For the third time this summer, it is time to watch a superhero flick where some characters fight other characters for poorly-developed reasons. In this specific case, it’s the X-Men universe and the film is X-Men: Apocalypse, named after the all-power and ancient villain of the film. The eponymous character is central to not only the plot and theme of the film, but ultimately its problems as well. On a fundamental level, this film fails because it could not appropriately handle the character of Apocalypse, and you can almost feel it buckling under the weight of this Frankenstein’s Monster. There are lesser problems as well, including some poorly-used characters and a mismanaged tonal consistency, but you can trace nearly every negative back to the big-bad. Thus, despite introducing intriguing new versions of beloved characters, this is a poor end to the new X-Men trilogy.
“Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” Has a Long Title and is Also Terrible
Don’t let’s try to pretend that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have ever been the patron saints of verisimilitude. Even in their original medium of the comics of Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, there is a tongue-in-cheek flavor that is comfortable with the idea of anthropomorphized turtles who study the art of ninjitsu. But, there’s a distinction between embracing absurdity for stylistic purposes and simply abandoning logic when telling your story, and the second TNMT film, Out of the Shadows, is embarrassingly guilty of the latter. There are still moments that you can kick up your feet and enjoy some of the teenagers’ interactions and feats, but most of the time watching the latest Turtles is spent scoffing, laughing, and quizzically squinting at the screen in a vain attempt to understand why.
Building a High-Horror Franchise through Characters: “The Conjuring 2”
The Conjuring was one of the most impressive horror films to emerge from Hollywood in the last decade, so James Wan’s follow-up to the 2013 hit has been widely anticipated. In a turn that restores a modicum of faith in mankind, the sequel is an overwhelming success. Ed and Lorraine Warren return with another paranormal investigation, this one based on their most-documented case: The Enfield poltergeist. As before, the pair and their relationship form the kernel of a masterful supernatural high-horror film. The Conjuring 2 will delight and terrify genre fans and whichever casual movie-goers have the courage to buy a ticket and peer through their fingers.
A Foundation of Duality: How “Warcraft” Establishes a Unique and Thematic Fantasy World
The challenge facing director Duncan Jones with Warcraft: make a high fantasy video-game flick relying heavily on CGI for one of the races. What could go wrong? Fortunately, much less than you would think. Most of the issues with the film involve specific plot elements, and few of the characters are under-developed (especially the human ones). But, the visuals are astounding, the world-building is impressive, and the lore introduced in this film should provide ample foundation for more nuanced exploration of the world in the future. Warcraft has its faults, but its unique structure explores themes of racial tension, corruption, and legacy in ways that few other fantasy films can accomplish.
State of the Blog – June 2016
I’ve got some cool things brewing here at Plot and Theme, so I wanted to make sure I did my due diligence and let my readers know what is up and what they can expect in the near future (both of them). I’ll detail the posts that I expect to publish, the flicks I hope to see, and a few other random ideas that are kicking around in my head. All-in-all, June looks like it is going to be quite exciting.
Jon Favreau’s “The Jungle Book” Enhances the Animation, Plot, and Theme of the 1967 Original
Though Disney’s live-action adaptations of their traditional animated stories have been a mixed bag so far, Jon Favreau and company have delivered a surprising gem in The Jungle Book. Like other adaptations, this film is certainly a re-make of the original and contains many of the same thematic elements, but some unique nuances add a great deal to the overall quality of the film. Though the movie is not without its faults, it is vastly superior to the animated version from 1967 in almost every way: it has a stronger sense of character development, a more coherent plot-theme, and even sports higher-quality animation. This is hands-down the best of Disney’s recent live-action adaptations.
“The Lobster”: A Sardonic Defense of Romantic Choice
The very best satire establishes absurdity as commonplace, and Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos’ first English-language feature film The Lobster is a fascinating example. Winner of the Jury Prize at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival, this dark romantic comedy imagines a dystopia where single people are sent to a hotel and given 45 days to find a new partner. Should they fail, they are transformed into an animal of their choosing and released into the wild. Some attendees don’t wait that long, and escape into the bordering forest to live in a kind of fugitive singleness. The Lobster viciously jests through this dichotomy, exploring the nature of relationships and how societal pressures can paradoxically be the cause of both settling and celibacy.
“Captain America: Civil War” Scuttles Its Themes in Favor of Silly Spectacle
As the thirteenth entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and first of Phase Three, Captain America: Civil War is full of crowd-pleasing moments, but it fails to deliver on these on a thematic level. Its neutered narrative pulls more punches than its heroes, the villain is more unnecessary and forgettable than the average Marvel fare, and a potentially powerful story line is treated with all the nuance of a Political Science 101 class. As a comic book action film, it certainly manages to entertain, but it falls far short of any aspirations to be something more than the latest summer popcorn flick.
How To Develop Theme: The Perversion of Sex in “Alien”
INTRODUCTION
Sexual interpretations of Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979) abound, but few tie the overt sexuality of the film to its professed objective, which is to be scary. Alien is a horror film (specifically, a slasher; Ridley Scott excitedly explained the film to his cast as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in space). So then, why the sexual imagery and themes? Sex can be scary. Even when consensual and enjoyable, it can adopt an air of fear, anxiety, and discomfort. Scott’s brilliance with Alien and its sexually-charged themes lay in the way it transitions from our quaint hang-ups with sex to the terrifying violence inherent in the act of rape. Visual symbolism in the film initially reminds us of both male and female sexual anatomy, but transitions piecewise into the aggressive sexuality of the rapist. As the film proceeds, the male aspects of the sex begin to dominate until the unbridled Xenomorph literally rapes its final victim. These sexual characteristics serves to disturb the audience in two fashions: first by suggesting the anxiety and the scariness of the sexual organs and sex itself, and second by perverting sex into a primal violence and forcing the audience to experience it firsthand.
State of the Blog – May 2016
The minimally observant among my scant reader base may have noticed that I neglected to post a State of the Blog update at the beginning of the month. Though these posts are among the easiest to draft and write, they still require an amount of focus that I was just not prepared to express for the last couple of weeks. My professional life has taken over the vast majority of my headspace for the last month, and only now do I feel like I have a window of respite to think and talk movies. So, instead of simply ignoring the SotB post for this month, I’ll deliver it a couple of weeks late.
