Heroes and fathers. Which flick will do best for Father’s Day?
It’s that time of year when we honour our fathers. We thank them for all they’ve done for us and apologise for all we’ve done to them. My dad has significantly less hair on his head since I came along, and after an incident where I was trying to be ‘helpful’ with a lawnmower when I was three he is very lucky to have all the fingers on his left hand.
Despite those and a myriad of other things he has conducted his paternal duties to a high standard and I’d be stuffed without him.
This just makes my heart break that little bit harder this weekend, because I have to be the one to tell him, that his favourite superhero’s screen debut is a duffer.
I was hoping to be able to say, ‘Hey The Green Lantern is great, we’ll have to catch a show of it soon’ on the day (as well as a present and card, I’m not a total cheap skate).
Hullo...
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My love for comic books and all things a bit geeky (alright, a lot geeky) comes from my dad. He made the introductions and put me on the road to wanting to wear my pants on the outside of my trousers, and putting words in order on a page. So you can blame him when I don’t always make sense.
I gravitated towards the more mainstream Spider-Man, Batman etc, but his love has always been with the Green Lantern. About a pilot who encounters a dying alien and is given a ring that can harness the energy of the universe into anything his imagination can think up. Funnily enough, that’s exactly what happens in the film version out this week.
It’s yet another origin story, which is getting increasingly tiring the more comic book adaptations I am subjected to. One day someone’s going to make a film about a hero halfway through their career and just expect us to be intelligent enough to fill in the gaps. And as beginnings go, it ticks all the boxes; square jawed thrill seeker with issues, hot but currently unobtainable girl and an enemy that is the mirror opposite of the hero.
That’s the main problem, once it’s finished ticking boxes it has no time to fit any story in, let alone provide characters that don’t disappear when they turn sideways. It’s so heavily effects laden that the wonky stuff really sticks out (the mask never benefited from the extra cash Warner Bros shelled out). Not awful, just severely undercooked.
One of the things marketers are desperate to convince us of on Father’s Day is how all men are obsessed with sport. Which is not the case here, but he is a motor racing fan; so all was not lost. Thank the maker for Senna, a documentary about the life of the racing icon.
It focuses specifically on his racing years; the rest of his life seemed to revolve around it so it would be pointless to look elsewhere to get an idea of the sort of man he was. The archive footage used is spectacular, always keeping the man front and centre. He was clearly not always liked by his peers, but there is no doubt he was always respected.
All good sporting documentaries are never about the sport. They are about the people who are impassioned by that sport and what makes them keep striving to win. This was no exception, even if you’ve never been an F1 fan you can’t help but be swept up by the energy and sheer determination it inspired in Senna.
So there is good news to sweeten the telling of Green Lantern’s failings. Now to figure out what to buy him
- Was 2011 a good year for movies? - January 4, 2012
- Caught in the thrall of the movies’ science of excitement - October 15, 2011
- It’s Ryan Gosling week! - September 24, 2011
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