Being something of a popular culture and media geek, I'm extremely
knowledgeable about television, radio, movies and comics and am very familiar
with the contemporary landscape as it relates to fantastic fiction.
I've interviewed Stan Lee and made TV programmes with the likes of
William Shatner, Patrick Stewart, Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons. Chris Claremont,
Brian Bolland and Alan Davies, along with documentaries about
transvestite painters, performance art, tattooing, electronic music and dozens
of other arts and culture-related subjects.
The following are a couple of article-length reviews of contemporary blockbuster comicbook movies written shortly after release that were published online. Print reviews generally wouldn't be this long, of course!
SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!! SPOILERS!!
With a 73 year history behind him Batman is an iconic character with dozens of
different comic book interpretations and re-imaginings.
On film too, starting with the daredevil adventurer of the cheap 1940's serials
who saw crime fighting as a hobby a bit like golf to the excruciating Adam West
1960's TV series where adults seemed to have taken delight in making fun of kids' culture. The resulting bad name that comic books in general and Batman in particular were given took years to throw off. The run of Burton and Schumacher blockbusters of the 80's and 90's began well but ended up with the embarrassing Batman and Robin which killed the franchise
for eight years until the trio of intensely intricate Christopher Nolan movies.
With The Dark Knight Rises, the Nolan-verse interpretation of Bob Kane and
Bill Finger's classic creation bids us a spectacular loose-ends-wrapping-up
farewell in readiness for a re-boot that will probably tie in with a Justice League movie.
The Nolan trilogy needs to be seen as one complete entity in three acts rather
than Batman Begins and two sequels. Everything interlinks and, generally, comes
to a satisfactory and satisfying resolution by the end of Rises.
TDKR is very dense, complicated movie for a summer blockbuster featuring a
superhero. There's so much to it with so many plot twists and turns that I actually
enjoyed it more the second time when I had a better idea as to what was going
on and why. To help the film along there are lots of big blockbuster moments
including football stadiums being demolished from below, the massed Police
Department taking on 1000 bad guys on the streets of Gotham, bridges being
blown up and the jaw-dropping opening sequence where ruthless super-terrorist
Bane (Tom Hardy sounding like Sean Connery auditioning to play Darth Vader)
and his boys tear a plane apart mid-air. They need to make it appear that
Russian physicist Dr Leonard Pavel, who's being transported on said plane, dies
in the carnage. The reason for this is only revealed much later in the movie.
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| John Blake, Commissioner Jim Gordon, Batman, Bane, The Cat. It only looks like they're waiting for a bus. |
burglar played by Anne Hathaway who gets involved with Bane. He's said he
can eradicate all traces of her real identity of Selina Kyle from every computer
everywhere. In return Bane needs her to do something for him. Selina has to
lure Batman (Christian Bale) into a confrontation with Bane. As we have earlier learned
this is a Batman who hasn't got involved in too many fisticuffs with bad guys for
eight years and walks with a cane as Bruce Wayne.
With that in mind it's surprising that Batman hasn't packed a utility belt full of
villain ass-kicking gizmos, just in case he runs into some nastys. He manages to
fire explosives into the air for no apparent reason and also take the lights out
but this is nowhere near enough and a defeated Batman is hauled away to the prison
pit that had been home to Bane.
Bane knows Batman is Bruce Wayne, the explanation for which only becomes
clear when Bane's true role as henchman rather than mastermind is revealed
towards the end of the flick and the extent of the connection with Batman Begins is disclosed.
Prior to this Batman and The Cat have taken down a rooftop of bad guys while
Bane watches in the shadows, studiously weighing up the adversary he's come to
Gotham to defeat. They then take off in The Bat, Batman's flying Batmobile,
while Bane looks on in amazement, fighting off the urge to ask "Where does he
get those wonderful toys?"
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| The Bat. It flys better than it looks. Watch that autopilot, though. |
Batman Begins and The Dark Knight make cameo appearances. Probably out of
respect for Heath Ledger The Joker is neither re-cast or CGI'd or even
mentioned. The latter is a mistake, bearing in mind the effect the villain had on
Gotham, Batman and Harvey Dent.
As part of his master plan to bring Gotham to its knees and take away
everything Bruce Wayne has been fighting for with Batman out of the way Bane
maroons pretty much all of the city's police force in a series of underground
tunnels and breaks the convicts out of Blackgate Prison. Cillian Murphy's return
as The Scarecrow shows us that Arkham Asylum's crazies are also back in
circulation. Surely everyone should be wondering where The Joker was and
whether he's involved in the threat in some way?
Chris Nolan's films are story rather than character driven. Who or what Batman
is only matters in the context of the story that writers Chris, brother Jonathan and
David Goyer need to tell. Consequently there's some pretty out-of-character
moments for Batman. Based on his wider established history Batman is a driven,
resourceful and determined individual who would not give up his quest of
sorting out bad guys and bringing justice to the oppressed.
This doesn't fit with the story that Nolan is telling. So we see Batman copping out
at both the start and end of Rises. Bruce Wayne has spent half his fortune
on a fusion reactor that would give Gotham free energy in perpetuity. This and
the killing of Rachel Dawes in The Dark Knight has kept him away from crime fighting. The murder of his girlfriend would surely have the opposite effect and make Batman
even more determined to keep his city free of evil doers? Retirement might be
fine if the main character had been created just for the trilogy. But not for
Batman, one of the all time-great comic heroes with seven decades of commitment to
villain chasing.
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| Bane. His mam told him to wear his coat if it looked like snow |
functional but was mothballed three years previously because of a paper
published by Dr Pavel stating that it could be converted into a neutron bomb.
The apparent death in the rigged plane crash of the only person who knows how to do so at the start of Rises makes Wayne and his resident boffin Lucius Fox
(Morgan Freeman) much less cautious than if they had known that the scientist
had been kidnapped by terrorists. Stored in a bunker under the river the
deactivated reactor is left intact rather than flooded.
The mob have been vanquished thanks to 'The Dent Act' and, as we saw at the
end of The Dark Knight, Batman has chosen to carry the can for Dent's
misdemeanours so as not to tarnish the image and rep of Gotham's 'White
Knight'. A bit of a McGuffin that as The Joker had physically and mentally
scarred Dent and sent him over the edge in the previous film. Once this had been explained most
Gothamites would have seen where the true blame lay and Batman would have
been cleared. Rises starts with Commissioner Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman)
preparing to reveal the truth but deciding at the last minute not to. He does have it all written down though. Just the sort of ammunition any self-respecting super terrorist would give his face-hugger mask to get hold of.
With Pavel's reactor-to-bomb instructions safely in his combat trousers, Bane
executes the scientist in front of a football crowd to make sure he can't turn the
bomb off and announces that Gotham is now his. And he's going to blow
it up.
Bruce escapes from the pit and returns to a ravaged Gotham for a re-match with
Bane on the steps of City Hall. And, stone me, the utility belt is similarly and
stupidly non-productive and our boys duke it out again. Batman does better this
time but a tranquilliser dart (which we've just seen him use on one of Bane's
minions) would have done the trick much quicker.
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| Bane and Batman. Just hold that pose while I find my tranquiliser gun..... |
know for sure that Selina will do the right thing and help Batman beat Bane and
rescue Gotham. She's betrayed him once and certainly exhibits self interest over
altruism. Nolan lets us think that she's vamoosing on the Batpod only to have her
come back just in the nick of time.
Bane certainly looks like he can pack a mean wallop. But he's no match for
Selina and the Batpod's rocket-launcher. Seeing the bad guy go skidding across
the floor and through a wall got a cheer in the cinema but I can't help wish that
Nolan had let the morally-centred Batman personally and decisively beat Bane
rather than have the much-sneakier Selina do it with a rocket.
Nolan cleverly manipulates us into thinking that he's done the unthinkable and
killed Batman. While the hero of a franchise is usually never at risk, the fact
that TDKR was promoted as both the end of the trilogy and Chris Nolan's
involvement with the character makes it plausible that he's -literally-going out
with a bang. Batman uses The Bat to tow the unstable reactor that Bane has
activated out to sea as the clock ticks downward. It gets to 5 seconds
and.....Kaboom!
The clock at 5 seconds is a close up that's a bit of a cheat as we don't actually
see Batman in The Bat. After hooking up the bomb to The Bat,
Batman tells Selina that the autopilot is broken. This really is a cheat
because, as we discover soon after, Bruce had fixed it weeks before when Lucius Fox couldn't. Maybe Bruce is getting his own back on Selina for her earlier betrayal?
Tim Burton, the director of Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (titles were
never his strong point) has been quoted as saying that as a movie character
Batman works best used sparingly when something critical is happening. Part of
Batman's impact is the theatricality of the costume. Have him too visible or
standing around all suited up for too long and you've got Adam West. Or George
Clooney.
That said, I could have done with a bit more Batman in TDKR. He doesn't
appear until about 45 minutes in and for the middle section of the film Bruce
Wayne is trapped in Bane's pit, recuperating and planning his escape. Alfred (Michael Caine playing Michael Caine playing Alfred) has taken the hump, resigned and left Gotham-another out of character move-and someone has to do the legwork and help out Jim Gordon and Lucius Fox.
We've already met John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) a young cop whose heart
and detective skills are definitely in the right place because he's worked out
who Batman is, based purely on the fact that Wayne, like him, is an orphan!
Unlike his GCPD pals Blake hasn't been trapped underground and we see a bit
too much of him as he does his best to put lots of spanners in Bane's works. I would much rather have had more Selina Kyle here instead. Anne Hathaway looks great in the costume (which Nolan, thankfully, doesn't try and explain) and pitches the character just right. She's crafty, amoral, funny and able to disable half a roof full of armed-to-the teeth villains. And, unlike with the Batman Returns version, there's no mental health issues and this Selina is as sharp as a razor. The best Catwoman ever.
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| The Cat, The Batpod. The Light-up goggles. She doesn't give backers. |
member of the board of Wayne Enterprises integral to the development of the
reactor. She gets promoted and also becomes Bruce's latest squeeze. Tate
initially appears to be an insignificant peripheral character. Until......Readers of
the Ra's Al Ghul/Batman stories in the comics will twig fairly early what's
actually going on here.
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| Lucius Fox and Miranda Tate. The boffin and the badass |
dead Bruce Wayne's legacy carries on when his family home is turned into an
orphanage. An also-presumed-dead-by-neutron-reactor Batman is at last
acknowledged as Gotham's saviour. The people that count (Alfred, Gordon,
Selina, Lucius Fox and John Blake) soon get to know he's alive.
In Alfred's case he leaves the country again and goes to Italy to get away from it all. While
he's quaffing a latte in a cafe in downtown Florence Alfred looks up and sees his surrogate
son downing champagne with Selina and smiling at him. Back in Gotham Bruce
has left Blake the keys to the cave. He swings by and finds himself standing
on a platform which then.....rises. Presumably he'll be spending the next three
months trying to figure out all of Batman's gizmos contained therein. Y'know,
the ones Batman didn't take along to his punch-ups with Bane?
Blake will then carry on Wayne's mission. The one he abandoned for eight years,
remember? Bruce had earlier said to Blake that Batman could be anyone. No,
he couldn't. Various DC comics storylines, including Knightfall, which Rises
references, have demonstrated that this is not the case. Nolan's happy ending
certainly has the feel-good factor but this is an avenue that will be going
nowhere apart from this movie and there's a couple of overly cutesy moments.
Batman's aversion guns is mentioned several times in Rises ("You may want to
re-consider that" says Selina after she saves the day by blowing Bane away.)
Teasing us about Blake maybe taking over as Batman, Nolan has him
inadvertently shoot a bad guy and then throw his revolver away in disgust which comes over as a little eggy. The quick reference to Blake having the middle name 'Robin' had me cringing even more.
Nolan has no intention of telling us anything else. All we need to know is that
Gotham City-always a major part of the Batman saga-is in safe hands.
As the Batman film franchise has proven to be under Chris Nolan. He rescued Batman after the silly Schumacher films and the trilogy has been a welcome (and very successful) addition to the cinematic canon. Quibbles aside The Dark Knight Rises is a major work of film craft which, like its two predecessors raises the bar for super-hero films. Purists argue that Christopher Nolan was making Nolan films rather than Batman films. As an iconic character Batman can take that and Nolan's vision is certainly as valid as any other live action version of the character and more satisfying than most.
Ian Ravendale
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| Batman and the rest of the Justice League by the great comic artist/painter Alex Ross |
A review of Captain America - The First Avenger
(Certificate 12)
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| Cap and his (Howling) Commandoes |
SPOILERS! SPOILERS!
*
When the first photos hit the internet of Chris Evans in his combat-ready Captain America suit complete with stencilled wings on the side of what was definitely a helmet the purists were up in arms.
It was looking like the movie Human Torch was going to be giving us the recent
Ultimates version of Cap, rather than the classic Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
original.
Not the case. Captain America-The First Avenger throws in a few tweaks from
Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Ultimates version - mainly the outfit and Samuel L
Jackson showing up as Ultimate Nick Fury - and combines them with most of the
classic elements in a way that both works for the new audience who have
jumped on board because of the Iron Man and Thor films and also we
fan-boys.
Captain America is not Batman. More importantly, Steve Rogers isn't Bruce
Wayne. Wayne is driven by a continued and ongoing desire for vengeance. His
personal demons and commitment to bringing justice to Gotham City will not
stop. Rogers, on the other hand, has a more idealistic motivation. He wants to
serve his country and we see his skinny pre-Super Soldier self trying all sorts of
ruses to get drafted.
The original Captain America comics were produced in simpler times. While
Batman's raison d'etre still convinces the 21st Century audience, if not handled
right Cap's ideology could come across as naive patriotism that many people
today would have major problems empathising with.
In his return to super heroes a full twenty years after The Rocketeer, director
Joe Johnston skilfully and uncynically ushers us through Steve Rogers' journey.
As in the comics, Cap is an idealistic man of honour, guided by his desire to do
the right thing for his country, and more importantly, his fellow man. Unless
they're members of Hydra, who he has no qualms about throwing out of planes,
exploding their speeding motor bikes or bouncing his shield off their noggins.
Stanley Tucci's appealingly played Professor Erskine has developed a "Super
Soldier Serum" which turns weedy Steve Rogers into Captain America.
America is not yet in World War 2 so Cap is sent to work as part of the United
Service Organization programme, entertaining the troops as a living call to arms
about the atrocities happening in Europe.
Rogers' first steps are tentative, with the very accurate version of the costume
from the the first Captain America comic from 1941 causing much amusement
to the combat-front GI's he's been sent to gee up in Italy. But when he's allowed
to enter the action with the Howling Commandos, Cap quickly becomes a leader
of men, serving his country and giving the bad guys what-for.
There's very little of his portrayal of the Fantastic Four's Johnny Storm in
Evan's Captain America. The Human Torch is cocky and impulsive; Cap isn't.
The Torch is a loudmouth; Cap isn't. The Torch thinks he can charm the pants
off every girl he meets; Cap doesn't. The Torch is hip and cool; Cap isn't-he's so
straight he could even be boring, if his moral centre and integrity didn't shine
through Evans' on-the-money portrayal.
In short; Johnston and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely not
only completely nail the character of Captain America but make us really like
him. Evans' totally convincing take on the selfless Rogers demolishes the idea
that he's a one-trick acting pony who can only do smart-aleck.
The film deviates from the classic comics in several major ways, which for the
most part work well. Bucky Barnes is Rogers' school chum and original
protector, not the Robin to his Batman. In his role of sniper Barnes joins Cap in
combat, a move that echoes Marvel's controversial 2005 return of the long-dead
Bucky as The Winter Soldier, a covert killing machine.
Even though the majority of The First Avenger's action takes place in World
War 2, the Nazis (and Hitler-sort of) only make a fleeting appearance in
montage and the Japanese don't figure at all. Unlike in the original 1940's
comics where both are portrayed as scowling, grotesque villains. In the spirit of
letting bygones be bygones and international box office, the Nazis are replaced
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| Hydra prepare to show Cap their new flame throwers |
by Hydra, the Third Reich's 'Research Divison'.
Hydra's 'goggles and jumpsuit' get-ups, introduced in Marvel's mid 60's Nick
Fury Agent of Shield series, are now cut in sinister Gestapo-esque black leather
rather than pea-soup green-a distinct improvement. Baron Strucker, the comics'
original Hydra head honcho must be on holiday as Johann Schmidt aka The Red
Skull is now totally in charge, helped along with a bit of archetypal snivelling
sidekick/mad scientist backup from Dr Arnim Zola, as played by Toby Jones
channelling Peter Lorre.
In the Stan Lee and Jack Kirby 1960's version of his origin The Red Skull is a
hotel bellhop trained up by Hitler just to show he can do it and then given a
crimson skull mask and a boiler suit with a swastika on. Here, the Skull (Hugo
Weaving) is a scientist who gets disfigured in an earlier German trial of the Super
Soldier serum experiment before Prof Erskine does the right thing and defects.
The good news is that, like Cap, Schmidt gets enhanced strength and agility,
along with not having to worry about haircuts anymore. The bad news is his head
is now a bright red skull. And he's totally off his trolley. Super villains tend not
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| The (very) Red Skull |
to bother much with self-analysis so he doesn't even notice.
This "real skull" Skull is actually a relatively new part of the Cap mythos
introduced in 1989, in Captain America 350. For all his Golden and Silver Age,
appearances the Skull wore a mask. Johnston has chosen to sidestep this, doing a
clever turnaround by making him wear normalising makeup and a wig when in
his Johann Schmidt guise.
It soon becomes pretty clear that the Skull is taking nothing from nobody, no-how
and Hitler is a minor inconvenience in his master plan. The Skull's main
motivation, apart from making mayhem is the pursuit of a powerful Norse
artifact called The Tesseract, which we saw Loki drooling over in the
apres-credits scene of the Thor movie.
It's not entirely obvious why the filmmakers have decided to re-name this from its
Cosmic Cube comicbook handle, as it's clearly a cube and cosmic enough to
burn through an aeroplane. There's a great Jack Kirby type shot of The
Skull lovingly holding the cube up and cackling madly before being absorbed
into it.
For long-term fans Captain America-The First Avenger is a treasure trove full
of subtle Marvel Universe references that don't necessarily advance the story but
serve to show that the film makers are aware of and respectful to their core
inspiration.
Howard Stark, the father of Iron Man Tony, comes up with Cap's familiar round
shield, made from 'vibranium' the world's toughest (and rarest) metal. But not
before the triangular Kirby shield from Captain America 1 gets an outing. Stark,
played by Dominic Cooper believably pulling off being a youthful version of
Robert Downey Jr's dad, is the film's Mr Gadget. One of these gadgets is a
prototype of a flying car that will be familiar to readers of the original Agent Of
Shield series. A World Of Tomorrow exhibition has what looks very like the
original (android) Human Torch in a glass case that could also be a possible nod
to Evans' previous Marvel gig.
The labs where the puny Steve Rogers (achieved by great acting from Evans
and 99% successful CGI) is turned into Captain America is entered via an
sliding bookcase in the back of a shop, echoing the 1960's Agent Of SHIELD series again.
The 1943 USO Captain America comic put out to promote the American
commitment to stamping out Nazi oppression is the actual Simon and Kirby
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| I've got the job? Great! |
No. 1, albeit issued a couple of years later in this universe.
Cap's crew when he starts going on missions for real are The Howling
Commandos, the Lee-Kirby creation from what 1960's Marvel billed
"The war comic for people who hate war comics". Here, Dum Dum Dugan
(played by Neil McDonagh, who literally brings the comic book version to
life) takes command as Marvel movie universe's Nick Fury is now solely
locked into the here and now of SHIELD.
The action moves quickly throughout. There's some great shield slinging
moments (including the only bit of 3D that had me ducking) and well staged
combat scenes with members of Hydra hitting the deck left, right and centre,
along with an exciting finale on board the Skull's jet.
Captain America-The First Avenger is full of fine looking pieces of kit like the
Skull's auto giro and car, Hydra's motorbikes and ray guns, the doohickey that
upgrades Rogers' physique and lots of other bits of gadgetry that could have
really come from a slightly deranged 1940's inventor, rather than production
designer Rick Heinricks. Joe Johnston's experience on The Rocketeer (set in
1938) has paid off triumphantly with art décor, expressionism, fantasy and the
whole war-time New York vibe that we've seen in so many films made in the
period all mixed together to take us to a place that never existed but looks like
it could. Quite a feat bearing in mind that the majority of the film was shot in
Liverpool, London, Manchester, Wales and Los Angeles.
One minor quibble I have about this stylish journey into orchestrated nostalgia is Alan
Silvestri's overly obvious musical score. While evoking the oompah and panache
associated with American war-time gung-ho for me it was a little overbearing
and obtrusive at times. Film scores should add subtle colour and texture to the
action but I found myself noticing this one a bit too often.
My only major criticism is the film's ending. Or parts of it, anyway.
The section where Johnston has the confused Steve Rogers waking up in a
hospital bed, quickly twigging on that something's wrong, making a bolt for it
and finding that (unknown to him) he's in Times Square in 2011 tells us Cap's
war-time journey is over. A bewildered and frightened Evans runs though the
noisy, claustrophobic chaotic New York streets dodging yellow cabs unable to
comprehend what's happened to him or where he is.
Then, Ultimate Nick Fury -Samuel L Jackson- arrives and tells Rogers he's been
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| Samuel L Fury. He's gonna make you an offer you can't refuse |
After the credits, the "extra" footage is an early promo for Joss Whedon's
Avengers flick, not an intriguing hidden titbit, like the (apparently) dead
Xavier's voice coming out of someone else's body in X-Men; The Last Stand or
SHIELD finding Thor's hammer at the end of Iron Man 2.
While a sneak peak at Marvel's most anticipated film of 2012 certainly didn't go
amiss it strangely seemed a bit anti-climatic. Cap's re-emergence into the
'modern' Marvel comic book universe in Avengers 4 (1963) is a simple but
poignant moment the film makers failed to attempt to emulate.
In the comic the Avengers are returning from an Arctic mission in their
submarine. They come across a figure that has just thawed out of a block of ice and
pull it into the ship. With a mixture of disbelief and admiration they
instantaneous recognise him as Captain America, the legend of World War 2.
A version of this incorporated into the movie while somehow retaining the very
effective Manhattan sequence would have carried more emotional weight than
having a bunch of faceless scientists discovering the frozen Rogers. Or, as we
actually see, his shield.
We could still have the ubiquitous Jackson. And behind Fury is our first sight of the fully suited up Thor, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Hulk together and ready to rumble.
Would that have been giving away too much too soon?
As it is, what we get is The Avengers casually standing around in SHIELD HQ
with Rogers in an updated Cap outfit as part of the gang, ready to lead us into
Whedon's blockbuster.
That aside, Captain America-The First Avenger is one of the most satisfying
mainstream superhero films ever. With a strong supporting cast that includes
Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Chester Phillips and Hayley Atwell playing
machine-gun toting Peggy Carter, one of the few leading ladies that doesn't
seem to be motivated by wanting to get the hero into bed as quickly as possible,
this is a film made with craft and style and panache. And, I'd guess, more than a
little love for the source material.
Ian Ravendale
Need a writer and very experienced interviewer who can do this sort of article? ian.penman1@btinternet.com
