Doing It Justice?

So… the question: Does Justice League do justice to the Justice League? My answer is a resounding “sort of.” Overall, I found the movie entertaining and fun, and that’s the most important part as far as I’m concerned. Let us all remind ourselves that this is make-believe. On the other hand, fantasy can provide us with a different perspective from which to consider reality, and it therefore reflects reality in distorted form. While I think some reviewers have taken this whole business too seriously, it is not necessarily  inappropriate to note our personal disappointments.

In keeping with what I just said, I will unburden myself. The script was uneven, and the dialogue ranged from good to almost wincingly bad. As an example, some of the lines given to Jason Momoa’s Aquaman character were awkward. When I watched BvS, I was struck by the quality of Gal Gadot’s screen presence as Wonder Woman, but I felt that she was a better actor than some of her lines indicated. Seeing her performance in Wonder Woman confirmed that, and I feel the same way this time around about Jason Momoa. This has me looking hopefully forward to the Aquaman movie.

The editing was a bit choppy, especially over the first 30-40 minutes. The abrupt scene changes without much setup diminished the impact of some otherwise impressive visuals. This approach works better in the panels of a comic book than it does on the big screen.  I think an additional 15-30 minutes of runtime would have been justified.

Let me pick a little further. Warner Brothers still needs to work a little on the quality of its characters’ costumes. They have an almost plastic quality at times. Also, the CGI occasionally looked too much like CGI, and this made the action sequences less satisfying for me. Case in point: the visual appearance of Steppenwolf  at times reminded me more of a video game than a major motion picture.  The character, however, was wonderfully voiced by Ciaran Hinds, who has previously  impressed me in some serious dramatic films.

Had I not seen Wonder Woman, I would have said that Justice League was an improvement for the DCEU. Warner Brothers owns perhaps the most iconic superhero pantheon in comics, but they need to pay more attention to scriptwriting, costuming, and special effects quality if they hope to catch up to the MCU. The cast was stellar and could have been better utilized for the above reasons. Aside from the actors I’ve already mentioned, there were Ben Affleck (Batman), Ezra Miller (The Flash), Ray Fisher (Cyborg), and (no surprise here since it was revealed before the premiere) Henry Cavill (Superman). Add in Amy Adams (Lois Lane), J. K. Simmons (another fine character actor as Commissioner Gordon), and a cameo appearance by Marc McClure (Jimmy Olsen in the 1970s, a frightened policeman this time), and you have an excellent ensemble cast.

I’ll include the following and fanciful cast poster from daniel-morphens because it includes the Martian Manhunter being played by my brother. I hadn’t thought of it before, but this character would be right up Doug’s alley.

Everyone who hasn’t seen the movie yet should already know that they’re bringing Superman back. I don’t want to spoil it for anyone, but it was my favorite scene in the movie. I thought that they finally got this character right, and his action scenes were truly impressive to my inner child. As for his unveiling/resurrection, the reactions of observers will suffice.

A Film Of Her Own (Part 2)

The Wonder Woman movie (Warner Brothers) met my expectations and then some. It also satisfied my hope that this character would receive respectful treatment. Among those who should receive credit for this, I think Patty Jenkins, the director, should obviously be mentioned.

Another of my suspicions was confirmed, as well. I already felt that Gal Gadot had good screen presence, but given a decent script, she can also act. Allen Heinberg wrote the screenplay of the story by Zack Snyder, and the script enabled Gadot to show some emotional range as well as wry humor. She also did her own stunts, and was credible in the action sequences. While her physique was not considered by some fans to be muscular enough for this role, I found it interesting that her body type actually wasn’t very far off from that of the original comic book character. I know I held the following panel up as a sexist stereotype last week, but I think it helps to confirm the point I just made.

Additionally, DC Comics seems to have followed the lead of Marvel Comics by redesigning the look of a superhero to resemble the cinematic imagery.

A number of characters paid homage to the Golden Age version of Wonder Woman. Chris Pine did a typically good turn as Steve Trevor…

… and Lucy Davis was cast in a more dignified portrayal of Etta Candy.

As Sir Patrick Morgan, David Thewlis was excellent, and I enjoyed seeing him in the role of a more mature character.

Overall, I thought the movie passed the villain test. Elena Anaya was suitably creepy as Dr. Poison. While a little more one-dimensionally written, the German officer, Lundendorff, was well-acted by Danny Huston. The sequence when he dances with a disguised (well, sort of) Diana Prince is palpably threatening.

Queen Hippolyta is played by Connie Nielsen, and her warrior sister, Antiope, is played by Robin Wright.

Said Taghmaoui, Eugene Brave Rock, and Ewen Bremner (pictured left to right on either side of Chris Pine and Gal Gadot, below) constituted an admirable and rag tag support crew whose characters were surprisingly well-developed for the amount of screen time they were given.

The cast was impressive, and the script and acting were good. Okay, this is fun, so I’ll drag it out for another week.

 

A Film of Her Own (Part 1)

In the beginning – well, 1941, actually – Wonder Woman was unleashed on the world of men. Although her original adventures were set during the time of World War II, her movie debut was shifted to World War I, but this is beside the point I want to make first. Her initial presentation during the Golden Age of Comics was a nuanced contradiction between feminism…

… sexist stereotypes…

… and worse.

The approaches and themes used in her portrayal made at least the pretense of an effort at being mature…

… or lapsed into the juvenile.

This variety and disparity of treatments has continued through various incarnations. What I’m trying to say is that from this beginning concept and simple artwork  grew an iconic image that grew larger and more nuanced than even her creators, William Moulton Marston (writer) and H. G. Peter (artist), envisioned. Once in print, she escaped their mental bounds and entered into the synergistic collective of her readership. Individuals interacted with this character until, today, she has come to represent different things to different people.

For this reason, any adaptation of the comic to the silver screen would be likely to generate both praise and criticism. Gal Godot looks the part. She doesn’t. The movie is an original breath of fresh air for the superhero genre. It isn’t. The CGI is appropriate for the plot. It’s over the top. It’s kind of hard to blame us for our conflicting expectations of the first movie about Wonder Woman. After all, so many of us think of her as ours.

Whether you approve or not, this cinematic effort is considered socially significant because it is the first major movie of this genre where the main character is female (I’m not going to count previous efforts such as Elektra). The DCEU of Warner Brothers beat Disney Marvel to the punch on that one, and I suppose it’s only right from an historical perspective.

The “battle” over this representation will continue next week…

Wonder Woman (2017) Gal Gadot

Looking Like Wonder Woman

So you’ve no doubt heard the criticism that Gal Gadot doesn’t look like Wonder Woman. Okay, let’s get something out in the open before going any further. As a general rule, the DC cinematic universe has made some questionable choices as to the visual appearance of its characters. Many of them strike me as a cross between oversized plastic toys and clothing models despite the enlistment of some good actors to play them.  Marvel Studios, on the other hand, knows their product as well as their demographic, and they usually get their visuals right. Let me add that these are my impressions as a viewer and that I don’t mean to be critical in a negative way. I just think DC can do better than they’ve done so far.

Having said this, I don’t think Gal Gadot is a bad choice to play Wonder Woman. She has been criticized as being a former model with too delicate an appearance, but she was in the Israeli military. During her term of service, she completed a rigorous course of physical training, evidently in impressive fashion. On that count, let’s not be too quick to judge on the basis of appearance. Let’s see how the movie turns out.

So, in response to the statement that Gal Gadot doesn’t look like Wonder Woman, I must ask an obvious question. What does Wonder Woman look like? I’m trying to limit my pictures to faces as much as I can. Here’s her original conception (enlarged from the first cover, even) by H. G. Peter:

Her likeness was allegedly based on that of Olive Byrne, the mistress of Wonder Woman creator William Molton Marston…

… but she could just as easily be said to resemble Jane Russell (top) or Rosalind Russell (bottom), who were actresses from that era.

If you look at enough panels of the original issues, I think you will notice that Wonder Woman’s physique was far less muscular than in modern portrayals.

Here’s a panel by George Perez…

… one by Adam Hughes…

… and one , if your mind is not sufficiently stretched by now, by Darwyn Cooke:

Does Linda Carter look like Wonder Woman, or (perhaps more appropriately) do we think of Wonder Woman as looking like Linda Carter?

Wonder Woman Complete Series DVD UK Box Set Lynda Carter (Pictures by dvdbash.wordpress.com)

Was Alex Ross thus influenced? Well, yes. He admitted as much, but even he has portrayed this character with slight variations.

Artist: Alex Ross (Credit: DC Comics)

Artist: Alex Ross (Credit: DC Comics)

So does Gal Gadot look like Wonder Woman? Well, I’m beginning to think that  Wonder Woman doesn’t look like Wonder Woman. Provided this more recent actress is given a decent script, I’m willing to leave a little room for creative adaptation.

The Modern Pantheon: Wonder Woman

 

I finally got around to renting Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016, directed by Zack Snyder; image credits to Warner Brothers). Let me get my critiques out of the way first:

1)  It had an impressive ensemble cast (including Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Jesse Eisenberg, Laurence Fishburne, Jeremy Irons, Amy Adams, and Gal Gadot), of which it could have made more effective use.

2) It was reasonably entertaining, but the plot was choppy, requiring too much prior knowledge of the characters from DC Comics, especially Aquaman, the Flash, and Cyborg. I had to watch the extras to make sense of the sequence in which these additional characters are introduced.

3) I wish the screenwriting had been better (see 2). Some bits of dialogue made me wince.

4) Some of the action sequences seemed choreographed and unconvincing. Others were quite good.

5) To my sixty-three-year-old eyes (which remember the Silver Age of DC), the CGI effects were often chaotic to the point of being visually unsatisfying. There were notable exceptions. For the purposes of my blog, I will cite the introduction of Wonder Woman.

Gal Gadot was not given enough lines this time around for me to get much of a sense of the depth and breadth of this character. I was, however, pleased to see that her character was given an intriguing set-up (impossibly young and impossibly old as evidenced by an old photograph) and that she was given a commendable measure of stature and dignity. Wonder Woman is perhaps the most iconic of all female superheroes, and she is more properly mythological. I say this in spite of the “battle of the gods” references made to the contest between Superman and Batman (Aquaman also has  a mythological pedigree, but this was not really explained in this particular movie).

I had seen Gal Gadot in one other movie and was given the impression that there is more to this actress than meets the eye. After a quick word search, I learned that she had served in the Israeli military. She completed some rigorous physical training, and this lends credibility to her performance in some of the action sequences. Of the three main characters in this movie, I felt that Wonder Woman was the most effectively portrayed. Her appearance was a fairly impressive bright spot in a plot which I felt could have used some help.

Having seen the trailers for the upcoming Wonder Woman release, I think that this movie could be the best of the DC cinematic universe, so far. I look forward to reviewing it, and I hope that it turns out to be a truly worthy representation of this character. From her inception, she has had attached to her what I consider some unnecessarily kinky baggage. As I have mentioned in my Graphic Mythology category, there are some honorable aspects to her character, and I would like to see more emphasis given to these.

So now, after a hefty head start by Marvel, we have the DC cinematic universe to keep track of. Hopefully, this is a work in progress and will improve in the future.