Burned Out

Rating: Null/10 (27 August 2007)

Superficially, this is yet another mildly interesting Marvel comic turned into an excruciating movie. When will these guys learn? When we stop buying tickets I suppose.
The comic is mildly interesting for the way it targets a certain demographic. As a matter of mere accident, the devil, skulls and motorcycles have become associated with each other. Separately, power and flames. These by themselves, just the symbols alone, are enough to define a life for some people, so strong is the semiotic power they have accumulated. In a sense, this meme is the demon.
The interesting thing about this is how that meme is coming home to cinema.
The modern motorcycle gang was an invention of the movies, pure and simple. The history of the Hells Angels, name, style, leather jackets, even the type of bike (war surplus), is all from movies. (A similar thing had happened earlier with American gangsters emulating their film types.)
Then that meme was colored by Peter Fonda's "Easy Rider," which overlaid an excuse, even a noble one, beyond a simply justified one, on the "motorcycle culture."
From that movie manger, this sprung forth into tattooland and eventually into Marvel's marketing department. And now it comes back, Peter Fonda, his Captain America bike and all. The interesting thing is that it is all symbols and no narrative.
That's the danger with comics in the first place that the temptation is to go with icons. The tradition is from stained glass and the role it played when people couldn't be bothered by words. Icons first, generating stories, rather than the way it usually is in film: the two coweaving each other.
So we shouldn't be amazed that this taxi with one wheel goes only in circles. Its dumb, as dumb as the symbols it uses close themselves into.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.