The best Disaster movies on DVD

(Originally published in Hotdog, February 2005)

1: THE TOWERING INFERNO

The Movie: The Everest of disaster movies, Irwin Allen’s classic tale of dodgy wiring and even dodgier fashions takes a gigantic roster of Seventies stars, and strands them in a flaming tower block with no hope of escape. Paul Newman is the architect looking to escape city life, Steve McQueen (who famously demanded equal billing, equal pay and an equal number of lines with Newman) is the tough talking fire chief out to quench the flames, while familiar faces like Richard Chamberlain, Fred Astaire and Robert Vaughan look concerned, panic, undergo major life changes or tumble flaming from the nearest window. A full-on, two-and-a-half hour disaster banquet of truly towering proportions.
The Extras: The theatrical trailer- and nowt else. We smell a two-disc anniversary edition on the horizon…
Classic Moment: “Did you leave a cigarette burning?” Robert Wagner and Susan Flannery discover the meaning of the word “understatement” shortly before their fiery demise.

2: AIRPLANE!

The Movie: Nobody understood the true, delirious silliness of disaster movies as well as the Zucker Brothers and Jim Abrams, who took the script of 1959 airline flick Red Alert, and turned it into one of the loopiest comedies ever filmed. From the inflatable auto-pilot to the Saturday Night Fever-influenced flashback, it’s a non-stop explosion of off-the-wall nuttiness as semi-crazed war veteran Robert Hayes tries to save a passenger flight after an outbreak of fish-related food poisoning.
The Extras: The R2 has a directors commentary that’s fitfully entertaining, but the new R1 also includes a brace of deleted scenes and interviews.
Classic Moment: Air hostess Julie Haggerty tries to build confidence in her passengers, and then messes up by enquiring “Does anyone know how to fly a plane?”

3: THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE

The Movie: Led by Gene Hackman’s tough-talking preacher, a group of rag-tag survivors struggle their way through an upside-down cruise liner when a tidal wave causes it to capsize. Naturally, they’re soon dropping like flies, and the 1972 adventure that kicked off the disaster movie bandwagon keeps the grit level high and the death count at an impressive level, all while letting seasoned veterans like Hackman and Ernest Borgenine, do what they do best.
The Extras: Apart from cast profiles, all this disappointing disc has to offer is a 1972-made puff-piece featurette that spends most of its time saying how fantastic the film is.
Classic Moment: Showing her unlikely history as an ex-swimming champion, Shelly Winters saves Hackman from a watery fate– but perishes in the process. Blub!

 

 

4: DR. STRANGELOVE

The Movie: Determined to protect his bodily fluids from the evils of communism, General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) takes the extreme route of ordering his bombers to nuke Russia. While Group Captain Mandrake, President Muffley and loopy ex-Nazi Dr. Strangelove (all played by Peter Sellers) try to find a way of stopping the countdown to doomsday, Stanley Kubrick’s pitch-black satirical comedy stares the impending nuclear holocaust in the face and laughs its head off in demented style.
The Extras: On top of the 90-minute making-of, there’s documentaries on Sellers, the Nuclear Threat, and the Production Design, as well as a selection of kooky interviews.
Classic Moment: Waving his cowboy hat and whooping his lungs out, Major Kong (Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb down into cinema history.

5: TITANIC

The Movie: The first half of James Cameron’s epic romance may be like being slowly drowned in golden syrup, but once the iceberg hits and the supposedly ‘unsinkable’ ship proves to be anything but, the mayhem truly kicks into gear. With gigantic sets flooded with water and digital effects bringing the sinking to amazingly detailed life, it’s a thrilling and heart-pounding ride that almost makes up for having to sit through the ear-shredding torture of Celine Dion.
The Extras: After the initial vanilla disc, Fox have pulled out the stops with a 4-disc marathon that offers everything from multiple commentaries to a host of deleted scenes.
Classic Moment: Leonardo and Kate hang on as the rear section of the boat makes its final plunge into the icy depths.

6: INDEPENDENCE DAY

The Movie: It may be an alien invasion flick, but in every other respect Roland Emmerich’s mighty B-movie follows the Irwin Allen disaster formula to the letter. There are families reunited, multi-ethnic bonding, an evil officious authority figure and the line “I picked a hell of a day to quit drinking!”, as President Bill Pullman leads the charge to wipe out the extra-terrestials, and Jeff Goldblum uses their foolish lack of antivirus software to deliver the killing blow.
The Extras: Featuring the theatrical and extended versions, as well as a documentary and commentaries, this 2-disc edition covers the movie in exemplary fashion.
Classic Moment: Pure disaster movie cheese in action, as a cute kid’s golden retriever makes a last-minute leap to safety from an all-consuming wall of fire.

7: ARMAGEDDON

The Movie: The peak of the big, dumb late 90’s Blockbuster, Michael Bay’s symphony of explosions and sheer goddammed macho bravado sees the world threatened by an asteroid the size of Texas, and the only men for the job are Bruce Willis and his gang of oil riggers. With enough testosterone to power a major city, they’re soon sent into space to blow the offending rock out of the sky, while Bay’s ballistic filmmaking style takes the OTT disaster movie into another dimension.
The Extras: After an intial ‘flipper’ release, Buena Vista finally came through with an edition loaded to the gills with commentaries and special effects info.
Classic Moment: A stray asteroid fragment crashes down into Paris, and transforms the city into a smoking crater.

8: THE BIRDS

The Movie: There have been plenty of “Nature turns against Man!” movies, but none with the delicious brutality and nastiness of Hitchcock’s quietly devastating classic. Rich girl Tippi Hedren chases after Rod Taylor in a quiet west coast town, but soon the local birds have mysteriously taken a psychotic dislike to her, and anyone else in the vicinity. Building to a series of fabulously violent avian assaults, this is smart and terrifying moviemaking at its finest.
The Extras: An impressive selection for a 1963 movie, with the “All About The Birds” featurette, Hedren’s screen test, an alternate ending and a heap of storyboards and photos.
Classic Moment: Trapped in a phone booth in the middle of an attack, Hedren finds herself dive-bombed by some seriously hacked-off seagulls.

9: METROPOLIS

The Movie: Not only did Fritz Lang’s 1927 sci-fi classic invent the futuristic blockbuster, it also transforms into a prototype disaster movie in its final act. As the downtrodden workers are provoked into destroying the factories by the evil robot Maria (Bridgette Helm), suddenly their own city ends up flooded by waves of water. Cue hundreds of extras milling desperately about, some spectacular model shots, and some of the greatest H2O-aided property destruction you could ever wish to witness.
The Extras: A delicious two disc edition, with a documentary on early German cinema, a commentary, photo galleries and- most importantly- a beautifully remastered print.
Classic Moment: Freder (Gustav Frolich) and the real Maria are re-united in the middle of a seething crowd of half-drowned workers.

10: DANTE’S PEAK

The Movie: This CGI-happy disaster fest hits all the right notes as nervous Vulcanologist Pierce Brosnan gets suspicious about the rumblings near the town of Dante’s Peak. Unfortunately, the locals don’t want to hear him cry “Volcano!” for fear of scaring away the tourists, and are soon wearing egg (and major amounts of ash) on their faces when the lava starts gushing forth. Loud and brilliantly shallow, it’s Hollywood cinema as a rollercoaster ride taken to its utmost extreme.
The Extras: Universal could at least have managed an educational featurette on Volcanoes- but instead, we’re “blessed” with production notes and a trailer.
Classic Moment: While escaping across a lake by boat, Brosnan realizes that the water has been turned to acid and is now eating through the hull…

(Originally published in Hotdog, January 2006)

From the offbeat vampirism of his debut film Cronos to the comic-book action of Hellboy, there’s few directors alive as passionate about horror as Mexico’s own Guillermo Del Toro. Here, he explains his most important pointers for any wannabe horror filmmakers.

1: Make sure it’s not for everybody.
It’s important not to make a horror movie into wholesome entertainment, and one effect of this is that you’ll lose some of your audience. In almost everything I’ve done, I try to have at least one “walk-out” scene– like in Cronos, where the main character licks a puddle of blood from the bathroom floor. They’re scenes where anyone who’s not with the movie will probably leave the theatre, either physically or mentally. Shocking the audience may be dangerous, but sometimes, you’ve just got to take out a hostage and shoot them in the head, so they know you’re not kidding.

2: Know the Classics.
It’s currently hip to be post-modern and tongue-in-cheek about our genre, but I’m absolutely a romantic when it comes to horror. My movies, even when they’re reflections on the genre, are done with absolute respect and admiration for whatever preceded them. I love paying homage to the true masters of horror like Mario Bava, Terrence Fisher or James Whale, and even if you’re going to be iconoclastic about it, it’s important that you should know what preceeded you.

3: The biggest special effect in a movie is the Actors
If you watch any of the versions of King Kong, what’s most important is how the actors react to Kong. You can have the best special effects in the world, but if the actors aren’t convincing, the audience won’t buy it. When I’m casting, I try to look for a sense of vulnerability, even if it’s someone who’s tough physically like Ron Perlman- you need to believe their reactions, and be able to relate to them.

4: Be afraid of yourself
If something makes you queasy or if you’re afraid to show something onscreen– go ahead and show it. When your instinct is to be repelled or scared by it, there’ll be people who react just as strongly. It’s like writing comedy, where the first person you want to make laugh is yourself. Most of the “walk-out” scenes I’ve done were things that made me nervous, personally, and that was what made me want to do them. Films are about provoking an emotion- and if you feel something when you come up with the idea, than that emotion will go all the way through to the audience.

6: It’s not about the scares
People tend to be confounded by this, and they say, for example, “I saw Devil’s Backbone, it’s not that scary.” And I say, it doesn’t matter- you can watch a Woody Allen film and it doesn’t have to be laugh-out-loud funny. To me, it’s the difference between a wave and humidity. A shock moment is like a wave- it hits you frontally, and causes some damage, but it goes away quickly, and then you’re swimming along. The other type of horror, which I think is much more effective, is like humidity, where it’s all around you, almost undetectable at first. It seeps in very slowly, but it’s much more permanent.

7: Love your Monsters.
One of those easy sound-bites that people quote about horror is “Less is More”, and I always squirm at that. It really depends on the film, and there are a lot of horror movies which actually work by the rule that “Less is more– until you give them more”. Horror is like bluffing when you’re playing poker, and at some point you’ve got to have four aces. You can’t bluff the whole game, and part of that philosophy requires you to love your monsters. When you show them, the first person who’s got to be turned on and giggling about showing that creature has to be you.

8: Find the Beauty in Horror
At the end of the day, Horror is the offspring of fairy tales, and you need to find the fairy tale element in the horror story you’re trying to tell, that sense of almost child-like amazement, poetry and beauty. It’s all the same, even if you’re trying to do something like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which is brutal, sordid and violent– and yet, there are moments of strange beauty in it. It’s what the French used to call “Graveyard Poetry”, and it’s something every horror movie should at least aspire to.

Originally published October 2006 in Hotdog magazine

“Horror’s about putting you in touch with mortality. It’s about reminding you of the perishable side of emotions and physicality, and the fact that you’re going to age, die, and eventually rot. When something like that confronts you, it can do it in a shocking way- and that’s the traditional scare- or it can confront you in a much more perverse and persuasive way- and that’s what I’m usually interested in!”

You don’t so much interview Guillermo Del Toro as run alongside the conversation trying to keep up. Hotdog is sitting with the director of Cronos, Blade 2 and Hellboy in a plush, tastefully decorated conference suite in the basement level of a London hotel, and while he might be jet-lagged thanks to flying into the country the night before, it hasn’t blunted his enthusiasm in the slightest.  Instead, dressed in dark, casual clothes and wearing round spectacles, Del Toro is hunched next to the table with a broad grin and an evangelical gleam in his eye, occasionally howling with laughter, and generally exuding a passion for horror and dark fantasy from every pore.

For the 42-year old Mexican director, making horror movies isn’t just a job- it’s a way of life, and his love for the genre has pushed him towards making what’s arguably his masterpiece. Shot in Spanish, and acting as a companion movie to his 2001 chiller The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth tells another story of childhood during the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War in the 1940s, but this time is pitched as a lush and pitilessly dark fairy tale.

The plot follows a young girl (Ivana Baquero) who tries to escape the brutal reality of her sadistic adoptive Army captain father (Sergi López) by taking refuge in a bizarre fantasy world, where she’s offered a chance to escape by a half-man, half-goat named Pan (Hellboy’s Abe Sapien himself, Doug Jones)- as long as she completes three difficult tasks. While all the ingredients of a traditional, child-friendly fairy tale are present and correct, there’s also blood, extreme violence, terrifying creatures, and a climax that will have even the most hard-hearted genre enthusiasts weeping into their popcorn. Harry Potter it most definitely isn’t…

“People don’t tend to remember that the original versions of tales like Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella came out of a very harsh, difficult reality, and are usually about orphans in dire, Dickensian conditions,” explains Del Toro. “Like in Hansel and Gretel, where the parents leave their starving children in the woods to die of hunger- and that’s the set-up for the story!!” he laughs. “Of course, now it’s all cute and toned down- but fuck that, the context of the story was totally miserable conditions, and that’s what I wanted to do with this movie- make the Potato Famine version of Hansel and Gretel!”

The film’s dream-like world of pale creatures with blinking eyes in their hands, flittering bug-like fairies and horned fauns is an obvious stomping ground for Del Toro’s love of baroque and inventive monsters, but Pan’s Labyrinth also pays equal attention to the grim realities of Franco’s Spain, and it’s a world the director finds endlessly fascinating. “Imagine if I told you that Hitler died peacefully in his bed of pulmonary disease, with Eva Braun by his side, aged 74, and he got a royal funeral. You’d go ‘What?!?’, and yet that’s basically what happened in Spain, where you had a brutal fascist regime, headed by Franco, that was allowed and politically sanctioned to exist in a supposedly (at least back then) free world.”

“It was a harsh, violent time, and outside of Spain, not that many people know about it. Ask anyone in the street and they might mention Ernest Hemmingway and ‘For Whom The Bell Tolls’, but they won’t think of Franco in the same way as they’ll think of other dictators like Hitler or Mussolini. There’s so much more to be told about that period, and I’ll go back, again and again.”

Unsurprisingly, considering their similarities, Pan’s Labyrinth began life as one part of the original, much more fantasy oriented version of The Devil’s Backbone, but went through many changes before Del Toro finally decided, after hitting box-office success with Hellboy in 2004, that the time was right to make this dark, personal movie.

What he didn’t realise at the time, however, was exactly how much trouble and heartache he’d end up having to go through. “Almost as soon as I arrived in Madrid- and I’d cashed everything I had in the world to get me and my family over there-,” says Del Toro, “I get a call from the film’s financier saying he’s changed his mind, and he’s out of the movie business. This was two weeks before pre-production was supposed to begin, I’m stuck without a job, and I had to choose whether to go back to Hollywood and obediently make another film, or stay and try and get this one done. I chose the second option, but I suffered like a motherfucker while doing it.”

What was supposed to be a relatively swift, eight-month production process ended up taking nearly two years, throwing a whole selection of tricky scenarios at Del Toro, and over which time the previously portly director managed to shed nearly 150 pounds in weight. “Half of that was almost purely thanks to the Pan’s shoot, because I was basically an insomniac for the first six weeks. It was a nightmare- we were trying to make a hugely ambitious story on a small amount of money, and stuff kept happening. We hit the driest season in Madrid’s history, on a movie that was supposed to look luscious and green, so we had to work around that- literally, on certain shots, if you moved the camera a millimetre to the right, you’d see that everything was dry as a fucking bagel.”

To make life even more complicated, a week or so before shooting began, Del Toro had a visit from the National Forest Guard who delivered some more unwelcome news. “Because they’d just had the biggest forest fire in Spain’s history, they said we couldn’t light a match, use a squib, use a blank, or create any sort of explosion. And there we were, trying to make a war movie! So, all the explosions you see in night-time, for instance, are done with light and steam- there’s not a single fire element. All the daytime explosions were done with mud, water and air, and while you can’t tell the difference, it took an incredible effort to get it right. In the end though, all the stress and difficulty meant that suddenly, six weeks in, heaven occurred. Everything we shot just became very emotionally powerful, so I think the movie was actually energised by all that dread and difficulty, and ended up better because of it.”

The film also sees Del Toro once again refusing to play the predictable casting game, and after choosing pretty-boy Luke Goss to play the funkily-jawed vampire villain in Blade 2, he’s turned confounding expectations into a habit. “Every producer in Spain told me I was making a mistake casting Sergi López as the villain. He’s had a few darker roles internationally, but in Spain, he’s best known as a romantic comedy lead. He does these Tom Hanks-style roles, and I was casting him as this psychotic Army officer, so I had all these producers saying ‘You’re going to fuck up the movie!’ And, it was almost the same with Maribel Verdú (from Y Tu Mamá También)- she usually plays hot, sexy chicks, and I wanted her to play a drab, introspective, bitter woman. Very few people said ‘Good choice,’ but I guess I just see actors in a different way. You can make risky decisions like that, but you’ve just got to be absolutely certain that’s what you wanted.”

Part of this certainty in Del Toro is something he learned from a seriously unexpected and traumatic source- the kidnapping of his father in the late 1990s. “It’s something the negotiator told us while we were dealing with the kidnappers- a process that lasted roughly three months. He told us one rule- ‘Any time you take a step, you have to be absolutely certain it’s what you want. Because if he lives or dies, you can’t question the decision you made.’ It’s something that’s been very useful in the rest of my life, and that includes filmmaking. Once you’ve make a decision, you should never torture yourself for making it, because your best judgement got you there.”

“We got my father back, in the end- the experience left a hell of a dent, but it also brought my family closer together, and galvanised us. Really, I had two personal tragedies then, because my second film Mimic was happening very closely together with the kidnapping, and I had a lot of trouble on that film. Both those experiences were very traumatic, and they both made me realise that freedom is precious.”

Certainly, the fact that only two of the six films Del Toro has directed (Mimic and Blade 2) could be described as genuine, out-and-out Hollywood films is a testament to his determination to bring his personal vision to the genre, and he feels, if nothing else, that at least he’s learned the art of saying ‘no’. “At one point, I was developing a faithful, traditional version of the children’s book Wind in the Willows for Disney, and when they said ‘We think Mr. Toad should have a skateboard’, I just said “That’s great- why don’t you do that yourselves, I’m out of this joint.” As a director, you’ve got to be secure about saying ‘No thank you’, and know when to pull out of a game, and when to say ‘Fuck you.’ I also trust my craft more than I did when I started out, and I think essentially, once you’ve reached a point when you’ve done six movies, the secret is to try and stay as hungry and as fucked up as you were on the first one.”

As for what film number seven might be, the odds are looking healthy for Hellboy 2, even if the budget isn’t as promising as Del Toro would like. “We’re as green-lit as we can be,” he says, “and we’re currently getting the budget approved, but we’re trying to do a story that, ideally, we’d need $140 million dollars to make, and we’re doing it for roughly the same price as the original- $60 million. It’s a point of pride that I always try and make the films look bigger than they actually cost, but sometimes it’s frustrating- like on Blade 2, when lots of reviews said ‘it benefits from a much larger budget than the original’ and it actually only cost $17,000 more than the first film, which is not much in movie terms!”

Ask him about the state of horror movies in general, and he declares the genre to be currently in a fairly robust shape. However, he does feel the world of modern-day scare-fests is lacking one particular type of movie, and if he can ever get his long-gestating adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s mind-warping horror classic At The Mountains of Madness out of development hell, he might be able to do something about this. “Nobody at the moment is doing high-visibility, high-profile, tent-pole horror. Everybody in Hollywood keeps thinking Blair Witch Project, Hostel, Cabin Fever, Saw- which means you do them for about $5 million maximum, and they gross $80 to $100 million. Fine, that’s one model- but the other, which nobody is attempting, is big-budget, no-holds barred, serious horror, in the way films like The Exorcist or The Shining were. What we need is an R-rated, $80 million, tent-pole horror movie to come out, and kick everybody’s fucking ass. And no pussyfooting, PG-13 shit!”

Message to Hollywood- Guillermo Del Toro needs $80 million for a bleak, full-on horror film, and he needs it right now. You know it makes sense…

Originally published in Hotdog magazine

BATMAN: THE VEHICLES

A User’s Guide

(Originally published in Hotdog, July 2005)

Vehicle: The “Classic” Batmobile
(Batman: The Movie (1967))

Sales Pitch: For the lycra-clad crime fighter who has everything… A sleek, atomic-battery-powered super-vehicle, this comes complete with parachute brakes, onboard tracking system and a Bat-phone for taking those all-important calls from Comissioner Gordon.
Special Weapons: Rear-mounted Oil Squirters and Nail Spreaders, a front-mounted Chain-slicer, and a pair of handy ejector seats to dispose of anyone foolish enough to try stealing it.
Bat-Strengths: The combination of Bat-logos and Retro-chic strikes fear (and confusion) into the heart of criminals.
Bat-Weaknesses: The side doors refuse to open, meaning unfit costumed vigilantes need not apply.
Under the Hood: Originally created for the Batman TV series, the original Batmobile was assembled by “Custom Car King” and designer George Barris. Working on a budget of $30,000 dollars, Barris converted an experimental 1954 Lincoln Futura concept car that had already featured in the 1959 movie It Started With A Kiss. He also worked in echoes of Batman creator Bob Kane’s Batmobile designs from the comics, and the end result went on to become probably the most iconic super-vehicle ever created.

Vehicle: The “Movie” Batmobile
(Batman (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995), Batman and Robin (1997)

Sales Pitch: Question: What is the stylish, fetish-inclined vigilante-around-town driving this season? Answer: A vehicle with sexy curves, bullet-proof armour, and the traditional “big-ass flaming rear booster”. 100% guaranteed to net you Kim Basinger’s personal number or your money back.
Special Weapons: Grappling hooks for 90 degree turns, a pair of high-powered machine guns, and a large spherical explosive charge that always drops out at the least convenient moment for criminals.
Bat-Strengths: It’s manoeuvrable, remote-controlled, and- as Batman himself later admits- “Chicks dig the car.”
Bat-Weaknesses: The Security System could use an upgrade, with the Penguin hacking the car and giving Bruce Wayne an unexpected road trip in Batman Returns.
Under the Hood: The updated Batmobile was dreamed up by designer Anton Furst, and purpose-built by special effects man John Evans as a fibreglass body wrapped around a chunky jet turbine. A major redesign was threatened when Joel Shumacher came onboard for Batman Forever, with Alien designer and all-round nutcase H.R. Giger submitting a radically organic, X-shaped version of the Batmobile. Instead, all we got was an upgrade of the original design with some incredibly camp spikes, which proceeded to get even camper once Batman and Robin hit in 1997.

Vehicle: The Batboat
(Batman: The Movie (1967), Batman Forever (1995))

Sales Pitch: Soar across the ocean waves in the patented Batboat. Whether you’re tackling sea-based foes, evading torpedoes or simply investigating a mysterious Navigation buoy, the Batboat offers speed, reliability and a very large fin.
Special Weapons: An onboard Bat-Charge Launcher, for firing Bat-Charges at nefarious underwater villains.
Bat-Strengths: It’s the perfect weapon for the Dynamic Duo to foil the evil “United Underworld” and their camp penguin-esque submarine.
Bat-Weaknesses: That rear fin is, to be honest, incredibly silly…
Under the Hood: The original Batboat was a specially constructed speedboat built for the movie by the Glastron boat corporation, in exchange for the film’s World Premiere being held at Glastron’s headquarters in Austin, Texas. The Batboat was briefly resurrected in a toned-down, darker style for Batman Forever, but, as with most Nineties Batman vehicles, got blown up after about two minutes.

Vehicle: The Batwing
(Batman (1989), Batman Forever (1995))

Sales Pitch: Take to the skies in the ultimate in slick and sexy crime-fighting aircraft- the perfect choice for the airborne vigilante, whether you’re out to battle evil or just wreck the local Giant Balloon parade.
Special Weapons: Onboard missile systems with appalling aim, and an exciting combination of grappling hook and scissors for slicing balloon wires.
Bat-Strengths: It’s the funkiest aircraft on Earth, and it’s great for making impromptu Bat-signals against a full moon.
Bat-Weaknesses: Unfortunately, it’s not actually bulletproof…
Under the Hood: Another addition from Anton Furst, the Batwing plane was realised with the help of model-making supremo and Bond movie veteran Derek Meddings. It played a significant role in the brilliantly stylised 1990s Batman Animated series, and was briefly resurrected for Batman Forever in 1995, lasting even less screen time than its first appearance before being unceremoniously shot down.

Vehicle: The Batcycle
(Batman: The Movie (1967))

Sales Pitch: For those with a desire to really impress the local biker chicks, the Batcycle offers speed, mobility, and the ability to send your crime-fighting partner off on the detachable sidecar. Be the envy of Gotham City!
Special Weapons: None, save for it’s truly insane appearance.
Bat-Strengths: It conceals itself magnificently behind clumps of foliage.
Bat-Weaknesses: The detachable sidecar may be cool, but it’s also almost impossible to control.
Under the Hood: The Bat-Cycle originally turned up in the TV series as an everyday Harley Davison with Sidecar for one episode, but received a major upgrade for the movie. Dan Dempski, one of the mechanics working for Batmobile creator George Barris, was the creator of the Batcycle along with designer Tom Daniel, and converted it from a Yamaha Catalina 250 motorcycle.

Vehicle: The Batcopter
(Batman: The Movie (1967))

Sales Pitch: Who hasn’t dreamed of owning a Helicopter that resembles a Bat? Now, your superheroic arsenal of vehicles can be complete with this dashing Bat-Copter that comes complete with handy canisters of Shark Repellant Bat-Spray for tackling hungry sea-creatures.
Special Weapons: None, but it does feature a Bat-Ladder (with handy “Bat-Ladder” sign for easy identification).
Bat-Strengths: It’s great for tracking criminals and attempting to board non-existent boats.
Bat-Weaknesses: Unfortunately, it gets knocked out of the sky by a Polaris missile, and only landing in a nearby foam-rubber convention saves the Dynamic Duo.
Under the Hood: The only onscreen Batman vehicle to not be custom-built or extensively converted, the Bat-Copter was a 1964 model Bell Helicopter painted red for the occasion. The “Bat-wings” were formed from a tubular frame covered in canvas, but they also reduced the helicopter’s power by 40-50%, making it incredibly difficult to fly, and meaning the 1967 movie remained the Bat-Copter’s sole screen flight.

Originally published in Hotdog Magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2005

(Originally published in Hotdog, July 2003)

Event Movies- they’re big, they’re dumb, and Hollywood wouldn’t be able to survive without them. The financial landmarks that major film companies arrange their schedules around, they arrive each summer with a deafening level of hype, promising the latest blockbuster thrill-ride will be bigger, faster, sexier, and louder than ever before.

Sadly, in an age where trailers are frequently more entertaining than the movies they’re selling, we often end up paying our money only to complain afterwards how it should have been so much better. Tweedy highbrow film critics point accusing fingers at event movies for causing the end of Intelligent Cinema as we know it- but while they’ll blame the original STAR WARS trilogy or JURASSIC PARK, to find the real birth of the modern blockbuster, you have to look in the shadows for a bat-costumed vigilante with a suprising taste in rubber.

First swooping into popular culture back in 1939, millionaire Bruce Wayne’s superheroic alter-ego Batman has always seemed an eye-catching choice for big screen adventures. Unfortunately, his only major pre-1980s appearance was the jaw-droppingly camp 1960s BATMAN television show, meaning that for two decades the word “Superhero” conjured up images of Adam West sprinting around a day-glo Gotham City in grey tights.

Only after Christopher Reeve’s first crimson-knickered flight in 1978’s SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE did Studio big-wigs at Warner Bros start considering a less campy, more action-packed version of Batman. Pre-production rumblings started in 1979, but the project stalled for several years, searching for a decent script and the right director.

In the end, the man for the job turned out to be a tangle-haired 29 year old ex-animator with a stunningly gothic imagination. Tim Burton was never likely to fit in at Disney, particularly after his animation designs for FOX AND THE HOUND were described as “looking like roadkill”, but outside the grip of Mickey Mouse, he grabbed Hollywood’s attention with two mind-boggling movies;- the utterly demented PEE WEE’S BIG ADVENTURE, and twisted afterlife comedy BEETLEJUICE.

Enlisted for BATMAN, his eventual concept turned out far more radical than the straight action-adventure the studio intended- Burton wanted to capture the style of the 1940s comics, and explore the psychological weirdness of a man dressing up as a giant bat. It was the era of the “graphic novel” craze, and Frank Miller’s THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS had already proved successful superhero stories could be challenging, edgy and crammed full of creative violence- so it didn’t take much persuasion for the studio to give a potentially trailblazing blockbuster the thumbs-up.

Burton quickly set about building Gotham City with the aid of acclaimed production designer Anton Furst, the man who transformed the Docklands into Vietnam for Stanley Kubrick’s FULL METAL JACKET. Together, they re-vamped Gotham as an art-deco BLADE RUNNER-style nightmare, created a new, sleeker Batmobile, and dressed Batman in a suit of rubber body-armour that’d help the Caped Crusader easily fit in down at the local Fetish club.

Casting the film was trickier- Jack Nicholson was everybody’s favourite choice for cackling bat-villain the Joker, but the legendary reprobate wasn’t interested, only signing after a ludicrously tempting offer- $6 million and a cut of the merchandising- was slammed on the table by BATMAN producing team Jon Peters and Peter Guber.

While favoured female lead Sean Young suffered a riding accident and was replaced as Vicki Vale by Kim Basinger, the big debate was over who’d get the keys to the Batmobile. The Studio wanted a dynamic action star- but Burton had set his sights on the wiry, distinctly un-macho Michael Keaton.

“I wanted to steer away from that square-jawed look in comic books where everybody is a hulking brute,” explained Burton in 1989, “The whole point is that Batman’s not Arnold Schwarzenegger, because if he was, why would he need to put on a Bat-suit? He’s like the Phantom of the Opera, but instead of physical scars he’s hiding emotional ones.”

Going for the star of comedies like NIGHT SHIFT, MR. MOM and Burton’s BEETLEJUICE caused some Studio jitters- but finally the bat-cape was officially handed to Keaton, the decision was announced to the world… and the world replied by going spectacularly apeshit.

First off the starting post were the comics fans. Always ready to howl in protest at the slightest deviation from the original sacred texts, they responded to the idea of Keaton as if Warners had just invaded Poland. “Casting Keaton as BATMAN is like the Brady Bunch going porno!!” exploded one of fifty thousand angry letters which poured into the Studio offices, while outraged fans tore down pre-publicity for the film at comics conventions.

Even Adam West leapt on the chat-show circuit to proclaim himself a far better Batman than Keaton, and soon industry insiders were sombrely shaking their heads at the outcry. PREMIERE and the L.A. TIMES wrote that Keaton was the wrong choice, while Warner Bros chairman Steve Ross was told by one of the most powerful men in Hollywood that casting Keaton was “a horrible idea, and would bring the Studio to it’s knees.”

The Keaton furore even wiped several points off Warner Bros’ share price- a worrying sign, especially as Warners was moving towards a merger with the Time Corporation. They needed BATMAN to be a major hit, and a flop could fatally damage the deal. Suddenly, the potential for a Studio-busting, HEAVEN’S GATE-style bomb looked too large for comfort…

While Bat-fans across the world were sharpening pitchforks and preparing to storm the gates of Castle Warners, Burton was at Pinewood Studios, discovering that shooting a big-budget blockbuster was stressful enough without creatively-minded producers breathing down his neck.

Peters and Guber were constantly tweaking and changing the script, desperate to make the story appeal to the widest possible audience, and they urged Burton to inject less gothic psychology and more sex-appeal into Batman’s character, complaining “He’s supposed to be Batman, not Wuss-man!”

This was hugely frustrating for Burton;- “There were so many changes and fixes that it was like unravelling a ball of yarn. It gets to the point where you’re not helping anymore”;- and to make matters worse, Peters abruptly decided to dump the film’s original ending. Possibly influenced by the affair he’d been having with Kim Basinger throughout the shoot, Peters jettisoned the idea of Vicki Vale being killed off, instead conceiving the operatic pursuit through Gotham Cathedral.

Burton was horrified by the changes but ended up having to shoot the scenes, frequently without a completed script;- “We were shooting a scene leading up to the Bell-Tower, and Jack’s dragging Kim up the steps, and he says to me ‘Why am I walking up these steps? Where am I going?’ All I could say was ‘I don’t know- we’ll talk about it when you get to the top…’”

While the shoot was winding down, the complaints of furious comics fans were still echoing across the world, and the WALL STREET JOURNAL ran a piece declaring the new movie was in serious trouble. “That story just deflated everybody,” said Jon Peters at the time, and he fought back against the bad publicity by releasing an early teaser trailer and coming up with the first promo posters, setting the tone for the groundbreaking press campaign.

Instead of highlighting the stars, the only focus would be Anton Furst’s evocative Bat-Logo illustration, and soon the logo was everywhere, as Warners merchandised the film as aggressively as possible- it screamed from album covers, computer games, action figures, and 1001 other pieces of movie merchandise.

By the time the tidal wave of maketing hit Europe, it was impossible to open a magazine without seeing Nicholson’s red-lipped grin or Keaton sheathed in the rubber bat-suit, and even Burton felt the inescapable hype had gone too far. “I saw with BATMAN a level of greed I’d never seen before in my life” said Burton in 1991. “If I was a normal person, I’d have gone ‘Shut the fuck up, I’m sick of hearing about this thing.’”

Despite Burton’s fears and mediocre reviews, the film smashed every Box-Office record imaginable, grabbing nearly half a billion dollars worldwide- although an estimated $60 million vanished into the show-stealing Nicholson’s pockets thanks to his lucrative merchandising cut.

The gamble had paid off;- Keaton’s effective performance silenced the fan-boy critics, while Burton’s Hollywood future was secure, and the Time-Warner merger could proceed as planned. Everybody seemed to have the happy ending they wanted- except Anton Furst. Despite having scooped massive acclaim and an Oscar for his work on the film, the troubled designer committed suicide in 1991.

Fourteen years after it’s release, BATMAN may show it’s age with some arthritic action sequences, but it’s the first genuine example of Event Movie filmmaking- where the marketing drives the movie, and it doesn’t matter if the story’s non-existent, as long as there are vivid characters and brain-dazzling visuals. Burton’s gothic landmark has also been massively influential, taking over from the Adam West TV show to become the standard perception of what superheroes are all about. From flops like THE SHADOW to smash hits like BLADE, it’s rare to find a comic book movie that doesn’t owe BATMAN a serious debt.

As for the Bat-franchise itself- Joel Shumacher may have crashed it into hibernation with the shriekingly camp BATMAN AND ROBIN, but as long as cinematic superheroes are beating the crap out of the forces of evil, don’t count the Dark Knight out yet…

Originally published in Hotdog Magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2003

The Superhero battle between Mighty Marvel and Dazzling DC Comics- and how it hit the world of Movies…

(Originally published in DVD Review, April 2004)

“It’s the fight of the year, the conflict of the century, the battle of the millennium! It’s the ultimate smackdown between two opposing forces, locked in mortal combat for over four decades! In the red corner, there’s Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and the Flash! In the blue corner- it’s the Amazing Spider-Man, the Hulk, Daredevil and the X-Men! So, before the fight truly begins, just ask yourself one question- whose side are you on? More precisely… are you with DC, or are you with Marvel?”

For the past forty years, comic book fans have had to regularly ask themselves that very question. The world of Superheroes may be crammed with spandex-clad costumed avengers, but the majority of them hail from just two separate companies- DC Comics, and their bitter rival Marvel. Ever since the early Sixties, they’ve been battling for the attentions of comics fans across the world- and this frenzied conflict has also crashed its way onto cinema screens, thanks to the strange and wonderful world of Superhero Movies.

MIXING UP THE FORMULA

To the untrained eye, however, it’s not the easiest task in the world to even tell Marvel and DC Superheroes apart. Both groups are traditional “brightly dressed crime-fighters protecting the innocent”- but they also possess fundamental differences that lie at the heart of the DC/Marvel divide. Batman and Superman are DC’s big guns;- grand pulp heroes born in America’s late 1930s atmosphere of optimistic idealism, with world-beating superpowers or convenient fortunes to fall back on when things get tough.

On the flip side of this coin, the 1960s-born Marvel heroes are far more fallible and everyday characters, usually finding superpowers foisted upon them. Having to cope with domestic problems while fighting evil, they’re more believable and empathetic- and it was the decision to put the human back into superhuman characters that kicked off the Marvel Comics revolution in the first place, all thanks to classic creator and Superhero genius Stan Lee.

It was Lee who, back in 1961, bucked the trend for simplistic comic stories by inventing a brand new, more realistic and family-structured team of superheroes. “They were the kind of team I had been longing to write about,” said Lee, “Heroes who were less than perfect. Heroes who didn’t always get on with each other, but could be counted on when the chips were down.”

Despite going against the status quo of the time, from the moment the first issue hit the shelves, THE FANTASTIC FOUR was an outright smash hit, and Lee’s further creations such as SPIDER-MAN and THE HULK kicked off an unstoppable wave of ground breaking Marvel superheroes that stretched throughout the 1960s. Suddenly it was Marvel setting the trends instead of DC- but a number of years had to pass for this competition to leap onto the big screen.

The biggest reason for this was Special Effects. With comic book superheroes regularly deflecting bullets or leaping tall buildings in a single bound, the cheesy effects showcased by earlier efforts such as the dazzlingly camp 1960s BATMAN TV show simply weren’t going to be enough to convince cinema audiences. All that could be done was to wait for a quantum leap- one that a certain Mr George Lucas was more than happy to provide…

IS IT A BIRD? IS IT A PLANE?

STAR WARS not only kick-started the blockbuster revolution in 1977, it also brought the standard of special effects up to a new eye-opening level. Suddenly, superheroes were no longer as impossible to depict as before, and Hollywood producers could pounce on the massive, ready-to-exploit storylines of comic books. Marvel swiftly flogged the film rights to SPIDER-MAN, hoping for a swift big-screen debut for the webbed wonder- but DC beat them to the punch, enlisting parent company Warner Bros and scoring a major coup in 1978 with SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE.

Without a trace of the camp of the Sixties BATMAN show, SUPERMAN tackled the source material faithfully, cracking the thorny problem of the flying effects and delivering thrills and action- as well as a hilariously overpaid Marlon Brando, netting $3.5 million for ten minutes screen time. For the next few years, the SUPERMAN films were everything that pop cinema was supposed to be, and whether he was freezing an entire lake, rescuing a school bus or having the crap beaten out of him by Terrence Stamp, Christopher Reeve was Superman- heroic, honourable and bizarrely stylish at the same time.

As the 1980s arrived, the only success Marvel had achieved was the INCREDIBLE HULK television series, and while DC suffered occasional misfires like Wes Craven’s dreadful version of gothic horror character SWAMP THING, the SUPERMAN franchise was going strong- until quality took a sudden nosedive.

1984’s attempt to broaden the franchise with SUPERGIRL was bad enough, with shamefully hammy performances from Peter O’Toole and Faye Dunaway, and a dreary lead in Helen Slater- but worse was to come in 1987’s SUPERMAN IV: THE QUEST FOR PEACE. With a slashed budget and an offensively awful script, this dreadful plea for nuclear disarmament was a classic exercise in bad moviemaking, and the sight of the once-magnificent Christopher Reeve slogging it out with a cheesy “Nuclear Man” villain was nothing short of depressing.

TWINKLE, TWINKLE, LITTLE BAT…

The failure of SUPERMAN IV killed the franchise stone-dead, and would have been the ideal time for Marvel to counter-attack with a big-scale blockbuster of their own. Unfortunately, most of the producers they’d sold their character rights to seemed completely unable to get a movie off the ground- and after watching their satirical comic HOWARD THE DUCK being transformed into a celluloid turkey by George Lucas in 1986, Marvel teamed with independent film company New World Pictures to finally get their superheroes onto cinema screens.

The one vital ingredient missing from this equation was large pots of money- meaning that while movie versions of patriotic hero CAPTAIN AMERICA and vengeful vigilante THE PUNISHER eventually made it into multiplexes, the former was a horribly low budget production- while the latter had the deep misfortune to star muscleman Dolph Lundgren.

Neither were going to be the epoch-defining hit that Marvel needed to kick start their movie fortunes, and when DC bounced back from SUPERMAN IV’s failure with a revitalised and darkly gothic remix of BATMAN in 1989, it seemed unlikely Marvel would ever strike it lucky. Taking its inspiration from the late eighties craze for Graphic Novels, including Frank Miller’s Bat-classic THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, the 1989 film was violent, stylish, and crammed full of enough of Tim Burton’s twisted imagination and Jack Nicholson’s gleeful overacting to disguise the absence of any kind of decent plot. The event movie had officially arrived, and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of the Superhero action…

TRAPPED IN THE SPIDER WEB

The one true glimmer of hope for Marvel fans arrived three years later in 1992 when James “King of the World” Cameron, fresh from the cyborg-crunching success of TERMINATOR 2, started showing serious interest in helming a SPIDER-MAN movie. The idea of the man behind ALIENS bringing the Webbed Wonder to the screen was enough to get fans salivating with anticipation- but even Cameron wasn’t powerful enough to defeat the combined forces of Hollywood Lawyers.

Having been sold back in 1975, the SPIDER-MAN rights were tied up with several different producers, and the battle for control of the project took so long that Cameron eventually gave up, opting to spend $180 million sinking the TITANIC instead. As if seeing their biggest character trapped in a legal mire wasn’t enough for Marvel to deal with, the company was suddenly sent into Bankruptcy by a series of catastrophic business deals, and spent the next few years trying to fight off corporate take-overs.

Everything seemed to be wrapped up- DC was ruling the roost with two more BATMAN sequels, while also warming up a new Tim Burton-directed take on SUPERMAN to star Nicolas Cage, while Marvel was perpetually stuck being the underdog. Unfortunately, nobody had considered the idea that the fabled Bat-franchise might be moments away from self-destructing…

REVERSAL OF FORTUNE

On paper, BATMAN AND ROBIN was the perfect blockbuster;- plenty of action, gorgeous stars, and the weighty prescence of Arnold Schwarzenegger, playing the nefarious Mr Freeze. There seemed no reason for the film not to outdo its predecessors- except that director Joel Schumacher managed to crank the camp level a degree too far. Suddenly, the barrage of shriekingly colourful production design and groan-worthy puns wasn’t just annoying the dedicated Bat-fans- everyday audience members were steering clear, and atrocious word-of-mouth soon killed the movie at the box-office.

Finally, there was proof that audiences wouldn’t simply accept any old rubbish with a superhero name stamped across it- and despite many critics claiming the comic-book movie had met its Waterloo, the time was right for Marvel to stage a quiet comeback. Having finally worked through the legal minefields and settled some of its business problems, Marvel started looking at getting some of its lesser known properties out into the world while the battles over SPIDER-MAN were still being resolved.

It’s this reason why Marvel’s first major blockbuster was based on a character nobody outside the world of comics had ever even heard of. Blade was the superhero equivalent of a 70s Blaxploitation character, a human/vampire halfbreed battling bloodsuckers while looking like a refugee from the set of SHAFT. A bizarre choice for an update, but one that mixed high-octane comic book action with bloodthirsty horror- and after adding Wesley Snipes, funky weapons and gallons of gore, 1998’s BLADE turned out to be a surprise hit, proving the existence of an audience for non-campy superhero movies as well as spawning a 2002 sequel.

While Marvel were toasting their first success, DC and Warner Bros were desperately trying to figure out new directions for their fabled franchises. After many false starts, Tim Burton’s SUPERMAN project finally collapsed, while the mouth-watering prospect of REQUIEM FOR A DREAM director Darren Aronofsky tackling classic graphic novel BATMAN: YEAR ONE also failed to get off the drawing board. Leaping from a solo CATWOMAN project to a future-set Batman story with Keanu Reeves, Warner Bros was dithering in panic and seemed unable to make up its mind.

THE X FACTOR

Marvel’s next step on the road to recovery was higher profile, and considerably riskier. One of their biggest titles, THE UNCANNY X-MEN had been running in various forms for the past thirty years, telling the saga of a group of superpowered “mutants” protecting the world that hates and despises them. For once, this was a superhero movie daring to tackle dark topics in a serious manner- but this was also the main attraction for USUAL SUSPECTS director Bryan Singer.

“Beneath the spectacle and the fun and the fights,” said Singer, “there’s an underlying philosophy about prejudice, fear of the unknown and trying to find your place in the world;- they’re all very universal concepts.” With its edgy Concentration Camp opening sequence and heavy duty thespians Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellan, 2000’s X-MEN proved that superhero movies could handle dark subject matters while still delivering full-tilt boogie head-smacking action.

And if that wasn’t enough to get audiences excited, suddenly Warner Bros declared they’d got their act together, and the next DC superhero movie would be BATMAN VS SUPERMAN, a titanic team-up to be directed by PERFECT STORM helmer Wolfgang Petersen. Potential casting ideas flew thick and fast, with everyone from Colin Farrel to Josh Hartnett being mentioned in connection with the two superheroic leads, and it seemed that a DC film project was finally guaranteed to reach production- until Petersen jumped ship to make historical war epic TROY, and the entire project collapsed as suddenly as it appeared.

Meanwhile, Marvel’s bold choices continued in 2002 with SPIDER-MAN, finally pulled from the legal void and handed to EVIL DEAD director Sam Raimi. Despite pressure from the studio to cast a handsome hunk of Hollywood beefcake in the lead, Raimi went for acting talent with the distinctly left-field choice of Tobey Maguire, bringing the correct level of heroism and geeky insecurity to the awkward Peter Parker. Not even the hopelessly dodgy Green Goblin costume could stop SPIDER-MAN from turning into a box-office juggernaut, outstripping X-MEN by an amazing margin and netting an incredible $800 million at the worldwide box office.

Barely stopping for breath, Marvel followed this up with a packed 2003- kicking off with Ben Aflleck as blind avenger Matt Murdock in the massively successful and refreshingly edgy DAREDEVIL. Brilliant sequel X-MEN 2 managed the rare feat of completely out-doing the original in every respect, while Marvel also delivered the long-promised cinema version of THE HULK. Helmed by arthouse director Ang Lee, this mixture of highbrow characterisation and rubbery CGI was never going to have mass appeal- but fully confirmed Marvel was prepared to let filmmakers take risks with their properties, and redefine what could be achieved in the humble superhero flick.

TRAPPED IN THE PHANTOM ZONE

While Marvel have been virtually claiming the Superhero genre as their own, the only DC comic-based project to appear during the whole of 2003 has been the deeply lacklustre LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN. The two biggest superhero franchises of all time may belong to DC and Warner Bros, but they seem completely at a loss as to what to do with them.

After the BATMAN VS SUPERMAN farrago, they pushed ahead with a solo SUPERMAN film, aiming to be in Cinemas for late 2004- but the production has transformed into the Hollywood equivalent of Musical Chairs. From CHARLIES ANGELS helmer McG to Michael Bay, to Brett Ratner, and then back to McG, the merry-go-round of possible directors shows no sign of stopping. Only BATMAN seems a possibility, with the prestigious director of mind-twister MEMENTO Christopher Nolan attached to direct- but until filming actually begins, it’s wisest for Bat-fans not to be holding their breath in anticipation.

Whatever happens, there’ll be plenty of catching up to do- 2004 already promises a bumper selection of Marvel action, with Tobey Maguire’s second web-slinging outing as Peter Parker in SPIDER-MAN 2, as well as a brand new Lundgren-free version of THE PUNISHER. There’s also a third instalment of X-MEN action due within a few years, while everything from ELEKTRA (a spin-off for Jennifer Garner’s DAREDEVIL character) to NAMOR: THE SUB MARINER, THE FANTASTIC FOUR and IRON MAN is currently being developed.

Fortune may have swung in Marvel’s direction so far- but it’d be unwise to count the Man of Steel or the Dark Knight out of the contest yet. The conflict has only taken a short breather- and like all the best superheroes facing off against their arch-nemesis, no matter how high the success or miserable the failure, the fight between Marvel and DC is going to happily stretch on for many years to come…

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2004

SMALL SCREEN SUPERHUMAN

Think BATMAN, and the chances are you’ll still picture Adam West sprinting around a day-glo Gotham in grey tights. Think THE INCREDIBLE HULK, and it won’t be epic CGI you’ll imagine- but muscleman Lou Ferringo painted a dazzling shade of green. Whether they’re slick modern-day action adventures or hilariously camp relics from a bygone age, Superhero TV shows exert a power over popular culture that even the most awesomely expensive Hollywood blockbusters find difficult to match.

The modestly budgeted world of TV drama should, theoretically speaking, make special-effects intensive Superheroes a no-go area- but they’ve been a regular part of the TV landscape, ever since the first brilliantly wooden SUPERMAN show with George Reeves back in 1953. One of the genre’s biggest strengths is that, like comic books, TV is superb at handling long-running storylines, and without having to compress everything into a movie’s typical two hour running time, the most epic comic plots can be given the correct room to breathe.

Marvel’s various cartoon series are the best examples of these long-form stories, with the X-MEN and SPIDER-MAN shows being surprisingly faithful adaptations of the complexity of the original comics, as well as influencing the more serious-minded tone of the eventual big-budget movie versions. In fact, while both BATMAN and SUPERMAN have been struggling in movie terms for the last decade, they’ve been prospering in surprising ways on the world of Television.

First aired in 1992, the dazzlingly stylised BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES is one of the most accurate adaptations of the Caped Crusader ever managed, capturing the energy and darkness of the original stories- while SUPERMAN has survived a number of TV incarnations, from various cartoons, to the 1990’s romantic remix LOIS AND CLARK, and DC’s one true success in the last decade- SMALLVILLE. The DAWSON’S CREEK-influenced tale of Clark Kent’s early years might occasionally spread the treacly sentiment on with a trowel, but it’s also a surprisingly adventurous re-interpretation of the Superman mythos and throws plenty of unexpected curveballs into the mix.

Whatever the future holds, one thing is certain- Superhero blockbusters may have the spectacle and the brain-expanding effects, but the TV shows will be winning hearts and minds for years after their competitors have been forgotten…

Originally published August 2005 in DVD Review magazine

They’ve come to save us! Whether it’s from slavery, evil machines or just really “bogus” music, they’re the chosen ones- the ordinary people thrown into the limelight to fulfil their destiny. Right from the moment the first movie about Jesus was made, filmmakers have loved taking the traditional Saviour story and twisting it into ever more exciting and bizarre shapes- so join us now, as we pay homage to the greatest Cinematic Messiahs of all time…

Jesus of Nazareth

Sightings: The Passion of the Christ (2004)

Place of Birth: A little town called Bethlehem you may have heard of…

The Mission: Everybody thinks he’s the humble son of a carpenter- but the Son of God is here to take the burden of human sin, defeat Satan, and put up with a level of torture that’d have any sensible man running for the hills.

Messiah Fashions: He starts out in a fetching ethnic combo of cloaks and robes, but soon Jesus is sporting little more than a loincloth and a boggling number of flesh wounds.

Disciples: His mother Mary, Peter, John, and the highly gorgeous Mary Magdalene.

Enemies: Moustache-twiddling Jewish priest Caiphas, lots of beastly Roman Guards, and an androgynous Satan carrying a hairy baby for no apparent reason.

Miracles Performed: You name it- turning water into wine, feeding the five thousand, raising the dead, restoring a Jewish guard’s ear, and setting off a major earthquake with his death in a spectacular version of “I told you so”.

Final Destiny: Death by crucifixion, followed by resurrection and a distinctly annoyed Satan.

Messiah Speak: “Forgive them, Father. They know not what they do.”

Paul Atredies

Sightings: Dune (1984)

Place of Birth: The planet Caladan, in the year 10,175.

The Mission: On the desert planet Arrakis (imaginatively known as “Dune”), Paul discovers he’s the warrior prophesised to lead the nomad race of the Fremen, while fighting for freedom and dodging mile-long phallic Sandworms.

Messiah Fashions: Initially, Paul dresses like a Ruritanian Prince, but he’s soon wearing enough black rubber to fit in a treat down the local fetish club.

Disciples: A whole race of Fremen waiting for the chance to bust some Harkonnen heads.

Enemies: The Harkonnens, leather-clad meglomaniacs who don’t believe in a proper skincare regime, and their obese leader, the Baron.

Miracles Performed: Scarcely a minute goes by without Paul tripping out on water-related visions, and by the end of the film he’s causing it to rain on Arrakis, as well as blowing poor old Sting to shreds with the sound of his voice.

Final Destiny: To rule the universe in wisdom- although those who’ve read the Dune books will be happy to know it all goes horribly wrong.

Messiah Speak: “Father!! The sleeper will awaken!!”

Thomas “Neo” Anderson

Sightings: The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003)

Place of Birth: A gloopy stasis tube full of slime, somewhere in the future.

The Mission: Discovering that the everyday world is actually a computer-generated fantasy, Neo is “The One”- destined to save humanity, end the war against the machines, get insulted by a Frenchman and say “Whoah” as many times as he can.

Messiah Fashions: In the real world, it’s clothes apparently made out of potato sacks. As if to make up for this, in the Matrix it’s ultra-cool shades, leather trenchcoats and PVC all the way.

Disciples: The chubby guru known as Morpheus, wall-running sexbomb Trinity and lots of the rave-happy (if slightly boring) inhabitants of the city of Zion.

Enemies: Every single intelligent machine on the planet- but especially the effortlessly suave, self-duplicating villain Agent Smith.

Miracles Performed: As well as gravity-defying kung-fu abilities, Neo can raise the dead, beat up the super-cool Agents and blow up machines outside the Matrix with the power of his mind. He can also fly- but it only seems to occur to him after big fight sequences, rather than before…

Final Destiny: He dies saving the world. Or maybe he doesn’t. It’s all rather difficult to tell…

Messiah Speak: “There is no spoon…”

Bill S. Preston Esq. and Ted “Theodore” Logan

Sightings: Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1987), Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1990)

Born: San Dimas, California, in 1979

Messiah Fashions: Eye-searing Eighties gear, complete with baggy shorts and midriff-exposing t-shirts.

The Mission: Adorably brain-dead teens Bill and Ted are as surprised as anyone to discover their band Wyld Stallynz is destined to bring about universal enlightenment. With help from the future they’re going to create, they zoom through time to complete their history report, and follow up with a trip to both Heaven and Hell.

Disciples: They’ve got the effortlessly cool future dude Rufus on their side- and they’re soon befriending historical figures like Freud, Beethoven, Socrates and Joan of Arc.

Enemies: Future megalomaniac Chuck De Nomolos, and Ted’s seriously bogus, army-obsessed father.

Miracles Performed: As if converting Genghis Khan to twinkies and Napoleon to the art of watersliding wasn’t enough, Bill and Ted also manage to come back from the dead after beating Death at Battleships, Cluedo and Twister.

Final Destiny: After completing their history report and foiling DeNomolos’ robot duplicates, their music ends war and poverty, as well as aligning the planets in universal harmony. Plus, it’s excellent for dancing…

Messiah Speak: “Be excellent to each other!”

Bethany Sloane

Sightings: Dogma (2000)

Place of Birth: McHenry, Illinois, in 1969.

Messiah Fashions: A white shirt, and black trousers- an unexciting ensemble, but she never gets the chance to change…

The Mission: A pair of psychotic angels set out to re-enter heaven- even though it’ll mean the end of all of existence. Abortion clinic worker Bethany is the befuddled last descendant of Jesus dragged in by the Heavenly powers to stop the angels- and also to have the plot explained to her by everyone within range.

Disciples: Foul-mouthed stoner Jay and his “hetero life-mate” Silent Bob, thirteenth apostle Rufus, Muse-turned-stripper Serendipity, plus the eternally moody “voice of God”, the Metatron.

Enemies: Killing-spree-happy angels Bartleby and Loki, devilish mastermind Azrael, plus a highly whiffy Excrement Demon…

Miracles Performed: Other than sanctifying a sink to deal with three demonic skaters, Bethany does save the world- but only by the atypical method of switching a hospitalised old man’s life support off.

Final Destiny: With existence safe once again, Bethany is unexpectedly (and miraculously) pregnant- but she’s also still got Jay bluntly attempting to get into her knickers.

Messiah Speak: “You know, yesterday I wasn’t even sure God existed- and now, I’m up to my ass in Christian Mythology…”

Brian Cohen

Sightings: Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979)

Place of Birth: A Bethlehem stable, just down the road from the birth place of a certain Mr J. Christ.

The Mission: All Brian’s trying to do is catch the eye of foxy revolutionary Judith. It’s not his fault that he ends up on the run from the Romans- and then gets mistaken for a Messiah just for telling people to be nice to each other…

Messiah Fashions: He usually sports a rough, smock-like ensemble and sandals- except for one unfortunate moment involving his followers, when he’s wearing nothing at all.

Disciples: The howlingly ineffective People’s Front of Judea, and a whole multitude of dim-witted followers who’ll misinterpret his every syllable.

Enemies: His monstrous mother Mandy, arrogant, word-mangling Roman tyrant Pontius Pilate and a grammar-correcting Centurion.

Miracles Performed: None, but it hardly seems to make any difference with a crowd that’ll interpret a dropped sandal as divine lore.

Final Destiny: As with Jesus, Brian ends up crucified- but going out singing “Always Look On The Bright Side of Life” doesn’t seem too bad…

Messiah Talk: “Of course they’ve brought forth Juniper berries, they’re Juniper Bushes!! What did you expect?!?”

Moses

Sightings: The Ten Commandments (1956) .

Place of Birth: Egypt, circa 1400 B.C.

The Mission: Pampered prince turned religious saviour, Moses finds out that instead of being a Pharoah’s son, he was plucked from a basket on the Nile. One Burning Bush later, he’s parting seas and distributing plagues, all so his enslaved people can head for the “Promised Land”.

Messiah Fashions: He might start out wearing the funky duds of an Egyptian Prince, but soon Moses is decked out in burgundy robes and a spectacular blonde dye-job on his immaculately coiffured hair.

Disciples: Aaron, Miriam, and the traditionally Biblical cast of thousands.

Enemies: Ex-girlfriend turned heartbreaker Queen Nefertiti, and the brilliantly inscrutable Pharoah Ramses.

Miracles Performed: He turns staffs into snakes, brings down locusts, frogs and the angel of death- but the whole “Parting the Red Sea” thing was always going to be tough to follow.

Final Destiny: Liberates his people, spends forty years wandering with them in the desert, and then, in a glaring display of bad timing, goes and dies just as they finally reach the Promised Land.

Messiah Speak: “Let my people go!!”

John Connor

Sightings: Terminator 2: Judgement Day (1991), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)

Place of Birth: Mexico, 1984.

The Mission: In the year 2029, John Connor will be leading the war against the machines in a wrecked future world. To do that, he’s got to survive the shape-changing robotic Terminators that have been sent back through time to showcase their funky morphing effects at every opportunity.

Messiah Fashions: Brown jacket, Public Enemy t-shirt- everything a punky L.A. kid would want to wear; while when older, he prefers practical brown fatigues.

Disciples: His entertainingly trigger-happy mother Sarah Connor, future girlfriend Kate Brewster, plus a very tall Austrian Cyborg with a taste for leather and Harley Davisons.

Enemies: The slick, tidy liquid metal T-1000, and the cleavage flaunting robo-minx called the T-X.

Miracles Performed: Aside from hacking a couple of computers, running lots and surviving an onslaught from a Truck, John mostly gets the Terminator to do all the tricky stuff.

Final Destiny: With the Governor of California on his side, how can Connor go wrong? Although he does end up appearing in Terminator 3, so it’s not all good news…

Messiah Speak: “Listen to me- you’re not a Terminator anymore, okay? You can’t just go around killing people!”

William Wallace

Sightings: Braveheart (1995)

Place of Birth: 13th Century Scotland

The Mission: He’s an educated commoner out to live a quiet existence- until the local English lord executes his girlfriend. Soon, he’s uniting the Scottish clans into a fighting force and lopping off a spectacular number of English heads.

Messiah Fashions: Kilts and tartan feature highly in Wallace’s fashion statements- he’s also not averse to daubing lots of blue paint on his face before a fun afternoon of English-slaying.

Disciples: Robert the Bruce, French princess Isabelle and thousands of fearsomely bearded Scots warriors itching for a scrap.

Enemies: All the dastardly English- but especially psycho king Edward I and his pasty-faced, horribly unmanly son.

Miracles Performed: Wallace wins against a vastly superior force at the battle of Stirling, and nearly mounts a full-scale invasion of England.

Final Destiny: He inspires generations of Scotsmen to fight back against their oppressors- but in the end, Wallace gets sold out by treacherous Scots noblemen to the English, who treat him to a disembowelling at dawn.

Messiah Speak: “They may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!!”

Annakin Skywalker

Sightings: Star Wars- Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002)

Place of Birth: The desert planet Tatooine

The Mission: Conceived thanks to the least convincing plot device ever (aka the Force-creating “midi-chlorians”), he’s the brattish moppet turned moaning Jedi apprentice who’s prophecised to bring balance to the Force- if only he could stop aiming slushy looks at the gorgeous Senator Amidala…

Messiah Fashions: The traditional brown cloaks of the Jedi order- although nobody seems to notice his growing liking for black…

Disciples: Father figure Qui-Gon Jinn- at least until he’s run through with a lightsabre. Amidala- but for slightly more hormonal reasons.

Enemies: Nefarious, chin-stroking Count Dooku- but avuncular Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi could easily get onto the list…

Miracles Performed: To be honest, there’s little he does that any other Jedi wouldn’t be able to- unless you’re counting slaughtering an entire settlement of Sand People…

Final Destiny: Annakin does, in fact, eventually bring balance back to the Force. The fact that he has to dress up in black, develop a breathing problem and kill lots of people before doing this is something the prophecy chose to gloss over.

Messiah Speak: “Some day, I will be the most powerful Jedi ever! I promise you!”

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2005

< BACK

BACK FROM THE BEYOND

You don’t always have to be a Messiah to return from the grave…

E.T.
The podgy, butt-ugly alien stranded on Earth sent an entire generation into floods of tears thanks to an untimely demise- and then did it again by rising from the dead to bid a sad farewell to his best friend Elliot.

MICHAEL MYERS
There’s no explanation for the William Shatner-masked killer’s strange invulnerability. He just keeps coming back for more, no matter how many times he’s sliced, burned, decapitated or shouted at by Busta Rhymes…

BUFFY SUMMERS
Everybody’s favourite Vampire Slayer bites the bullet at the end of her Fifth TV Season- so the opening of Season Six sees her unwillingly brought back from the dead to once again battle the bloodsuckers.

THE BRIDE (BEATRIX KIDDOE)
Okay, she’s not exactly dead- but for sheer emerging-from-grave style, it’s difficult to beat Uma Thurman’s desperate (and rather painful looking) escape from being buried alive, thanks to Michael Madsen’s evil desperado.

JESUS VS JESUS

The latest cinematic Christ might be able to handle plenty of violence and ketchup- but how would Jim Caviezel fare against other screen Jesuses?

TV JESUS (Robert Powell, Jesus of Nazareth)
Powell has the spooky staring eyes and the heavenly manner down pat- but then, he also ended up co-starring in a sitcom with Jasper Carrott, a fate Caviezel’s probably going to avoid…
FINAL SCORE: CAVIEZEL 9, POWELL 4

MOVIE JESUS (Jeffrey Hunter, King of Kings)
He’s the clean-cut, soulful Jesus you wouldn’t mind taking home to meet your Grandma. Caviezel has the edge in terms of grit, but the late Hunter scored the ultimate comeback as the first Captain of the Enterprise… (Trek pilot episode “The Cage”)
FINAL SCORE: CAVIEZEL 7, HUNTER 8

CARTOON JESUS (Jesus, South Park)
Where Caviezel stands up to Satan, South Park’s cartoon version gets pounded embarresingly in the boxing ring. He does, however, have his own Cable talk show- a gig that Caviezel is unlikely to be able to top…
FINAL SCORE: CAVIEZEL 6, JESUS 7

BOWLING JESUS (John Tuturro, The Big Lebowski)
Caviezel’s torture-enduring Son of God wouldn’t last long on the alley against a fast-shooting champion like Jesus Quintano- but, with his worrying bowling ball/tongue action and scary hairnet, he’s nobody’s idea of a Messiah.
FINAL SCORE: CAVIEZEL 5, TUTURRO- DISQUALIFIED!!

JESUS TIMELINE:

0 AD: A child is born in Bethlehem.

1898 AD: The first film of the Jesus story is commissioned by a French Book company…

1926 AD: Movie supremo D.W. Griffith directs the first major Hollywood movie on the Son of God.

1961 AD: Rebel Without A Cause director Nicholas Ray helms King Of Kings- soon to be unofficially known as “I was a Teenage Jesus”….

1965 AD: John Wayne gets to say “Truly he was the Son of Gahhd!!” in Hollywood’s overblown The Greatest Story Ever Told…

1976 AD: Franco Zefferelli directs the TV drama Jesus of Nazareth- while producer Lew Grade asks if he can cut down the number of apostles…

1979 AD: The Monty Python team get accused of blasphemy, just for taking the mickey out of organised religion in Life of Brian

1988 AD: Everyone gets terribly upset by Martin Scorcese’s The Last Temptation of Christ. Box Office success, however, fails to follow…

1994 AD: The Stone Roses release The Second Coming. The Son of God is “unavailable for comment”…

2002 AD: Mel Gibson announces he’s filming The Passion of the Christ. In Latin. With subtitles. Everybody laughs.

2003 AD: The Second Coming turns up again- this time as a TV drama starring Christopher Eccleston as a Salford-based modern day Messiah.

2004 AD: After headline-grabbing accusations of anti-semitism, Passion of the Christ smashes US Box office records. Everybody stops laughing…

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2004

< BACK

(Originally published in DVD Review, September 2004)

It’s 1987, and the man who’ll one day be known as Jack Bauer is riding high at the Cinema Box Office, resplendent in leathers, punky blonde haircut, glowing eyes and fangs. Starring Kiefer Sutherland and a host of hot new acting talent, comedy horror flick THE LOST BOYS swept all in its path, combining the angst of adolescent rebellion with gothic vampire cool. Thanks to the film’s massive success, the ensemble cast were the latest actors to join the “Brat Pack”- the group of young stars who had conquered 1980s Hollywood, and all of whom seemed set for long, prosperous careers.

Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way. THE LOST BOYS’ success should have been a shot in the arm for the Brat Pack, but instead turned out to be one of their last bows before their cinematic reign came to an end. They may not have been the greatest actors in the world, but they were cinema’s first teen stars- a group of performers who appeared in a multitude of movies during the 1980s, and ended up representing both the best and worst of the ambitious, materialistic “Me” generation.

Whether they were playing geeks, jocks, graduates or cowboys, actors like Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald and Rob Lowe were the faces that drove 1980s pop cinema- and they also became the first major example of how quickly it can go wrong for actors trumpeted as the official Next Big Thing™…

WRITING THE GRAFFITTI

To understand how the Brat Pack happened, you have to go back to the 1970s, a world where teen movies didn’t yet exist. James Dean may have defined teenage rebellion in the 1955 classic REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE, but Hollywood has always been slow to catch on to new ideas, and terrified of taking risks. As a result, up until the early Seventies, films tailored specifically for a teenage audience were unheard of outside independent B-movies or exploitation flicks. Cinema was a dark, provocative, grown-up place for films like THE GODFATHER and THE FRENCH CONNECTION … until a filmmaker named George Lucas went for a change of direction.

Lucas was still smarting from the failure of his arty, low-budget science fiction movie THX-1138 in 1970, so he took the advice of filmmaker and friend Francis Ford Coppola and wrote a screenplay based on his own life growing up in small-town California. “It had become depressing to go to the movies,” said Lucas in 2000, “so I decided it was time for a film where people felt better coming out of the theatre than going in.” A warmly nostalgic tale of teen life in the early Sixties, AMERICAN GRAFITTI cost 750,000 dollars and earned a then-astounding 55.1 million by the end of 1973. Lucas now had enough money to spend more time developing a bizarre sci-fi script called THE STAR WARS, and Hollywood began realising there was money to be made in the teen dollar.

However, it still took the studios a long time to do anything about it, and a whole series of cheaper, independent successes like HALLOWEEN, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S ANIMAL HOUSE and PORKY’S cleaned up at the box office before Hollywood finally got the message. Initially, the only result was a collection of horribly lame copycat comedies that focussed on getting laid and getting wasted at the expense of everything else- but a variety of young actors were getting themselves noticed, and potential stardom was lurking around the corner.

BIRTH OF THE BRATS

All it would take was the right film- and the Brat Pack’s official beginning came in 1983, thanks to GODFATHER director Francis Ford Coppola’s expensive musical ONE FOR THE HEART going belly-up at the box-office. In the wake of this mishap, Coppola opted for a safer project, and bought up the rights to school library favourite THE OUTSIDERS.

An edgy tale of 1950s teen gang members searching for a safer life, Coppola was soon casting his adaptation and, without realising it, he assembled a virtual “who’s who” of Eighties pop cinema. Along with E.T. bit-part player C. Thomas Howell and future KARATE KID star Ralph Macchio in the lead roles, there was Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Patrick Swayze… and a short appearance from a little-known young actor named Tom Cruise.

The film was a healthy success, and soon more eye-catching examples of teen cinema were creeping their way into the mainstream. Between 1983 and 1984, cinema screens were displaying everything from computer thriller WARGAMES and satirical sex-comedy RISKY BUSINESS, to classic “Wax on! Wax off” martial arts drama THE KARATE KID and barking mad Commie-invasion flick RED DAWN.

The film that truly pointed the way to the future, however, was a low-budget drama which dealt with a teenage girl’s difficult birthday. SIXTEEN CANDLES added a much-needed dose of emotional reality and awkwardness to the teen movie, making the characters more relatable and empathetic. The stars were a couple of unknown young performers called Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall, but the film was also the directorial debut of a man who’d end up laying down the rules for teen movies that would be followed for decades to come.

John Hughes fell into writing films thanks to working on the magazine National Lampoon, and after contributing to screenplays like MR. MOM and NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACATION, he finally notched up his first writer/director credit with SIXTEEN CANDLES. The film barely made an impression at the box office- but for Hughes, it was just a stepping stone to directing another screenplay that he’d set his heart on: THE BREAKFAST CLUB.

The story of five schoolkids (tagged by their archetypes in the opening narration as “a brain, an athlete, a princess, a basket case and a criminal”) connecting with each other while trapped in a Saturday detention, THE BREAKFAST CLUB was a deeply unappealing prospect to most studios. There were pages and pages of dialogue, only one location and none of the usual standards of teen cinema. One executive looked at Hughes’ script and said “Kids won’t sit through it! There’s no action, no party, no nudity!”, but Hughes stuck to his guns, and unintentionally kicked off the next phase of the Brat Pack’s life in the process.

Bringing together his SIXTEEN CANDLES stars Ringwald and Hall, Hughes also cast Ally Sheedy from WARGAMES, Emilio Estevez and Judd Nelson, and during 1985 the end result went onto earn $46 million at the US Box Office alone- a hugely impressive amount for what was essentially a filmed stage play. Away from the awesomely silly dance sequences, THE BREAKFAST CLUB’s timeless take on social cliques, conformity and loneliness in US High Schools was universal enough for the whole world to relate to, and the film became the blueprint for almost every single teen movie and TV series that would follow.

As if that wasn’t enough for the rising young stars, 1985 was also the year of the ultimate Brat Pack movie;- ST. ELMO’S FIRE. A masterwork of lurid fashions and dazzlingly large hair, this coming-of-age saga followed seven college graduates looking for direction in their lives, and was the perfect chance for the Brat Packers involved to simultaneously flex their acting muscles and wear fantastic clothes. BREAKFAST CLUB members Estevez, Nelson and Sheedy were drafted into the ensemble, along with Mare Winningham, Demi Moore, Andrew McCarthy and Rob Lowe.

With Lowe honking on his Saxophone while wearing a bright yellow vest covered in bat-prints, subtlety was out of the window- but underneath the glitz and glamour, the film at least attempted to make serious points about the negative side of 1980s materialism. Not that the Brat Packers ever took any notice- with the twin triumphs of THE BREAKFAST CLUB and ST. ELMO’S FIRE, they were the toast of Hollywood, splashed across the cover of Time Magazine, and partying hard at every opportunity. Without a shadow of a doubt, the Brat Pack had arrived in force.

WHAT GOES UP…

And then, almost as quickly as it happened, it all started to fall apart. The end of the Brat Pack didn’t occur overnight, but it began as soon as the self-promoting actors involved suddenly started not wanting to be associated with the brand that made them famous. In interviews, they started denying the Brat Pack’s existance and downplaying their partying habits, while starting to distance themselves from the teen genre with more grown-up films like the Rob Lowe/Demi Moore relationship drama ABOUT LAST NIGHT.

Elsewhere, John Hughes was continuing his cycle of teen movies, but had yet to hit the same note as THE BREAKFAST CLUB, with sci-fi comedy WEIRD SCIENCE being too self-consciously wacky to be truly funny. PRETTY IN PINK was a step back in the right direction, with Molly Ringwald again taking centre stage as the high school misfit falling for Andrew McCarthy’s rich kid, unaware of the true feelings of her kooky best friend Jon Cryer. The film was another perfect example of Hughes’ patented brand of teen angst- although studio interference meant his original ending was jettisoned for the fairy-tale climax of Ringwald netting McCarthy rather than the far more entertaining Cryer.

McCarthy went on to appear with future SEX AND THE CITY star Kim Cattral in 1987’s MANNEQUIN, but the final product was a jaw-droppingly unfunny comic mess, as well as the first sign that Brat Packers were capable of making bad decisions. Another major clue came thanks to Anthony Michael Hall, who after starring in WEIRD SCIENCE was hired by Stanley Kubrick to play the lead role in his 1987 movie FULL METAL JACKET- but complained so much about the legendary director’s habit of shooting endless takes that he was unceremoniously fired and replaced by Matthew Modine.

Bad decisions also proved to be Molly Ringwald’s downfall;- there were few young female actresses with as much clout in the late Eighties, but she squandered it on duff, forgotten projects like THE PICK-UP ARTIST, while managing to turn down leads roles in both BLUE VELVET and GHOST. Infamous ladies man Rob Lowe’s career also imploded but for very different reasons- a 1988 sex tape scandal involving Lowe and a 16 year old girl almost landed him in prison, and for the next few years he had to make do with small roles in comedies like WAYNE’S WORLD and AUSTIN POWERS.

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL

There was yet another blow to the Brat Pack’s fortunes when they lost their firmest ally behind the cameras. After having written and directed the classic high school comedy FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, John Hughes bid a final farewell to the teen genre by writing the screenplay to SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL, a reworking of PRETTY IN PINK with the ending restored to his original non-fairy tale climax. Hughes headed off to eventually strike gold with HOME ALONE, but the Brats were left without his understanding take on teenage life, and their attempts to shift into grown-up movies were haphazard at best.

Some of them were still capable of striking gold, though, as proved by Patrick Swayze when he hit the big time thanks to more 1950s nostalgia and the line “Nobody puts Baby in the corner!” in the 1987 smash hit DIRTY DANCING. The same year, however, saw director Joel Shumacher’s attempt to kick-start another phase of the Brat Pack with THE LOST BOYS fail to go according to plan. The film may have been a smash hit, but out of the ensemble cast, only Kiefer Sutherland managed to go on to anything resembling consistent success, while Jason Patric, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim and Corey Feldman all managed to press the “Career Detonation” button, ending up in Direct-to-Video purgatory, rehab, or- worst of all- the woefully dreadful SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL.

By 1988, the Brat Pack was running out of steam, and too many of their movies were ending up as forgettable wastes of time. It should, therefore, have been the worst possible point to attempt a Western revival- especially since the genre had been definitively dead and buried for over a decade- but Estevez, Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and LA BAMBA star Lou Diamond Phillips found themselves an unexpected hit thanks to the gloriously overblown Billy the Kid romp YOUNG GUNS. The film generated enough money for a sequel two years later, but even Jon Bon Jovi’s macho crooning on the title track couldn’t save YOUNG GUNS II: BLAZE OF GLORY from underperforming.

A NEW DECADE…

In the end, fashion caught up with the Brat Pack. The Nineties arrived, and the world was suddenly keen to leave the tacky excesses of the 1980s behind, while the teen drama was thrown into stasis by jet-black high school comedy HEATHERS, and it wasn’t until CLUELESS in 1994 that the genre got it’s groove back. Some of the Pack members disappeared into straight-to-video obscurity, some headed for the comfortable world of the small screen, while others carved out quietly respectable careers as character actors.

It’s no coincidence, however, that the one Brat Packer to maintain a massively successful career is also the one who jumped ship as soon as possible. The last remotely teen or Brat Pack-oriented movie that Tom Cruise made was over twenty years ago- and since then he’s worked with as many important directors as he can, leaping with unstoppable determination from popcorn fodder like TOP GUN to challenging Oscar-bait like BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, all the while showcasing that cocky, twinkle-toothed grin.

But, no matter what happens, the Brat Pack already have their place in cinematic history. Archetypal teen angst classics like THE BREAKFAST CLUB will live forever, no matter how quickly some of the participants’ careers may have been snuffed out by ambition, unfortunate choices or bad luck. And they’re also a lesson to all the young, up-and-coming, self assured modern day stars who think they’ll last forever. Fame might look like fun- but it’s terribly difficult to hold on to…

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2004

< BACK 

 

HOLDING BACK THE YEARS…
They were the faces of a generation- but where exactly have the Brat Pack been hiding?

EMILIO ESTEVEZ
He keeps writing and directing extraordinarily bad movies starring himself and brother Charlie Sheen (MEN AT WORK, RATED X), but Estevez’s only significant success in the last decade came thanks to the three MIGHTY DUCKS movies. He also made an uncredited cameo in the first MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE instalment with old friend Tom Cruise.

DEMI MOORE
After GHOST, INDECENT PROPOSAL, and posing naked for Vanity Fair at the drop of a hat, it seemed like nothing could stop the ambitious Ms. Moore. Then came the dreadful STRIPTEASE, and her career went into freefall. She’s now a successful film producer, but better known for dating toyboy Ashton Kutcher than for her little-used acting skills.

ALLY SHEEDY
The sweetheart of the Brat Pack scored another big hit with 1986’s robot action comedy SHORT CIRCUIT- but Sheedy’s career soon dwindled, and her only major credits from then onwards were duff horror films like FEAR and MAN’S BEST FRIEND. She was last seen making a brief comeback in 1998 lesbian drama HIGH ART.

ROB LOWE
The 1988 sex scandal hit his career for six- but then, U.S. television came calling. Eventually, Lowe became a fixture on the massively popular White House drama THE WEST WING (along with Emilio Estevez’s dad Martin Sheen), although he recently quit the drama for his own production- which was quickly cancelled. Ooops…

JUDD NELSON
After the magnificent career high of voicing Rodimus Prime in TRANSFORMERS: THE MOVIE in 1987, it was all downhill for Judd Nelson. His last major film role was NEW JACK CITY in 1991, and he was most recently seen in a cameo as a sherrif in JAY AND SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK.

ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL
He beefed up to play Winona Ryder’s bullying boyfriend in Tim Burton’s EDWARD SCISSORHANDS, took the role of Bill Gates in a TV movie and then disappeared for a few years. Hall is now gaining success as the least likely replacement ever for Christopher Walken in the US TV series remix of Stephen King’s THE DEAD ZONE.

MOLLY RINGWALD
Once she’d blown her big chance in movies, most of Ringwald’s 1990s credits came thanks to TV- especially the epic Stephen King miniseries THE STAND, also starring Rob Lowe. She then moved to Paris, and as well as cameoing in films like NOT ANOTHER TEEN MOVIE, she’s also appeared onstage in the West End in the theatrical version of WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.

KIEFER SUTHERLAND
As a result of making FLATLINERS in 1990, Sutherland ended up one of the many men to have almost married Julia Roberts. Since then, he’s concentrated on quirky character parts or villains, growling menacingly in movies like PHONE BOOTH- but he’s now best known for having several terribly stressful days in smash hit TV series 24.

ANDREW MCCARTHY
1990 corpse comedy WEEKEND AT BERNIES was hardly a career highlight- but that was the last major movie credit that he could manage, and McCarthy spent most of the Nineties working in TV movies. Recently, he made a comeback playing opposite a psychic anteater in Stephen King’s bizarre medical horror series KINGDOM HOSPITAL.

C. THOMAS HOWELL
Best known for riding a BMX in E.T. THE EXTRA TERRESTRIAL, Howell hit paydirt in 1985 with Rutger Hauer psycho chiller THE HITCHER- but since then it’s been dodgy direct-to-video thrillers all the way. He was, however, recently spotted as a nefarious horse rider going up against Viggo Mortensen in HIDALGO.

PATRICK SWAYZE
The ultimate late-eighties heartthrob hit another peak in 1991 with surfing actioner POINT BREAK, but Swayze soon saw his career vanishing thanks to dull movies like THREE WISHES and FATHER HOOD (Unwisely playing a transvestite in TO WONG FOO probably didn’t help either…) He’s since bounced back with a brilliantly self-satirising turn in DONNIE DARKO.

CHARLIE SHEEN
Emilio’s little brother hasn’t ever vanished from view since 1990, appearing in SCARY MOVIE 3 and BEING JOHN MALKOVICH among many others, as well as a run on TV sitcom SPIN CITY. Unfortunately, he’s now better known for his massive drug appetites, as well as dalliances with Hollywood “madam” Heidi Fleiss, than for having any kind of consistent career.

LIVING ON A PRAYER
The five Brat Pack classics you have to own…

THE BREAKFAST CLUB
One set, lots of dialogue- and an evergreen 1980s classic. Ignore the duff makeover scene or the bizarre dance freakouts- just watch in awe as John Hughes gives the Brat Pack their best ever script, and defines Teen Angst for a whole generation.

ST. ELMO’S FIRE
Director and future Bat-Franchise destroyer Joel Shumacher lights the blue touch paper on the Brat Pack with this brilliantly OTT ensemble drama, as Judd, Emilio, Ally, Rob, Andy, Mare and Demi discover the downside to the 1980s while wearing eye-opening clothes.

RISKY BUSINESS
Tom Cruise’s career was blown into the stratosphere by this classy, raunchy 1983 sex comedy, which follows Cruise on a wild weekend without his parents, falling for Rebcca DeMornay’s hooker and accidentally sinking his Dad’s porche.

FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF
Matthew Broderick is the smug underachiever putting his all into bunking off school with his friends, and all the while teacher Jeffrey Jones is going through comic hell trying to catch him in John Hughes’ brilliantly madcap teen classic.

THE LOST BOYS
Jason Patric falls in with the wrong crowd in a new town, and soon he’s wearing shades during the day, drinking blood and missing his reflection. Colourfully daft vampire fun, with Kiefer Sutherland on villain duties and a classic 1980s soundtrack.
EVERY ROSE HAS ITS THORNS
Five Brat Pack movies you’d do well to avoid….

MANNEQUIN
It’s the old story- boy meets shop dummy, boy falls in love with shop dummy, shop dummy turns out to be re-incarnated ancient Egyptian princess- but wrapped up with screaming gay stereotypes and some of the lamest gags in Christendom.

ROAD HOUSE
Possibly the most unintentionally hilarious and homo-erotic action movie ever made, Patrick Swayze stars in this monstrously dated hymn to country music and big hair, unwisely trying to do an Eastwood as enigmatic nightclub bouncer Dalton.

SOUL MAN
Another “high-concept” Brat Pack comedy, this laugh-free wasteland stars C. Thomas Howell as a teen who overdoses on tanning pills, turns black and- hey presto!- takes advantage of an all-black college scholarship. Even more reprehensible than it sounds.

OXFORD BLUES
Rob Lowe grins and mugs his way through every Brit movie cliché in the book, as a gormless Las Vegas car park attendant who, after to a spot of hacking, gets a place at Oxford University and shows those stiff-upper-lipped Limeys some American know-how.

RED DAWN
For anyone who’s ever wanted to see Patrick Swayze and Charlie Sheen take on the entire Russian Army, John Milius’ staggeringly paranoid war flick is a cinematic car-crash that sees the vodka-swilling commies mount a mainland U.S. invasion for no readily apparent reason.

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2004

< BACK

A guide to the ups and downs of Cinema’s
greatest Creatures…

(Originally published in Hotdog, December 2005)

Ever wondered what Kong was getting up to between his infrequent movie appearances? Wonder no longer, as we unearth the behind-the-scenes lives of cinema’s greatest (and not so greatest) monsters…

KONG (King Kong, 1933)

He may have initially struggled to match his 1933 success, but Kong finally found massive acclaim on the London Stage, particularly during his unbroken two-year run as Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Romantically linked with a string of screen beauties including Jean Harlow and Katherine Hepburn, Kong remained a committed bachelor, spending most of the Forties and Fifties as a representative of the World Wildlife Fund. Probably the most unexpected turn in his lengthy career was his Avant-Garde period in the Sixties, immortalised in the Andy Warhol film “Kongdom”- a four and a half hour single shot of the giant ape asleep in front of New York’s Carnegie Hall. Appearing in the unsuccesful1974 King Kong remake was an unwise move, resulting in Kong losing out on a role in Beyond The Poseidon Adventure, while his self-written sitcom “Who Brought The Ape?” was eventually cancelled after two seasons. He now lives in Northern California running his own vineyard, and is credited as an “Executive Consultant” on Peter Jackson’s remake.

GODZILLA (Godzilla, 1953)

Fondly referred to as ‘the hardest working Monster in show-business’, the 50-metre tall radioactive lizard and self-confessed ‘Renaissance Beast’ has barely stopped working between his 28 movies. Since 1964, he’s appeared regularly on Japanese television in the Sesame Street-style education show Gojira Chikara Kazu!! (Number Power Godzilla), where he teaches children to count how many buildings he’s just knocked down. The Eighties saw the start of the Big G’s infamous talk show Shiawasena Gojira (Godzilla Happy Chat), while he’s recently moved into directing with a series of highly acclaimed (and destruction-heavy) arthouse dramas.

T-REX (Jurassic Park, 1993)

The star of Jurassic Park started developing a substance abuse problem when his starring role in the mooted remake of One Million Years B.C. failed to materialise. After being overshadowed in Jurassic Park III by the supposedly scarier Spinosaurus, the T-Rex was arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct on the Universal Studios lot. In and out of rehab for the next few years, the T-Rex has now cleaned up its act, spending much of its time hanging out with Corey Feldman, and is strongly tipped for a comeback with a vital role in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards.

THE SCORPION KING (The Mummy Returns, 2001)

Widely mocked at the time for his unconvincing, CGI-like appearance, the Scorpion King made the move into professional wrestling, but was booted out of the sport for accidentally slicing the heads off some of his opponents. After an unwise attempt at shifting careers into Telemarketing, he was declared bankrupt in 2004, and is currently living as a derelict on the streets of Downtown L.A. According to reports, he can regularly be found flexing his claws outside the Bradbury Building wearing a cardboard sign that says “Will Raise Eyebrow For Food”.

THE BALROG (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, 2001)

Already a legend on the Lord of the Rings set for his practical jokes involving banana skins and lava, the Balrog’s hard-drinking lifestyle was exposed after he publicly brawled with one of the Nazgul’s Fell Beasts at a 2003 post-Oscar party. Despite this, he remains friends with all the Rings cast members, and his cameo opposite Orlando Bloom in Elizabethtown will be re-instated on the forthcoming DVD release. He lives in a New Zealand volcano, and is currently suing Peter Jackson for a percentage of the profits from Fellowship of the Ring,

BRUCE THE SHARK (Jaws, 1975)

After many years trying to get out of the iron-clad contracts that forced him into the shoddy Jaws sequels, Bruce The Shark has finally left the world of Hollywood far behind. He now lives at an exclusive resort in the Cayman Islands, where he’s allowed to snack on any guests who don’t pay their bills on time, and is strongly rumoured to be writing a candid expose of his film career that will ‘set the record straight’ on the supposed rift between him and Steven Spielberg.

THE SKELETONS (Jason and the Argonauts, 1963)

The sword-wielding stars were an instant success in the early Sixties thanks to their novelty hit record version of “Dem Bones”. Sadly, the sextet soon split for artistic reasons, with one Skeleton recording a 3-volume concept album, and another launching a series of pop art “happenings” with fellow Argonauts star Talos. Thankfully, the group was re-united in the mid-Eighties as a result of the “We Are The World” Ethiopia charity single, and today can still be found performing their spectacular “Boneyard” theatrical extravaganza at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.

DRACO (Dragonheart, 1996)

Despite Dragonheart’s lack of success, Draco the last dragon did, briefly, manage to carve out a successful career as a witty, urbane sidekick in TV shows like Dragon P.I. and Flaming Hell, but his flippant attitude soon stalled his film career when he got himself fired from As Good As It Gets, with his role being switftly rewritten to fit his replacement Greg Kinnear. Draco currently runs his own Flame Grilled Barbecue restaurant in the San Fernando Valley, as well as earning money on the side doing Sean Connery-impersonating prank calls.

A Practical Guide to being a Superhero

Originally published October 2005
in DVD Review magazine 
We love them, we want to be them- but actually living the life of a superhero isn’t as easy as it looks. There are world-conquering villains to defeat and grumpy landlords to avoid, but those wishing to begin a career as a costumed vigilante can relax- help is at hand. Since SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE in 1978, superhero films have provided a plethora of useful hints and tips, so any wannabes would do well to follow our guide to the Crime-Fighting lifestyle…

1: POWERS? OR POWERS-FREE?

It’s the starting point to your career, and there are important decisions to be made. Are you going to battle criminals with just your wits and a powerful right hook, or is it time to obtain a set of exciting superpowers? Getting your special abilities is a risky and unpredictable route, and while lucky heroes like Superman or the X-Men are born with their gifts, netting yourself the full “Flying/Super Speed/Invulnerability” combo is no simple task.

The most likely routes are hanging around toxic waste dumps, hoping the radiation either blinds you and enhances your other senses to superhuman levels (Daredevil), or turns you into an anger-activated green goliath with infinitely expandable purple pants (The Hulk). Your other main option is hanging out in expensive research labs waiting for a genetically enhanced animal to bite you (Spider-Man)- a choice that carries many potential dangers, from fleas and rabies to accidentally ending up with fantastic night-vision as the heroic “Bunny-Man”.

On the other hand, the powers-free route usually requires either years of weapons training, a convenient multi-billion dollar fortune or a serious anger management problem- but at least they’re predictable routes with a guaranteed end result. Even if you’re an utterly hopeless powers-free superhero such as the fork-wielding Blue Rajah (Mystery Men), your plucky persistence will mean you win through in the end; while the fact that expert vigilantes like Batman don’t have super-abilities to aid their crime crusades just makes the ladies love them even more.

2: THE TRAGIC PAST

All superheroes need motivation, and there’s no better reason for fighting evil than the Tragic Past. Thankfully, there’s a wide variety to choose from, although the most obvious is a death in the family- you don’t have to go as far as Peter Parker in Spider-Man and be directly responsible for the death, but, to be honest, it does help. Being extreme can also be a good thing- the brutal murder of Frank Castle’s entire family turns him into the glowering vigilante known as the Punisher, but having your entire home planet blown up in order to get that genuine Superman-style “Last Son of Krypton” feeling may be going too far.

For the morbidly inclined, there’s always the option of getting yourself killed and returning from the grave to wreak havoc. This can go one of two ways- you’ll either (a) return as a scarred vigilante in a big red cloak and be insulted by an obese satanic clown (Spawn), or (b) dress in funky clothes, paint your face like Marilyn Manson’s bass player and look like the sexiest undead goth on the planet (The Crow). The ultimate Tragic Past is, as in The Crow, avenging a murdered lover, which gives you complete licence to indulge in insane ultraviolence, but also means you can spend your downtime doomily hanging out in deserted buildings, quoting poetry, and playing endless free-form guitar solos. Or, you could take a leaf out of the amnesiac Wolverine’s book (X-Men), and have no idea what your tragic past actually is…

3: THE COSTUME

There are certain rules when choosing your costume. It should either be pitch black, or brightly coloured as possible; thin and flexible enough so that you can wear it under your clothes; cool enough to avoid unsightly sweat-patches, and with an eye-catching logo displayed prominently on the chest, allowing you to dramatically rip your shirt open in times of crisis.

However, there’s one big question: Do you say yes or no to Spandex? It’s the unofficial uniform for the superhero lifestyle, but the whole figure-hugging body stocking look can easily backfire. You might be able to carry it off as a brightly coloured crime fighter dispensing fast-witted quips, but if you’re aiming to be a dark, violent vigilante and avenge yourself on society, doing it in spandex is only going to make you look like a particularly menacing fitness instructor.

Even the smallest alterations to a costume can pitch it into daftness- you could have an imposingly sculpted suit of body armour, but add shiny nipples and a gigantic codpiece and you’ll have supervillains rolling in the aisles. Ultimately, it’s a matter of personal taste and practicality, but female superheroes should beware: skimpy costumes aren’t always a good idea. It might sound alluring and empowering to expose as much skin and cleavage as possible, but chances are you’ll end up looking like an escapee from a Hen night that’s just ram-raided the local Anne Summers shop, and any hope of being taken seriously will fly out of the window.

4: COOL TRANSPORTATION

Getting yourself around town is your next priority- and the forward-thinking superhero will actually get himself a mode of transportation as part of his powers. Flight is the obvious choice, although not everyone can carry off wearing a cape without looking like an idiot, and teleportation is another great option- even if you can’t do it without leaving a trail of smoke and a loud “BAMMF!!” noise. Swinging from building to building via super-strong webs has its advantages, but emitting a sticky white substance from your wrists opens you up to some frankly rather crass puberty-related gags, and if you get too stressed with your dual life you’ll find your web abilities failing mid-air, and have the embarrassment of having to take the elevator.

In fact, it might be far less hassle to have a funkily designed super vehicle for getting around. Along with the costume, the superhero vehicle is a statement to the world that says “I’m here, I’m scary, and I like to fight evil!” While the X-Men’s turbo-powered X-Jet is an undoubtedly impressive piece of hardware, Batman is the model to aim for, as virtually every incarnation of the Batmobile has been effortlessly cool, and he’s even branched out into excitingly spiky Bat-boats and Bat-planes. Unfortunately, he always seems to forget the rather important detail of making them bullet-proof, with the result that one well-placed shot will blast them into pieces. Try to avoid this, as running costs are high enough on super-vehicles without having to build the whole thing again from scratch.

5: THE LOVE INTEREST

In the course of your career as a super powered crime-fighter, you’re going to need a devastatingly attractive love interest- someone who can be placed in certain-death situations and relied on to scream like mad when abducted by a gibbering supervillain. Women like Lois Lane, Vicki Vale and Mary Jane Watson will initially appear to be capable, strong-minded ladies, but they’re always atrocious in a fight and you’ll be able to fool them into thinking you’re someone else by simply putting on a pair of glasses. Thankfully, there are edgier, dangerous females like the Selina Kyle version of Catwoman (Batman Returns), or flirty knife-wielding killer babe Elektra Natchios (Daredevil)- but be careful. Women like Elektra can be so foxy and exciting that they’ll get a spin-off movie all of their own, and you’ll be left without a sequel to your name…

On the other hand, if you’re a female superhero like Patience Prince in Catwoman or Kara in Supergirl, then it’s vitally important that your male object of lust be as bland as possible. Ideally, he should be a police detective who looks like he moonlights as an underwear model, and spends his time romancing your meek everyday self while getting all hot-under-the-collar for your scantily-clad alter ego. As with his female equivalent, despite being a supposedly intelligent police officer, he’ll take a small eternity to work out that the two women he’s attracted to are the same person, despite having the same voice, the same height, the same build, and even the same coloured eyes as each other…

6: THE SECRET LAIR

Your next target is a secret lair- somewhere to store vehicles, build gadgets and sit moodily in the corner fuming about how nobody appreciates you. Size is everything here- the bigger the lair, the more impressed your love interest will be when you bring them around for a swift visit. One trip to Superman’s secret hideout in Superman II was enough to swing Lois Lane’s undying love- and it’s safe to say Peter Parker would have a much easier time of it if he had a spectacular, cavernous Spider-themed lair to woo the ladies with.

Not all of us, however, can get our lairs handed to us on a plate like that eternally lucky bastard Superman and his “Instant Fortress of Solitude” crystal (Superman: The Movie). If you live in a gigantic mansion, then it’s 99.99% likely there’ll be a conveniently huge cavern situated directly underneath you can convert with ease. Alternatively, you can always buy yourself a school and build lots of exciting Thunderbirds-style hatchways in the grounds (X-Men). While the X-Men’s gleaming techno-lair has certain attractions, you can’t go wrong with gothic grandeur. There should be shadows, plenty of computer screens flashing up symbols nobody understands, and lots of narrow walkways alongside gigantic chasms without the slightest hint of a safety rail. Above all, it should be both highly secret, and ridiculously easy to break into when the latest overacting supervillain or wannabe sidekick decides that he wants to discover your secret identity.

7: THE VILLAINS

While you may tackle the occasional petty crook, you’ll spend most of your crime fighting career battling nefarious supervillains and their plans to enslave/destroy/purchase the world. Nobody knows why there are so many lunatics out there ready to accidentally bond themselves to mechanical arms, throw themselves into pools of chemicals or put on truly appalling Goblin costumes, but they fall into three distinct categories:

(a): SUPER-BAD
These are the villains who know exactly how to do their job. Adversaries like Lex Luthor, Magneto and General Zod are cool, quiet and subtle, only throttling a subordinate when it’s absolutely necessary. They will try to kill you, but they’ll be terribly polite about it.

(b): MEDIUM-BAD
Flamboyant, scenery-chomping villains who like dressing up in bright colours and shouting at their henchmen. People like The Joker, Mr. Freeze and the Green Goblin sound like fun to be around- but they’ll hog all the public’s attention, and will always be spouting dreadful puns like “Ice to see you!”

(c): ZERO-BAD
The dregs of the barrel- villains so weak and bland, you wonder why they bothered turning up in the first place. They may be convinced they’re the top banana, but you’ll forget bad guys like Xander Drax (The Phantom), Max Schrek (Batman Returns) and Laurel Hedare (Catwoman) within moments.

Defeating these villains will often be rather difficult, and many of them will insist on coming back again and again- but if you’d rather this didn’t happen, simply drop them off the tallest building available, and we guarantee you won’t be seeing them again.

8: DEALING WITH THE PUBLIC

You’re out in the world, fighting for truth, justice and the Superhero way, but it’s time for you to meet your biggest challenge- the general public. Everyday men and women going about their business, they’re also a tremendous liability in a crisis, always taking a small eternity to realise they should be running in the opposite direction. You can also be guaranteed that if any heavy objects ever plummet towards the ground, there’ll be at least one member of the public unwittingly standing underneath it- usually a mother with a pram.

While practicing, it’s important to perfect your rescue strategy- do you go for strong and silent, or chanting snappy catchphrases? Either way, the rescuee will be so astonished by the experience they’ll forget to say thank you, but most other people will be delighted to stand around pointing, waving fists in the air and shouting “Yeah!! Alright!!” every single time you score a major victory, or rescue a kitten from a tree.

Despite this popularity, the Media will have you on their hate-list from day one. There’s something about a masked vigilante that brings out the “Terror Stalks Our City!!” headlines, and each paper will have a fast-talking 1940s-style editor who’ll adore putting the boot in at your lowest moment. However, being misunderstood by the media is the one true sign you’ve arrived- you now have full licence to stand dramatically on top of buildings and indulge in the Olympian level of angst that no self-respecting modern superhero should do without.

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2005

STYLE WARRIORS

There’s many different styles of superhero. Which one will you be?

THE WISE-CRACKER (The Mask)
You’re a fast-talking charmer with a wicked dress sense. You’ll get to kiss Cameron Diaz. Lucky you!

THE MEAN N’MOODY LONER (Wolverine)
You’re pure machismo, with a world of hurt hidden behind those magnificent sideburns. Work those pectorals!

THE SULTRY SIREN (Elektra)
You’re sensitive and lonely, but you’ve also got a thing for leather and playing with knives. Even blind men will fall for you!

THE ANGST MAN (Spider-man)
You’re very heroic- but nobody understands how difficult your life is. Now stop mooning over that girl, and go and get drunk!

FORGOTTEN HEROES

If you’re aiming to be remembered, it’s best not to follow these guys…

THE SHADOW
“Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?” The answer is Alec Baldwin in a fedora and a giant false nose, but this legendary pistol-packing thirties vigilante made precious little impact.

SUPERGIRL
Kal-El’s cousin gets the shallow end of the superhero gene pool, kissing mirrors and posing as a schoolgirl before blandly taking on evil forces for control of an unconvincing glowing ball.

THE PHANTOM
He’s the latest in a line of jungle bound heroes. He’s the “Ghost that walks”. And yet, however heroic he is, Billy Zane still looks a complete idiot in that purple Spandex suit.

THE ROCKETEER
When wearing the funky art deco helmet and flying around with a rocket pack, he’s an instant smash. Sadly, the minute he takes the helmet off, he’s dull as dishwater. Put it back on, for heaven’s sake!!

RESCUE CHAMPIONS

It’s hero vs hero. And the Judge’s decision is final…

QUEENSBORO BRIDGE RESCUE (Spider-man)
The nefarious Green Goblin sets Spidey a challenge worthy of the Krypton Factor- choose between saving Mary Jane or a Cable Car full of cute children as they both plummet towards the river.
JUDGES DECISION: Spidey shows great panache with his webs, and completes both parts of this difficult challenge- but points are deducted for relying on friendly New Yorkers throwing heavy objects at his arch-nemesis…
FINAL SCORE: 8

THE STATUE OF LIBERTY (X-Men)
Not only do the X-Men have to rescue the teenager Rogue from on top of the Statue of Liberty, they’ve also got to stop a deadly machine that’s about to turn the inhabitants of New York into amorphous CGI blobs.
JUDGES DECISION: A good team effort, with each of the X-Men showing control of their powers- although deduct one point for leaving without attempting to pay for all that damage to Lady Liberty.
FINAL SCORE: 9

MUSEUM RESCUE (Batman)
With gadgets, body armour and a very fast car, Bruce Wayne must rescue squealing reporter Vicki Vale from the lecherous intentions and monumental overacting of the Joker.
JUDGES DECISION: Wayne shows good control of his gadgets, and deploys the Batmobile with style. However, that rubber costume slows him down, and he also comes within inches of being unmasked- hardly a professional way of going about things…
FINAL SCORE: 6

THE BURIED CAR (Superman: The Movie)
Lois Lane is trapped in a car that’s being sucked into the ground by an earthquake, while Superman is elsewhere stopping a nuclear missile. Will the Man of Steel be in time to rescue her?
JUDGES DECISION: First of all, Superman fails to complete the challenge in the allotted time. Then, behaving like an incredibly bad loser, he reverses the flow of time, and rearranges events so he can succeed! Cheating is still cheating, no matter how funky you look in your cape…
FINAL SCORE: Disqualified!!

Originally published in DVD Review magazine
© Highbury Entertainment 2005