The Problem Child

To follow the bombastic box office beater Iron Man, Marvel chose to tackle their most unpredictable property.  Ang Lee's 2003 effort at bringing Marvel's Jekyll and Hyde to the screen is politely ignored as the shadow of Bill Bixby stands tall over Edward Norton's incarnation.  Although this time he's Bruce and not David thankfully.

As a TV series, The Incredible Hulk was a mainstay of childhoods anchored around a mere four television channels.  It's for that reason that a heavy dose of nostalgia would help Kevin Feige truly incorporate Hulk into the newly established Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Lou Ferrigno is, not entirely, replaced by CGI as Edward Norton takes the role of the tormented scientist who eats odd meals in bowls as Bill Bixby appears in South American imports.  Norton was no stranger to duality after Fight Club but with the clever incorporation of breathing exercises and anger management techniques keeps the gamma fuelled beast at bay.  For a while at least.

The leading players are vaguely established and the origin story glossed over; this is a movie for fans.  Hulk fans will know all about the gamma rays, Thunderbolt Ross and Betsy but the lab accident and Banner going fugitive could have done with a bit more backbone.  The US military is cast as the enemy as it seeks to get its hands on an uncontrollable weapon.  It's a seemingly age old plotline that has been brought to life by Weyland Yutani and many others.  It's often been said that Hulk was a reaction to The Cold War and the military-industrial complex even if he was a reinvention of Jekyll and Hyde.  A harsh juxtaposition in more recent times to DC's Dr Manhattan.  However, let's face it, allegory is displaced by explosions and green screens in the Noughties and so we have The Abomination.  Thanks very much Wolfgang Peterson, Michael Bay et al.

No, The Leader is alluded to but we are presented with The Abomination.  Woefully miscast is Tim Roth who gamefully gets his Hulkamania on only to be splatted all over the screen.  The Abomination looks like a steroid addicted version of Dogma's Golgothan. 

Just add gamma rays

It feels like a concession, what started off as a reasonably cerebral exercise in story telling soon gives way to smoke filled conservatories and footprints we haven't seen since Jurassic Park, the formula is exemplified by the tacked on end credits scene.  You can almost feel the frantic phone calls getting William Hurt and Downey Jr into a room to introduce a 'team.'

The Incredible Hulk is missing the sense of ambition and grandiose that Marvel gave Iron Man and, later, Thor.  However many nice touches and nods to the past are made Marvel can't quite shake the notion that The Incredible Hulk is a place filler, burdened with lost love, a warm up act for something yet to come.  The lack of continuity as Norton is exiled in favour of Mark Ruffalo in time for Avengers Assemble proves this.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe may be expanding after its Big Bang but quantity isn't a substitute for quality.

The Marvel Rehabilitation

DC Comics had stolen a march, we weren't in the Golden Age any more and superheroes and comic books had grown and evolved into motion pictures.  Marvel fitfully competed with DC's own fitful efforts.  Licensing deals came and went and whilst X-Men scored big The Incredible Hulk was soon to have a reboot of a reboot. It was all a bit haphazard until a shuffling of management and the ascension of Kevin Feige.  Feige was to put a coherence to the making of Marvel films and forge the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  The billion dollar juggernaut would awaken Disney whilst making DC look slightly impotent as they held Christopher Nolan forward as their one shining light.  It's not just the Easter eggs that make Marvel films work.  And to think Iron Man had been stuck in the very definition of development Hell for nearly 20 years.  Marvel just needed something, a little spark.

But how does he pee?

The spark was Robert Downey Jr.  The very definition of perfect casting as Tony Stark.  Stark and Downey Jr are immensely similar.  Essentially, both are brash Bruce Waynes, playboy arseholes with a twinkle in the eye that makes them forgivable and likable.  It's not even Downey Jr's impeccable facial hair that makes Iron Man a good movie.  It's paced perfectly, not too CGI dependant given the circumstances and the casting is spot on.  A relatively lame ending is handled well and pitched just about right by director Jon Favreau.

Iron Man always struck me as a Batman rip off without the emotional issues but the filmmakers have managed to distinguish the two.  Jarvis abandons human form to become a docile Terminator and Stark's relationship with Rhodes is brought in as a central theme.  The corporate giant isn't a Waynesque loner twisted by rage but a sociable, champagne swigging capitalist; Eisenhower's military-industrial complex in human form.  Stark's inherited genius and resourcefulness see him design a life saving exoskeleton which makes him Iron Man.  Seemingly at a loss for anything better to do Stark uses his alter ego to promote peace much to the chagrin of his business partner , Obadiah Stane.  It's amazing that a near death experience can cause an egotistic prick to abandon chasing profits to go off and do some manufacturing in his home workshop.  It's elements like this that make Stark a little unrelateable; he has everything at his disposal and the inexplicably named Pepper Potts will tidy up any mess he makes.  Iron Man rattles along enjoyably enough as Stark attempts to reconcile his friends with his new metallic persona whilst the background rumbles with Stane's Machiavellian jealousy.  Naturally enough it all comes to a head with two iron men battling each other.  It's the gentle introduction of Agent Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D. that make Iron Man less than formulaic. 

Now Stark isn't just at odds with himself and his former business partner but the quintessential Man In Black from the Government looms over him.  The explosion of popularity for S.H.I.E.L.D. has spun off across the Marvel universe and a lot of this is down to typecasting.  Clark Gregg is always a face of Government, neatly suited and booted in The West Wing or as a policeman in CSI amongst other things.  We have to wait for a hideously tacked on post credits scene to see just who Coulson works for, a scene which paves the way for all following movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Iron Man is used as an introductory tool, a foundation and a marker for what Feige wants from his comic book properties.  For years DC had the market cornered  with the exception of Marvel's interloping X Men but now there can only be one outcome: an Avengers film.  The only problem is how to introduce so many characters of a team without confusing an audience.  Marvel's solution was simple: give them all a standalone feature before bringing together a super team.  Iron Man is merely the first square.  Marvel passes go and collects considerably more than $200.

Iron Man was clearly produced with the intention to spawn a legacy of sequels and whilst Jeff Bridges is great you feel Downey Jr needs a villain for his quips to bounce off, someone like, say Sam Rockwell.  But he'll have to wait as Marvel are getting the green paint out again on Photoshop.

Why Do We Fall?

The corpse of Schumacher's Batman had gone cold, nipples presumably still erect, the Millennium had come and gone and Warner Bros were, understandably, nervous of superheroes.  The Matrix had come and spawned inferior sequels whilst Fox had dalliances with The X Men and Daredevil. Quality and success was inconsistent. It was all a bit haphazard.  For every Spider-Man there was a Hulk and every Blade a Catwoman.  Disney was yet to establish and mine Marvel Studios and Time Warner seemed to view DC as an unwanted inheritance.  Undoubtedly, there was money to be made but there was no vision, no continuity.  There was something missing and it took an Englishman to find it.

Christopher Nolan and David S Goyer set out to humanise the Bruce Wayne/Batman axis and make us care about the whole package and not just the Batarang round the back of the Joker's head.  The rumoured development of Miller's Batman:Year One looms heavy over the story as does The Long Hallowe'en and it's ideas of corruption and organised crime running Gotham whilst a surprising serial killer stalks the streets.  Loeb and Sale effectively balanced villains' origins and a surprising twist, something Nolan surely took as inspiration.  Not only were the actual comics really being used as source material but the realism and darkness of 80's and 90's Batman was being taken from the page to the screen effectively.  Burton's cartoonish realism was being usurped by a Taxi Driver cityscape easily identifiable as the industrial Northeast of the US.

Nolan seemed like a safe pair of hands for a new crack at Batman.  Despite not having an extensive filmography his ace in hand was undoubtedly Memento.  Memento was one of those films that Hollywood studios like: cheap and successful both critically and commercially.  It cost $4.5 million and pulled in five times that on a release fuelled by word of mouth and viral marketing.  Viral marketing would become a core feature of The Dark Knight trilogy and the following Man of Steel. Cloverfield would have MySpace profiles and Japanese drinks but Batman would have 'I Believe In Harvey Dent' and mysterious chanting.

Nolan's character driven approach was to be a refreshing tonic for the franchise now twitching back to life.  Nolan and Goyer chose to do something not yet seen on film; they chose to fully explain how Bruce Wayne adopted the Batman persona.  Batman Begins was to truly be an origin story. Yeah, we all know kiddie Wayne went to the theatre and watched his parents get dispatched by a mugger, but was this mugger really a pre-sheep dip Joker?  No, that was just convenient artistic license.  Lifting Joe Chill from the comics was much more satisfying.  Indirectly, Chill creates the Batman and Chill's time in jail is used to accelerate the story.  An amazing ensemble cast is presented as Bruce Wayne grows up and disappears.  The double act of Michael Caine's Alfred and Morgan Freeman's Lucius Fox is a perfect antidote to Rutger Hauer's Earle and his boardroom schemes.  The corporate shenanigans are far removed from the brown slime, corruption and rain which threatens to swallow up the idealistic Lt. Gordon.  Gary Oldman has a knack of looking younger than he is but at the same time conveying huge amounts of weariness and wisdom as he stands alone against the old school Irish gangsters led by Tom Wilkinson.  He might have an Italian name but Falcone is more The Departed than The Godfather.

The time spent laying Gotham's roots parallels Bruce Wayne's training in Batman: Year One but this time Wayne is trained by the ominous League of Shadows.  But who is Bruce Wayne/Batman? Nolan chose Christian Bale and looking back there couldn't have been anyone else for the role.  Jake Gylenhaal would've been great for me but back then he was too young and inexperienced, his Donnie Darko days whored for a teen turn opposite Dennis Quaid.  Much has been made of Bale being ever so method, bulking up from Trevor Reznik a little too much and hating the suit they made him wear.  Bale is yet unleash his full tetchiness as McG will testify.  It was less The Machinist and more Equilibrium and American Psycho that made Bale the best choice, these films showed he had the physical and mental edge to compliment his undoubted ability.

Bale would need an enemy of suitable gravitas.  Despite his amazingly beautiful blue eyes Cillian Murphy wasn't quite enough.  It's clear Dr Crane was a secondary villain but who he was really working for comes as quite a surprise.  Murphy is excellent as Crane and his alter ego but Nolan and Goyer didn't make his character big enough, presumably the payback for this was to have Crane as an ever present in the trilogy.  Crane's weapon of choice inspires some excellent hallucinations and it's fitting that the action explodes in Arkham Asylum.  The hospital had become a comedy dumping ground under Schumacher but is restored to Victorian horror by Nolan.  The completion is augmented by the cameo of Mr Zsasz, a particularly nasty foe of Batman.

Batman Begins sees Bruce Wayne adopt technology and grow into the role of vigilante.  Aided by Fox we move from billionaire spelunker and adrenaline junkie to full blown vigilante.  Whilst the Tumbler is the most eye catching of the technological advancements it's not the most important.  Wayne's improvisation and eye for the theatrical leads him to delve into his am-dram days and come up with the costume.  The attention to detail is remarkable, whether deliberate or note the Batsuit is heavy and hot, yet flexible.  When Bale put the suit on he hated it, his bad mood channelled through the character to make Batman a figure of rage and vengeance.  Everything is explained from the electrically manipulated fabric to the trial and error cowls.  Fox is Bruce Wayne's Q and does provide some light relief.

The same cannot be said of Rachel Dawes.  I've flicked through comics, Selina Kyle, Vicki Vale, Leslie Thompkins, Silver St Cloud and Jezebel Jet.  All woman of various ages and connections to Wayne and Batman but no Rachel Dawes which probably explains why I find her character so irritating.

Nolan may not have been convinced he'd get another crack at Batman but Warner Bros went into marketing overdrive ensuring the critical success was matched at the box office.  Batman Begins wasn't the biggest film of 2005  (come on, there was a Star Wars and a Harry Potter that year) but it did beat Hitch and The Fantastic Four.  All of a sudden those calling cards in Gordon's evidence bag weren't just wishful thinking.