Costuming Superheroes

Comic Book adaptations are very en vogue right now. With the global success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Dark Knight Trilogy, more and more characters are finally being adapted to the big screen. The first series to be adapted was the superman series in 1974 starring Christopher Reed, subsequently the Batman and X-Men series were released followed by an explosion of superhero films, seen this summer when over three superhero and comic book adaptations were released.

The first films adapted their comic books very literally, Christopher Reeve's Superman costume is virtually identical to the comics, and Michael Keaton's costume is highly similar to the now iconic Batman costume. Likewise the Spider-man films have followed their source material almost exactly, whereas most series, when they are rebooted, alter the costumes of the original series, in order to differentiate themselves. Spider-man didn't do this, and the costume in The Amazing Spider-man is almost identical to that of Sam Rami's original trilogy.

Other series have been less literal, the X-Man series offers one of the most radical alterations from it's source material, instead of the bright spandex costumes featured in the comics, the characters are instead outfitted in sleek leather costumes, which have much more consistency and which were more cohesive. The costumes of the comic books are brightly coloured, tight and iconic, Wolverines costume in particular is an iconic comic book image, yet even in his spin off movies, Wolverine sports his now iconic leather jacket.

Since 2006's Batman Begins, superhero costumes have taken on an even more utilitarian image, the batsuit used in this incarnation is like modern, military armor, sleek and jet black, with the batman logo noticeably disguised. After this series, costuming in superhero films became incredibly lifelike and more military inspired. Iron Man's costume is very grounded in reality and realistic, and evolves from a more amateurish armor to the sleek gold-titanium alloy seen in the later part of the film and it's sequels.

Other marvel films also take this route, Captain Americas costume is even upgraded from the spandex colors seen in the comics, to a less sleek and more realistic costume seen in the first film, and finally into the sleek kevlar inspired costume, less brightly colored than the comic book and more practical. The only exception to the mold is Thor, who retains his brightly colored red cape and slightly more ridiculous costume than the others on this list, however his costume is still slightly less ludicrous than in the comic book, the bright blue being downgraded to a subtle gray and the spandex being changed to a tough almost roman armour.

Modern superhero movies place a huge amount of importance on realism, their costumes are grounded in reality, made of tough and strong materials, and not from thin spandex or lycra. The colours of the costumes is also more subtle with bright yellows and blacks, royal blues and reds being replaced with jet black and gray and navy blues and burgandies, this gives the films a darker more sleek aesthetic which is refreshing and which is tonally more realistic.

The Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is the fifth film in the Harry Potter saga, and this film marks my renewed commitment to reviewing all the films in this series by the end of the summer, or at least before i have to go back to university in september. The Order of the Phoenix represents Harry's fifth school year at Hogwarts, and his first since the rebirth of Voldemort (sorry, spoiler) and the death of Cedric Diggory (sorry, more spoilers).

The landscape of The Order of the Phoenix is significantly darker than that of previous Potter films, the wizarding world is gripped by a possible threat from Lord Voldemort, the press is attempting to smear Harry Potter and Dumbledore at the request of the ministry and the ministry in interfering at Hogwarts, making Dolores Jane Umbridge Hogwarts high inquisitor, and later headmistress. The film introduces the Order of the Phoenix, a secret organization headquarter at 12 Grimmauld Place, Sirius' family home. The film shows the characters' evolution, and them finding their independence.

The visual landscape of the film is also darker, the film continues the trend of each film becoming lass and lass saturated, with less and less colour, showing the growing bleakness overtaking the world of the films, and the darkness that seeps into the stories. The world of Hagwarts becomes equally bleak, Harry describes him feeling alone, Dumbledore ignores him and Umbridge makes his life a misery. Starring the same cast as the other movies, this film adds Helena Bonham Carter as Bellatrix Lestrange, despite not having many lines, her presence in the film is unmatched, and her performance is note perfect. Imelda Staunton stars as Dolores Umbridge, imbuing the part with such malice and evil that she is almost, if not more hated than Voldemort. and finally Evanna Lynch plays Loona Lovegood, a kooky character that treads a fine line between endearingly queer and just plain wierd.

The film also presents several new environments, the climax of the film takes place in the department of mysteries, a series of rooms beneath the ministry of magic with an unknown purpose where prophecies are kept. The department has an unnatural blue tinge, and one of the first battles takes place in the hall of prophecy, an expansive room in which glass spheres line the walls containing prophecies which can only be taken by the keeper of the prophecy. The climactic battle takes place in the Death Chamber, a circular room featuring a stone arch in the center, at the top of a small hill is a stone archway, featuring a veil through which the dead can be heard. The environment of the department of mysteries remains elusive, and the large amount of CGI used to bring this environment to life works to it's advantage, giving the department a lack of lucidity.

The Order of the Phoenix is the most complete of the Harry Potter film yet, the tone is dark and mysterious, and the new additions to the cast are perfectly chosen, and Imelda Staunton gives a near perfect performance as Dolores Jane Umbridge. The way the cast and the tone of the series has matured is impressive, and The Order of the Phoenix is an impressive film. Rating: B+

Lord Voldemort: You've lost, old man.

Starring Scarlett Johansson

Lucy is a 2014 action film starring Scarlett Johansson and directed by Luc Besson. The film is about an american expat living in Taiwan called Lucy, she is kidnapped by drug dealers and has a bag placed in her stomach, when the bag starts leaking, Lucy is able to access more of her mind, over the 10% humans currently use (according to the film), when she is able to access other reaches of her mind she is able to do other things such as telekinesis, telepathy and the ability to change her appearance and metabolism at will.

The film's logic is not infallible, firstly the film's entire premise is based on little more than an urban myth, we now know that we use far more than 10% or our brain's capacity, and that defining it in percentage terms is illogical. Nonetheless the film takes this concept and applies it entirely literally. Secondly the film's ending, whilst poetic and beautiful, is never really explained, and the details of why Lucy's body starts to self destruct make little sense. Despite the film being slightly illogical, Lucy believes so wholeheartedly in it's concept that this matters little.

The film is enthusiastically and almost aggressively silly, currently, thanks in no small part to Christopher Nolan, modern blockbusters always take themselves far too seriously, and it is refreshingly to see a film that, if anything, doesn't take itself seriously enough, the film is content to be no more than a dumb action film, but if anything, it doesn't take itself seriously enough, this is a film that really has something to say about evolution and the future of mankind, but i am grateful that a Luc Besson film didn't try to be anything too paradigmatic.

The main character of Lucy is interesting, and hopefully the films success with Johansson above the marquee will finally convince Marvel Studios to greenlight a Scarlett Widow solo film. As lucy becomes more and more powerful, she becomes less empathetic and less human, this is perhaps intentional, but we reach a point when we can no longer view her as human, Lucy becomes almost invincible in the film's third act, and this is a problem as we the film eventually becomes less and less thrilling, because we are no longer scared about the safety of our heroine, Lucy also never interracts with her enemies, and although it is pretty cool to see Taiwanese gangsters fighting thin air, it would have been nice to have seen a true fist to fist fight scene.

Lucy is an oddly refreshing film, though it is riddled with logical gaps and pseudoscience, it is great to finally see a summer blockbuster that doesn't take itself  too seriously, that powers through it's ridiculousness with fun and thrills, and which is actually rather well made, Johansson provides a suitably gonzo performance in the title role, and despite being highly silly, Lucy is actually a lot of fun, provided one doesn't attempt to take it too seriously. Rating: B-

Lucy: Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what you can do with it.

Feminism: The Discussion

The fact that this is an article that even needs to be written saddens me greatly, but it must. Last weekend, two action films were released, the R rater Lucy featuring the definitely female Scarlett Johansson and the PG-13 rated Hercules, starring the definitely male Dwayne Johnson. These are two fairly similar movies, not thematically but in terms of marketing and quality. Both films were marketed on the strengths of their stars, and both have similar metascores. Dwayne Johnson is an undeniably charismatic actor, this year i proclaimed him to be the only true action hero left, and he was the highest grossing actor of 2013. What was surprising to industry insiders was that Lucy won, it grossed more than Hercules despite having a female lead and being rated R.

For years filmmakers have been reticent about making high budget films with female leads. Despite the fact that women make up 52% of the population and, like men, do go and see films, and despite the fact that men also like going to see films with female leads. The figures speak for themselves, Lucy made $44 million at the box office, and was evenly split between men and women. 2013 was also a remarkable year for women in film. For the first time since 1973, the highest grossing film at the US domestic box-office had a lead female character, the film was Catching Fire, starring Jennifer Lawrence. The highest grossing film worldwide was Frozen, an animated adaptation of The Snow Queen featuring not one but two leading female characters, and finally of the films nominated for the best picture Oscar, the highest grossing nominee was Gravity, which was not only a film with a lead female character, but a film with only a female character, in addition, the highest grossing comedy of the year was The Heat, a film, again, featuring two female leads. It seems that people don't mind seeing films starring women, who knew?

Studio executives are notorious cowards, we live in a world where there are plenty of fantastic films, but where most of them are low budget independent films, for instance of the Best Picture nominees, only gravity was a studio financed film, the others were independent's, only distributed by major studio's. The problem is that studio's will only release a film if it can be turned into a franchise, or merchandised, thus many high budget action films featuring women simply never see the light of day. The problem is that studio's, which do so much research and polling, fail to understand and struggle with change. Hollywood is a world, where when something works we just keep doing the same thing, the problem is that films with male leads make money, and so there is no impetus for studios to place women above the marquee.

The biggest problem with the film industry is that it doesn't show any sign of changing, the world is round, women make up half of the western worlds population, and like men, women also like to go and see movies. It is time for studios to wake up and realize that female driven films can be successful, that women are just as funny as men, and that men are not repulsed by the idea of going to see a film with a female lead. Films with women at the helm are some of the most successful films released today, and studio executives must start to realize that.

The Misuse of CGI

Well summer is back, and with summer comes mindless action movies featuring cars, babes, and CGI robot porn, yeas, another Transformers movie is here. I am honestly not a Michael Bay hater, i loved Pain and Gain, and nBad Boys was perhaps one of the most defining film of my childhood. I posted last year about films featuring too much CGI looking hyperreal and fake, but this post is not a critique of the CGI itself, it is more a critique of the way modern action films use CGI, and the fact that nothing in cinema is real annymore.

Films used to be sort of thrilling, watching a 16 wheel semi truck get flipped over in The Dark Knight or watching a man bungee jump off of a bridge in GoldenEye was thrilling, as both of those were done for real, no computer involved, and the thrill of danger adds a slight frisson to the audience's excitement. 3D has managed to regain some of this excitement and sense of danger, by making the audience feel like they're in danger by having giant robot penises two inches from their nose, but audiences watching these moves on their iPad don't have this effect, rendering the films dull and lifeless.

Transformers is typical summer movie popcorn fare, but the lack of reality, coupled with a lack of heart, means that no one really cares. Toy Story 3 wasn't real, there were only computers involved, but the audience cared, because the story contained heart and emotion. Thus the Transformers films are like Toy Story 3, with the pathos removed. Giant imaginary robots flying at each other with the subtlety of a Miley Cyrus concert surrounded by humans that are entirely indistinguishable from each other leave a product that just ends up feeling pointless. If all the alien robots are obviously incredibly fake, and all the robots are indistinguishable from each other, then why should i care?

Filmmakers have this idea that action films don't need emotion, but they are wrong, the reason that Frodo hanging off the parapet in mount doom or the loss of Rachel Dawes are so visceral, is because we learn to care about these characters, and we feel their loss and their suffering, i can't honestly say that i cared any more about Sam Witwicky at the end than i did at the beginning. The main problem with modern action movies, is that they don't give us a reason to care, there is no emotion, no loss, and nothing is real anyway, so watching giant alien robots grapple over a cube, is oddly pointless, because there is nothing real either in my head registering emotion, or on screen, and i can watch with the passive bemusement of a roman citizen watching gladiators fight.

The Death of the Action Hero

The modern age of cinema really only has one real action hero. Gone are the eighties or nineties where seeing a name like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Bruce Willis was enough to make a movie, and where box office returns could be guaranteed, simply due to the presence of a star. Those days have passed, and it is perhaps a good thing that they have, movie franchises are no longer based around a central charismatic figure, that would be too risky, instead they are based around brand; the Transformers franchise is a good example of this, the first three movies featured Shia LeBoeuf in a central role, but when he announced his reluctance to appear in another film, rather than simply give up on the franchise, in was continued with a different actor, Mark Wahlberg. We live in a world in which Hollywood action heroes are entirely disposable, no-one is irreplaceable, and no actor is instrumental to the success or failure of a movie, the names of actors are relegated to the small print of movie posters, to leave space for the logos and giant robots.

The only action hero left is Dwayne Johnson, he recently referred to himself as franchise steroids, and he was the highest grossing actor of 2013. He successfully revitalized GI Joe, the Fast and the Furious Franchise, and the Journey series. Johnson has, not only the brawn, but also the charisma and charm of action heroes of yore, and his box office draw is unparalleled. The only other possible candidate is Jennifer Lawrence, who really carries the entire Hunger Games franchise on her shoulders, and who is the franchise's greatest asset. Will Smith used to be one of the biggest action heroes of all time, and was consistently one of the industries biggest draws, however in 2013 we were delivered After Earth, a film with not one but two Smith's, and in short the film flopped both commercially and critically. A name is simply not enough to guarantee box office success anymore, and Fox, unwilling to pay Will Smith a ridiculous amount for his participation in Independence Day 2, has replaced him with another actor.

Action heroes are not what they used to, even those that still do matter don't have the charisma or charm that Schwarzenegger or Willis have, all one needs to become an action hero is a decent set of abs. Take the 300 franchise, Gerard Butler refused to return for the sequel, and he was replaced, in an industry beyond the Hollywood studio system, where stars are no longer signed to studios, studios are keen to sign actors up for multiple picture deals, and if they refuse, they're replaced. Movies have changed, and actors are too volatile to hold up a franchise on their own, so studios prefer to base their films around CGI robots and monsters, creating brands rather than characters.