The Rock: From Scorpion King to King of the Jungle

With his latest blockbuster Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle just a few short weeks away, we take a look back over the career of The Rock, a man who quite literally started from the bottom and worked his way to the top.

By Rhys Graeme-Drury

Sixteen years after his feature film debut and The Rock – or to use his ‘serious thespian name’, Dwayne Johnson – has climbed the Hollywood ladder all the way from novelty cameo to bonafide leading man. When his weird CGI mug first swam into view during the final act of Stephen Sommers’ patchy 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns, who would have thought the WWE star would go on to become one of the most bankable, admired, and highest paid Hollywood stars of the era?

Flash-forward to 2017 and Johnson is exactly that; with a huge profile bolstered by his vast social media following (a staggering 94 million followers on Instagram, 58 million on Facebook and a further 12 million on Twitter), Johnson is one of the busiest A-listers on the planet. This year alone he’s starred in the film with the biggest opening weekend of the year, a raunchy 90s TV show reboot and soon a sequel to a beloved 90s comedy. That’s Hollywood bingo right there!

However, it wasn’t until 2011 that The Rock’s status as genuine superstar was confirmed in Fast Five, a film which saw him pitted against another muscly and bald action figure in Vin Diesel. The prospect of witnessing Johnson and Diesel flex, grunt, pose and smack one another elevated the film to another level – all of a sudden Johnson was a whole lot more than the WWE star who had starred in a string of cute kids films and forgettable bargain bin junk. No, now he was Luke Hobbs, oiled antihero and eventually begrudging ally of Dominic Toretto – two equally unstoppable forces and immovable objects who set aside their differences to become a powerful unit in its own right.

From here Johnson rocketed up the order; all of sudden the action offers came pouring in. Dubbed ‘franchise Viagra’ due to his staggering ability to inject new life into tired franchises, the next few years saw Johnson swing from success to success.

He co-starred alongside a diverse ensemble to steer the Fast and Furious series through three further hugely successful sequels (culminating with 2017’s record-breaking The Fate of the Furious, the current record holder for biggest opening weekend of all time), a GI Joe sequel that made bank globally and the more family-centric Journey series, which saw Johnson replace Brendan Fraser in the lead role and consequently rake in an extra $90 million in ticket sales.

From here he transitioned from ensemble casts to leading man status; Michael Bay’s Pain and Gain and Brett Ratner’s Hercules followed in 2013 and 2014 respectively before San Andreas and Central Intelligence lit up the summers of 2015 and 2016, carried by The Rock’s insatiable popularity. He even has his own HBO show, Ballers – how many WWE stars can say that?

What is it about Johnson that makes him so universally adored? Well, it certainly doesn’t hurt that he has charisma coming out of everything. With a grin that could charm the pants off a pun and muscles that put Johnny Bravo to shame, Johnson’s trademark cocksure swagger, eyebrow wiggle and bicep flex makes him a modern day real-life superman. The only thing seemingly bigger than his pecks is his heart (what, where did you think that sentence was going?).

His ‘first’ career as a wrestling star afforded Johnson a broad appeal with families and kids. His carefully crafted public persona was one of strength and power, and Johnson’s ability to laugh and poke fun at his own expense went a long way to further widening that appeal. Think back to the scene in Be Cool where he recites a monologue from Bring It On, gets cutesy in The Game Plan, ‘aimed for the bushes’ in The Other Guys or donned a pair of fluffy white wings in The Tooth Fairy, not to mention a handful of guest appearances on Disney Channel favourites like Hannah Montana and Cory in the House. Who doesn’t love a hunk who isn’t so macho that he can’t laugh at himself?

He’s a family man who doesn’t seem to shun the nitty-gritty parts of fatherhood, looking at home on the school run as much as he does hosting Saturday Night Live; he’s driven and determined, something which is demonstrated through his punishing gym and bodybuilding regimen; and he’s genuinely funny and humble, as we found out when that infamous turtleneck and napkin throwback picture went viral. And although he gives off a bravado vibe, he hasn’t let it go to his head, sharing with refreshing openness the story of his family’s early struggles in Hawaii.

In many ways, The Rock’s career trajectory matches up almost perfectly with that of Arnold Schwarzenegger, his precursor many ways. Both are unlikely leading men who got their start in macho competitions and embody powerful Adonis figures; both possess a number of cheesy one-liners that fans eagerly recite; both harbour political ambitions, if rumours surrounding 2020 are true.

Where does that leave him going forward? Well, Johnson seems content swimming in the popcorn film lane for the time being; after his turn as Smoulder Bravestone in Jumanji (yes that is his character’s actual name), Johnson has two more musclebound heroes lined up in 2018; Rampage, directed by San Andreas director Brad Peyton and based on the arcade classic, and Skyscraper, a hostage action thriller directed by Rawson Marshall Thurber, who also helmed Central Intelligence.

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is available in Australian cinemas from Boxing Day, 26th December.

Image © Universal Pictures

Underrated Horror Films

Josip Knezevic

Tis the season to be scary, fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Here are horror films you might have missed that deserve to be ranked among the best.

 

May

Possibly the least well known film on this list, May is one of the creepiest slow burns American cinema has produced. This is all credit to the leading actress Angela Bettis who plays a young shy misfit who begins to develop a crush on a man who takes a shine to her awkwardness. Without giving too much away, as does the trailer, May’s personality begins to take an obsessive turn and leads into one hell of a buildup that is bound to leave you with a weird taste in your mouth. If you don’t mind the slow burn nature of the plot and the semi low budget production values, May is definitely a film for you. Check it out.

 

Pandorum

It’s Dead Space meets Resident Evil meets The Descent – and it has Dennis Quaid. Pandorum is a sci-fi horror film that plays out like a lucid dream with elements borrowed from films such as Memento and The Matrix. I know. How much else can it take. But thankfully Pandorum takes the best of all those films and combines it into something that still maintains its originality. This is one of those films that truly makes you not want to gaze into the dark because what lies in the distance soon comes at you with visceral pace and fear. Ben Foster delivers a hell of a performance as well and again reminds us of the underrated abilities he possesses as an actor.

 

Funny Games

It won’t matter if it’s the original French or remade American version, Funny Games delivers on Michael Haneke’s perfection of horror cinema that not only is completely terrifying but also incredibly smart. Both are directed by Haneke and deliver an experience that will be frustratingly difficult to watch without giving too much away. But this is the point. Set in a house by the lake, a family soon begins to be terrorized by two brothers who have a twisted game set up for its poor occupants. Shot expertly and written purposefully, Funny Games aims to horrify and comment on society at the same time. A masterpiece from a masterful director. 

 

Martyrs

Easily the scariest film in this list, Martyrs follows the plight for revenge on those who kidnapped her and other young women but on her search, finds an even more horrifying truth. Criticized as grotesque torture porn, Martyrs is often overlooked as a B-grade horror film without any joy but this is what makes it deliver so crucially on the horror aspect. It’s a dark, bleak and terrifying film. This is horror in its purest form minus the Hollywood glam that has been drizzled upon in recent years. It also has one of the best endings of any horror film, akin to that of The Descent’s famous cliffhanger. For fans desiring to expand their horror catalogue, Martyrs is the film for you.

 

Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead/Dead Alive (Braindead)

For the best scenes of explosive diarrhea and a lawnmower chopping faces off the undead, look no further than this double bill of Poultrygeist and Dead Alive. I’ve combined both these films into one as they follow the same trend of being some of the best over-the-top splatter films. The latter film being written and directed by New Zealand’s most famous export, Peter Jackson. Yes, before he was winning academy awards for epic films about Hobbits, he was busy killing the undead with basic kitchenware. Whereas Dead Alive follows the rise of the human undead, Poultrygeist bests it by introducing the rise of the chicken undead. I know. Can it get any better?! These films won’t be for everyone but if you love intentionally bad dialogue and laughing your head off to the most ridiculous scenes of prop gore, then this double bill should be right up your alley.

 

Audition

Finally. Japan. Enough of American cinema. Horror and the Japanese reach new heights when it comes to delivering tension and creepiness in ways you haven’t imagined, and Audition is yet another slow burning masterpiece that waits till the very end to bring in the ultimate pay off for what you wait for. Don’t get me wrong, the film is still interesting enough to watch throughout as we follow the life of a lonely widower who begins to seek love once more in that of a withdrawn but gorgeous woman. Slowly we realize there’s more to this lady than meets the eye and even if all the time you’re screaming out “there’s something wrong with her!”, nothing can prepare you for the final act.

Special mentions: What We Do in the Shadows, Last Shift, It Follows, It Comes at Night, The Host.

Images courtesy of  Universal Pictures Video, Icon Film Distribution, Madman Entertainment, Kojo Pictures, Jigsaw Entertainment, Siren Visual Entertainment

Is Rotten Tomatoes Ruining the Art of Film Criticism?

Hollywood is blaming Rotten Tomatoes for its rotten summer – but do they actually have a point?

Rhys Graeme-Drury

The northern summer just gone has been one filled with quality cinema; from filmmaker-driven fare such as Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk and Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver to franchise films like Wonder Woman and Spider-man: Homecoming, audiences have been treated to some excellent tentpole films, not to mention some smaller original films such as Logan Lucky, Wind River and The Big Sick. In short, there has been plenty of good stuff for cinephiles to gorge on

And yet, despite this, domestic box office takings for major Hollywood films are down. The last weekend in August drew so few people to the theatre that you’d have to go back to September 2001 to find a weekend where fewer people made the trip to the theatre. The blockbuster season of 2017 raked in approximately $3.8 billion in the United States, which roughly translates into a 15 per cent decline from the same span last year.

So, even with the aforementioned films in theatres, what has caused this marked decrease? Could it be that people are strapped for cash? That the theatre experience is increasingly eclipsed by home formats and streaming? That for every quality film there are five crap sequels, reboots or remakes?

Even though all of these, and others, are likely contributing factors, major industry figures and filmmakers are pointing the finger squarely at review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, according to a recent op-ed from The New York Times.

Yes, believe it or not, the combined might of Hollywood’s studios have supposedly met their match, and it comes in the form of a website. Back in May, director Brett Ratner (best known for X-Men: The Last Stand and Rush Hour) was of the opinion that Rotten Tomatoes is a persistent pain in the ass for filmmakers and the main reason fewer people were making the effort to see films in the theatre.

“The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes,” Ratner said. “I think it’s the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that.”

Does Ratner have a point here? In a sense, I can see what he is getting at. Rotten Tomatoes’ metric – the way in which it calculates a score for a film – is inherently very black and white. The website essentially asks every reviewer to boil their overarching sentiment towards a film into two camps ­– fresh or rotten.

If 200 reviewers submit a review for a film and 120 of those deemed the film ‘fresh’, said film would be furnished with a 60% score on the website. Even if they felt the film was only worth three stars or 6 out of 10, a fresh rating is a fresh rating, the same as if they felt the film was worth five stars or 10 out of 10. There is no room for shades of grey. A glowing review is afforded the same weight as a so-so one; a scathing review no less damning than one that presents both sides.

This is where things can go awry. If said film were to receive 200 reviews of precisely three stars, it would be heralded as perfect by the Rotten Tomatoes metric – 100 per cent. Except, this is a wholly inaccurate appraisal of a film that 200 critics felt was merely good and only worth three out of five.

This must be incredibly frustrating for filmmakers like Ratner. That you can spend upwards of a year toiling away on a film only for an increasingly popular website to slap it with a 30% ‘rotten’ score must be a real kick in the teeth.

In foregoing nuance, Rotten Tomatoes is oversimplifying film criticism. In our increasingly digital world, sites like Rotten Tomatoes are presented as the go-to destination for film appraisal. Just as one would skim through user reviews for a restaurant on Zomato or a bedsit on Airbnb, filmgoers cast a glance towards Rotten Tomatoes when seeking a verdict on this week’s slew of new releases.

Though I concede Rotten Tomatoes does indeed have its merits, I can’t help but feel a little bummed that more and more people are relying on a system so fundamentally simplistic as their primary means of engagement with film criticism.

So even though it might be a touch harsh to pin all of Hollywood’s woes on one website – I mean, if they just made better films, this wouldn’t be a problem, right? – I do think there needs to be a greater understanding surrounding Rotten Tomatoes and how its scores aren’t necessarily the be all and end all of film criticism.

Image courtesy of Universal Pictures / Inglorious Basterds 

Top 5 Tension Killing Superpowers

Cody Fullbrook 

It’s hard to have high stakes drama when your supervillain’s powers make them virtually unstoppable, or your superhero has abilities that mean he or she can basically never be killed. Here’s five superpowers we’ve all seen in countless films that immediately suck all the dramatic tension out of the air.

5. Shapeshifting 

While very common amongst villains, possibly due to human’s intrinsic distrust of strangers, heroes such as Mr Fantastic and Plastic Man have the ability to morph their body into all sorts of shapes. This often evaporates tension since it can be practically impossible for them to be captured, encumbered or even hurt.

Characters like Mystique from X-Men can only attempt to vanish in a crowd, but Clayface, Sandman and others can do more than just look like other people/a pile of sand.  Their entire body can twist into virtually anything like clubs, swords and even crossbows, making it obvious why Spider-Man 3’s Sandman was portrayed as a tortured villain that was let go after the climax. There was no other choice. How could you defeat him?  Light him on fire and make reading glasses out of him?

4. Teleportation 

How can you stop something that can go anywhere, dodge any threat or effortlessly blink out of a room?  Try to get a grasp on the parameters of a fight in the Dragon Ball series where the fighters jot around the screen like steroidal hummingbirds.

Even considering Nightcrawler’s words in X2; “I have to be able to see where I am going, otherwise I could wind up inside a wall”, teleportation can save anyone from virtually any threat.  Nightcrawler and Azazel can even hold people and teleport with them so even their ability to heroically save others isn’t extremely arguable.

Contrary to Samuel L Jackson’s character in Jumper, these characters aren’t everywhere at once, but can nonetheless escape virtually all dangers. I’ve also never understood why these characters don’t just teleport their fist into an enemy’s head.  Similar to how in The Philosopher’s Stone, Dumbledore could conjure food out of thin air, but when he’s battling Voldemort, why doesn’t he just pop a turkey leg into his brain.

3. Super healing 

Logan made a smart decision in crippling Wolverine’s healing factor, to a point where the film’s climactic finale had it switch off completely.  But even though we can admit that Wolverine and Deadpool are awesome characters, it’s still tricky to understand the threat they’re in when they can simply heal themselves from any wound.

This isn’t like shape shifting or teleporting where, if you’ve been shot, you’re basically done for.  Any fight scene with super healers becomes a vague battle of physical attrition, as was the case in Deadpool as our wise cracking protagonist only getting mildly perturbed by a severed hand and knife in the head.  At least Wolverine was knocked out with a headshot in X2, even though when the same thing happened in Origins he just kept scowling.  Continuity…

2. Super Speed 

Similar to teleportation, however, super speed not only augments the placement of one’s body but also the force of its movement.  Why do you think The Flash can punch someone really fast, but Nightcrawler can’t?

The problem with Super Speed is that its potency makes its user practically invincible.  They can dodge anything, whether it’s running from an explosion or moving away from a bullet or fist.  It also grants them numerous abilities that many may consider their own separate powers such as flight, running on water or moving through walls.

1. Time travel 

I’m sure we all saw this coming, and just like the ability of clairvoyance, every writer knows to avoid it like Poison Ivy’s lips.

As soon as you have someone who can go anywhere and change any event, the story is over. The hero can simply go back in time and find a helpless version of the villain and kill them effortlessly, Terminator style.

Granted, movies like The Butterfly Effect portray time travel as a useless endeavour, but the conflict there arises due to its futility, not the ability itself.  It seems wisest thing to do with time travel stories is to simply place the power into a device (The Time Machine), a car (Back To The Future) or some kind of hot tub time machine.  I forget what movie that’s from.

Image courtesy of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Twentieth Century Fox

Movie Review – Viceroy’s House

Gurinder Chadha serves us a slice of British/Indian history in a clumsy mix of waffling politics, tumultuous outbreaks, lush sets and romantic fluff.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Corey Hogan

After three hundred years under British rule, India is finally transitioning to an independent nation in 1947. The Viceroy’s House, a decadent palace in Delhi, was home to these rulers for centuries. Now it is to host one final Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) and his wife Edwina (Gillian Anderson), tasked with overseeing the handover back to the Indian people. But this is no simple manoeuvre; the nation is divided in opinion from the great change and soon mass conflict erupts, severely complicating things for the Viceroy, his family and his servants.

Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend It like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice) occasionally gives life to the rich history and subject matter of Viceroy’s House, though it’s a tad too often that she squanders it with the melodrama and directional flair of a made-for-television movie. Luckily, such superficial shortcomings are routinely rescued thanks to history itself stepping in to give some vibrancy to an otherwise flat and conventional royalty period piece.

Pomp and circumstance is dialled up to eleven as the Mountbattens enter the Viceroy’s House. Thankfully, the charade is dropped when the Lord is forced to deal with real issues, and suddenly we’re permitted a more authentic look at everyday life in the House, and the actors are given the opportunity to flex more than just their accents.

The film is at its best when famous real-life figures drop in, especially Gandhi (portrayed cheerfully by Neeraj Kabi), who gets some of the most amusing and interesting scenes. It’s unfortunate that much of the lead up to this is a long slog of dry political negotiations and debates. These may be authentic, but they’re deadly dull, save for the occasional bit of conflict or wry humour from General Ismay (Michael Gambon).

Even worse is the extremely strained and hokey love story between Jeet (Manish Dayal), a manservant of the Viceroy, and Aalia (Huma Qureshi), a newly appointed assistant. It checks off every romantic cliché in the book, even throwing in a love triangle with an arranged marriage and a separation that leads to tragedy. This does a great disservice to the plot, feeling clumsily placed and distracting from anything potentially interesting.

The full tale of India’s Partition is perhaps too much to be crammed into less than two hours, especially when much of that time is spent focused on melodramatic nonsense over the great transition at hand. Viceroy’s House will no doubt be adored by the elderly, to whom this by-the-books royal biopic is clearly geared towards. It’s lively and watchable enough, and does boast another exotic score from A.R. Rahman (Slumdog Millionaire).

Viceroy’s House is available in Australian cinemas from May 18

Image courtesy of Transmission Films

Movie Review – Doctor Strange

Just when everyone thought superhero movies were getting dull, Scott Derrickson brings us Doctor Strange.

⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Zachary Cruz-Tan

Every time a superhero film is announced I heave a sigh of dismay, and yet I keep walking out of Marvel movies filled with the same delight I used to experience as a kid slumped in front of the television watching action cartoons. Marvel have found that key formula; that fountain of youth to keep their movies eternally fresh. In a time when terrorism is omnipresent, presidential candidates are bigger than rock stars, and DC Comics would rather feature grumpy old ranchers protecting their cows instead of true heroes, Marvel rightfully remembers that superheroes are supposed to save people, and enjoy doing it.

Doctor Strange is a superhero movie that returns the Marvel Cinematic Universe to its cheerful beginnings. The core story regarding The Avengers has become very sombre – Iron Man and Captain America are about one wrong look away from tearing each other’s heads off. Doctor Strange shuts all that noise out and plays its own game, which comes with its own rules and consequences, and my word, it’s something else.

As a visual feast for our poor eyes, this is perhaps the greatest of all the Marvel movies. Things happen here that my most deluded fantasies could not conjure, and there is a final showdown along the streets of Hong Kong that plays with the logical parameters of time and space in a way that makes the best Star Trek episodes look frightfully linear. I’ve seen computer graphics employed masterfully in great films before, but the effects in Doctor Strange take the rules of our world and bend them out of reality. It’s what we all want good CGI to do: help the filmmakers tell a story, not tell it for them.

As a superhero concept, Doctor Strange is a success. How could it not be? Here is a character who has lived on paper (and on some TV screens) since the 1960s. He should know his way around a 120-minute movie by now. And while his destiny – unknowing everyman becomes messianic saviour because he is essentially the Chosen One – borrows heavily from many older heroic tales, Benedict Cumberbatch balances the surprise of learning about his fate and the well-worn experience required to battle demonic apparitions in the Dark Dimension with as much stoic panache as humanly possible.

As a movie that tells an unfolding narrative, however, Doctor Strange is a little less impressive. Strange basically follows in the footsteps of every arrogant jerk turned likeable pal, with Nick Marshall (Mel Gibson) from What Women Want and Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) from Bruce Almighty serving as likely role models. Even his transformation via magical intervention is repeated. The rest resembles Star Wars outfitted with the folding buildings from Inception, or rather what Star Wars will become before the end of 2019. It all still works, though. I just wish the parallels were a little more askew.

Nevertheless, Doctor Strange is pulsating proof that Marvel seldom steps wrong and that their grip on their comic properties is so sure-footed they’ve managed to wait eight years before radically shifting the dynamics of their franchise. While DC is fumbling just to stand, Marvel keeps us guessing, keeps us satisfied, and ensures our astral projections remain spiritually aligned.

Doctor Strange is available in Australian cinemas from October 27

Image courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures 

Movie Review – Keeping Up With The Joneses

A rock solid cast is wasted on the cinematic equivalent of disappointing fast food. 

⭐ ½
Charlie Lewis

What a dream Isla Fisher must be for the casting directors of films like Keeping Up with the Joneses. She is, obviously, a gifted comic actor, but just as important, she is beautiful enough to fulfill the one unbreakable rule of middle of the road, suburban comedy: the schlubby, button down worker drone at the narrative’s center (in this case, an oddly subdued Zach Galifianakis) must have a wife several divisions out of his league.

Fisher and Galifianakis play Karen and Jeff Gaffney, whom we meet seeing their two sons off to camp. They return to their house, briefly consider sex, and then decide to watch TV instead. Their content but dull idyll is punctured when the Joneses (Jon Hamm and Gal Gadot) move in next door. The pair are impossibly beautiful, strikingly worldly, endlessly charming. Karen, high strung and over solicitous, is suspicious. Jeff, big hearted and credulous, just wants new best friends. Karen’s belief the Joneses are not what they seem turns out to be correct, which will be a spoiler only to those who haven’t seen the poster. Or, like, a movie before.

The Joneses adheres to as many clichés as it can cram into its 105 minutes; it’s premise of a loving but bored couple, revitalised by a touch of adventure; the clunky attempts to jam insight and pathos in amongst the hijinks to give the illusion of personal drama; the dynamic of stress-pot wife and childlike goof husband. And my personal favourite – the wife, having become implicitly asexual over the course of the marriage is forced by the plot to dress sexy, so the husband can look at her and realise what we’ve known all along.

Look, you don’t go to Keeping Up with the Joneses expecting staggering innovation or surgically precise storytelling, any more than you go to McDonald’s expecting Lobster Thermidor. But you do expect a minimum level of care in the assembly.

The Joneses is unforgivably scattershot and listless. Plot threads and character traits are introduced and discarded seemingly at random. Early in the film, we see Jeff – who works in Human Resources, and is supposedly very good at it – telling slightly racist jokes to an Indian colleague. Would Jeff actually do this? Is he actually kind of racist? The film doesn’t much care. Later, there is a decently handled car chase sequence, which on reflection makes almost no sense to the plot. It’s just there because an action comedy needs some action… and so on – nothing seems to have any consequence. The cast are all talented comics, or lovely to look at (or in the case of Hamm and Fisher, both), but the lack of cohesion of the plot leaves them looking aimless.

“Aim for the moon,” goes the old inspirational quote, “even if you miss, you’ll land amongst the stars.” Keeping up with the Joneses aims for McDonald’s. It lands in Chicken Treat.

Keeping Up With The Joneses is available in Australian cinemas from October 20

Image courtesy of 20th Century Fox

Over it: Blockbuster hype has outstayed its welcome

Tom Munday

2015 was one of contemporary Hollywood’s most popular – AKA commercially viable – years. Major franchises including James Bond, The Hunger Games, Jurassic Park, Terminator, Mad Max and the Marvel Cinematic Universe delivered ear-shattering, earth-destroying blockbusters.

Every day, all manner of journalists (bloggers, gossip columnists, reviewers) are pushed to the brink to deliver one article after another. To attract clicks and views, entertainment websites report on (literally) everything associated with each flick.

Who is to blame for ever-increasing frustrations – audiences, authors, auteurs, or agencies? With spies on every set, each site’s breaking news may include set photographs, quotes from the film’s cast and crew, examination of merchandise, trailers, posters etc. Audiences cannot seem to wait anymore; scrounging for key details, significant analysis, and description for each major release.

Let’s break down two upcoming juggernauts: Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. Captain America’s trailer was released to a rapturous reception last month. The trailer delivered its fair share of fun moments, however, it also kept significant details from the audience.

In the lead up to the trailer release, websites and blogs gave us a taste of each character and plot-point. On-set photos gave us strong glimpses into each action sequence and whether or not Tom Holland as the new Spider-Man would make an appearance.

Following this, the trailer merely delivered the premise, but kept major plot twists and character moments at bay, to only receive backlash from millions of franchise fiends who criticised the lack of fleshed-out information, and pleaded for more.

On the other side of the coin, Batman v. Superman’s sense of ambition is almost laughable. DC Comics and Warner Bros. have yet to come close to the MCU’s franchise-building successes. The road to franchise glory has been patchy, to say the least. Man of Steel, although becoming one of 2013’s most successful blockbusters commercially, was slammed for being too dark and chaotic; trying too hard to take Superman in a new direction.

The trailer for Batman v  Superman veers off the rails – revealing key twists including Wonder Woman and villain Doomsday’s appearances. In chronological order, the promotional material illuminates the beginnings of Superman and Batman’s feud, Lex’s importance in the plot, how his nefarious plan effects our warring heroes, Wonder Woman’s fighting style, the entire cast, and the third-act monster villain our leads face together.

So it’s a lose-lose situation; either keep elements cloaked in secrecy to the widespread dismay of fans, or disclose everything to the point where audience members wonder whether they even need to go and see the film at all.

Audiences are placing increased pressure on studios, directors, and journalists to fulfil their expectations. Filmmakers, journos, and producers need to understand one thing: people tend to move on. If a movie is bad, we shrug, whine a little, and life moves on. If a movie we look forward to is FANTASTIC… life still continues to move on. If studios focus on the art more so than the audience, more than likely, whether the final product is good or bad, they will be paid and noticed.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros