Crisis on Infinite Films

            I like movies. I've said it before and it will probably be a repeated subject on this blog. So, the current state of film, especially this summer is pretty depressing. On the one hand, I, a confessed comic book super nerd, live in a time that nearly every major comic book character is getting their own headlining film. And most of these films take the source material seriously. There are obvious exceptions to that claim but before I decry the entire era of films being produced I do want to say that it is incredible that a film of the Avengers was ever even made, let alone made into a film as amazing as what Marvel produced. It is incredible that an actor was nominated for and won an Academy Award for playing the Joker in a "comic book film".

            That being said, what is going on with major Hollywood pictures this year? If you're like me and wait to see what the review aggregate is going to be on Rottentomatoes.com and Metacritic.com, you know that nearly every major summer release this year has come out to a resounding... huh. I'm not saying all of the films released this summer have been stinkers or that a group of critics best judges a films merits but I have learned through trial and error that if a film has an aggregate score below 50% on Rottentomatoes.com, then it is best to avoid them. I learned this the hard way with films like the Hangover 2.

            This summer there were some huge movies coming out that looked truly promising. Iron Man 3, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Man of Steel, The Lone Ranger, World War Z, Pacific Rim, and several other second tier actioners. Some of the films above lived up to expectations but most were met with a reaction of "good... but not great". Of those films listed above only the Star Trek sequel met with a universal "wow". The Lone Ranger of course is the biggest disappointment out of that group (I'll dig into that one another time) but beside these big films there have been multiple others that were huge disappointments.

            As this is a blog primarily focused on writing I think it's important to note that the problems with nearly all of these big films that have been lackluster began with the writing. Man of Steel, which I very much enjoyed, had some serious script issues. The flashback scenes were completely unnecessary and could have been cut from the film. In fact, I hold that if the film simply left the opening in tact with the fall of Krypton and jumped straight to Lois tracking Superman or Clark, around the world as he saved people on the sly, it would have been a much stronger narrative. But that is the issue with all of these big blockbuster films, they lack screenplays with narrative focus, character development, or even a through plotline. This is screenplay 101 stuff.

            My wife and I this week, along with another couple went and checked out Pacific Rim. It was arguably one of the most enjoyable experiences I've had in a theater this summer. The film, put simply is fun, the battles between the Jaegers and the Kaiju (which I was sure would get old very quickly) were consistently dynamic and exciting. The film was visually amazing and Guillermo del Toro crafted a film with incredible scope and visual flair. That is not to say that it was a perfect film.

            The acting was all over the map, Charlie Hunnam being the worst offender. I'm not a big Hunnam supporter, I've watched a lot of Sons of Anarchy and find his acting to be pretty one note, but in this film it got ridiculously bad. One scene stood out as so laughably awkward that both my wife and I noted it during the film separately and talked with other later about it, completely unable to tell what he was trying to express. On the other end of the spectrum was the always fantastic Idris Elba who could apparently make insurance forms sound like Hamlet. A big shout out too to Charlie Day. I've been a member of the Always Sunny tribe for years and seeing this guy go to the big leagues is truly gratifying and he does not disappoint.

            The biggest issues in the film were narrative. The human element of the story was always a little out of focus, the story itself meandering, and a lot of the scenes oddly chosen. One scene with Ron Perlman as a Kaiju black market dealer feels like it belongs in a different film and I think it was a case of a director giving in to their passions too much. In Del Toro's case it would be Perlman being weird and strange Lovecraftian specimens in jars. All of this led to a film that kept its pace, had amazing visuals, some very flat performances, and some questionable logic.

            The overall thing that frustrates me about this summer slate of films with serious flatlines like Grown-ups 2, After Earth, R.I.P.D., and Lone Ranger, is that studios are spending millions upon millions of dollars on these films that get released to almost universal booing. Except for Grown-ups 2, all I can say is if you paid money to see that and enjoyed it, you're probably reading the wrong blog... and why? Studios keep hiring the same eight screenwriters to produce scripts with truly lacking narratives. Not just this year either, it's been a growing trend in the summer blockbuster season that each big tent-pole film is written by screenwriters that apparently have forgotten everything about writing a story.

            I don't know how to stop that trend. What has to happen is that people have to completely stop going to the poorly written event films and that's not likely to happen any time soon. I know I'm guilty of contributing to it myself. I went to see a lot of those big films this summer. I make room for mindless entertainment and can enjoy it but despite its flaws Pacific Rim had a leg up on a lot of the films that were thrashed by the critics this summer and left us all wanting. It had a through plot-line. It knew where it was going even if it stumbled getting there. That made it a winning experience, something that I didn't regret seeing in theaters, how many people who paid to see the Lone Ranger can say that?