Film Review - Italian Spiderman

The first devastating salvo of Dario Russo and David Ashby into an unsuspecting world came in the guise of Alrugo Entertainment and the staggeringly brilliant Italian Spiderman, with Tait Wilson, Will Spartalis and Boris Repasky. It started as a student film of a trailer for an apparent lost film but secured funding from the South Australian Film Corporation provided backing for ten webisodes, all around four minutes long - and spwaned a famous reaction GIF. These are stitched together to form a film of some 37 minutes, at which point "Alrugo" split up, Russo and Ashby instead going on to form Dinosaur and make the sublime Danger 5. So technically Italian Spiderman was unfinished, ending on a cliffhanger, but it doesn't matter - the thing could have gone on forever and never actually finished, which is part of the brilliance.

Film Review: The Lego Batman Movie

USA, 2017, 104MINS

DIRECTOR: CHRIS McKAY

STARRING: WILL ARNETT, MICHAEL CERA, ROSARIO DAWSON, ZACH GALIFIANAKIS, RALPH FIENNES

Spun off from the genuinely excellent Lego Movie, The Lego Batman Movie had two major pitfalls to avoid - that the superb arrogant send-up of the Dark Knight that was so funny would support a whole film and that it would live up to the hype after the arsenal of trailers. The answers are affirmative. 

A quite brilliant take on Gotham City makes an excellent canvas, a city populated by every member of Batman's Rogues' Gallery worth a mention and a few that really aren't. The resulting plot is a respectable mix of moral fable and adventure story pitched firmly at the kids; grownups will guess the shape of the plot from the opening moments but that's not the point. 

The journey as Batman finds a new family is fun for adults because like its predecessor the film is genuinely and unrelentingly funny on so many levels, with everything from slapstick to weird in-jokes about casting in Tim Burton films and taking the piss out of Orca while also hanging a lampshade on Batman's seeming inability to keep crime in Gotham under control.

As well as Batman there's a funny take on ward Dick Grayson; if Batman is a ripe send-up of the Nolans/Frank Miller and the whole Dork Knight thing then Robin is straight out of the sixties TV series, all wide-eyed mindless optimism. Joining them are a proactive spiky Barbara Gordon, recast as mixed race and well voiced by Rosario Dawson (carefully avoiding retreading Wyldstyle) and a disapproving Alfred courtesy of Ralph Fiennes. 

The other side is led by Zach Galifianakis as a needy take on the Joker, who dumps his usual allies (aside from a mercifully rationed and deslutted Harley Quinn) in favour of.. well, I won't spoil it beyond guessing that Lego's Dimensions licence is the key to swinging the sort of crossover cast that would make anyone else weep with envy. None of the rest of the Batman villains don't get a gigantic amount to do but a surprising large number get a call out or little bit to do. Some serious research has gone into this whole area,  hence big screen debuts for the likes of Calendar Man, the Kabuki Twins and Gentlemen Ghost. Seriously, comic fans might want to see this twice as you'll spend the first time character spotting.

If there's a fault it's that for a film made entirely from (computer generated) Lego bricks Lego isn't actually hugely integral to the movie aside from a few visual jokes and a belated mention of teaching Robin Masterbuilding. It's a weird criticism though and I feel a bit Comic Book Guy now that I've said it. Maybe the closest thing to a real criticism is that it's not quite as fantastically transcendent and genuinely touching as The Lego Movie but then I've seen thousands of films and few are.

The Lego Batman Movie does utterly succeed on its own terms. There are no caveats here - it's not great for a kids film or a toy film or anything.  It's a riot of adventure and wit, with something for everyone who isn't dead and cold on the inside.

Film Review: Wanted

USA/GERMANY/RUSSIA, 2008, 110MINS

DIRECTOR: TIMUR BEKMAMBETOV

STARRING: JAMES McAVOY, ANGELINA JOLIE, MORGAN FREEMAN, TERENCE STAMP, THOMAS KRETSCHMANN, COMMON, KONSTANTIN KHABENSKY, MARC WARREN

When a comic book adaptation is announced there's always a worry about what indignity is going to be heaped on a fresh classic this time - are the Wachowskis going to turn V into a capering title with a vintage film fetish borrowed from Wall-E? Will Nick Fury be reduced to chasing after a rogue jet with a rocket launcher? Is Will.i.am involved? All scary possibilities. 

However in this respect Wanted has a major advantage in that the original comic was appalling. The usually sturdy Mark Millar's original series was a beta revenge fantasy lauded by fat deskbound neckbeards who would love to be given the means to shoot the popular guys who bullied them at school and force themselves on the popular girls who turned them down. It had loads of swearing like a guy called Shithead and loads of sex stuff like a guy with a killer dick and ended with a lecture from a portly middle-aged Scotsman who used to write for Sonic the Hedgehog about not taking it from The Man. The book ran on shock value, as if the idea of a naughty man being the focus of the comic was enough to make it an instant classic, and it's a damning measure of the industry and its' readers that this seems to have actually happened.

So really that the film junks much of the source material is in this case a plus. Sadly, the comic's best feature was the starting point of supervillains having killed off the superheroes, running the world in secret. Instead the secret society revolves around the Fraternity being group of secret assassins killing those deemed necessary by fate, which communicates with them via looms and scratches out the code of each target. Much of the shape of the narrative is the same - Wesley, well-played by the likeable James McAvoy, is still a cuckolded cubicle droid whose father is part of the Fraternity and seemingly killed at the start of the film, leading to him being found and introduced to the group by the Fox. The latter is played by Angelina Jolie, a good choice of an exotic, dangerous actress and much better than Halle Berry, who the comic version was modelled on.

The broad shape of there being something rotten at the heart of the Fraternity and the fate of Wesley's father is kept but the rest is thrown out. Wesley is taught by Fox to take control of his life as well as becoming an assassin but thankfully this doesn't mean disproportionate retribution and a tedious slide into rape and murder. And that's where Timur Bekmambetov, director of Night Watch, comes in. Under his cameras the plot takes the middle hour of the film off to allow for an ever-escalating series of exemplary, absurd and balletic gunplay scenes, all bending bullets and preposterous sniping.

As such it's a bit of a shame when the plot comes back into things as the film tacks back into a big studio moral compass and has to find a bad guy, with a weak revelation near the end. It leads to an ultimately unsatisfying conclusion that takes the shine off but the journey is respectable fun while it lasts.

Film Review: Spider-Man

USA, 2002, 121 MINS

DIRECTOR: SAM RAIMI

STARRING: TOBEY MAGUIRE, KIRSTEN DUNST, WILLEM DAFOE, JAMES FRANCO, CLIFF ROBERTSON, ROSEMARY HARRIS, J.K. SIMMONS

Time has actually been kind to Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man film, especially compared to many of its' contemporaries. It's as good a filmed, modernised version of the webslinger's famed origin as you're likely to get complete with a nice smooth flow into the Green Goblin. At a fraction over two hours (minus credits) it's not a bad length, with about the right amount of establishing characters before we get into the nitty-gritty. The origin story alone wouldn't support a whole film, with the Goblin plot getting a decent amount of time even if Norman's problems are a case of coincidence when perhaps some sort of cause and effect would have made more sense cinematically.

The effects are... variable. Lots of the bluescreening doesn't hold up but whether that's worse than endless CGI I'm not sure. The costumes still look very good and solid, I've always like the Goblin's armoured suit. Generally it's a film that knows its' limits, relying more heavily on physical stunt work, pyrotechnics and clever framing for most of the action sequences. The tone actually captures the overall spirit of the comic and character; it's funny but not a comedy with just the right dose of teenage angst (often a key component of the comics) and enough spectacle to avoid feeling short-changed.

It's fair to say Tobey Maguire is a better Peter Parker than he is Spider-Man. His odd looks and awkward manner are excellent for Parker, who's a bit creepy in places here even if it is just due to a lack of social skills. It doesn't come off quite as well when he's speaking from inside the Spider-Man costume but there are plenty of areas where his flippancy helps. Kirsten Dunst is a bit of a square peg in a round hole as Mary-Jane, her obvious dye job indicating that she just happened to be a hot young actress available at the time; she's not bad exactly, it's just hard not to spend most of her scenes wishing someone else had the role. 

The ever-dependable Willem Dafoe is crucial to the success of Norman; while the character's a thumbnail compared to his extensive comics backstory a good job is done of giving him some sort of arc and Dafoe's reliable method of never looking down on any material adds layers. Of the rest things are laid on a bit thick with Uncle Ben but J.K. Simmons' nicely cartoonish performance as J Jonah Jameson is spot-on.

While it can't compete with either the explosion quotient or fan-friendliness of later offerings this film, important within the superhero genre for showing the audience really was there, still stands up as good origin story for Spider-Man, something Marvel would do well to take note of for Homecoming and not make the same mistake as Sony of showing it again when we can pick it up on ebay for 50p.

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Film Review - All Superheroes Must Die

As a reader of superhero comics for decades now it's been quite sad to see the way the idea has largely been treated by cinema, be it Disney serving up generic Silver Age CGI shit or a series of increasingly awful Alan Moore butcherings. Superheroes can be great, it doesn't all have to be Avengers crap.