By Julian Wood
Recently some friends were discussing the latest blockbuster release, Batman V Superman: Dawn Of Justice. “That’s silly,” said one of the crew, who was unfashionable enough not to have seen it. “Superman would obviously win. Unless Batman could get some Kryptonite.” There then followed a discussion of the ending (no spoilers here) and how they always set films like this up for a sequel, either by having the last big battle end in a stand-off, or via the little coda that suggests, either visually or orally, that the vanquished party will come back and fight again.
Part of the problem is the whole drift to franchises, in Hollywood at least, but also the focus on the box office, and the desire to satisfy a mass audience which seems to relish special effects and over-the-top sound to anything too nuanced. As films like this cost so much, the money men want to make sure of the profits in advance which, in turn, nudges them to safe choices like repeats and sequels. Really, did we need the concept of the prequel?
The very idea of matching up various unlikely contenders/opponents has been around before. Horror movies got there first (as they often do) and have played with the camp absurdity of this idea years ago. Do you remember Freddy Vs Jason (2003)? At the time, that seemed to work in a surf-and-turf kind of way, but there is something forced about it too. It’s not that you can’t swallow it, but one is left with the feeling that they would make better meals on their own.
With Batman and Superman – despite have a long shared history in comic book form – there is a deeper sense that they belong to different imaginative universes. Apart from having a problem working out if underwear is worn on the inside or the outside, they have little in common. Batman is essentially an American urban crime fighting figure, an heir to Dick Tracy. Superman, meanwhile, was born on Krypton, which is not a suburb of New York, or Gotham. He is actually an alien, and would not get an American passport under any US President. He also has genuine super powers, which was why President Reagan once famously said to have regretted that he wasn’t available to solve the particular international crisis of that day.
The other thing about superhero movies and comic franchises is that they have become so dark. Most superheroes used to be fairly uncomplicated in both their identity and their mission to serve, as befitted simpler times. Now they have to be troubled souls “burdened” by wealth and/or isolation, as much concerned with their own individual neuroses as their social responsibility. One of the high water marks of this trend was Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008). Batman (the inimitable Christian Bale) was now an out-and-out basket case up against someone even more deranged in the form of The Joker (Heath Ledger). It was a striking film. Ledger gave a bravura performance, which, ironically, more or less capped his too-short career. It was disturbing not just in the make-up applied by a child or a blind person, but in its essence. This Joker was at the same time knowing, cruel, childlike, and gleefully sadistic. It also worked so well because of the sort of actor/person that Ledger was (a real talent and, by all accounts, a gentle man).
Batman is not gay by the way (as the hilarious spoof on Slate.com recently joked). He may, in “real” life, be an eligible millionaire and confirmed bachelor who adorns his mansion with a comely young lad, but they are really a serious crime fighting duo. We will sue anyone who suggests otherwise. Well, it worked for Liberace.
This brings us back to Batman and his various re-inventions/reincarnations. In the original comic, he decides to become Batman because his parents are gunned down by an all-purpose “hood” (though mercifully, the assailants were not racialised in those days). It was only a couple of frames on the page (and many comic fans can still probably see the exact mise en scene of that crime), but it was enough to set up the backstory and the motivation with real power and economy. Today, as noted, we have to have heroes who are self-tortured bipolar figures only one step away from the psychiatrist’s couch exorcising their demons on all and sundry. Of course, this also reflects the passage of time in another way. A genre, or a popular form, has a long life. But, more importantly, they haul their first audiences with them. It is often said that the average age of gamers, for example, is somewhere in the mid-thirties. That means that there are a lot of people above that line who are happily pushing their little console buttons in their forties and fifties. In fact, they will be joined at the further end by residents of old folks’ homes, as doctors have discovered that video games are a good way to maintain hand-eye coordination and even perhaps stave off mental degeneration.
It is not the infantile nature of the product/creation that matters as much as the engagement with the action. The same must hold true for these sorts of movies really. As the audience-measurers and studio bosses have known forever, engaging the audience in the power of narrative is the irreplaceable heart of the business.
