthed asshole. He could be all three. 

He's not particularly suited for "hero" roles, which is why it's bizarre to see him in so many. He's really best suited to be the jerk-off terrible boyfriend that the ingénue dumps at the last second for the friendly, cardboard "good guy". He does seem rather well-suited to be Deadpool, but I hate Deadpool almost as much as I hate Ryan Reynolds. There's no reason for either to exist, other than to make me sad.

Ryan Reynolds plays his role as "Hannibal" about as well as you'd expect. He has all the wit and timing of your drunk Uncle Larry at Thanksgiving, rolling right through obviously bad one-liners, one after another, never stopping for breath or laughter. It isn't necessary to pause for laughter, because nothing he ever says is funny.

That's pretty much how this character is played. He's the snarky, "witty" comic relief in a movie that really needs none. Given the general lack of Blade in this film, we wind up with the comic stylings of Ryan Reynolds pretty often, leaving me to wonder when the real relief will come. As in, when are they going to kill him? 

But they don't. They want to spin this shit off into a Ryan Reynold's vampire wise-cracking fest. Luckily for everyone, this movie looked bad and was bad, and there was no reason to ever put Ryan Reynolds in a movie again. At least, not into a movie anyone would voluntarily watch. And all was right with the world.

Plus this movie has this horrible bitch, who is actually Parker Posey, an actual actress who may not stink entirely, but who manages to be worse than Ryan Reynolds, AND in also in most of his scenes. The end. 

Marvel Movie Project #20: Elektra

Jennifer Garner was a really hot property at the time the Daredevil movie was made, I get that.  She was doing gangbusters over on that show Alias.  It was a show that featured some action scenes, so I guess someone assumed that Garner was an action star and that she would be a perfect fit for an action role in an action movie like Daredevil.  That didn't quite pan out like everyone hoped, and while it wasn't so much Garner's fault, it was her star power alone that deluded Hollywood into thinking she could carry an action film of her own.  Deluded.

When handling a character like Elektra, you have an opportunity to tell a myriad of interesting stories.  You can tell a ninja story, an assassin story, a psychological drama about someone returning from the dead, and so on.  The story doesn't have to be overly complex, but it does want some depth.  Elektra may not be the most involved Marvel character, but there is substance there.  Whatever angle you decide to take will dictate the tenor of the film.  Is it a mystery?  Is it all out action?  Is it a character profile?  Do we care about Elektra?  Can we relate to her?  Should we?

All important questions that no one in the production of the Elektra movie bothered to ask.  Instead, what we get is a paper thin plot strung along by cheesy dialogue and weakly navigated by cardboard characters.  The first indication that this was going to be a clunker comes in the first 5 minutes of the film when the person Elektra comes to kill tells the audience, via direct address no less, that he is an "evil man."  You have to be one of two things to self-identify as the "bad guy:" you have to be mentally deranged or so morally bankrupt that you are criminally insane.  The person in the movie does not come across as either.  He comes across as corrupted person, maybe a dirty businessman or some such, but he does not come across as unhinged.  As a matter of fact his composure in the face of death suggests a metered, controlled approach to his emotions and a deep existential understanding of his situation.  Yet he sits there in his chair and tells me that an assassin is coming to kill him because he is a villain.  A true villain never sees themselves as such.  For one fictional and one non-fictional case study consider Magneto, and ironically, Adolf Hitler.

Even with that shaky start I was willing to give the movie a chance to recover.  Perhaps that was just a poorly scripted scene (see also Elektra's flatly delivered "I've been dead once" groaner that immediately undermines anything else she might do for the rest of the film).  With that in mind, I settled back in hoping for a dazzling recovery in the second act.  But I knew the film was doomed the minute the guy and his daughter moved into the house next to where Elektra was staying and my brain said "that's the guys she's going to have to kill."  If I can see your plot coming this far down the road, then you are in trouble.  Sure, I didn't guess the part about the daughter, or the ensuing attempt at a parallel between Elektra and the child, but those bits were icing on the already rotten cake anyway.  When that guy moved in, there were only two ways they were taking this: love interest or mark.  I am wrong; I left out the third: love interest AND mark.  So I guess in that way Elektra did exceed a slight expectation.  Or perhaps it overfilled an already meager expectation.  It is hard to decide.

Either way, if you are going to make your plot that transparent, then you had damn well better make the ride to the end one hell of a trip or you are just serving me some plain white toast.  Sadly, Elektra opts to order off the Jake and Elwood menu.  Once the predictable plot gets going we meander through some fairly decent, if a bit borrowed, action scenes and then amble our way toward an obvious conclusion, despite some head-scratching side roads like Elektra decision to take the girl to her mentor and train her to fight.  Sadly, Elektra does very little assassinating, apart from the self-proclaimed "villain" at the start, and she has very few moral dilemmas to face despite her anti-hero status.  Her purpose is clear very early on and she recognizes it, then she drags us along to the inevitable conclusion.

By the time the movie is over, nothing has really been gained and despite what the film tries to assert, no characters have really been significantly changed or developed.  Wait, I take that back.  At the beginning of the film, for no apparent reason, we are led to believe that Elektra has pretty a strong OCD.  At the end of the film, and really in pretty much every scene after the OCD scene, Elektra seems to be well cured of her disorder.  So maybe something is gained.  What is lost is 97 minutes of my time.  A shame too, because an Elektra story is very wide open and has a lot of potential for coolness.  You know, like when Frank Miller did this:

Do not confuse with what happens in the terrible Daredevil movie.  NOT the same at all.

Aimee's Take:

Elektra is a soulless movie filled with cardboard cut-out characters. It is fortunate that Elektra is the title of the movie, because if it were not, I would have no reason to know the main character's name. It is predictable and wooden, plodding stylishly through a nonsensical plot. 

There is a reason that, for the most part, Elektra sucks up the bottom rung of every ranking and movie list. It is intolerably bad. But--as you've seen, not as intolerably bad as others. Elektra represents, on our list, the demarcation line between miserably awful and almost watchable. Elektra and below = no likeable characters. Above it? There's at least one character that makes the movie interesting--even if it is only for the duration of their screen presence. 

There's nothing in Elektra to make me even remotely interested in the character. I hate every character--from Elektra to who ever that little girl was. They were all aggravating bitches when they weren't being completely stilted.

But, it is a stylish movie. You can follow the plot, even if it doesn't make a lot of sense. And the costuming was nice. I have no real complaints about the soundtrack. Simply put, it's just not a good movie--but it's not offensive. I will never watch it again, but I guess I wouldn't blame someone for throwing it on in the background while they ate a Lean Cuisine on a Tuesday night. Plus, some people find Jennifer Garner's pouty man-jaw, goblin ears and Hulkish hands to be attractive. I am not one of them, but I guess I can make a case for someone enjoying the (dubious) eye-candy.

Marvel Movie List #23 Ghost Rider

You're not really surprised are you?  This movie was doomed before a single megabyte of film was computer-generated.  The character of Johnny Blaze is that of a brash young stunt cyclist who regularly defies death in the pursuit of fame and the cheers of a titillated audience.  What contemporary actor working today best exemplifies these qualities?  Which actor could best bring such a vibrant character to life on the silver screen?

THIS GUY.

This guy?  Seriously.  This is just mis-casting at its very purest.  And it speaks to fundamental failure by anyone involved with this project to understand the nature of the character they were working with.  You simply do not cast an actor, any actor, over 35 years old to play a character like Johnny Blaze.  You've got plenty of talented young actors out there who would be perfect for the role.  What about that new guy playing Captain Kirk?  (Ok, bad example, that guy should be doing nothing but making more absolutely awesome Star Trek movies for me to watch.  Nothing but.)  You get my point.

Look, I'm not going to waste all of our time stating the obvious.  Whether you find Cage to be an innovative actor who constantly pushes the envelope with fresh choices and character interpretations (I typed that without laughing, I promise), or you find him to be a caricature of himself who hams it up and has no clue how to generate depth or meaning, he is simply the wrong actor for this role.  Why the producers didn't just stick with the much better young actors who played young Johnny Blaze and his girlfriend is beyond me.  (Oh yeah, Eva Mendes is in this film too for some reason)

Speaking of characters and roles, this film understands neither.  Ghost Rider is the Spirit of Vengeance.  He is the Blaze character described above possessed by Zarathos, a demon who seeks to punish those who take advantage of the innocent.  Thus, Ghost Rider's earthly mission is to seek out those who do wrong and protect those who are guiltless.  Part of his power set includes a debilitating "attack" called the Penance Stare, wherein he forces a person to relive all the pain they have caused others.  This attack often leaves the target in a catatonic state from the shock of experiencing all of that pain.  In addition to that he can also channel and control hellfire and employs various implements, most famously two lengths of chain, to fight against those who would do evil.

Watch Ghost Rider and tell me where you see any of that.  You don't.  Instead you get the Special Effect running around chasing cardboard villains.  Granted, Blaze alone isn't a terribly deep or compelling character, but add the Zarathos element and you have the makings for a dark anti-hero who evokes themes of spirituality and morality.  Instead we get a jellybean drinking, raging schizoid who becomes a Special Effect that does everything a stereotypical super-hero might do.  Snore.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that the plot does nothing to challenge any of the characters in the film.  Instead, the plot meanders about for what feels like 3 hours in order to have Ghost Rider run around trying to prevent his adversary, Blackheart, from creating hell on earth by capturing a thousand souls.  To do this he has to fight some forgettable minor foes, track down an Old West Ghost Rider (their ride is the coolest thing in the film), find some ancient contract or something, and then have a showdown with Blackheart, kind of, to win the day.  I guess that would be ok, if it had anything to do with the heart of the character, or if any part of that journey was interesting.  This sounds like a movie, but it doesn't sound like a Ghost Rider movie, at least not if you are familiar with the character. Again, the Special Effect riding alongside the Old West Special Effect is the most exciting part of the film. This should not be.

Ghost Rider has no likeable characters, forgettable performances by pretty much everyone, a totally mis-cast main character, an overly complicated plot that drones on for far too long, and no real depth or substance.  You tell me why it is #23 on this list.  It is saved only by the Special Effect and the very cool homage to Hamilton Slade (the original Ghost Rider).



Aimee's Take: I'm going to make this short. You can probably just assume that I share all of the above opinions, and more. I'm not a tremendously huge Ghost Rider fan, but I can pin down exactly two things wrong with this movie that make it unwatchable.

The cast is just bad. Just bad. Nicolas Cage is too damn old to be in this role. Eva Mendez is bitchy. Both of them should have sat down with whoever was in charge of this thing and advised them that the two young actors from the first fifteen minutes should be in their roles for the entire film. As a closing argument, I give you this, which sums up everything I feel about hearing that Nicolas Cage is in a film I'm interested in.

And the other thing? I can't figure out what the plot is. Hard to be invested for a couple of hours when you really don't understand what you're looking at. I know Johnny made a deal with the devil, and it resulted in him drinking jelly beans from a martini glass. At some point he gets attacked by things, becomes Ghost Rider, and then has to get a list out of a shovel. I just don't know why I care.

That's all I got. It's a bad movie.

Marvel Movie List #24 HULK

#24 HULK

The Incredible Hulk is the nuclear era's Jekyll and Hyde.  It is the story of the struggle between the rational man (ego) and his inner beast (id).  It reveals the truth about human nature and the struggle of our inner duality.  Bruce Banner's story is that of a desperate search to mediate (superego) the two sides of his personality.  It is a classic story and when well told is compelling and speaks to something in all of us.

I wanted you to know the above going in because that is not quite what you are going to get in Ang Lee's interpretation.  Part of this is due to directorial vision and the rest is left to some questionable acting.  To put it bluntly, Eric Bana's Bruce Banner would just be the Hulk all of the time.  Bana is irritated and frustrated for the duration of the film and he makes the audience uncomfortable right out of the gate.  His characterization of Banner is so one sided you find yourself hoping he will turn into the Hulk just so he can stop being so obtuse.  You are hoping for this, of course, until the neon green spongy-looking Special Effect shows up.  Once that happens you are hoping that Netflix is still running the Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk TV show (which it is at the time of this writing!) so you can see what the Hulk should really look like.  Seriously, somewhere between Ferrigno's body paint and this 3D cartoon, there has to be a more realistic looking Hulk (and there will be some improvements farther up on the list, but we are dealing with the here and now), even at this point in the evolution of special effects.  But I'm jumbling things up a bit here, let's stay on task...
This is yet another movie with no likeable characters.  Bana is so angry all the time and Jennifer Connelly's Betty is so weepy and empathetic that you have a hard time wanting to relate to either one.  Further more Nolte's role as the lead villain provides so little for ol' Nick to do that you almost feel sorry for him instead!  So I am never sure who I am supposed to like in this film.  I know it is meant to be Bana, but he gives me no reason to like him.  Is it a directing or acting mistake?  I find that I pretty much don't care.  If I have to choose, I think Sam Elliot was a decent cast for Thunderbolt Ross.

This will always be the Hulk to me.  You cannot replace him with a Special Effect.

So with no characters to like, I turn to the story to find something here to enjoy.  No such luck.  The Hulk was created when Dr. Bruce Banner was caught in a gamma radiation explosion as he was rushing onto a nuclear test site to save a young man who had wandered onto the site.  It was the freak result of a selfless act.  This makes Banner the victim of circumstance and thus a sympathetic character.  In this version Banner is the victim of bizarre genetic experiments conducted by his father when he was a child that bear fruit when he is bombarded by gamma rays trying to save another hapless character.  Same basic idea, but because this is no longer the nuclear era we have to add in that little unnecessary genetic bit.  Why?  It takes away a lot of the sympathy for the character and instead makes him a victim of a different kind.  You must be very careful when you tamper with the basic premise.  It worked originally for a reason.
That aside, the rest of the story is a hodgepodge mystery to piece together why Banner reacted to the gamma rays the way he did.  It takes far too long to get to the first appearance of the Hulk and there isn't enough worth watching to make me believe that the Special Effect is worth the wait.  The early scenes between Bruce and Betty are dry white toast and neither one give me anything that indicates that they have chemistry together or any reason to be drawn into this tragic plot.  I am reminded, sadly, of the romance in Attack of the Clones.  Once the Hulk is on the scene the movie shifts from being a science drama a la Andromeda Strain and instead becomes an action film in the vein of Mission Impossible 2 with all of thinness of substance and motive implicit therein.  The Hulk smashes things and beats up on tanks and explodes gas stations and none of it means a damn thing to anyone.  We go from dry white toast to pop rocks in absolutely no time at all.

Finally, after what feels like hours, we get to what is supposed to be the big showdown between Banner and his nutjob father.  And for some reason, before that showdown can occur the U.S. government has decided it would be a good idea for Banner and his father to have a nice little chat.  And here, and ONLY here, do we get anything that is watchable in this film.  Had the editor on this film left the entirety of this movie on the cutting room floor with the exception of these five minutes, you might have been able to make a case for this being a great Hulk movie.  These five minutes by themselves make a decent Hulk film, the remaining 133 minutes completely undo anything that is done well during that time.  Try it some time.  What you'll get is a 5 minute absurdist play that speaks more to the themes and essence of the Hulk than any of Bana's mumbling or the Special Effect's jaunting about a desert canyon.

Unfortunately Ang Lee junks the rest of the film up with shaky special effects, unlikeable characters, and a needlessly complicated plot.  It is almost unbelievable that drivel of this magnitude comes from the same guy who, only three years prior, gave us the mind-blowing, epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.  It almost feels like the story was played down because it was based on a comic book and the result is a movie that feels as thin as a comic page.  The only reason this is better than Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is because some of the cinematography looks competently done.  Hulk remained on the bottom our list for a long time because it belongs in the bottom of the bin.  If you haven't seen this movie yet, give it a pass.


Aimee's Take
The Hulk is one of my favorites--and not from childhood. My exposure to the Incredible Hulk properties was largely minimal until the husband decided I should probably read some of Peter David's run on the Incredible Hulk comic book. Five issues deep, I was in love. I didn't need an origin story, I didn't need to know what had happened before. The book itself caught me up to speed, and I was thoroughly happy.

This particular run of the Hulk is deeply psychological in nature. Not just regarding the Hulk himself. The complexities of the relationship between Betty and Bruce, Rick and Marlo... Hulk and everyone. Doc Samson alone is worth a look, in my opinion. Now, I did this reading in 2009ish. I had already seen two Hulk movies. Revisiting them, I suppose I had certain expectations for how rich--how full--the story could be.

Ang Lee's Hulk is a terribly disappointing exercise. No likable characters coupled with an abysmally complicated plot leads me to feel like there's nothing here to entertain, much less sustain my mind. Add to the mix a film which is miscast, altogether too long, and plagued with poor (perhaps dated is better) special effects... and you have a bad movie. I feel like the movie has good intentions, but it really fails to understand the motivations of the characters. There's no reason to have Bruce so disconnected from his past, and there's no reason for Nick Nolte's character to have all those bizarre gamma dogs. There's no reason for Bruce to be so terribly moody all the time--or so built. There's no real dichotomy between the skinny, wimpy scientist and the primal emotion and pure strength of the Hulk. He's already shades of the Hulk before he even transforms. I guess, there's just no reason for most of the things we watch in this film. I think I understand why people initially liked Hulk: in 2003, there were few new comic book movies in the field, and I think the "Ang Lee" branding had everyone a little starstruck. Simply put, we didn't know what we were watching, and it didn't seem so bad. But it was. It was.

And that, my friends, is why until the unspeakably horrible Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance hit theatres... Hulk sucked up the bottom of our list.

Marvel Movie Ranking Project: #25 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

We are not condoned by these people.

Electric Frankfurter's Official Marvel Movie List

There was a time when the Superman movies of the 1970's were all anyone could ever want from a super-hero movie.  And they were pretty good, for their time.  Then came 1989 and Tim Burton showed the world that super-hero movies could be so much more.  Burton's Batman ushered in a new era of super-hero movie that went beyond the cliches and silliness that gave us Bat Anti-Shark repellant. Sadly, as the era was born, so would it die.  All of the good work done by Burton was quickly undone by Joel Schumacher and his cornball train wreck that was Batman and Robin, which harkened back to that techno-color time of yore in all its goofiness.  All was not lost, however, because even as Rome was burning, a new generation of "comic book" movie was rising from the ashes.

One year after Batman and Robin put comic books back in the kiddie pool, Marvel decided to throw their hat into the ring with a risky venture based on a third tier character:  Blade.  While Blade didn't make quite the splash Batman did nearly a decade before, it did set the tone for a new age of super-hero film that would redefine the genre and prove that the subject matter transcended the spandex and beach ball breasts that had come to misrepresent it.  The following years would see movies featuring the best of the Marvel super-heroes including Spider-man, the X-men, and various Avengers as well as intelligently crafted non-Marvel films such as the much anticipated Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and a re-invented Batman franchise.  However, this period was most definitely the Marvel era of movies.

Being huge comic book nerds, myself perhaps more than Aimee, we have relished in the days of great movies based on some of our favorite super-heroes and as part of that relishment (my word, you are free to use it) there have resulted some very intense and sometimes heated debates about the hierarchy of how certain movies stack up against one another.  Eventually, those debates sparked a project and the fruit of that project you are about to be subjected to..I mean "read."

Over the course of the next 25 weeks the wife and I are going to tell you exactly how the Marvel movies of the past 14 years rank.  Over that period of time Marvel has released 25 major motion pictures based on characters from their comic books.  Many of them have been very good; many of them have been not so good, and some of them have been down right terrible.  We will begin our journey this week with the absolute worst of the worst and we will work our way to the very top sometime in August.

So if you love comic books and/or super-heroes and the movies that feature them, and if you really enjoy our snarky take on things, then you are in for a treat.  Each week Aimee and I will give our individual takes on the movies as we rank them and will also provide insight as to how we arrived at our rankings.  There have been a few spirited conversations over the course of our viewings as we have hashed out these rankings and those will most definitely reveal themselves as we make our way through the list.  We both have pretty strong opinions and we'd love to hear some of yours as well.  We'll also be offering you some of our insights into how we view the genre and where we see it going as we leave this era and head into a new future of comic book movies.

Join us will you as Electric Frankfurter brings you the Official Rankings of the Marvel Era of Movies.

#25 Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Obviously this movie is bad, it's on the bottom of the list.  The only tragedy is that there are not more movies on this list so that Ghost Rider 2 could be ranked lower than 25.  It is that bad.  We won't even talk about the obvious mis-casting of Nicholas Cage as Johnny Blaze, we can save that for the original Ghost Rider and I promise you won't have to wait long for that discussion.  We won't have to talk about that because the movie is so bad you almost believe that Cage might have to save the film from the depths of boredom.  I'll spoil it for you: he doesn't.
You could almost make a case for this movie being watchable excepting for two very important flaws: one, the movie has no likable characters whatsoever, none, and two, the movie is dull.  One reviewer said that for a movie about a man who is regularly on fire you would expect it to be less boring.  I agree.  Ghost Rider himself shows up maybe 4 times in the entire film and for at least two of those appearances pretty much all he does is stand there and wait for the editor to edit him into action (I am not kidding).  Everything that does not include the Special Effect (because let's face it, that's all he is) is dry white toast.  Paper thin characters, uninspired villains, a meager plot that is barely explained along the way, and insufferable scripting all add up to 95 minutes of very arid film.  And this is a super hero action movie, people!!!  I'll give you the plot right now and spare you the time:  The devil is after his son so that he can transfer his essence into him that he may remain in the mortal world to work his ambiguous evil.  Ghost Rider is charged with protecting the boy (the son of the Devil).  The end.  Snore.  What is the end game?  What happens if GR succeeds?  What happens if he fails?  Who cares?  If he fails, then nothing changes and the Devil goes on walking amongst people, status quo.  If he succeeds then we have the son of the Devil walking around being the son of the Devil with no real purpose in life and always plagued by the fact that he is the son of the Devil.  Now, you tell me which conclusion I am looking for.  That's right, neither.

But hey, plot isn't everything, sometimes a great actor or character can help carry a film along (wait until we get to X-men Origins: Wolverine).  Maybe Ghost Rider2's redemption will come in the form of very interesting performances of very interesting characters.  That crunch is the sound of a saltine, because we are coming up dry again, kids.  The only character that I even wanted to see on screen, apart from the Special Effect, was the boy's (son of Devil's) mother, but only because she was kind of hot in that trashy goth way.  That alone is not enough to carry a movie my friend, not by a long shot.  I could scope out that kind of action in the lobby of the theater.

Everything else in the film is just a lesson in poor film-making. The editing is atrocious.  The directing is spastic and erratic at best, and not in an artsy way.  I was not kidding when I said Ghost Rider was literally edited into action in some of the sequences.  It feels like the director has no idea how to shoot a movie or what makes a good shot, sequence, or narrative.  The treatment of the character is a joke at best and shows that no one in the development of this film understands the source material.  Ghost Rider is the earthy incarnation of Zarathos, the Spirit of Vengeance.  His sole mission on earth is to resist his master's bidding and protect the innocent from harm.  Despite that, GR does very little protecting of innocents (we can go all day on whether the son of the Devil is inherently innocent, but this film does not deserve to be the launch point for what would be an intelligent debate) in this movie and for the most part just lusts after the souls of everyone he meets.  Where in the hell does that part come from?  What's worse, despite making it clear in the film that Ghost Rider = Zarathos, a demon, hence possession, Johnny Blaze is able to rid himself of his "powers" as Ghost Rider by spending the night in a cave (think Empire Strikes Back, Luke in Dagobah, only very, very stupid and uncool) and the Devil is able to give his "powers" back to him by breathing fire into his face. I could buy this if there was an explanation of how Zarathos' power was subdued by something in the cave and brought back by the fire breath.  I could also buy Zarathos being forced out via exorcism and then re-possessing Blaze by his wishing for it.  Instead, I think we are supposed to believe that sleeping in a cave and confessing your greatest fault somehow causes time to reverse and the contract you signed with the Devil to be unsigned.  Yeah, ok.

Look, you and I have already given this movie far more time than it should ever deserve.  Neither Aimee nor I had any problem whatsoever walking out of the theater and declaring this one of the worst movies we had ever seen, much less the worst Marvel movie of the Modern Era.  This movie is a real stinker and if you ever see it you only have yourself to blame.  In the hopes that I can convince you to spare yourself, I am going to close this critique with the only two things in Ghost Rider 2 worth looking at so you can just get it out of your system:

Aimee's Take: 

Ok, look. I like movies that are bad. Sometimes, it's nice to just take your mind off the hook and forget all your troubles. I like to ridicule movies. I am a child of the MST3K era. I can see the value in a movie that is so laughable you just have to enjoy it.

This is not that movie. This movie is so bad, it's like being punched in the face over and over again while your attacker says "Quit punching yourself!" Because, by purchasing a ticket to this mess, I am, indeed, punching myself.

We can save a lot of my basic problems about this characterization of Ghost Rider and the part being miscast by 45 years or so until we get to the franchise's earlier installment, because the problems haven't changed here. Instead, I will say that this movie, in 2d, made me dizzy and gave me a headache. It is all "shaky cam" and spinning and odd prismatic blue-screen cut-ins that make no sense at all. The plot is non-existent, the dialogue is beyond terrible (by comparison, George Lucas is a master of understanding human interaction and emotion), and the characters are unlikeable. By the end of the film, I realized I did not care one way or the other who won this meaningless fight. The devil seemed like he might be ok. On the other hand, I had already seen that Nic Cage was insane. 

This movie provided itself with two excuses to show Johnny Blaze's bare ass (thankfully, ONLY in comic illustration form) and two excuses to show Ghost Rider peeing fire. By the end, I had folded down three theater seats to lay down in, and for the first time in my entire life, I considered whipping out my cell phone to entertain myself. I really doubt the other four people in the theater would have minded. 

In the end, this film was boring, had very little to do with Ghost Rider at all, and felt like some kind of bizarre monument to bad film-making. As in, "Oh yeah? I'll show you--I'll go make the worst movie you've ever even conceived of. It will be so bad, it will make your children cry in shame and all who see it shall be scarred for ever, left to cling to the wreckage of their sad lives as they come to grips with the fact that they spent $14 to be here and the only thing salvageable about the entire experience is the fact that the concession stand allows you to butter your own popcorn." 

That's it.  Join us next week when I'll explain to you why you only need 5 minutes to make a good movie out of a trash pile.