Superhero genre fans had a great year in 2008 with the release of three excellent movies: Iron Man starring Robert Downey Jr, The Incredible Hulk with Edward Norton, and of course, the uber-performing The Dark Knight with Christian Bale. Yeah, there were a couple of others, like Wanted (hot bullets, hot Angie) and Hancock (hot Charlize, um, hot Charlize?) and some might even consider Jimmy Bond in Quantum of Solace (boom boom brood boom), but the biggest and baddest of them were Chris, Ed, and Bobby. These guys got their big time in the sunshine, but things weren’t always so hot (or showy) for them as they worked their way up the hero ladder to become the biggest bad-asses of the year. For those of you who are new to these guys, there’s a lot of great flicks for you to check out showing how they got their chops. What follows is a selection of more obscure personal favorites for you to try out that I think you’ll like.
    Christian Bale has been one of the best unknown actors starring in some of the more interesting cult movies of the past ten years. As Patrick Bateman in American Psycho (2000) he used his chiseled physique and GQ looks to make axing your co-worker a stylish endeavor. And if you want to see what he looked like right before he made Batman Begins to appreciate his dedication to the craft, check out The Machinist (2004), but make sure you have a good meal before you watch it. However, for lovers of the art of kick-ass, see Equilibrium (2002). Back then, for those of us looking for a candidate for the perfect Bruce Wayne, this one was the clincher. Set in a dystopian future where the population is injected with Prozium by government edict to control their emotions, Bale plays Cleric John Preston, a member of the fascist police state’s Tetragrammaton that hunts down ‘sense offenders’ and destroys all objects of art, music, and literature (think 1984 + Fahrenheit 451). When Preston accidentally misses his shot of Prozium one day he starts to develop feelings and eventually becomes a revolutionary against the state. Sure, that doesn’t sound too cool, but what is VERY cool is that Clerics are taught the deadly art of Gun Kata, a form of martial arts using guns. The speed with which a Cleric disposes of a group of assailants surrounding him using this discipline is awesome and very well choreographed. You’ll want to slo-mo through some of these, I promise you. A memorable scene to look for involves Preston, a lot of cops, and a puppy. Yes, a puppy. And if ‘gun fu’ isn’t enough, a handy sword is used now and then just as effectively when the bullets run out. So yeah, the action is great, but what about the story? Sure, it’s a little derivative, but it sets a good framework for the action and has its fair share of emotional beats. Not many, but if you want to see Bale’s audition for action hero, this is the best one.
    Robert Downey Jr. has quite a long resume and has dabbled in the fantasy/sci-fi genre before, such as in Gothika (2003) with Halle Berry, and the (sort of) animated A Scanner Darkly (2006) based on the Phillip K. Dick story. A lesser hyped recent work that I like better is Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) with Val Kilmer. Directed by Shane Black, writer of the original Lethal Weapon movies, KKBB brings Black’s sharp and humorous dialog up to this century in a story of mistaken identity, murder, and noir in L.A. Downey plays a loser at the end of his rope who, during a robbery attempt with an accomplice at a toy store, barely escapes and accidentally runs into an audition for a Hollywood movie while evading the police. Channeling his emotions of the moment he wins over the interviewers and is packed up and sent to L.A. While there he becomes entangled with a murder mystery, a gay detective (Kilmer), and oddly enough his childhood sweetheart, all of which are intertwined into a finale that is both exciting and darkly humorous. Downey is great at playing smooth characters with a tragically comedic edge, and his interplay here is as good as it gets. With solid performances by Kilmer and all involved, this is very entertaining and a good place to see Downey hone the repartee he uses so well in Iron Man.
    Edward Norton is another cult favorite with many credits under his belt that you may remember, for me most notably in Fight Club (1999) and The Illusionist (2006). Norton tends to play very serious and very flawed characters in his pics, but if you want to really see him go against the ‘serious’ type, check out Death to Smoochy (2002). Playing Sheldon Mopes, an actor with aspirations of making it big in children’s entertainment, he gets thrust into instant stardom when the star of the biggest children’s show on TV is fired over a bribery scandal and Mopes is brought in as his replacement in the guise of Smoochy the fuscia rhinoceros. Any similarities to famous purple dinosaurs I’m sure are deliberately accidental. As Smoochy’s success increases, Mopes finds that the TV business is not as pure as he would hope and soon runs into contention with his superiors. At the same time, his predecessor is slowly going insane with hatred and plotting the murder of Smoochy. If I had to pick one thing this movie needed to make it an even better pick it would be to push it more to the extreme either way. It tries to run somewhere down the middle between black humor and metaphorical commentary and never quite achieves both as well as it should, but watching Norton as the naïve and innocent Mopes kind of makes up for some of the heavy handedness that his co-star and director Danny DeVito brings and does so well.
    So, for those of you wanting to see more of the heroes of 2008 in obscure performances worth your time, get Equilibrium, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Death to Smoochy. At least it’ll give you something worthwhile to look at while waiting for Watchmen!

Labels: film/tv