GREEN LANTERN

(A note: save often and a lot, this is my third write up of this review due to shut downs and power outages)

So…Green Lantern…

Yes, I’m going to try to get in some current movies in the next couple of weeks as there are some really interesting back stories and behind the scenes Hollywood strategy going on.  This movie had very little of that though and failed miserably at what it had thought out.

Green Lantern is a DC comic book superhero.  Notice I say Green Lantern instead of “The” Green Lantern.  The Green Lanterns are a group of intergalactic police that cruise the universe looking for trouble and…that’s about it as far as I know.  The first human Green Lantern was Alan Scott, created in 1940.  His back story was rewritten after WWII and the character was then Hal Jordon, the character used in the most recent movie.  Over time there have been several humans who held the title of Green Lantern.  But the movie screws them over at the end by saying Hal was the best Green Lantern in the universe…ever.

Since way back Warner Bros. has been the studio responsible for all the DC related comic book movies, most noticeably Superman and Batman.  The recent rise of Marvel Studios with the initial help of Universal Studios put a lot of pressure on Warner Bros. to churn out rival comic book movies to retain the DC fan base and compete with the Marvel related hits.  The Green Lantern movie has been in the works since 1997.  There are serious suspicions from critics and fans that the introduction of the Green Lantern into the DC comic book movie lineup is a sign that Warner Bros. is working on a Justice League movie sometime in the next 10 years as Marvel Entertainment has been putting out films specifically related to The Avengers.  Marvel has almost cornered the market on comic book movies in the last few years and this film is Warner Bros. attempt to make up for lost time and set up a new franchise and a new series down the line.

Talk of a Green Lantern movie began in 1997 and Warner Bros. executives wanted cult film maker and comic book writer Kevin Smith to direct it.  This was a great idea but Smith turned down the offer.  The idea was tossed around for years when it was decided to turn it into a comedy starring Jack Black but after news of this was leaked on the internet the project was scrapped after the enormous fan backlash.  The current incarnation was decided on in 2007 when director Greg Berlanti signed to write the movie with comic book writers Michael Green and Marc Guggenheim.    After a year of reading comics from the Green Lantern’s entire history to present and 3 drafts, Berlanti was removed from the project and replaced by Martin Campbell.  Filming began in March of 2010, three months behind schedule, and casting of minor characters continued through filming.  In January 2011 it was reported that they were reshooting several scenes, that’s six months after filming ended.  April 2011 was a particularly bad time as they continued casting for voice actors and Warner Bros. budgeted an additional $9 million to the already $200 million project just two months away from the scheduled release date.

It is clear from the final product that there were some screwy things going on especially in the special effects department.  This movie was very innovative in that for much of the movie Ryan Reynolds was wearing a tight body suit and the Green Lantern suit was added in as a visual effect.  Sadly this didn’t come out very well and initial speculation on the additional $9 million was it was intended to fix problems with the suit.  For several more scenes his head was filmed and then attached to a fully computer animated body.  From talking with viewers this was one of the most glaring errors in the film as his head “wobbles” slightly and looks as if it is not attached to his body.

As far as characters and writing go, this was an even bigger disaster given that 2 of the 3 writers wrote comic books professionally for many years.  Hal Jordan, our protagonist, is a jerk.  That’s his character motivation.  He is whiny, irresponsibly, egotistical, and arrogant.  But according to the plot, the only characteristic a Green Lantern really needs is to be fearless, which as it turns out Hal is not, so good luck filling that plot hole.  In fact, Hal is probably the most unlikeable character in the whole movie.  His big debut in the film is him waking up with a random woman, being late for work as a test pilot, killing his companies’ military contract by exploiting special knowledge he had on the project to stroke his own ego, and then crashing his F35.  That’s a $122-150 million plane.  What’s more, everyone else is pretty much the same.  The way others at work treat him, you could argue that he crashed his plane on purpose just to spite them.  Also when the other Green Lanterns show up they are incredibly unfriendly and seem to want nothing more than to beat Hal to death during his training.  Apparently being an intergalactic guardian for peace and good does not require any kind of moral thinking or background checks.  What really got me was that the most likeable character in the movie was the bad guy, Hector Hammond.  His motivation is that he hates Hal because at one time they were after the same woman, who later turned down both of them so…I really don’t know why he’s so mad.  Before becoming a super villain, Hector had PhD in Biology, taught college classes, seemed very enthusiastic about sharing knowledge with mankind, and was an expert xenobiologist, you know…because we have those…  We really don’t see any kind of evil behavior from him before he gets his powers other than that he has a news clipping about the love interest implying him to be a stalker or something.  However this doesn’t hold water because Hector, Hal, and Carol have all been friends since childhood and their fathers were all business partners at the Ferris Aircraft Company.  Not until he can read people’s minds and finds out that everyone hates him does he turn evil.  I’m just saying, the writing staff really botched the character development on this one.

The rest of the writing isn’t much better.  When we are clearly supposed to identify with Hal as the hero, all the other characters are constantly beating him down and bringing up all of his character flaws.  I think this was supposed to be funny and play off the string of more realistic superhero movies like Kickass but it really came across as the movie pointing out its own flaws.  My biggest problem with the story is the theme of fear.  Superhero movies are notorious for grabbing hold of a phrase or virtue and hanging on like an angry two year old.  The villain is pure fear, he feeds on fear, the Green Lanterns are fearless, Hal Jordan is supposedly fearless until he admits his fear, he argues that the only way to admit fear is to deal with it, etc…  There really is no big revelation or moral to the story other than that old classic “mean people suck”.  The dialog was written at a second grade level and this again is so it translates into every language better, not that it’s helped ticket sales any.

I’ve spent a lot of time talking criticism here but there are several very interesting things the film makers did to this film for a variety of reasons.  The soundtrack was written by acclaimed composer James Newton Howard.  If the $209 million budget wasn’t enough to convince you they thought this was going to be the next big hit, the composer should.  However I found the music very forgettable.  There were two tracks however that used the bits of the main theme from the original Superman as the background melody which was incredibly obvious.  I have no idea if this was an intentional connection to another DC superhero movie or if it was an attempt to recreate the feel of Superman, in either case, it just seemed silly and the theme was still mostly forgettable as it lacked any kind of tune.  

There is nothing new under the sun and this movie is no exception.  Even with seasoned comic book writers they couldn’t come up with an original story.  And they thought they could get away with it too, except they didn’t count on anyone having seen The Last Star Fighter.  If you haven’t seen this film, it’s about a young man Alex whose life is disrupted when he is drafted into an interstellar army to fight Xur and the Ko-Dan armada.  Wacky confusion ensues as he is introduced to the idea that aliens exist, all the other aliens get wasted and he saves the day becoming the greatest pilot in the Rylan Star League.  If you have seen The Green Lantern already this plot should sound very familiar.  It really was astonishing to watch them copy a little known 1984 sci-fi plot in a 2011 summer blockbuster but there it is.  

By far the most interesting quirk of this movie is its multiple digs at Marvel.  The head of the Green Lanterns is an alien named Sinestro, with a name like that his parents weren’t giving him many career opportunities and it’s no surprise he turns evil at the end.  The funny thing is his suit.  All the Green Lanterns have personalized suits and his bears an uncanny resemblance to that used in Spiderman.  It’s only the torso but the webbing design is unmistakable.  Throughout the movie he is a real jerk to Hal and then at the end of the film it is implied that he comes back later as a villain.  I don’t think the reference to DC’s rival was a mistake.  My favorite was when Hal is being trained to be a Green Lantern.  He is being taught to generate weapons with his willpower, that’s his superpower by the way, and he thinks up some guns.  Sinestro immediately thinks up the Captain America shield to block the gunfire and then throws it Captain America style at Hal.  I really didn’t understand the inclusion of this.  I understand that they are making a for fun attack on Marvel by giving Sinestro things related to Marvel characters, but why they did this when they knew that Captain America: The First Avenger was coming out within a few weeks of The Green Lantern’s release confuses me.  It seems like if it is noticed by anyone it is only free advertising for Marvel.  But as we have seen, this particular crew doesn’t know how to make a movie so I wouldn’t be surprised if no one thought about that.

This so far has been one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year, and I’ve seen a lot.  When on the Green Lantern Planet of Oa, I found myself wishing that this movie would be over and in two years I would get to see a buddy cop movie starring the giant wasp and giant jellyfish Green Lanterns, maybe next April if we’re lucky.  It would have to be more interesting than Hal’s antics.  I’ve heard massive disappointment from fans and poor reviews from those who have no knowledge of the Green Lantern comics.  And as for that $209 million Warner Bros. so thoughtlessly poured into this project, they have only made back $145 million worldwide and it is already about time for it to get kicked out of theaters.  I wish DC good luck with their future projects and pray they don’t insult the viewing public with a display of gross incompetence like this again.  Shame on you Warner Bros. and DC…shame…

Movies Referenced:

2011-Captain America: The First Avenger

2011-Green Lantern

2010-Kickass

2002-Spiderman

1989-Batman

1984-The Last Star Fighter

1978-Superman

LEGEND OF THE FIST: THE RETURN OF CHEN ZHEN

My first milestone, 10 reviews.  And for this auspicious occasion I’m putting all other reviews on hold so I can take an in depth look at a film I just saw… Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen.

Once again we are looking at a martial arts film, so keep in mind many of the things I said in my Fighter in the Wind review hold true for this film.  I will try not to repeat myself too much.

Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is a 2010 martial arts film starring the international martial arts star Donnie Yen.  The story revolves around the continuing exploits of the martial artist Chen Zhen.  Chen Zhen was a character originally from Fist of Fury, Bruce Lee’s second Golden Harvest film and his second role as the male lead following just a year after his first leading role in Fists of Fury.  Yeah, apparently Bruce Lee movies are notorious for having ambiguous and often changing titles.  Since then the character of Chen Zhen has been raised to iconic status by various martial artists in at least four films and eight television series, making him almost as visible as the Chinese folk hero Wong Fei-hung.  In the early 90’s as Jackie Chan repopularized Chinese martial arts movies in America, there was a mad rush made by several martial artist / actors to become the next superstar and the Chen Zhen story was retold a few times to showcase their talents.  Most notably was the remake of Fist of Fury, Fist of Legend starring Jet Li.  The lesser known Fist of Fury: Sworn Vengeance was a 1995 television series that has never been brought to America starring Donnie Yen.  All of these projects have focused on the beginnings of the Chen Zhen story and we will look at each individually to see what influenced this film.  Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen picks up where the story left off and follows Chen Zhen through his exile from Shanghai to World War I France and back again under an assumed identity.  There the movie takes on new themes and influences so I will talk about those later.

The story is very loosely based on historical events.  The Chinese master Huo Yuanjia, famous for defeating several foreign fighters in high profile matches, helped found the Shanghai martial arts school referenced in these stories, Chin Woo Athletic Association, dedicated to fitness and athletic excellence as opposed to learning Kung Fu for the purpose of fighting.  His association with the school along with several other masters drew martial arts experts from all over China to teach there.  The scandal began in 1910 when Huo Yuanjia died six months after founding the school.  As his health quickly deteriorated he was admitted to a local hospital and died shortly after.  A later autopsy showed that there were high levels of arsenic in his body however it is not known if he was poisoned or the natural Chinese remedies he was being administered contained arsenic trioxide, a common compound in traditional Chinese medicine.  Conspiracy theories arose around his death with speculation that he was poisoned however there is no hard evidence that this is the case.  While the character Chen Zhen was created for the original Bruce Lee movie, he is loosely based on a student of Huo Yuanjia named Liu Zhensheng.  

For the last 70 some years there has been a lot of tension between China and Japan.  Something about Japan invading mainland China, raping, pillaging, and oppressing the Chinese populace…or something like that.  So it’s no surprise that in the original Fist of Fury the bad guys were the age old enemy of China, the Japanese!  The story follows Chen Zhen, the star pupil of his martial arts school who has left Shanghai, only to return to find his old master dead.  Further investigations lead him to find that his master died fighting against the head of the local Japanese dojo.  From there it becomes a pretty cut and dried crime story based on revenge.  It involves a lot of snooping around by Bruce Lee, donning several ridiculous costumes to evade detection as everyone in Shanghai is looking for him.  Quickly the Japanese realize that to get to Chen Zhen they need to strike at his weakness, his friends and school.  This wouldn’t be so much of a problem if anyone at his school was able to defend themselves, they’re only full time Kung Fu students after all.  The movie ends with everyone at his Kung Fu School massacred by the Japanese and then Bruce killing their master and the round eyed devil from Russia who tries to finish him off.  The final scene of the film is Bruce Lee leaping at a group of local police unable to contain his blood lust with a freeze frame and an audio clip of gunfire implying Chen Zhen to be very dead.  And to be completely fair to his firing squad they did show up looking for a known murderer who had just killed everyone at a local martial arts school and who then tried to attack them.  While the Japanese where the villains and the time period was early 20^th century in Shanghai, the nationalistic themes were almost non-existent.  There were a few scenes that brought attention to the racism brought down on the Chinese by invading foreigners, not just the Japanese, but the murder mystery and revenge is by far the most important aspect of the movie.

The spiritual successor, Fist of Legend changes things up quite a bit.  Chen Zhen, now played by Jet Li who is a devout Buddhist pacifist, is studying abroad in Japan when the movie starts.  Not only is he eager to learn from the Japanese, there is a budding romance between him and a Japanese girl.  However, right from the start we are shown images of nationalistic and racist sentiments held by both the Japanese and the Chinese in Kyoto.  This is a theme held throughout the film, that while the Japanese are bad guys for sticking their noses into Chinese affairs all the time, both sides were antagonistic to each other.  The true evils of this movie are shown to be the Japanese military, who only want to invade Japan and kill the inferior Chinese, and the love of money, the only Chinese character who is really determined to be a bad guy was bribed by the Japanese and didn’t really have a redemption story as part of his character development.  At the end there is a standoff between the Japanese soldiers and the local Chinese police after Chen Zhen has killed everyone…again, and the Japanese ambassador calls an end to hostilities.  Chen Zhen gives himself up as a scapegoat for the murder of the Japanese general.  I thought this was a little weird since he was the one who did the killing anyway.  It wasn’t really a scapegoat as they say in the movie.  There is an off camera execution but we see at the end of the film that Chen Zhen was released and the ambassador faked the execution and let him go.  It ends with him fleeing Shanghai and returning to his Japanese girlfriend.  So while nationalism was a huge part of this film, it was not the central theme.  In fact, out of all the incarnations this is the most a martial arts film.  This is revealed through the longest fight in the movie between Chen Zhen and the greatest fighter in Japan, his girlfriend’s uncle.  Before they fight they talk about martial arts and style choices, and as they fight they blindfold themselves so that the older Japanese fighter is not at a disadvantage when he gets dust in his eyes.  Then they congratulate each other at the end of the fight.  It is a battle of equals not bent on killing each other but instead learning from each other.

Both of these are very interesting stories with different focuses, but I find Donnie Yen’s 1995 project Fist of Fury: Sworn Vengeance to be far more interesting.  This is a television series centered around the same character Chen Zhen, but this story follows him from his beginnings in rural China.  He travels to Shanghai to raise the money to rebuild the family farm only to get sucked into the underworld and work as an enforcer.  He encounters the Chin Woo school through the trickery of his superiors and becomes aware of his recent sins and joins as a student of Huo Yuanjia to redeem himself.  From there it is very episodic, but stresses moralistic tales about the ideal qualities of a martial artist and shows Chen’s development into the character in the other versions.  Only at the end do we enter the story of the death of Huo Yuanjia and Chen’s revenge.  This is truly the most interesting portion of the series as Donnie Yen who has imitated the fighting style of Bruce Lee at a few points in the series now adopts the full style of Bruce Lee, complete with funny noises and hopping stances.  Better yet, when he goes to attack the Japanese school the camera angles and choreography is nearly identical to the original 1972 Fist of Fury.  Donnie Yen was the action choreographer for the whole series.  Of note also is the fight scene between Huo Yuanjia and the other Shanghai martial arts masters in this series that is Donnie’s first attempt at the amazing fight sequence he later perfected with Sammo Hung in Ip Man 2.  Content-wise the end of the series is a combination of the two previous versions.  Most important, Chen is a flawed character out for blood, unlike Jet Li’s Chen, but at the same time he remains a martial artist with core values and morals.  Most important in this version is the demonization of Japan.  There were some hints at this in the original.  The later version focused more on pan-Asian racism and only referenced the impending Japanese invasion to set the historical mood.  This series however stressed anti-Japanese sentiments.  In Chen’s own words, “Our greatest enemy is Japanese militarism”.  As I said in a previous review there has been a trend in recent years to promote nationalism in martial arts films and this is an early example.  The eventual climax is a fight against Japanese agents to prevent them from detonating toxic bombs to kill thousands in Shanghai to frame pro-China martial artists.  In honor of the original it ends with the same freeze frame of Chen leaping into a hail of gun fire as he is executed for the massacre at the Japanese dojo.

Well, that was a lot of background but since Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen is a sequel, I found it necessary.  This film begins with an interesting bit of WWI history as Chinese are sent to aid the allies as laborers in France.  Donnie Yen returns as Chen who somehow survived his impromptu execution and fled to France to escape the Japanese.  The film begins with an elaborate stunt sequence where Chen takes out a fortified machine gun nest and kills a whole group of Germans saving his unit.  The brutality of the scene really made me feel sorry for the Germans, but it is one of the best action sequences I’ve seen in years.  Chen returns to Shanghai with the stolen identity of one of his friends who died in the war giving hints of The Return of Martin Guerre but I think this has just become a story convention and isn’t really a reference to the French film.  Coming back to China in the midst of civil war with the threat of an impending Japanese invasion, he finds work at a nightclub in Shanghai.  At this nightclub while war is on all sides, military leaders of both sides of the Chinese conflict and the Japanese soldiers in Shanghai all come and drink together.  Is this sounding familiar yet?  How about this?  There is a scene where the Japanese call for the singer on stage to sing a Japanese song which the other patrons aren’t thrilled about, so Chen steps up to the piano and leads the rest of the club in a song presumably known by all those from the war in France and they drown out the complaints of the Japanese.  Need another hint?  The name of the club is Casablanca.  There are several more parallels between this movie and Casablanca in the character interactions and the involvement of underground resistance movements.  And from there the film is less about martial arts, though there are some amazing fights, it is mostly about the development of the Chinese resistance to the growing Japanese militarism in China.  While the previous incarnations were pretty lenient with their treatment of the Japanese, this version, similar to Yen’s previous Chen Zhen series, blasts them hard and all Japanese are working against the Chinese.  

Another political undertone that is evident in this film is the issue of Taiwan.  In this film Taiwan is already under Japanese control and it is stated that the Japanese run it with barbaric efficiency killing anyone who steps out of line.  Combined with the Chinese nationalist rhetoric of a “united china” (with quotes to emphasize the number of times characters say this) and against the backdrop of the civil war between the north and south, this paints an eerie parallel to China’s persistent claims that one day Taiwan will be brought back to the control of the Peoples Republic.

Chen is all about concealing his identity in this film.  While he is trying to conceal his identity as Chen from all of his new friends he openly opposes the Japanese spy networks in Shanghai masquerading as the fictional character, the masked warrior, from an action film, of which movie posters can be seen in the background of the street scenes.  To my knowledge no such movie actually exists.  However the costume of the black chauffeur’s outfit with a lone ranger mask matches almost exactly the costume of Kato from the Green Hornet.  This American spy series was Bruce Lee’s big break into Hollywood as the Green Hornet’s manservant and sidekick.  The outfit was also used by Jet Li in The Black Mask which also overlapped some cast members with Fist of Fury: Sworn Vengeance.  Donnie, same as his previous Chen Zhen project was also the action director of this film and has become a major creative contributor in his recent films.  The connection between Donnie’s original character Chen as well as his new costume, both of which are references to the film career of Bruce Lee is not coincidental.  

After several bloodbaths Chen has a showdown at the old Japanese Dojo from the first film, now populated with bloodthirsty Japanese imperialists.  He pulls off a decent Bruce Lee impression once again but with far more personal embellishments.  He does the obligatory nunchucks scene but is nowhere near as skilled as Bruce Lee was.  It’s a clear tribute but with as many tributes to the great martial artist I saw researching this review, this one nunchucks scene was the weakest.  It ends with another showdown between Chen and the master of the Dojo, just like every time before, and ends with a very anticlimactic burst of energy from Chen who was just beaten to near unconsciousness.  The whole end fight of the movie seemed forced and only included to take vengeance on the Japanese commander.  Also, it seems like a tradition at this point to relive those fight scenes with Bruce and the Japanese whenever possible at this point.  Even though this is a sequel to the story they still wanted to end it the same way.  It ends with Chen riding off on his motorcycle, not getting shot, and the ending credits begin right after a clip of Chen dressed up in his masked warrior outfit implying a continued struggle against the impending Japanese invasion and possibly another sequel, who can say.

If we are going off which incarnation of the story is the most faithful to the original and has the most compelling plot and character development I would have to say that Fist of Fury: Sworn Vengeance was the best.  It gets help from being a television series and has more time to deal with these issues.  The sequel film Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen however is masterfully done.  The actions sequences are breathtaking, the characters are complex, and the historical setting is very well done.  I was actually a little disappointed to see this film.  I thought it was going to be a silly martial arts film and it is probably the best thing I will see all summer.  It earns its ranking on my list but it does set the bar pretty high for the rest of the season.  If you are looking for martial arts films in general, I have not seen a Donnie Yen performance I haven’t liked.  This is only one more in a long line of successes for this actor/martial artist/choreographer and I hope to see many more in the coming years.

Movies Referenced:

2010-Legend of the Fist: The Return of Chen Zhen

2010-Ip Man 2

2004-Fighter in the Wind

1996-The Black Mask

1995-Fist of Fury: Sworn Vengeance

1994-Fist of Legend

1982-The Return of Martin Guerre

1972-Fist of Fury

1971-Fists of Fury

1966-Green Hornet

1942-Casablanca