Each Day, A Film
February 12th, 2012 (Retrospective)
And yes, we abandoned Superhero Season a little while ago, which is kind of a shame. Let's kick back into that and pick up where we left off with... Hmm.
Kind of spoiled for choice.
Let's start with Blade, because it all started with Blade.
Seriously, it all starts with Blade, because prior to that to admit to liking superhero films was to admit to liking, well, Batman Forever.
And whether the reputation of Batman Forever as a black hole of suck is entirely justified or not, well, that's your call.
The strange thing is that for the progenitor of the superhero film boom, Blade isn't really even a superhero film. Oh, sure, the protagonist has superpowers, but if you want to be snarky, it's worth noting that the sole difference between Blade and Twilight is that Blade Don't Twinkle, Motherfucker.
Okay, not the sole difference. But once you admit that your film is a vampire film, all sorts of locks and bars come down into place story-wise, and you have to be fucking clever to get around them without cheating the fans - and yes, Underworld, I'm looking at you at this point - because if your protagonist has fangs and enjoys an iron-rich liquid diet, you're attempting to attract a very specific audience sector.
Blade doesn't try and do that. The poster doesn't play up the vampire angle, or the superhero angle, or even particularly mention Marvel in any specific way, if memory serves - it's Wesley Snipes, in a longcoat, with a sword.
And Kris Kristofferson. You can't really forget Kris Kristofferson.
Here's the fun thing; I've just realised that this is the second article on Blade that's turned up on this project, making it the first time we've had a double-dip. But back then it was all about the personal; this time, it'... um... Professional?
Because it is, because I've just finished a 10,000 word writing jag about superhero films, which was, in point of fact, the primary reason this blog has fallen so critically behind deadline-wise.
Now, Blade is, in movie terms, a palate-cleanser and a market tester all in one. Let's be honest now; slate it or don't slate it, Batman Forever nearly killed the superhero film as a concept which, given the slow-burn ever since effects worked out how to portray Superman on screen, would have been a bit of a shame.
In fact, take a moment to try and work out what a world not currently in the grasp of the superhero film boom would look like. Seriously, go ahead. Imagine if Blade had ended up being a cult movie and Spawn had had no effect whatsoever. Suddenly, the superhero movie isn't viable anymore, and the graphic novel boom doesn't happen, and we don't get things like Spider-Man, Batman Begins and My Super Ex-Girlfriend.
Wait, scratch the last one.
But seriously, the superhero film has come to dominate cinema as a whole at the moment, for good or ill. It's not going away; The Avengers is released in, oh, twenty-six days, not that I'm counting, and before that we've had a slew of Marvel films and a few choice DC properties, mostly all of which have taken decent or outstanding money back.
It's easy to sell superheroes at the moment, because we all need a reason to look up in the sky, and that impulse was banished - not to put too fine a point on it - just over ten years ago. Now, suddenly, the superhero is a proxy for having hope for the future bound up with relying on people who embody massive destructive potential tempered only by their desire to 'do good'.
Whereas back in the day, it was all about killing vampires with your stake-firing shotgun and anticoagulant vials - and also frying a massively obese vampire archivist with an ultraviolet torch for comic relief, don't forget that - but because of that, slowly but surely, everything changed...
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