Superheroes And Serious Silliness

It seems like ages since a Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) trailer’s pivotal “Ooga-chaka”s told us exactly what kind of antics we could expect from a studio superhero flick.

Of course, writer/director James Gunn’s first superhero film, the 2010 whacko and ultraviolent Super, set up the possibilities of an absurd combination of realism and comic book cartoonishness in an even darker way. When The Crimson Bolt, aka Frank D’Arbo (Rainn Wilson), fractures a man’s skull with a wrench for cutting in line, everyone is noticeably freaked out. A mentally ill person just assaulted someone over a social gaffe. It’s horrifying black humor about what happens when you try to apply superhero logic to the real world. However, in the world of Snyder’s Batman v Superman, hell, even with the deadly serious Marvel Civil War approaching, it’s easy to forget that gritty superhero flicks work best with a dash of zingy weirdness, like that in Sam Raimi’s 1990 film Darkman and the new Bohemian Rhapsodic international Suicide Squad trailer.

Like Guardians of the Galaxy’s crew of lovable space miscreants, Darkman is kind of a dick. Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson)’s only goal – after a convoluted attack leaves him looking like a french fry stuck to the bottom of the greasy fryer basket – is to make his attacker, sadistic gangster Durant (Larry Drake), and his men pay. One scene sees him shoving an interogee’s head through a busy street’s manhole. “I’ve told you everything!” the goon says. “I know,” Westlake growls, “but let’s pretend you didn’t”. The unfortunate henchmen meets a tire shortly after.

Yet the movie, while focusing on a purely selfish hero’s origin story, has the good sense to incorporate goofy stylistic elements (seen to great effect in Raimi’s Evil Dead movies) to keep the viewer in a state of fun. It’s often dour and Liam Neeson is quite bad as an alternatively grating breathless spastic and growling psychopath, but oddball sensibility breaks through despite it all. The film is full of murder, and like Tim Burton’s Batman – Raimi’s Darkman’s contemporary – it’s because their dark tone doesn’t equal realism. Darkman is unhinged, actually acknowledged to have emotional problems that stem from the same operation that gave him super strength. Burton’s Batman broods in a phallic Art Deco nightmare, his slick, impersonal kills as over-the-top and weird as the rest of Burton’s signature flair.

Darkman’s The Invisible Man-style bandages and long dilapidated trench-coat twirl about in lieu of a cape as he rushes around the condemned factory he calls home. Plenty of the pipes, steam, fire, machinery, and steel-grate walkways familiar to ‘80s action fans fill the space to its brim, bestowing the fights there and those at the skyscraper-set climax with angular urban decay. This final battle isn’t so much to save his girlfriend (Frances McDormand) as it is to slaughter all the goons, leaving her saved as a pleasant side effect. At the same time, however, Darkman is constantly peeling off silly rubbery-looking masks, confronting henchmen as their facial double, and having psychedelic freakouts at carnivals:

The realistic elements heighten the fantastic, letting us applaud and laugh at the grotesque and violent oddities rather than embrace it as part of our world. A purely dark tone has only ever aided the clinical filmmaking of Christopher Nolan and his Dark Knight trilogy. That same seriousness towards consequences, violence, and a maturing audience can still be applied to superhero films, but unless some of the comic makes its way in, the fun sucks right out of the atmosphere, leaving us with the kind of joyless husk parodied by Deadpool. It also bears mentioning that Deadpool, from its horribly scarred revenge-seeking lead to its industrial park fight scenes, most closely parodies Darkman’s serious aspects.

Parodies notwithstanding, there’s still fun to be had. Like with Guardians, whenever we seem to get too bogged down in our own self-serious super-refuse, an enterprising trailer set to something other than a largo, minor key pop remix (thank god) comes along.

It may not come out until August 5th, but Suicide Squad’s new international trailer follows the Raimi and Gunn formula for dark fun quite well.

Will Smith’s Deadshot lock-and-loading to the beat after being tackled and nightsticked by prison guards is the same kind of empathetic espièglerie that attracts comic-loving kids and action fans alike. We know he can pull of being an empowered dirtbag thanks to Hancock (another superhero film that ascribes too much realism to its heroes to be much fun), but here his charisma seems well-placed as guns blast, glass breaks, and almost everyone gets punched.

Yet two sequences of violent montages are undercut with the finishing shots: the first, a series of punches culminating in Quinn’s hair puff, and the second a series of screams and gun cocks interrupted by Jai Courtney’s Captain Boomerang cracking open a soda. The most charming I’ve ever seen Jai Courtney be is this two second bit of him goofing off, which is exactly what something starring Jared Leto’s method-acted Joker needs. Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn provides an almost innocuous bookend when things get too heavy. Waving on an elevator, blowing the hair out of her eyes, and stealing a purse from a storefront, she’s tempering the audience’s expectations of seriousness as she tames her cohorts: “We’re bad guys. It’s what we do”.

A little silliness goes a long way, especially when your audience is on the hook for two hours of mayhem. Enjoyment get bogged down in something like Batman v. Superman production designer Patrick Tatopoulos’s generic troll slop. The least fun movie to watch, or comic to read, is something gray, lifeless, and self-serious, like a smushed collage of soggy newsprint.