2016.15: Deadpool (Cinema)
A deliberately subversive take on the super-hero genre, Deadpool is on the one hand great fun and on the other rather disturbing. Of course the humour (most of which is predicated on the deliberate breaking of the ‘fourth wall’) and the hyper-violent action constitute most of the fun of the film. There is something delicious in seeing/hearing so many tropes of recent Marvel and DC super-hero films being sent-up and ridiculed (affectionately or not). Its also rather risky, as the ‘traditional’ superhero film series are all destined to continue those tropes in subsequent films, and it’s debatable how casual audiences might react to that having seen them sent-up by Deadpool.
Of course the riskiest aspect of Deadpool is its R-rating in America and all that violence. R-rated movies have historically had a hard time recouping their budgets, something that only gets harder with the higher budgets typical of super-hero films, so most Marvel and DC films veer to the ‘safer’ domain of the PG-13 rating. Notable exceptions are the R-rated Watchmen (that cost $130 million, box office $185 million) and Dredd (that cost $50 million, box office $35 million). In comparison to those two, Deadpool‘s success has been pretty extraordinary- it cost a relatively conservative $58 million and has so far managed $530 million in just a few weeks. Clearly the audience likes their R-rated superhero flicks lighthearted and irreverent, which neither Watchmen or Dredd were.
For the record, I positively adore both Watchmen and Dredd. Still, there’s no accounting for taste as from those box-office figures it looks like nobody else does.
In all fairness, Deadpool is very good at what it does. It is also very funny. Its also clearly in love with everything it is poking fun at. And it is deliriously violent. But beyond the wit and action, there doesn’t seem to be much wisdom. Think of it as Ted with spandex and guns. Should it be making some commentary on what it is doing, about the nature of the black and white world of superheroes and the credo of might equals right (its a bad world, lets beat the shit out of the bad guys and then everything will be alright)? Because this film was ideally placed to do that. Clearly however this isn’t that kind of movie and to be honest while I was watching it, that didn’t bother me. But afterwards whilst thinking about it, the film left something of a bitter aftertaste. This may be R-rated and it has lots of violence and sex and bad language but it isn’t really at all adult- its wholly adolescent.
Our hero is Wade. He is, from the start, one of ‘us’- he’s witty and he’s a geek, only in a devastatingly charming and handsome, Ryan Reynolds kind-of-way, so in fact the film is lying and he’s nothing like 99% of us. But we don’t care, because he beats up bad guys and cracks great jokes and is fantastic in bed. He’s the kind of guy James Bond would be if he read comics and played videogames.
He is exactly who geeks watching the film would want to be, especially when Wade meets the love of his life, the drop-dead gorgeous Vanessa, played by geek-favourite Morena Baccarin of V, Firefly, and Gotham fame (an actress with her geek credentials clearly sorted). Now Vanessa is the very definition of a teenage geeks wet dream. Not only does she love the same movies we love (she corrects Wade when he mixes up his Star Wars films- “Empire” she corrects him, to the sound of millions of male geeks falling in love if they haven’t already), and she loves our hero for all his geekness and thinks he is cool (and therefore us too), but best of all she’s an absolute slut in bed. Wade tries to propose and she assumes he’s working his way to suggesting they try anal (she might even be disappointed a little when she sees the ring). I mean, I know it’s just a movie, but what does this whole set up have to say about 51% of the films audience (which is a conservative estimate as clearly well-adjusted women are much smarter than this and I doubt they make up 49% of the films audience). Its an adolescent’s fantasy. It doesn’t feel real. Its a teenagers ideal of a woman and what sex is like.
Compare this to Watchmen, in which one of the heroes is impotent and can only get it up if he dons his superhero costume and beats the shit out of some bad guys. There’s all sorts of stuff in Watchmen, a real R-rated superhero film with something to say. Deadpool doesn’t seem interested in having anything to say. I don’t know. Maybe it’s a big joke: is the joke on us? It just feels a bit disturbing, about what the film-makers think a comic-book reading audience is or what it assumes that audience wants. Its wish-fulfillment on an almost Biblical scale. Its just too nuts for words. But maybe its okay, because there’s an incredible amount of blood and explosions and dick jokes to make it easy to forget/ignore what feels like manipulation. And regards that violence, there’s an awful lot of posturing, isn’t-this-cool kind of glorification of that violence. Bodyparts are flying everywhere. Without the humour, how would that look/feel? I have to wonder. Deadpool seems to be saying Violence Is Cool. Violence Is The Answer. Violence Is Funny. Oh, and here’s another dick joke.
Which is weird, because one of the things I loved about Blade Runner way back in 1982 was that it seemed to be saying violence hurts, as it showed Harrison Ford all bruised and cut and aching after every fight (most of which he seemed to lose, too). Back then I thought that was quite refreshing and sophisticated and I thought maybe genre films were growing up. It didn’t have any dick jokes either.
Maybe I’m taking this all far too seriously. This is clearly a movie to watch whilst drinking beers. And I’m far too sober right now. But if its R-rated movies from now on, then the one I’d really like to see is an R-rated Howard The Duck. Because Howard would at least have something to say.
Which is not to suggest that Crimson Peak is a bad film- far from it. It just feels unbalanced. Like many films these days, the story it has to tell is not equal to the dazzling way the film tells it. Which is not to suggest the story is weak (although the ending does have an inevitable feeling of anti-climax) its just that the visuals overpower everything. The heart of the film is lost somehow. I think if del Toro had spent more effort on the romance and the mystery behind it than on those striking visuals, the film may have been less pretty but better for it. Maybe if it were smaller, more intimate. Just because you can use a big budget to craft incredible sets and visuals doesn’t mean you have to. Its still a superior horror film – the jumps and scares are all there and I’d much rather watch creepy period horrors such as this than present-day gore fests populated by dreary youngsters, but I had the nagging feeling that this film could have been -should have been- something more, definitive in the Gothic Horror genre. Maybe subsequent viewings will improve things. I do feel with some films that I should be watching them two or three times prior to presenting a ‘definitive’ opinion, but it’s so hard getting to watch everything as it is without trying to watch them two or three times.
Certainly fans of Hammer and of Roger Corman’s wonderful Poe adaptations will lap this film up though. The scale just seems a bit too big for me, the craving to impress too obvious and overpowering. Its a good film that might have been great had it been rather more restrained, but that’s not how it’s really done in Hollywood these days.
So anyway, now I can truly understand all the fuss. One thing I must just mention; Ingrid Bergman- she just glows. Her performance is just… priceless. The rest of the cast are no slouches; Bogart impresses, as does Claude Rains, but it is Bergman that steals the show for me. It’s a phenomenal performance from -incredibly- seventy-four years ago. That thought just makes me pause a moment. Seventy-four years ago. Good grief.
I’m rather late to the party with this one. I’ve been a fan of Jim Henson’s work for many years, ever since I watched The Dark Crystal on VHS long ago, but I never got around to watching Labyrinth. Maybe it looked too much like a kids movie- I never watched The Neverending Story, either. There’s nothing wrong with kids movies, you understand, but back at the time, well, it passed me by without getting much interest. Over the years I’ve understood it has quite a following. There’s even been a remake/reboot mooted recently to various excitement/consternation.
Shakespeare by way of Game Of Thrones. It is visually powerful film-making and a critical darling, but how well the bard’s writing is transferred is open to some debate. I’m sure purists would take this film to task in much the same way as Tolkien purists would with The Lord Of The Rings films. Although it is a period-set film it is thoroughly modern in its execution, so much so that it often feels a triumph of style over substance and inevitably loses some of the depth and beauty of the original.
It’s a film trying too hard to be visually arresting; the performances are fine (Fassbender particularly excellent as usual) but the film is so intent to make us smell the dirt, wince at the violence and gasp at the beautiful imagery that it forgets what makes the original text so timeless. This Macbeth is certainly of its time, it is always a film of 2015 even though it is ostensibly a period film.It’s bold and its bewildering and it feels wholly designed for Imax.
As it is, Saturn 3 is a pretty bad film that hasn’t aged at all well, but it is an enduring reminder of how beautiful Farrah Fawcett was. She’s actually cast well as Alex and the part suits her- there is an innocence and other-worldliness to her that comes across, but I don’t think she looks particularly comfortable at times with co-star Kirk Douglas as her lover Adam. Her casting as a love interest with the-then-64 year-old Douglas is astonishing really. I don’t think a film would get away with it these days but it isn’t just a casting oddity; the age gap is in the script. I think her character is actually supposed to be younger than Fawcett was at the time (33 I think), she certainly seemed younger to me in the novel, as I remember.
Kirk Douglas is fascinating; there are all sorts of real-world subtexts going on in the background of the films storyline. Here is a once-major star at the tail end of his Hollywood career clearly in denial of (or indeed raging against) his own age/mortality/twilight career. I mean, he’s in love scenes with the pin-up girl of the 1970s who is more than 30 years younger than he is. Funnily enough, Douglas spends more time with less clothes on than Fawcett, which is either very brave or foolhardy considering his age (maybe he still thought he was Spartacus). The dark side of me thinks it was the casting of Fawcett that got Douglas into signing on for the film, which adds another layer to the already rather dark subtext of all the characters in the film lusting over Alex. Adam is in a long-term loving relationship with her, even though their age difference makes it look ill-judged, Keitel’s Captain Benson brazenly and openly admits he wants to have recreational sex with her (and even seems to try to ply her with drugs), and once Benson’s brainwaves are programmed into Hector, the robot wants her too.
the ghost of 82 
