Teddy Jamieson kindly drops me a line to say that he has an interview with top Scottish comics scribe Mark Millar coming up in the magazine section of this Saturday’s Herald. Sadly it doesn’t look like the interview is going onto the Herald’s website so readers will need to pick up the print version of the paper to find out who Mark fancies even over Angelina Jolie, who, of course, is in the movie adaptation of Mark’s Wanted graphic novel, along with Scots actor James McAvoy (Last King of Scotland, Atonement). Sticking with the comics theme though you can read an article of Teddy’s in today’s Herald where he asks why the bulk of modern superhero movies have to be dark and edgy and not so cartoony, with the attempts at realism sometimes backfiring in his opinion:
“And I love comic books. Always have. There are still days when I can be found wandering along by the shelves of Forbidden Planet. If anything, my beef with comic- book movies is they’re frankly not comic- booky enough.
There are three problems. First is the suspension, or otherwise, of disbelief. No matter how gee-whizzy computer animation can get, I still never believe a man can fly. What can look thrilling and dynamic on the flat page looks, well, pretty silly on the silver screen. And it doesn’t help that costumes never look right (unless it’s a leather catsuit worn by Michelle Pfeiffer, which, of course, keys into a whole different kind of fantasy).”
Teddy goes on to make points about the attempts to make the characters ’serious’ and always with a dark side to their character. I’m not sure I entirely agree – a lot of comics which inspire these movies have also tended to include a fair bit of darkness to add to the drama in recent years (aided and abetted by that Dark Knight Returns influence), which may be partly a response to current events in our troubled world but also, I suspect, partly because the readers who once enjoyed simpler, 4-colour tales have grown up, still want to read comics but demand something a bit stronger. But his point that there should be room for more comics-based – especially superhero, although the two are not synonymous – movie adaptations which have a sense of fun about them is still valid. I mean much as I enjoy the darker material who wants to be serious all the time? Sometimes we want pure fun and adventure, the sort of qualities the Indiana Jones movies have provided so well for instance.
Leave a Reply