Judgement

This was a big week for television enthusiasts. Last Sunday saw the return of Mad Men, Monday brought us the finale of Better Call Saul and tonight sees the premiere of season five of Game of Thrones. Sandwiched between those blockbuster, monster shows, Netflix also released the first fruits of their partnership with Marvel Entertainment; Daredevil. By making all thirteen episodes public in the same week as the Better Call Saul finale, Netflix has managed a smooth transition from one popular show to another, keeping its subscribers hooked for another few weeks. Or at least a couple of days.

The story of Marvel’s Daredevil, in case you’ve blocked the Ben Affleck adaptation from memory, focuses on Matt Murdoch, a small time lawyer operating out of Hell’s Kitchen who was blinded by radioactive materials as a child. Borrowing from the popular myth, instead of blinding the kid, the loss of his sight elevates his other senses to the point where he can hear a person’s heartbeat just by standing nearby. His enhanced balance also allows him to execute martial arts techniques flawlessly. Murdoch, following the death of his boxer dad who refused to throw a fight, uses these newly developed abilities to fight crime and clean up Hell’s Kitchen.

So, Daredevil plays into a lot of the superhero tropes that we’re all familiar with by now; powers caused by exposure to an outside source, dead parent. But the Netflix series is very aware of that. While the show opens with a scene depicting Murdoch as a child having his sight destroyed, when we catch up to Charlie Cox as the adult superhero, he’s already fighting criminals and stopping human trafficking deals. It’s clear he has only just started but this isn’t his first outing in the costume. Which is nice. By now, viewers are getting bored with origin stories. It’s in the best interest of superhero media to show the origin in as succinct and concise as fashion as possible, which Daredevil does.

“It’s ok, I just bit my lip.”

Later episodes do develop Murdoch’s relationship with his father but in some senses this show was made for fans of the character. It doesn’t dwell much on the origin and comic book readers will recognise some of Daredevil most anti-heroic actions from Frank Miller’s run. But then it baffles me why Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin is treated as a secret for three episodes. Fans of the comics, especially those reading post-Miller, will recognise Kingpin as Daredevil’s biggest and most notorious foe. And Marvel already announced that he would be in the show. Therefore the only reason to hide his face is to make Vincent D’Onofrio’s appearance a surprise. But it’s just not. We’ve already seen D’Onofrio bald as Private Leonard Lawrence in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. And Wilson Fisk just looks like Gomer Pyle stole a few too many donuts.

Along with the lack of focus on audience, there is also a lack of focus on character. While the show is predominantly about Matt Murdoch and his adventures as Daredevil, he also has to share screen time with Elden Henson as Foggy Nelson, Debrorah Ann Woll as Karen Page and Fisk’s romantic storyline with Ayelet Zurer as Vanessa Marianna. It’s good to develop supporting characters, and I actually like Foggy because he manages to be Murdoch’s partner without playing a wholly comic relief role, but at 50+ minutes, the episodes could benefit from being trimmed back slightly.

It’s not that I want the characters to be two dimensional or every scene to include Charlie Cox. However, I am sitting down to watch a show titled Daredevil so I do expect the character to be at the centre of the show. Instead I’m watching Fisk court his future wife. Yes it gives him a human side so that he’s not just evil for the sake of evil but it still detracts from the main character. Daredevil suffers from this in the same way that Fox’s Gotham devotes a lot of screen time to The Penguin and Fish Mooney as well as Jim Gordon. Gotham at least has the advantage of being about an entire city rather than just one man, but the problem is the same. I don’t want to see what the bad guys are doing. I want to see the good guy figure it out.

Not shown: a lot of recurring side characters.

Daredevil also suffers from a second structural issue but it’s one that seems to plague other Netflix original programming too. Daredevil, like House of Cards, and other shows that have all of their episodes released at once, episodes tend to lack a hook to entice the viewer to watch the next one. It doesn’t seem like a big deal if the viewer doesn’t watch another episode right away when all of the episodes will be available for months. But they’re looking at it wrong. Not watching the next episodes reflects a lack of interest. I can tell you now, if HBO released all of Game of Thrones at once tonight, I’d have the entire season watched by sunrise.

With Daredevil, I’m just not that eager and I don’t feel that the show is demanding to be watched in the same way other shows do. Even if the episode itself isn’t exciting a hook can still entice the viewer. Person of Interest does it all the time. A particular case might be dull but often the episode will end with a revelation or twist that will make me desperate to tune in next week. On demand shows are relegating this device, treating it as a remnant of weekly televised shows but its not. It’s a tool to draw the viewer into the next episode. Remember, there’s only a few seconds between episodes. The hook only has to stall them for that long and then the next episode can do the rest.

Most of the problems are structural. The acting is good, with Charlie Cox as the clear standout, and the choreography is great. It’s a joy to see a fight scene where the camera doesn’t move with every punch. I can actually see what’s happening. I like the neo-noir theme too; it fits the moral quandaries of the character. I’m hoping that the problems are due to producers or writers, as the series is created by Drew Goddard, the man who will direct the next solo Spider-Man. Otherwise I’m expecting good fight scenes but I’m a little worried that Aunt May might end up with as much screen time as our friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.

Angles

Coming out of the Marvel Entertainment vault, Disney’s new superhero flick is the animation, Big Hero Six. Having plumbed the depths of Marvel’s known works, and Marvel selling off the rights to its biggest franchises long ago, Disney is now content to adapt the more obscure teams and heroes for the big screen. Guardians of the Galaxy was obscure, sure, but at least it had vague connections to the greater Marvel universe and related works. Big Hero Six has none of those connections and is probably as out there as Disney could probably go. In all fairness, it seems to be working and Big Hero Six is no exception.

Big Hero Six follows kid genius, Hiro Hamada, and the inflatable robot carer, Baymax. Despite being a genius, Hiro doesn’t have much ambition. He’s happy to illegally battle in robot contests, that is until some brotherly motivations drives him to make something that could truly change the world. A tragic event occurs, his technology is destroyed and Hiro becomes griefstriken. Well, that’s not quite true. His technology wasn’t destroyed and when Hiro learns that it is being used for a more nefarious purpose than he intended, he, Baymax and four of his brother’s friends use their intellect to become superheroes.

Big Hero Six doesn’t revolutionise the genre, either in terms of superheroes or animation. But it is funny and it is charming. There are a lot of familiar tropes in play here, such as the loss of loved ones as a origin story, and most of the plot points and twists are easy to predict, but the writing never feels lazy. The story itself is simple but what gives it depth is the characters. These characters feel more alive than some of the characters in live action movies.

A more diversely flavoured Marvel superhero team.

It helps that the central message of the film isn’t about learning to work together as it too often is in ensemble films. At times it feels as though the film is going in that direction, especially when the team don’t communicate in one fight and end up taking out each other rather than the target. Part of the main idea of the film is that friends are good and help keep us sane but there’s also a nice echo in the film about looking at problems from another angle. This is a film that encourages creativity and innovation in the youth. That’s a refreshing point from a superhero film.

Where Big Hero Six really excels is the portrayal of Hiro’s loss. His grief and depression are depicted with tact and with the perspective that this isn’t something he can just get over or easily treat. It’s something that it really takes the entire film and a friendship with Baymax to overcome but it doesn’t come without its setbacks. Some might argue that it is unrealistic. It’s not like people who suffer with depression can simply make friends and become a superhero team. But that’s kind of missing the point. It’s not the process of becoming a superhero that helps him overcome his grief. It’s the compassion and kindness of everyone around him that eventually brings him out the other side.

Diversity is also a major plus for Big Hero Six. The majority of the team isn’t white, which is extremely progressive when you consider that The Avengers won’t officially add a black member until phase three. An argument could be made for Don Cheadle as War Machine/Iron Patriot but that’s why the word ‘official’ is in there. DC are doing a little better, with an Israeli Wonder Woman, a black Cyborg and a Hawaiian Aquaman, but we won’t see Justice League until 2017, so Big Hero Six has it beat by a solid 2-3 years. Considering the recent controversy regarding how white-washed the Oscar nominations are, I can see the diversity of its characters being a huge draw for Big Hero Six.

Yet another thing that doesn’t exist that movies have made me want.

Will Big Hero Six be a money maker like Frozen? Unlikely. It’s family friendly and Baymax is adorable though so it will definitely appeal to kids. Adults too, because I personally would love my own personal Baymax. If that technology is a bit too advanced some kind of massive plushie would be great. But most of the money will come from kids and parents of kids buying the merchandise. Fans of the comic book will likely enjoy the film because its a good film, regardless of its source material, but might be slightly disappointed. Their comic book counterparts, from what I know, are different and had connects to mutants and X-Men. Baymax for instance was not a carer and could morph into dragon-like creature. The X-Men connection was obviously cut to avoid issues with Fox but Baymax’s change into the loveable, inflatable, health care assistant was surely done to sell toys.

At this point, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Marvel and Disney can make Big Hero Six appeal to the general public. Before the superhero genre really took off in film, Marvel’s biggest cash cows were Spider-Man and Wolverine. All of the rest had their fair share of fans and readers but those two were major players. Tony Stark wasn’t even close. But Marvel and Disney have made household names out of Tony Stark, Captain America and Thor. They’ve done the same with Big Hero Six. It’s unique blend of progressiveness and charm make it a joy to watch.

American readers will already know this since they got to see Big Hero Six back in November of last year. I don’t know the reason for the delay to the UK but I’m not too bothered by it. Disney have more than made up for it by delivering Avengers: Age of Ultron to the UK a whole week before it’s due in the states.

Steel

DC’s Man of Steel is not a bad film. That needs to be said straight off the bat because everything good about this film comes with an asterisk. Henry Cavill has the look of Superman and appears to naturally slip into the role, Michael Shannon brings a much needed level of intensity to the character of General Zod, every scene is beautifully constructed and the fight scenes are incredibly fun to watch. Those are the main points for Man of Steel and undoubtedly many people will come out of the cinema having at least enjoyed the film. And while there’s much to be said for film critique, the measure of how much the casual viewer enjoys is as, if not more important.

Unfortunately, just as many people have probably left the cinema feeling dissatisfied with Man of Steel, which is understandable. As I mentioned, for every good aspect of this film there is an asterisk that weighs the film down. Whilst Henry Cavill is certainly believable as Superman, I never felt that we really got to know him. Although he is the main character, he speaks little and most of his story is told through flashbacks. I imagine that was a conscious decision because the Superman origin story is fairly well known but the flash backs do nothing to enhance the character of Kal-El. The flashbacks re-enforce the film’s themes and convoluted story. I say convoluted because, although clearly aware that everyone knows the Superman origin story, David S. Goyer and Zack Synder and Christopher Nolan and whoever else was involved, decided to change the origin. They changed the origin to give General Zod and Jor-El more motivation for their parts in the film but the problem is that the change makes no sense and leaves their motivations somewhat undefined.

Superman secretly just wants them to kiss.

In case you don’t know, or recently suffered a head injury, Superman’s origin story is pretty simple. Part of an alien race, Superman’s parents find out that their home planet, Krypton, is going to be destroyed and thus, in order to protect their newborn son, they jettison him from the planet on course to another planet with a yellow sun which sustains life, namely Earth. The child is found by an elderly couple in Smallville by the names Jonathan and Martha Kent who adopt and raise the child with the perspective that he can be a force of good in the world so long as he controls his powers. They die before he goes off to university and gets a degree in journalism.

For the film, that remains mostly the same, except that now Krypton is dying because the Kryptonians harvested the core in order to power the codex which artificially creates purpose fitted Kryptonians, Brave New World style. Kal-El is the first naturally born child on Krypton for centuries. However, this change creates plots holes that weren’t evident in the original story, such as why did the Kryptonians feel the need to start artificially creating life? They were so populous that they were expanding throughout the universe so it seems rather unnecessary. Perhaps it was a tyrannical utopia much like Brave New World but at least in Huxley’s novel the highest ranking creations were allowed to develop naturally. There is no reason given in Man of Steel to explain why Jor-El or Zod, who must have been created by the codex, are capable of exerting free will and rebelling against the state.

This alteration to the origin story underlines the motivations of Jor-El and Zod. Jor-El sends the codex off to Earth with Kal-El and claims, when he reappears as a hologram, that his son can start a new race. Perhaps he just means adopting humans as his race but it is never clear whether Jor-El is suggesting that Kal actually can breed with humanoids, despite technically being an entirely different species. Zod wants the codex himself so that he can use it to repopulate Krypton, which for some reason requires the death and destruction of all people on Earth. Apparently, there isn’t another planet with a yellow sun in the entire galaxy. Either that or Zod is just incredibly lazy, take your pick.

If you have noticed that I have barely mentioned what happens on Earth after Kal-El has arrived it is because there really isn’t that much to say. Synder provides some beautiful shots of Superman leaping and flying around America but I only wish as much care had been devoted to the pacing. It is almost twenty minutes before we even get off Krypton and get to Earth and then a lot of time is given over to Clark Kent, the outsider, wandering the Earth and flashbacks which serve to remind the audience just how unready humans are to witness a superpowered being in the flesh. Jonathan Kent believes this so much that he is willing to die rather than allow his son to use his powers to save him.

Like General Zod, I too found much about this film to be frustrating.

Critc Richard Roeper said that there was “very little humor or joy in this Superman story”. I agree with that statement but it isn’t about the film needing to be more light-hearted, it is about optimism and hope, ideals that Superman is meant to embody. This is what I was afraid of. DC Comics and Warner Bros. are determined for Superman to fit their grounded, dark, realistic approach to Superhero movies that they have essentially changed who the character is. You might argue that it makes him a deeper, more complex character but actually he just comes across as indecisive and pessimistic.

Currently, Man of Steel has a 56% rating on RottonTomatoes.com based on 225 reviews which suggests that most critics found the problems of this film as glaringly distracting as I did. And I didn’t even get into the terrible CGI utilised in the fight scenes that made them look like video game cutscenes from a beat ‘em up game. Or the total lack of chemistry between Cavill and Amy Adams. And despite these flaws, on the same site, 82% of the audience enjoyed the film. So, for the casual viewer, this is an enjoyable film but if you find yourself at the cinema this weekend looking for some strong characters and coherent story telling with good pacing, don’t watch Man of Steel.