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July 01, 2003
Not So Special Effects
A fifteen foot ‘hulking’ monster leaping across the desert. Three women ‘wire-fu’ing their way across a Tibetan monastery. Paul Walker attempting to act. I’ve just given you three failed examples of special effects that haven’t connected with audience members in the last month of cinema.
We as audiences have been told that we expect, nay, demand, the ‘Big Bang’ theory of moviemaking to take hold of our imagination during the summer months. We ‘want’ to check our brains at the door after purchasing a ten dollar ticket. Between the ticket booth and our seat in the theatre, we get a seven dollar popcorn and a five dollar latte; we can then drop off our dry cleaning, sample some perfume, and test drive a car. The cinematic lobotomy, however, isn’t working. Film after film this summer has fallen prey to the ‘second-weekend drop off’. Both ‘Hulk’ and ‘2 Fast 2 Furious’ have seen their box office takes drop 2 fast for their studios’ liking. The newly-dubbed $50 million dollar benchmark proved too much for ‘Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle’ even in its first week, amassing $2 million less than its predecessor did in November.
So what gives? Why the lack of long-term interest on the part of audiences? Why are some ‘sure things’ quickly fading from the cineplex faster than you can say ‘The Core’? In short, there is too much of a good thing, Toto. The above movies have all fallen under the ‘Matrix: Reloaded’ umbrella of fare which inspire shock and awe, but not appreciation, in their audiences. Whoa, indeed. The movies are so eager to entertain that they have forgotten how to engage. No one has entered these movies expecting art-house dramas, but in each case, these movies have forgotten to add a little ‘art’ to their ‘artifice’.
Take ‘Charlies Angels: Full Throttle’. (Please, cry Women’s Studies Departments nationwide!) Whereas the first paid homage to wire-fu fighting, the new movie basically mocks the entire genre. The first movie celebrated the limitless of female empowerment via unbelievable moves that were not technically possible according the laws of physics that I once studied. The new movie, however, throws out any believability whatsoever in search of a way to get the ladies out of a series of ever escalating (but beautifully shot) scenarios. The girls need to escape? Have them grab planks of wood and surf down a rope. Have them find a flame-thrower in the middle of the street to blast an Irish hang. An audience will quickly lose interest in a movie where every scene has a deus ex machina on its side.
Take ‘Hulk and see how much more attention was paid to the CGI-Hulk versus its living, breathing co-stars. I hesitate to even lump a CG character in with the ‘cast’, but Ang ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’ Lee clearly thinks otherwise. My only guess is that, in the original treatment to ‘The Ice Storm’, Ang called for a 15-foot monster who smashes everything in sight, but due to budgetary constrictions, he could only get Joan Allen. No disrespect to Ms. Allen; I’m just pretty sure she can’t outrun an Apache helicopter. (And I think we’ll all agree that’s for the best.)
The first hour of ‘Hulk’ plays to the nervous, contained rage found in ‘The Ice Storm’, so much that you’re lulled into forgetting you came to see ‘Hulk’ at all. When the creature finally erupts, it’s so out of place with the chamber drama that preceded it that you can’t quite adjust to what you’re seeing. (Then again, if you did, and you can explain the last five minutes to me, I’ll pay for your dry cleaning after the movie.)
I’m not here to argue the merits of the ‘reality’ of special effects. Special effects are not ‘real’. They are, however, tools to help tell a story, and in the correct hands are employed as such. That’s not the point here. The point is that effects will never replace good old-fashioned story in audiences’ eyes. A three-mile jump will never match a quiet character moment. People bought Drew Barrymore hugging ‘E.T.’ more than her riding a dirt-bike in ‘Full Throttle’ because of the emotion imbued in the former. No one cared that she was groping the World’s Scariest Muppet; the story and the character work of that movie made the audience move past the artifice of the film and into the truth of the emotion itself. The ‘look, but don’t touch’ attitude of ‘Full Throttle’ and ‘Hulk’ titillate but ultimately repel the audiences. Since the effects in these two movies largely serve themselves, and not the story, then no one has a reason to come back and see it again.
There’s nothing wrong with a movie that only wants to blow things up for ninety minutes. But by the same token, movie studios have yet to realize that a simply artificial film will yield artificial first-week results. The fact that ‘Hulk’ grossed $25 million more than ‘Full Throttle’ says nothing about the comparative merits of the film, but everything to do with the marketing campaigns. The almost 70% second-week box-office drop of ‘Hulk’, however, speaks volumes about what audiences thought about the movie. As much as we’re told the opposite, we as audiences actually want to care about the people near these explosions. We want to get lost in, not admire from afar, a fight scene. ‘The Two Towers’ showed us how to care for a fully-CGI character in the form of ‘Gollum’; all that ‘Hulk’ showed us was that eugenics on French poodles is a really, really bad idea. Audiences are smart enough to know the difference, and they demonstrate this difference via their wallets.
The lesson to be learned, as Hollywood executives may be gleaning already, is that a little bit can go a long way to ensuring the box-office success for their major investments. No one pays $10 for ‘Hulk’ and expects to see ‘The Cherry Orchard’, but we don’t expect to need a few Red Bull to make it through the first hour. We don’t pay our hard-earned cash to watch Cameron Diaz engage in an ultra-realistic ‘Fight Club’-esque throwdown, but we do expect that the laws of gravity apply to her as well as the nameless henchman she’s kicking.
In the end, it would do these executives good to look at the domestic top-three grossing movies of time: ‘Titanic’, ‘Star Wars’, and ‘E.T.’ The success of these films testifies to the fact that there exists a very large market for movies which play across a vast canvas while taking care to focus on the most intimate of details. A big star, a buxom babe, and a blue screen can no longer guarantee large coffers for a studio. Audiences demand more. They’ve seen better. Sadly, given the fare in the theatre lately, those types of movies seem to all have happened a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.
Posted by Ryan McGee at July 1, 2003 01:42 PM
Comments
"An audience will quickly lose interest in a movie where every scene has a deus ex machina on its side."
Sounds like "Die Another Day" to me.
My main reasons for seeing neither The Hulk nor Charlie's Angels yet is I just haven't had the time, but that's clearly not what's at work. The simple fact is that most movies are not hits. Creating a mix like a Spider-Man or a LOTR, where the special effects simultaneously are eye-catching and also in the service of an overall effect is incredibly difficult, even if you've done it before.
I'm sorry, "Superman II" just isn't as good a movie as the first one because the balance is off (Zod or no Zod)(and don't get me started on III or IV). As hokey a special effect as it is, turning back the world is a good use of special effects because it's an emotional payoff that both connects to earlier portions of the film and has an emotional character development payoff. Superman throwing a giant cellophane "S" in the second one is just, well, stupid.
"Star Trek: First Contact" is light years better than "Generations," "Insurrection" and "Nemesis," and made significantly more money, but they had the exact same people working on all four movies!
And after Episode I and Episode II, I'm beginning to think Lucas hit the magic mix in the original "Star Wars" pretty much by accident.
Special effects are all about novelty-- seeing something fantastic that we've never seen before. But that's at odds with the very nature of a "sequel" film or heck, a "formula" film, which is more focused on "Give the audience what they're familiar with." I don't think it's a question of how unwilling the audience is to accepting Lucy Liu's fantastic and impossible acrobatics so much as, y'know, we've SEEN it. Like the Matrix Reloaded fights, it may be bigger and better, but it just doesn't have the surprise of the original.
And poor Ang Lee. The only successful CGI characters have been supporting characters, folks you can pull off one or two big splashy scenes with and then stick with the human actors to do the heavy lifting. Right now, you just can't have a virtual actor as your lead and not have it distract from what you're trying to do. Not even if you cast Tara Reid.
Posted by: Commander Foley at July 1, 2003 02:09 PM
Also, fun fact, while I'm still on "Superman: The Movie."
So obviously there's a good twenty minutes of special effects towards the end... Superman chasing the missile, catching it and throwing it into space. Superman zipping into the earth's crust and resealing the entire San Andreas Fault. Superman catching that bus on the Golden Gate bridge. Superman bridging that gap in the train tracks with his body. Superman creating a landslide to prevent the town from flooding. Superman pulling Lois' car out of the ditch. Oodles and oddles of maneuvering-while-flying shots. All really impressive special effects, about half of which still stand up to this day.
At the premiere screening, where in this massive section of pretty much ALL special effects did the audience cheer?
When he saw Lois wasn't breathing and ripped the door off the car. Probably the easiest effect in the entire sequence.
There you go. That's the magic mix that money alone can't buy.
Posted by: Commander Foley at July 1, 2003 02:19 PM
Hey, Commander what about Spiderman that was at least a b-movie with a CGI leadman?
I really wanted to see Hulk just haven't had the time, now my sails have been deflated so I'm not so sure, thanks Ryan!! I could see beforehand that Hulk might not go over to well, and its seems that is the case.
Posted by: Marc at July 1, 2003 02:22 PM
Hollywood has shown that it can still churn out movies whose effects are eye-popping and that also have characters whom the audience can develop a relationship with. Spider-Man is an example, as well as LOTR. However, these movies are few and far between. I just wonder if the Spidey sequel will fall prey to the same blunders as Charlie's Angels and the Hulk.
As for the Star Wars prequels, I have no great expectations of the next one, seeing as though the last 2 have been disappointing. Hayden Christiansen is pretty to look at, but painful to watch him try to act.
Posted by: Lori at July 1, 2003 02:26 PM
Agreed with you, Foley, on the original trilogy as being somewhat lucky. Either than or George got lopped upside the head in between "Return" and "Phantom".
I literally can't make it through these movies alone anymore. I'm sure there's a drinking game to be found. Maybe "LOTR" spoiled me beyond belief. Effects in service of a story that I actually care about, since the characters seem to care about it.
People were hyped for "Matrix: Reloaded" as a trailer, not a movie. Maybe the third movie for "Matrix" and "Star Wars" will pay it off for us as viewers, but I'm just not sold. They are marvels of animation and CGI, just not filmmaking, IMO.
Posted by: ryan at July 1, 2003 02:28 PM
If you count Spidey and Peter Parker as the same person (which you should), then he's a CGI character for what, 10% of the film, maybe? That movie works because Sam Raimi gives Tobey Maguire the ball and says, "Go get me three innings to close this one out, chief." The human actor does the heavy lifting. QED
Posted by: Commander Foley at July 1, 2003 02:29 PM
You don't even need a Tobey-esque performance to ensure a great action movie, but man, it sure doesn't hurt.
Posted by: ryan at July 1, 2003 02:36 PM
You're right, Ryan, Tobey's performance isn't necessary, but a story like that is.
Posted by: Lori at July 1, 2003 02:52 PM
Lucas did not write or direct Empire or Return (in my opinion, the two best in the series). That's what happened. The man just can't write!
Posted by: Jen at July 1, 2003 05:10 PM