I've enjoyed a few superhero movies--the first two X-Men flicks, the Burton Batmans, Dark Knight, Spider Man 2, Watchmen, Kick Ass. I haven't seen Iron Man yet, but plan to give it a viewing and then check out the sequel. Matt Zoller Seitz is right, though, that this genre hasn't exactly distinguished itself in this medium. Having said that, I don't know that he deserves any special plaudits just for poking holes and pointing out shortcomings; he really offers no more penetrating diagnosis, or makes any effort to suggest more fruitful directions or other alternatives.
Superheroes in live action present a lot of problems that are damn near intractable no matter how much money you throw at them. It's notoriously difficult to realize costumes that don't look stupid and/or totally impractical on a flesh-and-blood human being. Then, superhuman powers and even Batman- or Daredevil-level feats are damn near impossible to realize with even state-of-the-art practical special effects, and require expensive CGI that is just now entering a generation where it isn't quite so jarring when integrated with live elements. The enormous costs of dealing with these problems in a minimally satisfactory way pretty much put superheroes beyond the reach of the indie. A shoestring-budget breakout like Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity is simply unthinkable at this time, where superheroes are concerned. So they're bound to be huge corporate mega-products, embodying exactly the sorts of imperatives and sensibilities Seitz complains about.
More fundamentally, though, I think that format-wise, a feature-length film is a terrible fit for superhero storytelling. Everyone has an origin and backstory, and no matter how brusquely those are dealt with, the time they eat up is considerable. Then, because a mass audience of non-fans must be assumed for this relatively nascent genre, a lot of time is spent just selling this or that concept. That doesn't leave nearly as much room for the kinds of nuance and development that movies in more established genres can take for granted. Throw in the fact that superhero storytelling in comics has grown increasingly long-form and complex, and a 90 or even 120 minute movie is bound to look cramped and superficial.
The ideal model for superhero storytelling in a moving visual medium is, I'd argue, something more like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex or Neon Genesis Evangelion--an adult-oriented and more realistically 2-D animated series that completes an arc over something like 26 half-hour episodes. Such a series could tell an action-filled story of mega-crossover-event proportions, with all the thematic density and shading that Seitz complains is lacking in superhero movies as they are now. I know it could, because that's exactly what GitS:SAC and Evangelion are able to do in this format.
4 comments:
I don't think you're obligated to suggest a solution when writing an article about a problem. At any rate I think his implied solution is "stop making these fucking things." :)
I must point out that so far Iron Man was my favorite superhero movie, and I thought the character was very well-realized.
Character will always drive a good story but I think they try to cram too much back story into the superhero movies (the Marvel ones anyway). Instead of condensing a few decades worth of history into 2 hours, a more serial-oriented approach would work better: self contained stories building with each episode the way the classic comics did.
While a mainstream (Marvel/DC) superhero film done on an indie level is, of course, out of the question, the superhero genre is familiar enough now that indie filmmakers are appropriating them (to varying levels of success) to make it work on a much smaller scale.
See, for example, SPECIAL, starring Michael Rapaport and Paul Blackthorne. It is an indie drama that uses the trappings of the Superhero Myth to tell its story, and it does so fairly successfully.
For a vastly more light-hearted example (on TV) see THE MIDDLEMAN. Yes, it's a TV show, but if you just take the pilot episode, you still have a satisfactory done-in-one superhero adventure story made for a tiny budget that gets everything done in 44 minutes.
Seitz's point is a fair one - the superhero genre of films still doesn't really know what it wants to do or how it wants to do it, which means a lot of them end up getting sloppy. That said, his points can also apply to most mainstream Hollywood comedies or action films, too. There are a few standouts that play with the medium, push it forward, or perfect the formula, but for every DIE HARD there are a hundred LIVE FREE OR DIE HARDs.
His point applies, I would say, to ALL major studio motion picture events. Because, let's face it, when you're throwing around 100,000,000$, you want to play it safe. But you don't have to spend that much, and that's why the superhero genre does have noteworthy entries, like THE INCREDIBLES or SPECIAL.
And, of course, he's ignoring the fact that, like any genre ever, if it is ever to produce something great, it needs to spend some time growing up, first. Like any adaptation, something is lost in trying a direct translation of character, costume, and story. Comics and film are, after all, very different mediums. But the genre isn't tethered to adaptation (as the the two above examples suggest), and there is room yet for surprises.
All that said, I am always in favor of serialized TV superheroics. As long as it's better than HEROES, of course.
(also, if this seems disjointed, I apologize - I am brain dead right now and should probably wait to post this. Have a fantastic evening!)
- Cal
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