Man of Steel (2013)

Man of Steel (Zack Snyder, 2013)

The planet Krypton is about to implode because of its inhabitants’ unscrupulous abuse of its core’s energy. Pillars of flame erupt from the alien world’s surface, obliterating whatever weirdly-shaped structures. It is such delirious wanton, but in the hands of Zack Snyder, who made violence so randomly elegant and extravagant in 300 and impending doom so impatient in the remake of George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead, the destruction of the world is enthusiastically operatic. It is just so spectacular that a Kryptonian woman, the widow of a recently deceased scientist and mother of a soon-to-be superhero, turns her back on the audience, presumably taking her place as one, absorbing the visual wonder that is her world’s destruction before she is engulfed by a sea of flame.

In Man of Steel, Snyder exploits carnage for spectacle. In the many sequences wherein towns and cities are destroyed, Snyder stages the destruction in a way that humanity, normally driven to safety by its survivalist tendencies, stay behind to indulge in the terror. Buildings fall apart, and workers hypnotically gaze from their offices. A tornado wreaks havoc in an entangled highway forcing vehicles to spiral up in the air, and the survivors stare in dazed horror. This philosophy is so conveniently attuned to the needs of Hollywood, especially with its maniacal obsession during summer to entertain through its many depictions of various scales of destruction, that Snyder’s stylized obliteration of almost everything seems commonplace, even redundant.

However, there is something uncanny about Snyder’s visual savagery. From the perspective of a Superman story that is so rooted in the heartland of America, the near-endless string of edifices and structures bowing down to invasion bears an immense sense of dread. That everything that happens between the film’s fiery bookends is so devoid of joy that every attempt to crack a joke dissipates and is ultimately forgotten is just the kind of adroit seriousness a superhero movie needs to give its many scenes of purposeful havoc some semblance of weight.

The quieter moments of Man of Steel, the ones shown in the film’s many lengthy flashbacks, proposes a heart that is unlike any of its ilk. Where recent incarnations of superheroes insist on backstories that rely on drama, like a violent death in the family or an aberration, Man of Steel has a young Clark Kent living a very palpable American existence, aside of course the frequent displays of superhuman strength. Raised by Kansas farmers, presumably Christian in the same way most rural Americans are, he is molded to possess a simpleminded morality that will serve as foundations of his decisions as an adult superhero.

Similarly, his motivations are fashioned by the same prejudices and fears that consume the heartland. Its mostly white, mostly Christian demographic, induces its residents to be less tolerant of strangers, of anybody who might disrupt the comforts of tradition. His father's guiding words, the ones that urged him to live in anonymity for fear of being persecuted, acknowledge the very nature of middle America, one that is fearful of its capacity for intolerance. Of course, the film’s more apparent and conventional storyline, of General Zod and his dreams of populating Earth with Kryptonians and committing genocide while at it, reflects in a louder and more confrontational manner those themes on morality and tolerance.

In a way, Snyder’s Superman seems to represent the America none of these recent superhero movies even dare to represent. He personifies the traits and weaknesses of the common American, the ones oblivious to the wealth only a certain percentile of the population possesses, the ones whose ambitions are limited to the corners of their birth town. Even this Superman’s quiet charm, his inability to verbalize his actions, his reliance on memory, even that extended discomfort with his love interest, mirrors the modesty associated with America’s heartland. In the midst of all the responsibility that is suddenly placed upon his shoulder and the succeeding threat to the world, there is just an undeniable charisma in his popular struggle.

Watchmen (2009)

Watchmen (Zack Snyder, 2009)

Zack Snyder, visionary director of 300 (2007), once again proves himself a visionary with his latest film, the adaptation of Alan Moore's much-revered graphic novel Watchmen. Of course, the term "visionary" was used in the trailer of Watchmen as nothing more than a marketing tool: a single-worded invitation that means "if you want more of 300's arbitrary use of computer graphics and action sequences that are replete with hyperactive switches to slow motion and back, then spend your bucks on this flick." The term "visionary" is being used here with a sizable dose of sarcasm, for the truth of the matter is, Snyder, with three features under his belt, is no different from the thousands of MTV-educated movie-makers that are currently working in Hollywood's soulless assembly line; and blessed with a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars and projects with already existing storyboards, he has been capriciously knighted by Hollywood's marketing executives with a title that is reserved to a handful of filmmakers.

If Snyder's Watchmen is assessed solely on ambition, then it is an indubitable masterpiece. After all, several directors have attempted to adapt Moore's graphic novel, all of which ending with the project being shelved and eventually forgotten. Director Terry Gilliam, who was once tasked to adapt the graphic novel in the late eighties, considers the material unfilmable, unless it was done as a five-part miniseries. Perhaps there is truth to Gilliam's observations. Moore's graphic novel, with its narrative and thematic complexities, simply cannot be condensed in a span of two hours or so (in fact, Snyder's adaptation is half an hour over the two-hour mark). Snyder, despite many failed attempts in the past, adamantly pushes forward and arrives at a final product that is comprehensible and pretty. Ambition, however, is never the barometer of quality. While Watchmen passes intelligibility (one can easily follow the story, as simply laid out by David Hayter and Alex Tse's screenplay), it ultimately fails to be anything more than an overbudgeted evidence of Hollywood whim and bullyism.

There is an obvious effort in realizing the alternate history that serves as setting to Moore's tale about costumed crime fighters who are struggling in the midst of an impending nuclear holocaust. The opening credits, a finely crafted montage set into motion by Bob Dylan's majestic The Times They Are a-Changin that traces the history of the Watchmen from its humble beginnings to the troubled band of superheroes that it is now, summarizes concisely the backstory that puts logic to the plot's internal grief and its alternate timeline. Snyder, however, betrays the opening's initial promise of visual succinctness when it thrusts the rest of the film in an over-indulgent exercise of revelry and spectacle.

Snyder fills each frame with special effects (whether it be a computer generated background, a completely animated Dr. Manhattan, action scenes in stylized slo-mo that calls attention to teeth flying, bones breaking, and bodies disintegrating, obviously for shock rather than anything else) that hardly mean anything but nevertheless sum up what Snyder's adaptation strives for: visual ingenuity which is actually a facade to what essentially is an empty core. Snyder is an aesthetic leech. He pilfers the artwork of greater and more pertinent visual artists as his own, utilizing Hollywood's unscrupulous mechanism and its almost unlimited bank account to establish himself as an expert in comic-to-film adaptations. In reality, it is a lack of artistic integrity that is often confused with faithfulness to the source material.

It is not apparent from Snyder's film that it is birthed from a trailblazing material, a graphic novel that revised superhero lore from one-dimensional do-gooders to damaged individuals who inconsistently balance their personal demons and the weight of our sinful world. Watchmen maintains the narrative, keeping intact the lack of trust Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) has with the rest of the world; the widening lack of interest Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) has with a humanity that is getting more and more distant; the complacency, a result of years of retirement and a distinct satisfaction of being normal, of Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson); the overripe cynicism, gathered from the decades of fighting bad guys, of The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan); the misplaced zeal of Ozymandias (Matthew Goode); the confusion of Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman). However, the manufactured feel and the commercial intent of Snyder's efforts drown whatever depth and integrity that remains.

In the end, neither ambition nor so-called faithfulness to the material can save Watchmen from being just another angsty superhero flick. Hollywood should have listened to Gilliam and we might have something better than this overstretched bombastic snore-fest that talks the talk, walks the walk, but never really gets anywhere.

300 (2007)

300 (Zack Snyder, 2007)

My first exposure to violent art is a painting done by Juan Luna called Spoliarium. It's a painting that is shown to each and every young Filipino student, even in his tenderest years. It depicts a scene in a Roman gladiator coliseum, where dead gladiators are being dragged by other men. It's not necessarily a realistic portrait; the bodies are not proportionate nor are their formations in possible arrange. It's an exaggeration that only meats out the hideous twists and grotesqueness of the situation. Above what's literally seen in the portrait is a nationalistic ache, a courageous exposé of the collective experience in the Philippines. That is art --- violent yet beneath such violence, is a passion, a history, a resonating and clear message.

Zack Snyder's 300 is very similar with Luna's masterwork. 300 is teaming with exaggerations --- mountains of disfigured corpses; limbs flying out in the air like dandelion seeds in search for fertile grounds, fresh wounds exposed like badges of honor. Comparing a Hollywood film to a painting might raise eyebrows but the reason why I saw the comparison fit was because despite the plenty similarities, 300 fails to be anything more than pretty pictures of violence. Underneath the initial shock or delight of seeing men fight to their deaths, there's really nothing. It's that --- frames of a graphic novel put into motion with no real depth but plain "cool."

300's racial stereotyping, its ineptitude in fashioning the Battle of Thermopylae as a modern narrative, its questionable artistic themes (freaks are evil, muscular pecs and perfect abs are good) are attributable to Frank Miller. It's something I really can't comprehend --- there's a near-pious reverence to Miller's art that almost all directors who try to adapt his work (including Robert Rodriguez in Sin City (2005)) has a fervent duty to replicate his art. Snyder, whose first feature is a remake of George Romero's Dawn of the Dead (2004; probably his only contribution to the genre is to turn zombies into hyperactive sprinters), makes every scene look like it belongs in the pages of a glorified graphic novel rather than in a darkened movie theater.

The rest of the film's failures I attribute to Snyder. He's out to prove something, yet in so doing overkills the concept. The film is mostly eye-straining. He edits like a madman; and the fight sequences are butchered to the point of ridicule. True, when Snyder tries to ape Peter Jackson with vistas teaming with goons and monsters, there's still a momentary sense of awe. However, when the fights actually happen, he focuses on thrusting limbs and swords, then just before you relish the lethal blow, cuts to the next muscular limb slashing, then again cuts, resulting in complete incomprehension. It's quite inutile which is only further emphasized with Snyder's indulgent use of slow motion; quite funny I thought as Snyder puts into slow motion the movement of a Spartan from one victim to another, then puts into real time the actual slash and blow (the abundance of the gimmick, the misappropriation of such only weakens, annoys, and cheapens).

300 can be seen as overtly political (against American imperialism, or for Bush's wishes to bring in more troops to Iraq). However, its political message is drowned by the film's boorish trappings. It's an inevitable trade-off; especially when the message is skewed by cultural ignorance (in exchange for aesthetic coolness), racial sanctification (the Spartans are all perfect Caucasian specimens, as opposed to the evil Persian army --- a mixture of Black, Arabic, Asian, Indian and the freakishly indeterminable), political incorrectness (Xerxes as bald drag queen diva; his voice lowered to further the fearsomeness of this macho gay), and bad filmmaking (I need not explain this more).

Again, there is nothing more to be gathered, not even the typical lessons of the actual Battle of Thermopylae (a rousing point, a morale-booster for the brave yet hugely outnumbered), nor the evident emotions or humanity of a desperate situation. It's all gloss, unjustified spurting of blood and floating of glowing embers, and loud yet empty battle cries. I'd rather stare at Luna's painting for the entire duration of the film, than be maligned by this mess pretending to be art.