Sorry, Romeo, you gotta die
A couple weeks ago, I guess, I ran across some DVD's at the store. There was a double package with Romeo Must Die, which I remember liking, and Cradle 2 the Grave, which I don't think I've ever seen but I think I remember Becca posting about. There was also the animated Wonder Woman with voices by Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, and Alfred Molina, and I had yet to see that. I picked them up.
So, Sunday I got around to watching Romeo Must Die again. I'd forgotten much of it in the intervening decade and change. A remarkable amount of it is Amthony Anderson and Jet Li beating each other up.
Also, I hadn't remembered how blatantly it was a love story between Jet Li's character and Aaliyah's. In "PSY AND THE ACCEPTABLE ASIAN MAN", refresh_daemon points out that the final cut of the movie did not have a scene where Jet and Aaliyah kiss, apparently because that didn't test well. But the movie is definitely going in that general direction, and the line, "Sorry, Romeo, you gotta die," isn't misplaced.
Since I read that article before actually re-watching the movie, I was certainly thinking about this dimension of interracial romance in an action movie. I kind of want to remake Romeo Must Die with a really hot male lead--like a Korean boy band type...who had to bulk up in prison, since it's a remake--and blatant snogging. Not that I wouldn't like a movie that really doesn't even try to put the male and female leads together--or one, that like the final cut, does put them together, but weights the emotional stuff and early flirting above (unseen) physical affection. Not that Han and Trish aren't affectionate in other ways--it's a neat movie in its way.
Even if the underlying plot involves a conspiracy to wreck Oakland's waterfront for the sake of land speculation for a project that doesn't need to be on the waterfront. Hundreds of small businessmen dead for the sake of bad urban planning. Oy.
···anyway···
Monday I watched that Wonder Woman movie. There is a lot wrong with that movie. I don't even want to try to pick apart everything.
But as I have said, I am a big Artemis fan, and I am struck that they pretty much took Artie and split her themes between three characters: "Artemis" is based on her visual design, and kind of on her personality. "Alexa" has a moment late in the film where she pulls a trick vaguely akin to things Artie did in Requiem (as in, come back from the dead and subvert the Big Bad's forces with knowledge of his magic). And "Diana" when she comes to Man's World is pretty much the cold clueless Amazon caricature Artie was early on--only more likely to kill her enemy's mooks.
So yeah. But I did like the throwaway joke about Artie carrying abnormally large swords (which comes from a lying cover, originally). And Artie and Di are my girls, so at the end I was kind of tearing up even for these versions, as alienatingly "wrong" (not to mention cold and unlikable) as they were written here.
The script is kind of a mess. Steve did not need to be a serial womanizer; vain, sure, but this Steve was a little too creepy I thought. "Etta" was pretty much called Etta because that's a name in the mythos (not much to do with most versions of Etta).
And of course, first thing, they had Ares and Hippolyta as exes, and I said, "Dude, he's her Dad." (Because in the comics, she's the daughter of War. Yeah. At least in the Byrne and Sekowsky runs.) Yeah, Ares in this was pretty bonkers.
Oh, well, Warner Bros. tried. Next time, do better.
This entry was originally posted at http://philippos42.dreamwidth.org/136604.html, where Russian botspam is a rarity.
So, Sunday I got around to watching Romeo Must Die again. I'd forgotten much of it in the intervening decade and change. A remarkable amount of it is Amthony Anderson and Jet Li beating each other up.
Also, I hadn't remembered how blatantly it was a love story between Jet Li's character and Aaliyah's. In "PSY AND THE ACCEPTABLE ASIAN MAN", refresh_daemon points out that the final cut of the movie did not have a scene where Jet and Aaliyah kiss, apparently because that didn't test well. But the movie is definitely going in that general direction, and the line, "Sorry, Romeo, you gotta die," isn't misplaced.
Since I read that article before actually re-watching the movie, I was certainly thinking about this dimension of interracial romance in an action movie. I kind of want to remake Romeo Must Die with a really hot male lead--like a Korean boy band type...who had to bulk up in prison, since it's a remake--and blatant snogging. Not that I wouldn't like a movie that really doesn't even try to put the male and female leads together--or one, that like the final cut, does put them together, but weights the emotional stuff and early flirting above (unseen) physical affection. Not that Han and Trish aren't affectionate in other ways--it's a neat movie in its way.
Even if the underlying plot involves a conspiracy to wreck Oakland's waterfront for the sake of land speculation for a project that doesn't need to be on the waterfront. Hundreds of small businessmen dead for the sake of bad urban planning. Oy.
···anyway···
Monday I watched that Wonder Woman movie. There is a lot wrong with that movie. I don't even want to try to pick apart everything.
But as I have said, I am a big Artemis fan, and I am struck that they pretty much took Artie and split her themes between three characters: "Artemis" is based on her visual design, and kind of on her personality. "Alexa" has a moment late in the film where she pulls a trick vaguely akin to things Artie did in Requiem (as in, come back from the dead and subvert the Big Bad's forces with knowledge of his magic). And "Diana" when she comes to Man's World is pretty much the cold clueless Amazon caricature Artie was early on--only more likely to kill her enemy's mooks.
So yeah. But I did like the throwaway joke about Artie carrying abnormally large swords (which comes from a lying cover, originally). And Artie and Di are my girls, so at the end I was kind of tearing up even for these versions, as alienatingly "wrong" (not to mention cold and unlikable) as they were written here.
The script is kind of a mess. Steve did not need to be a serial womanizer; vain, sure, but this Steve was a little too creepy I thought. "Etta" was pretty much called Etta because that's a name in the mythos (not much to do with most versions of Etta).
And of course, first thing, they had Ares and Hippolyta as exes, and I said, "Dude, he's her Dad." (Because in the comics, she's the daughter of War. Yeah. At least in the Byrne and Sekowsky runs.) Yeah, Ares in this was pretty bonkers.
Oh, well, Warner Bros. tried. Next time, do better.
This entry was originally posted at http://philippos42.dreamwidth.org/136604.html, where Russian botspam is a rarity.