John Wick

What can I say about John Wick? Firstly, the fact that it seems to be coming to the end of it's run in our cinemas, despite only having been out 2.5 weeks, is a bit of a travesty.  I'm sure that those who make the decisions have some great reason for this.  Just like I'm sure there's a reason a lot of people haven't gone to see this film, but I'm not entirely sure what either of these are.

I've been curious about this film since first hearing about it, mostly because the production involved some of the most talented names of the stunt community today and I knew the action scenes would be visually interesting.  I also thought it interesting that Keanu felt strongly enough about the film to help back it as one of the executive producers.  What's it about?

John Wick is a simple story of sadness, revenge and an ex-hitman coming out of retirement for very personal reasons.  One of these is the death of his dog at the hand of some thugs. 

No, this is not a spoiler, it's shown in the trailer. For those who may have skipped this film because of that fact, let me put your mind at ease. I was worried about my reaction to that part too but it is, thankfully, short and off camera. It hits home and makes a point, makes you feel, but it's not the excruciating moment it could have been otherwise, in my opinion.

It definitely makes you feel for John, though, and makes you want to cheer him on.

The film has a pretty straight forward plot and there isn't a lot in the way of character development but that's actually okay.  This is, in a way, an action film made by action fans, for action fans.  First time directors Chad Stahelski and David Leitch are stuntmen, through and through. They've been in the business a couple decades each and have worked on some of the biggest name movies in Hollywood.  They know what works on film and what looks good.  The action shots were clear and free of shaky cam, wide enough to get a good sense of the action and allowed the viewer to follow everything easily without jumping from cut to cut.  The fights themselves...well, they just worked. They were fast, brutal and realistic and they didn't seem like rehash of fights scenes you've seen before.  A lot of that credit goes to the guys and gals at 87Eleven Action Design, who did the stunt work in the film.  This is a group of talented and hard working people who live and breathe stunt work, and it shows in their projects.

For all that John Wick is a pretty simple action flick, it's also got an underlying sense of humor that helps move the story along.  It keeps the film from being too morose and dark, gets the viewer cheering even more for John and adds to the entertainment value of the film.  I personally found myself snickering quite a few times.  Some of that is definitely due to some of the fantastic actors thrown into some of the smallest of parts.

Generally speaking, I found it an entertaining movie.  What more can I say?  It has 84% on Rotten Tomatoes?  I'd probably agree with that.  I enjoyed seeing it on the big screen, where it's easy to take everything in, and I'm fairly certain I'll watch it again when it comes out on dvd.  If you can catch it before it leaves the cinemas (without breaking the bank) then do it. Take a night and just enjoy some entertaining action.

87Eleven Action Design on YouTube

 

Snowpiercer

I'm still kind of processing what I just watched, not because it was strange or confusing but because it was more than I was expecting.

Like most people, I'm sure, I heard about the film 'Snowpiercer' because its star is none other than the very popular Chris Evans. Realising that it was both a somewhat post-apocalyptic sci-fi film and one with a serious tone to it made me very curious, especially because Chris is known more for his comedic side than his serious one.

Note to Avengers fans, this is also the role he was in the midst of when he had to hide his grown out beard for the infamous Shwarma credits scene.

That was quite literally all that I knew going into the film. I certainly didn't know it was based on a 1980's French graphic novel known as 'Le Transperceneige' but have discovered that since and am now curious enough to try and track down a copy of the novel.

The basic premise of the film is that humans have screwed up royally (as we tend to do, especially in post-apocalyptic scenarios) and the entire world has been covered in ice and snow. The few surviving humans live on the Snowpiercer, a special train that travels continuously around the world, never stopping. Going outside means death. If the train were to fail, everyone would die. And, in a perfect representation of society as a whole, there is a class system in place where the rich and powerful have everything they want and ride at the front of the train while those with nothing ride at the tail.

Curtis Everett (Evans) is a man who has lived half his life in the tail of this train, surviving on the little given to them by the elites at the front. As with any story involving caste systems and the downtrodden, Curtis and his cohorts want a change and they plan a rebellion.

This is South Korean director Bong Joon-ho's first English language film and contains a cast of Tilda Swinton, John Hurt, Ed Harris and a grown up Jamie Bell alongside the earlier mentioned Evans, which kind of surprised me as I'd tried not to read much about the film beforehand. It's all pretty much perfect casting, as is the rest of the ensemble that makes up the group of interesting and classic characters.

Visually, the film had a strange kind of beauty to it and the contrast between the different parts of the train and the starkness of the white snow outside it was quite eye catching. The effects weren't perfectly flawless but there wasn't anything that jumped out too badly and some parts were amazingly well done. For all that my brain knew the truth behind this miraculous train to be an impossibility, it all blended well enough together that I was allowed to believe in it for the sake of the film.

The story was simple, classically so, so there weren't too many surprises but some of the twists towards the end were unexpected. Despite the simplicity of the story, or maybe because of it, I found myself actually quite drawn in and fascinated throughout the film. Seeing Chris in this role was also a real draw as there were no one liners, no snappy comebacks, just a seriousness and gravity to the character that was very believable and deeper than he's shown in even his role as Captain America. Of course, you find out about his story as the film goes on, through his own words and his interactions with those around him and some of it is a little shocking.

I don't want to give much away, and I certainly don’t want to drum up expectations, but I found this film enjoyable and entertaining. I would actually like to watch it again so I can pay more attention to the background. I recommend this film, to anyone who likes survival stories or that dead world atmosphere and certainly to anyone fond of Evans' work as it's a good role for him and quite a change of pace.

Truth, Justice And Relevance - A Reply

The date of July the 4th means a great many things and has significance to a large number of people. Today it has inspired some thoughts and a blog post from a friend about a couple of the biggest icons in comic history, and their relevance today.

Truth Justice Liberty Hope Relevance is an interesting read, talking about DC's Superman and Marvel's Captain America and their place in the world today.  Reading it, I knew immediately that I would have something to say in return because it feels like a puzzle piece, just one piece of a larger conversation that has been ongoing between myself a friends for a very long time.

I'll start by admitting a personal bias right off.  I've been an avid supporter of Marvel just about my whole life and my attempts to get into the DC universe have generally been met with a variety of less than stellar responses. I'm going to do my best to put that bias aside however, while at the same time I'll also be trying to look at this from the view point of someone who hasn't grown up immersed in comic culture.

Captain America & Superman...are they relevant in today's cynical society or has the shine worn off these icons of "good"?  This is the essential premise of the question Darcrider asks.

As he says, each of these characters is held up as an image to embody what is the "best" in the United States of America, living symbols of truth, justice and the American Dream. Each filled to the brim with happy propaganda and somewhat dated in their adherence to "old fashioned" values that sometimes seem to have no place in the world today.  With various levels of success, they continue to front large franchises as the average public buys movie tickets, plastic toys and logo-ed t-shirts, so you would think that answers the relevancy question in itself but I think it's more complicated than that.

Superman feels like he's always been around and, unless you were born before 1938, that's pretty much true. Everyone knows his origin; the last survivor of a dead alien world, raised without knowledge of his birth by a simple Kansas family until his teens when are the powers given to him by our yellow sun show him just how different he really is. He is the eternal outsider fighting for a world not his own and saving us from ourselves and outside forces, doing it because it's the "right" thing to do and also in the hopes of finding acceptance with people who would supposedly just fear him otherwise. Clark Kent, the name he was first raised under, becomes his secret identity to hide who really is.

Captain America came into the comic scene just 3 years behind his DC compatriot, all bright and shiny in his very obvious red, white and blue finery.  He was created to instill patriotism and fight fear in a populace gone from Depression to war in a blink of an eye.  A symbol of good, of strength and justice and all that people should strive for, he doesn't actually exist.  Steve Rogers is a man who grew up rough in Brooklyn, New York during the Great Depression, the son of Irish immigrants. Sickly and frail for most of his young life, he still wanted to make a difference and gets his chance thanks to an experimental serum. That serum and the Army's propaganda machine, turn him into Captain America.

In a way, for all their similarities, these two icons are almost polar opposites.

I can remember a time when I thought Captain America was dull but that had more to do with perceiving him as an overly patriotic symbol of the great US of A rather than for his ideals.  When I came to realize that he was more than the flag he wore, that's actually when I began to find him interesting.  The average person doesn't know the origin of Cap as well as they do Supes nor do they know his story, the layers of his personality and why he stands for what he does.  With Superman, it's very much what it says on the package for most people.  I feel he loses relevance more in his lack of surprises than in his shining morals.

DC likes to write Archetypes, Marvel likes to write characters. Darcrider quotes a comedy story of Lex Luthor verbally taking Superman down a peg or two and, while the story itself is meant to be a jab at Marvel in general, I actually feel that it makes my point for me in a lot of ways.

“…Your job is to be an inspiration for people! Someone they can look up to! Someone they can aspire to be like! In steadfastness, in character, in ideals! And what did Marvel offer? They said, ‘Don’t worry! You don’t have to aspire to anyone in our books. You just have to relate to them.’ And now we have an entire culture that thinks that who they are is just fine and how dare anyone suggest that they can improve themselves? Why aspire to be Superman, when it’s so much easier to relate to Spider-man? No one wants to look up to you Superman; they don’t want to strain their necks. Instead, they look straight ahead at the compromised heroes in front of them and say, ‘That’ll do just fine’…”

Do we not want to strain our necks or is it that people don't want to look directly into the sun?  It's unattainable, it's an impossible dream and hazardous as well.  Superman has often been referred to as a Sun God for a reason. The Moon is just as big a dream, just as high a mark to strive for but it's not going to burn you while you dream and plan and it's grounded in some real possibility. Ground a hero in something people can relate to and they feel more able to attain the same lofty heights that hero stands for.  Captain America is a symbol of good but it's an attainable good. When he holds people to account for their actions, he does the same for everyone, including himself, including governments.

I don't think it's their ideals that take these characters out of relevance or makes them dull, I think it's their treatment and the treatment of their stories. Captain America holds so much more humanity and more surprises for people right now, so he draws people to want to find out more. DC needs to find the humanity in Superman, which you can see they kind of TRIED to do in the recent Man of Steel film, but they went about it in the wrong way.  And they need to stop telling the same story over and over again!

One of the few DC writers I really love is Grant Morrison, who has an amazing ability to find the interesting and the relatable in the most ridiculous of characters. (He managed to legitimized Bat-Mite! I'm still stunned) In his book Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human there is a quote from the writer that seems quite perfect here: “We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.”

(You notice the book title talks about Superman teaching the meaning of being human? Think on that.)

Being "good" or a "hero" doesn't make a character irrelevant no matter how cynical our society gets because the fact we keep making comics and turning to comic book characters for our escape shows just how much we need them, how much they mean to us in the ideals they represent. What causes problems is when we stop looking for new stories to tell and ways to MAKE our heroes continue to grab our hearts, minds and dreams and make us strive to be more in-spite of ourselves.

Btw, Happy Birthday, Steve Rogers. :)