Revisiting Old Marvel Films (Part 4)

Fun fact: John Favreau plays Foggy Nelson in Daredevil and Happy Hogan in the Iron Man and Spider-Man films. Ben Affleck - a very young looking one - was Daredevil and is one of the current incarnations of Batman. These guys have comics pedigree - much like a bunch of other actors who have all doubled up, so to speak. 

Not So Fun Opinion: Daredevil isn't a very good film. It could have been, but after some promising opening scenes it kind of lost its way and stopped being an interesting film and became a silly one.

That's pretty much what I took from this film. An extremely promising start with a clever modernisation of DD's origin, it all started so well. However, there's a huge leap from boy blinded by hazardous waste and a man in a red suit and this story opted not to dwell too long on the hows and didn't bother with the whys at all. One minute 12-year-old Matt is beating up bullies, the next he's a decent pro-bono lawyer and all-round legendary crime fighter. It was during that 30 seconds or so that the film went from a film with potential to one with a lot wrong with it.

The thing is, I can't really say what. The film is very much a meh kind of event and, I don't know if this was just an early superhero film thing, there's an awful lot that goes unexplained or the presumption is that you must understand the inner workings because you must be aware of the character's 40 odd year history. This was the case with the FF, Hulk and Spider-Man films and massively in the X-Men. I think that's why Iron Man worked so well when it first came out; there was zero reliability of the viewers knowledge; the story was told without any presumption. As a result, in this film, there's bugger all in the way of an introduction to Colin Farrell's Bullseye; he's just there, working for the Kingpin, despite no previous mention of him. You find out the whys in this case during the final battle scene between the dreadful Bullseye and DD, which is half decent of the director because he didn't bother for the rest of the film.

There's also this weird Kingpin subplot that taken out of context from the rest of the film makes you wonder how a big, massive, crime boss - who is about 7 feet tall, bald, black and Wilson Fisk who is also 7 feet tall, bald and black and is surrounded by lots of dodgy looking individuals is never mistaken for the Kingpin. Obviously this corner of the Marvel universe are drinking the same water as the staff at the Daily Planet. 

The story is basically a Frank Miller Daredevil story from the late 1970s merged with Joe Quesada's first story arc from his run on the rebooted comics from the late 1990s. Oddly enough, it also echoes the recent Hawkeye series, especially the themes of 'family business'. The Hawkeye series also introduced the Kingpin to the MCU, played by Vincent D'Onofrio, reprising his role from the Netflix Daredevil series, where he wasn't quite as strong but had considerably more leverage. In the end Farrell's Bullseye was far too comical and slightly stupid and stereotypical, Clarke's Fisk was just a big fat bloke and Garner's Elektra was actually just a plot device. Her demise and apparent resurrection echoed the comics, although I expect the Elecktra film will not be anything like Elektra: Assassin

It was nice to see so many characters named after famous Daredevil writers and artists; that's the kind of homage I like to see in superhero films, but that was about the only thing in the second hour of the film that was nice. The special effects were like someone watched Spider-Man and thought, 'we can get Daredevil to do that and he's blind!' Although it did look like extreme parkour at times. The other thing is apart from Matt Murdoch, who has enhanced olfactory powers, none of the other heroes or villains did, so when they go leaping into the unknown, jumping up stuff that a normal human wouldn't consider attempting and generally being 'super' then you struggle to take it seriously. 

The main problem with superhero films of this era was the reliance on the person watching understanding the character on screen is a superhero with a history. It's why I'm convinced Marvel's MCU might be biting off more than it can chew with the X-Men and mutants; ironically back then, the MCU were left with characters with the least baggage or to put it another way, a lesser amount of baggage that you have to reference. 

Affleck, even as a young man, struggled with the role. He wasn't bad, he just wasn't good. Daredevil is a ginger - no one casts him as a red head. 

Farrell was a dreadful Bullseye; there wasn't a huge amount of him in the film but he managed to ruin almost every moment.

Clarke really was a bit of a pussy as Kingpin.

Favreau should reprise his role as Foggy, preferably in a Tom Holland Spider-Man film.

Jennifer Garner struggles with acting. I never watched Alias but I do know it was very popular for a while and started JJ Abrams on the path to success.

Daredevil is a film you want to like but in the end - like this review - it just feels so badly pieced together it's no surprise it was produced by 20th Century Fox.

Now, I should existentially warn you, today's date is the 24th February 2022. I have obtained the next three non-MCU films and plan to watch them for this, probably, concluding chapter; but I can't tell you when or even if I'm going to feel the slightest bit inclined to watch them. That said, this might become an obsolete statement in less than a week...

However, it is now April 27 and it took me ages to pluck up the guts to watch...

Elektra - realising why the second Fantastic Four film bombed didn't take much working out, understanding why this direct sequel to Daredevil failed is a little less complicated... Elektra isn't a strong enough character to be a decent supporting character, so expecting her to carry an entire film is like expecting a gnat to give birth to an elephant... That said, nothing else really needs to be added. The character in the comic was written very much like every other mysterious female character of the time and even extensive jiggery-pokery by Frank Miller sort of failed to make Elektra anything more than just one of those 70s characters. 

The film is actually something of that old chestnut, the curate's egg. There is actually a half decent film in there desperately trying to scramble it's way out of a very jumbled mess. There's nothing original about the plot; Elektra is now an assassin who is given the job of offing a father and daughter by The Hand. Except she meets the aforementioned family independently and before finding out they were the targets. Racked by strangely uninformative flashbacks, Elektra decides to protect the family instead of killing them and therefore goes up against her former employers, of which she is not the only superpowered amongst them - although short of being slightly precognitive and quite good with toasting forks I'm not sure what Elektra actually brings to the table (or the fight).

The twist is that the girl she's protecting is actually another superpowered kid which The Hand wants dead if they can't have her and inevitably the two team up to win the day. Done by a better director, with a better script, better actors and without the superheroes and powers, this would be a cliched and hackneyed load of junk. Add them to the mix and you get a film that is neither any good or that desperately bad. I mean, I was glad when it finished and I was clockwatching from about the 75 minute mark, but I've seen much worse superhero films. 

Things that set it apart from just a crap film include the really annoying kid who frankly should die because she's so obnoxious. The clueless and frankly pointless father. The fact that Garner cannot act - she looks good striking poses in her red drapes, but she'd struggle in a clown's outfit and red wig in a MacDonald's advert. 

That brings me to the two Punisher films. 

Fun fact: Ray Stevenson who plays Frank Castle in War Zone also played Volstagg in the Thor films until his demise in Ragnarok.  Not so fun fact: I haven't actually watched the Netflix Punisher series; we sidestepped it at the time as it never appealed to us and frankly neither do these films. I have vague memories of Dolph Lundgren in the 90s(?) as Frank Castle and wish I didn't. I think I've harped on about this a lot but I'm not a huge fan of 'grounded' 'realistic' vigilante-type 'heroes'. Comics, for me, should be about the fantastic and the unimaginable, especially if they're going to creep into areas of film making that are years ahead of it in terms of experience. It's a surprise I didn't like Eternals considering the spectacle it was trying to achieve and of all the Kirby 70s creations, the Celestials were always the most mysterious and scary, but it failed on almost all fronts and it will be interesting to watch it again in about 18 months.

Anyhow... The Punisher. Let's be straight about one thing - Thomas Jane (or Tom Jane as he's credited) is most definitely NOT the Punisher. Nothing about the actor fits the profile or the comic book look of the character. That said, he doesn't do a very bad job of the role, it's simply just not convincing for me...

The film starts with a police sting that results in the son of a crime lord dying. Quite how 'Saint' the crime lord - played by John Travolta - manages to find out that Otto Krieg - the man who set the deal up - was actually undercover cop Frank Castle and then somehow blame him - out of many policemen - for the death of his son was something of a stretch, but I've seen films with flimsier plots. A word I can be accused of using a lot in these pre-MCU films is 'contrived' and while this one was more subtle than others, it was still a slightly dodgy foundation to base an entire revenge thriller on.

That aside, The Punisher isn't that bad. It's actually a lot better than other 'superhero' films of the same era. However, despite a pretty good cast - Jane, Travolta, Rebecca Stamos (another fun fact : she doubled up as Mystique in the X films), Samantha Mathis, Will Patton, Ben Foster (Warren Worthington III in the 3rd X-Men film) and Roy Scheider - it has almost laughable dialogue and the pacing was way off - it seemed to dwell on unimportant things and freeze through key plot points. It veered into knockabout comedy for about 20 minutes just over half way through the film in what I can only deduce was used to make Frank Castle less of a revenge driven killing machine and more human. There are also scenes that felt wrong - Castle basically killed people, but just occasionally he went OTT and did something more ... nasty. Perhaps this was done to emphasise the fact he's PUNISHING people - the crooks who killed his family; but it all seemed slightly out of character. 

This was the main problem with the film - it was all over the place. It was full of clever little twists that elevated it above your average crap Marvel film and then lost all of its credibility by counterbalancing these with stereotypical story stupidity. Some of the acting and dialogue were believable at times and unbelievable in others; the entire film reeked of inconsistency. I did get the feeling they were trying to make this film with something of a heart; to give it something more than just jumping from one violent set piece to another and to a degree it succeeds, but largely it's a film that feels dated and slightly irrelevant. It felt like a revenge thriller that didn't need the words The Punisher anywhere near it.

[An aside: Punisher: Dirty Laundry is a bizarre and weird thing. Made in 2012 and seemingly with no obvious input from Marvel, it's a 10 minute, possible fan-made, 're-boot' of Thomas Jane's Frank Castle, in a very violent, outrageously nasty and probably more realistic to the comics than anything that preceded this. But is it a Punisher film or is it a bit of fan fun for 10 minutes with an ending that suggests the character you've been watching is one and the same? Was it a surreptitious toe-in-the-water by Marvel to see if there was wiggle room for an ultra violent Punisher reboot or had Jane's career slumped so badly by this point he was prepared to pimp himself out for a high quality fan film? I'm going for the latter because much of the production value of this short is cheap and cheerful. It has been called the best Punisher film ever, but the problem with the Punisher is there have been umpteen male, female and animal vigilantes with more interesting back stories and better actors made and released, maybe this is a character that needs leaving alone now?]

Punisher War Zone has one extra fact that is both a bit nerdy and quite telling - it's literally the only full length Marvel film that hasn't got Kevin Feige's name attached to it - and I've double checked! It is also the only Marvel Knights film I know of. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is allegedly a Marvel Knights film but not according to anything I've seen.

As far as this film is concerned, I'm not really sure why it was even made. There appears to be no logic in rebooting the 'franchise' with a new actor and a slightly altered origin; however, that said, there appears to be no logic in why this absolute heap of shite was made in the first place. It appears I saved the worst till last; this is a film that in many ways is far far worse than the woeful Man-Thing film mainly because there are people you've heard of in this film; although to be fair not many of them would sneak on to a C level celebrity list.

For starters, the British actor Ray Stevenson - best known for being Mrs Stevenson's little boy and Volstagg in the Thor films (as previously mentioned) - doesn't utter a single word until the 29th minute of the film and even then his American accent is... questionable (I'm being charitable). While he might look big and beefy in Thor - as an Asgardian - he looks weedy and unimposing in P:WZ and while you could write a list of everything that was wrong about his Frank Castle, it would be nowhere as long as any of the rest of the film and why it was so bad...

Dominic West as Jigsaw, his strange brother - Looney Bin Jim - and the assortment of Dick Tracy-lite pantomime villain gangsters littered throughout the film, absolutely stunk the place out. The cops were all cliched doughnut guzzling idiots; there seemed to be a clear belief that the potential viewer must be a fan of the comics because we were introduced to the Punisher's network/team of helpers without any real explanation of who they were or why they were so important - incidentally a different team of helpers than the ones who helped Thomas Jane. The film was made mainly in Montreal with British and French Canadian actors; some of the scenes were filmed in Glasgow and a few others elsewhere in the UK. They used a lot of stock footage of New York including one cityscape of LA and whenever you were in a situation where a close-up was not needed the camera work went all fuzzy and blurry with polarised colours - almost as if they didn't want you spotting things that weren't in New York (like double decker buses). They even ran a sunrise backwards to donate a sunset rather than simply filing a sunset. The general theme to take from this is if could cut corners it did. 

Let's put this into some kind of context: I can't remember exactly what I think was the worst Marvel superhero film ever made (despite disliking many) but Punisher: War Zone is a new entry with a bullet at #1. It is a really dreadful, amateur-dramatic lump of wood and should be avoided like the plague and I'm absolutely gobsmacked this has a 5.9 rating on IMDB. I think this is a lie. Have I mentioned the word 'pantomime' or things like melodrama, amateur dramatic or the script that felt like it had been written by a 10 year old with a potato gun. The violence was OTT, with heads and arms disappearing or breaking like they were made from porcelain. It really decided to go the camp video nasty route. It should not be watched and no more Punisher films should ever be considered again.

And that pretty much concludes this foray into the Marvel films that sit outside of the current Marvel/Disney MCU. Yes, I've missed out Howard the Duck, The (original) Punisher (with Dolph Lundgren), Roger Corman's Fantastic Four (which never really got released because it was horrid), Ghost Rider and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, The Blade Trilogy, the rest of the X-Men franchise or any of the very obscure/rare films such as Nick Fury or Gen X. Some I've seen before, others I have more desire to self-mutilate than waste time on badly made curiosities.

I think it's safe to assume that non-MCU Marvel films are generally a load of crap and virtually every single one of them have flaws that spoil it. It's clear that until at least 2007, the approach was to throw as much shit at the wall and see if any of it stuck (and none of it did). Obviously, the irony now is that I find the MCU tiresome and I can be just as critical of it now as I have been of some of these.

Now, go and do something interesting or useful.