Always one to pursue useless knowledge wherever he can find it in a seemingly never-ending quest to achieve the improbable and downright unlikely status of modern-day Renaissance man, Mark Bittmann has indulged his desire to never be lost in any conversation, by developing an arcane understanding of things of little consequence or import while maintaining his alleged status as a small fish in a small pond.
As long as his self-indulgent whim is catered to, he manages to sustain the facade of someone under the misperception that others care about what he thinks. With a ubiquity normally reserved for greenhouse gasses, he chases his random and inconsequential thoughts with all the tenacity of a banana peel. This is his life, his curse, and his twisted and maniacal way of impressing the ladies.
With the release of cinematic interpretations of our favorite comic book heroes accelerating at an exponential rate and comic books themselves being seen as an ever-increasingly reliable medium to mine source material for Hollywood to exploit, I’ve been thinking about just what kind of comic book movie I’d like to see the studios produce.
So I asked myself what comic book film adaptation would really inspire me to gather up Peggy Sue, a box of popcorn, Junior Mints, drinks and the courage to cop a cheap feel by flickering light down at the local picture show (OK, so it‘s a CinemaStar with THX and stadium seating…excuse me for waxing nostalgic about rites of passage)? The movie industry has certainly been busy snapping up promising comic book properties in hopes of making a buck, if not a blockbuster, out of multi-colored ink on a page, haven‘t they? Sam Raimi has snapped up the rights to 30 Days Of Night, Marvel has several films in various stages of development, including cinematic treatments of the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and Captain America to go along with their hat trick of releases in 2003 and fans anxiously await knowledge of anything having to do with the planned new interpretations of Batman and Superman. It seems as though the success of X-Men has opened the gates for superhero films to invade screens and set worldwide box-office records and now that Spider-Man has taken in nearly a billion dollars worldwide in its theatrical release alone, all bets, as they say, are off.
The special effects at filmmakers’ disposal have come a long way in a relatively short period of time. After decades of an arcane mix of blue-screen work, stop-motion animation and miniatures cobbled together to make somewhat convincing effects images, screenwriters and directors know that if they can dream it up, some maniac at one of the many capable special effects houses (ILM no longer controls the market on high-quality special effects, as Peter Jackson’s WETA Workshop has more than proven) will find a way to render it on the silver screen convincingly with the digital weapons at their disposal. In the current state of the art only monetary constraints limit imagination and as progenitor of many tales of a fantastic nature, comic books and the characters within them can now be thought of as legitimate source material for film. Therefore, I’m going to do a little dreaming in this weeks column, dreaming about what elements I’d like in a Captain America movie and how I’d like to see the movie realized. So without further ado:
Howzabout finally making a Captain America movie on more than a nickel budget? And while they’re at it, let’s see if they can manage to cast someone memorable in the part. Ten years ago we would have likely been treated to a Cap with an Austrian accent, as Hollywood only had eyes for “Ahnuld” in heroic roles. Yep, when I think heroics, I think talentless bags of muscles. You can always rely on Hollywood for promoting physical appearance over the ability to act. (Don’t think for a minute that Brad Pitt would have a career in Hollywood without his six-pack, suntan, capped teeth and pretty face. He’s not that talented.) In which case we would have been treated to Mr. Schwarzeneggar’s standard line “Git downuh…now” shouted to the Howling Commandos in the heat of battle. That, or we would have been treated to the contemporary equivalent of bad casting that was Michael Keaton in the role of the Caped Crusader (sorry, but in my opinion, Mr. Keaton isn’t remotely good-looking or physically imposing enough to play either Bruce Wayne or Batman. Solid acting chops or not, Keaton was, and remains wrong for the role). No, I want to see Captain America partake in shield-slinging action in a World War II theatre, the stage that I believe would best serve any transition to the screen.
The “man out of time” angle in the comics is fine and all, but frankly we’ve all been treated to so many different men out of their time in film on so many different occasions in the past, from Somewhere In Time to Kate And Leopold, that the notion has graduated from plot device to central theme whenever it is applied. Therefore it is something the audience has seen a gazillion times before that no longer challenges them or possesses any originality as a concept. Unoriginality leads to both preconceived expectations that Hollywood is perfectly willing to cater to and likely a dumbing-down of the material. Next thing you know, Captain America being played by Ralph Fiennes and the film is more romance than action. True, seeing Cap deal with the aging of everyone around him after being frozen in an iceberg for 60 years may make for a touching story of love lost, but damn it, this is Captain Freaking America and any Captain America tale should be about action, action, action. Here’s what I want to see: I want to see America’s embodiment of patriotism leading troops into battles along the lines of those portrayed in the recent spate of WWII cinematic offerings, although I hope the studios do take a cue from the fiasco that was Pearl Harbor (the latest in a seemingly endless palette of superficial eye candy from director Michael “what plot?” Bay) and at least shoehorn in a solid plot somewhere sans cliché’s. Let’s see Cap fighting alongside Sgt. Fury and his Howling Commandos and beating Nazis into submission and taking no prisoners. He’s a Captain for Christ’s sake, so let’s see him take up arms and a few lives in the process. He may be the Sentinel of Liberty, but some symbols should be neither trifled with or expected to fight a purely clean fight, especially when they are fighting for a cause as important as that of the WWII allies. I want Captain America in all his grand self-righteousness, fighting for what he believes in, for the betterment of the free world in the interest of the United States. Just a solid, bracing WWII film with a super soldier in the fray.
Done properly, Captain America would make James Bond look like a wimp. No yuppie BMWs or teensy Walther PPKs for Steve Rogers, all he need is his fists of fury and the occasional machine gun whenever outnumbered or when his shield is in the air. Captain America may be the ultimate soldier and possessed of superhuman abilities, but he bleeds just like any other man and chain mail will not stop a burst of rounds from Howitzer, so he will need to be more viscerally proactive. In other words, in addition to cracking skulls with his shield and jaws with his fist, he will have to act as a soldier and kill. Merely wounding the enemy’s pride with fisticuffs and platitudes will not be enough to win in decisive manner, not in the kind of kill or be killed battle native to the front lines, where he doubtless would insist on fighting.
Given the current political climate, it probably wouldn’t do to have too cynical a portrayal of the leaders calling the shots on the battlefield. There’s enough of that making headlines on CNN with increasingly regularity as it is, not to mention the History Channel. While it may be an intriguing notion for the screenwriter to see the irony of a Captain America conflicted by the shady motives of his superiors, it’s the kicking of Nazi butt that the audiences want to see, so hopefully the politics of war will take a back seat to the pathos and Captain America will be permitted to prove his mettle on the field of battle and capture the fascination of the audience as a man of stirring action and few words.
