Monday at the Movies - February 24, 2014

Welcome to another edition of “Monday at the Movies.” This week, we’re back to what we do best – reviewing comic book movies.

Justice League: War (2014) – Based on the revisionist New 52 incarnation of the Justice League, War gets the band back together again for the first time to repel the invading Darkseid, the literal god of evil.  Where the New 52 comics rebooted the DC Universe back to a publishing line of first issues, War is a reboot for the animated movie universe and – more notably – its prominent and quite popular stable of voice actors.  Gone are Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy; in are Alan Tudyk and Jason O’Mara as Superman and Batman, respectively.  Tudyk is mostly unremarkable as Superman, capturing this incarnation’s cockiness. O’Mara, meanwhile, is the more controversial choice, as Conroy’s an incredibly tough act to follow; O’Mara does lack Conroy’s bass-heavy gravitas, but he brings the Bat into a gruffer territory a la Harrison Ford.  So count me among the pro-O’Mara camp for now.  The big success in the casting, though, comes from Justin Kirk’s turn as Green Lantern.  Kirk gives the role all the braggadocio that forms the core of Hal Jordan, a swaggering portrait of masculinity that gets destabilized in a great “death wish” moment.  (It’s almost a shame he’s not playing Guy Gardner.)  We also get a comparable triumph with Wonder Woman, who's played by Michelle Monaghan as a hack-and-slash newcomer to man's world; this portrayal should appeal to audiences who want a strong female character without that being her defining attribute.  (Keep your eyes out for the foreshadowing of a romantic relationship with Superman.)  While the apocalyptic threat of Darkseid never quite carries the full weight of the comic’s incarnation (or Michael Ironside’s earlier voicework), it fulfills the plot function of “big enough threat” to get the Justice League to unite.  Indeed, the film’s great success is in introducing each Leaguer individually and positing a threat large enough for these disparate elements to join together.  If the rumors about the Man of Steel sequel are true, perhaps this is a good model for how to bring many big figures together without prior solo films.  In this respect, Justice League: War is the other side of the Avengers coin, but it works as well as DC’s other animated successes.  Except, of course, Mask of the Phantasm, which remains the gold standard.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you here next week (and again when Jason O’Mara stars in Son of Batman, which adapts Grant Morrison’s popular “Batman and Son” plotline)!

Top 10 Comic Book Movie Moments - #10-9

It’s time for a new feature here on The Cinema King, something I’d like to try every once in a while.  The bad news is that you won’t be getting a “Monday at the Movies” post this week; the good news is that you’ll be getting a post every day this week (through Friday).

So what is this thing?  It’s an upgrade of the “Top 10” feature I’ve done infrequently here, but it’s an extended version of said feature.  Each day, you’ll get two items on the list, with a crescendo on Friday with the Top 2 entries.  As for what we call this feature?  Well, at the risk of sacrificing cutesiness, let’s just call it... “The Top 10.”

This week’s Top 10?  “The Top 10 Greatest Comic Book Movie Moments.”  A few words of definition:  First, this is not a list of the Top 10 Greatest Comic Book Movies, so you may find your favorites wholly unrepresented on this list.  Instead, what I’m cataloging this week are the scenes that encapsulate what a comic book movie ought to be.  These scenes can fall under one (or more) of three categories:  scenes that translate the experience of reading a comic, scenes that adapt the source material in a brilliantly original way, or scenes that use the language of film to do something that comics can’t (or simply haven’t) done.  Finally, the list is subjective; if I only chose iconic moments, the list would seem predictable, but in sharing my opinions I hope to spark a bit of debate.

#10 – Carol sees through Hal’s identity (Green Lantern (2011))
Say what you want about Martin Campbell’s first foray into the Green Lantern mythos – its exposition was clunky, its antagonist unconvincing, its fan service all too evident – the film, however flawed, has a sense of humor about itself and a surprisingly earnest performance by Ryan Reynolds as Hal Jordan, the eponymous galactic defender.  At the heart of this movie is his relationship with employer Carol Ferris (Blake Lively); while their chemistry isn’t always convincing, the moment when Carol realizes her beau is a superhero is priceless.  Deconstructing the secret identity trope, Campbell pokes fun at the idea of an alter ego secret to your closest friends.  Reynolds’s hilarious fake-gravel voice (a la Bale’s Batman) and Lively’s flabbergasted “You don’t think I would recognize you because I can’t see your cheekbones?” make this a great comic book movie moment because of its willingness to admit – and more importantly, improve upon – holes in the source material.

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#9 – Dr. Manhattan’s origin (Watchmen (2009))
Zack Snyder’s Watchmen has been simultaneously lauded and lashed for its slavish devotion to the original comics by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  Whether such literal translation from panel to screen is for better or worse is up for grabs (I say that in this case, it worked), but one element of the film on which most fans agree is that Snyder’s use of the montage technique was among the film’s best elements.  I almost cited the opening credits montage, set to Dylan’s “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” but I’m not convinced that this scene is easily accessible to audience members unfamiliar with the comic.  But a later montage, in which Snyder delivers the origin of the godlike Dr. Manhattan, all his filmmaking skills come to bear in a scene which uses comics-style cuts and narration (provided by the unpitched perfection of Billy Crudup’s emotionless Doctor), played under a spot-on lilting musical cue by Philip Glass, to convey how a man displaced from time remembers his past.  This, perhaps above all, is the standout moment of the film, a scene in which Snyder’s dedication to the comics manifests itself most articulately.


Come back tomorrow for Moments #8-7!