I hope you get what I mean when I say Zack Snyder sure has got it. A truly gifted exponent of the craft of cinema, the man knows how to bring a thought alive. That being said, he has not yet made a film that is a worthy sum of the parts that he brings to the table.
Some of it has to do with their scripts, while some of it perhaps is a result of his own indulgences. Still, he is the kind of moviemaker worth discussing, simply by virtue of his talent. Every film is a showcase of his skills as a storyteller, even if the stories do not always do justice to his vision. Here, then, is a look back at every feature film he has directed over the years, ranked in order of personal preference, of course. (I look forward to counterviews!)
8. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole (2010)
Ostensibly, this is Snyder’s most child-friendly film to date; everything else is usually a festival of violence, often accompanied by blood and gore. The Owls of Ga’Hoole also has loads of action but having owls do it on screen softens the touch significantly. Based on Kathryn Lasky’s Guardians of Ga’hoole series, the film has some gorgeous animation on display, and has a fantasy-adventure plot that had oodles of potential.
Yet, when you stack it up against, say, the animation films from the Disney-Pixar stables, the film just seems to lack, for want of a better word, soul. (Yes, most of us are suckers for the kind of trippy-emo ride a film like Soul takes us on.) Always brimming with the possibility of the next scene truly taking you on a ride, Ga’hoole squanders most chances by always falling short just a wee bit.
7. Man of Steel (2013)
Around the time Disney and Marvel were busy building their glitzy, theme-park cinematic universe, Warner Bros and DC lucked out with the pop-culture phenomenon that was Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. So, when the time came for DC to launch its own cinematic universe, it doubled down on Nolan’s brooding style, with Snyder helming Man of Steel.
Unfortunately, despite making a film that was consistently stunning to look at, he ended up with a film that was mostly gloss and little substance. Ultra-violent, ultra-gloomy, and ultra-basic in terms of plot, this was a film best enjoyed on the big screen, to do justice to its visuals. Try returning to it on streaming, and you will find it far harder to watch in one go than the four-hour Snyder's Cut.
6. Watchmen (2009)
Watchmen is possibly Snyder’s most visually striking film to date. The camera seems virtually alive as it explores the alternate Cold-War era timeline with bizarre superheroes and dark themes, based on the popular graphic novel series written by Alan Moore. Some of the imagery is unforgettable – like the blood-splattered smiley badge, a girl placing a flower in the barrel of a gun before it is shot, or even simply Rorschach’s living face. By the end of it though, you realise that it was probably only the imagery that gives you the patience for the film all the way till the end.
Th intrigue of the plot is somewhat blunted by Snyder’s almost excessive visual craft, his tendency to stretch out scenes just because they feel so good, not necessarily serving the film as a whole. In a certain kind of mood, when you are desperate to be transported to a wholly unrecognisable world, Watchmen still makes for a potent watch. It does not always entertain or engage, but there is something to be said about the atmosphere that Snyder manages to create.
5. Sucker Punch (2011)
This one is ranked a little higher than some would expect, primarily because of the fact that it is Snyder’s only wholly original film, and because of the debate it spawned.
Largely reviled for being a misogynistic mess (I paraphrase) in its initial reviews, many soon began to talk about how the film was actually a subversion of established male-nerd movie tropes and suchlike. Today, you could actually turn that around once more on its head, and talk about how male writer-directors imagine female oppression as fantasy battles and dragon-slaying, as opposed to the very real, human trauma that women often experience. The film may be subversive, but it still seemed to cater to the same audience that laps up testosterone-fueled action.
It may not be woke enough, and it certainly is messy, but it is still an imaginative film at its core. Sure, its various ‘levels’ – the protagonist Babydoll’s reimagination of reality – felt like ‘Inception for people who didn’t get Inception’; but there is something to be said about Snyder’s attempt and its sheer shock value. It also helps that this film is not nearly as long as some of Snyder’s other works. I just hope he sees what the problem was with the film’s stab at female emancipation.
4. Dawn of the Dead (2004)
With his very first film, Snyder displayed much of the visual flair he would come to be known for. A remake of George A Romero’s 1978 film of the same name, Dawn of the Dead is probably Snyder’s most subtle film to date, its explicit gore notwithstanding. The humour in the film is gentle, the fear in the film seems rather real, and the characters and setting make the predictable plot seem almost endearing. You end up rooting for everyone – even the annoying ones – as they try to survive the zombie apocalypse.
If I had to show Zack Snyder one of his own films to inspire him to fully explore the boundaries of his potential, it would be this one. It would take him back to the basics, and remind him that you can display terrific craft without needlessly falling in love with it. While I would pick the Zombieland movies or World War Z as my zombie films of choice well before this one, Dawn of the Dead is still a neat little gorefest.
3. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)
This might be the most contentious placement on this list, but hear me out. Firstly, I am basing this ranking on the three-hour 'Ultimate Edition,' which has a good 30 minutes of additional footage over the theatrically released version. Secondly, this film is best experienced in combination with Zack Snyder’s Justice League because over seven hours, the superhero universe crafted by Snyder is a truly immersive one. It seemed like Warner was always struggling with where to pitch the DC Extended Universe, once the Marvel Cinematic Universe beat it off the line and rapidly gained global adoration.
The films we initially got to see seemed like a reaction to Marvel, as opposed to simply trusting the creator’s vision. They ended up ruining what could have been, permanently giving Snyder’s versions a bad name. I am not saying that the full Seven Hours of Justice™ is outright epic, but there is so much to fall in love with, that I know I can keep going back to these films – in particular, this schmaltzy tale of superheroes with mothers having the same first name. All of that additional footage in the Ultimate Edition turned out to be critical.
2. Zack Snyder’s Justice League (2021)
Yes, it is too long. No, that does not bother me. And no, please try not to watch it as a mini-series, even though they have neatly cut the film up into chapters if you so feel like it.
Zack Snyder’s Justice League has the outsized weight of pop-culture history to bear, the kind no film can live up to if you really think about it. Strip away all the noise and focus on just the universe, and you see how much Snyder managed to set his vision apart from what Marvel got us accustomed to. The hashtags and the streaming release let him make Justice League into a four-hour film (which is inexplicable on some levels, because so much of the film is slow motion.) Still, the darkness-baked-in-goodness, Snyder’s now-near-perfect visual chops, and the VFX artistry to match makes the Snyder Cut leave you with images and moments you will not forget.
1. 300 (2006)
The Matrix may have set the ball rolling, but much of the action you see in tentpole blockbusters today seem to have their stylistic origins tracing back to either 300 or John Wick. With Frank Miller’s graphic novel providing not just the plot but much of the storyboard for the film, Snyder manages to bring graphic panels alive in ways that we had not yet seen before. A fantastical telling of the Battle of Thermopylae from the Persian Wars, Snyder’s world is a bizarre, violent, and gorgeous one. It was only his second feature film, and the step up from Dawn of the Dead is remarkable.
Yes, it does have many of Snyder’s usual problems – it seemed too long despite having a sub-two-hour runtime, and the gore on display leading to significant mental fatigue by the end of it. Somehow, even in his better films, the script seems to be the weakest link, followed, ironically, by Snyder’s emphatic and passionate love for his own vision. The latter may be a good ‘weakness’ to mention in a job interview, but his films would only be enriched if he economised his visual flair. He might give us some truly great films yet, if he reigns in his own impulses and challenges himself to tell stories with visual brevity. 300 might be the closest he has come to doing that, but it still does fall short of being a masterpiece.
Army of the Dead is streaming on Netflix.
*
All images from Twitter.
from Firstpost Bollywood Latest News https://ift.tt/3f4epZC
0 Comments