Author Archives: Richard Warburton

Superhero Movies at a Crossroads?

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The latest Marvel movie and the third in its Norse chapter, Thor: Ragnarok, may herald a marked change in that franchise’s approach to superhero films.  The production of these films is as predictable as a car assembly line and their content as varied as the colours of a Model T but with Thor Three a new ingredient has emerged, that of humour.  In contrast I was recently at a cinema to see Blade Runner 2049 when the trailer for DC’s Justice League came on.  There was a palpable sense of ennui from the audience.  Perhaps they had already signalled their indifference to superhero fare by choosing to see Blade Runner but I sensed a shift that just might dent one of these studio giants.

Taking its cue from the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Thor Three’s accent is firmly on the comedy.  Thor himself is self-deprecating and droll while supporting characters present plenty of less than super attributes.  Tessa Thompson plays a Valkyrie who, when not booting monsters all over the place, advocates heavy drinking.  The really surprising thing is that she does not experience an epiphany and hold forth against the demon drink when her character arc demands it.  And, considering that Marvel Studios is a subsidiary of Walt Disney, this is a turn-up.

Superheroes are a sexless bunch but, finally, in Thor Three we detect some lewd thoughts flickering between our beefy god of thunder and his fetching Valkyrie.  There is the faintest tickle of potential hanky-panky between these traditionally po-faced heroic archetypes.  At one point the goodies have to fly their spaceship into a black hole called the Devil’s Anus. Change is indeed afoot.

Meanwhile over at DC studios, the same old formula that brought you the excruciating Superman: Man of Steel and the tired Batman v Superman: Yawn of Justice, (sorry Dawn), is busy promoting its latest commodity.  Justice League brings together Batman, Wonder Woman and some other assorted gimps you’ve never heard of to fight someone called Steppenwolf.  It’s tiring even writing this stuff.  Judging from the trailer it’s all square jaws and CGI fisty-cuffs with little evidence of the refreshing wit found in Thor.

Will audiences tire of these cinematic facsimiles?  I sincerely hope they do.  This may sound mean-spirited but my objections to this cycle of inanity are not based merely upon personal taste.  The money poured into these productions is immense; Justice League had a budget of $250 million.  For all that, we will get some feeble musings on the nature of good and evil wrapped up in a 120 minute montage of FX enhanced martial arts.  It is truly depressing how much stock, young people especially, put into what are ultimately conservative, status quo perpetuating sagas that are brainless and backward.  Wonder Woman broke the mould with a female lead after decades of male protagonists.  Racial tokenism is rife while the presence of gay characters, despite appearing in the comics, have yet to materialise on screen.

While Thor Three did provide some cheer for the super-weary, the end of spandex-clad shenanigans is not nigh.  The Asian market continues to bolster these movies even when they perform poorly in the west.  William Goldwyn famously stated that in Hollywood, “Nobody knows anything.”  He was talking about the unknowable formula for making a hit film.  Today I fear that Hollywood executives know exactly what to do.  Until one of these films tanks at the box office the procession will persist and the cinematic landscape will be the bleaker for it.

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Mother!

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If you are the kind of person that gets twitchy when a hot cup of tea is plonked beside, instead of on top of, a perfectly good coaster then Mother! is not the film for you.  It is the tale of a frustrated poet (credited as Him) and his house-proud wife (credited as mother) living in an idyllic country house.  He spends his time not writing while she noodles about sploshing muted Farrow and Ball tones on various walls of their chic wooden dwelling.  Her domestic goddessing routine is upset when strangers start arriving and, crucially, not leaving however many times she screams “Get out.”

An unknown couple stay over at the behest of the poet followed by their bickering sons.  What follows is rather like watching an episode of Grand Designs in reverse.  Strangers begin to arrive at the house in greater numbers as the film initially plays out as a home invasion horror.  The mother’s show home is steadily ruined as hordes of the poet’s acolytes descend on them, literally tearing the house down.  The film unfolds like the kind of nightmare where you are entirely impotent to events going on around you.  mother dashes from room to room straightening rugs and emptying ashtrays only to find a new group of hell raisers have arrived.

Critical chatter around this film has been mixed, with a good deal of words devoted to the allegory that the film purports to represent.  The sharp-eyed among you will have noticed that the poet’s credit is Him with an upper case h while mother and everyone else including ‘man’ and ‘woman’ are all lower case.  Yes, we are in God territory here.  Javier Bardem is God, Jennifer Lawrence is Mother Nature., the house the Garden of Eden.  The first two strangers to arrive, Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer are Adam and Eve, the sons Cain and Abel etc.  The destruction of the house is the pollution of the world and so goes the allegory.

If Mother! feels burdened by a need for interpretation it succeeds in being a nasty and very difficult film to watch – which is a good thing.  Director Daren Aronofsky is tapping into his previous work with the bristly paranoia of Black Swan and the way the camera is often stationed just behind Lawrence’s shoulder as it did behind Mickey Rourke’s in The Wrestler.  The choreography and escalation of the violence and horror make for a deeply uncomfortable second hour as Aronofsky tightens the umbilical cord he has wrapped around your neck.  That Mother! chases its own tail will come as no surprise for some.  However, you may well share the sentiments of four unlikely geysers sat to my left.  As the credits rolled one of them queried, “What was the f****** point of all that?”  What indeed?