Daybreakers (Spierig 2009/2010)

Is anything more annoying to genre film fans than seeing a good film fail to find the audience upon initial release? Actually, yes, there is, and that is seeing miserable excuses for genre cinema succeed with general audiences, thus ensure that crap continues to be produced instead of solid efforts.

Among the most annoying films to see fail last year was Daybreakers (Spierig 2009/2010 [while a 2009 film, it opened in North America in January of 2010]), a film which addresses a long asked question in horror film circles: if vampires did succeed in taking over the world and became the dominate species, how would they keep feeding themselves with a dwindling human population? This question drives the narrative of Daybreakers, a near future set film that deftly blends science fiction and horror in a manner that few films ever achieve.

Looking to answer the problem of the depleting blood supply in Daybreakers is Dr. Dalton (Ethan Hawke), chief scientist for a major corporation lead by Charles Bromley (Sam Neil). Dalton’s task is not imperative due survival reasons however, because the lack of blood does not kill a vampire. Rather the longer a vampire goes without blood, the more likely they are to transform into a mindless bestial form. Worse, the blood supplies are down to merely a few weeks worth left, meaning the bulk of the population is facing this animalistic existence.

Dalton’s personal motives for looking for a blood alternative is not driven by a desire to preserve vampire kind however, but rather to preserve humanity. He sympathizes with the remaining humans, and hopes his work will lead to the end of the human blood farming that has been undertaken to preserve most of the population. Dalton’s search for a blood alternative is completely altered however due to a chance meeting with a group of humans on the run, a meeting which leads him to ‘Elvis’ (Willem Dafoe), a one time vampire who has been miraculously cured without knowing quite how.

Elvis believes Dalton can unravel the mystery of the how the cure works before it is too late for the population of the world, but complicating the situation is Dalton’s brother Frankie (Michael Dorman), a human hunter looking to help Bromley preserve vampire kind, regardless of whether or not a cure is in the best interests of both of the vampires and humans.

What separates Daybreakers from most other recent genre efforts is the level of detail that writers/directors Michael and Peter Spierig - the duo behind the heavily flawed but fun 2003 effort Undead - bring to the film. Like the best of science fiction film and literature, the brothers have crafted a full fledged world, packed with detail that, while not always necessary for the narrative, give a full sense of a living, breathing alternate reality. How can vampires function in daylight? Try interconnected underground tunnels, and cars that utilize video cameras as opposed to windows. How does a world full of vampires manage to keep their blood supplies from running out faster than they already are? Blood rationing, controlled by the government and private corporate interests. These are just the big questions that I am give the answers to; a good deal of the film’s joys come from discovering how the world of vampires works, and just how frighteningly close to our day to day existence it remains.

Perhaps more shocking however is the manner in which the filmmakers utilize the world they have created to deliver a rather subtle, and incredibly cleaver, allegory for the anxieties surrounding the uncontrolled consumption within Western society, particularly of fossil fuels such as oil. The film places great emphasis upon vehicles and road imagery in the film, with several significant events featuring cars prominently. The rationing and price increases of blood recall the fuel crisis of 1973, as does much of the imagery throughout the film. Dalton’s race for a “blood substitute” is a just subtle enough nod towards contemporary research and development of alternative energy sources. Read in this manner, the film’s presentation of the relationship between the militaristic human hunters and Bromley’s corporate power seems eerily similar to the conspiracy claims that oil supplies were the driving force behind most of the United States middle eastern involvement in the past decade, most notably the Iraq war.

It is not all politics though, as the filmmakers have fun playing with and subverting the typical tropes and imagery of the vampire film. While the 1998 mini-classic sci-fi/horror/superhero effort Blade first initiated the modern presentation of the vampire at the top of modern urban life, Daybreakers takes this concept to its limit, with the upper crust of vampire kind living in sterile consumerist paradise/hell. In contrast to this, the surviving humans have taken to the vampire hangouts of yesteryear, in isolated vineyards with gothic style housing. Clandestine meetings take place under the cover of day in the biggest car in the county (I have no shame. Really), and salvation may come with a vampire bite, though not in the manner you think.

As an Australian/American co-production, the film is peppered with talent from both countries. Hawke makes for an solid lead in Dalton, utilizing his almost minimalist approach to acting to great impact, while the Spierig brothers making excellent use of Hawke’s rather gaunt appearance. Dafoe manages to walk a fine line between caricature and character as ‘Elvis,’ while Claudia Karvan is sidelined by a somewhat underwritten role as Elvis’ right hand woman . Also suffering from slightness of writing is Dorman, though his performance is strong enough to make up for the somewhat sketch nature of his character.

The show stopper in the film however is Neil, a villain who could have come across as a rather typical corporate bad guy were it not for some better than expected writing, and Neil’s magnificent work. Bromley is a monster, but a rather understandable and sympathetic one. His actions within the film’s main plot are villainous, but a subplot involving Bromley’s daughter is rather touching, as we get to see him as a well meaning, but rather destructive father away from the film’s main narrrative concerns. While the subplot does involve a touch of coincidence, the manner in which it impacts Bromley’s overall character is rather understated and subtle, and the effort from both Neil and the filmmakers is much appreciated. Plus, (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT) Neil is given the single best death scene of his entire career with this film, and it is one that would make George A. Romero smile (MAJOR SPOILER ALERT OVER).

Perhaps the most impressive element of the film however is the rather ambiguous note upon which the film concludes, tackling a question that most films of this type avoid addressing: even if one could find the solution to the worldwide problem, just how on Earth is any solution going to be disseminated effectively? Rather than using some plot contrivance to write themselves out of this corner, the filmmakers address the issue head on in a rather dark manner. It is an ending which provides hope, but it is a subdued hope, leaving the audience to grapple with several narrative and thematic questions that are not fully answered on purpose. It is a rather gutsy manner upon which to end the film, and it shows the level of ambition brought to the project by all involved.

There are minor flaws with Daybreakers, but they are just that, minor. With any luck, in ten years time the film will be remembered as one of the stronger, if not strongest, vampire films to come out of the current craze for undead fiction. Highly recommended.

The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans (Herzog 2009)

The narrative of Noah’s Ark is one which has left a great imprint upon Western culture, as its imagery of a world being purified of evil by a great flood has offered a striking mix of apocalyptic imagery and hope for people to tap into. It is this narrative that serves as the vital intertext for Werner Herzog’s 2009 black comedy crime drama Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans, as the film is set in the wake of the titular city’s near destruction from Hurricane Katrina. Port of Call - New Orleans however is anything but a modern run through of the Noah’s Ark story, instead subverting the original story as the “purifying” flood leaves behind only the corrupt and the impoverished innocent to rebuild the city.

Port of Call - New Orleans follows a lieutenant named Terrance McDonagh (Nicolas Cage), who suffers from an injured back resulting from his saving a criminal from drowning in a jail cell. Due to the fact that his back pain will last an indefinite length of time, likely for the rest of his life, McDonagh is prescribed pain killers, which he quickly abuses before moving onto harder drugs. As his addiction grows, McDonagh finds himself dealing with a murder case, an out of control gambling debit, a hooker girlfriend (Eva Mendez) who makes a well connected enemy, and an alcoholic father with and equally addicted step wife.

While hardly an art film, Port of Call - New Orleans is a film which actively works against traditional narrative structure and storytelling, rejecting concepts of cause and effect in order to present a tale of a man and city that, while progressively becoming more obvious in how twisted and corrupt they are, don’t progress or regress so much as remain stagnate in their state of failure. Characters pay lip service to change, and some seek to change the city, but it is all hollow: things are only able to get better enough to allow the real problems go unaddressed. This is encapsulated in a particularly hilarious and tragic moment when McDonagh’s girlfriend says that she is going to an AA meeting to sober up, but proceeds to say a moment later that she is open to possibly getting high with McDonagh afterwards. Moreover, the film is book ended by scenes which embody the meaning of the words “failing upwards,” underlining how futile the possibility of salvation is in the world of the film. Thus, the film is of a counter point to the salvation narrative of Abel Ferrara’s 1992 crime drama Bad Lieutenant, which Port of Call - New Orleans is only superficially associated with in regards to content.

While this material could easily have transformed into a grim and depressing work, Herzog instead takes the material into an openly comedic terrain, bringing a detached and ironic tone to the film as we watch the increasingly absurd existence of McDonagh. The approach simultaneously manages to make the material palitable as well as highten the sense of tragedy, as moments of real horror rise to the surface of the film to contrast the overall humour. Herzog populates the film with a cast of characters equal in their flaws and insanity to McDonagh, transforming the New Orleans setting into a world misunderstandings, delusions, posturing and self absorbed behaviour, where characters find nostalgic magic in what appears to be a heroin stained spoon, and lucky crack pipes indeed seem to bring a demented sense of luck to their owners.

Speaking of lucky crack pipe owners, Cage is in fine form here as McDonagh. McDonagh isn’t so much a bad man as he is a pathetic one, being just human enough to avoid being a total monster, but just out of his mind enough to tether his sense of masculinity to his job as a police officer. McDonagh’s moments of extortion, excessive violence and outright theft are little more than attempts to show off his worth as a male to himself, a point underlined when he claims that a man without a gun isn’t a man. Cage’s performance takes on an increasingly unhinged quality, marked by shifts in vocal and physical performance over the course of the film. McDonagh transforms into a type of hunchbacked oddity typically found in a Universal horror film of the 1930s and 1940s, making his ability to function in the world at all increasingly baffling and comedic.

Mendez heads up a fine supporting cast, but isn’t given much to do beyond playing off of Cage as her character increasingly falls into the bizarre world of McDonagh’s father and step mother. Of greater note is Jennifer Cooliage as McDonagh’s step mother Genevieve. While a small roll, Genevieve is the closest thing to a truly human character in the film. While as much an addict as every other character, Genevieve is the only one whom seems to understand how sad and pathetic everyone’s existence in the film is, but takes some comfort in her attempts to understand and connect with her step son. Xzibit as the gangster sitting at the center of the murder case is fine, though the role never gives him the opportunity to flex much acting muscle, while Brad Dourif and Val Kilmer turn in solid performances in what are primarily extended cameos.

If the film belongs to anyone other than Cage however, it is director Herzog and cinematographer Peter Zeitlinger, who both walk a fine line between grounding the film while giving it a visual sense of a drug haze. The film is never quite subjective or objective in its point of view, frequently bouncing between McDonagh’s view point to a more observational view of events as we move from a handheld, documentary style to carefully composed shots. Herzog and Zeitlinger furthermore take full advantage of the New Orleans setting, allowing the stark and ruined streets and buildings seep into the frame, constantly imbuing the film with a sense of the real life chaos and impoverishment to play out before the audience.

While I personally find no fault with the film, Port of Call - New Orleans will likely be off putting to those expecting a traditional drama or thriller of the Hollywood mould. While highly entertaining, the film is one which in part asks the viewer to find humour in a series of volatile and shocking behaviour carried out by one man, and the film never once includes a condemnation of this behaviour within the narrative itself. It is a film where filmmakers expect the audience knows how horrific the content is, and go with the tone of the piece. If such an approach offends, simply consider yourself warned. Furthermore, fans of the original Bad Lieutenant might be turned off by what can be seen as a film which almost satirizes the themes of the original film. Personally, I believe the films to be counterpoints to one another rather than mere oppositions, but again, fans of the original should be warned.

Overall, Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call - New Orleans is one of the best films released in 2009, brining Nicolas Cage back to his darker roots and providing Herzog with one of his strongest film in his canon of work. In a film season where the likelihood of cinematic junk is high, the film is a worthwhile rental an antidote to the tame and conservative popcorn fare of the coming months.

The Universal Soldier Series 1992-2009: The Evolution of Van Damme

It is fascinating to see how our action heroes of the 1980s/early 1990s have evolved in the past ten years. After a period of time in which they were seemingly cast aside as jokes, the last decade has seen a re-emergence of these stars in ways which acknowledge both their aging and place in cinema history. Arnold Schwarzenegger left behind film after the relative high of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003) to head into politics, securing his iconic status as the premier action star; Sylvester Stallone rebuilt himself between the excellent Rocky Balboa (2006) and awful (though financially successful) Rambo (2008) into the symbol of a era long gone, and with The Expendables this year is set to take the natural course of being the elder statesman of the genre. Dolph Lundgren never quite broke through into the leading man role, but always came across as the hardest working man in action films, almost a character actor who would come in and raise the value of a film through his performance, even if the film is a piece of crap. Steven Seagal, after his success of the early 1990s has increasingly confounded audiences as they try and figure out if he is deliberately parodying the action star behaviour and projects of yesteryear, or if he is completely out of his mind. Either way, he seems to happily march to his own tune.

Then, there is Jean-Claude Van Damme.

In some ways, you have to feel sorry for the man. Despite his success in the early 1990s as a second tier action star, playing the lead in goofy but amusing films, he never seemed to quite find his niche like the others did. Oh yes, he made some decent films and is internationally known, but his career has often seemed aimless. His attempts to carve himself an identity as a filmmaker as well as an actor in the Stallone mould came to a crashing halt with the 1996 failure The Quest. Nor did science fiction action films prove a good fit, never finding the film to put him into the big leagues like Schwarzenegger, as much fun as films like the idiotic Time Cop (1994) are. Street Fighter (1994) is best remembered as a camp classic, a far cry from the major franchise the video game developers and studio had hoped, and Van Damme’s more “serious” efforts, such as Legionnaire (1998) mostly underlined his weaknesses as an actor. Factor in his personal problems which plagued him in the late 1990s, and he was practically doomed to direct to video productions and joke status.

Yet, in the past five years, Van Damme has managed to perhaps undergo the most startling transformation of all the action stars. While Stallone’s current position was a natural development, especially with the absence of action rival Schwarzenegger, and Seagal seems happy to fight it out with Chuck Norris for who is the bigger internet punch line, Van Damme has managed to salvage himself by outright attacking his own image as action hero. Yes, he still stars in action films, but these days, his characters are not nice heroic men, loveable cons who do the right thing in the end, or over the top super heroic individuals. Instead, Van Damme presents himself and his characters as damaged failures, if not outright victims.

You will find no greater example of Van Damme’s evolution than by tracing his history over the course of the Universal Soldier series of films, the only real franchise he has been involved with that has gone anywhere. Over the course of seventeen years, this somewhat inventive Terminator/Robocop knock off has come to embody the career of Van Damme more than anything else he has ever done, mirroring his highs, lows, and rebirth since JCVD (2008) put him back on the map. Each film is shockingly different from one another, embodying different attitudes and approaches to the same material, guided by different filmmakers, and utilizing Van Damme in different ways. Thus, we look at the Universal Soldier trilogy to trace this progression.

(NOTE: Yes, I am aware that there are two made for cable films that came between the first two Van Damme films, but seeing as how Van Damme is not in them, and that I have never seen them, I will not be including them in this review.)


The original Universal Solider is a film that is oddly entertaining and enjoyable despite being little more than a rehash of ideas and concepts from other films. It is also one of the last few action films to truly draw upon Vietnam as a source for much of its imagery and, in this case, for its actual story.

The film begins in the Vietnam War as two American soldiers, Luc Devereaux (Van Damme) and his Sergeant, Andrew Scott (Dolph Lundgren) kill each other after Devereaux tries to stop a seemingly insane Scott from murdering civilians. Twenty plus years later, Drevereaux and Scott appear again, seemingly without having aged, this time as Desert Storm style soldiers. They have been “resurrected” as UniSols, soldiers who are supposedly dead, lacking both memory and free will, as part of a program to save soldiers' lives by utilizing the dead in combat rather than the living. Davereaux’s memory however seems to be returning, and he makes an escape with a reporter (Ally Walker) looking to expose the program. Soon, the other UniSols are on their trail, including Scott whose memory is also starting to make a comeback, along with his insanity.

The actual premise for Universal Soldier could have been used to make a fascinating study of war and the manner in which soldiers are dehumanized by not only their experiences, but by their own leaders whom reduce them to little more than bags of flesh. However, this is an early 1990s action film by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, the duo behind the better known films Independence Day (1996) and the wretched American version of Godzilla (1998). While their best film together is arguably Stargate (1994), Universal Soldier is by far their second best effort. It is a collection of action clichés, but is a cut above thanks to the interesting premise, slick direction, memorable action sequences, and most notably, a completely over the top performance by Dolph Lundgren, who is clearly having a blast in the film with his psychopathic character. The film also reminds us that Jerry Orbach did do things other than Law & Order during the 1990s, appearing here in the role of a caring scientist.

The film suffers from typical action film flaws, such as plot holes (if the program is illegal and risks jail time for all involved, why is it that the general in charge allows the UniSols to be used in very public operations bound to attract attention?), cheesy dialogue, and predictability, but the film never fails to deliver on the B-movie expectations that the title and presence of its two stars invites. For a Saturday afternoon film to kick back to, you could do far worse.

Where does Van Damme fit into all this? Well, he has the Arnold role: the cold, robotic hero that occasionally shows signs of emotion. Really, the film requires nothing other than Van Damme’s kickboxing skills, while letting better actors around him carry the weight of the scenes he is in, better actors mainly being Ally Walker as Veronica Roberts, aka the Lois Lane role, and Lundgren. It is hard looking back to evaluate if the lack of material for Van Damme to play is either a blessing or a curse: has Van Damme always been a capable actor, or has that been a recent development? No answers are to be found in this film. Universal Soldier only serves to highlight Van Damme as being a substitute Arnold, rather than as a star in his own right.

When it is all said and done, Universal Soldier is a fun B-movie, with just enough memorable elements to allow it to overcome its predictability and make it a re-watchable in the right environment. The same however, cannot be said of Universal Soldier – The Return, the awful 1999 sequel.

By the late 1990s, Van Damme was at the worst point of his career. After several box office disappointments, including the failed vanity project The Quest (1996) and wannabe epic Legionnaire (1998), Van Damme needed a hit. The result was the old fashioned idea of a sequel to a hit film, and Universal Soldier – The Return was the end result. It would be the last theatrical film for Van Damme till JCVD in 2008.

To begin to understand where the film goes so horribly wrong, one needs to start with the poor excuse for a story: Luc is now working with the heads of the UniSol project to improve the soldiers, when the project is shut down. Why it wasn’t immediately shut down after the events of the first film, I have no idea, but let’s go with it for now. The artificial intelligence computer SETH, which operates the UniSols, doesn’t want to be shut down, and begins a massive take over of the UniSol base using the new UniSols and giving itself a body (Michael Jai White). SETH however will self delete without a code that will shut down this function, and the only person who knows the code is, of course, Luc. Throw in Luc’s daughter as a plot point, and you have Universal Soldier – The Return.

The first major problem with the film is that in no way, shape or form is it consistent with the original Universal Soldier. As simplistic as that film is, it at least has a sense of structure, a consistent science fiction mythology, even if the science is bad science, and some character development as Luc recovers some of his lost humanity by the film’s conclusion. Right off the bat with Universal Soldier – The Return, you will be asking a series of unanswered questions that point to just how poorly thought out the film is.

First, why is Luc working as part of the UniSol program? This is a program that stripped him of his humanity and used his body as a punching bag for over twenty years. You would think that anyone who had been through that would have a few problems with having the same thing happening to others. Beyond that, how is it that Luc even capable of helping the program? Even assuming he has a scientific background, the man missed twenty years of scientific developments and had memory issues. How did he have time to catch up, have a family, and work for the program?

Then there are the Universal Soldiers themselves. The whole point of the program was to strip dead soldiers of their personality and make them little more than programmable killers. Yet here they are with distinct personalities and making jokes. The original concept wasn’t brilliant, but at least made some sense. If this fundamental story point is not even understood, you can imagine just how well the rest of the film fares.

Of course, nothing in this film has any point at all. The film just jumps from scene to scene without a reason or goal. Characters aren’t even stock types, as even stock types would have some sense of purpose in the narrative. The characters in this film just show up to take brutal beatings and/or die. William Malone and John Fasano have easily turned in one of the worse scripts I have ever seen produced with this film, clearly having not bothered to make an effort at having a cohesive narrative, or even giving the viewer something to invest in.

The rest of the production is as much a failure as the script, with production values that bypass straight to video films and head straight to syndicated Canadian television. Director Mic Rodgers, in his one and only directorial effort, deserves most of the blame. He has crafted a total mess of a film, unable to stage even the most basic of scenes, let alone moments of real drama. Rodgers shows no ability to handle actors, as every performer seems to be on a different page, some playing the film straight while others operate as if they are in an action film parody. Even the action scenes, which one would hope Rodgers would be able to have some ability to direct, are complete messes.

When it comes to acting, Michael Jai White and Xander Berkeley are far better actors than this film deserves, yet they are stuck floundering here, trying to find anything to work with, either from the script, their director, or their fellow actors. Unfortunately, they are mostly stuck working with either wrestling stars like Bill Goldberg, who has no acting ability, or former cheerleader Kiana Tom, who is a total non-entity on screen. I honestly have no idea what Rodger’s was thinking when he cast this film, if he even had that much involvement in the casting anyway. The presence of every "actor" here smacks of cross promotion opportunism rather than a serious effort at finding real actors.

Why was Rodgers' placed in charge of this film anyway? While his credits do contain some second unit directing, Rodgers’ primary credits are working in the stunts department, notably as Mel Gibson’s stunt double. As important as the stunt department is, it is hardly the place in which one develops a sense of cinematic storytelling, making his selection as a director on the film a highly dubious choice. So who selected Rodgers for the job? While I cannot find any definitive answer, the most likely culprits would be the producers, which include Craig Baumgarten and Allen Shapiro, both of whom produced all three films in the series, and none other than Jean Claude Van Damme himself, making him in large part responsible for this debacle.

In fact, the failures in directing oddly mirror those of Van Damme’s directorial effort The Quest. While I certainly cannot say this is the case, I wouldn’t be surprised if Mic Rodgers was a ghost director on the film, with Van Damme really calling the shots, not unlike Stallone’s supposed arraignment with director George P. Cosmatos on the films Rambo: First Blood Part 2 and Cobra. Even if this wasn’t the case, the whole effort exists solely as a career salvage project for Van Damme, making him the real driving force behind the project.

Given Van Damme’s previous efforts before this film, it is easy to see just how involved Van Damme was in the creative process, tailoring the film to his supposed image as an actor. While Luc was not much of a character in the first film, the Luc of this film has been reinvented to be nothing more than Van Damme himself, or rather, what Van Damme tried to portray himself as being during the late 1990s: a take charge average joe who is likeable, fairly personable, and only wants to take care of his family. Like the film as a whole, this image that Van Damme portrayes is hollow. As an overall persona for Van Damme in general, it clashed with the Van Damme known as a drug abuser; as an actual performance, it is awful. Van Damme lacks the skill of even the most basic actors to truly become a character and eliminate their personal lives from the mind of the viewer. Van Damme simply comes off as desperate in the film, trying hard to get the audience to like him and thus pay to see his films.

In fact, desperation is really all Universal Soldier – The Return is about. It is a testament to the desperation of one man, filled with bad choices that embrace the worst of the action genre. So what were the odds a third film would be any different?

Enter Universal Soldier – Regeneration.

More than anything else, one film kept coming back to my mind while watching Universal Soldier – Regeneration: Sam Fuller’s White Dog (1982). That film, which I reviewed here, examines the ways in which a society attempts to deal with its hateful elements, particularly racist hate that is taught to the young and impressionable. Can one deprogram hate, and if so, how? Universal Soldier – Regeneration similarly examines how soldiers are dehumanized by forces beyond their control, focusing on how training and programming that goes in making a solider war ready, and how such training and experiences seperate a soldier from the rest of the world. While nowhere near as powerful or important as White Dog is, Universal Soldier – Regeneration shows a greater sense of focus and ambition than has been shown in the previous films, aiming to be more than a simple action film without becoming pretentious.

The premise for the film is simple, and ignores the last film: a group of terrorists capture the children of the Russian Prime Minister, and set up a stronghold in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, threatening to detonate a bomb if their comrades are not released within three days. In the possession of the terrorists is a next generation UniSol (Andrei Arlovski), which is faster and more dangerous than his predecessors. When the US forces try to step in, they are quickly defeated by the UniSol, which even slaughters four old model UniSols brought in to assist. As a backup plan, Luc, who is undergoing treatment to undo the training and psychological scaring done to him by the program in Switzerland, is beaten and dragged in to be programmed to fight again should the need arise.

The first thing that will likely surprise viewers of Universal Soldier – Regeneration is that the film is an ensemble piece rather than a one man show, focusing most of its running time on the behind the scenes decision making process involving generals, politicians and scientists, all of whom have their own agendas and personal interests in the outcome of the situation. Caught in between are the various soldiers who are used and abused, carrying out a mission whose various sides they do not know or understand. The result is a film that is atypical of the action genre as it is not driven by plot, spectacle or demonstrations of the physical powers of a lead hero. While certainly full of memorable action sequences, in fact, the best the series has had, the film is actually more of a study of the treatment of soldiers and their place in battle. The film carefully subverts the usual expectations of such films by actually sidelining the character who would typically be the hero of the film into a secondary role, namely Luc.

Luc in this film isn’t the figure who supposedly reclaimed his humanity at the end of the first film, or the average joe hero of the second film. In this film, Van Damme’s role is that of a victim. His experiences in life have crippled him emotionally and mentally, to the point that he can no longer even remember what day it is. Luc knows one thing and one thing only: how to kill. In a scene very reminiscent of White Dog, Luc is brought out into public for a meal as part of his treatment, and then suddenly snaps, nearly killing a man for no reason. Luc is smart enough to understand something is wrong with him, but he has no ability to make heads or tails of his situation, relying on those around him to help him live what little existence he has. The supposed reclamation of his humanity in the first film has turned out to be a negative, as it has cast him into a personal hell where he belongs nowhere in the world: not human enough for regular life, too human to be a brainless killer.

Once Luc is brought into the main story, it isn’t in a heroic fashion: Luc is gassed, beaten and dragged to Russia by US forces, yet rather than putting up a fight when he awakes, he appears as a lost child, more or less accepting what he is being told and agreeing to be used as a UniSol again. At no point does Luc even really seem to know or comprehend who he is fighting or why, nor does he seem to care. He is a broken man who can at best expect to be treated like a dog by those around him. He acts because that is the way he was trained, no more, no less. Van Damme gives what is easily one of his best performances in his career here, finally finding a real identity in the action genre, an identity which is arguably more interesting than any of his fellow stars, becoming the action hero in existential crisis. With any luck, Van Damme will continue to develop this persona.

While the film does contain memorable action sequences, including an impressive chase sequence to start off the film, all the action in the film has an undercurrent of horror. These are not the over the top antics of the original film, but a more realistic combat style that merely presents the violence rather than necessarily glamorizing it. When people die, they suffer: blows to the body are brutal and cause immense damage. For the first time in the series, the treatment of soldiers as little more than meat is actually a focal point. Yes, these themes, ideas and concepts have been done before and better in other films, but the filmmakers are clearly trying their best to make a film that is more thoughtful than a film like this has any expectation to be.

Just who is the filmmaker behind this effort? John Hyams, a first time director and son of Peter Hyams, a filmmaker who produced a number of underrated and memorable films throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and who acts as the cinematographer on this film. In his first ever effort, John Hyams shows immense skill as a craftsman, focusing on telling the story of the film rather than crafting the story around action sequences. There isn’t a wasted moment in this film, with each scene building upon the last, deftly bouncing back and forth between the various ongoing stories. He successfully develops a dour tone to the film, and never gives into the temptation to insert inappropriate humour. Moreover, Hyams makes his limited budget work for him. Unlike the slick, over produced sets that might usually feature in films such as this, the stark sets add a level of authenticity to the whole of the film.

Credit must also go to screenwriter Victor Ostrovsky, for which this is his first credit. Ostrovsky has brought a greater sense of logic to the series, grounding everything in more recognizable military procedure and expanding on what the programming a UniSol involves, evoking some of the more questionable tactics of recent military history. When it comes to the characters, the film is built upon small moments rather than overblown speeches and epic heroics, allowing even the smallest characters to get little scenes of their own to flesh them out. It isn't all brilliant, but it works and manages to make sense, unlike the last film.

Hands down, Universal Soldier – Regeneration is the best film of the series. Those expecting a typical action film will likely be disappointed, but for everyone else, you might as well skip the other films and watch this one directly. Yet I cannot help but recommending the viewing of all three films for those interested in the evolution of the action genre, though they are likely already familiar with the films.

As for Jean Claude Van Damme, it will be interesting to see where his new writing and directorial project The Eagle Path will go. With any luck, Van Damme now understands his strengths and will play to them. However, with Van Damme again in control of the creative process, there is the slight risk of seeing him return to the vanity projects of the past. Let us hope he has learned his lesson.

Sherlock Holmes (Ritchie 2009)

The funny thing about Guy Ritchie’s 2009 film adaptation of Sherlock Holmes is that the film reminds me of the stories of a different fictitious detective rather than Arthur Conan Dole’s creation. Structurally and in terms of focus, the film seems oddly more emulative of Peter Faulk’s immortal Columbo, in that the emphasis is on watching the detective solve the case rather than the case itself. Well, Columbo, mixed with a bit of James Bond, a dash of buddy comedy, and a hint of Captain Jack Sparrow quirkiness. Together, it makes for a light, fun little film that, while not going down as a definitive interpretation of the character, is worthy of seeing in a theatre.

The film is set at a point when the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law) is undergoing change, as Watson is set to marry and work as a private doctor, leaving Holmes on his own. However, this change is delayed when it turns out their last case isn’t quite as closed as they thought: Lord Blackwell (Mark Strong), who practices dark “magic” and was caught for a series of sacrificial murders by Holmes and Watson, mysteriously disappears from his grave after his hanging. Has Blackwell returned from the dead, and if so, for what reason? Holmes and Watson race to find the answers.

The odd irony of Sherlock Holmes is that, for a film in which the titular character reminds those he works with (and hence, the viewer) of the need to pay close attention to the details, the viewer themselves really don’t need to. The film doesn’t particularly have any depth to it, mining contemporary issues of terrorism, fear and failed leadership more for exploitation’s sake, rather than exploring the issues in any depth. As for the mystery, putting aside the fact that it is mostly solvable right from the get go without any detailed clues, the important information is only doled out in a manner that allows Holmes to give a drawing room explanation of events towards the film's conclusion rather than giving an audience a chance to piece together the mystery themselves, if the mystery was hard to begin with.

However, I am hard pressed to take the film to task for these points, as the film works wonderfully as an entry in the “buddy cop” subgenre, with everything that the subgenre has become well known for: homoerotic undercurrents, playful bickering between the lead characters, and the rivalry with other officers, etc. The Victorian setting and utilization of the famed detective duo add just enough freshness to the proceedings to prevent the staleness of more recent entries in the genre, and forcing the filmmakers to get innovative with traditional elements such as the car chase and the 1980s favourite cliché, the industrial sector set fight (the factory replaced here by the boat yard).

Of course, a buddy cop film is only as great as its buddies, and the film is blessed with the talents of Downey Jr. and Law. The two share an excellent comic rapport, avoiding the pitfalls of other buddy comedies by dodging overacted moments of conflict for more restraint. Downey in particular walks the fine line between crafting a real character and going into caricature with skill, grounding his peculiarities rather than allowing them to overtake his character. Law, with the less flashy role of Watson, manages to imbue his character with more of a boyish joy than is traditionally seen with Watson. He is responsible without becoming stoic, letting the viewer in on the fact that Watson really does get a level of fun out of the situations he finds himself in.

Oddly enough, director Guy Ritchie may have found a perfect fit for his style of filmmaking with Sherlock Holmes despite his history of modern set gangster fare. While Ritchie has crafted some great films before in the gangster epics Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, his attempts at “weightier” fair have thus far fallen flat. Revolver was a fascinating mess of a film, filled with interesting ideas but little idea of how to execute them, and the less said about his remake of Swept Away, the better. While I applauded ambition, Ritchie at heart is a slick action director with a fascination with the sometimes disreputable members of British society. Sherlock Holmes, with its Victorian setting and status in popular culture, allows Ritchie to play to his strengths without indulging his lesser excesses. Even his stylistic flourishes have been toned down, giving them more impact when they do appear.

Where the film does falter to a degree is with its supporting cast of characters, few of whom are particularly fleshed out. As traditionally seems to happen with the buddy film, the female characters are pushed to the margins with little to do. Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, Holmes love interest, serves more as a plot device than as a well thought out character, which is all the more apparent when it is discovered that her reason for being in the film is to set up a potential sequel rather than functioning in the narrative of the film proper.

Still, Sherlock Holmes comes highly recommended. My one recommendation for the next outing, which looks to shoot this summer, is that they should hire Shane Black to work on the script. As anyone who has seen his film Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang can attest, the man not only knows how to write fantastic dialogue, but can craft a complex mystery with the best of them. And since he has worked with producer Joel Silver and star Robert Downey Jr. on that film, I would hardly think that it is outside the realm of possibility.

The Princess and the Frog (Clements and Musker 2009)

The Princess and the Frog is a film that is at war with itself, attempting to mix progressive politics and the Disney fairy tale formula together. The result is a confused mess of overtly mixed messages that will leave the viewer conflicted as to just what the filmmakers were thinking when they started crafting this film.

But damn if it isn’t entertaining to watch.

That’s the rub though. There are moments when I know I should feel offended by what is on screen, where I know that the film is thematically undermining itself at every point, and where Disney once again manages to misappropriate other cultures and twist them to their own ends. Yet what ends up on screen is such a visual marvel, with moments of well executed comedy and impressive acting, I managed to get sucked up in it all.

Set in New Orleans during the 1920s, The Princess and the Frog follows the story of Tiana, a hard working but meagrely paid waitress who is saving up to start her own restaurant, a dream she shared with her late father. Her ship seems to have come in when the arrival of the lazy Prince Naveen, who is looking to marry into the wealthy La Bouff family to replenish his fortunes, when Tiana is paid a massive sum to cook for a party held in Naveen’s honour. However, Naveen is transformed into a frog by local supernatural con man Dr. Facilier as part of a larger scheme to takeover New Orleans, and can only be reversed by the kiss of a princess. Through a series of misunderstandings, Naveen thinks Tiana is a princess, just at the moment her dream looks ready to slip away, and she agrees to kiss him in exchange for the money to save her bid on the property for the restaurant. Instead, it backfires and Tiana herself becomes a frog.

The Princess and the Frog could have been a typical Disney animated venture. What marks it as different is the film attempts to finally address the long standing failure to feature a black characters in the leading roles, and tackle the long criticized passivity of the female characters who end up achieving fairy tale endings by luck and circumstance. However, there are two major problems with the approach the filmmakers utilized in attempting to achieve these goals, resulting in a convoluted ideological mess.

The first problem is that the film attempts to fully maintain the Disney formula while at the same time attempting to alter it: it wants her to be a fully independent woman, yet still marry her off into a fairly tale ending. The result of trying to do both results in a strange back and forth in which Tiana is upheld for her virtues of hard work, only to be condemned for the very same virtues by “failing” to realize that she “needs” a man. And I am not kidding when I say that the film states that what she really needs is a man: there is a whole song and dance sequence about that very fact. The drive to work hard, be respected and successful at what she does is blacklisted as a want, not a need, and the whole endeavor comes off as a patronizing, paternalistic affair.

Worse is the manner in which the filmmakers attempt to deal with the fact that the era chosen to set the story in was a deeply and overtly racist time period. Instead of addressing the issue head on, it is nearly wiped from the film and instead is subsumed in class conflict instead. Now, while race and class politics frequently overlap and inform one another, they are NOT the same thing. New Orleans is not a far away land with a fictional history: it is a very real place with a very real history. While I certainly believe that no film is beholden to having to “accurately” represent history, as if it was even possible, such an oversight is massive, with the narrative working to negate the harsh history of America. This came home for me when leaving the theatre and I overheard a parent telling their child that New Orleans was “really just like that.” Again, I know that it isn’t the filmmaker’s place to consider the way parents choose to handle such discussions, but at least in acknowledging that major historical point in the film, it might have forced parents into holding a meaningful discussion with their children about the topic, rather than sweeping it under the rug.

Of course, the Disney fairy tale formula is rooted in European values and ideals, so I shouldn’t be surprised that the history of racism is glossed over. But this could have been avoided if Disney had at least set the film in modern times, or simply set the film in a fictional world. At least then it wouldn't have felt absolutely necessary to address the topic.

Yet, for all of its failings, The Princess and the Frog is a beautiful example of cell animation and its power in an era of computer animation. There are moments where I was in awe of the beautiful work on screen, including amazing sequence in which Dr. Facilier gives a demonstration of his power to Naveen. The characters are likable and well rounded for the most part, and the cast gamely comes out in top form. In fact, Kieth David is the honest to God hero of the film, transforming his villainous role as Dr. Facilier as the most entertaining part of the film.

Yet, I cannot feel right recommending the film to families with small children. Allowing older kids to see the film, maybe, but in all honesty, there is just too much complexity with regards to the film’s politics to mark this as a film for all to see.

As for Disney and its filmmakers: it is do or die time. Sitting on the fence with the kind of story you are telling is no longer an option. The time for the traditional princess fairy tale is dead, a point made quite well by your own film Enchanted (Lima 2007), a clever dig at how the traditional fairy tale stories you have told again and again are somewhat out of place now. You cannot keep relying on recycling old gender stereotypes and Eurocentric narratives to audiences and expect them to buy them. The world has changed, and it is about time you did to.

Updates: December 28th 2009

Hey everyone! Hope everyone has had a great holiday season and been living it up. With the end of 2009 fast approaching, wanted to make the following updates:

- By Wednesday, I will have review of The Princess and the Frog online. General verdict? Most bizarre mainstream film of the year.

- My intention is to see Guy Ritchie's latest tomorrow, and have it be my first review of 2010 of a new release.

-IF I can pull it off, real life commitments pending, the Dr. Who and the Daleks review will be posted Thursday night. If not, will post it Friday, hopefully before the Tennant final airs. The final of the special Doctor Who reviews will follow after the Sherlock Holmes review.

- That special Star Trek film series reviews will start midway through January, going one a week plus a regular review. Thanks to the Christmas season, expect that to include some classic Warner Brothers' gangster films, some Werner Herzog films, and the Marx Brothers!

Stay tuned folks!

Paranormal Activity (Peli 2007/2009)

The masterstroke of Paranormal Activity, Oren Peli’s 2007 (but just widely released) horror film is not its use of old fashion scare techniques that leave the horror mostly to the imagination, though it certainly helps. Nor is it the premise of the film being entirely culled from “real” home video footage. It has been done before, even by horror master George A. Romero in his sub par Diary of the Dead. Thankfully, in the case of Paranormal Activity , the premise if effectively used.

No, the masterstroke of the film is the way in which it plays with the concept of possession, with the unseen demon functioning as a doppelganger of male protagonist Micah (Micah Sloat), whom we discover over the course of the film is as possessive of Katie (Katie Featherson) as the demon which has haunted her since she was eight. Katie is nothing more than a mere possession to Micah in a house full of them, demonstrating his power and status as a successful, wealthy male, and the events of the film play out a very apt dramatization of the arrogance of the generation which has wealth and technology at its finger tips.

The set up of the film is simple: Micah, in an attempt to capture evidence of Katie’s supposed haunting, convinces her to allow him to tape the mysterious events around the house on his brand new camera. As the evidence starts to mount that something is indeed haunting Katie, Micah becomes even more focused on recording the events and finding a way to rid Katie of the demon by his own methods, while Katie simply wants him to quit. All the while, the actions of the demon are getting worse, and increasingly dangerous.

For feminist film critics, particularly those who interested in the work of Laura Mulvey, Paranormal Activity is a God-send, providing perhaps one of the most complex examples of the concept of “the Gaze” in recent cinema. The viewpoint of the camera is unquestionably male, and absolutely controlling. Micah’s use of the camera reduces Katie to the position of mere subject, and his manipulation of the situation works towards negating any sense of agency Katie has over her own situation. The film subtly hints towards this early on as we learn about Micah and Katie’s life from a visiting psychic: while, not married, Micah and Katie live together in Micah’s large, well furnished house (sadly, I cannot remember what Micah's job is, though I believe it may have been a stock broker. If anyone reading this remembers, feel free to correct me). From the pool, the large screen television, to the fact that the high end camera he is using cost him “half” of his day’s wages, money for Micah is a symbol of his status as the empowered male. Katie on the other hand is a student, is looking to work as a teacher, a low paying position in the Unite States. Katie is thus reliant upon Micah and his wealth, and their conversations throughout the film in which Katie gives into Micah’s plans usually reveal a level of narcissism on Micah's part, and his sense of possession over Katie.

The irony of course is that Micah reveals much more about himself without being in the position of the subject. Despite his attempts to control and understand Katie’s situation, he is ultimately unable to do so: Katie resists the subject position, unintentionally, in that the camera is not really able to provide any real understanding of her situation and her history with the demon: we gain no real insight into why the demon is after her; mysteries about how the house she lived in as a child go unsolved; and even the horrific final scene of the film (SPOILER) in which a possessed Katie throws Micah's body at the camera is a denial of the subject position (END SPOILER). Instead, we come to know about Micah and his beliefs and ideas, witness his failings as a partner in a relationship, and his false sense of empowerment. Some of the best material in the film is when we witness Micah performing research, either coming to conclusions that the psychic had already informed him of, or mainly searching the internet for information rather than looking to any reasonable experts. Even more telling are the brief times he wishes to be on camera: he tries, and fails, at a number of points to convince Katie to engage in “extra curricular activities” with him while the camera is on. If that isn’t telling about his ego, what is?

Oddly enough, the film could easily have not been a horror film, but rather a drama about the dissolution of Micah and Katie’s relationship, with another man being in the place of the demon. While the demon may be creating the external pressure on the relationship, it is Micah’s actions which literally bring about the further terror and end the relationship in the most final of ways. Micah is fully capable of taking actions to salvage and save his relationship, the only power he really does have, and yet is only focused upon what power he does not. By the time he comes to realise this, it is too late.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg of course: the material here is far too rich to be summed up in a simple analysis/review. Of course, this is why Paranormal Activity puts most recent horror films to shame (well, recent American horror films that is). It is a film with a brain, one which actually seeks to look at some very relevant, and uncomfortable, topics about modern relationships and attitudes towards sex, class, knowledge, and the spiritual. Nor does it pander to the audience, requiring viewers to piece together the narrative and themes on their own, all at the cost of $15 000 for the entire film.

Ah yes, the infamous $15 000 cost. While I am certainly not advocating that all films cut their budgets back to nothing, Paranormal Activity’s success is something that filmmakers and studio executives should reflect upon. Here is a genre film with limited special effects and no special gimmicks, like 3D, aka the biggest-waste-of-money-in-some-time. Simple acting, writing, and directing have beeb enough to drive people into theatres to see this film. Not only that, the film utilized an effective web based strategy to have the public DEMAND to see the film for an advertising campaign. It might be time to finally ask yourselves if spending more really makes sense. From where I am sitting, the answer seems to be the one that many people including myself have been saying for years: no.

Anyways, coming up soon: a review of the notorious Sam Fuller film White Dog and Being There.

The Box (Kelly 2009)

Sometimes, just sometimes, a filmmaker is their own worst enemy, both in terms of creativity and sheer career planning. Richard Kelly might just fall into this category, having now sabotaged himself twice, in two different ways with his post Donnie Darko (2001) films. Southland Tales (2006) was a bizarre experiment that is fascinating to watch, but was doomed to critical and financial failure with his attempt to transform the film into a multimedia event that just about nobody was willing to participate in. Film is not the internet, and Kelly seemed to have to learn this the hard way. Now, with his latest film The Box, based on the Richard Matheson story “Button , Button” from 1970, Kelly has managed to bring about his own undoing again, though this time within the confines of the narrative of the film itself.

Matheson’s original story, a mere twelve pages in length, was an exploration of social responsibility and personal greed that worked like a sucker punch to the gut. The story is not character or story driven however, and is propelled forward by a central moral question embodied in its high concept premise: could you, by just pressing a button, kill someone you don’t know if it paid you enough? The social commentary of the story is dense and complex, but not exactly cinematic. This leaves potential filmmakers with two options when adapting the tale: either adapting the film as a short, maintaining the style and impact of the short story, or expand the narrative and explore the commentary further.

Kelly in this case chooses the latter option. Sort of. Instead of merely expanding the material of the source, Kelly reinvents it, drawing, oddly enough, from Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The tale becomes an exploration about how individuals make sense of the universe, blending science fiction as well as religious concepts and iconography as character’s seek to understand God (or, given the approach in the film, whatever beings are at the center of the mystery standing in for God) and the tests that all of human kind are put through. As is traditional with Kelly, the film increasingly moves into metaphysical territory as it progresses, and gives the viewer plenty to think about.

Set in the 1970s, the couple at the center of the film are Norma and Arthur Lewis (Cameron Diaz and James Marsden), who have a son and are in a financially poor state. Arthur works as a lowly paid member of NASA who has helped work on developing the technology for capturing photographs and sending them across space back to Earth. Norma is an English teacher with an injured leg. Unlike the couple of Matheson’s text, Norma and Arthur are generally good people both dreaming of different forms of escaping their situation.

Enter Mr. Steward (Frank Langella), who presents the couple with the ominous box of the title and the offer noted earlier. After the expected debates that would go with such a situation, the button is inevitably pressed and the film shifts into something of a detective film, as both Norma and Arthur investigate the reasons and people behind the box.

It is this detective element that Kelly adds to the tale which somewhat injures the film. At its core, the mystery is not unlike that of the film Blow Up (Antonioni 1966), in that the central investigation is really irrelevant and instead gives viewers an opportunity to explore the characters undertaking the respective investigations. Any answers either film could give to the mystery would never live up to expectations or scrutiny, and really don’t matter. The situations the characters are in simply are, and are not meant to be seen entirely literally. Kelly however gives enough screen time and reasoning to the reasons behind the tests that audiences can be forgiven for mistaking the film as being about the finding out about the conspiracy itself rather than the character exploration that it is. It becomes a distraction: too much is given to ignore the literal story level concerns of the film, yet too little is given to flesh it out properly. In any event, what surface level answers are provided are sheer disappointments. This is a shame, because so much of what Kelly is trying to do in the film is fascinating that to see it damned entirely thanks to a problem that should have been avoided is frustrating.

In fact, what the flaws of The Box suggest is that Kelly himself is a victim of his own supposed auteur status that was given to him after Donnie Darko. Much like M. Night Shyamalan came to have twist endings associated with him after The Sixth Sense (1999), Kelly seems to have adopted complex narrative structures and storylines as a requirement in all of his films, including films that he is only a writer on, like Domino (Scott 2005). The problem is that so far none of the films have really needed or benefited from this approach. The method of how a story is told needs to fit the story itself, something that recent filmmakers such as Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino have so far proven to understand. Kelly however, does not.

As it stands, Kelly is proving to be a brilliant man with great potential that is at risk of damning his own career. One needs only to look at the beautifully designed frames and edits to see Kelly’s immense visual prowess, and his skill at getting an excellent performance out of Cameron Diaz, an actress who I have written off in the past as being fairly flat and lacking in range, is a testament to his skill at working with actors. This will be all for naught if Kelly doesn’t find a way to work past his own excesses.

In all, The Box is a more consistent effort from Kelly and worth watching. However, it needs to be tempered with the knowledge that a better version of this film could have been made, and to accept the film for what is trying to escape from within its own flaws.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies (Sam Liu 2009)

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is a crushing experience to watch as a fan of the work of writer/producer/director Bruce Timm. Timm, along with his various cohorts over the years, went well above and beyond the call of duty with their animated take on the DC Universe since 1992, crafting series that, while designed for children to watch, were crafted with an adult mindset that offered the depth and complexity that the best of DC Comics has provided over the years, due in no small part to focusing on character above everything else. It is a shame then to see Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, the latest in the series of DTV films aimed at an adult audience overseen by Timm, totally abandon this approach and embraces some of the worst tendencies of the comics that these characters originated from.

The premise of Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, based on the comic storyline written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Ed McGuinness, is that Lex Luthor (Clancy Brown) has managed to rise to the Presidency and is attempting to hold the superheroes of America responsible to the country as a whole. While various heroes do agree to work for the new administration, two hold outs are Superman (Tim Daly) and Batman (Kevin Conroy), neither whom trusts Luthor. When a giant kryptonite asteroid heads towards Earth, threatening to destroy the planet, Luthor uses this as an opportunity to secure not only his own position of power, but destroy the Man of Steel himself in the process. One quick frame job latter, the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight are on the run, trying to bring down Luthor in the process.

The premise of the film is a solid one, ripe with opportunities to explore the characters and questions about the relationship between citizens and their government. Unfortunately, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies squanders such opportunities, resulting in a 67 minute long series of fight scenes that are barely held together by a poorly written script from Stan Berkowitz, who has written excellent episodes of the Timm produced Batman Beyond and Justice League.

The first major problem with Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is that the film almost exclusively targets an audience familiar with the comics. While the iconic nature of the characters of Superman, Batman and Lex Luthor do allow for some assumption of familiarity on the part of the audience, the film provides little to no detail on the past interactions between characters. Instead, for a film that supposedly is self contained and has no relation to any previous canon, it tries to glide by on having the actors from previous Timm produced series return to these roles. As such, little motivation or reason is given for the way in which characters behave. A key example of this (SPOILERS AHEAD) is Lex Luthor’s addiction to a combination of steroids and kryptonite. What should be a key part of the drama unfolding is given barely any screen time, being introduced late in the film and only as a reason to have Luthor act out in an increasingly insane manner. With a proper amount of time being given to develop this storyline, it might have proven interesting. Instead, it becomes bewildering as to why Lex would suddenly feel a need for drugs.

This shorthand is not only applied to the characters, but the world the film resides in as a whole. As the film starts, we are given a quick series of news broadcasts which cover Luthor’s rise to power, which seemingly results from America descending into a chaotic hell. Never mind the reason why that is though: the film never really explains. The images that are shown as part of this news cast are hilarious in how over the top they are, giving the impression that somehow this world is on the brink of transforming into the hell that the Mad Max trilogy is set in.

Worse, the film often has characters make decisions that are completely illogical just to move the story forward. The situation in which Lex frames Superman is the result of a public call on the part of Luthor to meet with the Man of Steel. For some reason, however, Superman agrees to have this meeting out in the middle of nowhere with nobody around to witness it. While Superman doesn’t need to be written as the hyper intelligent demigod that Grant Morrison portrays the Man of Steel as, Clark Kent is not an idiot who would make such an obviously ridiculous choice.

The most unforgivable failure of the film however is in its political commentary. While, as acknowledged, the film is lean on exploring its core political themes, when it does take a brief moment to do so, all sense of subtlety goes out the window as characters stop to make speeches about the nature of leadership. To call it didactic is an understatement. Furthermore, the commentary itself feels dated, reflecting many of the obvious criticisms made of the Bush administration. I know that the production on the film probably began long before Bush left office, but the nature of the problems facing both America and world has shifted greatly in the past year, and the film seems to be at least three years behind.

There are redeeming futures to Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, such as the stellar animation and design, and the cast delivers on their parts just as they have in the past. Such features however do not save the film from being a crushing failure across the board, and serve as a reminder to the failings of the rest of the film.

When all is said and done, Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is an oddity in the legacy of Bruce Timm. It will not detract from his success at all, but does bring into question the exact level of involvement he has with these DTV films, and where he was when the script for the film was approved. For fans, I would recommend a viewing, if only to satisfy curiosity, but keep your expectations well within check.