Deadpool

It’s finally here. After 10 years of waiting, Ryan Reynolds has finally been able to don his red suit and bring Deadpool (aka Wade Wilson) to the big screen. For those of you who don’t know who he is, Deadpool is the ‘merc with a mouth’, who in frequently breaks the 4th wall by speaking directly to the audience, and making plenty of metatextual jokes. 

He appeared in Wolverine Origins back in 2009, but his character was far removed from the comics and the new film.
Reynolds has taken Deadpool right back to the source material (though has messed around with his origins a little). Note that no one is really sure of Wade Wilson’s actual origins, including the character himself, due to his highly unstable mental condition. So, this might actually be the correct origins.

Essentially, Wilson is diagnosed with terminal cancer and he is approached by an organisation who offer to cure him through mutation. His mutation turns out to be accelerated healing (like Wolverine), but to such a degree that he grows massive tumors and looks, to nick a line from the film, like an ‘avocado had sex with another, older avocado’. The film follows his revenge on the people who did this.

Let me say right off the bat that I really enjoyed this film. I was laughing through most of it, I thought they got the level of gore just about right, and toned down Deadpool’s insanity enough. They fight scenes are incredibly well shot, all of the actors hold their own, and (as I mentioned) it’s incredibly funny. However, beware: if your humour is different from mine, you might not find any of it funny. A lot of it is childish, there’s a lot of masturbation jokes, some of it is quite dark. There’s also a lot of swearing, if that bothers you. I mean, it’s a 15 (or in American R rated) for a reason.

My only issue was probably Colossus, he was the weakest character and didn’t add a huge amount. But he’s not exactly in it much, so it’s not a big deal.

Morena Baccarin was absolutely fantastic – I was concerned when I first learnt about the love story angle, but it works incredibly well and she fits into the humour and atmosphere of the film perfectly. T.J. Miller was also a delight to watch, as Wade’s sort-of-friend Weasel – I imagine a lot of the interactions were ad-libbed. 

Knowledge of the wider X-men world, and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, will mean you get more out the film – there are quite a few jokes that fail completely if you don’t know what Deadpool is talking about. Oh, and keep an eye out for Stan Lee…

So, go see it. It was hilarious. I may even go and see it again.

Ghost Rider

For some reason Netflix has now decided that because I’ve watched so many Dwayne Johnson films in the past few weeks, I must therefore want to watch lots of Nicholas Cage films too. I mean, don’t get me wrong I will quite happily laugh at Cage’s face in Face/Off or his accent in Con Air (“Put the bunny down”) but he’s not really a favourite.

And then I saw it. Ghost Rider. The marvel character who, after selling his soul to the devil, must hunt down evil at night and get them to repent for their sins. During the day he is Johnny Blaze, a stunt motorcyclist, but at night when he’s near evil his head erupts into flame and his face melts to reveal a gleaming skull. His bike is wreathed in flame, he uses a flaming chain to ensnare his enemies, he has a penitence gaze that makes his enemies relive the pain of every single one of their victims. He is extremely cool, right? So why the HELL would you get Nicholas “so uncoool it hurts” Cage to play him?

This film was 2 hours of painful, with one redeeming bit. The motorbike, which morphs when Ghost Rider gets on it to match his skeletal fire engulfed nature, is extremely cool. Aside from that, the acting, the graphics, the accents that people seem to be putting on, were all freakin’ awful. The story itself is lame, which is usually okay in a superhero film because that’s not really what you watch it for, but when the plot isn’t balanced out with either humour or cool fight scenes, it really shines through as being shit.

I had to stop halfway through, turn it off and come back to it two days later just so that the image of Cage’s face when he begins to change wasn’t burnt onto my retinas forever.

The ending was probably the best bit, there was a pretty cool seen when all the souls of the dead in this one place rushed into the main bad guy to make him super bad guy. That was literally the only scene that didn’t make me wince, and even then it was ruined the minute he opened his mouth to talk.

Can someone remake this film and actually make it cool and dark like it’s meant to be? And dear lord don’t cast Cage in it.

Are Comic Books Really Sexist?

This debate has been raging for quite a while now, especially with the new spate of Marvel films being released along with the new Batman films, and comic books in general seem to be enjoying a healthy revival with a lot more women becoming openly interested in the genre.

So are comic books inherently sexist? Of course they are! I mean just look at the outfits, the stereotypical gender roles enforced with every page turn, the way love stories are portrayed and the pièce de résistance – the ridiculously proportioned bodies. It’s no wonder men are up in arms about how their gender is represented in comics, it is truly sexist. See, you all thought I was talking about women and female characters, because that is gender that people get so angsty about, while the male gender just gets brushed to one side.

The most hilarious argument I’ve heard as to why it’s only women who start this sort of argument is because men want to actually be the superheroes and comic books stars that they’re reading about, whereas women just don’t appreciate being represented in such a derogatory fashion. I call bullshit. If I could have some sort of superpower, fight for a team for the future of the Earth (good or evil, I’m not fussy), a fantastic figure, an awesome lycra costume and breasts big enough to loose galaxies in (minus the crippling back problems), then sign me up!

I do think the above argument kind of misses the point though, if you’re going to apply a standard to how one gender is portrayed, then the same should apply to the other gender. If women have to be portrayed more realistically, so do men – let’s give Superman a bit of a beer belly and Wolverine should start losing his hair. Where do we draw the line? Catwoman can’t fight crime today because she’s got really bad cramp…

I suppose the real reason this argument has come about is because of how some men talk about the women in comic books and games as well. Yes, some are objectified, with the most famous probably being Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series, played by the gorgeous Angelina Jolie in the film adaptations. You’ve also got characters such as Fran from Final Fantasy XII, Storm/Jean Grey/Rogue from the various X-men franchises, Catwoman/Poison Ivy and others from the Batman universe, the list goes on. If you do a quick google search, some of the comments accompanying articles about female characters include some fantastic gems, but there is nothing actually that blunt or sexist, the worst comment I could find (true I didn’t spend hours searching) was “Emma Frost is by far the hottest comic book babe”. Yes, there will be a few sexist asshats out there, but the majority appreciate something more about the characters than just how big their tits are.

The same cannot be said for how women approach the male characters. Think about the release of Marvel’s 2012 film The Avengers. Ye gods, the levels of oestrogen in the theatre when Thor, or Iron Man, or Captain America, or Hawkeye, or even Bruce Banner appeared on film – you could have bottled it! A quick google search comes up with some fantastic comments, including:

• I’d still do Wolverine any day of the week
• [talking about Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye in The Avengers] Good God, the naughty things I’d like to do to that man… Those arms, too… those are some pin-me-up-against-the-wall-and-have-his-way-with-me arms.
• [The Avengers] I’d do all of them… at the same time… everyday… forever…
• [Concerning The Dark Knight Rises]  Bane’s penis will never be lonely as long as I’m alive.

Think about that last (hilarious) comment for a second, then change the character to Catwoman. ‘Catwoman’s vagina will never be lonely as long as I’m alive’ is a damn creepy sentiment, no matter how you dress it up. But women can get away with these sorts of comments, and the amount of objectification suffered by male characters in comics/games far outweighs how objectified women are. True there are other factors at play (men will always be seen as aggressors in this situation, whereas women are just expressing their appreciation for a fit male character) but I believe my point still stands – double standards! And before anyone comments, I will hold my hands up – at various points in this blog I have swooned over Wolverine, Liev Schrieber as Victor Creed, Chris Hemsworth as Thor – but I will quite happily allow men to do the same.

I will agree that the costumes for females tend to be pretty ridiculous, take the X-Men as an example. Jean Grey’s skin tight lyrca would be ridiculous to try and fight in, similarly with Emma Frosts’ outfit that leaves very little to the imagination. Hell, Fran’s outfit in Final Fantasy appears to consist of just a couple of pieces of strategically placed leather and not much else. But then take a look at the male characters – Wolverine, Cyclops, Thor, all of them wear skin tight outfits that accentuate every muscle and leave little to the imagination. True there isn’t quite as much skin revealed as with the females, but surely that’s the point? The point of all comic books, and games, and films. Escapism. The opportunity to experience something different from your own mundane little existence. I want men who have more rippling muscles than physically possible, women with amazing yet impossible figures, superhuman powers, the ultimate fight between good and evil. I want sexy, attractive, powerful people filling my screen and making me feel a little more important for a short space of time. And it’s not like the above description of the costumes is true for all characters – Batgirl wears a full body black suit, as do Storm and Rogue in X-Men. Similarly, the antihero Namor the Sub-Mariner tends to run around the Marvel universe in naught but a thong.

I would understand why people might get annoyed about women’s portrayal in comics if they didn’t have the same opportunities as men – but they do! They can be just as powerful (hell, Jean Grey is far more powerful than any of her male counterparts), they can be good or evil, they can kick arse or be pathetic, they can be emotional or stone cold. There is nothing a male character can do in the comic book world that a female character can’t also do. If this weren’t the case then yes I would agree that comics are sexist, but the reality is far from it! Yes some of them are stereotypically ’emotional’ or ‘hysterical’, but there are male characters guilty of these traits, just like there are some ridiculously masculine women – if you’ve never read Tank Girl I highly recommend them, they’re fantastic!

To wander into the world of gaming for a second, the focus seems to be less on the portrayal of women in games, but more how women who actually play games are viewed. There was recently some outrage over a comment made by Borderlands 2 designer John Hemingway during an article about the upcoming game, specifically concerning a new DLC character currently in progress called the Mechromancer. She is a small girl with a mechanical arm who is designed especially for people who aren’t that good at first person shooters but still want to play co-op with others, a mode which Hemingway very stupidly described as “for the lack of a better term, the girlfriend skill tree”. This immediately brings up suggestions of women not being very good at gaming, they will automatically suck at FPS and will only be useful as a support feature for their superior male counterpart. Even though Hemingway apparently meant the comment more as a nod to couples supporting each other, it was still a very bad phrase to use and if he’d used ‘boyfriend skill tree’ to describe it the outcome wouldn’t be much better. When doing articles/interviews just stay away from using these types of labels to explain an aspect of the game because someone is going to get upset.

So here’s the point that my post ultimately comes down to – who does sexism in comic books hurt? The characters in this sphere are created to entertain, to amaze, to be objects of our affection and lust. That’s the whole idea, and I don’t know anyone who would transfer the objectification they express towards fictional characters over to the real world. Hell, if I saw someone wandering down the street dressed like Poison Ivy I’d wonder what the hell they were doing, or if someone was as muscular as Batman they would have to be on steroids. It’s not real and in turn this allows us to objectify. That makes it sound like that seeing attractive people is the only reason for comics and it’s really not, the point is  entertainment and the freedom that comes specifically with comic books, this whole new world that is created where the human body is capable of amazing things and good (almost always) wins over evil.

I for one hope they don’t change how characters are presented in comic books, because I believe the genre would lose something intrinsic to its nature. I understand why things like film adaptations change the outfits (yes seeing Hugh Jackman running around in yellow spandex would be amazing, but ultimately impractical and distracting) and agree with that wholeheartedly, but leave the fictional characters of comic books and games alone!

Thor

Thor is the fourth film released as part of the Marvel cinematic Universe, preceded by Iron Man 1 & 2 and Hulk, and followed by Captain America and most recently Marvel’s The Avengers. Directed by Kenneth Branagh, it stars relative newcomers Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Tom Hiddleston as Loki alongside Natalie Portman and movie giant Anthony Hopkins as Odin.

We first come into the action as Odin, King of Asgard, fights a war against the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, defeating them and taking the source of their power, the Casket of Ancient Winters, ensuring that the nine realms (which includes Earth) remain safe from their rule. Fast forward to the present and Odin’s son Thor prepares to ascend the throne of Asgard, but the ceremony is interrupted when the Frost Giants attempt to reclaim the Casket. Thor decides to travel to Jotunheim and wipe out the Frost Giants with his brother Loki, friend Sif and the Warriors Three: Volstagg, Fandral and Hogun, against the wishes of Odin, and they appear to be losing the battle until Odin suddenly intervenes, ruining the fragile treaty between the two races. Thor is banished to Earth for his arrogance, turned mortal, and stripped of Mjolnir (his hammer and source of power), where he is promptly run over by Jane Foster (Portman). Back on Asgard, Loki discovers that he is actually Laufey’s son, adopted by Odin after the war ended, and decides to take the throne for himself when Odin falls into a deep “Odinsleep” which allows him to recover from stress. Sif and the Warriors Three travel to Earth to attempt to take Thor back to Asgard, but Loki sends the Destroyer after them and it looks as though they have been defeated – Thor offering himself as long as the Destroyer leaves Earth alone. Near death, Thor’s sacrifice removes the enchantment placed on the hammer by Odin and he is restored to his full power, defeating the Destroyer and returning to Asgard to also defeat Loki.

Thor had a lot to live up to with the release of the Iron Man films, though the pitiful nature of Hulk allowed them some room to move. Casting Chris Hemsworth as lead Thor was a very clever move – everything from his physical appearance to his voice is perfect for a demi-god and women (and men) all over the world swooned as he strode across the screen. Couple him with Tom Hiddleston as the misguided, evil-but-really-just-misunderstood brother and you’ve got a recipe for a winning film.

This is like any of the other comic book turned film attempts – the plot isn’t amazingly complicated, the dialogue is cheesy and hilarious in equal measure, and there is a lot of posing with impressive special effects. But don’t take those points at negative things – the film is hugely enjoyable, very funny and the various fights are highly entertaining; I may even go as far to say that it is my favourite Marvel film under The Avengers itself (though this may be more to do with Chris Hemsworth than I’m willing to admit).

The only thing that really annoys me about this film is the half arsed love story between Thor and Jane, nothing really happens and they don’t even end up together at the end. It would be even shittier if they had ended up together at the end I concede, but did it really need to be there at all? They knew each other a grand total of about a week and apart from sharing a kiss at the end nothing much else took place. Apparently this will be rectified in Thor 2, coming out next year, but I fear it may come across as forced and ultimately unnecessary.

I’m afraid to say that I never really read any of the Avengers comics as I child so I can’t comment on how true the films are in relation to them. Apparently Thor and Jane don’t really have a relationship in the comics, but it’s complicated due to the person she does fall in love with sharing Thor’s body, with Thor actually loving Sif from Asgard. Again I haven’t read them, this is just what I’m gleaning from the vast internet.

The aspect that made this film really rise above your bog standard action film is the character of Loki. He is amongst the most interesting characters within the Marvel universe, and Tom Hiddleston does really well in trying to portray a spoilt child turned into a shunned adult – you’re never sure whether Loki is actually evil or what his true intentions are.

Thor was extremely well received at the box office and by critics, though some were a bit more scathing with one even saying that it was “an example of the programmed triumph of commercial calculation over imagination” which is a tad harsh. I sometimes suspect that critics take their jobs far too seriously and don’t see this type of light entertainment for what it actually is.

If you aren’t really a fan of the Marvel adaptations, I would still check out this film based on its own merits rather than the hype surrounding all of the films. It’s an interesting story even if you ignore all the supernatural elements (though that is kind of impossible), and you definitely need to watch it to understand everything that goes down in The Avengers.