The Avengers

I wanted to write about my reaction to The Avengers trailer about a week ago, but I had trouble because there aren't all that many interesting ways for me to say I AM EXCITE, MAY SHOULD GET HERE FASTER.  So, there you go: it's a fabulous trailer, and I have high expectations for the films.

I think it's both interesting and worth mentioning that Marvel has basically taken a backwards approach to The Avengers franchise; usually, you get the ensemble film and THEN the spin-offs.  Do to necessity, perhaps, Marvel gave us the spin-offs first, and now has the herculean task of bringing together half a dozen disparate, egotistical, arrogant and powerful characters.  Some things we should note that Marvel did particularly well in preparing for this task, which are also all reasons why The Avengers has more potential to be wonderful than to fall on its face:

- Giving the characters worth caring about their own films.  Let's be honest: Black Widow, Hawkeye, Agent Coulson and Nick Fury are pretty awesome characters, but none of them are strong enough to carry their own films.  And Marvel wisely didn't try; instead, they built them up through other, more interesting movies.  The Thor movie is sort of the exception, and I think it suffered because Thor himself isn't a very interesting character, but the argument can be made that that film was more about Loki than Thor anyway. 

- Hiring fabulous writers that (most importantly) have experience with ensemble casts.  Joss Whedon writes really good dialogue, and he has shown in multiple venues that he writes distinctive voices for multiple characters really well.  Zak Penn, the other credited script writer, worked on one of the best comic book movies of the last ten years (X2), and fabricated two sequels that, compared to their originals, were veritable works of genius (Norton's Hulk and Elektra, the latter of which I will defend until I die because I actually thought it was fun).  He also wrote X-Men: The Last Stand, and regardless of what you thought of that particular film (I liked it), the dialogue was as solid as its predecessors.  These guys know what they're doing.

- The casting is perfection.  I've already written about how impressed I am with Chris Evans' Captain America (read my review here), and at this point it pretty much goes without saying that Robert Downey Jr. = Tony Stark (similarly to how Patrick Stewart = Professor X).  Chris Hemsworth as Thor was one of the only interesting things about that movie, and Mark Ruffalo certainly can't do worse at being Bruce Banner than anyone already has.  And if I need to mention Sam Jackson's Nick Fury here, you really haven't been paying attention.

- Not introducing a new villain.  I've just convinced myself that the purpose of Thor was actually to introduce Loki, rather than Thor himself, and all of his daddy issues, which means that The Avengers won't have to dedicate valuable time to introducing a brand new villain.  What I hope this means is that we'll get to spend more time seeing how all these egos learn to play nice together, which is honestly more interesting to me than villain backstory.  Which leads me to my last point:

- We're essentially done with backstory.  All of the establishing is done.  We know everything about these people that we need to, so we can get right into the meat of the story.  It really, really bugs me when filmmakers waste time, or spin out a movie longer than it should be; hopefully, with The Avengers we'll get no wasted space.

Actors Miscast

The other day I found out that Natalie Dormer is playing Margaery Tyrell in season two of Game of Thrones.  I think this is the first serious miscast that HBO has done in the series, and I said so on Twitter - and then my friend Spencer said, "Hey!  Talking about miscast actors would make a good blog post!"  And I agreed.  His first example was Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan in Clear and Present Danger, which unfortunately I can't comment on because I've never seen the film.  But!  I came up with some pretty solid examples of my own for you!

I think it is sometimes easy to forget that what actors are doing onscreen is their job - some are better at it than others, and some probably enjoy doing it more than others, but when it comes right down to it they are all doing it to support themselves.  And, if they're good (and lucky), eventually they get to the point where they can pretty much pick and choose the roles that they play.  Most of the time, this is a good thing - a good actor in a good (or even halfway decent) role can really take a movie from "merely good" to "truly great."

But sometimes this doesn't happen.

For whatever reason, whether they need the paycheck or they thought the role would be fun or they got persuaded against their better judgment, actors we like take roles that suck.  Or, they take roles that don't necessarily suck, but that they're really not right for.  Here are my thoughts on some seriously miscast roles, and who I would have preferred to see in them instead.

Alan Rickman, Sweeney Todd
: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

I love Alan Rickman.  Sometimes I go see things just because he's in them (Bottle Shock, Perfume: the Story of a Murderer, Blow Dry, and Dogma, to name just a few).  And in his defense, most of those are really good films (well, except Perfume).  But he is an obvious weak link in Sweeney Todd, a film that I will freely admit I didn't care for anyway, because he can't sing.

I'll say it again: Alan Rickman can't sing.  And Sweeney Todd...is a musical.  See the trouble here?

Under normal circumstances, Rickman would have been pitch-perfect as the nefarious, brooding Judge Turpin.  But he apparently can't hit a note to save his life.  And the film definitely suffered for it.

So who would I rather have put in this role?  Um, duh:

Mandy Patinkin is broody, grizzled, and experienced on both the screen and the stage.  And I know he can sing, because I have the original Broadway recordings of several of his performances.  He would have brought the same kind of gravitas as Rickman to the role, with the proper pipes behind it.

Edward Norton, The Hulk

I CAN'T be the only one who said "lol whut?" when this casting decision got announced.  Edward Norton is brilliant and refined and introspective at his best, and the Hulk...well, the Hulk is a giant green man-thing that breaks windows and tears up SWAT teams.  I kind of get what Leterrier was going for here, because I think the right way to get your audience to sympathize with this particular Marvel being is to get them sympathetic with Bruce Banner, but this almost takes it too far.  Hearing Norton say that iconic tagline ("You wouldn't like me when I'm angry...") with all his dark subtlety was too much for me.  Norton should save his talent for the bigger roles that demand it, like, say, Eisenheim in The Illusionist.

A better choice by far:

I'm cheating a little, because Mark Ruffalo is already slated to take over the Hulk in the upcoming Avengers flick.  But I don't care because if I'd given it some thought beforehand he probably would have been my choice anyway.  Ruffalo generally has a less complicated approach to his characters than Norton - and that's not an insult, by the way.  I thought he was excellent in The Kids Are All Right, Shutter Island, and The Brothers Bloom, all characters which he played very straightforward.  And that's what this role needs; you shouldn't have to work as hard as Norton did to make the Hulk sympathetic.  He suffered a horrible scientific accident, and that's really all the depth he needs.

Ruffalo is also a little meatier than Norton, so visually he fits the role much better as well.

Speaking of The Brothers Bloom...

Rachel Weisz, The Brothers Bloom

Rachel Weisz is one of those people who always comes across as an incredibly likeable person in the real world, because of all the charm and depth she brings to her characters.  But as Penelope the heiress, the bubbly, frenetic multi-hobbied romantic interest, she's wasted.  Penelope was written with charm, she didn't need the excess that Weisz brought to the table, and the end result was someone so saccharine that I was frankly irritated with her by the end.

She needed a bit of tang to go with all that sugar.  My suggestion?

Amanda Peet is ALSO a charming woman, but she can do rough-around-the-edges in a way Weisz really can't.  That kind of edge is what Penelope needed to go from being a pretty simple, bored, rich girl to actually being interesting.

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, Interview With A Vampire

I don't really know how the emotive, whiny Louis translated into tall, naturally blonde, caustic Pitt...or how the commanding, charismatic, and decadent Lestat became the smaller, weaslier, naturally brunette Cruise.  In a movie where the mood should have been everything, these actors were hitting the wrong notes.  My solution?

Switch the roles.

Pitt is physically larger, commands more of your attention, and is more naturally likeable.  Cruise is small and dark and squirrelly, and while I really do like him and think he's turned out some brilliant work, he needed to be the needier, whinier, more sycophantic Louis.  As the tempestuously moody, libertine-dandy Lestat he just falls way flat.

Kristen Stewart, Twilight

When you're working from shit source material and you have shit characters, you need a REALLY GOOD and REALLY LIKEABLE actor to have a hope of saving the final product.  Not only did Twilight serve up a steaming pile of crap story, but it did so with a cardboard actress whose main source of emotion seems to be raking her hands through her hair.

How would I have saved Twilight?  Could Twilight be saved? (Probably not.)  But a step in the right direction would have been...

I'm torn, actually.  Both of these girls could have pulled off the role with a modicum of charisma:

Amber Tamblyn and Emma Roberts both have a wonderful acerbic wit that would have made Bella passingly tolerable.  I feel like, if the directors had let them, they both could have brought a much harder edge to the character and made her slightly less of a pathetic mess.  But maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.  And they both at least know how to smile for pictures on the red carpet.

I think I come down slightly in favor of Roberts here, but mostly I come down on "Why did this movie ever get made in the first place?"

Ben Kingsley: BloodRayne, Prince of Persia: the Sands of Time, Tuck Everlasting, The Love Guru

BEN.  YOU WERE GHANDI.  YOU HAVE AWARDS AND AN OSCAR.  STOP IT.

Sorry, that last one is more of a first-class actor in bad movies, rather than in wrong roles.  But I needed to get it off my chest.

Got one I missed?  Let me know in the comments!