Pseudo Realism
Ann Hornaday liked the new Hulk film a good bit better than I did, but I do think she’s onto something with this passage:
And how are the special effects? It’s always difficult to judge whether the computer-generated images in these movies are supposed to look seamless or fake when seamlessness itself looks fake. For example, a scene where the Hulk hides in a cave during a rainstorm looks patently false but it also looks, appropriately enough, like a page that’s been ripped out of a comic book.
Even the best CGI rarely manages to be indistinguishable from reality (Spielberg’s effects work occasionally comes close), but maybe that’s too high an expectation. After all, there are plenty of master painters whose work isn’t quite photorealistic — but it’s incredibly convincing and moving all the same. In a review of the last Superman film a few years back, I pointed out that large sections of the film were essentially animated paintings. That seems to be the case with more and more of our summer blockbusters, and while I sometimes miss the physical heft of good old-fashioned model work, I’m increasingly growing used to — and even appreciative of — the glossy, pseudo-realistic digital wonderlands the world’s most expensive effects teams are cooking up.
If you want to kick it old school, Neveldine and Taylor, the team behind <i>Crank</i> don’t go in for a lot of CGI.
— Mark · Jun 13, 04:57 PM · #
All the way over at one end of that spectrum is Pixar, who deliberately make their characters look more cartoony in order to avoid uncanny valley problems, and make their characters more accessible. The Incredibles, to my mind, still stands head and shoulders above the more recent and more live action superhero adventures.
— Trevor · Jun 13, 05:14 PM · #
And Christopher Nolan is minimizing CGI for The Dark Knight — which, granted, is a heck of a lot easier to do than it would be with the Hulk, or Iron Man for that matter. But still, it will be interesting to see if the picture, arriving after so many recent superhero flicks, will have a really distinctive feel as a result.
— Alan Jacobs · Jun 13, 05:15 PM · #
Trevor: Agree entirely. The Incredibles is one of my four or five favorite films ever, and easily my favorite of the 00’s.
Alan: Nolan is fast shaping up to be one of my favorite working directors, and while Batman Begins had some clear script problems, I think it’s probably the best of the recent wave of superhero films. (I also suspect that the script issues will be solved in TND Nolan booted David Goyer, the half-hack who’d written the original draft of Begins, after the story stage and wrote the entire script with his brother. If Memento and The Prestige are any indication, that’s a very good sign.)
— Peter Suderman · Jun 13, 05:21 PM · #
I think the painting analogy is appropriate for the video age. But how come there are so few attempts at making a style apart from either gratingly false or comically false? Paintings, after all, can be true without being photorealistic. (“It is the artist who is truthful and it is photography which lies,” said Rodin.)
Maybe I just haven’t gone to enough blockbusters in the last few years. But this era’s CGI, especially in imitation of life, makes me cringe.
— Other Ezra · Jun 13, 05:59 PM · #
I think Zack Snyder has a fine arts background, at least that’s what he studied before he started directing commercials. And if you look at the work of Frank Miller, one of the most influential comic book writer/artists out there, his work is far from photorealistic.
— Mark · Jun 13, 06:50 PM · #
Read your review of The Incredible Hulk and I must say you have to be younger than I am. The story of the Incredible Hulk is one of COMIC BOOK proportions! In that, the movie conveys the essence of the comic book. In the comic book, the Hulk is exactly like you describe, so are the stilted and vacant “extras” like Betty Ross and her “Military” father.
CG is what you go to see in this movie (that and lots of smashin-n-crashin). It’s the only way to convey the super-human? aspects of the Hulk. And if you’re a Sci-Fi/Fantasy buff, you willingly suspend your sense of disbelief. Although, I believe it will flop, since only the most die-hard comic book readers withstood the over-the-top aspect of the Hulk: He’s pissed he been turned into a freak, he’s depressed that he can’t kick it, he’s smart enough to realize these facts, and he’s frustrated cause he really wants to bang the girl but can’t since he freaks out (so to speak) when he gets excited.
So in the end he turns to violence to release his frustrations (General Ross, provides a particularly ironic foil) and that’s where it always goes in the comic books.
So love it or leave it, this is the real Incredible Hulk and the CGs are adequate (at least it’s not a rubber suit:).
Long live Marvel!
— Paul Clay · Jun 13, 07:13 PM · #