Shazam! and why DC letting go of team up films is exciting

The first article I ever wrote on this site was about Wonder Woman, so it seems somewhat appropriate that the first full-length article I write after coming back from my extended break is about DC’s latest effort in their cinematic universe; Shazam! Shazam tells the story of fourteen-year-old Billy Batson (Asher Angel), a foster child who stumbles across a wizard while searching for his birth mother. The wizard gives Billy the ability to become a super-buff Zac Levi (aka the superhero Shazam) because he sees in Billy someone who is pure of heart… and because he is dying and in desperate need of someone to carry out his legacy. Add to that seven monstrous sins, a scientist gone mad in his search for magic and a delightful foster family and you pretty much have the entire movie.

Shazam is the first non-horror feature film from Swedish director David F. Sandberg, and while there are moments where the audiences will have tingles run down their spine, this movie feels like it’s aimed at a slightly younger audience than DC’s previous efforts. Shazam features teenagers that, for the most part, actually feel like teenagers. Billy may be apparently pure of heart, but he acts like a jerk for a lot of the film and his foster brother, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer) is an excellent mix of teenage sarcasm, self-obsession and nerdery. The tone captures a perfect mix between high school drama and superheroes, with a touch of Stranger Things thrown in for good measure. Shazam doesn’t feel like any of the other DC movies, and as far as I’m concerned that’s absolutely brilliant.

Even Seth Cohen didn’t have a real life Superman bullet!

That’s not to say that DC’s recent efforts haven’t measured up to Shazam. Both Wonder Woman and Aquaman were wonderful, even if they both had their flaws. I loved watching James Wan’s take on an Indiana Jones-style adventure under the sea, an adventure only made better by Jason Mamoa’s undeniable charisma. I adored Patty Jenkin’s somewhat dark but ultimately hopeful take on Wonder Woman, and especially Gal Gadot’s performance. But what makes Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Shazam so great is that none of them feel like each other. They are all absolutely their own films with individual styles decided upon by their writers and directors.

This may be a dangerous thing to say as Marvel hype reaches a fever pitch (at time of writing the cinematic release of Avengers: Endgame is less than two weeks off), but I don’t feel that Marvel has managed to keep that individual nature in the same way. It might be because I’ve seen so many more of them, but I suspect it has more to do with the formula that the studio and Kevin Feige seems to have developed. As multiple Marvel directors have mentioned, there is often a list handed to them of the introductions, crossovers and setups that each of their films must contain at the beginning of pre-production. This has lead to, with the exemption of Thor: Ragnarok, what feels like an almost total stagnation of creativity.

This many characters in one film might be a bit much…

On the other hand, DC’s recent efforts have revelled in their different directors, letting them create superhero movies that not only have radically different styles but borderline different genres. I suspect a large part of the reason they’ve been able to embrace the individual talents of their directors so much is their recent decision to forget about the big team-up films. The cast and crew of Shazam didn’t have to worry about setting up the next big bad for Aquaman or throwing around references to Wonder Woman’s adventures in the 1980s, their only concern was bringing David F Sandberg’s Shazam to life. Having nothing other than a winking grin at the rest of the DC universe has allowed Shazam to be entirely its own thing, and given its tone, quite possibly bring a new younger audience to the DCEU.

This is the facial expression of a teenager who just got superpowers.

This isn’t an issue of Marvel versus DC in the end, despite what it seems to be, but rather an issue of what can happen when a studio allows its directors little to no creative freedom. Warner Brothers have seemingly learnt from their lesson of butchering the hell out of the early DC films in post-production (Justice League and Suicide Squad spring to mind), and have decided to allow their directors more creative control over their individual projects. If that means more films like Shazam, I can’t help but be excited.

Movie: Justice League and why it is everything Age of Ultron should have been

While this review does not contain spoilers for the Justice League movie, it does contain spoilers for previous DC films, including Man of Steel, Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice and Wonder Woman, as well as Marvel’s Age of Ultron. 

I have to admit when it comes to their movies, I much prefer Marvel to DC. Not just because Marvel has a much bigger universe, boasting seventeen films to DC’s five, but because Marvel doesn’t seem to take itself as seriously as DC. As I said in my review of Thor Ragnarok, I have a great appreciation for superhero movies that embrace the over-the-top nature of comics. To be honest, I’d much prefer to watch a silly superhero film like Thor Ragnarok or Guardians of the Galaxy than a serious take on them like Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (excellent though it is).

Having said that in recent years I have found the lighter tone in Marvel films to border on being callous, particularly in the most recent Avengers film, Age of Ultron. It’s difficult to see superheroes quipping with each other while towns burns and civilians die. It makes them seem uncaring like they are battling the enemy more for their own gratification than to save people. As my partner pointed out recently, in Marvel movies civilians kind of feel like ants. Not so with DC.

At the end of Man of Steel, there is a huge battle between Superman and General Zodd, which involves them punching each other through buildings. It ended up levelling downtown Metropolis and caused a huge amount of controversy among fans. Superman has always taken huge efforts to protect every day people and minimize (if not totally rule out) any civilians casualties, and here he was smashing his way through buildings without a care for anyone those buildings might contain. But DC was able to learn from those mistakes.

Ever since Man of Steel, DC have excelled at showing the human face of the conflict. Batman Versus Superman opens with Bruce Wayne seeing the destruction of Metropolis first hand, including being told by one of his employees that no one left in the building is getting out, they’ve evacuated all they could but it is not enough. It’s probably the best scene in the whole movie in terms of sheer emotional impact, at least in my opinion. Wonder Woman followed suit showing the liberation and consequent destruction of the village of Veld. However, it is Justice League that does it most simply, and probably in the best way.

Justice League shows Batman and Wonder Woman forming an alliance of superhumans (well, superhumans and one rich guy) to fight the monstrous Steppenwolf who seeks to unite the three mother boxes which will turn Earth into one giant hellscape. Early in the film, while elsewhere the Justice League are still teaming up, we are introduced to a Russian family who lives in the shadow of a power plant that has been abandoned after a reactor leak. A power plant that just so happens to be the perfect place for Steppenwolf and his army of flying techno monkeys to use as their base. The film revisits this family again and again as they deal with the destruction of their home, right from the moment of Steppenwolf’s arrival through to the end of the film. We don’t just see the impact on them in the hour of battle, we see them across days while they struggle to stay alive against impossible odds. Deciding to include them as part of the movie was an excellent bit of filmmaking, and is one of the many things that makes Justice League work so well.

Justice League also prioritises minimising the human casualties in the same way people expected the original Man of Steel to. Flash is initially very nervous in battle, so Batman tells him to focus on saving the innocent, to just try and save just one person’s life. Saving human life feels like an important part of the fight in Justice League, rather than being totally secondary to the battle and trading quips with your teammates.

On top of that, Justice League knows when to use its sense of humour. While it doesn’t same the same funny or lighthearted nature of a Marvel film, the humour is still definitely there, just not in the middle of battles where people’s lives are at risk. The Justice League tend to crack their jokes to ease the tension in the quieter moments, which gives the audience more time to enjoy the joke without being whipped to the next bit of the action. It also shows a very human side to the superheroes, after all, who hasn’t cracked a joke at some point to ease the tension when under great stress?

Ultimately, Justice League’s biggest strength is showing off the humanity of its heroes, even the ones who aren’t technically human. They struggle to relate to the world, they make awkward jokes and they treasure the lives of others. They fall in love, are scared of failure and worry about making the wrong decisions. They are imperfect (despite how Gal Gardot and Jason Momoa look). It might be because of the decision to make the DCU a considerably darker than the MCU, but it works really well in this case. DC have given some much-needed shades of grey to a superhero genre that was quickly becoming black and white. It continues the tradition of Wonder Woman in making heroes who are powerful yet fallible and incredibly lovable and that is something to be applauded.

I hope that DC keeps up the pattern of making heroes who care about the little people, and who make mistakes. Hopefully, it will give Marvel a chance to think about the way it uses civilians in its films. I’ll be very interested to see the next couple of efforts from both studios. For the moment at least, it seems like the two competing studios compliment each other by being different, and that makes it a great time to be an audience member.

Also, I’m shocked that anyone pulled off the pretending something is a skateboard/surfboard when it isn’t. Congratulations Jason Momoa! 😛

Movie: Thor Ragnarok, and why it lived up to its trailer

I love movies. I worked at a cinema for three and a bit years. I make short films. In high school, I spent my entire allowance going to the cinema on a Friday night. I. Love. Movies. But, in recent years I found going to the movies a more and more disappointing experience (mostly). Why? Because Hollywood has started consistently putting the only good/memorable bits of each film in its trailer. The trailer for Dark Tower looked pretty amazing and mysterious. The film itself, impressively meh (and it wasted Katheryn Winnick, which is a cardinal sin). The trailer for Atomic Blonde looked insanely kick-ass and amazing. The movie felt like the first film of a freshly graduated film student (and it wasted both James McAvoy AND Charlize Theron, two more sins). The trailer for Thor: Ragnarok looked funny, upbeat and beautiful…

And the film was funnier, more upbeat and more beautiful than the trailer. It was so good to have had a marketing campaign that was based on humour, and then to have the movie actually live up to it!

Having said that, I am aware that, as an Australian, I am smack bang in the middle of the target market, as director Taika Waititi said that a bunch of the humour in the movie was specifically targeted at Australian and New Zealander audiences. That must have at least been partially true because the cinema I went to see the film in roared with laughter for a good two-thirds of the film. It ended up being one of the most special experiences I’ve had in a cinema. It’s rare that I feel so connected to the rest of the audience, particularly as someone who is very self-conscious around their laugh.

The other thing that’s amazing about Thor Ragnarok is how well Waititi has built the humour into the foundations of the film. Marvel films throw out funny lines and have their superheroes quipping at one another, but it is often against a backdrop of a more serious nature; the destruction of a city or the middle of a dangerous chase. It can be somewhat disconcerting and dehumanising when they are seen in their full context, and it makes me feel, as an audience member, that they are only there to help sell the film as part of the trailer.  Thor Ragnarok certainly has a couple of silly lines in serious situations, but they always make sense in the context and never detract from the gravity of the scene.

Not only that, Thor Ragnarok embraces the over the top nature of the comics in a way that rarely happens in superhero movies. It knowingly winks at the audiences, sharing with you that the whole situation is silly without making fun of it. This is a film that contains a creature made out of rock who ended up exiled from his home planet because he didn’t hand out enough pamphlets for his revolution and Jeff Goldblum in sparkly blue eyeliner. There’s really no way to play those things seriously, and yet it doesn’t come across as being dumb either, just wonderfully innocent and playful. There’s nothing in the movie that feels forced, or there purely for the sake of marketing (with the possible exception of the Doctor Strange scene).

In fact, Thor Ragnarok doesn’t feel like a film that was made to be marketed to anyone in particular. It feels like something that was made simply for the joy of it. There’s a freedom about it, which is unsurprising given that an estimated 80% of the dialogue was improvised. Even long-term MCU stars, such as Mark Ruffalo, were concerned that the cast was having too much freedom making this film, and that at some point there was going to be a call coming in to tell the production to reel it back or to start again. The call never came. And not making that call was probably one of the smartest things the marketing department at Marvel has ever done.

Giving Taika Waititi and his cast freedom to improvise and create something different for Thor Ragnarok has enabled them to make a fun, charming and exceptionally funny film, which has drawn audiences all over the world in with its quirky sense of humour. It’s kept all the promises made in its trailers which means people are more likely to watch it again, to tell friends positive things and ultimately be that little bit less sick of superhero films. It doesn’t just live up to its own trailer, it lives up to the promise of the fun, not too serious film that Marvel has been promising us for years and never fully delivering on until now. Let’s hope Marvel keeps taking risks and delivering at the same level into the future.

 

Movie: Blade Runner 2049, and why it’s what movie sequels should be

Blade Runner is one of those rare films that I’ve studied and still love, which is pretty amazing considering I think I’ve ended up studying it in three different classes across the course of my life. Having said that, when I first started hearing about a Blade Runner sequel in early 2012, I was highly sceptical. Would it recapture the magic? Would it be able to have the same level of philosophy? Would it be convincingly set in the same complex and beautiful world?

My scepticism only grew as the Hollywood remake-and-sequel machine hit its maximum output in the last few years. Every second film seems to be part of a franchise, and so many of them are mediocre. Even films that I’ve loved in the last couple of years (Star Wars: Force Awakens for one) have kind of re-hashed stories that their respective franchises have already covered. It can be fun to watch, but it’s disappointing as an audience member to be watching the same films over and over with different titles, particularly when there is an opportunity to add something different and exciting to an already developed universe.

The idea that Blade Runner 2049 would just be another one of these films cashing in on nostalgia was so disappointing to me that, despite being impressed by trailers that didn’t actually reveal the whole story for once, I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch the film. But by the time the early reviews were out I was convinced. Critics raved about it as they had the first, and more importantly, those who were fans talked of it being a true sequel, “… a film that was worth the 35-year wait..” (Thanks to Scott Collura from IGN for that quote)

So on a balmy Wednesday night, I headed to my local cinema to watch it, and for once, a sequel in no way disappointed me. I was impressed by the original story, stunning visual effects and performances that made me cry multiple times. Everything seems like it’s had a huge amount of effort poured into it in order to create something special, something worthy of its audience. It’s incredible to me that this new film actually managed to build on the story and world of the original because it’s so rare that that properly happens these days.

Blade Runner 2049 adds to the world by taking the story further into the dystopian future. It is set after an android rebellion, where newer, more obedient models (Nexus-9’s) built by the sinister Wallace Corporation, hunt down the Nexus-7 models of the first film. At the heart of the film is Agent K (Ryan Gosling) who hunts down a former medic Nexus-7 (Dave Bautista) who tells him that he is only able to destroy his own kind because he has never seen a miracle. The story picks up from there and focuses on the idea of what makes an individual’s reality more than what makes their humanity, but it contains all the philosophy one would expect from a true Blade Runner sequel. As one of my fellow audience members commented as we left the theatre, “This is deep sci-fi.”

My favourite thing by far about Blade Runner 2049, however, is how it plays with our expectations of how stories are meant to unfold. As audiences, we are used to seeing the Legacy Players (to steal a Star Wars term) being rolled out early in sequels, whereas Blade Runner 2049 only shows the audience Deckard in the final third of the movie. As audiences, we expect to have similar main characters throughout a franchise but despite sharing the same job Rick Deckard and Agent K could not be more different. As audiences (of blockbusters at least) we expect there to be a limit as to how much emotional pain our lead characters can endure, but Blade Runner 2049 doesn’t shy away from the emotional pain of having your identity shaped and re-shaped by others.

I have heard a lot of criticism among friends that Blade Runner 2049 doesn’t recreate the same story and philosophy that the first film did. It doesn’t have the same questions about what is human and what is android. As I have already mentioned there are fewer questions about humanity. But what good is a sequel, particular of a series of films with its base so strongly set in philosophy, if it takes us over familiar and safe ground? We’ve already discussed what it means to be human brilliantly in Blade Runner, so to expand on that point to talk about the nature of reality and the experience of humanity gives Blade Runner 2049 its own purpose.

Ultimately, it’s this reason that Blade Runner 2049 is such an important sequel; it has it’s own reason for existing, rather than just continuing a story in order to make more money. It raises it’s own issues, without ignoring the ones raised in the first film. It expands both the history and world of the universe without making feel like a new place. I can only hope that we get more sequels of this sort in the future because if we did, I wouldn’t mind the sequel machine quite so much. My fingers are crossed.