Two Summer Adaptations
MAVERICK and THE CROW
Two film reviews by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1994 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: As two adaptations from other media,
these show that there may be a lot of potential for adapting
comic books to the screen, but 1950s television is starting
to be mined out. Certainly in this case we have a good
adaptation of a comic book and a much less successful
cinematic TV show. Ratings: MAVERICK gets a 0, THE CROW a +1
(-4 to +4). However, MAVERICK may be more appropriate for a
wider audience.
It is now no longer much of a novelty to see either a 1950s television show like "Maverick" or a comic like "The Crow" adapted into a film version. One would expect that of the two, it would be easier to be faithful to the style of the dramatic medium on the screen. However, even speaking as someone who has not read "The Crow," I can say that at least in this instance the comic book form seems to have been better represented on the screen than the TV show.
THE CROW seems set in a world where it is constantly a rainy night in Hell. Everything seems a little rain-drenched in the world of THE CROW, but somehow the villainous Top Dollar (played by Michael Wincott) manages to get buildings to burn every year on October 30--Devil's Night--for clients who are willing to pay Top Dollar for the service. His thugs torch a building, raping a woman and murdering her and her husband-to-be, Eric (Brandon Lee). As myth would have it a crow transports their souls to the after-world, but returns Eric's soul one year later for him to exact terrible revenge on the evil gang. (One has to ask oneself if the indignant dead do sometimes return, why were there not armies of indignant dead chasing after Stalin and Hitler. Even murder and arson are crimes less deserving of the Crow- treatment.)
Visually this film is a powerful adaptation of the comic book form to the screen. Alex Proyas directs with many short cuts highly evocative of comic book panels. Every once in a while he will dwell on one majestic image, like the figure of Eric standing in a huge circular, broken window. He pauses on this image just about as long as a reader of the comic would pause on that panel. The screenplay takes little time to humanize any of its characters beyond perhaps making a little girl seem likable. This is one more story full of sound and fury and striking visual images, but it has little core and no characters of any emotional interest. Still it is bound to be remembered as a signpost showing the way to translate effectively the characteristics of a comic book to the screen. It deserves a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale. Extreme violence makes this a film for a narrow audience but it is a far more interesting transition to the screen than is MAVERICK.
Though more acceptable for a wider audience, MAVERICK is a film that also lacked core--but here it was needed far more. The TV show covered the adventures of two brothers, Bret and Bart Maverick, two likable gamblers. Bret was played by James Garner. When Warner Brothers needed someone to play Pappy Maverick, father of Bret and Bart, he too was played by James Garner. (There was a third brother, Brent, introduced after Garner walked off the series.) "Maverick" was played straight for a couple of seasons, then a humorous description in one of the scripts gave Garner the idea to play that scene tongue-in-cheek, a style that remained with him the rest of his career. But even with his good-humored acting, the stories usually were fairly well-written and well-thought-out. They were a lot better than the string of gag scenes that William Goldman wrote into the screenplay of the new adaptation. Mel Gibson as the new Bret Maverick goes from one minor adventure to another trying to get together the money to be in a giant high stakes poker game. There was no real plot complication in this film until the last 40 minutes. Writer William Goldman has some good fun, and some that works not quite so well, doing to Western cliches what he did to adventure cliches with THE PRINCESS BRIDE, though they work only occasionally here. (Perhaps the best scene of the film is done in an Indian language and subtitled, lampooning Indian acting in so many bad films.) Far too many gags fall flat and plot devices fall flatter. Most of the film is told in flashback by a Bret with a noose around his neck. When this threat is resolved Bret has cheated the hangman not nearly so badly as Goldman has cheated the audience. James Garner is also on-hand and playing a major character, perhaps to keep an eye on what his Bret is up to. Playing lawman Zane Cooper, Garner is pretty much the laconic character he has always played. Jodie Foster plays Annabelle Bransford, as capable of the double- cross as any of the men. There is certainly some fun here and some nice nature photography not really characteristic of the series. But with so little story this one gets no better than a 0 on the -4 to +4
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
.
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews