A Fish Called Wanda

Rating: Null/10 (7 May 2009)

I saw this amazingly disappointing film along with millions of others. I was going to write my stock comment about Marvel not being able to make anything cinematic. But I wondered why. It has something more than respect for the drawn comic panel, where every scene had been storyboarded and shot as if it were a storyboard.
Then I remembered and rewatched " A Fish called Wanda." That had the same smell.
The problem is simple I think. They start with the action shots. These incidentally involve characters, okay, buy that. These have to have lives. Okay. The lives have to have history, connections, reality. Nope, too much trouble, so let's just connect up some genre fragments. Family? Add sibling rivalry and a dash of parental abuse based on misunderstanding. Romance? Add in something that later you can devalue by having be pretend.
The problem is that instead of situating the film in a world — any world — and then identify some narratives, which then have dramatic color, they start with the color, going backwards. They never get to the world, which is why all the narrative seems external, remote.
Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.