The Dark Side of Marco, Exposed

It's been 17 years since the first feature-length computer animated production from Sony Pictures stole our hearts and inspired a new generation of animated features. It's not saying much since the very first CG animation from Pixar, the critically acclaimed *Toy Story,* achieved this ten years ago with a raw score of 100%. *Marco* did the same thing as well, but how?

This is due to the titular character himself, Marco. He's relatable. He's iconic. His skewed personality made him those things, while being stranded on a hostile environment. Yet he discovers that saving the world is a lie. All of his big dreams wrapped under foil, his bigger ambitions shattered. He isn't the hero he assumed he was -- ahem, Marcoman. He isn't even a spy. He's just a 10-year-old with a huge imagination, vying to become the "world's greatest spy," something highly superficial that not even James Bond dreamed of becoming one in the first place. No wonder Marco gets so depressed.

That's not bad, though. He was driven by his childlike passion (no pun intended), but found nothing... Marco knew he was just a child, and found purpose as something better. When audiences first saw that scene in the original film 17 years ago, everyone knew Marcoman wouldn't save the day. It was Marco's caring, never-give-up attitude towards his friends that saved the day (and this whole film in patricular).

As hilarious and heartwarming as Marco may be, its impressively downbeat thesis is that you're not special, you're the same as everyone else, and you won't be happy unless you resign yourself to your unremarkable fate. It also makes the point that someday, we would go away from this Earth without coming back, and that's quite something from a cartoon co-starring Ed Helms as an aging clown with a guitar.

#### Identity crisis

We've all been here at some point in our lives, don't deny it. Marco's been here a couple of times, too. After all, this is a series of cartoons dealing with the loss of one's own identity. As mentioned earlier, there is one scene in the first film where Marco spreads his cardboard wings and, attempting to mimic his hero, fails miserably towards the floor. He gets backed up by two spiritual beings who look like him -- obviously his angel and the devil -- who constantly argue beside his two shoulders. It's a sort of internal conflict that balances the elements of comedy and pathos very well; one of those rare instances in which both spirits eventually lose the game of "who's gonna die tonight?" when their ill-stricken lad gets heated up with the bad guys (to be honest, one of them is a girl who claims herself as a woman). Marco, however, knew he wasn't getting his title anytime soon. Being the "world's greatest spy" was so futile of a thing, that he made himself a true hero, no matter how unskilled his amateurish stunts and insignificant his exaggerated passions were.

Over the course of the franchise, Marco becomes something more than a spy, adding nice concepts turned subplots within these films. Marco is hired as a secret agent in *Marco* 2 (my least favorite one, don't ask why) in which he keeps a highly valuable diamond intact from the hands of a former athlete who became a smarter mastermind of crime. In *Marco 3,* his dreams as an inventor got fulfilled when his magnum opus, the Flying Automatic Radiation Bomb known as FARB, goes beserk mode around downtown Houston. In Marco 4, he trades his red shirt and blue shorts for the title of "teenage Sherlock Holmes" complete with a pipe and the iconic sleuth's hat. And lastly, in the most recent Marco movie, he disguises as what he always wanted to be since the first film: that is, my friends, Marcoman.

#### War

War plays an important role in the Marco movies, and even Marco himself acknowledges this when he looked up his name, meaning "god of war" despite the fact that he hates war. Sometimes, it is better for him and his friends to fight back in order to survive. Probably the most heartbreaking scene in Marco history was saved for last. That scene, reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan, portrays a wounded Marco stranded amidst a depiction of war. One of them involved had his mustache taken away while sobbing over his presumably deceased girl. Pohlino was also there, overwhelmed by a huge scoop of ice cream falling onto his face. And of course, there was the young soldier kid who was looking for his broken mirror. This whole scene reflects something as terrifying as PTSD through Marco's vivid flashbacks when he explains