However, I'm not going to try and go into a review or anything. If you want to go see it, go see it. That's as far as my advice goes. The thing that I'm interested inm and that the title brings to mind, is the theme of Darkness and how ever growing a presence that's becoming in major movie franchises. Into Darkness does indeed go into darker territory exploring terrorism in the space venturing future, as well as the series itself exploring themes of genocide, racism and lens flare capacity (couldn't resist).
Many people have remarked and noticed the ever increasing dark and gritty elements in major hollywood movies lately. Last year alone we had franchise films like The Dark Knight Rises, Skyfall, The Hunger Games, The Amazing Spiderman and Snow White and the Huntsman (it's getting a sequel so technically franchise) and that's just a few. Now franchises like The Dark Knight Rises or The Hunger Games may naturally have these darker tones within their prior source material, to some degree. The Hunger Games follows teenagers killing each other for the sake of the upper classes entertainment (so basically high school), while the Dark Knight's tales have always had a somewhat gothic and sinister feel to them as he wanders around at night thrashing thugs for justice. Not to mention one of his pseudonyms does include the word "dark" in it. But story's like Snow White and Spiderman?
To some degree Spiderman does make sense. He fights crime in New York, so there is an element of darkness to it. But Spidey has always had a fun toting time time with his crime fighting. He is our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman after all. Does his depiction need to have a darker vibe to their exploration? With the previous Raime led version there was a tongue in cheek element with Defoes portrayal of the mentally troubled Green Goblin. They knew it was silly but you didn't stop liking it because of that. It's hard to take a giant lizard man seriously if you don't show him with a pinch of humour or humility. Although they tried to stick to the darker, grittier and more realistic tone with the reboot, advertising it as 'the untold story', it was still riddled with nonsensical tonal elements (which the Screenjunkie honest trailer video has a lot of fun with).Similarly with Snow White and the Huntsman, the darker and grittier element was pursued through a more realistic approach. However a story with poison apples, evil queens and a 'lovable' Kristen Stewart, are hard to take seriously. The approach attempted to make the century old fairytale less 'childish' having it granted a 12A certificate in the UK with elements including a sword welding Snow White, a rebel war and a psychologically haunted Huntsman. It's interesting to note that the Huntsman iteration grossed $155 million next to its cheerier Snow White rival, Mirror Mirror with $64.9 million. In fact all of these are part of Imdb's highest grossing list for last years releases - http://www.imdb.com/search/title?at=0&sort=boxoffice_gross_us&title_type=feature&year=2012,2012.
In most of these darkly approached films the filmmakers have attempted to give a form of 'honesty' to a source material that has previously had a different public perception. It almost shamefully hides its the materials past by trying to make it more realistic with a darker tone. However darker doesn't mean more honest. Star Trek Into Darkness doesn't make itself more realistic or honest by exploring terrorism or genocide. It doesn't stop people noticing the primary coloured uniform, the kitschy sci fi sound effects or how embarrassingly horrid Spocks haircut is. Just as darker doesn't make people stop noticing that Spiderman is a teenager in a red and blue skin tight suit, or that Snow White still aligns herself with seven dwarfs in the woods. All this brings to mind the Brian Cox speech from Adaptation.
Nothing happens in the world? Are you out of your fucking mind? People are murdered every day. There's genocide, war, corruption. Every fucking day, somewhere in the world, somebody sacrifices his life to save someone else. Every fucking day, someone, somewhere takes a conscious decision to destroy someone else. People find love, people lose it. For Christ's sake, a child watches her mother beaten to death on the steps of a church. Someone goes hungry. Somebody else betrays his best friend for a woman. If you can't find that stuff in life, then you, my friend, don't know crap about life! And why the FUCK are you wasting my two precious hours with your movie? I don't have any use for it! I don't have any bloody use for it!
Now I'm not saying that these films don't replicate life (to some degree). Yes they include murder, war and destruction but that doesn't make them more realistic or life like. They can focus on these aspects so much that they can forget about the love or the faith. These films have taken the dark approach with their execution but for some of them it isn't really needed. They almost forget the reason why they were popular in the first place: wonder and exploration in Star Trek, escapism and the conquering power of love in Snow White, butt kicking and justice in Spiderman. By using the dark approach it can take away honesty from the source material and in turn what made it popular in the first place. I'm not saying don't use these dark and gritty elements, but know how to use them with your story. Into Darkness works because it helps to show the consequence of exploration but Snow White and the Huntsman didn't because it didn't bring the wonder or the love. It just brought Kristen Stewart. IF you're going to use darkness know how to use it to to highlight what makes your story special. What made it popular in the first place, because that's life as well. It's darkness as well as light.
With Mirror Mirror failing to pull the numbers that Huntsman did, does that mean dark is the way to go?
Here's some links for you to check out. The Amazing Spiderman Honest Trailer. An article on Collider about A lesson for contemporary Superhero films as well as Batman by the numbers.
Oh and a little bit of Brain Cox's Rober Mckee.
No comments:
Post a Comment