The one origin story I didn't know

I hadn't planned to watch Fantastic Four -- the original from 2005 -- on the Saturday night of Easter weekend. I wanted to watch the new horror? thriller? Fresh, which was supposed to be playing through the Star portion of Disney+. I don't know if it's just not playing in my region, or if the kid safe settings are preventing me from searching for a movie about cannibalism -- the last shouldn't be a factor, since it looked like some other more adult-oriented options were available. (And too bad, because I would have liked to write a post about watching a cannibalism movie on Disney+.) In any case, I couldn't find it.

As I was doing a tedious scroll through the alphabetical listing of movies, though -- for some reason thinking that maybe the search feature was broken -- I did come across Fantastic Four. All three Fantastic Four movies, in fact, none of which I've seen.

This is a pretty weird anomaly for me. 

It was obviously different in 2005, but nowadays, there just aren't many superhero movies I miss. And if I do miss them, it's more likely the second or third in a series, like when I opted out of last year's Venom sequel. I'm usually on board for at least the first movie in a superhero series, just to see if happens to be my bag.

Not Fantastic Four. I didn't see the original in 2005, nor the sequel in 2007, nor the reboot/remake/reinterpretation in 2015. I think I was considering seeing the last until the reviews were so terrible. 

While I have marveled about this -- no pun intended -- in the past, and thought it was kind of funny to keep it out there as this notable exception to my usual superhero completism, I figured I'd finally see what Fantastic Four was all about on Saturday night.

Now, I should say that I do know a fair bit about the characters -- their names, their powers, the actors who played them. Enough of that has creeped in by osmosis that the movie didn't feel foreign to me. 

I did not, however, remember what their origin story was, and that it involved the characters going to space and being blasted by gamma rays.  

There were a number of interesting differences I noticed between a superhero movie made 17 years ago, before the MCU had started, and one made today. 

For one, I was shocked at how short it was. The running time is listed as 105 minutes, but there are nearly ten minutes worth of credits. The film was in its big climactic showdown before I had a chance to get comfortable on the couch. (And that showdown reminded me of one of my original favorite superhero movies, Superman II, as it occurs at street level in a city -- only the heroes outnumber the villain here, whereas the reverse is true in Superman II.) After Morbius, that's two straight superhero movies that ran shorter than two hours -- almost unheard of.

Then of course I couldn't miss how white it was. Ioan Gruffud, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis are all white, as is Julian McMahon as Doom. The movie does feature Kerry Washington as Ben Grimm's blind love interest, so at least there's that. By 2015 they'd realized they needed to be more inclusive so they cast Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm. (And as a sign of further enlightenment, they don't worry about the fact that he's a different race than his sister, played there by Kate Mara.)

Then there's the comparatively poor usage of Alba, as giving women proper agency was not much of a thing in 2005. Yeah, she can turn invisible and she can control some sort of energy field with her hands, but really, she's more of a pretty face and a sex symbol than a character to be proud of. Part of it is Alba's bad performance; she really doesn't bring anything to the role. But she's wearing a low-cut outfit that features her cleavage in nearly every scene, and the movie doesn't shy away from the titillation factor of Sue Storm needing to be naked to take full tactical advantage of her invisibility. We don't see anything of course, but we see Alba in her underwear a couple times, or quickly moving to shield her nudity from someone.

It's hard to put myself back into the headspace of the superhero world we lived in then, when the MCU was still three years off, and when the only superhero franchises of note were Batman, Superman, Spider-Man and X-Men. So while Fantastic Four might have been fine for 17 years ago, it's a bit limp by today's standards, even with a few fun performances and decent special effects. 

Just to honor my modern completism, I may continue on and watch the other two existing movies, in part because I understand something interesting might happen at the end of Rise of the Silver Surfer (no spoilers in case you care about such things but also have not seen the movie), and I'm always interested to see how they handle things like that. 

Then again, there are still three Spider-Man movies I haven't seen -- the last with Toby Maguire and both with Andrew Garfield -- so I guess I will have to have the philosophical debate about which superhero completism has more value to me. 

Or, I could just, you know, watch other types of movies and take a break from superhero movies for a while, at least until Doctor Strange comes out, which I think might be a lot more gratifying.

This post had nothing to do with Easter, but it's going up on Easter. So, happy Easter.

I prefer Ant-Man in his own universe

I was really digging Ant-Man. In fact, I was toying early on with giving it a four-star rating. As just one example, I loved that scene where Michael Pena recounts how he learned about the potentially unguarded safe, and all the characters in his story mouth the words of his story as he's saying them. That was probably Peyton Reed's best Edgar Wright impersonation of the film. Not because that's something Wright would actually do, but because it's in the spirit of something Wright would actually do.

But then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had to come along and screw it all up.

"I think the first thing we should do is contact the Avengers," says Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), with a completely straight face, at what I would guess was the film's 40-minute mark.

The first thing I thought was, Wow, that line was delivered really awkwardly.

The second thing I thought was, Wait, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) is not laughing.

The third thing I thought was, Wait, how does this civilian know about the Avengers?

The fourth thing I thought was, Oh yeah, because all the events of all the previous Marvel movies are things that actually happened in this world, and were covered by all the major media outlets. This guy knows about the Avengers because the Avengers are the most famous people in the world.

Yeah, that universe.

This was exactly the moment when Ant-Man lost a full star rating and never recovered it. A few moments later, Pym makes reference to something that happened at the end of the second Avengers movie, which I haven't seen but which I know about anyway. It's such a bad joke that you can almost hear the rim shot that accompanies it. He also makes mention of Tony Stark.

Here we go, I thought.

And here we went. A few scenes later, Lang is unwittingly trying to break into some kind of Avenger headquarters, and must face off against Falcon (Anthony Mackie). So too much attention is not drawn from our central figure, I guess, this is the only Avenger Lang actually meets, and he's one of the second-tier Avengers. (It's not the only Avenger who appears in the movie, however -- you are of course obliged to wait all the way until the end of the credits to see who else shows his face.)

I had been just fine with Ant-Man in his own cinematic universe and not a part of somebody else's. I didn't know until the closing credits (every last one of which I was compelled to sit through, even though I was in danger of missing the last tram home) that John Slattery was playing Howard Stark, Tony's father, in the opening scene. (If he played him in other movies, I either haven't seen those movies or have just plain forgotten.) But once we were reminded that Ant-Man is just a tiny cog in what is, by now, an impossibly unwieldy infrastructure of superheroes and supervillains, the movie lost its authority for me. Now everything that was going on would be subsumed into this larger narrative, a narrative so big that even its biggest players are inevitably now reduced to someone else's second fiddle.

This is why superhero movies worked for so long under this basic premise: the superhero in this movie is not only the only superhero in the world, he's also the first time the characters are even acquainted with the idea of a superhero. Most old-fashioned superhero movies -- and by "old-fashioned" I mean "more than ten years old" -- were not only origin stories for a particular superhero, but they were stories of the origin of the concept of the superhero. That's why the characters who witnessed this superhero at work were so amazed/astounded/ what have you.

But when a suit that can shrink a man to the size of an ant is only the 10th or 11th most impressive superhero trick out there, something is lost. This is a world where a man turns into a giant green monster when he gets angry. This is a world where a super-powered soldier from World War II was revived 70 years later. Shit, this is a world where an alien god can travel back and forth between Earth and his planet through some kind of interstellar bridge and has an all-powerful hammer. A man the size of a bug is small potatoes compared to all that, pun absolutely intended.

Can't I just be happy with a world where Ant-Man is the world's only superhero, and the things he does astonish us as though we'd never before seen something supernatural? Can't I live in a world where this power is not only described as the world's most powerful weapon, in order to hype up the stakes of this particular film, but actually is the most powerful weapon, because everything else that exists in this world exists within a framework of realism?

I can't, because that world is dead. I'm not sure if another superhero will ever step on to your IMAX screen without the baggage of all the other superheroes who may be slightly cooler than he (or she) is. D.C. will soon be part of Marvel's game -- already is, really, since both Suicide Squad and Superman vs. Batman feel as though they've already been released -- and anyone else who has any kind of superhero will never be able to compete with the two giants.

I for one would like to marvel -- pun again intended -- over the wonders of an unfamiliar superhero as though I'm just discovering what a superhero is myself. For about 40 minutes, I did just that.

But then, the Marvel Cinematic Universe had to come along and screw it all up.

5 people I wish weren't in a superhero movie

Is no one immune?

Has the superhero movie, as a cultural phenomenon, become so inescapable that every working actor either has been in, will be in, or is currently working on a superhero movie?

My latest bout of despair over the all-consuming suffocation known as the comic book movie has been brought on by learning that Oscar Isaac plays the villain in the next X-Men movie.

Oscar Isaac, my current cinematic darling if any single actor could fill that role.

I'll watch anything Oscar Isaac is in. Which means, I suppose, I will be watching X-Men: Apocalypse.

Alright, alright. I knew I'd be watching X-Men: Apocalypse anyway. Not only have I watched every main series X-Men movie, but I've watched each one in the theater, and The Wolverine as well. In fact, the only X-Men byproduct I have not seen in theaters was X-Men Origins: Wolverine -- and I kind of liked that movie anyway. So this argument is sort of a straw man.

But still, I kind of think Oscar Isaac is above it, and I wished he'd considered himself that as well. Just because someone offers you the money, it doesn't mean you have to take it.

To be experiencing this disappointment over Isaac's choice seems especially strange, given that one of the next movies we're going to see him in is Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He's already busted into the big time, and if that movie isn't based on a comic book (which of course it isn't), the distinction is probably splitting hairs. But that doesn't make my disappointment any less palpable.

So since Isaac is obviously my #1, without any further ado, let's get into the four others -- listed in no particular order -- I wish had not "sullied themselves" by bowing to the holy comic book movie dollar.

2. Benedict Cumberbatch 
Role: Doctor Strange in Doctor Strange (2016)
Why it disappoints me: I'm not in love with "The Batch" or anything -- in fact, I found his Oscar-nominated turn in The Imitation Game (along with the movie) a little overrated -- but I do consider this actor to have a natural dignity, a Shakespearean quality that should place him above this "low" comic fare. Especially since he's not playing a main, known quantity, but digging deep into the Marvel catalogue to play the title role in next year's Doctor Strange movie. That said, I do own some Daniel Danger artwork that was inspired by this comic, which was a cherished wedding present from a dear friend, so I'm sure I will be watching this movie with a bit of added curiosity.

3. Mark Ruffalo
Role: Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk in The Avengers (2012) and The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
Why it disappoints me: What I love about Ruffalo is also what I love about Isaac -- his eternal, unimpeachable naturalism. I'm pretty sure that's what Joss Whedon, or whoever cast him as the Hulk, liked about him too. And it's not that he's bad in the role -- I could only judge that from one of the two movies, as I haven't seen the second one yet -- but that the movie doesn't deserve someone as real and believable as Ruffalo. He's not a star; he's like a character actor that you cast as your lead if you want your movie to burst with a certain indie vitality. He has straddled that line between commercial films and indie films, as most working actors must, but it feels like a compromise indeed for him to have stepped into the Hulk's ripped jean cutoffs. The fact that he needed the money enough to do it is the sad part -- or maybe I'm holding him on too high of a pedestal, and he just thought taking the role would be a hoot.

4. Kate Winslet
Role: Jeanine in Divergent (2014) and Insurgent (2015)
Why it disappoints me: Do these count as superhero movies? They are YA novels and the main character is superheroic, so ... sure, for our purposes let's count it. Because it was the same "What was she thinking?" factor at play when I saw the trailers for these and saw "Kate the Great" front and center as their villain. Now, I have not actually seen either of these movies, so she could actually be great in them for all I know. But I trust the general consensus that these are not good movies, and even if they were better than I have heard, it would still not be a particularly encouraging turn of events that she had signed on to do one of them in the first place. I suppose I should condition myself to expect a little less from a woman who also saw it fit to appear in the disastrous omnibus comedy Movie 43.

5. Michael Shannon
Role: General Zod in Man of Steel (2013)
Why it disappoints me: Sometimes a bit of casting can seem like a great idea, and still end up a big letdown. Take Shannon in the most recent reboot of the Superman story. I didn't love the idea of anyone stepping into Terence Stamp's shoes, as his Superman II villain is one of my favorites of all time, but if someone had to be the 21st century Zod, I thought Shannon was the man to do it. Well, it turned into perhaps the only performance of Shannon's that I've ever seen that I can call "bad." Zack Snyder's directing is surely in part to blame for hissy fit lines like "I will find him!", but I gotta call out Shannon as well. Stamp never needed to get in a tizzy about anything -- his supreme equanimity was key to the menace he brought to that role. Shannon, meanwhile, ought to stick to what he does best -- the types of indies he's made with Jeff Nichols.

Dishonorable mentions: Michael Fassbender as Magneto in X-Men: First Class (2011) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy in The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

What I wonder is if these people regret it, or if they think that playing an iconic superhero -- or even one that's not so iconic -- is like stepping up to the big leagues. If you've warn tights, you've arrived. Something like that?

Well, I still love them. And if they've been part of the group brainwash that has taken over our whole culture, how can I blame them?

Now excuse me so I can go figure out when it might be a good time to get Ant-Man on my viewing schedule ...

Down the superhero rabbit hole

You could not make a more obvious comment about the state of movies today than that superheroes rule the roost.

If any more evidence was needed, just look at last weekend's U.S. box office. Even the off-brand superheroes featured in Guardians of the Galaxy rode enough smart advertising and word-of-mouth to $94 million in domestic ticket sales. That is, frankly, ridiculous.

But it's other examples of the dominance of superheroes -- or, more broadly, comic book characters -- that are sometimes more sobering. 

Yes, I say "sobering." Because I'm not entirely sure this decade-long trend is something to be overjoyed about. It's blurring the line between "movie fans" and "fans of comic book movies." Movie discussion groups, which may have once been more balanced between lovers of the form and genre lovers, now tend to be dominated by genre lovers. When you want to have a good talk about movies, which means all movies, it's harder to find that talk without getting sidetracked into the latest thing Marvel Studios is doing. 

Few examples are more sobering than the email I got this week from MovieWeb. Although I don't remember doing so, I must have signed up for their weekly newsletter at some point in the past, and I tend to glance through it whenever I get one.

Let me take you down through the email -- down the rabbit hole, so to speak -- and describe my thought process as we go:

Okay, fine. Nothing unsurprising here. The movie that joins history's two most iconic superheroes has been getting almost as much "first look" coverage as Star Wars Episode VII is sure to be getting soon. 

Speculation on the mashing up of more properties. Just as summer music festivals have replaced giant stadium tours by individual bands, it's seeming more and more like we want to get all the movie characters we like in the same place at the same time. There's something extra ridiculous about this (probably true) rumor, because The Avengers is ALREADY a gathering of characters who were previously separated into different movies. Adding Guardians to the mix just makes the gathering exponential. 

Huh? Isn't Darth Vader already dead? I don't even want to know what this speculation means, because it suggests all kinds of weird things about time travel and alternate timelines that I don't want to consider. Let's just hope that this doesn't mean that Star Wars is considering time travel. At least this story is not about a comic book movie.

Cool. This was not something I knew anything about and I find it genuinely interesting. Also, it's only vaguely fanboyish.

Okay, this is not about superheroes or comic books either, but bear with me, we're getting somewhere.

More Guardians stuff, not much of a surprise. But what I find noteworthy about this -- and it may be more an indication of the age we live in generally, than specifically about comic books -- is that there is essentially no actual news here. It's just the director engaging with his audience, as today's Twitter-loving celebrities are wont to do. I doubt MovieWeb would include a link where Martin Scorsese thanks his audience for going to see The Wolf of Wall Street, to take an example of a different kind of movie popular with this same demographic. Though Scorsese would probably never do that in the first place. 

This is where things start to get a bit more arcane and geeky. Sure, Spider-Man is a popular superhero -- he might be right behind Superman and Batman in terms of his iconic status -- but a spinoff in the Spider-Man universe featuring a female Spider-Man? A Spider-Woman? I'm sure there is a corollary in the comics, and it seems like a reasonably smart move with box offices becoming increasingly female-driven, but we're starting to see how much studios are willing to stretch and expand their superhero products to keep amassing our dollars. This feels like fringe information, but it's intended for a mainstream audience.

Another one that interrupts my flow, so let's just skip ahead. It is interesting to note, however, that this is the second story in this email that has a connection to Tim Burton (after the bit about the Alice in Wonderland sequel, which is not being directed by Burton). 

Okay, here's where we go off the rails into total fringe geekery: the "in what movie will such-and-such character from the comic book finally appear?" story. MovieWeb is here taking for granted that its readership not only cares when this character will appear (allegedly, in a sequel to a movie that has not even been released yet), but actually knows who this "Darkseid" is. I consider myself acquainted enough with comic books to be familiar with many of the names, but this is my first introduction to a name this piece considers an "iconic villain." 

And last but not least ...

More Spider-Man. What I consider strangest about this story is that the previous Spider-Man rumor, about that female spinoff, is also allegedly planned for 2017, though from a different studio. (Which studio owns the rights to which parts of which comics is a discussion for another time, one I would probably never undertake because that would require trying to understand it.) Second strangest: the fact that both studios don't consider the Spider-Man universe dead after the largely disliked Spider-Man reboot and its largely disliked sequel. Yet another indication of how the movie mainstream has been co-opted by the comic book fringe ... or what was once considered the fringe, anyway.

After I got to the end of this email, I felt exhausted and out of touch.

To be clear, I don't mind that there's a strain of popular movie fandom with which I don't feel comfortable aligning myself. I don't particularly want to be part of the movie mainstream. And I'm certainly enough aligned with them, as I have high levels of affection for the likes of Captain America: The Winter Soldier just this year alone. 

But there is a tendency amongst human beings to have an uneasy relationship with the popular, one paradoxically characterized both by a sense of liberating distance from the popular, as well as a struggle to understand the popular, which often takes the form of mocking and resentment. That's kind of where I find myself now. I feel like I don't fully understand people who can get all their cinematic nourishment from superheroes. In the 1990s people thought that superheroes were just stunted adults running around in tights. Has so much changed since then?

If MovieWeb had existed in the 1980s, would I have expected the stories to be about My Dinner With Andre? No, likely not. It would have still catered to the popular.

So I guess what disturbs me the most is that what's popular at the movies has become kind of homogeneous. In the 1980s and 1990s, weird phenomena were able to jump out and become popular. As just one example, a podcast I listen to was recently discussing how Crocodile Dundee could never become the second-most popular movie in a calendar year these days. Crocodile Dundee would be more likely to become a straight-to-video curiosity than it would be to beat 99% of the other releases that year. 

So as this blur of colorful superhero outfits is starting to blend into something muddled and gray, I'm seeing a world without distinguishing features, fueled only by the desire to fulfill a wish to become superhuman.

And I find that super boring.