Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), directed by Zack Snyder, was an incredibly hyped film that ended up dying in the eyes of critics. I have heard many things about this film spanning from it being the worst film of the year so far, to it being the best comic book movie ever created. I agree with neither as it was a visual masterpiece with atrocious story telling which combines to make a half decent film.

Zack Snyder has previously directed a slew of films including Man of Steel, 300, Dawn of the Dead and so on however, I’ve noticed a trend in most of his films; excellent cinematography, horribly paced story telling. Unfortunately, Batman V Superman did not escape this trend.

Like his previous films, the visual aspects are incredible and I often found myself at the edge of my seat at how powerful the imagery was. From the opening scene with Bruce Wayne as a child to the end fight scene, its clear that care was put into how each cut flowed into the next. The vivid colours and well placed slow motion moments added to the dramatic feel of the film.

Going along with this, the fight choreographer, Guillermo Grispo who has worked with Zack Snyder many times in the past, does not fail to impress with the clever and fast past action sequences. It’s easy to tell what’s happening to each character in these fight scenes which really adds to the value of the film. The fight scenes with Batman in particular were extremely well done since they flowed well and worked for the character they introduced.

However, this film does have quite a few noticeable errors that can be narrowed down to one main fact; they couldn’t fit the massive plot into a two and a half hour movie. This film was created in order to build a universe for the many sequels ahead. In doing this, it almost seemed like the screenwriters forgot that they needed to tell a story in the movie. Sounds harsh but another comic book film, Avengers: Age of Ultron, had this exact same problem.

Firstly, There’s essentially three different plot lines that eventually converge into the finale. We have the plot of Batman attempting to stop Superman, Superman attempting to stop Batman, and whatever the hell Lex Luthor’s doing. I say that casually because Lux Lethor’s purpose throughout the film is confusing the first and second time around and seems unnecessary from a critical point of view. On top of this, when I asked my friends what they thought Luthor’s motive was, they all gave me different answers. This is an obvious problem. Throughout the film, Batman and Superman are trying to figure out what Lex Luthor’s plan is and the audience is left in the same situation despite having personal screen time with the villain. If the audience is shown what the villain is doing behind the scenes, we should also know his plan otherwise all of the scenes we were shown are useless. It would be more effective to sit the audience down with the heroes and follow their journey with discovering what the villains plans are. It almost seems like something the writers were trying to create an interesting way of having Batman and Superman fight which ended up being more confusing than necessary.

Secondly, there are too many hints alluding to many different possibilities for the plot. For anyone, like myself, who knows quite a bit about the DC universe, these hints are almost blinding and take away from flow of the narrative. As each new idea appeared, I became disconnected with the main story and turned my focus on figuring out what each cameo meant. This added to an already confusing plot creates a mess of a film instead of adding to it.  On top of this, making it to the end credits only to realize that all of these questions aren’t answered is unacceptable. It leaves the audience confused with a twinge of disappointment at knowing that these many questions won’t be answered until a sequel is made showing, that it requires a sequel and can’t stand on its own as a film.

Ben Affleck brought Batman to life. A lot of people were unsure of Ben Affleck being cast as Batman and he did surprise me though with how much he took on the persona. He looks and behaves like a mentally worn down man who has seen some things.However, anyone who knows Batman well will know that Batman essentially has three different personalities. Batman, Bruce Wayne in public, and Bruce Wayne at home. Though he did portray Batman, and homely Bruce Wayne well, I did notice how he dragged these dark and silent characteristics into his public appearances. What I appreciated the most is that Ben Affleck portrayed Bruce Wayne so well that I didn’t see Ben Affleck, I saw Batman.

The only other performance worth mentioning is Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. Jesse Eisenberg is an extremely good actor. It’s important to note that he once again has an extremely good performance and despite receiving a lot of criticism for how he played Lex Luthor, I think most of this criticism is wrongly placed. His performance is good yet, it was the way he portrayed the character that threw fans off. Lex Luthor is a naturally crazy character in everything he appears in, the only difference is that he doesn’t visibly appear crazy until now. I think most this criticism comes from humans (including myself) generally being creatures of homeostasis. Meaning that anyone who is unfamiliar Lex Luthor and decides to walk into this film will probably leave enjoying this crazed villain.

This film has amazing visuals but the lacking plot drags this film down from the potential it had. I do not believe it is as bad as some people have said and I would recommend this film to anyone wanting good fight scenes who can ignore a poorly narrated story.

The critic in me: 5/10 

Personal Enjoyment: 6/10

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Spoiler Review

 

When I left the theatre after watching this film, I ranted for at least an hour about everything wrong with this movie to my family who had the unfortunate luck of being in the same vehicle during this tirade. I clearly had a lot to say however, I will try to keep this concise to a few main points.

Like I mentioned in the non-spoiler sections, there are way too many cameos in this film.   In most films, a few hints are added to be fun for the audience or are necessary to the plot but, too many of these are just confusing. For example, Robin’s armour that is briefly shown does have some importance. It alludes to the comic, “A Death in the Family”, which tells fans that there will, in theory, be no Robin introduced. It creates a better understanding of this film instead of making it harder to understand like the dream sequence with Darkseid, Flash showing up in a vision which alludes to the Flashpoint Paradox, and the amount of detail on the walls. People are trying to figure out what it all means and by the end of the film, we still don’t know. Hints should be added with purpose and should not distract from what’s happening in the film.

The main introductions for Flash, Cyborg and Aquaman seemed too simple. By that, is there an easier way of introducing these characters than having someone open an email with all of the information? We know the writers can create an interesting cameo appearance, as they did with Darkseid, so why can’t they do something a little bit more creative with the special and more relevant appearances?

Batman hates Superman and the reason behind that are quite clear from the beginning and they make a lot of sense when looking at his character. We see his family get murdered when he was a child so, when the saves the little girl at the beginning and we find out that her parent is dead because of Superman, we can clearly understand and empathize with why Batman hates him.

On the other hand, call me dumb but I needed a friend to point out to me why Superman disliked Batman. The entire idea of Batman branding villains to essentially get killed later in prison seems too complex for a story like this, and Batman’s motivation for branding villains is left unexplained.
Superman’s motivation is extremely important to the plot and to have a final fight at the end. when the motivation for this is lacking, it leaves the audience wondering why they are fighting to begin with. If the title didn’t state the that Batman would be fighting Superman, the audience would be left wondering why this happened. Especially with how Lex Luthor was involved.  Before I give my thoughts on an alternative motivation for Superman, there is one thing I do need to explain.

The filmmakers need to decide whether they want Batman to return to his 1939 comic roots and kill people, or if they want to remain as the self righteous non-murdering vigilante the newer comics and films depict him as. While watching the fight sequences with Batman, there are many moments when I’m left thinking, “That bad guy definitely just died.”. They never blatantly show Batman killing people but paying attention, there are many scenes when Batman does kill people. For example, when he chasing after the truck with the kyrptonite, there are a few instances of Batman crashing people’s cars in such a way that they would not be able to survive. If the filmmakers chose a side, instead of playing on the fence since this is an important piece of information for viewers to know.

Going back to Superman’s motivation, if Batman was killing criminals instead of handing them over to the authorities, this would be good motivation for Superman to dislike Batman.

The fight scene between Batman and Superman seemed fixed from the beginning. Because Superman didn’t want to kill Batman, this fight wasn’t an accurate show of their abilities. Since Luthor captured Superman’s mother, his focus is obviously going to be on her safety rather than killing Batman. Logically, Superman does try to get Batman to understand his situation during the fight instead of focusing solely on killing him. This change in mentality limits Superman on how far he is willing to go. We know that he won’t win. Even if Superman accidentally destroys Batman to where he can no longer continue, Superman only wins this fight if he rescues his mother.

The fight scene between Batman and Superman itself was well done. There were moments when each foe had the upper hand. The characters showed what makes them them, from Batman’s strategic planning to Superman’s moral dilemma. I enjoyed this fight scene and how it played out with having their mothers shared names become relevant. It was an interesting twist and was visually appealing.

This film was visually appealing which made the film tolerable. I don’t believe it is as bad as some people have said yet, it is definitely not as good as it could have been.

Meggan S.

 

 

 

 

Problems with Comic Book Films Today

I’ve recently noticed a disturbing trend. Comic book movies are being shoved down viewers throats. In the past, about one or two new live action comic book movies came out every year. This year so far, we’ve had three and it isn’t even June yet.

Why I find this alarming is because the quality of these films has also begun to slip. With an exception of a few movies including Deadpool (2016), comic book movies are running into the same problems over and over again. One would think that with the large fan base supporting these films, problems such as these would be eliminated as soon as they started.

1. Building a universe in one standard length film does not work. We’ve seen this happen twice with two very recent films, Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Both of these films were focused on creating a universe in which characters could thrive and more sequels and spin offs could be made. Because of this, it was almost as if the screenwriters forgot that a well thought out plot is the key to a successful film. Look at Deadpool for example, this film clearly wasn’t focused on building a universe; it focused on being a stand alone film. It had a straightforward plot line and put attention towards the characters and events in the moment, not in the future. In fact, the only thing that director did to tell the audience that a sequel would be coming was add in a post-credit scene at the end. More importantly, it worked.

Unfortunately, the two films mentioned previously forgot to do this. Batman V Superman specifically had such a jumbled plot filled with way too many cameos for the audience to even understand what happened at the end. So many things were left unexplained that it’s not a stand alone film anymore, it requires a sequel which is the wrong way of looking at a story when making a film. Although Avengers: Age of Ultron did do a better job of creating a stand alone film, it still had too much information they needed to put into the plot in order to keep in concise. Take a film trilogy like Lord of the Rings, each film can be viewed individually without too many questions left unanswered. The plot is simple to follow despite having up to three different characters on different paths at once. The main point is, even if a film is meant to become a part of a series, this should not take away from the importance of it as an individual film.

2. Just because it’s a high budget superhero film doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful or well liked. The most recent version of Fantastic Four (2015) proves this statement beyond what I could describe with words. With a mere 6% rating on RottenTomatoes, clearly something is wrong with how they made this film. To begin with, this film took itself way too seriously. This combined with a bad plot, universe building, bad effects and costume design, its a horrible film, yet the creators clearly thought it was going to be well received with how much effort they put in and the overall tone of the film. Batman and Robin (1997) had quite a few issues with this as well. Watching this film, it almost seemed like the director expected it to be a successful film because of its name. Almost all Batman fans (including myself) despise this film because its awful. The Dark Knight (2008) however, was extremely successful and revolutionary for comic book films because it put the effort into making a film, not just expanding a franchise or using its name to draw in an audience. The writers clearly cared about character development, the performances were excellent and the story was incredibly detailed yet straight forward. They genuinely cared about the film as a film, not just a comic book adaption.

Comic book films are not just adaptions of comic books. Looking at successful and well done superhero movies like Deadpool, The Dark Knight Trilogy and Avengers (2012), the creators knew that they were making a film and that it needed to flow like a good non-comic book film would. This is the mentality that separates great comic book film adaptions from the mediocre to horrible ones.
Meggan S.

Drive (2011)

Drive (2011) is a captivating and thought provoking film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling. As my all time favourite film, I consider it to be a masterpiece despite almost everyone I know saying they hated it and, in all honesty, the first time I watched this film I quit halfway through. Only the second time around, very late at night did I end up watching all of it to discover that it was truly one of the best films I had ever seen.

Based off a book of the same name (written by James Sallis), Drive follows the life an unnamed getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) and his struggles as he falls deeper into the rabbit hole of his profession. As the best driver in Los Angeles, ‘Driver’ serves as a mechanic during the day and a getaway driver for hire at night. He then discovers a beautiful young woman living in the same apartment building as himself and suddenly, his entire way of life is challenged.

Drive is more of a moral journey than it is a physical one. We follow Driver through his struggles as he deciphers the meaning of right and wrong, challenging the idea that people are either good, or bad. As the story moves further, it’s clear that his mind and heart fall into deeper shades of grey on what the right thing to do is, and where he stands in his own moral code.

Looking at the plot plainly, it sounds like every other crime thriller. The man wants to win the heart of the lady and then ends up making deals with the wrong people which causes a build up of problems. However, the way Nicolas Winding Refn decided to tell this story made it an entirely new experience. This is because he didn’t focus on the story, he focused on what the story meant. This change of perspective has a much different feel as it is more character based and introspective rather than just watching a character trying to survive against the gang lords.

The beginning of the story starts out relatively plain and continues quite slowly until about halfway through when things start to mesh together. This can be discouraging because the first half is filled with important information that sets up the second half but, it’s not particularly entertaining due to the pacing and seemingly typical set up. However, once the second half is reached, the pace quickens quite drastically and the story gets much darker.

Since this is a dark story, there is quite a bit of realistic gore and violence though relatively brief. I respect the fact that Nicolas Winding Refn chose to make the fight scenes as realistic as possible and I truly believe that it added to the message and emotion in the final product. It can be shocking but it had a reason which is more than what can be said for a lot of other films that include excessive gore.

Talking to many people about this film, there’s a lot of criticism about the lack of dialogue throughout. I will admit that the characters don’t speak much. Instead, they stay in each frame often as still as they are silent. This interested me a lot since the emotion that each character displays and their thoughts about different situations are clearly evident despite them often not speaking about it. I actually really liked this technique since is made the film feel less like it had a story to tell and more like it needed to the audience to discover something.

The style of cinematography is captivating as the entire film feels more like a fantasy rather than the neo-noir that it is. Each shot is significant and despite a longer length of time between each cut than most films, it works achieve a different and much welcomed atmosphere. From a visual aspect alone, this film is worth watching as it is very different from the normal cash grab of a film and adds a lot of feeling into what is happening on screen.

Attention to detail is something that I picked up on almost instantly. Everything that was put into this film has some sort of importance attached to it. From the music choices to what kind of car each character drives to the way they look at each other, to the camera angle and color, everything is significant. A lot of time and effort was put into this film to make it mean something. The little bits of dialogue from the most unsuspecting person can allude to the entire theme of the film. I also believe this is why most people dislike this film; one actually has to invest all of their focus to watching the screen. If a few of the slightest details are missed, this film won’t make sense. At least not to its fullest extent.

The performances by Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Oscar Isaac and the rest of the cast are phenomenal considering the style of this film. Most times, a lot of dialogue is introduced yet, this film isn’t like that. It plays into the more experimental side of film making, one in which the performances given can make or break the final product. The amount silent moments really tap into the actor’s performances and show how talented they are considering how much feeling they are capable of putting into these pauses.

A large part of why people didn’t enjoy Drive was because it was advertised wrong in theatres. Trailers showed this movie to be like the next Fast and Furious franchise when it is clearly not. This left a great amount of people disappointed.

Drive is my favourite film and I would recommend it to anyone (of a mature age) who wants to watch an interesting film that makes them think.

The critic in me: 10/10

Personal enjoyment: 10/10

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Spoiler Review

 

Beginning with the opening chase scene, we can tell that Driver is clearly confident in what he does as he easily finishes his job. What’s interesting is that this chase scene compared to the one later in the film set in the desert, is that this scene was entirely shot from the perspective of Driver in his car. There is not one moment in this scene where the camera leaves his car. This is important because when the next chase scene is shown, they made it more intense and, at this time in the film, we are beginning to lose our connection with Driver. We become unsure of whether he is a good or bad guy.

The song choices (with lyrics) are pretty straight forward in the sense that, we start out with electronic music from the opening credits as he’s driving home from his latest getaway. Personally, I believe that he’s actually listening to the song in his vehicle, and that’s the only way he ever feels any sort of emotion. At least, in the beginning. Though this is only speculation, Nicolas Winding Refn has stated that Driver is the kind of person that would do this. Whenever the song, A Real Hero (College and Electric Youth) plays, it shows that he feels like a hero but more importantly, “a real human being”. It’s clear from the start that Driver is a detached man who doesn’t entirely feel like he belongs. When he’s with Irene, driving down the Los Angeles river, he feels like a human being and a hero because he’s accomplishing his goals and interacting with another person on a personal level. He’s letting himself open up. The song choices reflect what the characters are feeling and paying close attention to the lyrics can add a lot of insight into different scenes.

Jumping to the end, it seems quite dark and I admit that it is yet, every time I watch it I feel a mixture of pure satisfaction and eternal sorrow. Looking closely at the sequence of events and Driver as a character, it became clear why that is. Driver, being his detached and longing self has taken a lot of inspiration from 1980’s action films where the hero beats the bad guy, saves the girl and wins her affection. We can say that he’s taken inspiration from this for a few reason. First, he works as a stunt driver on many of these films and watching closely to that scene, when Shannon says that he’s “only the day player”, Driver physically clenches his teeth because he knows he’s not the hero. On top of this, his jacket is in the style of the 80’s. Why is this significant? It means that at the end of the film, he got everything he wanted. He did save the girl and he did beat the bad guy, like what happened in the elevator and when he killed the person that threatened her safety. The melancholic part of this is that he got everything he wanted before he knew what he wanted.

The main theme of this film is clearly defined by a short conversation between Driver and Benicio when they’re sitting on a couch watching a cartoon.

Driver: Is he a bad guy?

Benicio: Yeah.

Driver: How can you tell?

Benicio: Because he’s a shark.

Driver: There’s no good sharks?

Clearly, Driver is looking at himself during this conversation. Benicio is an innocent child. Emphasis on innocent. Driver thinks about Benicio’s words carefully because Benicio’s thoughts aren’t diluted with society’s opinion and Driver understands that. Throughout the film, he has wondered whether or not he is a good person and if a person is inherently good or evil. Driver knows that he’s on the wrong side of the spectrum so this reality check carries a lot of weight and is literally the main question this film is making people think about.
Meggan S.

The Nice Guys (2016)

The Nice Guys (2016) is directed by Shane Black and stars Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe in a fresh and hilarious crime comedy.  

Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is a private investigator working to solve mysteries wherever he can find him. Despite not being the best detective, he gets roped into helping Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe), a hired enforcer, to uncover a major crime.

Shane Black had previously directed another comedy crime film, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), which is an often unheard of but surprisingly good film. Watching this film, it’s clear that Shane Black is in his element with this genre and he does not disappoint with The Nice Guys.

This movie encapsulated the 1970’s feel with how people dressed and behaved. The set design was well thought out and the CGI was barely noticeable. Cinematography wise, the shots flowed together nicely and with the bright colors and weird style that is the 70’s, this film was visually appealing in many ways. Surprisingly, Shane Black did play a lot of the humor using film techniques and different shots rather than solely relying on the performances of the actors. This made the film a lot more entertaining and adds an interesting and hilarious kind of style.

This film had a more in depth plot than I was expecting and, like a common murder mystery, was slowly revealed to the audience by the actions of the protagonists. Though Holland March and Jackson Healy aren’t the smartest pair, they luckily aren’t stupid either. I never found myself with the sudden urge to cringe or shout out because of something stupid that the characters were doing.

Taking a closer look at the characters, March and Healy are perfect character foils for each other, creating interesting and often funny duo dynamics. Considering that March’s character is the father of a young teenage girl, the amount substance in their relationship played a thought provoking role in March’s character considering that he is a bit of a goofball. There is also a lot of depth in Healy’s character which is revealed near the end of the film. Despite being a comedy, a lot of character development happens from the start to the end showing that this is much more than a typical crime comedy.

Personally, I was impressed. I enjoyed this film a lot more than I thought I would and within the first few scenes, I already found myself laughing out loud. This film is a fun ride for anyone wanting a less than normal crime comedy. I don’t really have anything bad to say about this film because it is very well done and very enjoyable.

The critic in me: 9/10

Personal enjoyment: 9/10

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Spoiler Review

 

The main selling point of the humor in this film is how the characters interact with each other which is why I found the roles of the characters quite ironic. Firstly, March is the private investigator and he’s the worst at it. Next we have Healy who is much better at March’s job than March. Finally, we have March’s daughter who is arguably a much better detective than first two, despite her young age. Shane Black did a really good job of getting the humor out of this scenario since their relationships with each other has a lot weight in this film.

The weight in this movie comes up slowly which is something I particularly liked. At the beginning, we see March’s daughter sitting in a field reading her book and only later do we find out that it was her former home and that’s where her mother died. The situation seems innocent, if no a bit queer, until about halfway through the film, admittedly catching me off guard. The same happened with March’s goofball attitude and his relationship with his daughter. At first it seems like just another unusual and humorous dynamic until the gravity of the situation hit me in the face. It’s clear that March isn’t entirely confident with his role as a father and it’s evident that he’s trying he’s trying his best to be the father we wants to be yet, we don’t realize why until, once again, we find out what happened to his house and wife.

As for Healy, like the others, his rugged personality and reason for his peculiar occupation isn’t fully explained until closer to the end of the film. When it’s revealed, a lot more depth is suddenly added yet, it should have been expected the entire time since this is an incredibly thought out film for its genre.

Also, the spontaneous humor that’s randomly thrown into the mix adds so much to the feeling of the film. In a way, this is a very serious film yet, at times it’s so ridiculous that it’s hard to take seriously. For example, when March and Healy are trying to locate Amelia and they wind up in front of the ‘dead’ protesters, its hard to take the scene seriously but, it is an important part of the plot. It leads into the rest of the story.

All in all, The Nice Guys is an intelligently hilarious film that I would recommend to literally everyone who wants a few laughs. This film is the perfect combination of a serious plot and mad comical skills creating a very well done and entertaining journey.
Meggan S.

The Finest Hours (2016)

The Finest Hours (2016) is directed by, Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm, Lars and the Real Girl), and stars Chris Pine and Casey Affleck in an old fashioned Disney adventure. Let me just start by saying that I actually really enjoyed this film and it surpassed my expectations. It was fun and compelling, especially when knowing that most of the events in the film are historically accurate.

This film shows the story of Bernie Webber (Chris Pine), a young coast guard working at the time that a large tanker splits in half during a rough storm and his endeavors to find the remainders of the ship and rescue any survivors. While this is happening, we are also introduced to Raymond Sybert (Casey Affleck), an engineer working on the ship at the time that it split apart.

Starting with the story, it’s easy to follow and surprisingly captivating though, not without a few relatively minor issues. The main bulk of the film is interesting and the sequences of events worked well and flowed together nicely. However, it is a stereotypical rescue movie in every way.  After one problem occurs, another problem arises. We have the cliche bad guy who’s stopping the good guy who we know has the right plan to save everyone. Eventually they work it out and everything is good again. The pattern of this story is nothing that hasn’t been done before. Despite the lack of originality, I was still invested in the story while it was happening because there were a few moments when I didn’t know if everything would turn out okay. It’s that kind of feeling that makes this movie enjoyable.

The characters seem real with the choices they make and the emotions they feel, coupled with excellent performances. Chris Pine and Casey Affleck both know what they are doing in their craft. The performances they gave were great and added a lot to the characters. Speaking of which, the characters feel like real people. It evokes an emotional response from the audience because there is someone that the audience has to root for when everything is against them. It brings the movie back to a more personal approach rather than relying on special effects to make a stereotypical action movie that lacks feeling.

Visually, this film was quite amazing because the filmmakers managed to show the scale of things as realistically as possible. For example, when a giant wave comes crashing against half of the ship, I actually felt concerned for the well being of the crew because it was definitely a gigantic wave. It adds to the film a lot because it creates a sense of urgency and once again adds realism. The effects supporting this film were also really well done and there were only a few moments that I could clearly tell they were using a green screen. The cinematography was decent. There weren’t too many interesting shots in particular but the style worked for the story.

Overall, this film was fun and I had a good time watching it. I would recommend this to anyone who is in the mood for a feel good movie or wanting some exciting without having to think to much.

The critic in me: 6.5/10

Personal enjoyment: 9/10

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Spoiler Review

 

I’ve said pretty much everything that I’ve wanted to say about this film in the non-spoiler section except that I had issues with the story line behind Miriam, Bernie’s fiance in the film.

When the actual event happened, Miriam was already married to Bernie and she was at home sick with the flu while Bernie went to rescue the crew members. Because of this, it felt like the screenwriters were having a difficult time making her character relevant to the story, almost as if they added her because they needed at least one character to be a woman. Now, I don’t have any issues with this at all. In fact, I like her character. She’s assertive and doesn’t allow herself to be pushed around yet, the only time I actually cared about her character was when she turned on her car headlights to help her husband back to shore. Maybe I’m a heartless person but, both Bernie and Raymond my attention and sympathy on a completely different level than Miriam. Not that I didn’t care about her but, my focus was on the other two leads so I often found myself wanting her screen time to go faster so that the story would focus back on those two men.

Until next time,

Meggan S.

Fight Sequences

Everyone has seen at least one film, probably many, where the fight scenes are extremely bad. Or possibly they were well done, you just can’t see what’s going on because of the camera work. When a fight scene is done correctly, it can be amazing but, it’s surprising how easy it is to mess up, and how many filmmakers fall for these traps.

For example, Ip Man 3 (2015) was a good film for one reason; the fight sequences. Anyone who has watched that movie would agree with me that the plot was horrendous yet, we still enjoyed it. Why? Because the fight scenes were phenomenal. I give a lot of credit to action films from the Asian community because they know how to do fight scenes and it’s not just because of their use of martial arts. So, let’s dive into a few points, shall we?

1. Cast actors who are willing to do some of their own stunts. I don’t know how many times I’ve watched a movie in which an actor is cast for a physically demanding role and I find that the stunt double has more screen time than the actor. When an actor is willing to do their own stunts, it adds realism and quality, also expanding the options for the type of shots they can take in the sequence. Keanu Reeves and Tom Cruise are both excellent examples of actors who do their own stunts. Keanu Reeves is amazing in fight scenes and he makes them believable because we know that he’s the one doing the stunts. He pushes things to the limit and the cinematography in his fight scenes are great because the director doesn’t have to hide a stunt double. Tom Cruise has surprised everyone with the Mission: Impossible series with the insane stunts he’s done. Would the Burj Khalifa scene in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol (2011) have been as exhilarating if the audience didn’t literally see Tom Cruise hanging on the outside of the building? Probably not. Like anything, a good foundation is the key to success which is why casting an actor who will do stunts is just a important as the choreography itself.

2. The fight should be rehearsed, but not too rehearsed. This sounds confusing but it’s important. I’ll use two different films to explain this. First, it makes sense that a fight scene should be rehearsed. Lack of rehearsal creates slow moving, animated fight sequences that are visibly fake. They lack realism and intensity which is everything a filmmaker shouldn’t want. Dragonball Evolution (2009) had this problem among its many. It was clear that they had practiced this fight yet, it lacked the flow and urgency that a fight scene should have. People knew it was fake because it looked planned. On the complete opposite side of the spectrum there is the final fight scene between Anakin Skywalker and Obi-wan Kenobi from Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith (2005). Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen had rehearsed the fight to the point where it where it looked like Obi-wan and Anakin could tell where the other person was going to strike even before they had moved. It looked more like a dance in all honestly. A choreographed fight scene should look like it hasn’t been rehearsed but it still has to be executed with some level of confidence.

3. Camera work is important because if a filmmaker has a well choreographed fight scene but the audience can’t tell what’s going on, there’s a problem. I’m going to start with something that really annoys me which is shaky cam. Shaky cam is when the camera man literally shakes the camera while filming, not to be mistaken for handheld shots in which the camera man just naturally holds the camera. When filming a fight scene, using shaky cam is almost like attempting to add intensity to the fight scene after realizing that it’s not a well done fight. When filmmakers use shaky cam to film a fight scene, it takes away from the fight because there’s too much for the audience to focus on. A fight scene has enough spontaneous fast movements on its own without a camera shaking. It makes it difficult to focus on what’s happening in the scene. That’s not to say that one shouldn’t ever use shaky cam, just as long as they use it sparingly and with purpose. On the same idea, having too many cuts in a fight scene can also be distracting since the angle is changing too often to process what is happening.

An excellent example of a fight sequence would be the knife fight between Captain America and the Winter Soldier in Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014) because it has a clean look, there aren’t any unnecessary cuts and despite being done using handheld camera techniques, it’s easy to follow what is happening. The actors are doing their own stunts and you can tell they’ve practiced the choreography yet, as characters, they look like they are really fighting for their lives.

Fight scenes can be difficult to make but they don’t have to be appalling. Using actors who are willing perform all or at least some sections themselves can be one of the first steps for success. Having confident yet, not over rehearsed performances and keeping the shots clean add up to make a fight scene worth watching.

Cheers,
Meggan S.