The Australian: Return of people power [March 29, 2006]
You know a film has touched a sensitive nerve when a writer for the Guardian wonders whether sedition laws are appropriately used against it. The story in the Australian (above) gives some background to the film.
The Guardian's film reviewer didn't like it either:
Yet another graphic novel has been bulldozed on to the screen, strutting its stuff for an assumed army of uncritical geeks - a fanbase product from which the fanbase has been amputated. This film manages to be, at all times, weird and bizarre and baffling, but in a completely boring way. Watching it is like having the oxygen supply to your brain slowly starved over more than two hours.
Yet it has made some money in America and at Rotten Tomatoes scored a relatively high approval rating. Seems Americans are not so sensitive about movies involving bombs in the Underground. Just as long as it is not their subway.
Again, I will annoy people by criticising something I haven't seen. I predict, based on the simple fact that it is a movie that is based on a graphic novel, that it will be crap.
Hollywood really, really, has to use better material for its movies than this. Graphic novel material means a high probability that the movie will have good production design, and unrealistic or unconvincing characters.
Comic based movies were OK for a while, I suppose. But it was never a genre that had much depth. They can have a silly charm. But there have been so many dud movies based on Marvel comic heros who no adult has heard of, don't the creative types in Hollywood want to finally leave them alone? How do the writers "pitch" their material convincingly?
By the way, I like animation quite a lot, and this rant does not indicate a simple prejudice against material designed for a younger audience. I understand the appeal of a graphic novel, even though I don't read them. But please stop with the movies based on this kind of stuff.
2 comments:
Graphic novels can actually be very complex and interesting.
Of course, Maus, a reflection on the impact of the Holocaust on a family, won the Pulitzer.
There have been other great graphic novels as well including those by Marjane Satrapi about growing up in Iran.
A couple of good semi-biographical films about graphic novelists are Crumb (about Robert Crumb) and American Splendor (about Harvey Pekar).
Graphic novels are certainly not just dopey comics for adults.
I'm a bit of a purist, or a bit stupid, depending on which way you want to look at it - I like words and pictures to be kept separate! (Although I did very much enjoy comics when I was a kiddie.)
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