Henry Cavill’s Kal-El a.k.a. Clark Kent a.k.a. Superman

This post contains spoilers regarding Man of Steel, so if you have not seen the film and wish to remain unspoiled, please read no further.

Aren: A lot has already been said about Zack Snyder’s reboot of the Superman mythos, Man of Steel. But we’re not going to let that stop us from continuing the conversation. To be honest, what’s been written so far hasn’t been that compelling. Too much of the critical conversation has centred on who Superman is to that particular writer, not enough on the choices the film made and their success (or failure) within the world Snyder and writer David S. Goyer created.

To get it going, I will simply say that I’m glad we now have a solid modern Superman film. I like the Marvel Cinematic Universe and some of the X-Men films are good, but with Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy over, and Green Lantern being a big dud a couple years ago, I was missing DC on the big screen. Superman most of all. While I don’t hate Superman Returns like many people (nor do I adore its glamorization of Christopher Reeve like others), the film didn’t really stick in my mind. It didn’t make me excited. Walking out the Scotiabank IMAX theatre after Man of Steel ended, I mentioned to Anders that I was excited for the sequel. This is always a good thing for a blockbuster movie and something a Superman movie hadn’t done in my lifetime.

Anders: I think the most impressive thing about Man of Steel is the way it truly gives us a Superman film on a grand scale. In fact, Man of Steel has more in common with films like Star Wars or Avatar than it does with most other superhero films in terms of creating a massively intricate world.

People always harken back to Superman: The Movie and the tagline, “You’ll believe a man can fly.” As much as I admire aspects of the first couple of Christopher Reeve films, I’m not sure they actually deliver on that promise; Man of Steel certainly does. At least for me it did. The sequences where Clark first practices flying are pretty fantastic, one of the moments in the film of pure joy that I think has been overlooked in the emphasis on the film’s “seriousness.” Superman’s abilities are given a suitably grand treatment so that they actually become awe-inspiring. We may quibble about whether his actions are inspiring, but his powers certainly are.

It’s not just the powers that are fully realized here, but the scale on which a being of Superman’s power could and would be able to operate. I understand the idea of choosing Zod as the villain this time out, as it gives the filmmakers the opportunity to really have Superman let loose. Man of Steel gives us the most all-out superpowered battle in cinema history (I feel confident saying that). I remember the Wachowski’s talking about how they wanted the final battle in the Matrix films to be a kind of superhero battle, with overtones of Dragonball and the kind of all out madness that comic books and animation can reach. In Man of Steel, Snyder shows us what a titanic battle between two super-powered beings could be, but manages to imbue it with enough elegance and weight to avoid tipping into cartoon territory.

Anton: I appreciate that the technology is finally capable of fully realizing Superman’s powers on-screen. I imagine that Zack Snyder had fun playing around with the heat vision, the super-speed, the flying, etc.

That said, after watching Man of Steel I felt very similar to how I did after seeing The Avengers, or more recently Iron Man 3. Fatigued. In too many of these summer blockbusters, the narrative almost stops to let the heroes and villains pummel each other and destroy a bunch of stuff for the last 45 minutes. In comparison, the final battle in The Dark Knight Rises, more driven by narrative and character development, seems almost quaint. But then people complained that ending was underwhelming.

Superman must choose between his birth world of Krypton and his adopted home of Earth.

Aren: I agree that the film is overwhelming at points. I felt exhausted coming out the theatre, worked over by the apocalyptic action and the thundering drums of Hans Zimmer. But Man of Steel has some beautiful little moments that drastically contrast to the big action, something that The Avengers certainly doesn’t have and something I’m not even sure The Dark Knight Trilogy really does either. I speak, of course, about the flashbacks.

Coming after the prologue on Krypton and Clark Kent’s intervention on the oil rig, these flashbacks give us a glimpse into the character’s formative years and the frustrations that accompany his powers and inform his present day existence. They all have to do with how his parents taught him to harness his powers and come to terms with how his existence will have a grand effect on the world. They’re more than moments of wisdom. They’re moments of beauty and affection for not only small-town Americana, but the trials and concerns of parenting. The scenes may not unequivocally support Jonathan Kent’s (Kevin Costner) opinions about how Clark should approach the world, but they show the motivation for his thinking, his concern built out of love.

My favourite of these scenes is the moment where Jonathan Kent watches his son in his red cape playing with his dog, realizing just how much of an effect he’ll have on the world. It seems to be Zack Snyder’s riff on Terrence Malick. It has a similar tenderness to the childhood scenes in The Tree of Life. Soft focus. Magic hour lighting. The simplicity of childhood standing in for some grand existential understanding. This scene moved me deeply. It captures the profound meaning and calm that parents gain from the joy and success of their kids.

Anton: Some of the editing between scenes and timelines was awkward, while other flashbacks were motivated very clearly. I think the storytelling is uneven in this respect.

Aren: I think the motivation is there, but it’s purely motivated by character. To invoke my favourite TV show for a moment, LOST perfected the art of the flashback in its first couple seasons. Whenever a character would do something particularly surprising or whenever something occurred that really cut to the heart of a character, the show would flashback to a pre-Island event that motivated that character’s later actions and paralleled the emotional arc the character seemed destined to repeat throughout their lives. In Man of Steel a similar logic exists to the flashbacks.

The first time we have a flashback, Superman is floating beneath the waves, overwhelmed sensorily by the firestorm of the burning oil rig. He is fighting for calm, and so we go back to a moment in his childhood when he was overwhelmed by his powers, by his capability to see and hear more than the average boy does. We see how his mom calmed him and taught him to control his gifts.

In another scene, Superman appears in a northern fishing village and seeks to go unnoticed. He spots a school bus and we flash back to a moment where he saved his fellow classmates from drowning in a bus. We see the immediate consequences of this action: another parent calls out the Kents regarding Clark’s powers based on the testimony of her son. Clark realizes that the world is terrified by his powers, even if they do good. We understand the emotional turmoil and confusion it causes him. This flashback explains why he is so careful to stay hidden. The same kind of motivation works for every flashback. It helps us understand the character’s motivations in each stage of the film.

These flashbacks can be a little convenient, perhaps, clearing up character details just when we need them cleared up, but I hardly think they’re awkwardly placed.

 Anton: Well, I think you’ve selected the two most clearly motivated flashbacks. Changing directions though, I thought the cast was solid, especially Henry Cavill, but Amy Adams was sorely underused. I kind of think Michael Shannon has been overpraised for his one-note performance of simmering rage.

Michael Shannon as General Zod.

Anders: In contrast I felt that Shannon just cemented his place as one of the best American actors today, able to work in stripped down indie productions (Take Shelter), long form television storytelling (Boardwalk Empire), or here in a mega-budget blockbuster. Not many actors have that versatility.

The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. I think most people agree that Kevin Costner’s Jonathan Kent is fantastic, but Diane Lane is also great as Martha Kent. In fact, if I have any complaint about both of their roles it is that they are underutilized in the decision to present Clark’s history in flashback. I buy Amy Adams’ Lois Lane as both a tenacious reporter and as an object of Clark’s fascination. She’s one of the few actresses who can radiate both confidence and girl-next-door beauty at the same time. Also, let’s not forget Russell Crowe’s Jor-El. Crowe does a great job in some of the most difficult scenes to sell (i.e. the most fantastic and otherwordly). He would have made a great Jedi Knight in the Star Wars films. His Jor-El reminds me of Obi-Wan Kenobi, down to his spirit guidance to the characters after his death.

Yes, Shannon’s Zod is a force of rage, but at the same time I found him sympathetic enough. Was he sympathetic enough to lend real weight to the decision Superman is forced to make at the end of the film? Henry Cavill sells Kal-El’s cry of anguish at having to kill the last (known) survivor of his homeland, aside from himself. But I think my biggest complaint about the film is that Snyder and Goyer’s decision to have Superman kill Zod keeps the film from being, for me, the definitive take on the hero. I’m not angry enough that it ruins the whole film for me, since it does have precedence in earlier incarnations of the character.

Lois Lane (Amy Adams) accompanies Superman to the Kryptonian ship.

For example, in John Byrne’s Superman run in the 80s Superman chooses to execute a trio of Kryptonian villains who otherwise will continue destroying universes. But the difference there was that it was a decision that came after Superman had been established in his run having a code against killing and the comic book format allows them to explore the ramifications of such an action on the hero. Perhaps the next film will explore the moral implications of a god-like being who is willing to play executioner, but for now we have to accept that it was simply a difficult decision that Superman was forced into by Zod’s power and evil. Was it a narrative slight of hand that could have been avoided?

Interestingly enough, producer Christopher Nolan was against the move. In an interview with Empire Magazine, Goyer reveals that Nolan “didn’t even want to let us try to write it and Zack and I said, ‘We think we can figure out a way that you’ll buy it.” I think Nolan was ultimately right in his initial gut instinct — he went out of his way in his Dark Knight movies to have Batman adhere to a moral code, in order to contrast him against the League of Shadows. I think that if they had saved Zod for a future installment it might have had more legitimacy as a key character moment for Superman. But apparently Snyder expects us to take away from the trauma of the moment that Superman will never kill again. However, I’m not sure the film earns that take away.

Anton: Does it matter that Superman kills the villain when he’s basically levelled Metropolis’s core? How many thousands die during the final smash-up? For me, the significance of Superman’s final moral dilemma in the film is not only overshadowed by the previous unheeded carnage, but it’s also underwhelming because Superman’s rule against killing is only implicitly understood by knowing audience members.

Anders: Yes, at times this film, as do most films with characters with long histories as I explained in my Star Trek Into Darkness review, lapses into our collective memories of the characters in order to shortcut actual development.

I also understand your revulsion to the scale of the destruction, and implicit death, caused in the Zod vs. Superman battle, but at the same time, as I mentioned earlier, here is a threat that actually requires Superman’s Herculean power. And the truth is that a battle between two being on that scale would be hugely destructive. There is perhaps a missed opportunity to explore the fact that Superman would rarely get to unleash that kind of power. It’s something that was briefly explored in the Justice League: Unlimited Darkseid episode where Superman gives his speech about a “world of cardboard.”

Anton: I understand that these are special circumstances, but Superman should have at least addressed the carnage, or expressed some regret for it.

Aren: I do think there are some interesting implications in all this carnage and disaster that Snyder and Goyer can explore in the sequel. They would do well to use Lex Luthor to voice these concerns that many viewers are having. Openly address Superman’s shortcomings in the sequel and have his nemesis use it against him. But enough of my theorizing about the sequel.

An interesting and under-discussed aspect of Man of Steel is how sci-fi it is. The prologue, which takes place entirely on Krypton with Jor-El as the hero of the story, is a sci-fi adventure film. It seemed to be appropriately operatic and did a good job of establishing Krypton as a living world (near death, of course), which was essential considering how much Kryptonian politics comes in to play in the later acts of the film.

Goyer explained that he wanted to focus on Superman’s alien origin this time. He wanted to dig deep into the idea that the moment Superman announces himself to the world, he will have drastically changed humanity’s significance in the universe. While every superhero film is operating in the science fiction genre to varying degrees, Man of Steel seems to dive head-first into sci-fi, and I applaud it for doing so. While the film could possibly be faulted for being too serious, Snyder and Goyer do a good job of making the sci-fi elements fit well with the rest of the story. The Kryptonian operatics don’t distract from the realistic portrayal. Luckily we were spared any tonal awkwardness that results from combining a cosmic storyline with a more conventional hero tale, ala Green Lantern.

Anton: I also want to add that even though I dislike aspects of the film, I do not adore the Christopher Reeve versions. As far as I’m concerned, all the existing Superman movies have aspects I like, and aspects I dislike, to varying degrees.

Man of Steel also demonstrates that superheroes are no longer “crime-fighters.” Apparently terrorists and extraterrestrials are the only baddies a superhero (apart from Batman) should deal with. Perhaps it’s part of the tendency to amplify stakes in contemporary entertainment. A mystery about murder, let alone a robbery, does not interest us. We want to see serial killers. Superman stopping a mugging seems trivial. But does this diminish the idea of the superhero as an ideal of the individual acting for good? What sort of example does the Man of Steel set for us, when the only thing he does publically is fight off an alien invasion?

Lastly, although the final scene made me smile, I’m also sad that it appears Lois already knows Clark Kent’s secret identity, so we’ll miss out on all that fun. (Anyone who says that Lois not recognizing Superman behind the glasses is simply too fake or silly doesn’t understand what a narrative convention is.) Plus, we’re talking about a man flying around in red underwear. Or we used to be, I guess.

Aren: We may understand narrative conventions, Anton, but the whole glasses masking Superman’s identity to a woman that knows him as well as Lois does is one of those corny elements that people who dislike Superman point to again and again as being ridiculous. I disagree, but Snyder clearly was catering to this contemporary belief that Superman is often too lame to be cool.

I just want to touch a bit upon the written criticism of Man of Steel. I’m fine with everyone having their own take on Superman. If some people see Christopher Reeve’s corny Superman as the definitive take on the character, that’s fine. I personally love the Max Fleischer cartoons of the early 40s. If some people can’t stomach the serious tone of Man of Steel, that’s also fine. We all have our preferences.

However, what I can’t stomach is critical hypocrisy. In 2006 Superman Returns came out to fairly positive reviews and a decent box office haul. However, opinion on the film quickly soured and people were quick to denounce it as boring and corny. They asked where the super action was. They asked for a new take on the character that seemed relevant nowadays and wasn’t beholden to Christopher Reeve’s work. They wanted something new.

Fast-forward to 2013 and Man of Steel comes out. If it is one thing, it is a new take on the character. It isn’t beholden to the old films. It is action heavy. And what do many critics do? They complain that it’s too action heavy, that it lacks any of the corny charm of the character. Basically, whatever they disliked about Superman Returns is what they complained was lacking from Man of Steel. This just seems lazy and knowingly dishonest criticism.

Is it too much to ask for a critic to approach a film with an open mind?

Anders: I get where you’re coming from. I really liked the film, but I think that with a property like Superman it’s impossible to come to it on its own. Many of my complaints with the film are grounded in what I see as missed opportunities, elements that came across as insufficiently fleshed out, and less so a desire to tell a director how he should have directed the film. In fact, that kind of criticism drains filmgoing of one of its key joys, the joy of surprise. For all its perceived faults, Man of Steel surprised me by offering a unique take on the character.

Aren: Yeah, I understand you. I just wish more critics were upfront about their biases. Approach the film the filmmaker made, not the film you would have made. Don’t review the hype, review the movie as it exists on the screen.

It’s fine to dislike Man of Steel. It’s fine to dislike any movie. Just don’t be a jerk about it.

Man of Steel (2013, USA)

Directed by Zack Snyder; written by David S. Goyer, based off a story by Goyer and Christopher Nolan, based off the character created by Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel; starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Kevin Costner, Diane Lane, Laurence Fishburne, and Russell Crowe.

I have a soft spot for coming of age stories. Films about youth, in particular young men, learning how to approach the adult world with some measure of wisdom and courage strike a chord with me. Thus, The Kings of Summer would seem to be my kind of film. And in certain ways it is, but not in the key ways that matter.

One half of the film is a whimsical and observant look at a young man’s desire to control his own world and affirm his own masculinity. That young man is Joe (Nick Robinson), a high school freshman who is finishing up the school year and suffering through the bottled rage of his father, Frank (Nick Offerman). Joe’s mom is dead, and Joe, being a mama’s boy, as Frank repeatedly points out, is still feeling the loss. In an effort to harden Joe up and help him adjust to his new way of life, Frank both neglects and belittles Joe, compounding the emotional loss Joe is already suffering.

One night after a drunken high school party, Joe and the oddball Biaggio (Moises Arias) wander through the woods on the way home and discover a beautiful little clearing. This spot gives Joe an idea and an escape from his father. Along with his best friend, Patrick (Gabriel Basso), and the tag-along Biaggio, Joe decides to move to the woods and construct a house where he can live out his adolescent fantasies of masculine independence.

This central conceit of building a house in the woods and living off the land leads to some great little moments, which director Jordan Vogt-Roberts has a keen eye for. There are beautiful shots here. Some are of the boys standing in a clearing in the middle of a field, golden and godlike against the setting Ohio sun and the shimmering tall grass. One shot of Patrick practicing his violin on the side of the forest stream seems taken from a different, gentler film. And there’s also the intriguing teaser of the boys pounding on an oil pipe they found in the woods, creating a drumbeat with every strike of the wood, which shows early promise.

However, the other half of the film undoes all this beauty and honesty. This half is a more conventional comedy. The recent film The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a perfect example of a film that knows how to entertain the audience but at the same time not betray its brutally honest portrait of teenage troubles. Sadly, The Kings of Summer doesn’t seem to trust the power of its charms to win the audience over.

Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta shoehorn in awkward moments and random jokes. Biaggio seems to be an amalgam of oddball traits meant to get laughs. In one scene he states, “I can read. But I can’t cry,” for inexplicable reasons. None of his behaviour is motivated by discernable character traits. If Joe and Patrick are both honest portraits of two-sides of contemporary teenage masculinity, Biaggio is just a hodgepodge of what Galletta finds to be the funniest and most stereotypical aspects of weirdos.

The film also has a strange undercurrent of misogyny. Joe’s masculine paradise is set-up directly in opposition to girls, and you almost get a sense that Joe hates women because he feels his mom abandoned him by dying. But none of this is ever explored. It pops up in character moments involving Joe only to fade away as the plot necessitates unearned growth on the part of the character.

Perhaps that’s The Kings of Summer’s biggest fault. While it can be funny and charming at points, you never really believe that Joe grows up at the end. And for a coming-of-age story, that just won’t do.

5 out of 10

The Kings of Summer (2013, USA)

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts; written Chris Galletta; starring Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso, Moseis Arias, Nick Offerman, Erin Moriarty, Megan Mullally, Marc Evan Jackson, and Alison Brie.

M. Night Shyamalan has had a rough couple of years, and unfortunately After Earth is not a complete return to form for the disgraced auteur. After Earth is certainly his best movie in years, perhaps even a decade. However, Shyamalan’s recent track record includes major duds like Lady in the Water, The Last Airbender, and the dreadful The Happening, so it’s not that hard to top these films.

From a screenplay by Gary Whitta and Shyamalan based off a story by Will Smith, After Earth is a minimalistic adventure story about a father and son. It’s 1000 years in the future, humanity lives on the distant Nova Prime, and Commander Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) crash land on the abandoned Earth. However, Earth has evolved to be lethal to humans. Since Cypher is injured, his son has to make the trek across the lethal landscape to the tail section of the spaceship in order to make the transmission necessary to save their lives.

For such potentially emotional material focusing on the bond between father and son, this is a surprisingly unmoving film. When it reaches for its few moments of emotional honesty, and especially during its unearned climax, it falters, which is unfortunate because the film’s not a disaster. There is an admirable restraint to the material. The story is fairly unembellished and shares the stripped down quality of certain other wilderness films like The Hunter and The Grey.  Simply put, it isn’t another sci-fi fantasy trying to ape Avatar.

There are points of interest interspersed throughout the film. For one thing, Shyamalan still knows how to direct an individual scene. Learnt from Hitchcock, his framing always hints at the dangers lurking outside the frame. In an early scene, Kitai approaches an immobilized ursa, a monster than can smell human fear, and Shyamalan demonstrates his uncanny ability to build suspense and unleash a thrill at the right moment. There are touches of the thrill-master of Signs here.

And yet the film has some fatal issues. Although I very much enjoyed Jaden Smith’s updated version of The Karate Kid (which totally should have been called The Kung Fu Kid), it’s clear that Jaden is not yet a bona fide leading man. In The Karate Kid he was leaning heavily on Jackie Chan’s charisma, and here he desperately needs his dad’s help to lift the film’s energy. Unfortunately, the elder Smith is playing such an emotionless cipher, he doesn’t lend the film any much-needed human energy.

For better and worse, this isn’t neutered Shyamalan. Anyone who thinks this film lacks Shyamalan’s signature touches needs to look closer. Perhaps his authorial stamp is a little diluted by the presence of Smiths, but there’s so much of After Earth that screams Shyamalan. The deft camerawork that hints at the dangers lurking off screen; the obsession with fear as the great paralyzer; the insistence that family can overcome all dangers — all Shyamalan signatures.

It’s encouraging to see that Shyamalan’s talent is not entirely gone, even if he hasn’t regained the heights of Signs or Unbreakable. Still, After Earth is merely a fine movie. It holds a certain appeal to the choice demographic (fathers and sons), but the storytelling is lacking. The technical craft is dazzling. The plot is serviceable. But the story fails. However much Shyamalan and the Smiths try, we don’t care whether the heroes live or die, which is a fatal problem indeed.

5 out of 10

After Earth (2013, USA)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan; written by Gary Whitta and Shyamalan based off a story by Will Smith; starring Jaden Smith, Will Smith, Zoe Kravitz, Sophie Okonedo, and Glenn Morshower.

Jeff Nichols is an American director of remarkable talent, and Mud is a remarkable film.

It has to be said that Nichols has an impressive track record. His 2007 debut, Shotgun Stories was a complex portrait of a family feud, and his 2011 psychological drama Take Shelter was a critical darling with a powerhouse performance from Michael Shannon. Now with Mud, a tale of two kids and a runaway murderer, Nichols’ transformation into one of the great American directors is complete.

Nichols tells stories that take place in his home state of Arkansas, and there’s an authentic folksiness to his work. While many prominent American auteurs restrict their focus to New York (or upper middle-class Americana), Nichols’ showcases lower-class Middle America unpretentiously. His portrait of Middle America rings true and appropriately romantic. Essentially, his films are about the kind of people we may think simple and base if we passed them in the street. Nichols deconstructs our foolish assumptions as he shows us the complex drama of their blue-collar existence.

It’s no coincidence that Mud draws many comparisons to the work of Mark Twain. While Nichols lacks the satirical edge of Twain, in Mud he is operating in Twain’s wheelhouse: the American tall tale. If Shotgun Stories resembles the feud between the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons in Huck Finn, Mud mirrors the river story at the novel’s heart. Mud’s hero Ellis (Tye Sheridan) is an inquisitive kid, quiet, earthy, romantic. He’s a combination of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer. He’s idealistic in his notion of how people act and profoundly disturbed at their failure to live up to his ideals.

When Ellis and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) find Mud (Matthew McConaughey) on a river island, living in a boat in a tree, Ellis quickly deems it their duty to help Mud reconnect with his old flame Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and escape the law that’s hunting him down for murder. Ellis doesn’t let Mud’s crime deter him. To Ellis, Mud’s pure love of Juniper rights any wrongs, and demands his help.

Matthew McConaughey as Mud is the highlight in the actor’s recent renaissance. After years of slumming it in disastrous romantic comedies, McConaughey rediscovered his dangerous side with great turns in The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, and Bernie. He’s even set to star in the new films of Martin Scorsese and Christopher Nolan. He’s especially terrific and terrifying in William Friedkin’s Killer Joe, but he may be at his all-time best in Mud.

It helps that Mud is a fantastically written character. He’s a superstitious wildman and old-fashioned romantic mixed into one: both the danger and the allure of classical masculinity. Which is perfect for McConaughey, a masculine actor with an unparalleled natural charisma, but also an understated danger. If there were justice in the world, Mud would put the final nail in the coffin of anyone still thinking McConaughey a mediocre actor.

Of course, much of the credit goes to Nichols, who knows how to direct a performance as well as frame a shot. Nichols’ camera has hints of Terrence Malick. He has a keen eye for using natural imagery to create atmosphere and tie scenes together. Also like Malick, he has an uncomplicated adoration for the American landscape. But unlike Malick, Nichols doesn’t let people become abstractions in the frame. He lets the camera linger on the faces of his protagonists, allowing us to read their minds and peer into their souls.

Mud is a new high for Nichols and McConaughey. It’s a tall tale with the beating heart of a coming of age film, and represents pure, blissful American storytelling.

9 out of 10

Mud (2013, USA)

Written and directed by Jeff Nichols; starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Sarah Paulson, Ray McKinnon, Sam Shepherd, Michael Shannon, Paul Sparks and Joe Don Baker.

The Wolf Pack: Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis) in the original film.

I’m a fan of The Hangover trilogy.

I’m going to be upfront about this so that no one is confused about where my sympathies lie. While some people hold Anchorman or Zoolander in very high esteem, thinking them comedy classics, I find the first Hangover movie to be the epitome of modern mainstream American comedy.

Most people would agree with me that the first film is a solid comedy, maybe even classic, but few people share my enthusiasm for its sequels. They think them shallow cash-grabs without much in the way of gags. While I disagree on a purely humour-based level—I find the sequels to be hilarious, Part II most of all—I also think the sequels uncover a level of self-aware satire, and establish the trilogy as the essential deconstruction of mainstream American comedy.

A Meta-Trilogy

I think a fruitful way of discussing aspects of The Hangover trilogy is comparing it to a structurally-similar trilogy, and if there’s a trilogy The Hangover films bear most resemblance to, it’s the Back to the Future films. Bear with me here as I elaborate.

Like Back to the Future, the first The Hangover is an original twist on some familiar elements. Back to the Future was a Spielbergian sci-fi adventure using time travel as a way to explore family anxieties. The Hangover was a frat-boy comedy using a noir mystery structure to explore its own characters’ debauchery. They’re high-concept genre pieces that were well received and didn’t really necessitate sequels. The Hangover is not particularly meta on its own, and doesn’t have quite the nihilistic misanthropy of its sequels.

Phil, Stu, Alan, and Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) in a familiar position in the second film.

However, the second film in each trilogy makes you rethink the first one in major ways. And both sequels interact with the very structure of their predecessors.

In Back to the Future Part II, Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) has to return to 1955 and ensure that all the events of the first film actually occur so as to assure his family’s eventual well-being. There’s a section of the film which takes place in the future of 2015, but the most interesting part of the film is when Marty actually watches himself in the climax of the first film, giving us a new vantage point on the meaning of these events. While the first film was this clever, original adventure that was fairly uninterested in the paradoxes its central premise created beyond how it affected its characters emotionally, the sequel added layers to the original, and made the time travel paradoxes its very subject.

The Hangover Part II is a seedier, nastier, funnier riff on the first film. I love its intense devotion to reworking the structure of the first film, beat for beat. While some people find the repetitive nature of the film lazy, I find nothing lazy about such deliberate structuring. If the film were lazy, it’d be similar to the first one, not nearly identical.

Like Back to the Future Part II, The Hangover Part II sheds new light on the first film by directly interacting with the first film. Back to the Future Part II inserts its hero into the very events of the first film, showing that the supposedly isolated actions in the first film are actually complicated components of a space-time paradox. The Hangover Part II has the Wolf Pack stuck in a repeat of the events of the first film, except with bigger stakes and darker setting, showing that the characters are intrinsically destructive.

In The Hangover, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms), and Alan’s (Zach Galifianakis) debauchery is seen as a result of their intoxication. They’re supposed to be seen as these fairly typical guys—standard character types: the cocky guy, the straight-laced guy, the weirdo—and so we could see our own intoxicated stupidity, amped up, in their own misadventures. The film was supposed to be saying, well, who hasn’t done stupid shit when you’re black-out drunk?

However, when these characters repeat their insanity in The Hangover Part II, we have to look at their actions in the original film in new light. These aren’t just the results of intoxication. Not all people leave such swathes of destruction in their wake when they’re intoxicated. These characters are sick people. Stu says that he’s got a demon in him in The Hangover Part II. In Part III, Alan tells Mr. Chow that whenever they get together, bad stuff happens and people get hurt. These are probably the most self-reflective moments these characters have in the films.

Again, the Wolf Pack find themselves in an elevator.

Even Back to the Future Part III and The Hangover Part III share similarities. Both eschew the structure of the first two films and give a genre take containing the same characters as their predecessors. Back to the Future Part III is a western and The Hangover Part III is a crime thriller. Both films humour the genre desires of their directors. Robert Zemeckis clearly wanted to do a western and since the genre was fairly defunct in the late 80s, he incorporated Marty McFly into it. Todd Phillips seems to have a desire to direct genre action films, but knew that studios wouldn’t give him the money unless he included the Wolf Pack in the action.

Both films exist ostensibly to give the characters a happy ending, but as the credits stinger in The Hangover Part III shows, the supposed lessons these characters have learned are hollow. The Wolf Pack is bound to keep raining destruction down on the world whenever it gets together. Although Alan swears off Mr. Chow in the film’s climax, Chow returns in the credits stinger. The growth of these characters is revealed to be a shame. The comedy of these films is finally outed as dark satire.

Satire, Not Comedy

The Hangover trilogy has been billed as a blockbuster comedy series. It’s the appearance the marketing team wants to put out there, and what most audience members see it as. However, as the layers and repetitions of the sequels show, this is a series about the nihilism of the mainstream American comedy. The trilogy lays bare the pretense that the characters of mainstream American comedy films can act like pathetic man-children, be abuse and destructive to other individuals, and then get away with it in the end because they learn some kind of lesson. The Wolf Pack learns no lessons. And their damage only escalates as their adventures continue.

As I said earlier, the three central characters in The Hangover films are deliberate types. Phil is the cool guy. Stu is the normal guy. Alan is the weird guy. These are three of the typical American comedy character stereotypes. By focusing on these stereotypes, the kind of characters you see in most every American comedy, Will Ferrell to Adam Sandler, Todd Phillips is deconstructing the supposedly safe aspect of American comedy.

The Wolf Pack in a Buddhist Monastery.

Galifianakis’s Alan is the real key to understanding the misanthropy and nihilism of these films. The man-child has been a staple of American comedy for years. The late 70s had John Belushi. The 80s had John Candy. The 90s had Adam Sandler. The 00s had Will Ferrell. Now we have Zach Galifianakis. In The Hangover films, Alan is a barely-functioning sociopath. His insanity causes the hangover of the first two films in the franchise. His friendship with Mr. Chow constantly brings that more dangerous element into the lives of the Wolf Pack and puts people at danger. At the climax of The Hangover Part III, his actions indirectly leave several people dead.

In American comedy we’re supposed to laugh at these sorts of man-children, not berate them. They can be offensive, vulgar, hurtful and all-around insane, so long as at the end of the film, they come to some sort of realization and pretend to incorporate into normal American society. What this attitude does is excuse the destructive nature of this character type and the inherent misanthropy of this comedy staple. The Hangover films refuse to do that.

In the first Hangover, the characters go on their destructive rampage throughout their blackout, but at the end of the film, they swear off partying and all is supposedly well in the world. But then they repeat their actions in the second film and more shit gets destroyed. Instead of just trashing a hotel room, they set a Bangkok city street ablaze. Instead of kidnapping a tiger, they kidnap an old man. Their destruction is amplified. Their false promises are shown as just that: false, and their destructive nature is highlighted. In The Hangover Part III, they don’t blackout, but the ripple-effects of their actions leave at least four people dead, a giraffe beheaded and a whole lot of buildings trashed.

I cannot stress enough how important it is that the Wolf Pack repeats their drunken escapades in the credit stinger of The Hangover Part III. By having this be the final thing we ever see of the Wolf Pack, Phillips is saying that they will never change, and that the stereotypical heroes of American comedy will never stop being destructive. Most American satire doesn’t have the balls to really show that its targets are irredeemable. Take last year’s The Campaign, which started out as a promising satire of American politics, but then had to ease up on the satire, and allow the characters to change and mature. Todd Phillips, however, is so misanthropic he has no qualms about holding back on showing that change is impossible.

The Hangover films are certainly not for everyone. Their twisted humour and unrelenting misanthropy turn most people off and appeal to a darker sense of humour than the average person has. But by being so dark and downright unsentimental, Todd Phillips makes them the definitive statement on the destructive nature of mainstream American comedy. He lays bare its nihilism and the misanthropy of its comedic heroes.

People don’t have to agree with me that The Hangover films are brilliant movies. But they are most certainly not the shallow comedies critics accuse them of being. They’re saying something dark and disturbing about the current state of American comedy. Perhaps they’re just saying something that most people don’t want to hear: that what we laugh at is awful, and that the heroes of our fictional comedies are the monsters of our reality.

The Hangover (2009, USA)

Directed by Todd Phillips; written by Jon Lucas & Scott Moore; starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Heather Graham, Ken Jeong, and Jeffrey Tambor.

The Hangover Part II (2011, USA)

Directed by Todd Phillips; written by Scot Armstrong & Craig Mazin & Todd Phillips; starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Justin Bartha, Ken Jeong, Jeffrey Tambor, and Paul Giamatti.

The Hangover Part III (2013, USA)

Directed by Todd Phillips; written by Todd Phillips & Craig Mazin; starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, Zach Galifianakis, Ken Jeong, Justin Bartha, Jeffrey Tambor, Melissa McCarthy, Heather Graham, and John Goodman.

Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto as James Kirk and Mr. Spock

This review contains spoilers for Star Trek Into Darkness and other Star Trek films, and is aimed at folks who may or may not be considered Trekkies, but who do find something of value in the Star Trek series.

It’s somewhat rare that the brothers have major disagreements on films, though they do happen. I don’t out and out hate Star Trek Into Darkness, but I don’t share Aren’s enthusiasm for the film to nearly the same level. I think that there are issues with the film that keep it from achieving the level of either great Star Trek-film or great summer action film.

Not all of those issues stem from how the film fits into the existing Star Trek series; I’m skeptical that the film stands truly alone. Ultimately, while it’s a diverting and generally entertaining film, Star Trek Into Darkness expects an audience to have some knowledge and affection for the past Star Trek films, particularly Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, to draw maximum pleasure from the repeated callbacks and in-jokes that pepper the film. At the same time, the logic and execution of the references is lacking, which makes me wonder who exactly the intended audience of this film is?

But first a couple of positive comments about the film: I really didn’t hate it, and it has a lot of good things going for it. First among them is Chris Pine in the role of James T. Kirk. Pine does a great job of portraying Kirk in all his brash and fast-thinking bravado. Pine manages to deliver the lines spoken by Kirk in such a way that they truly feel like it’s the same character, if an alternate timeline version, of William Shatnar’s icon. It’s a remarkable performance, and some seem unable to see past Pine’s boyishness, preferring Zachary Quinto’s Spock. Quinto is good, but for me can’t quite seem to get past playing to every generic expectation of Spock and his emotionless logic. It’s easy to forget that Leonard Nimoy’s Spock was actually quite varied and complex, even in early episodes of the original series. But still, Pine and Quinto do an admirable job as recast versions of two of the last century’s most iconic science fiction characters.

Another strong point of the film is Benedict Cumberbatch’s performance. Anyone who is a fan of this rising star, particularly his fantastic performance as Sherlock Holmes on the BBC’s Sherlock, knows that he is a formidable actor. As “John Harrison,” Cumberbatch gets plenty of opportunity to be a badass and deliver threats and warnings to the Enterprise crew. But this is where things get tricky and begin to fall apart.

Benedict Cumberbatch is great as a menacing villain. But as this villain?

By now if you’ve seen the film or visited the IMDb page for the film, you know that Cumberbatch is not actually John Harrison, but the infamous Khan Noonien Singh, formerly played by Ricardo Montalban. Yes, the Khan of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, here is found by the shadowy Starfleet agency, Section 31, before the Enterprise does and put into service to protect the Federation. Of course, Khan is not to be trusted and is pushing his own agenda in order to free his crew.

In choosing to not go the straight reboot route and instead present this series as an alternate timeline, J. J. Abrams frees himself to offer alternate stories with the same characters. But by branching the timeline, shouldn’t he stick to the origin of anything prior to where the timelines split? The best parts of the film are where it diverges the most from the originals, such as when Kirk and Khan team up (temporarily). It’s a minor nitpick, but why is Khan suddenly now white and seemingly possessing far more strength than he did in the original series or film? Perhaps this was an opportunity to take the Singh name seriously, and recast Khan as a Sikh? It would definitely be a more interesting take on the idea of a superhuman than another villain that reeks vaguely of white supremacy.

But the biggest problem with bringing back Khan as the villain is that at this point, Khan hasn’t yet earned the history with Kirk that would make him as memorable as he was in Star Trek II. As Aren pointed out in our discussion about the film, it is more a reworking of the original series episode “Space Seed” that introduced Khan than a remake of Star Trek II. At least it should be, given where it falls in the character’s history.

One of the many callbacks to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Is it earned?

But it isn’t. J. J. Abrams and his writers apparently decided that to do a Khan film without some major nods to Star Trek II would be a waste. So we get Alice Eve as Carol Marcus doing little, the death of a major character while trying to restore the warp core, and, yes, “KHAAAAAAAN!” It comes across as merely fan service, but it points to what is the biggest problem with this series.

J. J. Abrams claims that he just wants to make Star Trek into a sweet action science fiction series, but the constant callbacks to the original series are more than just nice nods for fans in the know. For Star Trek (2009) or Star Trek Into Darkness to have emotional resonance, the films require the audience to have a preexisting emotional attachment to the characters and knowledge of plot points that have come before. What I feel the effect is for the most part is a lazy shorthand to drawing audience connection. The stakes seem bigger than they actually are because the audience knows that in Star Trek II, Khan killed Spock. In his appearance Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) even calls Khan the most dangerous foe the Enterprise ever faced, which seems hyperbolic since Khan was always more of an immediate threat to the ship and crew rather than the whole universe.

It’s symptomatic of J. J.’s entire approach to Star Trek that the emotional stakes rely on audience history, not what is actually on screen. So, in Star Trek Into Darkness, when Kirk makes the ultimate sacrifice, we’re supposed to be really moved and believe that Kirk and Spock are best friends, but really out of the two films we’ve had with them they spend much of the time at odds with each other. Only the presence of Spock Prime telling young Spock that they are supposed to be best friends exists, combined with what we all know about nearly 50 years of Star Trek canon. The desire to remake Star Trek II means that they wanted to repeat a character’s sacrifice, but the film hasn’t earned it at this point and it feels diminished.

Other major characters get short shrift, particularly Dr. Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban), who at this point in the films has done little other than repeat his admittedly funny one-liners. Aren says that the joy of the film is watching these actors interact with these iconic roles, but at this point it’s almost like watching karaoke versions of the characters: repetitions of lines and nods to character traits, but not real engagement with them.

My verdict on this film is basically that the contention that the film will be more appealing to non-Trek fans ignores the fact that Star Trek Into Darkness relies on what has come before as a nostalgic crutch. I’ve ignored much of what many are describing as plot-holes, because, well those don’t matter much to me. I think Star Trek has always had lots of questionable plot machinations that never detracted from my enjoyment of them. But, while I agree with Aren that there are some very good action sequences and real moments of fun along the way, Star Trek Into Darkness fumbles in its negotiation of being either a straight reboot or faithful to the spirit of the original series. It ends up being a fun action sci-fi that falls somewhere in between. And while that’s good enough that it may still end up being one of the summer’s better blockbusters, it could have been so much more.

6 out of 10

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013, USA)

Directed by J. J. Abrams; written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof; starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) together again.

This review of Star Trek Into Darkness is intended for non-Trekkies, so no spoilers or intricate references to the original Star Trek series will follow.

J. J. Abrams is the right choice for Star Wars. He’s already made two Star Wars films, they are just labeled as Star Trek movies. With Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams ups the personal stakes and brings in a more formidable villain in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch’s John Harrison. The film may lack the freshness of the 2009 film, but it’s still a superior summer entertainment.

In Star Trek Into Darkness, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine), First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the crew of the Enterprise are tasked with hunting down John Harrison after he delivers a devastating attack on Starfleet Headquarters. Kirk takes on the ethically questionable mission as a sort of vendetta against Harrison after suffering a personal loss in the attack, and along the way, tangles with Klingons, rogue Starfleet officers, and his own moral compass. The whole thing plays out as a big 9/11 allegory, with a newly militarized Starfleet as the U.S. military, Harrison as Bin Laden, and Kirk as the American people stuck in the middle.

Star Trek often reflects the fears and hopes of the time it’s made in. The original series was born out of the civil rights era, and it envisioned a future utopia where race relations and human strife were things of the past. This earthly harmony opened up the opportunity for exploring the universe. Since everyone nowadays seems to think the world has gotten darker since the 60s–with 9/11, the War on Terror and all–Star Trek Into Darkness reflects a contemporary world of terrorists, drone strikes, and shadowy military operations. Along with this summer movie season’s Oblivion, and to a lesser extent, Iron Man 3, Star Trek Into Darkness can be taken as a warning against preemptive strikes and trusting machines to do our fighting for us. The darkness of the title refers to our own willingness to fight fire with fire, adopt the tactics of the enemies we purport to hate. In the film Kirk is tempted to embrace the darkness within himself to beat his enemy—become the monster he seeks to destroy. Echoes of Dick Cheney abound.

Again, the writing plays fast and loose with elements of the original series and films. Star Trek Into Darkness isn’t a film made for Trekkies. Abrams has said repeatedly that he wanted to make these new Star Trek films films for non-Star Trek fans, and that he even found the old series kind of boring. If this sounds less-than-appealing to Trekkies, it’s good news for other filmgoers, as detailed fanboy knowledge isn’t required to enjoy the film.

For all the darkness of the film, Star Trek Into Darkness is a continuation of the fun of the 2009 film. The humour is still there. Simon Pegg’s Scotty is a highlight, given an expanded role this time and plenty of room to let his comedy talent shine. Karl Urban’s Bones is kind of sidelined, but his one-liners are hilarious. Watching these actors interact with each other in these iconic roles is the real joy of the film. And this may be the fastest paced film of all time. At 132 minutes, it blasts by—you might even say at warp speed.

Star Trek Into Darkness is full of spectacle, humour, and charm. It’s not perfect storytelling, but people will be hard-pressed to find a more exciting sci-fi film in cinemas these days.

8 out of 10

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013, USA)

Directed by J. J. Abrams; written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof; starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood, and Benedict Cumberbatch.

Gatsby’s (Leonardo DiCaprio) splashy entrance.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an ambivalent work. Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation is successful because it retains and embodies the novel’s contradictions. Like the novel, the film is a splendid account of the Jazz Age, expressing the period’s boundless exuberance, but it also exposes the carelessness and decadence. As a romance, it reveals both the vitalizing and destructive aspects of idealized love. Most importantly, however, the viewer’s feelings for Jay Gatsby are still mixed. Gatsby is contemptible yet admirable, empty yet profound—for that is the dangerous, difficult, illusory nature of dreams, and none more so than the American dream.

In shaping an accessible film, Luhrmann and his co-writer Craig Pearce do make some changes. Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) still narrates, but Luhrmann and Pearce have devised the frame device of having Nick put the story together in a sanitarium. I agree with Rick Groen from The Globe and Mail that the sanitarium scenes create a believable setting for the highly elaborate narration. The film’s visualization of Nick as the narrator also draws attention to the narrative’s layers, reminding the viewer that one is watching Nick’s account of Gatsby. Throughout the film, Luhrmann also emphasizes Nick as a watcher, making him a voyeuristic surrogate for the audience as well as narrator. Maguire has a built a career out of playing sympathetic loners, and he embodies Nick well.

Leonardo DiCaprio was an excellent choice to play Gatsby. With a splashy entrance almost a third into the film, Gatsby is a star role if there ever was one. When we first see DiCaprio as Gatsby, I couldn’t help thinking that there probably isn’t another movie star at the moment who has enough presence, charm, and star status to play him. DiCaprio excels as Gatsby, always subtly communicating that Gatsby plays Gatsby. Carey Mulligan is effervescent as Daisy, Joel Edgerton is an intimidatingly physical Tom, and Elizabeth Debicki’s Jordan Baker is appropriately distant.

Luhrmann himself doesn’t fail to impress. The Jazz Age parties are infused with a flashy hip-hop aesthetic and beats, which, while obviously anachronistic, invests the twenties glitz with twenty-first century pull. Luhrmann uses the 3D camera very well, reminding us, as Scorsese did in Hugo, that there is much potential for the format beyond exploding objects flying at our faces. It’s fitting that a film about illusions literally projects a kind of façade. Matt Zoller Seitz has complained that the parties don’t feel like real parties, but isn’t that the point? They’re stupendous shows put on by Gatsby in the hopes of attracting Daisy, even if the attendees don’t know that and are really drunk. I think Joshua Rothman is more on track in his New Yorker essay titled “The Serious Superficiality of The Great Gatsby.” Luhrmann’s overkill conveys the decadence of the twenties. Too much is the right amount. The spectacle dazzles at the same time it draws attention to its artificiality.

With the film’s excessive indulgence in its visual luxuries and kinetic pleasures in mind, I want to add that The Great Gatsby is a welcome addition to the summer lineup. In many ways, it’s classical big-budget entertainment, hearkening back to the days when big movies were big not because they were part of some action-packed fantasy mega-franchise, but because they had big stars, high or middle-brow source material, and always impeccable and lavish production values. These qualities used to define Hollywood. Now we think of superheroes and ceaseless climactic escalation. So after the smash and tumble of Iron Man 3, it’s a pleasure to take in this total artwork. Every aspect adds to the total effect and pleasure—the cool anachronistic tunes, the swooping camerawork, the gorgeous fashion, the beautiful sets, the flagrantly artificial (in a good way) special effects, the fine acting, and, of course, the wonderful source material.

8 out of 10

The Great Gatsby (Australia/USA, 2013)

Directed by Baz Luhrmann; screenplay by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald; starting Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Elizabeth Debicki, Amitabh Bachchan, and Isla Fisher.

It’s strange to think that two of the most compelling deconstructions of the American Dream in recent years would come from Michael Bay in Pain & Gain and Harmony Korine in Spring Breakers.

Bay’s Pain & Gain and Korine’s Spring Breakers were released within mere weeks of each other. They both feature main characters obsessed with a sense of their own specialness and the pursuit of some ideal Americanism. Practically every other line from Alien (James Franco) or Daniel Lugo (Mark Wahlberg) contains some reference to the American Dream. These are films concerned with the quest for that elusive dream and the often-drastic consequences that follow from that quest.

Of the two, Pain & Gain is the more straightforward. In many ways it plays as a trash version of a Coen Brothers film—desperate, idiotic losers come up with a plan to make it big (in this case, kidnap a wealthy man and steal his money) and are faced with the disastrous results of their own idiocy (dead bodies, drug problems, the police, etc). The Coens claimed Fargo was based on a true story (it wasn’t). Michael Bay rubs your face in the fact that his ludicrous story is true. Pain & Gain doesn’t have the deadpan wit or subtly of a Coen Brothers film—it’s in your face, all the time. But it does share some of the misanthropy of the Coens.

Spring Breakers is more elliptical. It deals with repetition. Korine’s themes are drawn out through the repeated dialogue and images. The hypnotic beats that overlay the images are as important as the lines within the scenes. It’s a story of four college girls who go down to St. Petersburg, Florida, meet a gangster rapper named Alien, and cut loose pursuing their American Dream through violence and debauchery. There have been some comparisons between this film and the work of Terrence Malick. The comparison isn’t all that ridiculous. Just like Malick, Korine is more interested in what the structure of the piece says than what the narrative itself says.

At the centre of both of these films are sociopathic characters pursuing their wild dreams and destroying anything that comes in their way of achieving them. Daniel Lugo in Pain & Gain and Candy (Vanessa Hudgens) and Brit (Ashley Benson) in Spring Breakers are “Doers,” to borrow the language of Ken Jeong’s motivational speaker from Pain & Gain. They believe they’re special and use this belief to justify their actions, no matter how extreme. Other people have the resources and lives that these characters want. Instead of working to gain these things honestly, they merely set out to take them from others.

Lugo targets Victor Kershaw (Tony Shalhoub), a wealthy Miami businessman, kidnaps him, and forces him to sign over his assets to Lugo and his pathetic friends, Paul Doyle (Dwayne Johnson) and Adrian Doorbal (Anthony Mackie). Candy and Brit insert themselves into the life of the pathetic rapper/gangster Alien, and acquire his goods as well as set their targets on the wealth of his gangster rival. Lugo ends up becoming a psychopathic yes-man. He’s so optimistic in his plans and so oblivious to how he’s hurting people, it’s scary. Candy and Brit become angels of death, donned in their neon bikinis with SMGs. Lugo ends up in prison, but Candy and Brit drive off into the night in a sports care, still haunting the American Dream.

While the main instigators themselves are compelling characters, probably the most fascinating individuals in both Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers are the fools taken in by the instigators. Lugo, Candy, and Brit are stupid enough to believe their ludicrous plans will work, but they’re also smart enough to convince even stupider people to follow them.

In Pain & Gain Dwayne Johnson play Paul Doyle, an ex-con who became a Jesus freak in prison in order to overcome his crippling coke addiction. Johnson plays the character as a kindhearted beast, whose simpleminded gentleness contrasts harshly with the violent monster he becomes when he’s coked out. He’s usually Ferdinand the Bull, but wave a red flag in front of him (in this case, coke) and he’ll charge through you, no problem. When Doyle’s given the task of guarding Kershaw, he bonds with Kershaw over their shared membership in AA. He’s always hesitant to do any awful deeds, but he’s too dumb to refuse Lugo’s requests. He’s both victim and tormentor.

Alien in Spring Breakers is a kindred spirit to Paul. He’s a gangster rapper who spews street talk, but it’s soon clear he’s much less dangerous than Candy and Brit. There’s a brilliant scene where Alien shows the girls his bedroom and takes out his multi-coloured shorts: “Look at my shit! I got SHORTS! Every fuckin’ color!” It’s like a bizarre version of the scene where Jay Gatsby shows all his fancy shirts to Daisy Buchanan: the vapidity of the character’s dream laid bare. Alien is a fool, but he’s got grand dreams and he pays for them. His intensions aren’t pure, but there’s no doubt he’s the film’s most layered and sympathetic character.

At their heart, Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers are trash satires. They take this pervasive concept of the American Dream and show how violent it is. Since they’re so in your face about how the awful things these characters are doing are being done in the name of achieving the American Dream, it’s pretty easy to take the characters actions as representing any quest for the American Dream. When boiled down to its core, the American Dream is always about taking from others, asserting your dominance over the weak: climbing the pile of corpses, so to speak. One person can’t rise unless another person falls. Not everyone can be grossly wealthy.

This realization isn’t particularly deep, but satires are rarely subtle. Satire is often emphasized through caricature, humour, and gross simplifications: all utilized in both Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers.

The danger of Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers is that the audience can misread them. These satires can be seen as glorifications of the very things they condemn. I’ve seen more than one Facebook status glorifying the girls of Spring Breakers as badasses, and at my screening of Pain & Gain there were plenty of macho dudes cheering for Lugo unironically.

Perhaps the weakness of Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers is that misreading these films has its root in the source material. Pain & Gain satirizes macho America, but the king of macho American cinema made it. Bay attacks his main characters, but he also fetishizes their absurd masculinity—he’s made an entire career on championing man-children as heroes. The rampant nudity and debauchery of Spring Breakers is definitely satirical, but that doesn’t change the fact that Korine seems to enjoy the sight of booze-soaked breasts a little too much. Not every audience member can be expected to look past the bombardment of trashy images, and Bay and Korine had to expect this.

Pain & Gain and Spring Breakers aren’t brilliant as a whole—they have moments of brilliance combined with scenes of excess—but they’re compelling works from unexpected sources. For essentially mainstream American films, they challenge their audiences in surprising ways and inject meaning into trash entertainment.

Pain & Gain (2013)

Directed by Michael Bay; written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely based on a magazine article by Pete Collins; starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, Anthony Mackie, Tony Shalhoub, Rob Corddry, Rebel Wilson, Ken Jeong, and Ed Harris.

Spring Breakers (2013)

Written and directed by Harmony Korine; starring James Franco, Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine.

SPOILERS regarding Iron Man 3 will follow, so if you haven’t see the movie (and judging by the box office numbers, you have), beware!

Aren: Marvel Studios is on a roll. Last year the big gamble of The Avengers paid off with a $207 million opening box office and a final total over $600 million. In retrospect it seems preposterous that the film was even considered a gamble, but I guess anything that’s new is considered risky. This past weekend Iron Man 3 debuted to a huge $174 million, second only to its predecessor The Avengers. Clearly the studio is doing something right with audiences.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s main trick is replicating the feel of comic books on the big screen. By pumping out a linked movie universe that acts very much like a long-form TV show, I think they’ve tapped into the part of the audience that relies heavily on comfort. The audience gets to know these characters over the long haul and is safe in the knowledge that these characters will act in the ways they want them to act, and that each individual film will bring a slight variation to the formula (perhaps a generic bent), while still ultimately offering up the same. “Same but different,” is a key concept in showbiz. Marvel Studios has aced this concept.

But all this audience pandering is beside the point. The real question is whether Iron Man 3 lives up the heights of the Marvel Cinematic Universe—namely Captain America and the first Iron Man—or whether it’s just another big corporate beast with most of its spark coming from Shane Black’s zippy dialogue?

In short, is Iron Man 3 any good?

Anton: What bothers me is how little I care about answering that question. Is Iron Man 3 good? It was pretty good. But at this point, it almost doesn’t matter. Marvel has me hooked. It’s like asking if the lastest episode of Mad Men was any good (not that any of the Marvel movies are nearly as good as Mad Men). Whatever the case, I’m not quitting the series. In that sense, your comment about the influence of long-form television is spot on, but you also can’t overlook the influence of the original superhero medium. What Marvel Studios has done is introduce the never-ending serial nature of comic books to franchise filmmaking. As long as the Marvel films keep making money there is literally no end in sight. So if we’re talking about television, the best comparison is a show like The Simpsons. Disney also seems intent on converting their latest valuable acquisition—Star Wars—to a similar never-ending serial format.

To be fair, if someone reading this is smarter about their money than me, and he or she is wondering if Iron Man 3 is worth paying to see, I would say I enjoyed it. It’s funny, witty, and entertaining. But it’s also incredibly flippant and wholly superficial. It’s pure fast food—fleeting pleasure.

Anders: Iron Man 3 is definitely a fleeting pleasure. Twenty-four hours later, I’m not compelled to think about it much or filled with a desire to see it again soon. Anton mentions the film’s entertainment value, and, yes, this might be the funniest Marvel film thanks to Drew Pearce and Shane Black’s screenplay. But conversely, one of the biggest problems with these films is that I end up feeling exhausted by the end of them, despite their ostensible function as light entertainment. Every single film has to raise the stakes, make it more personal, or deconstruct the hero so that he questions whether he wants to even be a hero. In short, they are all operating at extremes. I think there are places to do that, but not every single superhero film has to be The Dark Knight or even The Avengers in terms of being an event or tackling serious subject matter.

Which is to say that while I agree that Marvel clearly wants to replicate the ongoing nature of the comic books and that the long-form serial television comparison is fair, on the other hand, to borrow Anton’s Mad Men comparison, not every episode needs to be world shattering. Mad Men allows itself numerous episodes that merely develop character (or, as in the case of this season’s 3-4 episode stretch, to set a pervasive mood or tone), between the episodes that propel the overall plot forward and shake up the status quo. Where are the episodes of Iron Man where we just get to see Tony Stark be a superhero? Or just be a cool “mechanic”? What is his day-to-day superhero life like, or is he just known for the few events we see in the Iron Man films and the “New York Incident”?

Perhaps Marvel is afraid that if they don’t make each film an “event,” that people will grow tired of them. But I think the opposite is true and viewers will suffer burn-out. If we’re going to have two or three individual hero films each year and an Avengers film every 2-3 years, I would love to see a more modest-in-scope Marvel film.

Aren: Probably the ballsiest adaptation choice in Iron Man 3 is how the Mandarin is portrayed. In the comic books, the Mandarin is Iron Man’s nemesis. It’s not even that he’s the most interesting or dynamic of Iron Man’s many villains (Iron Man doesn’t have that many memorable villains, to be honest), but that he’s been around forever. The Mandarin as he is conceived in the comics is super powerful, with magic rings of varying ability, but the character is also a pretty racist stereotype. I don’t blame Marvel Studios for avoiding the tricky waters of having a Mandarin who could be seen as a racial caricature. But to completely jettison the character, as they ended up doing, seemed like wasted potential.

In Iron Man 3, the Mandarin is this theatrical figure played by Ben Kingsley who hijacks the airwaves and delivers these Bin-Laden-esque videos threatening the U.S. and taking credit for various bombings. However, the Mandarin is actually a fictional creation played by a drug-addicted actor who was meant to take credit for the explosions caused by Aldrich Killian’s malfunctioning Extremis experiments. This take on the Mandarin is supposed to make a statement about how villains can be illusory creations and that this kind of grand foreign bogeyman is an outdated and harmful figure, distracting away from the real villains, like the amoral CEO Aldrich Killian. Matt Singer has a good defense of this portrayal on the Mandarin over at Indiewire (read it here). But here’s what I think the Mandarin as portrayed in Iron Man 3 really says:

Always go for the joke.

The subtext about villains and illusions is there, but when it comes down to it, the Mandarin reveal is a joke. Ben Kingsley is funny playing the idiotic actor (I was reminded of his playing himself to hilarious effect on that Season 6 Sopranos episode), but what this choice says is that everything but the humour of the moment is expendable. The Marvel Studios films are all about the in-jokes and the giddy humour of the moment. Why the filmmakers didn’t want to try to tackle an actual supervillain, someone who could give Tony Stark a run for his money and really make him feel insignificant (a big theme this film is trying to explore), I don’t know. The Mandarin was the villain to bring Tony Stark to his knees. But now that opportunity has come and gone.

I think the Mandarin also shows that the Iron Man films have a serious problem with villains. I wasn’t expecting the villain here to be as memorable as Joker or Bane, but could they at least make a villain as compelling and entertaining as Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull in Captain America? The first two Iron Man films had villains who were practically robots bashing against Iron Man in the final act. Iron Man 3 tried to avoid that, and I admire that, but the way they avoided it is by not having a villain who can really fight Tony. The only reason Killian is at all a threat to Tony physically is that Tony doesn’t have his suit on every time he faces him.

My thoughts aren’t based on any kind of fanboy zeal for the comics. I don’t particularly care how faithful any films are to their source material. But when Ben Kingsley came out of the washroom, drunk and slovenly, I was hoping that the film wouldn’t confirm what I thought was happening. When it did, the theatre was laughing. I was chuckling. But I wasn’t impressed.

Anton: Iron Man 3 is also probably the most cynical mainstream superhero movie ever made. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark has always been a rakish hero, but whereas the first film was about a selfish, brilliant playboy learning the value of selfless actions, this third entry only makes a few faint gestures towards traditional heroism. I mean, Tony’s pretty much an asshole to the quasi-sidekick boy introduced in the middle of the film. (I’m not sure if Tony’s calloused comment to the boy that daddy issues are for pussies is just a mean joke or a jab at DC’s characters; either way, it’s pretty rough.) Tony’s behaviour towards the boy never really improves; he just buys him a bunch of stuff at the end.

In the film, Tony’s primarily driven by a crushing fear of loss of control and “good old-fashioned revenge” (as he puts it), but neither of these dubious motives are significantly questioned, as they are in films like Watchmen or Batman Begins. It’s true, at the end, Iron Man has to save his girlfriend Pepper Potts, but although the film briefly suggests he must choose between his personal life and social duties—that is, between saving Pepper and the President—the choice is soon dropped and the film descends into robot mayhem.

Oh yeah, did I mention that it’s revealed that the “good” President helped out greedy oil tycoons after a big oil spill, and that the Vice President is secretly in league with the villain? What sort of America is Iron Man defending? Furthermore, as Aren already said, the supposed big baddie, the Mandarin, who seems determined to make the U.S. accountable for its mistakes, turns out to be a fake—a mere decoy-terrorist meant to conceal the machinations of an evil scientist-turned-CEO. This film is wholly cynical. I’m not saying it’s dark and serious. In fact, Iron Man 3 couldn’t be more different than, say, The Dark Knight Rises. Rather, it both sneers at and relishes its material. The only thing Iron Man 3 believes in is that people are motivated by self-interest—even Iron Man—which is fitting since Iron Man is the great hero of capitalism.

As much as I dislike the film’s cynicism, it does offer us something new. Writer-director Shane Black has jettisoned the noble pretensions that so often veil the base desires that drive most action films. It’s a brash, flashy deconstruction of a superhero movie, at the same time that it’s a pretty standard superhero movie. It’s both something novel, and something you could easily skip.

Anders: The Shane Black connection was always the most fascinating one to me going into this film, since I didn’t particularly care for the second Iron Man film. I was hoping that the RDJ/Black team-up could inject some of the humour and genre understanding of Kiss Kiss Bang Bang into a franchise seemingly running out of steam after two films. In the resulting film, Black’s authorial stamp is hard to miss for anyone who familiar with any of his other films or screenplays, particularly noting the kind of genre deconstruction that Anton mentions. But what results are fairly major tonal shifts as Black is forced to shoehorn that vision into the larger template set by the Marvel Studios brand. There’s never a sense of real existential threat or rage that, say, we get from Riggs in Lethal Weapon, because audiences have no doubt that, as the end credits announce, “Iron Man will return.” But that aspect has to sit next to elements that I suppose are adding to the combined Marvel Cinematic Universe (and sell toys!) and those elements don’t always sit well next to each other.

I think if I was going to criticize one thing about the screenplay here, and I think this has to do with part of what interests Shane Black as a screenwriter, is that the film is sloppy in defining powers and rules with which to lend the film its superheroic aspects. It’s as if Black and Pearce didn’t really care. What exactly does Extremis do? Why is it that sometimes the Iron Man suits can fly on their own and other times they can’t? Why can’t the President use the Iron Patriot armor after it’s reprogrammed, but Killian can? It seems that there is little explanation given, and that the reason is the screenwriters don’t care. Black is more comfortable with Tony and Rhodey running around with guns like Riggs and Murtaugh than with exploring what the relationship of the armor to Tony actually is. I’m not one to harp on so-called plot holes (see my support for the much maligned Prometheus last summer) but Iron Man 3’s disinterest in these questions was distracting to me while I was watching it, not just later when I really analyzed it. That doesn’t bode well for the film.

Anton: But that devil-may-care attitude, which interferes with the superheroic rules and world-building, is precisely what gives other, more mundane, moments such energy.

Aren: As Anton said at the beginning, if you’re onboard with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’re onboard for the long haul. Iron Man 3 may be my least favourite of the Marvel Studios films (I need to reexamine Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk), but come November, I’ll still be there to see Thor: The Dark World. We may be feeling superhero fatigue at this point, but audiences clearly aren’t. The Iron Man formula isn’t broken, so don’t expect Marvel Studios to fix it.

Iron Man 3 (2013, USA/China)

Directed by Shane Black; written by Drew Pearce and Shane Black; starring Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Jon Favreau, James Badge Dale, and Ben Kingsley.