Originally published August 8, 1997, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1238
Let’s start off today’s symposium with a letter from Jim H. in Durham, N.C. Jim, writing of a recent film he saw, says:
This film I watched was the story of a strange visitor to Earth, who comes to our world as a little baby, is discovered and adopted by an elderly farmer and his wife, and grows up realizing that he is different from the other kids. You see, he has powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.
At the age of eighteen, on the brink of manhood, he sets into the world to learn the truth about himself. In a vast and mysterious temple (a veritable fortress if you will) he is counseled by the image of his true father that his destiny is to become a great hero. Our hero then journeys to a great and thriving metropolis where he takes up residence as the city’s protector. He also meets and falls in love with a tough-as-nails woman of the world who at first dismisses him because he is too, well, mild mannered.
No, the film I watched recently was not Superman: The Movie (well, okay, I did watch it recently, and it was just as good as when I first saw it when I was nine, but that’s not the point) it was Disney’s Hercules. Now, having said all that let me stress that it was actually pretty darn good! Sure, Disney took a lot of liberties with the source material, but Disney has always done that. (Am I the only one who can’t wait until all the kids who watched Hunchback of Notre Dame grow up to read Victor Hugo’s classic in high school? “Eew! Gross! That wasn’t in the movie!”) After all, Disney, the icon of family wholesomeness can’t have a hero who is the drunken, womanizing, bášŧárd son of a drunken, womanizing god. Also, the movie is no further removed from the myths than the other currently popular version of Hercules running around.
Before people start complaining about continuity (as comic fans are wont to do) it should be pointed out that the myths themselves are not always consistent. As for ripping off Superman, heck, comic books have been doing that for years. Alan Moore’s Supreme is close to the top of my must-read list, and it is a flagrant carbon copy. I guess what comic book fans have to do is enjoy the movie, is appreciate it for what it is. Great animation, good music, hilarious supporting characters (Danny DeVito is great as a satyr named Phil) and a villain you love to hate (James Woods deserves an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of Hades). Is it eye candy? Probably, but there is nothing wrong with candy as long as you don’t replace your regular diet with it.
Believe it or not… the foregoing relates to Men in Black… and the Bible…. and Agent America… and Star Trek. All of which I’ll get to. So let’s talk about Men in Black first.
How many times have you seen a baseball game wherein one of the teams is chalking up no hits whatsoever… and it’s not for lack of connecting? The batters get up there swinging, whack the ball, and the opposing team makes one miraculous play after another, thwarting one endeavor after another. At times such as those, you will hear the announcer say, “This team couldn’t buy a hit!”
Well, that’s what Marvel Comics has managed to do.
Marvel’s history of success with feature films of its properties has never been stellar. There was Howard the Duck (a film that became synonymous with “bad”) and then it sort of went downhill from there. The Punisher was mindless (not that the comic book itself was exactly Moliere). Captain America was ghastly (who can forget the Red Skull, his hand firmly gripped by a trussed up Captain America as a rocket prepares to lift off… who can forget the Skull yanking out a knife and, rather than stab Cap to wrest himself free, instead cuts off his own hand). The Fantastic Four movie was filmed merely to maintain hold on dramatic rights. So imagine my surprise when I saw Men in Black and discovered that it was based on “the Marvel Comic.”
It’s an interesting turn of events. MiB, you see, was created by Lowell Cunningham and released by Malibu. But Malibu was gobbled by Marvel and so Marvel managed to buy a hit.
The first time I saw the characters was back when Cunningham was showing around black and white Xeroxes of a new comic he’d created which, frankly, was crude and unattractive. There was nothing to separate it or distinguish from any of the many other amateurish publications which populate the convention landscape.
Who knew? Who ever knows?
The premise of Men in Black is deceptively simple: There is a secret organization within the government which is the equivalent of the INS…except that it deals with genuine, out-of-this-world aliens. The individuals who constitute the operatives for this group are faceless, anonymous, and designed to fade into the background. They are the “men in black,” part of the American popular mythos. They showed up in an episode of X-Files, and some folks tell me that Dan Aykroyd (whose interest in the paranormal resulted in Ghostbusters) based the Blues Brothers on the urban legend of the men in black.
In this case, the film’s creators have grafted what is essentially your standard-issue savvy veteran/offbeat maverick cop story onto Cunningham’s science fictiony premise. Will Smith in his second July 4th weekend alien-buster in a row is the young turk who is recruited by veteran Tommy Lee Jones, who sees something in the youngster that eludes the agency’s hard-bitten boss, Zed (played with no-nonsense zeal by Rip Torn.) Jones essentially sends up his own portrayal of the unflappable, hardbitten Gerard from The Fugitive, while Smith is the cocky hot-shot who must work overtime to maintain his facade of seen-it-all attitude as he’s confronted with one bizarre revelation after another.
And the core revelation is what makes the film and premise work, namely that aliens are already among, have been among us for some time now–everyone from Newt Gingrich to Sly Stallone, and even Elvis whom Jones informs us “Didn’t die. He just went home,” news that will please the woman from Independence Day who was hoping that the aliens would “bring back Elvis.” Say, here’s a thought: Perhaps Elvis was an advance scout for an invading armada, and all the impersonators we see running around are not merely impersonators, but actually fellow Elvises who are slowly hoping to turn everyone into Elvis clones. Thank you. Thank you very much.
It is the job of the Men in Black, operating in anonymity with simple designations of “K” and “J”, to oversee their presence on earth and make sure that no overly hostile alien individuals show up and make life miserable for we poor earth folk.
As a film, it’s fairly lightweight. Not quite up there with Ghostbusters in terms of milking humor by treating the outrageous as the mundane, MiB nonetheless strikes close to the right balance of humor and gravity. One of the most fully realized moments of this tricky combination occurs as J (Jones) is questioning an alien regarding a potential threat to humanity while, in the background, K (Smith) is getting the snot kicked out of him by an alien mother giving birth. Despite the fact that his partner is ensnared by a tentacle and getting slammed around, J barely affords him a casual glance or word of encouragement. It’s as if he’s trying to convey a message to his young partner: Learn to take this stuff in stride, kid.
Overall, Men in Black works, for the same reason that Hercules works. For that matter, for the same reason that Star Trek worked over a period of thirty years.
Myths. Myths and archetypes, and reinterpretation of same, and trying to make sense of a world that, at its core, makes no sense at all.
And I’ll talk about it more next week.
Either that or I’ll talk about George of the Jungle if I’ve seen it and like it enough.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)
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MiB is a rare case where Hollywood’s changes to a comics property generally improved it. The premise of the movie is more focused than the comic; there’s an issue of the comic where they go up against an enchanted d20 that summons demons, for example. The movie’s focus on aliens produced more of a sense of a coherent world. Also, J and K don’t have much personality in the comics (the main character trait I remember for J is that he doesn’t trust K), but they acquired more character onscreen just through casting. (Admittedly, in J’s case the character is “Will Smith standard action/comedy character”, but there’s nothing wrong with that per se.)
I’d toss in “Mystery Men” as another movie very loosely based on a comic. And it was one I enjoyed tremendously.
It seems I was one of the few…
Nah, I liked it too. Funny, but also had a lot of heart.
I freakin’ loved Mystery Men! I think it’s actually one of the better superhero movies, better than a lot of the Marvel movies.
Mystery Men was great. I think it works even better if you’re a comic book fan, though. Because every comic book fan knows characters like these guys. The heroes who aren’t the favorites or the big names but who are trying their dangedest anyway with little respect. Heck, the JLI was pretty much built out of guys like that.
Mystery Men is great. While it’s accessible to most people, I think it works even better if you’re a comic fan. Mainly because every comic fan know characters like that. Heroes who aren’t big names or favorites but keep on going and trying their darnedest anyway. Heck, the entire JLI was practically made of guys like that.
Oops. Double post. Moderators can delete one and this message if need be.
Mystery Men remains one of the only Ben Stiller movies I will willingly watch. Love that movie.
I always preferred “The Specials” over “Mystery Men” but I did like both…
everyone from Newt Gingrich to Sly Stallone
And after all these years, it still explains a lot.
And, as we learned in the second movie, Dennis Rodman (“Not a very good disguise”)…
No, the revelation of Rodman was in the first film. In fact, that was the last spoken line.
PAD
Really? My bad – been awhile since I saw them. With two autistic kids, I mostly get to watch Cars – a lot. 🙂
“With two autistic kids, I mostly get to watch Cars – a lot.”
Doesn’t play into it. My son is not autistic and I’ve now seen Cars more times than any other movie I’ve ever seen. Hëll, I think I hit that point in the first year we had the DVD.
I recall enjoying “Men In Black”. I agree that it was a fairly lightweight film, but there’s the scene where Will Smith’s character is contemplating accepting the invitation of joining M.I.B. It adds some depth that the sequels fail to include. IMO the original could easily stand on it’s own without sequels. With the exception of Josh Brolin doing his best Tommy Lee Jones, you can easily skip M.I.B. 3 : http://www.theblabbingbaboon.com/?p=2587
“IMO the original could easily stand on it’s own without sequels.”
Well, yes, but that’s true of any movie that has sequels, other than The Fellowship of the Ring or Kill Bill Vol. 1, which are simply the first chapters of one story.
I actually think MiB is that rare series in which the sequels are just as good as the original. In fact, I think I like them a little better. I disagree that the first one had more depth. The endings of both sequels were pretty poignant, I thought. I actually started tearing up in the third one.
I thought MIB and MIB3 were both good. I didn’t care for MIB2.
So how did you like George of the Jungle?
Funny to recall a time when nothing Marvel did would make any money. Now they have to work hard to flop. Though apparently all it takes is hiring Jessica Alba.
“Fantastic Four” made money, so that is a pretty cheap, inaccurate shot at Ms. Alba. The only true flops Marvel has had in the past decade are “Elektra” and arguably “Punisher War Zone”. Even huge disappointrments like “Daredevil” and “Ghost Rider” and Thomas Jane’s “Punisher” made money. So did both Hulk films.
PAD was not referring to the most recent two FF movies. (This column is 15 years old, remember). The FF movie in question never made it to theaters and never (really) made it to video — only bootleg copies. This is a movie made so cheaply and cheesily they actually pirated some screen captures from the opening credits of LA Law to get an establishing shot of the Baxter Building.
ignore most of what I said above — I was not speed reading very accurately and was responding to somthing that wasn’t even said. I’ll go skulk off in a corner now …
Not long after MIB came out, one reviewer I read opined that it would be worth the price of admission to just watch and listen to Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones read the phone book to each other. Their strange chemistry, and contrasting styles that played so well off of one another, was by far the most important reason for this franchise’s success on the big screen IMO. I think the director of the first MIB was the same guy who made the Wild, Wild West movie, also with Will Smith, which was a much inferior movie and nowhere near as enjoyable to watch.
I’m a huge, huge fan of the first one, I just think it pops on so many levels and is just excellently made. The 2nd one is a fun romp but doesn’t have the lazerbeam, sharp writing and comedic timing of the first one. Same goes for the third one, which I enjoy these characters but it’s not as witty as the original. But it did have time travel and I liked Jamie Clament as the bad guy. But I think the first one is just an excellent example of blockbuster sci-fi comedy, which is actually a really hard genre to pull off in general.