Pulp Fusion

Rating: 9/10 (5 June 2009)

The action is always simple and direct : save the victims of the bad guy. The method is always the same: stop the bad guy's mechanics by throwing a few strings in its gears. The rest of it is building up a network, in that case a cobweb. But this is a film, not an electronic game and we are at the cinema not in front of a game console. So the film adds a good layer of sentimental events and feelings. The girl friend from far behind. She is afraid and fascinated. She is jealous and possessive. She is maybe adult and open-minded. That kind of stuff gives to the film some interesting dimension. In the same way, in this film in particular, the super hero loses and even chooses to lose his powers, for a while at least. This whole dimension of a normal guy, a normal boy capable of normal feelings and cowardice is exploited here to reveal the other super-hero dimension is both a choice and a responsibility, a responsible choice and a chosen responsibility. Then the film can work as a film and not a dumb computer game. Then the bad guy has a new dimension. He is the self-victimized inventor of a machine that will destroy the world. But keep in mind that the solution to sink that nuclear fusion machine in order to kill it is rather primitive in intellectual value. But it is full of emotional pulpy strength. The fear of nuclear power is also typical of the beginning of this century when the oil companies were still the masters of the energetic game. We have since then entered the final stage of that oil dominance and we have to consider other solutions, particularly that do not produce carbon dioxide. It is also a reflection of a way of thinking in these 2002-2006 years: nuclear energy was only seen from the American point of view as basically criminal either in the hands of criminal individuals (that's the case here) or in the hands of criminal states. Luckily this dimension is aging pretty fast.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID