The Fake Life - Love movies? We do too!

Monday, October 23, 2006

Which Was Worse? - Part 4

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones is a worse movie than The Matrix Revolutions! As a fan of The Matrix I shall take that as meaning everyone thinks the sequels are really brilliant. Thank you.

Anyway, with geek movies, I have found that the real hate is reserved for films getting their subjects wrong, rather than for films merely doing their subjects badly. It is about frustrated anticipation and thwarted hopes rather than simple critical evaluation. Terrible films can get a pass due to getting the 'spirit' right (Fantastic Four) or simply be met with a shrug if there was never much hope for them in the first place (Elektra). It's not a very objective way to watch movies, but it is very honest and personal and displays a great deal of genuine passion. These are good things, even if that passion is sometimes directed at action figures.

With this in mind, and to test my observation, the final first round match-up is Batman & Robin vs. The Suxxors All-Stars - Catwoman, Highlander 2, Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure, Alien: Resurrection, and, what the hell, Troll 2. I still think I know which will win.

In the category of 'What the fuck was the costume designer thinking?' we have Batman & Robin vs. Catwoman. To create a new female-empowerment icon, the makers of 2004’s Catwoman decided to dress Halle Berry as a low-rent S&M stripper wearing not much more than a collection of belts and ripped latex leggings. To take the ‘dark knight’ concept to the next level, the makers of Batman & Robin decided to add silver highlights, detailed buttocks and nipples to an already ungainly bat-costume design to create a costumed hero that looked like a Michelin Man with arthritis. George Clooney could do little more than waddle around while trying to emote from behind two feet of mask.

The 'WRONG!!!' award is fought between Batman & Robin and Highlander 2. Highlander, if you were an adolescent in the mid 80’s, was a fairly awesome fantasy action movie that switched entertainingly between historical periods, dealing with a secret tribe of immortals fighting each other through history for the final prize, setting up a satisfyingly epic and, above all, final battle of the ages. The sequel then decided to make the immortals aliens, set everything in the future, bring the dead characters back and make the Highlander immortal again, thus destroying everything that was fun in the first film. Batman, being an archetypal character, is open to re-interpretations both dark and light (caped crusader, masked avenger, Adam West) but, being archetypal, always represents something – justice, vigilantism, fascism or whatever. Batman & Robin got rid of all of that, reducing him to pure surface – and the only way to develop something that is all surface is to keep adding to it. Thus we have more bat-characters, more villains, those ridiculous costumes, stiflingly cluttered and over designed sets, glaringly impossible action and a script consisting of nothing but quips. None of it means anything and there is no vision to the piece other than ‘more!’. A terrible, head-ache inducing mess.

The ‘You know, for kids’ award is fought between Batman & Robin and Caravan of Courage. Kids loved the Ewoks because they were basically teddy bears. I had an Ewok teddy bear when I was a kid and I thought it was cute. In order to sell more teddy bears, Lucasfilm made a cartoon series and a couple of tv-films full of Ewoks and, in the case of Caravan of Courage, actual little kids. Batman & Robin was a part of the biggest toy-friendly franchise Warners had at the time, and so the executives made sure to fill the film with as many new or redesigned toys as possible. Who cares if the old design worked – we need new lines! The beautiful ’89 Batmobile is now a neon Christmas tree that couldn’t move faster than 20mph for fear of falling apart. The film is stuffed with over-muscled characters and gadgets so that new action figures with xtreem batarang action arms could be sold. Everything is day-glo and over saturated so that the toys will stand out on the shelves for ADD-afflicted 4 year olds. Painful.

The 'Do not try and be funny' award gives us Batman & Robin vs. Alien: Resurrection. The Alien films are famous for taking different aproaches to each entry – the gothic horror of the first, the action of the second – but the combination of Joss ‘Buffy’ Whedon’s script and Jean-Pierre ‘Amelie’ Jeunet’s direction was an approach too far, turning the film into a not entirely intentional comedy. The script was meant to be serious but with a biting wit and the direction was meant to be dark but with an underlying humanity. What we end up with is Winona Ryder drunk with boxing gloves, basketball matches, Dominique Pinon trying to swear in English and Dan Hedaya looking at his own brains in a scene straight out of an actual horror comedy – Bad Taste. As for Batman & Robin: “this is why Superman works alone”, “surf’s up!” and the several dozen ‘ice’ themed quips from Mr. Freeze – “what killed the dinosaurs? The ice age!”, “copsicle!” and “you are not sending me to the cooler!”.

The 'Completely Shit' award: Batman & Robin vs Troll 2. Ignoring all the problems with continuity, interpretation, and turning the film into an edition of the icecapades, Batman & Robin is still a very bad film. The dialogue (see above) is dire and trite, the plot is simplistic yet still manages to make no sense, the acting is dull or awful (non-entities like Chris O’Donnell for the dull, Schwarzenegger for the awful), the direction bland, the fights impossible to follow and the overall feel is like swimming through old custard that a tramp has vomited in. Troll 2 is a 1990 film that has no trolls in it. It does have goblins, but their costumes consist of nothing more than Halloween masks. It does have a script of sorts but the soundman couldn’t quite get the dialogue to sync up with the actors’ mouths. It is one of those no budget DTV horror efforts that has gained a small notoriety for taking the name of the mildly liked 80’s film, Troll, and making a sequel that has nothing to do with it. It is, apparently, the lowest rated movie on IMDB not to have been MST3K’d. At least Manos: Hands of Fate can be watched with a puppet of a robot laughing smugly over the top of the soundtrack. You could make a better movie than Troll 2. Troll 2, in fact, doesn’t really even count as a real film.

So there you go, I’ve tried my best to create a fair fight by putting all of the worst films in the world ever together against Batman & Robin. But which was worse? You decide!