Posts Tagged ‘sequel’

The Dark Knight

Thursday, July 10th, 2008

There’s a comic book called Watchmen.  The story was about a group of superheroes who were forced into retirement by an ungrateful society but must become active again when they start getting killed off one by one.  Its characters were complex, its morality also.  The narrative weaved romance, family drama, conspiracy theories, cold war nuclear brinksmanship and apocalyptic megalomania in an effortless and remarkably authentic way.  Ancient myths and legends were as prevalent as modern history; Alexander the Great shared equal significance with Richard Nixon.  And the extraordinary ambition of this 12-issue comic book was fulfilled so completely that it not only became one of the most highly regarded comic books ever made, but routinely transcends its medium, with the likes of Time magazine including Watchmen in their ’100 Greatest English Language Novels from 1923 to the Present’.

The Dark Knight does for the comic book movie what Watchmen did for the comic book.

From the opening scene, The Dark Knight offers something new. Gone is the benign threat of the surreal, dark, and cavernous Gotham that we’ve come to expect.  Brutal daylight now floods a real cityscape and within these familiar streets a bank robbery is going down. The anonymous perpetrators wear grimy clown masks but conduct themselves with disquieting professionalism as they steal and, once their roles are complete, efficiently slaughter each other. In the end one man remains and he escapes, disguised, amongst school buses, leaving us behind to languish, scared, bewildered and wondering why we’ve been denied the safety of a fantasy setting.

The Dark Knight starts as it means to go on.  This bleak realism also defines the plot.  Lt Gordon and Batman are continuing in their pact to bring down Gotham’s mobsters and seek an incorruptible prosecutor to secure convictions. District Attorney Harvey Dent seems to be their man. His popularity and transparent quest for justice could also make him the hero that makes Batman and his shadowy antics unnecessary.  However, as established in Batman Begins, the idea of escalation takes hold and just as bullet-proof vests provoke armour-piercing bullets, the presence of a righteous, costumed crime-fighter invites theatrical villains to Gotham, as well as copycat vigilantes. The Joker soon eclipses the gangsters whose desire for profit and power was reassuringly understandable, and his unpredictable, anarchic schemes plunge the city into fear and panic. And with that, the best laid plans of bats and men go awry.

The Joker is formidable. His deeds are destructive and malicious but, worryingly, they have a certain logic to them.  He doesn’t come with an origin story.  Were we furnished with a back story, we could point to a trauma and explain his venom.  As it is, he is pure and all the more terrifying for it.  But though this void in his background could make the Joker into a two-dimensional proxy for evil, that’s not what happens.  Thanks to the late Heath Ledger, the Joker becomes something much more tangible. His performance is offbeat, charismatic, twitchy, confident, think Richard Nixon without the brooding anger or dithering weasely mannerisms. Somehow Ledger manages to humanise the Joker. And it’s this feat that will, for many people, turn Ledger’s death from a peripheral regret into a real sense of loss.

As for the rest of the cast, there are no complaints. Christian Bale has less to work with this time round, but remains competent as Batman and charming as Bruce Wayne. Morgan Freeman humbly performs a small role but is greatly rewarded as he recaptures that knowing dignity that endeared us to him in The Shawshank Redemption and which he lost in recent bananas like The Bucket List and Evan Almighty.  Similarly, Michael Caine exudes avuncular warmth and is the only dependable source of love, kindness and wisdom in this desolate film. Gary Oldman builds his role as Lt James Gordon and brings yet more quiet determination as the pure but pragmatic policeman. And Aaron Eckhart does good work as Harvey Dent, allowing his too-perfect looks to undercut his bombastic, righteous performance to give a suitable uneasiness about his character.

What makes The Dark Knight so special is its ambition. The characters are so convincingly rendered that the events that follow make perfect sense. The plot races ahead at a thrilling pace, unwilling to condescend to the audience or waste precious storytelling time. And all this culminates in what is essentially a spectacular morality tale. Questions of ethics pervade Batman’s vigilantism; Gordon must lie for the greater good; the Joker has his nihilistic philosophy; and Harvey Dent has trouble believing in moral absolutes when everyone else seems to be playing by different rules. Believe it or not, this comic book movie has a definite smartness to it that’s not been attempted before in the genre. And if the already acclaimed and hugely profitable The Dark Knight has a legacy, let it be more thought-provoking Hollywood blockbusters.

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Adulthood

Friday, June 20th, 2008

Adulthood is the sequel to Kidulthood. Kidulthood was terrifying. In its opening scene we bounced between scattered groups of 15 year olds in a London school playground. Two girls were talking very graphically about sex, while across the way another couple were actually doing it. Elsewhere girl gangs bubbled with rage, picking victims at whim and beating them mercilessly; older boys abused younger ones, forcing them to cuddle in front of camera phones; and inside one kid used the workshop to drill a replica gun barrel to make a functioning weapon. At the end of the scene a teacher attempts to hurry the kids back to class, one pupil pauses to stare aggressively at the teacher and the teacher quickly looks away.

Put it all together and we had a group of people who were casually exploitative, treated each other with vicious contempt and whose most mundane chats were infused with intense violence. Perhaps most frightening of all was their awareness of adults’ uncertainty towards them and their ability to exploit it. Some called Kidulthood “tabloid baiting” and while these scenes certainly courted controversy, they were anchored with enough recognisable detail to worry people. But though viewers were encouraged to believe this was ordinary behaviour by average school kids on a normal school day, it wasn’t. It was a filmic hyper reality condensing rare activities into the same time and place. This was not everyday behaviour, this is not the experience of most schoolchildren. And as Kidulthood continued on its 24-hour timeline, the characters were humanised just enough to soothe the fears it initially encouraged. Clearly in this era of menacing hoodies, under-aged drinking and sodcasting (playing loud music on public transport), Kidulthood had value.

Now we have Adulthood. Set six years after the events of Kidulthood, it tells the story of Sam who killed Trife in the first film and has just been released from prison. He quickly becomes aware of a revenge plot to kill him and spends the day trying to survive. Sam is played by Noel Clarke who was a rarely seen member of Kidulthood’s ensemble cast, as well as co-writer. But for this sequel he’s the sole writer, the director and has cast himself as the star. Unfortunately Clarke’s ego far outweighs his talent and this heavily-flawed addition to the story of troubled London youths is a step backwards.

Having Sam as the focus is a mistake the film never recovers from. In Kidulthood, Sam was the most violent, most ruthless, most destructive, and most two-dimensional. To now have him as the protagonist is confusing. In the course of figuring out who is trying to kill him, he visits the friends and family of Trife and is spat on and shouted at. After each incident we’re treated to close-ups of his sourpuss all of which reeks of self-pity rather than remorse.

Kidulthood’s rambling narrative allowed the characters to be brought out in a subtle way. By contrast, Adulthood’s clichéd thriller plot is as clumsy as Clarke’s direction. Crash zooms try and fail to add thrills. Similarly, various split-screen montages try to bridge gaps in the script. Surprisingly, even the music is fluffed as the engaging, minimalist beats from the grime soundtrack are used solely to set a tone and pace that couldn’t be achieved in the drama alone and short samples crudely connect scenes with frustrating thrift. Clarke’s heavy-handed touch peaks when he makes the embarrassingly bad decision to have a middle-class couple sporting designer frames and chirping mindlessly about soirées bullied and sexually abused by a drug dealer, and then encourages the audience to enjoy their abuse just because they’re naive and frightened.

But Clarke isn’t the only culprit. The always tedious Danny Dyer cameos with his usual unconvincing geezer shtick, and Scarlett Alice Johnson is conspicuously transplanted into a role left vacant by Jaime Winstone (Ray’s daughter) and can’t go a whole sentence without letting her drama school accent leak out. She also gets to deliver the worst line of the film “I’ve never felt more like a kid in my whole life”. However, the most audaciously stupid moment of Adulthood is saved for last as Sam ends up fighting with a baseball bat, just like the fateful end of the last movie. If Kidulthood had you scared of London’s youngsters, Adulthood will have you laughing at them.

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Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

The original Indiana Jones films were made in the 1980s and set in the 1930s but had little to do with the events of either period. The defining events of the ’30s were notably absent: the Great Depression in America, Gandhi’s fight for independence in India, the rise of fascism in Europe (ok, the bad guys may have been called “Nazis” but they weren’t depicted as genocidal megalomaniacs, just greedy, well-dressed goons). And as far as I can remember there were no yuppies with brick mobiles chasing Indy in their Lamborghini Countachs. Even subtextually the realities of the ’80s were abandoned for the nostalgia of boyish adventure. And that’s all because Indiana Jones wasn’t inspired by real life events, he was born out of classic film serials, short films that preceded the main feature aimed at kids. It’s this inherent timelessness that makes Indiana Jones the most likely of all the recent ’80s revivals (Die Hard, Rocky, Rambo) to succeed.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is set in 1957, nineteen years after the last outing. Harrison Ford chose to prepare for this role in the Method Acting tradition by actually aging nineteen years; a bold move for these Hollywood types. But fear not, while there may be be a melancholy moment as Indy laments the passing of his father (sorry, no Sean Connery this time!) Indy’s aged body doesn’t stop him getting himself into all kinds of scrapes.

The action begins in New Mexico. Cate Blanchett’s über-fringed Commie agent Colonel-Doctor Irina Spalko has kidnapped Indy to help her find an artefact hidden in a giant Government warehouse. What is this artefact? Well, it’s in New Mexico, in the 1950s, and the warehouse has a giant “51″ painted on the doors. At this point, there’s momentary panic. Is Indiana Jones going to turn its back on the pulp fiction/movie serial tradition of the 1930s and draw its inspiration from the terror-soaked 1950s B-Movie?  Thankfully no. In fact, just to prove the franchise still has its boisterous spirit there’s a chirpy scene where Indy is accidentally caught in a nuclear blast! I can’t think of any other mainstream film that has played the horror of the Cold War with such guffawing nonchalance. Nonetheless, we’re soon back in the jungle where once again time doesn’t matter.

As for the plot, that doesn’t matter either. All those years in “development hell” saw the script being passed on from writer to writer and is probably the cause of the film’s patchy nature. The plot is very confusing and ultimately irrelevant as its only purpose is to set up action sequences. But as those action sequences are such fun we barely miss a coherent story. That movie review cliché of “a rollercoaster ride of a movie” fits perfectly here. As they zoom around in cars and on bikes, go over waterfalls, and get pinned to the front of speeding trains, the whole thing seems like an extended pitch for a new theme park ride.

Joining Indy are some new faces. Mutt Williams, a greaser whose youthful follies bring out the best of Indy’s laconic quips. Mutt is played by Shia LaBeouf, and there’s even been speculation that he will someday, somehow, take over the franchise! But despite being Hollywood’s current golden boy he’s completely unremarkable here. Then there’s the British connection. Jim Broadbent fills in for the late Denholm Elliott as Indy’s academic benefactor. Ray Winstone pops up every so often to bellow “Jonesy!” in his Laanden accent, betray Indy then scarper. And John Hurt, with his beautiful tone and diction is put to astounding use as a mumbling mad man.

The 1980s is commonly thought of as a barren time in US cinema. In contrast the 1970s was jammed with modern classics – Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Star Wars. The only true success of the ’80s was the action film. Die Hard, Rambo, Terminator, Lethal Weapon; the genre was made on film like these. And Indiana Jones had a role too. This latest Indy adventure limits its use of CGI and goes back to the visceral thrills of good old-fashioned 1980s stunt work. But while The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is fun while it lasts, it won’t be remembered as fondly as the first three films, and any kudos it does get will be in reflected glory of its predecessors.

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