![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Okay, so they’re making a new Naked Gun movie and recasting Frank Drebin with Ed Helms. I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised, since the premise is simple enough (silly cops) to be vulnerable to this kind of brand name swiping (silly cops, but one of them is named Frank Drebin). It’s probably a bad sign that this news is the first I’ve heard about it and already I am filled with doubt like a nun in a movie.
The genius of the Police Squad series, and earlier the Airplane! films, was that they got dramatic actors like Serious Actor Leslie Nielsen (no, really, he was in the theater) and got them to play the material completely straight, they just made the material completely silly. Sad to say, but probably the best modern example would be Mark Wahlberg showing up in Ted. Getting a funny actor and having him do wacky stuff means there’s no contrast between the audience’s expectations and the film’s reality. We know Ed Helms can be silly, so there’s no surprise when he acts silly. If they were smart, they’d get someone like Benedict Cumberbatch, Bruce Willis, or Christian Bale, and get them to do a smoldering, intense, broody performance like they’re trying to win an Oscar, only with lines like “Like a midget at a urinal, I would have to stay on my toes.”
By the way, movies have really lost the art of dying with dignity, haven’t they? I’m not being nostalgic, there was always some diminishing returns, but people used to say that movies like Die Hard With A Vengeance, Return of the Jedi, Back To The Future Part 3, and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult were crappy movies. Maybe they weren’t great movies, but they could stand alongside the originals and end their series on a good note.
Now think about Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, A Good Day To Die Hard, X-Men Origins: Wolverine… it’s easier to believe you’re watching a very well-budgeted SNL parody of the first movies in those series than an actual entry that’s meant to be about the same people. Why is that?
Oh, and Sony’s trying to do the Marvel things and making Venom and Sinister Six movies. Venom, idk, maybe they heard that Hillary Clinton is running for President, so if a Clinton’s in the White House, maybe everything from the 90s will be new again. That’ll only work on me if they go full-bore 90s: lots of talk about “destroying!” your enemies, wrestling instead of punching, and everyone uses laser guns (even Blade!).
Also, it’s from the writers of Star Trek Into Darkness and Sleepy Hollow. They’re hacks of the highest order (Sleepy Hollow basically rips off every story in existence except for the one it’s supposed to be adapting), so instead of an R-rated body horror vigilante movie, expect stuff like Eddie going on a date, but his clothes are alive, so he can’t get laid! Wonk wonk…
Sinister Six (yes, the Sinister Six are getting a movie before Wonder Woman) could be a bit more interesting, assuming they hit the sweet spot between “oh, these thugs and scumbags are just misunderstood” and the modern comic book “if you have superpowers and you’re not a hero, then you are automatically capable of running a concentration camp.”
To be That Fan and go back to the Silver Age comics for a moment, someone like the Shocker was a criminal scumbag, sure, but he just wanted to steal shit. He didn’t want to necessarily hurt people, unless they’re like Spider-Man and continually throw him in jail. Worst-case scenario, he’s like Parker and thinks “I don’t want to kill people because it’s the difference between getting out on parole in a few years and getting sent to the chair.” Nowadays, there’s probably a story where the Shocker goes around vibrating hookers to death, because that’s what kids want to read about. So, here’s hoping it’s more season one of Sons of Anarchy than season now.
Anyway, I could see villains like Mysterio or Chameleon who wouldn’t cut it as Big Bads working as either henchmen to a real asshole bad guy or as just guys in a heist crew (like in this movie). Let’s say Black Cat is a member, because why wouldn’t she be?—I’m actually surprised that Black Cat isn’t getting a movie, because she’s one of the more popular Spider-Man characters and “sexy cat burglar steals shit but with superheroes” is literally such an easy sell that you have to be DC Comics to fuck it up (hi Halle Berry!). Just so long as she’s not anyone’s girlfriend. And furthermore, say non-rapey but just kind of a kook Doctor Octopus is the leader.
I’d watch a movie where six mid-level supervillains just want to steal shit and live the good life, but end up running afoul of a real destroy-the-city type asshole (maybe the Jackal, so instead of coming up with six more badder bad guys for the S6 to fight, you can just say “clones!”) and have to go all Leverage on his ass. And it’s from Drew “Cabin In The Woods” Goddard. So I’ll be watching this with some interest. If they cast some cool old guy to be the Vulture, I’m in, but if more than fifty percent of the cast is CW hot guys instead of ugly character actors, I’m gone.
The genius of the Police Squad series, and earlier the Airplane! films, was that they got dramatic actors like Serious Actor Leslie Nielsen (no, really, he was in the theater) and got them to play the material completely straight, they just made the material completely silly. Sad to say, but probably the best modern example would be Mark Wahlberg showing up in Ted. Getting a funny actor and having him do wacky stuff means there’s no contrast between the audience’s expectations and the film’s reality. We know Ed Helms can be silly, so there’s no surprise when he acts silly. If they were smart, they’d get someone like Benedict Cumberbatch, Bruce Willis, or Christian Bale, and get them to do a smoldering, intense, broody performance like they’re trying to win an Oscar, only with lines like “Like a midget at a urinal, I would have to stay on my toes.”
By the way, movies have really lost the art of dying with dignity, haven’t they? I’m not being nostalgic, there was always some diminishing returns, but people used to say that movies like Die Hard With A Vengeance, Return of the Jedi, Back To The Future Part 3, and Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult were crappy movies. Maybe they weren’t great movies, but they could stand alongside the originals and end their series on a good note.
Now think about Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, A Good Day To Die Hard, X-Men Origins: Wolverine… it’s easier to believe you’re watching a very well-budgeted SNL parody of the first movies in those series than an actual entry that’s meant to be about the same people. Why is that?
Oh, and Sony’s trying to do the Marvel things and making Venom and Sinister Six movies. Venom, idk, maybe they heard that Hillary Clinton is running for President, so if a Clinton’s in the White House, maybe everything from the 90s will be new again. That’ll only work on me if they go full-bore 90s: lots of talk about “destroying!” your enemies, wrestling instead of punching, and everyone uses laser guns (even Blade!).
Also, it’s from the writers of Star Trek Into Darkness and Sleepy Hollow. They’re hacks of the highest order (Sleepy Hollow basically rips off every story in existence except for the one it’s supposed to be adapting), so instead of an R-rated body horror vigilante movie, expect stuff like Eddie going on a date, but his clothes are alive, so he can’t get laid! Wonk wonk…
Sinister Six (yes, the Sinister Six are getting a movie before Wonder Woman) could be a bit more interesting, assuming they hit the sweet spot between “oh, these thugs and scumbags are just misunderstood” and the modern comic book “if you have superpowers and you’re not a hero, then you are automatically capable of running a concentration camp.”
To be That Fan and go back to the Silver Age comics for a moment, someone like the Shocker was a criminal scumbag, sure, but he just wanted to steal shit. He didn’t want to necessarily hurt people, unless they’re like Spider-Man and continually throw him in jail. Worst-case scenario, he’s like Parker and thinks “I don’t want to kill people because it’s the difference between getting out on parole in a few years and getting sent to the chair.” Nowadays, there’s probably a story where the Shocker goes around vibrating hookers to death, because that’s what kids want to read about. So, here’s hoping it’s more season one of Sons of Anarchy than season now.
Anyway, I could see villains like Mysterio or Chameleon who wouldn’t cut it as Big Bads working as either henchmen to a real asshole bad guy or as just guys in a heist crew (like in this movie). Let’s say Black Cat is a member, because why wouldn’t she be?—I’m actually surprised that Black Cat isn’t getting a movie, because she’s one of the more popular Spider-Man characters and “sexy cat burglar steals shit but with superheroes” is literally such an easy sell that you have to be DC Comics to fuck it up (hi Halle Berry!). Just so long as she’s not anyone’s girlfriend. And furthermore, say non-rapey but just kind of a kook Doctor Octopus is the leader.
I’d watch a movie where six mid-level supervillains just want to steal shit and live the good life, but end up running afoul of a real destroy-the-city type asshole (maybe the Jackal, so instead of coming up with six more badder bad guys for the S6 to fight, you can just say “clones!”) and have to go all Leverage on his ass. And it’s from Drew “Cabin In The Woods” Goddard. So I’ll be watching this with some interest. If they cast some cool old guy to be the Vulture, I’m in, but if more than fifty percent of the cast is CW hot guys instead of ugly character actors, I’m gone.
