Epic cinema is dead; Long Live the Cheap Mediocrities
If you watch “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003) now, you will find plenty of things worthy of your admiration. The second “Matrix” was perceived as a thrilling, albeit uneven continuation of a beloved mythos seeking to outdo the original and thus, allowing itself to become a victim of its own hype. Nevertheless, time has been kind in Neo’s journey which subverted genre tropes to deliver insightful philosophical debates amidst grandiose action sequences. Yet, one thing separating the Wachowski’s direction from today’s meagre outputs was its sheer ambition that got translated quite well cinematically in a previously unseen scale; the infamous Burly Brawl is a marvel of martial arts choreography while the freeway chase set across a specifically built for the movie 1.5 mile road featured hundreds of cars, trucks and stuntmen crashing in crystal clear framing. When you think about it, it is hard to find and name a film in the last ten years of such epic proportions as the plasticity of computers took over creativity offering a sandbox of subpar special effects.
The infamous freeway chase is a technical accomplishment in “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003)
Revisiting the past will always reveal insightful lessons; marketing campaigns used to focus on films’ unique elements whether these were special effects (e.g., “Independence Day” (1996), “The Matrix” (1999)), presentation (e.g., “The Crow” (1994), “300“ (2006)), scale (e.g., “Titanic” (1997), “Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” (2001)), a particular sequence (e.g., the House of Blue Leaves confrontation in “Kill Bill Volume 1” (2003), Gene Hackman’s and Dustin Hoffman’s face off in “Runaway Jury” (2003)) or interpretation (e.g., “Seven” (1995), “Inception” (2010)). However, the advent of streaming increased content demand leading inevitably to the production of passionless cookie cutter material of all kinds: spin offs, remakes, cinematic universes, belated sequels and new race/gender swapped adaptations.
Masterful and epic choreography is the best martial art set piece the West ever produced in Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill Volume 1” (2003).
Alex Proyas’ “The Crow” (1994) broke new ground with its Gothic and devoid of color visuals that resembled comic book panels long before Zack Snyder did his thing in “300” (2006).
Rehash is strong on this one
A shot from the $275 million dollar CGI truck chase in “Terminator: Dark Fate” (2019)
When you compare the $150 million dollar “Reloaded” with the $275(!) production budget of “Terminator: Dark Fate” (2019), it’s clear how superior “Reloaded” is: soundtrack, production design, new characters, action, scope, mythology and a push for novel visually ideas. On the other hand, “Dark Fate” is a soulless, corpo-commissioned project that relies exclusively on CGI and recycled ideas from its predecessors soiling (and flat out erasing) their legacy in the process. This new (and some might argue inevitable) mediocre era (since 2015) in grandiose filmmaking is filled with directional guns for hire assisted by an army of (underpaid) computer related professions who plagiarize existing material to a criminal degree. “Dark Fate” and the “Star Wars” sequel trilogy (2015-2019) are such examples of poor imagination, incoherent and incomplete stories populated with same tropes, villains, set pieces and stakes. Yet, their generous amounts of money cannot be seen on the big screen even if you use a magnifying glass: “Terminator: Genisys” (2015), “Ghostbusters“ (2016), the “Jurassic World” franchise (2015-2022), “The Lion King” (2019), “No Time to Die” (2021), “Ghostbusters: Afterlife“ (2021), “The Matrix Resurrections” (2021), “Spiderman: No Way Home“ (2021), “Fast 9” (2021), “The Little Mermaid” (2023), and “Rebel Moon” (2023) all feel like school projects made by novices.
Boring presentation
Roland Emmerich’s White House destruction remains a stable in cinema in his “Independence Day” (1996).
The massive success of the telemovie looking “The Avengers” (2012) inspired films of such caliber to model themselves after it. However, there was a time when superhero adaptations were on a creative league on their own offering the opportunity for directors to think outside the box; Tim Burton, Sam Raimi, Christopher Nolan and Bryan Singer injected their own personality in storylines which despite their deviation from the source material, made for visually compelling films. Burton gave us a gigantic Gothic Gotham City in his “Batman” (1989) and “Batman Returns” (1992), Raimi managed to shoot the Spiderman’s antics throughout the streets of NYC, Singer’s “X-Men 2” (2003) and “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (2014) offered us brand new forms of action and Nolan’s Batman trilogy (2005-2012) featured pop cultured established performances and dazzling practical effects. On the other hand, once Marvel studios started their expansion, they copied and pasted “The Avengers” formula under excessive amounts of unnecessary and tension free CGI; a fist fight between Loki and Thor should have been be cinematically epic but in “Thor” (2011), “Thor: The Dark World” (2013) and “The Avengers” is a total letdown. Such problems do not limit their presence within the superhero genre. Modern fantasy epics are just as guilty; “Eragorn” (2006), Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” (2012-2014) trilogy and Greek cinematic myths like “Clash of the Titans” (2010), its sequel and Dwayne Johnson’s “Hercules” (2014) are boring beyond recognition.
“Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” (2005) is what we can call a sci-fi epic filled with extraordinary examples of modern art as academic Camille Paglia notes.
Sixty years ago, David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” (1962) and Sergio Leone’s ultimate western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” (1968) showcased scale throughout real locations, eye popping cinematography, brilliant characters, authentic production and costume design and sensational music to create timeless images. This type of filmmaking could be seen throughout the upcoming decades till its diminishing returns in 2010s; Renny Harlin splashed more than $90 million dollars for the final ship duel in “Cutthroat Island” (1995), Roland Emmerich destroyed the White House in “Independence Day” (1996), Paul Verhoeven made his “Starship Troopers” (1997) against studio wishes while when Michael Bay demolished New York in “Armageddon” (1998), it became the definite moment of 1998. George Lucas’ “Star Wars“ prequels (1999-2005) extended his original trilogy through new heroes and villains, breathtaking worlds and now iconic moments that had not been experienced before (e.g., pod race, duel of the fates, Mustafar duel) while Michael Bay’s “Transformers” series (2007-2017) have more character and technological finesse in one shot than the entire duration of Zack Snyder’s (and Joss Whedon’s) “Justice League” (2017).
“Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (2002) contains one of the best film battles of all time, a triumph of staging and visual storytelling.
Modern climatic skirmishes in “The Battle of Five Armies” (2014) and “Star Wars Episode X: The Rise of Skywalker” (2019) are as blunt as they come. Comparing the final face off in “The Avengers: Endgame” (2019) against the Uruk-Hai siege in “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” (2002) and the differences are huge. The latter is cleverly shot utilizing practical sets, fantastic make up and cinematography and clear geography which allow the audience to understand the progress of this sequence. Bearing a Homeric feeling, the experience of seeing real actors and stunt men performing their scenes is more relatable than hundreds of thousands of digi-doubles battling it in a de-saturated and color muted environment. This fascination with computer assisted presentation extends beyond US based movies though; the once mighty Chinese cinema has been producing duds since the mid 2000s (e.g., Cheng Kaige’s “The Promise” (2005), Jet Li’s “Sorcerer and the White Snake” (2011), “League of Gods“ (2016), “The Great Wall” (2016)) as opposed to a realistic dogmatism representing the sensibilities of a different culture the way for example, “Hero” (2002) did while South Korea (e.g., “D-War” (2007), “Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds” (2017)) and Australia (e.g., “Australia” (2008)) are not far behind too.
Other elements (e.g., cheap costumes, bad accents, OTT performances, an ever present diluted “John Wick” (2014-2023) and “The Raid” (2011) choreography, unhummable score) contribute to make modern day epics looking like direct to video flicks. This lack of wonder inside expensive films is sorely driven by profit ambition. Can anyone single out a moment from “Jupiter Ascending“ (2015), “Independence Day: Resurgence“ (2016), “Solo: A Star Wars Story“ (2018), “Red Notice” (2021), “The Eternals” (2021), “Jungle Cruise“ (2021), “Fast X” (2023), “The Flash” (2023) and “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom” (2023)?
Enter the multiverse
“The Avengers: Endgame“ (2019) was the reason everyone started using the idea of multiverses in their “epic” storylines.
The success of “The Avengers: Endgame” opened the door for the multiverses where dead or not heroes and villains cross various realities to continue their expensive CGI free battles. Although this idea was implemented way earlier in Jet Li’s “The One” (2001) and Singer’s semi-mutant-reboot “X-Men: Days of Future Past”, superhero “epics” quickly backed this trend: “Spiderman: Into the Multiverse” (2018), “Spiderman: No Way Home” (2021), “Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness” (2022), “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022), “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania” (2023), “The Flash” (2023), “Spiderman: Across the Multiverse” (2023) are really mindless excuses to bring well-known antagonists into a single frame throughout generic looking environments backed by the basest of creativity. Despite the unlimited really capabilities, the final results are mediocre simply because there is not someone with the talents of Guillermo del Toro, Tarsem, Terry Gilliam or Jean-Pierre Jeunet sat in the director’s chair.
Pseudo activism on the rise
The disaster of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (2023).
The last thing that creativity needs are diversity quotas and identity politics with maximum virtue signaling efforts (e.g., “this is the first film that is featuring the first that”). Alienating and antagonizing movie goers and passionate fan bases, creatives talk more about their (badly) implemented social message than film’s actual merits. “Wonder Woman” (2017) and “Captain Marvel” (2019) for example, have no single stand out moment or hyped sequence because they were not made to entertain or to attract audience members. Instead they are a physical manifestation of a “thinking” movement. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with this reasoning, the problem is these flicks become staples of their era for the wrong reasons. Featuring a female superhero is enough to make them epic and not their aesthetic production values, action sequences or stellar acting. This type of thinking was extended into several other properties for various ethnographic characteristics squeezing storylines from memorable material and ticking DEI boxes: the sequel “Star Wars” trilogy, “Ghostbusters” (2016), “Black Panther” (2018), “Wonder Woman 1984“ (2020), “Thor: Love and Thunder” (2022), “Dr Strange and in the Multiverse of Madness“, “Jurassic World: Dominion“ (2022), “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (2023), “Blue Beetle” (2023), “Madame Web” (2024). It is obvious budgets balloon due to the employment of myriads of HR bureaucrats and not actual artists which could support wholeheartedly the final motion picture. And that is why “The Matrix Reloaded”, its sibling “Revolutions” or the later “Pirates of the Caribbean” (2006-7) sequels can be fondly revisited and re-evaluated because they display such scale and visual innovation that is unlikely to ever happen again. If you were to compare them with an ultimate product of its time like “The Marvels” (2023), they feel like Stanley Kubrick masterpieces.
A New Hope
But when there is a will, there is always a way. Directors such as Christopher Nolan, Dennis Villeneuve, Martin Scorsese and Ridley Scott keep their sense of epic filmmaking across different genres while others slip comfortably into that zone (e.g., George Miller, Alejandro Inaritu) as well: “The Dark Knight Rises” (2012), “The Revenant” (2015), “Mad Max: Fury Road” (2015), “Dunkirk” (2017), “Dune”, “Napoleon” (2023) and “Killers of the Flower Moon” (2023) show scale and scope which is supported by a thunderous visual and audio presentation and exceptional acting. There is also an insistence in going back to basics to attract the audience: Chad Stahelski’s “John Wick Chapter 4” (2023) can be viewed as the ultimate action tribute, the $15 million dollar produced “Godzilla: Minus One” (2023) looks ten times better than its American counterpart in “Godzilla Vs. Kong” (2021), there was the German Oscar winning anti-war epic “All Quiet on the Western Front” (2022) and France rolled out its very, very expensive and perhaps the ultimate adaptation of Alexandre Dumas novel “The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan” (2023) and “The Three Musketeers: Milady” (2023). So hang in there, perhaps we are out of the mediocre era and now we enter a more practical based epoch of quality based filmmaking.