Unconventional Superheroes

Darkman

Watchmen

We’re closing out the month of August with a genre of film that is often formulaic, overdone, and nearly inescapable in the current cinematic landscape: superhero movies. The superhero films of the past were fun, silly, fairly low-stakes excursions into post-war ideals of humanity. They were stories that were well-portrayed in comic form because of their cartoonish overtones, and that’s why (for this critic, at least) they work so well when they’re made by the likes of Tim Burton—someone who only operates in real-life cartoons. The superheroes of the 20th century were both over-the-top, and flat. The objective was simply to create an unstoppable force of evil that is proven to be thwarted by a slightly more unstoppable force of good. Comic books could pack in loads of character-building and exposition into its pages, but their film adaptations were seldom dedicated to that same sense of realism. The superhero films of the modern era are generally now split into two different worlds of superheroes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the world of DC comics, but if you dig deeper (and trust me, too many people do) there are far more ways to analyze and categorize this genre. Due to the immense amount of superhero movies (particularly MCU movies) being made today, critics and fans and creators have immense opinions about them. Acclaimed directors like Martin Scorsese have been coaxed into talking shit about the over-saturation of superhero films in the zeitgeist, seemingly just to cause a further divide between Marvel-stans and the rest of the world, and perhaps to create interesting buzz and press for this surprisingly bland and mostly-formularized genre. And while these expectedly negative opinions about this expectedly perfunctory genre ultimately add nothing to the conversation, some opinions are worth discussing. Much has been discussed about the problematic nature of superhero movies that aggrandize and glamorize the American military-industrial complex, and yet, Marvel films just love to indulge in it. Their characters are fictional, but the stakes can be somewhat realistic, which makes the way that they are written into the real world all the more troubling. For example, Captain America and Captain Marvel are walking, talking military propaganda. And perhaps most disturbing of all, the beloved character Iron Man is a straight-up war profiteer who manufactures weapons used against the Middle East, which would be distasteful enough, with or without the funding and the materials donated by the actual United States military (Marvel would go on to make at least six more movies with the approval and assistance of the DoD) Many of these stories of superhumans, warts and all, could actually be utilized in such different, interesting ways. Marvel could focus on the paradigm between wanting to save the world and being forced to work within the earthly confines of limiting and destructive governmental structures, Marvel could discuss the complicated topic of what makes a human with superpowers less human, but they very rarely do. Only in recent Avengers films (with that purple fella) has this idea of “what is truly good and what is truly evil” come up, but it’s still done under some pretty vanilla circumstances. It’s only really in DC films that we see the blending of good and evil, particularly among its surprisingly sympathetic villains who typically are not motivated by evil at all. Poison Ivy is just an environmental activist fighting against a billionaire who would rather take matters in to his own gloved-hands than provide proper funding to Gotham City, and people like Catwoman and Harley Quinn are not wholly evil, just concerned with their own self-interests. That’s why, as many damn Marvel movies as I’ve seen, I lean more toward DC. Because the characters are interesting, their origin stories make even an ounce of sense, and yet when it comes to their on-screen adaptations, they never take themselves too seriously—which is my biggest issue with Marvel. These are women and men in spandex, living out the ultimate mortal fantasy, okay? Superheroes do not need to be anything more than that, but if you’re trying to convey more than just high-flying hijinks, at least make it interesting! I can’t even tell you the name of the last Marvel movie I watched but I can tell you that I will never tire of watching Birds of Prey, or any iteration of Batman. There is such an emphasis on Marvel and DC that one can easily forget that there are superhero characters that exist outside of these two universes, like the protagonist of tonight’s first film: Darkman. Sam Raimi’s 1990 film Darkman follows scientist Peyton Westlake, who, after he is horribly disfigured, burned, and left for dead by some mobsters, seeks out his revenge. Much like The Crow, Darkman is a superhero who kills, and for his own vengeful benefit. Darkman is deservedly full of rage after he is nearly murdered, his lab is destroyed, and his girlfriend Frances McDormand can no longer recognize him, and yet his brutality toward his killers is still a bit unexpected. Because it’s a Sam Raimi film, Darkman has a script that is equal-parts hilarious and dark, but this actually lent itself very well to the world of superheroes. From the opening scene to the very last frame, the dialogue sounds like it was ripped from the pages of a comic book. And with the addition of a Batman-meets-Frankenstein-esque score by Danny Elfman, and a bevy of broad-shouldered tough guys, this story belongs among the ranks of aesthetically-pleasing superhero stories. It was surprisingly scary and bewilderingly surreal, and yet with Darkman’s superpowers being rooted in science, the story was far more viable than I expected. Its practical effects and makeup were well done, and if it weren’t for some truly laugh-out-loud special effects, Darkman would be a more effective mindfuck. There is one sequence that is meant to be disturbing but just made me cackle—where poor Liam Neeson is blown up and thrown through the sky as he wails weakly, then we cut to the horrified Frances McDormand, who is in one moment watching this happen, then suddenly she materializes into funeral attire and her background fades into a cemetery. It is one of many distinctly goofy moments in a movie that, actually, has pretty realistically messed up implications. And while I can appreciate good conquering evil, I’m much more interested with superheroes who are not intrinsically good, and supervillains who do not always resemble people, but corporate greed and exploitation. Darkman certainly provided me with this, but it was Zack Snyder’s 2009 film Watchmen that took this concept and really ran with it. Here I was, assuming that the greatest subversion of the superhero genre would be anti heroes, when, in reality, there is so much more to explore. Watchmen is a complete and utter deconstruction of the superhero genre that was both painfully of its time and shockingly ahead of its time. Watchmen is based on the 1980s comics by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons, and introduces us to a dark, dystopian world set in an alternative American history—where superheroes exist and are used by the government. In this version of history, (which will be truncated to save some time) superheroes helped America win the war in Vietnam and gain a strategic advantage with the Soviet Union, which ultimately causes Nixon to serve another term and eventually forces most superheroes (or “masks” as they’re called here) to go into retirement—although some continue to work outside of the law. Two stories are being told here: there is the story of the complex impact of superhumans upon society throughout history, and there is a whodunit story. When one of the original, and most disturbing, superheroes is murdered, its up to the rest of the remaining masks to figure out who’s behind it before they’re all killed off. Stylistically, Watchmen is unabashedly, cringe-ily 2009—from its relentless slo mo, its perpetual rain, its early-2000s sepia filter, its usage of slurs and casual misogyny, and Zack Snyder’s insistence upon using the most obvious yet bizarre musical cues. The implementation of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen songs were lyrically a good fit but I must admit that this film has perhaps the worst usage of “Hallelujah” that I have ever heard. Thematically, Watchmen had some of the most ground-breaking ideas that I’ve ever come across in this generally predictable genre. Being released between the laughable 90s superhero movies and the ever-expanding Marvel do-gooder empire, Watchmen introduced audiences to a different kind of superhero concept. Nowadays we have shows like The Boys to show us how subjective the ideas of good and evil are, but back in 2009, this was entirely inspired. They say you should never meet your heroes, and Zack Snyder clearly took joy in exploring exactly every reason why this is true. Watchmen seemed to revel in its own cruelty, and really seemed to swing for the foulest fences that an R-rating would allow. With the amount of violence, gore, and other adult situations this film includes, it stands in strong contrast against the highly-sanitized superhero movies we typically see. This is the first superhero film, that I’ve seen, that portrayed superheroes as complicated figures. These characters have sex, they kill for fun, they kill because they have to, they adapt to the grimy world that they helped create and protect and it just made sense. As Carrie Wittmer and other critics have pointed out, for being such scantily-clad characters, superheroes are entirely asexual creatures—so the superhero sex scenes alone were kind of mind-blowing. In addition to this, not every character, even the “good” ones, is entirely likable. They all make decisions that are questionable, and confusing, even, much like human beings do. To watch these superhumans struggle to be human, was incredibly fascinating. And while this is not the most feminist film (but still more feminist than Snyder’s film Sucker Punch), Watchmen at least had the decency to provide us with a healthy amount of male nudity. I mean, Billy Crudup as Dr. Manhattan just has his dick out the whole time, and no one talks about it, but it was great. It’s a complicated movie, and I’m still wrestling with it, honestly. For every brilliant line of dialogue about how messed up the world is, there would be at least two offensively trite monologues about how messed up the world is. I cannot overemphasize how clever this story is, but it was far from concise. This movie is nearly three hours long and there was simply no need for that. Watchmen had style and substance, and it certainly stands out among the pantheon of superhero films, for better or worse. Much like Zack Snyder, I’m having trouble editing this down to a succinct post, so I’ll conclude by saying that neither of these films would likely please the young, run-of-the-mill Marvel fan, but I do encourage fans and avoiders of this genre to give these two a try. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s an end to this very long post!