If you think that being trapped with a bunch of guys telling dick jokes would the equivalent of Hell on Earth – well, according to THIS IS THE END, you are more right than you think – perhaps literally so. The vulgar humor of young guys who have yet to outgrow adolescence is shoved in your face whether you like it or not, but in an excellent example of eating your cake and having it, too, the film happily portrays its characters as hapless vulgarians who deserve the apocalyptic fate that befalls them. In other words, you do not have to like the characters or their sense of humor in order to enjoy THIS IS THE END. We are not laughing with them; we are laughing at them.

James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Johna Hill, Danny McBride, and Craig Robinson – along with myriad other familiar faces – play themselves, and not in a very flattering light. Baruchel (who apparently feels about Los Angeles much the same as Woody Allen does) makes a trip out to visit his friend, Rogen, who insists on attending a Hollywood party at Franco’s house. An earthquake or some kind of natural disaster hits, or perhaps it is something more, judging from the strange blue lights elevating bodies into the sky. Is is a massive alien abduction, or could it be The Rapture?

Taking refuge in Franco’s house, along with Hill, McBride, and Robinson, barricade the doors, divide up the resources, and attempt to wait out the disaster, but help may not be coming. Although initially skeptical of Baruchel’s suspicions that this is not a mere natural disaster but a literal, Biblical apocalypse, the survivors are eventually forced to that something downright demonic is going on.

THIS IS THE END belongs to that small sub-genre of films in which Hollywood celebrities attempt to earn brownie points by pretending to be as venal, crass, and self-absorbed as we suspect them to be -presumably, in the hope of convincing us that, if they really were privileged boors in real life, they would not have the sense of humor to attempt the self-effacing portrayals on screen.

Whether this is a con game or a brilliant comic ruse, the results are outrageously effective. Unburdened of the urge to create rounded, sympathetic personalities, THIS IS THE END instead serves up vicious caricatures, uncluttered with complications or subtlety, that shine off the screen with something resembling a hint of truth about the human condition – or at least a darkly satirical version of it. Nobility and moral quandaries are few and far between: when the sh-t hits the fan, you can bet it will be every man for himself; it’s just a matter of who will be the biggest douche-bag about it.

No one really comes across well. Even Baruchel’s level-headed straight man (he is supposed to be the viewer’s window into this world) is a bit too full of himself, not overtly self-righteous but as will as anybody to sell his comrades out when an opportunity presents itself. Only Emma Watson, who shows up briefly, earns much empathy, putting the smack down on these losers and ripping off their supplies after overhearing (and, to be fair, misunderstanding) a conversation about rape among the guys.

Jonah Hill is possessed by evil - a sign that the apocalypse is nigh

This is one of the film’s funnier sequences and not just because Rogen gets smacked in the face with an ax handle. Baruchel dares to raise the obvious issue of the situation (a single woman among half a dozen men); in an overstated case of denial, the others turn his concern against him, as if he were the one with rape on his mind. (The parallels with our current political discourse, in which people who raise concerns about racism and sexism are shouted down as if they are the real bigots, is obvious.)

SPOILERS

Funnier still is the apocalyptic chaos that takes over in the third act. Like a good, low-budget horror film, THIS IS THE END is mostly restricted to the confines of the Franco house, offering us only judicious glimpses of the fiery Armageddon outside. Unlike many of Hollywood’s overstuffed blockbusters, this limited use of special effects renders the shots we do see even more special; by the ending, we get a few truly outstanding set pieces, the last involving what must be at least the second largest penis ever portrayed on screen (unlike most special effects monstrosities, this one is anatomically correct – though not for long!).

The sly joke at the end is that our characters finally learn how to redeem themselves. The problem is, once they know this can be done, they are still on the con, acting in a righteous way in hope of earning a get out of Hell card from the Almighty – a point made with ruthless precision when Franco makes the mistake of flipping someone off while on the point of being elevated to the heavens. His unfortunate demise (being eaten by a former-friend-turned-cannibal) is all the funnier when you recall that, earlier in the film, while brainstorming a bad idea for a sequel to THE PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, Franco had suggested an ending in which he sacrificed himself to save his friends, only to have the villain eat him. Prophetic words, indeed!

END SPOILERS

In spite of the self-reflexive tone, THIS IS THE END will not suit everyone’s taste. The film may hold the crude antics up for ridicule; nevertheless, it indulges in those antics far too much for us to believe that writer-directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg are doing anything more than offering a slight buffer in the hope of making the antics more acceptable.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM THIS FILM

Fortunately, the buffer does work. Freed from the boundaries of good taste, Rogen and Goldberg present some of the most outrageously over-the-top comedy ever seen on the silver screen. It’s one thing to have a bunch of guys telling dick jokes all day. It’s quite another to see a towering demon emasculated by a heavenly blue shaft of light.

Now there’s something you don’t see every day!

Channing Tatum is Danny McBride’s bitch.

THIS IS THE END (Columbia Pictures, June 12, 2013) 107 minutes. Rated R. Written and directed by Evan Goldberg & Seth Rogen. Cast: James Franco, Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, Johna Hill, Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Emma Watson, Michael Cera, Rihanna, Paul Rudd, Channing Tatum, Aziz Ansari.

Henry Cavill as Superman

If you want to know all you need to know about MAN OF STEEL in just over three minutes, Hans Zimmer’s theme music is a perfect synecdoche – a small part that effectively stands for the whole. Beginning with a delicate piano motif, the cue soon swells larger, with rhythmic percussion and strings building to a powerful crescendo of undeniable power – which somehow never finds a soaring melody that will lift the music off the ground and send it into the stratosphere.

The problem, you see, is that producer Christopher Nolan, director Zack Snyder, and writer David S. Goyer have grounded the new Superman in reality. And when something is grounded, you can hardly expect it to soar.

ANGST AND ALIEN ANCHOR BABIES

Although most of elements are familiar (Krypton, the Daily Planet, Smallville, etc), MAN OF STEEL attempts a radical recreation that consists of discarding any reverence, any sense of comic book escapism, in favor of approaching the material as if it were something new – if by “new” you mean something that hews closely to the blockbuster superhero science fiction genre of the past few years, with a dour sense of angst that makes television’s SMALLVILLE look like a frat-boy comedy by comparison.

The approach pays appreciable dividends: it’s not as if anybody is going to miss the comic relief antics of SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE’s Otis and Miss Teschmacher, and it’s always nice to see a little dramatic weight added to the familiar framework. MAN OF STEEL is not just about super-heroics; it is about the alien Kal-El finding himself and his place on his adoptive world of Earth. In a sense, it is the ultimate story of an alien anchor baby who makes good, earning his place among the natives.

There are, however, two problems with this approach. One is fundamental to the nature of the source material. The other is a failure of artistic vision – or, perhaps, never.

PROBLEM #1: No matter how much Snyder and company try (and they do), MAN OF STEEL can never truly ground the Superman story in a completely convincing sense of verisimilitude. This is not even a piece of hard science fiction; it is a fantasy in which some Kryptonian rebels are sentenced to the Phantom Zone, which conveniently saves them from the apocalypse that befalls their planet.

The Kryptonian rebels reappear with the inevitability of movie logic.
Meanwhile, Jor-El (Russell Crowe) has sent his son Kal-El (Henry Cavill to Earth), where he tries to keep a low profile. Coincidentally, just as the cat is start to come out of Schrodinger’s box, the Kryptonian rebels, led by General Zod (Michael Shannon) show up; with all the planets in all the galaxies, it took only thirty-three years to cross countless light years of space and find their way to Earth at exactly the crucial turning point in Kal-El’s life. And needless to say, although their ship was intended as a prison, it has more than enough alien weaponry to make INDEPENDENCE DAY look like a trip to Disneyland.

In case I have not made my point clear, let me spell it out: this is a movie in which certain generic elements, whether or not they are believable or scientifically plausible, must play out in a certain way, because that is the movie we paid to see. Call it movie logic, dream logic, or comic book logic, it’s gotta happen, and there’s no way it will ever seem really “real.”

PROBLEM #2: “Grounding a story in reality” is a gambit. You lose some of the fun of indulging in a safe, enjoyable fantasy. What you get in return is the gravitas that comes from playing the previously safe formula as if their are now serious stakes involved, with life-and-death situations no longer pitched at the level of kids playing shoot-em-up in the backyard but more akin to a real-life tragedy witnessed on television or – worse yet – up close in person.

I’m not sure this path is the right one for the Man of Steel. It works for Batman in the Christopher Nolan films because Batman is, after all, the Dark Knight – it literally says right in his nickname that his proper tone is dark. This approach also works for James Bond in the Daniel Craig films, because 007 is a spy doing dirty work in a dangerous world; jettisoning the escapism and camp brings the character to a fuller realization of what he should be.

This approach does not necessarily work for Superman, who was always a boy scout fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Superman is a fantasy, an ideal – not a reality or anything even approaching reality, unlike Batman and Bond, who are mortals (even if extraordinarily well-equipped and skilled mortals).

However, giving Nolan, Snyder, and Goyer their due, their approach could have worked – if they had stayed true to it. But they refuse to go all the way. Where do they stop short? Collateral freakin’ damage – that’s where.

When Superman throws down with Zod on the streets of Smallville, he doesn’t seem particularly concerned with the damage he is causing, and the film simply assumes that it is only property damage, as if there were no chance their might be human beings in the buildings that are being pierced and punctured by a pair of superhuman Kryptonians blasting through like cannonballs.

In the later battle in Metropolis, the sheer scale of destruction suggests the inevitability of casualties, but these do not weigh heavily on Superman’s mind, nor do the filmmakers expect us to care much, either (until it becomes a plot point, and then it’s a big deal only because it forces Superman to get his hands a little dirty). In fact, this is so far off the radar that, in spite of some lip-service threats from the villains (”for every one you save, we will kill a million”), Zod and company never actually use hostages under a death threat to blackmail Superman into surrendering.

Up until then, we are in the familiar movie-movie world, in which the only lives that matter are those of the audience identification figures – in this case, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) who despite being rather resourceful and not particularly helpless, manages to fall out of an airplane, so that everyone else on board can die in a crash while she is saved from a precipitous fall by the inevitable arrival of the Man of Steel.

By the way, did I mention that the airplane is carrying a weapon that will destroy Zod’s ship, but there is one of those unexpected last-minute hurdles that are supposed to juice up the suspense. This is a particularly lazy one: the Kryptonian control stick (essentially an alien flash drive) that is supposed to slide into a slot, doesn’t, but exactly what’s wrong is never explained, and the solution to the problem is hardly more sophisticated than banging on a TV set.

In short, it’s a moment that is there because it was expected to be there, not because anybody cared enough to come up with something interesting. Which would be fine in a comic book movie with its tongue in its cheek, asking us all to sit back and have fun. It’s not so fine in a film that is asking to be taken very seriously.

Jor-El tells his wife – and by extension, us – that the radiation of Earth’s young yellow Sun will be absorbed by Kal-El, making him strong as he grows up in this alien environment; he also tells us that Earth’s atmosphere is a little more nourishing that Krypton’s.

So, fine, Kal-El sucks up solar energy for thirty-three years, and it makes him really super. Then he steps aboard Zod’s spaceship and immediately loses his powers because he is breathing Kryptonian air (which we are now told will not support Earth life).

Uh, huh? So the sun didn’t really have much to do with it after all?

Also, Zod and his minions (including Antje Trau as Faora) are instantaneously as strong as Superman. Not only that, they immediately know how to use their new superpowers as if they were born with them.

So I guess, soaking up solar radiation and testing his powers for thirty-three years did give the Man of Steel much of an edge.

This becomes particularly amusing when Zod brags that he, unlike Kal-El, has trained as a warrior all his life, as if this will give him an advantage in their fight to the finish. I’m not sure how training in weapons or even in hand-to-hand combat is going to prepare you for flying at super-speed and tossing opponents through buildings. Knowing how to block a right cross while delivering an upper-cut simply is not going to help you much when your opponent flies into with the speed of a bullet and the power of a locomotive.

Despite these mis-steps, and an overabundance of action for attention-deficit viewers, MAN OF STEEL understands the mythic proportions of the Superman story. As much as the film tries to portray Kal-El as a man trying to find his way, he is much more than that – not just a superman but a savior of mankind, someone who will not solve all our problems but will set a shining example to be followed.

The Christ parallels have always been there (the son sent down from the heavens), but MAN OF STEEL pushes them further than before, specifically making Kal-El thirty-three (the age at which Jesus started his public ministry) and even placing him in a church when he has a crucial decision to make, a stain-glass window of Jesus behind him, as he weighs the wisdom of sacrificing himself.

Cavill is an excellent Kal-El – totally different from Christopher Reeve, somber without projecting self-pity, serious and thoughtful (and unfortunately, without the clear demarcation between the Clark Kent and Superman personas). For a character who seems strong enough to carry any burden, Cavill somehow manages to convey the weight pressing on his character’s shoulders, especially when Zod’s relentless hostility, which allows no room for surrender, forces a life-or-death choice upon the formerly innocent Kryptonian.

The rest of the cast is almost equally good, especially Kevin Costner as Jonathan Kent. The other stand-out role, of course, is Zod, which Shannon embodies with power and authority but without the operatic grandeur that such a large-than-life malevolent force should convey.

As Lois, Adams ditches Margot Kidder’s wackiness in favor of a cool professionalism that does not preclude a certain hint of romantic interest in her “rescuer” (as she initially calls him, before learning his identity). Hopefully, any sequels will explore the romantic repartee between Lois and Clark.

MAN OF STEEL contains more than enough supersonic action to fill not only a superhero movie but also an alien invasion movie and a planetary romance as well (there is something Barsoomian about Krypton, with Jor-El riding a winged, reptilian steed). The special effects are often outstanding; although the high-speed blur is somewhat over-used, diminishing the effect of the fights, the scenes still pack more punch than the battle from SUPERMAN 2 (1981), which too often had an almost Peter Pan-look to its aerial altercations.

More impressive than the bang-boom-bash, however, is the way that the flashback structure (we initially skip Clark’s early years, glimpsing them in bits and pieces later) allows for occasional quiet, dramatic moments that help make sense of the action, providing a clear sense of the formative experiences that have brought the character to the moment when he must finally stand up and bring those past lessons to fruition.

In moments like these, the grounded reality pays off; the action seems a bit more than spectacle – more a test of character on a spectacular level.

Now if only the film had found a way to add this gravitas without allowing the gravity to pull its hero so close to Earth. Superman needs to soar – like a bird, like a plane – breaking not just the law of gravity but also the sense of mundane reality. If you sense something missing in MAN OF STEEL, it is this: a Sense of Wonder.

Update: In the first draft, I neglected to mention that the post-production 3D conversion works very well. The look is almost natural – i.e., not distracting – during the quieter scenes. And of course, it magnifies the impact of the special effects sequences to magnificent proportions.

MAN OF STEEL (Warner Brothers: June 14, 2013). Produced by Christopher Nolan. Directed by Zack Snyder. Written by David S. Goyer, from a story by Nolan & Goyer, based on characters created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Raged PG-13. Running time: 143 minutes. Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe, Antje Traue, Harry Lennix, Richard Schiff, Christopher Meloni, Kevin Costner, Ayelet Zurer, Laurence Fishburne.

Location:

The press release:

A Once in a LIFETIME ULTIMATE HALLOWEEN EVENT curated by groundbreaking filmmaker ROB ZOMBIE to TERRORIZE L.A. EVERY THURSDAY-SUNDAY from October 10th-November 2nd.

Groundbreaking musician and filmmaker Rob Zombie will unleash his Great American Nightmare on Los Angeles this Halloween season. This bone-chilling experience will combine the most advanced haunted house attractions with a not-to-be-missed music festival from top artists in hard rock, alternative, EDM, and more, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from October 10 through November 2, 2013 at the Fairplex FEARplex in Pomona, CA, just outside Los Angeles.

A creative collaboration between masters of the macabre Rob Zombie and preeminent haunted house producer Steve Kopelman, the fully immersive haunted house experience will feature three attractions based on Zombie’s own horror films: Lords Of Salem Total Black Out, The Haunted World Of El Superbeasto 3D, and Haunt Of 1,000 Corpses. The shocking–and sometimes disturbing–fright attractions will offer a three-dimensional experience with animatronics and effects, a maze that is the ultimate definition of claustrophobia and fear, sudden chills and startling thrills, and salacious humor that will make one scream with fright and laughter.

As if these sinister attractions weren’t enough, Rob Zombie’s Great American Nightmare will also feature 15 nights of music from top national and regional artists in the indie/punk, EDM, metal, rock and Latin genres including Andrew WK, BL3ND, Blood On The Dance Floor, Dirtyloud, Dirtyphonics, Doctor P, Emilie Autumn, Evol Intent, Fei-Fei, Goldfinger, Heavygrinder, Kottonmouth Kings, Metalachi, One More Time, Ozomatli, Reel Big Fish, Terravita, The Used, Twiztid, William Control, Zomboy, and many more.

In addition to music, one special night will also feature the outrageous pro
wrestling sensations Lucha Libre USA. Look for details about the music
performance schedule–including additional major headlining acts–to be
announced on June 29 and visit www.GreatAmericanNightmare.com for details.

Ticket will be available on June 29. Ticket prices and hours of operation are to be announced. Check the website in the upcoming days and weeks for more information

Location:

PANELS & PRESENTATIONS

SATURDAY, AUGUST 10

ScareLA Cinema

Classic Home Haunts with Gary Gorb of the Hallowed Haunting Grounds

John Murder and Christ Williams on Halloween Horror Nights

Ghosts of Los Angeles

Jason Blum Presentation

Garner Holt on Haunted Attractions and Theme Parks

Bone Yard FX Demonstrations

SUNDAY, AUGUST 11

Tricks and Treats for Little Monsters

Hi-Tech Home Haunts of Southern California

Dia de los Muertos vs Halloween

Secrets of Knotts Scary Farm

Los Strangeles

Sounds to Make You Shiver

Dead Right Horror Trivia

TICKETS:

Single-day tickets are $25 for ‘Scare Seekers,” $45 for “Fear Freaks” (preferred seating and access). Two-day passes are $45 fro Scare Seekers, $75 for Fear Freaks.

The movie was known as UFO, when it made its debut in English theatres in December 2012.

Dominic Burns wrote and directed. The cast includes Bianca Bree, Sean Brosnan, Simon Philips, Maya Grant, Jazz Lintot, and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Running Time: 101 minutes

U.S. Release Date: June 21, 2013