Trailer Park: Jur4ssicland

Nothing was going to live up to last week's one-two punch of Star Wars and Bat Soup, but I'm actually surprised at what a nice collection of different-feeling trailers we managed to fit into the second episode of The Trailer Park. There's a horror, a traditional mystery, a not-so-traditional mystery, a fun blockbuster, and a sombre, deadly serious blockbuster - there's actually more variety here than last week, which is cool. Hopefully people like it.

There's some slightly different stuff going on - I've messed a little with the layout, and the Trailer of the Week feature is actually visible now - but mostly I feel like the format is working, and five trailers feels like the right amount. I'd love some feedback, though, so please let me know how you feel about all this.
 
As always, you can check out the second Trailer Park by clicking below!

Trailer Park: Ant v Scream: Genisys of the Force

Today saw the launch of a new feature on Hex Dimension. It's a weekly spot that will collect all the week's best film trailers in one place, and give a quick analysis of each. It's a really great idea that I wish I could take credit for, but that honour falls to Emily King. It seems so obvious in retrospect - having one single place to look every week, instead of trawling through film sites - yet I'm not sure I've ever seen it done quite like this before. In the absence of Doctor Who, I've been looking for something I could write regularly (not to mention something I could overanalyse), so when Emily suggested this to the team it seemed like the perfect fit. I took it and ran with it and now it's here!

We call it... The Trailer Park.

There was no real reason why I decided to start it this week - things just worked out that way. Yet, somehow, I managed to choose the week that both the new Star Wars and Batman v Superman trailers broke. There won't be another week with two mega-trailers like that for a while! So, to find out what I thought of the two biggest trailers of the year (and a couple of the week's slightly-less-big trailers) click the pic below. And check back next week for more!

Hex Dimension: Is Marvel teaming up with a Sony a wise move?

This week, a miracle happened. Marvel Studios finally struck a deal with Sony Pictures, allowing Spider-Man to at last appear onscreen with Marvel's other characters. But, perhaps more importantly, that deal establishes that this will be a new version of the character rather than the current puffy-haired, promise-breaking iteration. And, more important still, Marvel will be the ones with creative control, rather than the aimless executives at Sony. This is great news.

Following our reaction piece regarding the Star Wars trailer, Hex Dimension have written a similar piece about this Spidey news. Rather than just squee about how great the news is (like I did above), I tried to find a more interesting angle to look at this from. I think I found one - and you can find it too by following the link below.

Hex Dimension: DC v Marvel: Dawn of Universes

You've probably noticed how psychadelic the blog's been looking recently. Well, now it's getting worse. This is the debut of my new Opinion Green theme, to sit alongside Recommendation Red and TARDIS Blue as ways to distinguish my nonsense. Hopefully all these colours are brightening the place up and not just hurting everyone's eyes! Anyway, to business...

With Doctor Who and The Companion Piece both winding down for the year, I finally have more time on my hands to write actual articles and opinion pieces and maybe even reviews! The first, which I hope will be one of several over the next few weeks, is a sceptical look at last month's press-releases from Marvel and DC, which announced their future movies.

I fall down pretty heavily on one side of the equation, and it's probably quite predictable which one - but I feel like my reasons are valid and the points are worth reiterating. Click the link below to take a look!

Hex Dimension: Agents of SHIELD is better than Captain America 2

In yesterday's update I mentioned that my Agents of SHIELD piece, which I've been writing for far too long, would finally be hitting Hex Dimension on Thursday this week. But what I've written is so stunningly important that it's been bumped up the schedule and actually went live today. I'm just that good!

Joking aside, I am quite pleased with how this ended up. I think it's the best thing I've written in a while (it's certainly the most focused) and I hope you'll check it out.

So, if you'd like to know my thoughts on the recently-ended Agents of SHIELD, and how it compares to the similarly-themed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, you can find out in my latest neutral, even-handed piece:

Agents of SHIELD is better than Captain America 2

Hex Picks: Favourite X-Men and Supernatural Novels

Another quick update to plug the two latest weekly recommendations at Hex Dimension.

Up first is a look at our favourite X-Men, to celebrate the release of the new film (which I'm finally seeing tonight). Contains spoilers for the comics, but not the film.

Up second - and freshly posted today - we took a look at supernatural fiction. It's not a topic I thought I'd have anything to say about, but it turns out I did. And, in true supernatural fashion, I spookily wrote almost the exact same thing as my brother...

That's it for now but, following Friday's finale, my long-gestating piece on Agents of SHIELD is finally done. It's due to hit the website on Thursday, so I'll see you then!

NerdTech's Film of the Year 2013!

It's been one year, give or take, since this site randomly turned into a movie blog for no reason. The first stuff on here was the 2012 Film of the Year awards so, naturally, we're marking our first anniversary with the 2013 awards!

The rules are the same as last year: this is not the best films of the year, it's the films that had the biggest effect on me - be that emotional, exciting, hilarious or terrifying. The best film I saw this year, objectively speaking, actually is on this list - but, because it's an intentionally subjective list, it barely made it into the top 3.
Gut reactions are the order of the day.


5: Iron Man 3 - Shane Black

It's been a pretty crappy year for blockbusters. Star Trek was fun but, in retrospect, indefensibly stupid; Man of Steel was a boring, self-serious mess; and GI Joe was just plain terrible. Even Pacific Rim, much as I loved it, peaked too soon and sagged at the end. Thank Odin, then, for Marvel.

Of their two offerings this year (three if you count Agents of SHIELD) Iron Man 3 was the clear winner. Shane Black made a superhero movie that breaks all the rules and never does what it's supposed to; at once both a part of the Marvel universe and its own crazy thing.
Iron Man, the guy in the suit, is barely in it - his biggest villain, likewise - and somehow that's actually to the movie's benefit. Black's film goes out of its way to be different, and the result is a fresh and unusual take on an overplayed genre. Even if it did upset a few people.

Many franchises this year split their fanbase down the middle, and Iron Man was no exception. Man of Steel and Star Trek both delighted and disgusted fans in equal measure. But where they caused divisions with their plotholes and problems, Iron Man 3 did it on purpose, with a pitch-perfect reveal that flipped everything on its head.
It's that mischievous nature - true to the comics yet completely subverting them - that earns it a place on this list. The fact that it also has a great script, brilliant action, and is often really funny is just the polish on this shiny metal suit.

Read the full review here!


4: Monsters University - Dan Scanlon

I can't say I was thrilled when I heard that they were making a prequel to one of my favourite films. Prequels tend to be a Bad Idea - I can't think of the last one that actually lived up to the original (X-Men: First Class maybe, but that's actually more of a reboot).
And, if we're being honest, MU can't match the pure magic of Monsters Inc. either. But it's different enough and funny enough and, as it hits its final act, clever enough that it never actually matters.

At first glance it's a pretty generic collage movie story, but the specifics of the film and its world make it far more unique and, more importantly, flat-out hilarious. Every moment of the film boasts a joke of some kind - be they tiny visual puns in the background or huge set-piece gags - and every single one lands.
It's Pixar's funniest film but, in true Pixar fashion, they don't let that get in the way of the great characters and their surprisingly heartfelt story. If nothing else, it's great that it keeps surprising us, even though we already know how it ends.

It's quite possible that Monsters University would have made this list merely for being the funniest film of the year but then, in a final act as dramatic as it is unexpected, it cements itself as one of the year's absolute best.

Read the full review here!


3: The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - Peter Jackson

For a number of reasons - including Christmas, and something you'll see in a moment - I still haven't finished my review of The Hobbit. Because I don't want to spoil that review, which will be up first thing next year, I'll keep this brief.
Just know that, even though I've given it the same ranking, Desolation is the film we all hoped An Unexpected Journey would be - a lighter, less serious tale than Lord of the Rings, but still recognisably set in the same world. Middle Earth is alive again, and everything from the characters to the locations has the depth and texture that the first Hobbit seemed to lack.

But none of that is why it's on this list. It's on this list for Smaug, and that's all you need to know.

Full review soon!


2: Gravity / Rush - Alphonso Cuarón / Ron Howard

This second position was originally going to go to Gravity alone; but then I crashed my car. Suddenly I'm jumping out of my skin every time I see break-lights, and Rush is very much at the forefront of my mind.
Since then I've been trying to rank them properly - to figure out which is better - but it's an impossible choice. Rush is probably the better film, but Gravity is the more powerful experience, and they both work so perfectly. In the end I've decided to cheat: my number 2 goes to immersive, beautiful, terrifying white-knuckle movies. Both of them.

They're very different films, of course. One is a true story that spans years, with a bunch of characters and a lot of talking; the other is a very fictional day-long story, with barely four characters and minimal dialogue. Also one of them happens in space.
But, as I'm lumping them together, they're actually more similar than they might appear. Both films are about their characters' single-minded determination to reach a goal - being World Champion and not dying respectively - and the horrific events that get in their way. By dragging us intimately through their stories, and by getting incredible work from the actors, they both make us care and feel for characters we normally wouldn't, either because we know nothing about them or because they're kind of awful.
The biggest similarity, though, is that they're both just flawlessly executed. Even though Howard uses a thousand shots where Cuarón might use three, every single one of those shots is necessary, meaningful and stunning to look at; and every one propels the film at a breakneck pace. Neither director wastes even a moment.

Despite their huge differences in story and style, these two share a spot because they're both transportive, breathless, powerful movies. And they both scared the shit out of me.

Read the full Gravity review here!
Read the full Rush review here!


1: Wreck-It Ralph - Rich Moore

All my favourite animated films seem to centre on unlikely friendships. Sully and Boo, Lilo and Stitch, Wall-E and Eve, Hogarth and the Giant, Hiccup and Toothless, even Wallace and Gromit. It was probably inevitable that Ralph and Vanellope would jump straight onto that list, too.
What wasn't inevitable is that they would do it with such style.

I don't just mean that it looks gorgeous - though it certainly does, with brilliant design work and ingenious game-like animation - but also the flair with which it pulls off its story. We're rapidly plunged into not one, but a whole handful of worlds, each with their own rules and textures. Characters feel fully-rounded from the first moment they appear. The main villain is somehow set up without us even knowing that there's meant to be one.
It's all just so clever and assured!

Cleverest and most assured of all, though, is how emotional things get. It's very funny the entire time - the whole cast is made up of comedians - and yet it choked me up again and again. That central pairing, for whatever reason, grabbed my heart as only animated odd-couples seem to do.
Often that emotion would come at the expense of scale but here, even at its most quiet and private, this film is never afraid to go big. When it all reaches its tremendous, apocalyptic climax everything, from those intimate emotions to the wonderful designs to tiny ideas we didn't know were important, collide to create an ending both huge and wonderfully personal.
The defining moment of the cinematic year, for me, was when a big dumb guy holding a cookie chanted a totally meaningless mantra, and somehow made it mean so much.

Wreck-It Ralph was the first new film I saw in 2013 - and nothing topped it. Honestly, nothing even came close.

Read the full review here!

Thor: The Dark World Review

Dear Man of Steel,
I saw two different films this year that ended with godlike aliens hitting each other impossibly hard over and over again. One of them managed to keep this fresh and interesting, and had personal stakes for the audience to connect to. The other one was you.

Thor: The Dark World manages to keep its final battle entertaining and engaging, even though it's just a repetitive sequence of blows, by constantly changing the nature of the fight. It keeps shifting location, so the visuals never get stale and the fighters have to deal with their environment as well as each other - caught on a collapsing ledge or sliding down a building. The tone keeps shifting too, breaking the tension with funny moments, which makes the serious parts all the more impactful.
Even though the combatants are pretty much invincible, the fight has real peril and danger because there are human characters running around and helping, almost getting killed in the process. It's a battle over the fate of the world - nay, the universe - but it's the fate of these characters that we actually care about. That's also what the hero cares about, fighting to protect these people rather than just fighting to win.

What I'm saying, Man of Steel, is that Thor 2 does everything you didn't. I hope you're taking notes.

Before the ascension of The Avengers, benevolent god-king of superhero movies, the original Thor was the film that, to me, felt most like a comic book. These are silly films about silly people in silly costumes, and Thor's bombastic, over-the-top tone captured that perfectly. It's just so much fun, from its first frame to its last.
But a lot of people disagree. Thor usually gets ranked at the bottom of the Marvel pile for exactly this reason - people don't like that it's silly. So, when Marvel announced that gritty Game of Thrones director Alan Taylor would be at the (winged) helm of the sequel, and later when all the stills and footage looked like Lord of the Rings, there was a real danger that this light-hearted series had been turned into, well, you.
But rest assured, though it even goes so far as having "Dark" in the title, Thor 2 is every bit as light and breezy as its predecessor.

What Taylor does bring is a sense of realism that was missing from Kenneth Branagh's very operatic original. This is the same thing you were aiming for, Man of Steel, but Taylor understands that it needn't sap the joy out of the experience. The acting here is more naturalistic, and Asgard feels much more like a real place, but the movie still knows how to find enjoyment and humour in that - something you completely forgot. Though it does carve out a more believable world for itself, nested within the larger Marvel Universe, that doesn't prevent it from shoving the massive God of Thunder into a tiny car or having Stellan Skarsgård in his pants. Realistic doesn’t have to mean serious.

Yet The Dark World has its share of serious, too. The plot this time kicks off when Natalie Portman’s Jane Foster becomes the unwitting host of the Aether - an ancient, all-purpose alien superweapon. This is staggeringly convenient, of course, but it works because it immediately gives Thor, and us, a reason to heavily invest in what is otherwise a very bland McGuffin. Thor spirits Jane away to Asgard to figure out what’s going on, and the two quickly rekindle their romance because, in both cases, wouldn’t you?
The seriousness comes from the fact that Jane is slowly dying from exposure to the Aether, and that having it also makes her a target for the villains of the piece. They want to use the Aether to destroy the universe but, problematically, they’re also the only ones who can get it out of Jane. This all works to make her a more active part of the story than last time, as she finds herself at the centre of the conflict rather than watching from the sidelines.

For that reason and others, it’s a stronger and more propulsive story than the first Thor, rushing us through scenes and locations where the original often meandered. This is great in that everything feels very urgent and energetic, but not so great in that is skims over things that probably needed more explanation and depth - namely those villains.
The Dark Elves are a race who existed before the universe (somehow) and who now want to destroy that universe. They have awesome designs and technology, which leads to some brilliant action, but there’s barely anything to them. They feel both underused and underserved - especially their leader, Malekith. There's talk of his backstory and motivations, but there's nothing there we can actually latch onto. He basically boils down to angry guy with grudge. He's certainly no Loki - but the film ultimately gets away with that because Loki is Loki, and he's here too.

In a lot of ways this is actually Loki's movie. He has the strongest character journey, going from traitorous prisoner to untrusted ally and beyond. This is probably Tom Hiddleston's best performance yet, as this arc means he can play more than just the jealous prince. Loki gets to be a brother and a son; an enemy and a friend; wrong but also wronged. More than anything else, though, Thor 2 reminds us that Loki is the God of Mischief, not of Evil, and he gets to be far more of a trickster here than he has in the past.

Loki, like Jane, also has more to do. That’s something that applies to almost every character, actually. Even minor players like Kat Denning’s Darcy, Rene Russo’s Frigga, and Idris Elba’s awesome awesome Heimdall are far more involved in the story this time. Sif and the Warriors Three may be missing a member for some reason, and they may even have less screentime, but they feel more fleshed out and have a bigger impact on the plot. Everyone feels necessary and important.
The only person with less to do, weirdly, is Thor himself. Because the main arcs of the film aren’t his - they’re Jane’s and Loki’s - he sometimes seems to just be along for the ride. It’s never a problem, though, because Chris Hemsworth continues to embody the character so wonderfully. Whether he’s cheerfully destroying rock monsters or angrily confronting his brother, Thor is such a great presence that you don’t mind his reduced role.

Any other problems are similarly minor. An important scene involving Malekith's face is mishandled, and a subplot with Sif is implied but never takes off. There's also nothing that comes even close to that one blisteringly hot kiss from the first film. But these are tiny complaints, drowned out by the overwhelming positives - and when Hemsworth gets his shirt off, in a scene that’s somehow even more gratuitous than the first Thor, you’ll be willing to overlook all of them.

Thor: The Dark World is a great addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe but, far more than that, it’s a great continuation of the Thor series. It takes the groundwork of the original film and builds upwards in every way. The world and characters are both more fleshed out and more grounded; the story is more focused and polished, and gives every single character (except one) something to do; the action is bigger and better; and all the while it sticks to the world and the light-hearted tone established by its predecessor.

The reason I'm telling you all this, Man of Steel, is that the first Thor suffers from many of the same problems as you: characters are underdeveloped or don't have much to do, and the story is nebulous and unfocused. If Thor 2 can build on these problems to become something stronger, then I'm hoping you can too.
Of course, Thor still worked because it offset these problems with an abundance of fun and energy, where you opted for darkness and brooding. You can learn from Thor 2 here, as well. This world feels as real as yours, without having to sacrifice its sense of humour. It feels more real, in fact, because it's easier to relate to the people who live there.

Failing that, at the very least, please try to learn something from that final action scene. When I watch two space-gods repeatedly punch each other, I want to see variety and creativity, I want to see highs and lows, peaks and troughs, I want to feel real human stakes and, above all else, I want to enjoy it.
And that's exactly what The Dark World delivers.

Best wishes for the future,
Matthew


P.S. One last thing to learn from Marvel is that you should call your sequel Man of Steel 2, either with or without a subtitle. Dropping the numbers from their non-Iron Man films is the one slip-up Marvel have made thus far, and now is your big chance to exploit it. Who knows - being easy to arrange on a shelf might make all the difference!

Marvel, Mystique and the Mandarin

By now we've all seen Iron Man 3. If you haven't seen Iron Man 3, go and see it because it's great. Also, don't read on because this post is basically all spoilers.

With the Iron Man spoiler-warning out of the way, let’s talk about… X-Men.

We, as comic-book fans, have a tendency to forget that our relationship to comic-book movies works both ways. We approach them as "how does this compare to the comics", but there's another group - a much larger group - who are more familiar with the films. For them the question becomes "how do the comics compare to the movies".
Case in point: All New X-Men.

All New is a new series focusing on the first ever team of X-Men (Cyclops, Jean Grey, Iceman, Angel and Beast) who are transported to present day from their own lives in the 1960s. The title is actually kind of a joke because, as well as not being remotely new, "the all-new X-Men" was originally a name used for the second team of X-Men (Wolverine, Storm, Nightcrawler et al).
This new comic, I feel it's safe to say, would not exist if it weren't for the success of the film X-Men: First Class. Despite Beast being the only character who appears in both, and despite the movie being a Fox production rather than Marvel Studios, this comic may never have been greenlit (never even thought of, maybe) if the oldschool blue-and-yellow 60s X-Men weren't back in the public consciousness.
So, while the comics continue to inspire the movies, we have now reached a point where the movies also inspire the comics. And this, in turn, works both ways: as well as imitating the films so that new readers will find them familiar, as with the slightly ridiculous Nick Fury Jr., the comics can also subvert the familiarity of those readers, as we’ll see with All New X-Men.

In issue #7, the young Cyclops (from the past) meets Mystique (from the present). Mystique, as anyone who has seen First Class knows, is the naked blue shapeshifter girl who was taken in by the young Charles Xavier, grew up to become an X-Man, then defected because she didn't like having to wear clothes.

Except that's not even close to what happened in the comics. Nowhere near. So when Mystique introduces herself to Scott this way, as an old friend of Xavier who regrets the bad things she's done, comic-book readers are left slightly confused. I wondered if maybe I'd missed an important arc somewhere, or a retcon. But then, at the end of the issue, it's revealed that she doesn't mean a word she says - her closing words, regarding her fellow mutants, are "Screw them all."

This is presented as a twist, but it's no twist at all if you're familiar with the comics. But if your only point of reference is the X-Men films, and First Class in particular, then this must come as quite a shock. This entire issue seems built to surprise new readers who only know the films. For instance, I don't think she's even once referred to as Mystique; instead she always uses her given name, Raven - the name she also uses in First Class. The reveal is undermined a little by the fact that in the comics, instead of being naked, Mystique wears a belt of human skulls - but she blows this off with the same "I can’t help how I look" talk that she uses in the film, again aligning with a version of the character that isn’t actually this one.
While all this is designed to work a specific way for those new readers, it still plays to the rest of us. We spend the issue wondering what Mystique’s angle is and, sure enough, she has one. It’s not as though the issue is wasted on long-time readers - we just have a different experience to those who aren’t.

The way this ties into Iron Man 3 (at last) is that I can’t help but wonder if any of those newcomer film-fans felt upset that this portrayal of Mystique wasn’t true to the character they were familiar with. Did any of them go online to rage about how they felt betrayed and insulted? Or were they thrilled to see how this character they thought they knew was being used in a different way? Did they laugh at how they were taken in and how great a reveal it was? Did they appreciate having their expectations used against them, or was it a problem?
Because a lot of people thought it was a problem with the Mandarin.

The Trevor Slattery reveal is the best film moment of the year so far. Really, it is. And as with the X-Men moment, it plays different ways to different viewers. To non-comic-fans it’s a very well-executed twist of the narrative - but to those familiar with the character it’s a twist on every expectation and familiarity we took in with us. It’s not just turning the film on its head, it’s turning everything that we know on its head, too. It’s brilliant. Regardless of whether or not you liked it, that subversion - the fact that they did it and the way that they did it - is brilliant.

To me, there’s no real difference between a film-fan being presented with a Mystique they’re not familiar with, and a comic-fan presented with a Mandarin they’re not familiar with. The superficial difference is that where Mystique is still Mystique, the Mandarin is not actually the Mandarin. This blatantly ignores the fact that Aldrich Killian is clearly the actual Mandarin (did you see those dragon tattoos?) - although he represents another version of the character that we also aren’t familiar with.
Besides, amid all the whining that it isn’t true to the comics, the fact is that the Mandarin fake-out actually does draw from the comics. In the same way that the Marvel movies use the version of Nick Fury from the Ultimate comics series, as opposed to the one from their main comic universe, the movie version of the Mandarin is taken (partly) from the Heroes Reborn continuity, where he is a public figurehead created and controlled by a more shadowy villain (in that case, Doctor Doom). No-one complained about the use of the "wrong" Nick Fury, so I don’t really see how they can complain about the "wrong" Mandarin, either.

What it comes down to is what we are looking for in these films. Adaptation is a strange thing, in that we go to see film versions of things we like - novels, comics, TV shows - and we hope they will be faithful to the source material but, paradoxically, the best adaptations are often the ones that take the most liberties with their source. The Lord of the Rings work better as films than most of the Harry Potter series precisely because Harry Potter is often too reverential to the books - they offer us nothing new or surprising. Twilight doesn’t work at all because they literally just vomited the book, unchanged, onto the screen (it doesn’t help that it’s a terrible book).
Comics - the main DC/Marvel ones, anyway - are in a rare club shared only by James Bond and some older long-running television series, where replicating the actual events and plots don’t matter. The audience is there for some very broad strokes of story and character and, if those conditions are met, it’s basically a playground. They can pick and choose from an enormous history of possible ideas and do whatever the hell they like. And where comics are unique - where not even Bond or Trek can compete - is that "what if" stories, and multiple different versions of characters in multiple different universes, aren’t just common but actually the norm. That’s what the Marvel Cinematic Universe is - just another step in the long tradition of these comics.

People are upset because Iron Man 3 doesn’t portray the original, classic, Mandarin. But the great thing about comics is that there really isn’t an "original" version. What’s Iron Man’s origin? Which war was he wounded in? Depending on which comics you’ve read, there are several different answers. Wolverine’s origin is even more confused. What is that guy’s actual mutation? Bone-claws or just healing? And which universe are we talking about, anyway? That’s just Marvel - drag DC into this question and the words "pre-Crisis", "post-Crisis" and "New 52" just confuse matters even further!
The Mandarin as portrayed in the comics doesn’t actually resemble the original, classic Mandarin, either. That guy was a slanty-eyed Chinese mystic with buck-teeth and a Fu Manchu; where the modern incarnation is a powerful businessman who runs a biotech company - one which actually employs Maya Hansen to work on the Extremis virus. He is Aldrich Killian in all but nationality!
Which begs the question of who is imitating who at this point? James "Rhodey" Rhodes has recently become the Iron Patriot in the comics - simultaneous to the same thing happening in Iron Man 3. The production of one undoubtedly influenced the other, and the film could arguably be the original here (as is certainly the case with the comic version of Phil Coulson). Either way, worrying about it seems pointless; there’s so much material involved in comic-books - so much of it contradictory, confusing, and often outright rubbish - that to ask the films to remain "true" to the "original" material is ridiculous.

I have one friend, for example, who is eternally bitter that Hulk in The Avengers was "wrong". The semi-controlled version in the film upset him because it wasn't true to the character he was familiar with. He's been unable to ever truly enjoy that joyous film because he's limited himself to this one specific version of Hulk. The crazy part being that the version he's used to isn't even the Hulk from the comics (where "Smart Hulk" is actually pretty common); it's the Hulk from the Avengers cartoon!
Because there are no definitive versions of these characters, we all give significance to the version we know most well. When people talk about the classic Mandarin, they don't actually mean the original version, they mean the intermediate version from the 80s and 90s. For a long time, my own idea of Spider-Man was entirely shaped by the cartoons, just as Chris thinks cartoon Hulk is the only Hulk. But there's no reason to believe that any of these versions are somehow more or less accurate than others.

All that's important is that Marvel keep creating interesting and compelling stories from the massive pool of resources they have. That can mean closely following particular stories or characters of the past; or it can mean subverting expectations to tell those stories in a new way, or new stories entirely. And it works both ways - the films and comics are all in the same pool, and either can draw from the other. Whether it’s a film about Iron Man or a comic about the X-Men - whether it’s playing into what we've seen before, or playing against it to surprise us - as long as it's interesting and entertaining and it works, then which specific parts it's made from don't even matter.
Comics, the stories they contain and the movies they inspire, are infinitely malleable in a way that few other formats allow. The Mandarin reveal, or the contrasting versions of Mystique, wouldn't be possible in any other kind of medium. We should be celebrating that, not trying to restrict it!

Iron Man's iPod

It's been a couple of weeks since I saw Iron Man 3, and I've wanted to write a few things about it ever since. Unfortunately, writing that huge, depressing Doctor Who thing ate up all my blogging time (speaking of which, the new episode was pretty good but it just reinforced everything I dislike about Clara). Now that that's finally out of the way, I can write about cheerful happy things again - like the music in Iron Man 3.
Please understand that I know barely anything about music. I'm writing this post completely as a layman; which means I'll be talking even more bollocks than usual. I'm calling 'em as I see 'em. Or hear 'em.

I said in my review that it's weird to see an Iron Man film with no AC/DC on the soundtrack. That band has been inseparable from this series since the first shot of the first trailer for the first film. So much so that Tony Stark himself diegetically uses Shoot to Thrill to announce his arrival in both the second film and The Avengers.
But dropping AC/DC from its soundtrack gives Iron Man 3 an opportunity to have something the other two films were missing: a real honest-to-gods theme-tune!

All the Marvel films have decent scores (Thor is a personal favourite) but until now they've not really had clear central themes associated with the characters. The first Iron Man came close, but the theme was underused and swallowed by the well-known-rock soundtrack. They could have built that theme into something stronger for the second film - but they strangely opted for a totally different theme that I barely even recognise.
That's a really odd move, actually. Batman Begins' theme is not very strong at all, but Warner Bros. stuck with it throughout the series and two films later The Dark Knight Rises had a recognisable (if minimalist) theme for Batman. Likewise, Sony's Spider-Man theme is one we all know (or knew at the time, at least) because it was used throughout the trilogy. Iron Man, on the other hand, has three different films with three very different soundtracks.

I actually prefer the first Iron Man theme to the third (it's got a more industrial, electric, metal feel that really fits with the character) but, of the two, the new theme is definitely much easier to hum.
The humming's important because it's not about the actual quality of the music (though that obviously helps); it's about being memorable and, if done right, iconic. Thor and Captain America both have great music, but you can't identify any real character theme. Iron Man and Iron Man 3 are the only Marvel themes that really pass the test.

What's interesting is how well this new theme fits with the theme from The Avengers (which was also pretty hummable). It's almost as though they're intended to blend into one-another in some future movie, but I can't imagine what.
We'll see later this year if Thor: The Dark World does something similar. If it does - and I really hope it does - then The Avengers 2 may bring Marvel's various theme-tunes together alongside its characters. Imagine that amazing swooping shot from the first Avengers, but with each character's iconic theme playing as that character does their bit. I just got chills.

Why theme-music is important, as opposed to just having a great score in general, I'm not sure. I just know that being able to hum the Iron Man 3 theme from memory makes it a little more special for me. I want to have that with their other heroes, too.
Marvel still have a long way to go if they want to compete with the gold standard of the form, though.

Iron Man 3 Review

Iron Man opens to the sound of Back in Black. Iron Man 2 opens with Shoot to Thrill. It's a little jarring, then, when Iron Man 3 (or possibly "Three" according to the title card) begins with Blue (da ba dee da ba die). This is a mission statement of sorts: more than anything else, this Iron Man film is different.

This is the first Marvel movie since The Avengers, and there has been much talk of whether or not Marvel's individual heroes can still work on their own in a world where we've seen them all team up. Cleverly, this is worked into the movie itself, with Tony Stark (genius millionaire playboy philanthropist) suffering panic attacks over what happened in that film. Not because he nearly died - which is what many have assumed - but from the trauma of suddenly existing in a bigger universe, where aliens or gods could rip a hole in the sky at any moment. He's trying to make sense of his place in this new world and, in a way, so is the film.
That kind of introspection sounds slow and ponderous but, in Iron Man 3's case, it's anything but. Forcibly driven from his home by the brutal terrorist leader known as the Mandarin, Tony Stark starts moving and doesn't stop - this is self-reflection by fire. It's a crazy, chaotic film that dashes breathlessly from location to set-piece to entirely-new-location too many times to count. It even cycles through quite a large cast of sidekicks; alternately teaming Stark with Pepper Potts, Jarvis the computer, some random kid whose house he breaks into, and James "War Machine" Rhodes (now the star-spangled Iron Patriot). Throughout, though, it always keeps a grip on Tony's story.

As well as not having any AC/DC (or even Black Sabbath) in the entire film, new-to-the-series director Shane Black brings a new look and feel to the movie. It's darker, in both the literal and figurative senses, but it thankfully retains the streak of humour the series is known for - in fact, the film even has Tony Stark cracking jokes in narration and voice-over, which is another new touch. Somehow, it feels more grounded than the first two films, while also being more ridiculous. The scope is larger but the focus is narrower. Suitably for a film that draws inspiration from the comic Extremis, everything about Black's film is more extreme - from comedy to drama to violence.

The biggest difference, though, is that this isn't really an Iron Man film. It's telling that none of the posters show Iron Man with his faceplate on - this is a Tony Stark movie, he just happens to wear armour some of the time.
The first time Stark seeks out and confronts the Mandarin - in one of the movie's best scenes - he does so on his own, without the suit. Likewise, in the spectacular final battle, he spends as much time out of the suit as he does in it; maybe more. The suit in question is the prototype Mark 42 (Tony's been busy) and it's a modular system that comes together piece by piece. This means that he can wear just a glove, or the chestplate, or boots, without the rest of the armour.
The upshot of this is that Robert Downey Jr. gets to be physically, visibly, in almost all of the film - even the action scenes. There's only one sequence (a brilliant one with a dozen people freefalling from a plane) where the whole suit stays on for the duration. The inevitable downside is that Iron Man the superhero, as opposed to Tony Stark the character, never really makes much of an impact - the Mk42 just doesn't have any iconic moments to make it stick in the mind. But that's a small complaint when the film's doing so much right.

Where Iron Man 3 really gets it right - where it surpasses its predecessors, in fact - is in its villains. Both Ben Kingsley's Mandarin and Guy Pierce's sinister arms-dealer, Aldrich Killian, represent types of threat we have not seen Iron Man face before. They're a psychological and intellectual threat respectively, where Stark's previous foes (despite all being engineering geniuses) eventually came down to brute force and metal suits. Both actors are incredible in the roles - Kingsley in particular dominates every scene he's in. Which, when competing with Downey, is no mean feat.

There's still a physical threat, of course, in the form of Killian's modified henchmen. Augmented with super-strength and speed, they can stand against Iron Man without any need for armour of their own. The fact they're essentially just people opens things up for far more dynamic fight scenes - acrobatic and balletic instead of the clunky, robotic battles we're used to. There's even some martial arts!
This film boasts the series' best action scenes by a huge margin, and they're all unique, exciting and inventive. There's one in a burning building; one in an exploding building; one where Tony has no armour; one where he has all the armour; one where he's tied up; one against people; one against helicopters... The fights are brilliant, but the chases and rescue scenes (and, indeed, the Rescue scenes) are equally great. The modular armour is constantly used in unexpected ways, and nothing ever plays out quite as you'd expect.
The final showdown, in a night-time dockyard, threatens to break down into a confusing brawl as a bunch of indistinguishable protagonists face a group of equally indistinguishable bad-guys - but this quickly becomes just a backdrop for Tony's very personal fight to take place against. The camera sticks with Stark, diving and weaving through the carnage around him, making it not just Iron Man's best fight to date, but also his most personal. It's expertly judged, and it all comes to an explosive head for both Iron Man and his alter-ego.

The Iron Man series was the first superhero franchise where the second film, traditionally the point at which they peak, was weaker than the first. It's only fitting, then, that it should also be the first superhero franchise to overcome the dreaded threequel curse - delivering a third entry that does justice to the first film's potential and to the character himself. With by far the best action and strongest villains of the franchise, Iron Man 3 quickly lays to rest all doubts about surviving beyond The Avengers.
If this is what Marvel's "Phase Two" looks like, count me in!

...from a Certain Point of View

Iron Man 3 comes out this week.
Hopefully I'll be seeing it on Friday, with my own review online by Monday at the latest. But the actual press reviews are already out, and the consensus seems pretty damn positive! Empire magazine, in their review, have called it "by some distance, the Man In The Can’s best solo outing so far." Which would make it easily Marvel's best solo film, too. That's all they say, though - they don't qualify or explain it, they just throw it out there and then talk about something else.
Firstly, I've never heard Iron Man called the Man In The Can before, and I love it. Secondly, that statement is fantastic news if it's true, but I'm not sure how far to trust it.

I've said before that it's really hard - kind of impossible, in fact - to judge films of a similar quality as objectively "better" or "worse" than each other. There is no single value to compare; all films do some things well and other things badly (except Twilight, which does nothing well). So, when Empire say that Iron Man 3 is the "best" of the three, which attributes are they talking about?
They could mean that it's just clearly out-and-out better - like the obvious difference between Iron Man and Iron Man 2 - but the first film is so strong that I can't believe the improvement this time is that pronounced. The first Iron Man is, simply, one of the best films of its kind.

What kind of film is that, exactly? Well, this is where it gets interesting. They get called several things, these kinds of movies, and, for me at least, each name comes with a different set of values to compare:

The best comic-book movie (about a superhero or superhero team) is The Avengers. It just is. No film ever made has so perfectly captured the way it feels to read a comic-book - the hyper-realism of it all, the dizzying sense of adventure and fun, the way it makes you care about the most ridiculous things. Before last summer I would have called Thor the best comic-book film, for much the same reasons - it just felt like a comic.

On the other hand, I would say that the best superhero film (based on a comic-book) is Spider-Man 2, with the original Iron Man close behind. These films focus on the nature of superheroes - showing us who they are, why they do what they do, and how important they can be to both their world and ours.

If you shift the emphasis from superhero film to superhero film, the best candidates (much as I hate to support their slightly scary fanbase) are probably The Dark Knight or Batman Begins - films which are brilliantly made and function incredibly well as films, regardless of (perhaps even in spite of) the fact they are about a guy in a bat costume. I've heard a lot of support for Captain America in this regard, too, though I don't really see it myself.

If we define these films by their action then The Avengers takes it again, for its perfectly executed escalation. And for that one long shot. And for Hulk.

Avengers is also the best film as a complete experience, and as a piece of entertainment - though Iron Man, Spider-Man 2 and X-Men 2 all deserve a mention.

Finally, if we define them as character pieces, the prize goes to Iron Man - a detailed picture of one man's broken life, and the events that push him to do the right thing. The two Batmans take the runner up spots.

I doubt that there's any way Iron Man 3 will trump the original's brilliance as a character piece - and I have trouble believing that it could be a more entertaining experience either (though I certainly believe it could match it). Perhaps Empire were referring to the movie's action - the series has always been quite lacking in decent fights - or maybe they mean it's a better film in the same way as Batman Begins. I just wish they'd been more clear what they meant; value judgements like "better" and "best" are tricky at the best of time, and some context really would have helped.
Not that it actually matters - we'll all find out this Friday! In the meantime, please feel free to yell at me in the comments about which films I should or shouldn't have included - or which metric you think is the most valuable. Please do, because no-one ever comments on these things and I feel kinda lonely.

Nerd Technologies' Film of the Year 2012

As we reach the end of 2012, and reveal my final Film of the Year review, I must first issue a couple of warnings:

Warning 1: This review assumes some knowledge of the material. Character and actor names are used throughout with no clarification, and the plot up to this point is not discussed.

Warning 2: There may be gushing. Sorry.


1: The Avengers (aka. Avengers Assemble) - Joss Whedon

I loved The Avengers. I loved it in a way I haven't loved a film since I first saw the Star Wars trilogy (in the 1997 cinematic re-release) or possibly since Jurassic Park. I saw it three times in the cinema and each time I left with an enormous grin on my face, in what I can only call a state of pure joy.

Was there ever any doubt they'd pull it off?
Now, after the runaway success and the billions of dollars, it really doesn't feel like it. But this was never a sure thing. Marvel Studios sought to try something no-one had ever done in having characters from several different movie franchises - Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and The Incredible Hulk - unite within one film to tackle a common foe. Even after those prior films proved to be not just successful but genuinely good, throwing them all together at the same time still seemed a crazy risky prospect. Yet here we are, mere months later, and it's almost impossible to recall that uncertainty.
What's frightening is that the doubt and fear actually continue through the first sequence of the film. It looks, for a moment at least, like Disney and Marvel and Whedon may have fumbled the ball. The opening scene, in which villain Loki (from Thor) uses the Tesseract (from Captain America) to infiltrate a facility run by SHIELD (from Iron Man), feels a little messy - and then it devolves into an underwhelming car-chase that feels very messy. All the preceding Marvel films had stronger openings than this, you think, and as the stupid British title appears on screen (Avengers Assemble? Really?) you feel the tiniest twinge of disappointment.

Don't worry. It passes, and it passes fast.

The Avengers is playing the long game, and playing it perfectly. This is the first film I can remember, ever, that consistently gets better throughout. There are five main setpieces (including that lacklustre car-chase) and each one is twice as good as the one before. The same thing applies to dialogue scenes and emotional beats - each one is better than the one before it. Within the setpieces themselves each money-shot is an improvement on the last. It's incredible. It seems so obvious, yet I've never seen it before. Surely all blockbusters should be made this way! If the opening is a low point, it's a necessary one to make this exponential climb achievable.

We're this far into the review and we've not even mentioned the characters. Which is ridiculous because the characters are why we're there, they're the best part of the film, and they're the reason any of this works. Joss Whedon gets characters. We knew this already, from Buffy, Firefly and more, and it becomes quickly apparent that Marvel knew this too - it's why they hired him. There are nine major characters in the film (the team themselves, their boss, their enemy, and fan-favourite Agent Coulson) and, with only a few exceptions, each one gets a significant moment with each of the others. Every relationship in this complex web is clear and fleshed out, and all of the best moments in the film emerge naturally from those relationships. Stark and Banner, Loki and Black Widow, Coulson and Captain America - these are moments you'll remember as much as some of the action beats. For some (read "Hulk") the best character interactions are the best action beats!
This juggling act is handled so well that, despite the many strong and conflicting personalities, despite some characters being more famous or popular than others, no-one ever seems in danger of overshadowing the others (cough, Tony Stark, cough). Robert Downey Jr. plays his usual showboating rockstar, but that's ok because the script doesn't try to make the others into rockstars. It lets them compete on their own terms: Banner sarcastically undercuts him, Cap stares him down, and Thor doesn't even care - he's a god! They all get their moments, but they grab that limelight in different ways. It's why they work when they're at odds with one another, and it's why they work even better when they finally come together as a unit.

Oh, there are flaws, sure. Maybe more flaws than any other film on this list:
Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye is seriously short-changed for over half of the movie, character-wise, but he has history with Black Widow (possibly the most fleshed-out of the team) and their easy friendship goes a long way towards fixing this.
Whedon's composition is sometimes a little flat - he's a TV director on only his second ever movie, and when there's five people talking in the SHIELD war-room it really does show - but like everything else in the film this gets better as it goes on, eventually opening out into something grand and cinematic.
The eventual enemies are an army of generic robo-thingies, just identical cannon-fodder with no character beyond "evil", but storywise they're only an extension of Tom Hiddleston's brilliant Loki and that guy has more than enough personality to go around!
Banner/Hulk's arc swerves very quickly at one point and can be hard to accept, but the film does explain it and it worked for me.
Certain things at the end fall into place a little too conveniently, but they don't stick out or feel forced and they certainly don't take anything away from the massive climax.
We got a silly different title in this country, for which there is no reasonable excuse.
There are others - probably lots of others - but in the moment itself they don't even register. You're having far too much fun to care!

The entire film is perfectly summed up in one moment of the final battle. A microcosm in a single shot. The camera flows from character to character as they fight through the streets, giving them each an individual moment that highlights their personality and skills, then having them join another character to combine their powers in unique and personal ways, before fluidly moving onto the next - it constantly ramps up the scale and excitement into a huge finale, then ends with a strong laugh.
Did I mention this film is funny? Because, on top of everything else, this film is really funny!

It's obvious at this point that my objectivity is completely gone. I unashamedly love The Avengers. It's without doubt the greatest experience I've had in a cinema for years. Maybe ever. When the credits appeared I actually applauded. I didn't clap for long because this is England and people looked at me funny, but I longed to be in an American cinema so I could be part of the cheering crowd this film deserved. I thought that feeling would fade, but I felt the same way the next two times I saw it, too.
When I look back on the films of 2012, as much as I love Middle-Earth and as great as Looper was, my overriding thought is of that scene with Loki and Hulk. I wouldn't dream of suggesting that The Avengers is the best film of the year; but, for me, it is undeniably the Film of the Year.