{"id":6691,"date":"2012-08-14T23:29:27","date_gmt":"2012-08-15T04:29:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=6691"},"modified":"2014-06-20T01:14:01","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T05:14:01","slug":"fresh-breezes-from-unexpected-quarters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/?p=6691","title":{"rendered":"Fresh Breezes from Unexpected Quarters"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>As I get older, it\u2019s harder to find books or films that surprise me \u2013 pleasantly, that is. I went to see The Dark Knight Rises<\/em> (TDKR) and The Bourne Legacy<\/em> (TBL) more as a means to avoid the New England summer humidity and give my cortex a chance to cool down between edits of my SF anthology<\/a>. Both films had the expected scads of sound and fury, yet one of them managed to surprise me. To be clear, I\u2019ve read neither the Miller comics nor the Ludlum or Lustbader books; so those who plan to use arguments of the type \u201cBut this is explained on page 4 of issue 13!\u201d can save their breath.<\/p>\n

I detest Christopher Nolan\u2019s ponderous dourness. The only film of his I found remotely intriguing was The Prestige<\/em>. Auteur pretensions aside, the closest relatives of Nolan\u2019s Batman opus are the abysmal Star Wars prequels<\/a>. The two trilogies share pretty much everything: the wooden dialogue, the cardboard characters, the manipulative sentimentality, the leaden exposition, the cultural parochialism, the nonsensical plot, the worshipping of messiahs and unaccountable privileged elites, the contempt for \u201cmundanes\u201d and democratic structures, the dislike of women and non-hierarchical relationships. To be sure, Nolan\u2019s second Batman film boasted the unforgettable performance of Heath Ledger\u2019s Joker. But TDKR should have been called Bat Guano <\/em>or Darth Vader Meets the Transformers<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The reactionary politics (Billionaires and police know best! People left unherded devolve instantly to mob rampaging and kangaroo courts!) are bad enough. So are the obvious telegraphings and pious ersatz-mythic strains (\u201cRise! Rise! Rise!\u201d — and of course, sob, the orphan boys). But the film is dull, unfocused, lumbering and messy even within its own frame: why the elaborate (and totally fallow) Wall Street takeover if Bane intends to blow the city up anyway? The protracted mano-a-mano between Batman and Bane is frankly dumb. All Batman has to do is rip out Bane’s breathing muzzle \u2013 incidentally, a lousy way to deliver pain meds. The reversals of the two women (antagonist becomes ally and vice versa\u2026 and the villain, naturally, is the one who removes her clothes) are so much by the numbers that I felt literally itchy. The hero rejoins the living twice, once as Bruce, once as Batman, for zero reasons of either plot or emotional logic.<\/p>\n

The two male protagonists are boring one-note ciphers. Batman doesn’t earn his increasingly stale angst; even less so the unquestioning loyalty of his long-suffering allies (as laid bare in a great analysis of Gary Stuism<\/a>). Christian Bale isn\u2019t capable of more than one facial expression anyway \u2013 in Terminator Salvation<\/em> he was more wooden than Sam Worthington, which is a real achievement. Needless to add, he has zero chemistry with either of the romantic interests put on Bruce Wayne\u2019s silver spoon. Nolan criminally wastes Tom Hardy, who can really act: he made a feral, magnetic Ricki Tarr in the remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy<\/em><\/a> and the one glimpse of his face when he’s about to be swallowed by the raging crowd in TDKR shows what he’s capable of. The Bane\/Vader parallel is obvious: the raging slave of great ability who dares to love above his station and heroically serves a cause intrinsically hostile to him \u2013 yet is demonized because he doesn’t fit the Messiah profile, first due to his \u201cwrong\u201d pedigree, later due to severe mutilations that limit his potential. The equivalence is made plain by several touches beyond the breathing mask, including the camera lingering on the frantically kicking feet of someone in his grip.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Oddly enough, both principal women fare fractionally better as characters, despite (or because of?) Nolan\u2019s palpable disinterest in them. Anne Hathaway’s Selina Kyle owes more to Charlise Theron’s slinky yet formidable Aeon Flux than to past Catwomen, which is to the good. On the other hand, the obsessive zooming on her ass while she’s maneuvering the Batbike is emetic (when Batman does it, his nether cheeks are decorously covered by his cape — which finally gives a reason for its existence). There is also a hint that she’s bisexual, which makes her truly intriguing. But for my money, Marion Cotillard’s Talia al Ghul is hands down the most arresting presence in the entire Batman film parade. I’d be happy to see a whole film with her as the protagonist. Hell, a trilogy. Although I\u2019d have preferred that she had gone after her mother’s killers rather than her father’s \u2013 especially taking into account her father\u2019s shabby treatment of her savior, to say nothing of his daffy agenda (“cleansing the earth of humanity” using nuclear weapons: unassailable logic, if you’re five years old).<\/p>\n

Despite its superficial similarity to TDKR, TBL is a very different beast; I agree with MaryAnn Johanson<\/a> that it\u2019s high-quality fanfic \u2013 specifically, AU fanfic with OCs (in English: alternative universe with original characters). Don\u2019t misunderstand me, it\u2019s far from perfect. It\u2019s uneven, lumpy and ends on a blatant \u201cTo Be Continued\u201d note. Nevertheless, it has four great assets besides its intricate interweaving of the Bourne prequel threads: the two principals, Jeremy Renner as Aaron Cross and Rachel Weisz as Dr. Marta Shearing, come across as complex persons \u2013 even setting aside the lagniappe of Oscar Isaac as Aaron\u2019s fellow enhanced killing machine; Aaron\u2019s plight is more relevant, interesting and wrenching than that of Jason Bourne; the dialogue is snappy, non-generic, character-specific; and it gets its science as right as Hollywood possibly can. As is often the case with me, I\u2019m in the minority. TBL\u2019s Rotten Tomatoes rating is significantly lower than TDKR\u2019s, in part because many reviewers (like orthodox fanfic readers) want canon, not AU; some have also opined that Jeremy Renner lacks Matt Damon\u2019s charisma.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To each his own. To me at least, Damon has the charisma of a particle board plank. Renner, on the other hand, with his lived-in pug\/cherub face, comes across as truly dangerous: you\u2019re never sure if he will kiss or kick, yet you trust him when his smile reaches his eyes \u2013 a volatility he engaged to stunning effect in The Hurt Locker<\/em> and to single-handedly elevate The Town<\/em> into something eminently watchable. Weisz, on her part, radiates intelligence and competence in whatever role she appears, from The Mummy<\/em> to Agora<\/em><\/a> to The Constant Gardener<\/em>. She is one of the very few actors who\u2019s entirely believable as a working scientist.<\/p>\n

What makes Aaron\u2019s plight closer to my heart and to real life is that he\u2019s in a Flowers for Algernon<\/em><\/a> situation: he got brain damage during his tour of duty, which made him ripe for the poisoned apple of the top secret augmentation program; for him, stopping the medications that leash him to his handlers is equivalent to a sentence of living death. This pegs the jeopardy meter far harder than Jason Bourne\u2019s thriller-clich\u00e9 amnesia. When Aaron decides to renounce his newly won freedom for the sake of keeping Marta safe, we feel that real stakes are involved. Aaron and Marta are true partners with equally instrumental overlapping skills. Marta does not spend any length of time impersonating quivering jello, nor does she get relegated to the helpmate slot \u2013 though knowing Hollywood\u2019s stance on fully human women, I tremble for her fate in the inevitable sequel.<\/p>\n

The science is stunningly accurate for a Hollywood film. That\u2019s a real lab in the chilling massacre scene; when Marta injects Aaron with the viral stock that might cut his indenture bonds, she withdraws it from a real cryovial. When she described the delivery problems of viral vectors, I didn\u2019t wince once and the enhancement route she outlined (mitochondrial ratcheting) is in the domain of the possible. She made one error when she segued into brain function: it\u2019s plasticity, not elasticity\u2026 but I\u2019ll take it over ANY other Hollywood science in my memory banks. Nor are the slippery slopes ignored: Marta knows that she let her fervent wish to do cutting-edge science override her moral judgment, choosing to close her eyes to the applications of her work.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>In the end, Aaron is kin not to Jason Bourne but to the fascinating loners that we glimpse all too briefly in the Bourne franchise: the Professor (Clive Owen), Jarda (Marton Csokas), Outcome 5 (Oscar Isaac). It occurs to me, of course, that these guys fall in my snacho category<\/a>\u2026 which may be one more reason why I liked TBL far more than TDKR.<\/p>\n

Images:<\/strong> Tom Hardy as Ricki Tarr (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy)<\/em>; Marion Cotillard as \u00c9dith Piaf (La Vie en Rose)<\/em>; Jeremy Renner as William James (The Hurt Locker)<\/em>; Rachel Weisz as Kathryn Bolkova\u00e7 (The Whistleblower)<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I get older, it\u2019s harder to find books or films that surprise me \u2013 pleasantly, that is. I went to see The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) and The Bourne Legacy (TBL) more as a means to avoid the New England summer humidity and give my cortex a chance to cool down between edits of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-science","category-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starshipnivan.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}