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6/30/2023 0 Comments the flash To quote Miles Morales - “All right, let’s do this one last time.”
We are living in particularly unsubtle times. Cultural discourse is amplified by social media and terminally online fandom to the point that virtually every release is either hailed as a breathless masterpiece or furiously denounced as both a catastrophe and a personal affront. There’s rarely a middle ground - measured critical discussion has been largely drowned out by the screeching din. The above paragraph was originally written in regards to Across the Spider-Verse all of two weeks ago, but turns out it’s even more applicable to The Flash, which - more than any comic book movie in recent memory - has divided its audience like the Red Sea… driving them towards fanatically opposite extremes (it would seem one man’s joyous superhero valentine is another man’s cinematic abortion). No exceptions. Social media has well and truly become the graveyard of nuance. It should come as absolutely no surprise that The Flash, in truth, is neither amazing nor atrocious, astounding nor abominable. It’s admittedly a wonky mess of a movie, filled with half-baked comic book logic and sludgy CGI… but also moments of great visual wit and fan service that - while pandering (and at times borderline ghoulish) - manages a solid nostalgic kick. However, the DCEU has become so fractured and tonally at odds with itself (it’s like the complete inverse of Marvel’s well-oiled machine, which results in occasional bursts of creative daring - such as Zack Snyder’s self-indulgent but opulently Wagnerian four-hour version of Justice League - but more often feels like the shared-universe equivalent of careening across an ice slick), it’s hard to tell how much of anything fits together at this point; it’s probably just as well that James Gunn and Peter Safaran are clearing the decks and starting fresh. The Flash would appear to be DC’s introductory foray into the wonderful (and definitely not exhaustingly oversaturated) world of multiverses, but its vibe is arguably more akin to Back to the Future. Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) discovers that if he runs fast enough, he can actually access the slipstream of time… and although Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck, who’s never quite felt interesting enough in the role to shoulder his own Batman franchise, but remains a sturdy supporting player) warns him not to meddle, Barry can’t help stepping into the past and making one minor tweak that’ll hopefully prevent his Mom’s murder (and, by extension, his Dad taking the fall for the crime). Unfortunately, he gets knocked into an alternate timeline - one in which his parents are indeed still happily married, but where he also finds a slightly younger and considerably more callow Barry to contend with. To make matters worse, General Zod (Michael Shannon, gamely accepting his paycheck) also arrives, leading Barry to seek out Batman and Superman… but instead discovering a much older and more grizzled Bruce Wayne (played by - yes - Michael Keaton) and Kal-El’s cousin Kara (Sasha Calle), who’s imprisoned in a Russian black-ops facility. Keaton, not surprisingly, is the best thing about the movie - the effortless ease with which he steps back into the cape-and-cowl thirty years later, and the credibility he musters as an action hero at age 71, are astonishing (as an added bonus, Danny Elfman’s Batman theme still slays). Calle isn’t really given a whole lot to work with, character-wise… but she looks mighty striking on-screen in Superman’s iconic colors. Her potential is considerable; it would be a shame if her performance ends up as just a one-off in the role. Ezra Miller isn’t a particularly easy person to root for, frankly, given their litany of (largely repugnant) personal issues… but objective credit where credit is due - they’re quite good in the title role (Miller was blessed with a spark of comedic quicksilver; unlike someone such as Dane DeHaan, they’ve proven well-equipped to evolve beyond the brooding emo persona of their early roles). Miller’s dual (and dueling) Barrys pay comedic dividends in what is frequently a very funny movie (The Flash dramatically assumes his runner’s pose as the main title starts to materialize on-screen - only to be interrupted by a gaggle of teen fangirls)… but too much of the comic-book spectacle sputters into an artificial CGI maelstrom (an early sequence in which Barry must rescue a dozen falling babies from a collapsing hospital wing (and refuel mid-rescue) is solid conceptually - even if X-Men technically did it first - but the execution is visually off-putting - borderline grotesque even). The film's thematic carpeting, dedicated to the complex pitfalls of time travel, has already been worn to the fibers for anyone remotely “Flash fluent” as far as the comics or the long-running CW series are concerned. The Flash ends with an admittedly inspired gag, but one that leaves the DCEU in even greater disarray… it’s kind of a relief that we don’t have to worry about the process of disentangling this spaghetti-like mess of plot threads, to be perfectly honest. Life's too short to stew over this many multiverses.
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6/20/2023 0 Comments transformers: rise of the beasts The Transformers franchise finds itself at a bit of a crossroads. The series grew increasingly steroidal and overwrought under Michael Bay’s stewardship, but the original remains a bona fide popcorn gem; a creative cross-splicing of Bay and executive producer Steven Spielberg’s filmmaking DNA (well… maybe 80% Bay and 20% Spielberg). Exhausted audiences had largely checked out by the time Bay released his aggressively nonsensical fifth outing, The Last Knight… and Paramount elected to pivot smartly to the scaled-down, Travis-Knight directed spin-off Bumblebee. Critics and old-school Transformers fans were largely delighted with the result… but the film failed to reignite the brand at the box office.
Which brings us to Rise of the Beasts. Don’t even bother trying to disentangle the Transformers timeline at this point… the new movie seems to build directly on Bumblebee but also appears to diverge from the Bay films, even though Bumblebee was more-or-less positioned as a prequel to them? Who knows. Who cares? At any rate, the story takes place in 1994 (which is a good excuse to pack the soundtrack with iconic hip-hop, such as Wu-Tang’s CREAM and Biggie’s Hypnotize) and follows ex-soldier Noah (Anthony Ramos of Hamilton fame), who’s doing his best to care for his sick brother (they refer to each other as Sonic and Tails - another appreciable nod to 90s nostalgia). But Noah can’t seem to catch a break… and after a security job falls through thanks to his commanding officer claiming he’s not a team player (a charge that has… oddly little bearing on the movie, or his actual character arc), he’s forced to turn to a life of crime. Unfortunately, his attempt to steal a vintage Porsche quickly goes sideways when it turns out to be the Autobot Mirage (voiced by Pete Davidson). Better buckle up. Noah is brought before Optimus Prime (played, as always, by Peter Cullen, whose voice still instantly elicits nostalgic shivers) - less noble, burdened by leadership, distrustful of humans (a fresh, fascinating conceit one wishes the movie had actually pushed further). He seeks the Transwarp Key, which the Autobots can use to return to Cybertron (wasn’t it destroyed??)… but it’s also coveted by the planet-devouring Unicron (villain of 1986’s animated Transformers movie, who was voiced by a literally near-death Orson Welles), who dispatches his legions of Terrorcons (led by Peter Dinklage’s Scourge - basically invincible until the plot requires him not to be) to obtain it. This in turn aligns the Autobots with the Maximals - an advanced race of Transformers who hid the key on Earth centuries ago and seemingly took the form of the local wildlife… even though they already maintained those same beast-like appearances on their home planet, so… uh… The point is, the Maximals are led by a giant mecha-gorilla named Optimus Primal, he’s voiced by Ron Perlman, and there’s also a falcon (played by newly-minted Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh, no less), a rhinoceros, and a cheetah. Moving along… Rise of the Beasts led many to revisit the original films in anticipation, and one of the most frequent observations was how incredible Bay was at the apparent lost art of integrating large-scale CGI into real-world locations and cityscapes. Not surprisingly, the new film contrives to shift the action onto the wide-open, unpopulated tundras of Peru in the second half, which lend themselves more readily to homogenized green screen compositions. Directing duties were entrusted to Creed II’s Steven Caple Jr. and while he can’t come close to Bay’s unparalleled flair for destruction or blown-out image sculpting, he has a clean, muscular style of his own. In some ways, Caple Jr’s relatively decaffeinated approach is an asset - the narrative baloney is swallowed a lot more easily when the movie isn’t actively attempting to batter you into a state of numb, sensory acceptance (as was the case with, say, Age of Extinction). In a way, Rise of the Beasts is actually the entry that best captures the feel of a Saturday morning cartoon. The Bay films, at their best, were juggernauts of awe-inspiring spectacle; watching an Autobot ride into battle on the backside of a Maximal, on the other hand, makes you feel eight-years-old again. Still, Rise of the Beasts can’t fully shake the fatigue of a franchise laboring seven films deep - it would need a jolt from the AllSpark itself to fully juice its flickering power cells. As was the case with Jurassic World Dominion and its CGI dinos, the inherent thrill of watching vehicles transform into robots (and vice-versa) amidst a fluid flurry of shifting metal has largely dissipated. Ramos and Swarm’s Dominque Fishback are fine as the nominal human leads - both will no doubt accept the paycheck and go on to better things. Davidson’s casting, meanwhile, feels like a recipe for disaster… but his Mirage proves surprisingly endearing (it might be leftover trauma from the prior films - outside of the original, Bay’s handling of the comedy was often akin to a monkey playing with a set of cymbals). The movie ends with Paramount taking a wild creative swing that’s potentially very exciting (like crack-cocaine to anyone who grew up in the 80s - no exaggeration)… but there’s a nagging feeling of the gambit being too little too late as the studio attempts to fully maximize its Hasbro properties. It was probably the last viable card there was left to play for this once incredibly lucrative franchise, however. Let’s just say the film’s tagline of “Unite or Fall” is a lot more prophetic than it was likely intended.
We are living in particularly unsubtle times. Cultural discourse is amplified by social media and terminally online fandom to the point that virtually every release is either hailed as a breathless masterpiece or furiously denounced as both a catastrophe and a personal affront. There’s rarely a middle ground - measured critical discussion has been largely drowned out by the screeching din.
Even then, the hyperbole surrounding Sony’s animated “Spider-Verse” franchise can feel particularly extravagant in its rococo bluster. When Into the Spider-Verse released over Christmas in 2018, superhero fatigue - and, more specifically, “spider fatigue” (the film came swift on the heels of the MCU’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, which launched the third live-action iteration of its titular hero in just over 15 years) - conspired to undercut any potential enthusiasm… even as many frantically, almost manically anointed it an instant classic (it didn’t help that Insomniac released a Miles Morales game two years later that was arguably an even stronger, more narratively assured take on the character). However, a recent rewatch reminded what a fundamentally solid achievement the film truthfully is; as rich in emotion as it is audacious in animation. Its expression of the genre feels every bit as imaginative and boundary-pushing as Sony’s other Marvel properties - such as Venom and Morbius - come off regressive and uninspired. More than any other superhero film in recent memory, Into the Spider-Verse functions as a genuine bridge between comic book panel and silver screen. All that being said, the hyperbolic fanfare generated by much-anticipated follow-up Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is… a bit much (if your impulse is to declare it the greatest animated movie ever made - brushing aside decades of classic Disney, Pixar’s entire golden age, not to mention all the great Japanese and foreign contributions to the medium - please do yourself a favor and curb that). And yet… the film is good. It’s really good. Undeniably good. And just to indulge in a bit of hyperbole of my own, as the middle chapter of a trilogy (concluding entry Beyond the Spider-Verse is slated to release next year), the story has a scope and dramatic weight and emotional toll and thrilling surge of parting anticipation that’s not unworthy of comparison to (dare I say it) The Empire Strikes Back. As we pick back up with Miles Morales (once again voiced by Shameik Moore), the Brooklyn teen has settled comfortably into the gig of being a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man… even though juggling his secret identity with school and family obligations still poses its own set of challenges. A tussle with fledgling villain The Spot (Jason Schwartzman) - like Rorschach’s bumbling cousin, who creates interdimensional rifts with the blotches on his body - leads to the unexpected return of Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld), much to Miles’s delight. But Gwen has an ulterior agenda and when Miles impulsively follows her through a dimensional portal of her own, he soon finds himself at a multiverse nexus populated with literally hundreds of different Spider-Heroes… all under the command of the taciturn Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) - better known as Spider-Man 2099 (as someone who adored Marvel’s 2099 line as a kid - check out issue #7 of Ravage 2099 for a letter to the editor from yours truly - this was almost as thrilling as Spider-Ham appearing in the first movie). And there’s a very specific reason that Miguel - who’s tasked with maintaining the spider-silk delicate balance of the multiverse - isn’t pleased to suddenly find himself face-to-face with Miles. Across the Spider-Verse may not be the greatest animated film ever made (I mean, honestly - let’s get a grip here)… but there are sequences that genuinely feel as if they’re challenging and redefining the limits of what the medium is capable of. The Gwen-centric opening in particular is a visual marvel - a sensory symphony of sound and color that feels like fireworks detonating directly into your eyeballs. There are so many moments throughout the movie that feel as if the creative team (led by an entirely new trio of directors - Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K. Thompson) are juicing literal comic book pages to life with zaps of creative current. At times, the taps flow almost too freely (a sequence set in “Mumbattan” feels overwhelming even before Daniel Kaluuya shows up as the disaffected, guitar-wielding Spider Punk, muttering in a cockney accent as thick as a cinder block)… but every narrative choice is carefully considered within the larger context of either Miles or Gwen. They’re the twin anchors around which everything revolves; most comic book movies would be lucky to have one character this strong, let alone two (a predictably toxic discourse over whether Gwen is trans has sprouted on social media, with both sides digging in their heels… but the literal-mindedness of the debate misses the point, which is that superheroes have long been allegories deliberately coded in such a way for people from all walks of life to find potential resonance in them). Like all great blockbusters, Across the Spider-Verse achieves an almost synergistic balance between the spectacular and the intimate. The film builds to a rousing set piece in which Miles attempts to find a way back to Earth-1610 while being pursued by a literal army of Spider-Men… but it boils down to Miles and Miguel locked in a literal and philosophical struggle over “the needs of the many vs the needs of the few” (or, from Miles’s perspective, the belief that it needn’t always be such a binary choice). Isaac’s gravitas matches the gaunt, slightly vampiric lines of Miguel’s sunken face - he’s not an antagonist so much as a tormented figure who’s had his unbending worldview shaped the hard way. He delivers some harsh truths that land straight to the gut, shaking the franchise’s “anyone can wear the mask” ethos to its core. The cliffhanger is absolutely killer. We can all rest easy knowing the trilogy’s conclusion is only ten months away… and there’s nothing hyperbolic about that. |
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