Who could the next Batman be

The cat is out of the bag. In perhaps the most ill-advised move since the announcement of a Point Break reboot (which was just earlier this year – Hollywood is really pushing the throttle on these bad ideas), WB has announced that Batman will make an appearance in the next Man of Steel movie. It’s slated for 2015 and it’s unclear how big a role the Caped Crusader will play in Zach Snyder’s follow-up feature (the original earned a camel dick rating from yours truly at BMC).

What is known: Henry Cavill will be reprising the Superman role, David S. Goyer is back on board as a writer, fanboys are frenetically stroking their shafts, and it’s looking very much like Batman and Superman will go toe-to-toe in this one. The lone proposition there I can get on board with is Cavill, and it’s a lukewarm response at that.

Alas, WB has pushed the full retard button and the role of Batman must be recast. This is upsetting to me because pretty much the only thing I liked about The Dark Knight Rises was that it brought closure to the Dark Knight saga. Chris Nolan had laid down this mammoth gauntlet, and there was a tacit understanding that only a select few (and perhaps none of his generation) could touch this source material again. He had elevated the character and, more importantly, the superhero movie to a level of reverence, and on a much grander, sweeping, epic scale than what I consider to be the second greatest oeuvre in the genre, Unbreakable.

Since I’m a slave to popular trends and, well, everyone else is doing it, here is a list of my picks for the next Batman. Whatever. It’s rainy and I’m bored.

The names hereunder may surprise you. When you consider the most celebrated and iconic superhero performances ever captured on film, they have come from the least likely candidates. Neither Michael Keaton nor Christopher Reeve was a huge star when cast, and neither fit the bill physically. So when I drop the name of some unassuming, middling TV star and you’re like ‘Ben, seriously wtf?’ just think about how straight up imposing Mike Keaton was at 5’9” and 160 lbs and give me benefit of the doubt, okay? Because I know shit.

Adrian Pasdar

Elected on a platform tripling Arkham Asylum's budget

This is my number one draft pick right here. One of those rare actors who everyone acknowledges ‘Yeah, this guy is a hard ass’ without him ever having to lift a finger. Seriously. He is a already a superhero in Heroes, but all he really did in that show was look damn good in a suit and give his younger brother (Milo Ventimiglia as an infinitely stronger superhero) stern talkings to about what an unmitigated fuckup he is. DUDE. Petrelli for President.

  

Let’s also not forget Pasdar’s turn in Season 7 of Burn Notice, in which he is all kinds of jacked up and spends four or six whole episodes telling mercs to clear a path or their shit will get ended in the realest of ways. I don’t think he even fires a gun. He just leers menacingly.

Pasdar is suave, has the dark, brooding thing down pat, and is a legit good actor. His Bruce/Batman would rule to the end of time. He’s pretty much too good to be in whatever this movie will turn out to be. Nothing that Snyder has up his sleeve can be as good as Pasdar in this role.

Tahmoh Penikett

Tahmoh is my go-to actor for pretty much any action role that needs doing (cept Bond). Tahmoh is a god among insects.

For starters: he is a beast. The guy is 6’3”, probably 210 (but could easily go up to 225) and an accomplished muay thai practitioner. The fights scenes he has performed on camera have been a shit-ton more convincing than that keysi mumbo jumbo Nolan opted for, not to mention every second movie these days. Who’s ever heard of this bullshit? Keysi sounds like a cheap pornstar name. Tom Cruise does it in Jack Reacher, and you know what else Tom Cruise does? Dudes up the ass. Muay thai is for baddasses like Tony Jaa and Van Damme. You can say what you want about The Quest and the Muscles from Brussels himself, Van Damme has done enough cocaine to kill a family of large barnyard animals as well as three-quarters of Motley Crue.

Let’s not forget that wherever Tahmoh shows up, he is the dark horse. He played the Fox Mulder role in Dollhouse, if Mulder were less of a geek and more of a Terminator. And, sure, the Adama family rules the roost up on Battlestar Galactica but let’s be real: who does everyone wish they could be in this show? Team Agathon, baby. Team Agathon will sledgehammer your nancy ass.

And then some, fracker.

 

The only strike against him is that he already played a bit part in Man of Steel, but a) blink and you miss it; and b) there are myriad examples of actors who played multiple roles within one SF universe, so this should hardly be a problem.

And perhaps Tahmoh’s strongest asset: he has that Mike Keaton glint in his eyes that tells you he could snap at the push of a button. That devil-may-care quality about Keaton’s performance is something that people sadly tend to forget, and that has been absent from the Batman franchise since he retired the cape. Of all the Batmans, I maintain Keaton was the most frightening, because you feel his screws are just barely tighter than the criminals he’s chasing. Not only is he the sole Batman who full-on kills people, but he does it in such ingenious, vicious, horrific fashion. He murders baddies in ways that will guarantee they shit their pants first. And not just a coffee break shit. A nice, big, spicy Thai Express Special shit. That’s the Batman I want to see again and that I’m convinced Tahmoh can deliver.

Also: Canada. Boom.

Wes Bentley

He's the best piece of ass in three states

I don't feel there's much to say about this one. If he manages to bring even half the unhingedness of his real life into the movie, we'll have a real show-stopper on our hands.

Jai Courtney

The first thing you might say is: who’s Jai Courtney? And when I explain, your next question might be ‘Really??’ And, well, yes. Really. He rules.

Plus, what would be your counterarguments?

1. He’s too young.

Bale was only three years older when he was cast.

2. He doesn’t have the voice for it.

Audio engineering and, also, that’s a stupid reason.

3. Not tough-looking enough.

QED

The opposite ends of his mandible are in different time zones. He looks plenty tough. Also, none of us actually believes that Tom Cruise could have beaten his ass in Jack Reacher. The only reason why Tom Cruise beats his ass is because Tom Cruise bought the rights to the franchise so that Tom Cruise could beat whoever’s ass Tom Cruise wanted to beat on any particular day. Because he needs to puff out his chest every few years. Because he takes it from dudes.

That’s it. Four candidates. How many more do you need? Realistically, you only need one and there’s no way in tarnation that Zach Snyder can come up with better. In fact, if any of you have Snyder or Goyer’s e-mail address, let me know and I’ll go see them and have a little pow-wow. A little schmooze between Jews, you know?

Oh, fuck, and Malkovich.

John Malkovich

To be fair, this movie will probably be a joke so fuck it: let’s have a joke Batman in there.

Got thoughts? Leave comments.

Pacific Rim

Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Starring Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Max 'Dirty' Martini, Robert Kazinsky, Clifton Collins Jr., and Ron Perlman.

I’ve been thinking of bringing back the Boozy Movie Chronicles for a little while now, and there seemed like no better way to do it than giant alien sea monsters vs. giant robots. Read back that value proposition in your mind: ‘Giant alien sea monsters vs. giant robots.’ Guys, it’s like they custom-built a movie to get drunk at.

I went to see it with old high school friend Ben, whose movie-boozing prowess I may have doubted initially. That is, until he came out with this nugget: ‘Hey, so, this movie is like a Japanese monster flick so shouldn’t we pound sake the entire time?’ I felt almost personally offended by the infallibility of his reasoning and how much more mentally prepared he was. He may as well have pulled out a lightsaber and said ‘Your powers are weak, old man.’ What a champ.

Pacific Rim runs on comic book logic, which in terms of balls-to-the-wallness is second only to Charlie Sheen logic. This entire 140-minute fare exists only to justify FX shots of Optimus Prime slugging Godzilla in the face with various large pieces of metal. Of course, to have a single monster fighting against a single robot is (as Brett Ratner would have put it) for fags, so the screenwriters lift the plot directly from Ninja Turtles and put an inter-dimensional portal in the middle of the ocean. Progressively bigger and badder monsters keep emerging from it so humankind, naturally, keeps building bigger and badder giant robots like it’s some kind or inter-galactic dick-measuring contest.

Just pause on that one. Can you imagine a movie getting off to a stronger start?

Yeah, me neither.

Talking about the plot of this movie is like discussing the lyrics in a Hendrix song. The movie itself is a shell, and it feels like the producers kept coming back to the screenwriters saying: ‘Guys, we need more story here.’ And about three hours and two bottles of Jack Daniels later the writers said to themselves: ‘Optimus Prime punching a giant alien crab a bunch of times counts as story, right?’

In stark contrast to last week’s Man of Steel, Pacific Rim knows exactly the kind of movie it is and embraces its nature fully. Plus Pacific Rim is basically two-hours of money shot. It doesn’t need a fluffer; it straight up delivers on every level. It cleverly circumvents the B-movie dilemma of ‘How do we make Guy A or Guy B stand out in this movie?’ by simply making everyone and everything in it rule hard.

I'm telling you, that thing is super-glued on

• Charlie Hunnam is a solid leading man who delivers even the most cheeseball lines with such assuredness you have to respect him.
• Idris Elba has the Bill Pullman role, only funnier, more street cred, and I’m pretty sure he’s wearing a giant fake moustache for the entire movie so of course he gets about twice as many close-ups as anyone else.
• Three-armed, jetpack-powered, knife-wielding Chinese giant destruction robot? Check.
• Charlie Day as one of the world’s leading biologists? Sold.
• Australians vying to prove their Australianess by having the biggest testicles around (and succeeding).
• Ron Perlman has no reason to exist in this movie other than he’s Ron Perlman. Hellboy 4 life.

At one of the movie’s pivotal moments, Max Martini encapsulates Pacific Rim’s MO in a single line: ‘We can either sit here and do nothing or grab those flare guns and do something really stupid.’ The movie knows exactly when and how many times to push the Full Retard Button. 

Not always the best idea, but invariably the most tempting one

 

There’s a point at which the only way forward is for the movie to go full retard and Rinko Kikuchi literally presses a big red button that may as well have ‘full retard’ written on it. It’s glorious.

To wit, here are some counter-examples of movies that press the Full Retard Button too many times or cannot back it up:

The Matrix sequels

Ghost Rider

Paycheck

Die Another Day

Gamer

Identity

Be Cool

I don’t know really where I’m going with this review; I’m still sorta drunk from last night. Just go see the movie and if I’ve missed anything leave it in the comments or whatever.

Damage: 7/10 (pre-movie: 100 ml Stoli vodka; during: ½ bottle Sawanotsuru deluxe sake) – Yes, I realise that usually wouldn’t warrant a 7/10, but I’ve been on heavy medication for the last three months which has had serious impact on my drinking abilities

Boozy rating: 8/10 (loses one point for not having Van Damme in it and one point for not having enough screaming civilians or boobs)

Next week: The Wolverine

 

Man of Steel sucks and here’s why

Directed by Zach Snyder

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Morpheus, Antje Traue, Diane Lane, Kevin Cosner, and Christopher Elephantdick Meloni

** MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW**

I was super excited for the new Superman. That’s saying something. That carries more clout that fanboy mouth-frothing, because I’ve never had any interest in the character, the movies, the comics, etc. I think Superman is boring, both in the cape and the eyeglasses. For me to be excited about this movie speaks to my faith in Chris Nolan, Zach Snyder (who I’m more willing to defend than most), and David S. Goyer, and the effective marketing campaign preceding the film’s release.

In addition to the strong production team behind this feature, Man of Steel benefitted from the bar being set at an all-time low. There hasn’t been a good Superman movie in 35 years and the last attempt, 2006’s abysmal Superman Returns, was, as Kevin Smith so gloriously put it, ‘the whiny emo version of Superman where Superman doesn’t even throw a punch.’ From the get-go, it seemed pretty hard to fuck this up, but I guess Zach Snyder is the type of guy who really relishes a challenge because he fucks this one up hard.

The film is an origin story. It opens with the crumbling of Krypton. The planet’s advanced and hyper-regimented civilization has taxed natural resources beyond reason, but the Kryptonian elders refuse to admit fault or take necessary steps to preserve what remains. As the abidingly patriotic General Zod (Michael Shannon) stages a coup, warrior/senator Jor-El (Russell Crowe) defies the government by having a natural-born son and sending that progeny in a capsule bound for Earth along with Krypton’s digital archives. Jor-El gives his life to protect his son’s escape and, he feels, the survival of his civilization.

Flash-forward 33 years and Kal-El (Henry Cavill) has been raised in Kansas as Clark Kent, now wandering the Earth, keeping a low profile, and using his Kryptonian superpowers to rescue people. Before long, though, Zod comes looking for him and Krypton’s ‘codex,’ stopping at nothing to reclaim what he feels is the final hope for rebuilding the home he swore to defend. Clark now has to choose sides between his Kryptonian blood and his adoptive planet, the fate of which hangs in the balance.

I understand that you don’t have all day and there are about 230,000 things I don’t like about this movie, so let me just (for now) highlight the most important ones.

The film’s core failing is Zack Snyder not understanding how human beings work. If you’re going to make a movie focusing on an alien, and the crux of his character arc is finding or defining his humanity, then you should probably understand how human beings work. There’s an early scene wherein Clark gets into a rowdy bar dispute trying to protect a female colleague from harassment. He gets a beer poured over him; he shows restraint while the crowd looks on. The problem: the crowd includes two CF soldiers. There is no universe in which two CF guys in uniform don’t come between a trucker and the waitress he’s sexually harassing. I promise you that.

Then there’s a scene where Clark reveals to his aged mother Martha (Diane Lane) that he uncovered relics from Krypton’s past and knows a bit more about his family history. She gets emotional and starts crying. He just chuckles (a bit condescendingly, I thought) and says ‘Aw, shucks, no worries Ma’, I’m still your son.’ Or some shit like that. As an only son who loves his mother, I can tell you when your mom starts to cry, you start to cry too. That is hard-wired. To simply laugh that shit off means you’re a sociopath. Seriously.

Later still, Zod’s spacecraft lifts off out of the desert in front of a company of soldiers and FBI agents. The craft’s propulsion turbines kick up a giant dust cloud and not one of the dudes covers his face with his hand. They may as well be like:

I love you, sand! Come into my eyes, sand!

 

It’s fair to argue that these are minor points and that I’m nitpicking. I bring them up for two reasons. First, I don’t want to re-hash the same comments that other critics have made, so I probe a bit deeper. Second, at fear of sounding like a broken record, if you’re going to make a movie about a dude discovering his humanity, you need to populate that movie with flesh-and-blood humans. Real people, not robots. The devil is in the details and they need to ring true, no more or less than the major arcs. Every character in this movie behaves like a robot except for Christopher Meloni, who fuckin rules shit.

The film’s second fatal flaw is its failure to capitalize on one of its most interesting plot points: the existential dichotomy between Superman and Zod. MoS sets it up brilliantly: it posits Superman as the first natural, non-engineered Kryptonian birth in centuries (hence, the first in centuries to have a blank slate and agency in the course of his life), and Zod as a guy who was designed and programmed to be the guardian of his civilization, which is now on the brink of extinction. Right there, you have a template for one of the most profound moral and philosophical explorations of free will and utilitarianism in the entire superhero canon. It gets tread over for a cumulative three minutes, maybe. Superman = good; Zod = bad, they punch each other, guess who wins. Such waste.

My third quarrel is with the actual punching. The action in this movie sucks huge amounts of camel dick. I read a great review that described action as consequence. Action is made meaningful by the audience’s emotional investment in the characters and genuine concern that they are at risk. As per point one, none of these people are actual humans so your investment is zero. The only minute of action in this movie that made my dick even remotely hard was when Meloni survives his helicopter being shot down, escapes the wreckage, and fires about 50 rounds point-blank at Kryptonian baddie Faora (Antje Traue). Upon seeing the bullets bounce off her like Nerf darts, Meloni practically fuckin YAWNS, pulls out a buck knife, and stands up all like: ‘Alright let’s dance, E.T.’

'Hope you brought your A-game, 'cause I trained at Fort Yolo, motherfucker.'

I care about this dude. Meloni for President. Klingons would surrender to this fuckin guy. They should have made the movie about Meloni and called it Balls of Steel. People would watch that movie and care about the action, not because things explode hugely, but because the risk of him being injured or superkilled is significant and because you are moved by his courage and selflessness in the face of danger and death. That is what humanity is about.

Zach Snyder clearly slept through the day in film school when students were taught that action doesn’t have to be huge to be meaningful. Neo fights Agent Smith three times in the Matrix trilogy. Which is the best one? Subway in the first movie, right? Yet it covers the least physical space, has the least FX, and is the shortest in duration. It is the best because Neo is mortal (makes emotional stakes higher), the buildup to it is superbly executed, and it carries weight and resonance in the scope of the movie – it is more about Neo overcoming his own self-doubt than it is about him defeating a computer-generated bad guy.

In a single sentence, MoS spends its two-hour running time shouting ‘LOOK AT ME’ without delivering something worthy of attention other than the shouting itself. It paints itself as a dark, brooding, character study but achieves at none of these things.