Lack of Afflecktion

No sooner is Ben Affleck announced as the next Batman than the internet goes berserk.  From the amount of vitriol, one would think a moratorium on panda videos had been announced.  All I can think is, Am I missing something?  Wherefore all this misplaced rage?  What, exactly, did Ben Affleck ever do to the interwebs?

The last time we saw Ben Affleck, he was accepting an Academy Award for Best Picture on behalf of the production crew of "Argo."  But for a blatant snub, he most likely would have accepted the award for Best Director about ten minutes before that.

I will grant you that Affleck is probably a better director than actor, but still, he acquitted himself perfectly well in "Argo"--and in several other movies besides.  I had no problem with his performances in "Chasing Amy" or "Good Will Hunting" or "The Town"--even if he was not the main "draw" of any of those films--and see no reason why he won't be a perfectly acceptable Batman.

As far as these things go, Affleck is hardly the most surprising casting choice ever made to play the Caped Crusader.  That honor goes to Michael Keaton--and that worked out pretty well.

Think about it: To play this part, Affleck will basically have to pull off "charming" as Bruce Wayne and "intense" as Batman.  He can do that.

Will he be as good as Christian Bale?  Maybe, maybe not, but that's really the wrong question: I have little doubt that the movie--which seems at this point primarily to be a Superman movie anyway--will be inferior to Christopher Nolan's recently completed trilogy--if only because director Zack Snyder has shown no signs of being able to make movies of the same quality as Nolan's.

Because here's the real point: In the history of superhero movies, some have been great, some have been good, and many have been bad, but the quality has almost nothing to do with the acting abilities of whoever is cast as the hero.  Christopher Reeve was a terrific Superman, but the four Superman movies he starred in were of vastly differing quality: The first two were highly entertaining, the third and fourth are basically unwatchable.  George Clooney is a universally acclaimed actor--an Academy Award winner, for Pete's sake!--but his turn as Batman is best remembered for nipples-on-the-breastplate.

I would go so far as to say that the number of actors who have played superheroes--and who have made a significant contribution to the quality of the films because of their portrayal--is exactly one: Robert Downey, Jr., as Tony Stark/Iron Man.  The movies might have been OK without Robert Downey, and another actor could have done an acceptable job as Marvel Comic's own answer to Bruce Wayne, but Robert Downey's effortless incarnation of Tony Stark--with all of his arrogance, wit, charm, and, ultimately, darkness--elevated a series of popcorn movies into the realm of art.

For the most part, superhero movies are action-packed spectacles, dependent upon the vision of the director and the talents of the technical crew for whatever quality they possess.  If Zack Snyder succeeds in making a crowd-pleasing extravaganza--as I suspect he will--Ben Affleck will be noted, appropriately, as just one more well-utilized prop.

OK, But Aside from THAT, How Was the Movie?

Yeah, yeah. . . . Send your complaints to Solipsist Central.

As the nation absorbs this latest example of chaos in our midst, I brace myself for certain inevitabilities.

The pundits will do what pundits do: pontificate.  Already we've had the predictable calls for increased gun control, which I generally agree with, but which may or may not be all that relevant.  A lot depends on whether "alleged" shooter James Holmes came by his guns legally.  Considering that he was a PhD candidate in neuroscience, I suspect Holmes would have had no trouble obtaining whatever weapons he wanted legally, which certainly would call into question the wisdom of existing gun regulations.  On the other hand, if it turns out the guns were purchased illegally, then the issue is really not so much that we need more gun laws, but that we must just better enforce the ones we have.  At any rate, this is not the most annoying inevitability.

The presidential candidates both responded appropriately, expressing sympathy with the victims and their families and curtailing political activities for at least a day or two.  No one's much in the mood for vitriolic rhetoric right now--with the possible exception of one Texas douchebag who claims that the shootings were a result of the "ongoing attacks" on Judeo-Christian beliefs.  Kinda makes one hopeful that the next news cycle will bring revelations that Holmes was molested by priests at an early age.

Really, though, while it's somewhat reassuring to see both President Obama and Mitt Romney slip easily into the role of Comforter-in-Chief, this kind of event presents a political no-brainer.  When tragedy strikes, anyone aspiring to high political office has got to know enough to drop whatever he or she is doing and respond.  Only a total moron would go on conducting business as usual or, say, reading "My Pet Goat."  Just sayin'.

These political response, however, are also not the most annoying inevitabilities.

No, my eye-rolling arises after seeing the immediate flooding of every movie-theater across America with reporters running up to people and asking if they are now worried about going to see movies in general and "The Dark Night Rises" in particular.  Unsurprisingly, most people--because they are not congentially stupid--express little personal concern about their odds of making it home alive from the 3:40 showing.  Sure, what James Holmes did--"allegedly"--is horrifying, but since all signs so far suggest that Holmes was a lone psychopath and not part of some Qaeda-esque jihad against all things Batman, why would this stop anyone from going to the movies?  Any individual audience member is far more likely to suffer injury or death in a car accident going to or from the multiplex than from anything that happens within the theater itself.  (They should, however avoid the popcorn "butter"--that stuff WILL kill you.)

Sadly, random acts of violence and mayhem have become a part of the fabric of American culture.  But movies have long been a much bigger part of that culture.  As one blogger has pointed out, one truly sad aspect of this shooting is that it took place during a screening of a film that, in a way that few movies do anymore, brings people together in a sort of communal celebration--a shared experience the likes of which grow ever-rarer in these days of high-end home-entertainment systems and internet-enabled fragmentation.  This shooting should not make people afraid to go to movies; it should make them fear what I suspect we'll discover is the crippling sense of isolation that drives the James Holmeses of the world to murder.