Since the beginning of cinema, there have been movies that have caused massive uproars throughout various communities. Some of those controversies are well-deserved, while others may not. D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation was one of the first feature-length films that was impressive on a technical. The content of the film, however, led to groups of people like the NAACP to boycott the film and it was banned in certain regions of the country. When you have a film that portrays the KKK as the good guys? Yeah, that’s going to cause problems. 1932 saw the release of Howard Hawkes’ Scarface which was considered to be one of the most violent movies of the time. It was banned in several countries, but ended up being one of the greatest movies of its kind decades later. Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho wasn’t without it’s own controversies. The stabbing in the shower scene became notorious, but the film also featured the first on-screen flushing of a toilet. It sounds ridiculous, but the codes that were in place for Hollywood prevented anything like that from appearing on screen. By today’s standards, those moments are relatively tame. It wouldn’t be until the 1970s when the real heavy stuff started coming like The Last House on the Left, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and I Spit on Your Grave. Oh, we can’t forget Cannibal Holocaust in 1979/1980, either. THOSE movies earned their notorious reputation for….extreme content. The movies that I’ll be discussing today appear to controversial on the surface, but when you start peeling away the layers, they really aren’t.
The Hunt
I figured I’d better start off with this one, because the controversy surrounding this film is the result of unbelievable stupidity. The Hunt is about a group of right-wingers that were kidnapped and taken to what appears to be Arkansas so they could be hunted by the “elite” liberals. This movie was supposed to be released in September of last year, but when the preschool dropout in the White House heard about the film, threats were issued against the film and the industry. That was all without actually seeing the movie. See, The Hunt is a satire. It’s lampooning the left AND the right, and everybody in between. Granted, it could be a little on the nose at times, but it never took itself too seriously. It exposed the ridiculous extremes of both sides jumping to conclusions without actually learning about the situation or the people. Everybody’s guilty of doing that, myself included. Even the level of violence in the film is not as extreme as certain parties would have you believe. It’s still a pretty gory movie, but I’ve seen much worse. I think it’s worth taking a look.
Rambo: Last Blood
I know, I know: I keep bringing up Rambo: Last Blood. It’s shown up on a number of my lists for sure, but I’ve had good reason to bring it up. When Last Blood was announced, it was to take place in Mexico with the character of John Rambo trying to rescue his niece from a notorious Mexican cartel. The controversy seems to come from the fact that people saw this movie as an attack on immigration and portraying this movie as pro-Trump propaganda. I honestly didn’t see any of that. The Mexican bad guys in this film are part of a cartel. These are not nice people. Not in the movie and not in real life. The film doesn’t portray all Mexicans as cartel enforcers or rapists. Not only that, a great deal of the film’s cast and crew are Latino or Spanish in origin. My only real complaint with the film is that the narrative feels very derivative of other films that have done it better. Granted, this is a film that probably should have come out years ago, but I’m not seeing anything controversial here. It’s a Rambo movie, for crying out loud. It’s over-the-top. It’s violent. So, uh….get over it?
The DaVinci Code
Here’s another film where I feel the controversy is more trumped up than it needed to be. The DaVinci Code is based on Dan Brown’s novel, which I have also read. It’s one of my favorite books. The story is about a professor who gets caught up in a conspiracy that spans centuries. This conspiracy involves the Catholic Church trying to keep the location of the Holy Grail a secret. The story is really good and the film is a blast to watch. The controversy is more about how the Catholic Church feels how it was portrayed and how it abhors the idea that Jesus Christ had a family and a bloodline that continues to this day. Soooo….pedophile priests are fine but the idea that Jesus was not only NOT a supernatural being, but also had a family somehow is NOT okay? Granted, the Church was never one for logic, they never are, but this just seemed kind of out there.
Aladdin(2019)
Okay, the real controversy surrounding this film was casting and the look of Will Smith as the Genie in the live-action remake of Aladdin. When the film was announced, people were skeptical, and rightfully so, about who would be cast as the Genie. Who could replace Robin Williams? The answer was nobody. Robin Williams was iconic as the Genie in the animated film. Whenever that character was on screen, he stole the show. I always felt that the only person that could actually be up to the task of playing the Genie was Will Smith. No other actor came to mind. Smith was and still is one of the most talented actors in the business. I had hoped that Smith would bring his own quirks and eccentricities to the character and not try and duplicate what Robin Williams had done. Thankfully, Will Smith nailed it. He’s the best part of the movie. Well, him and Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine. Unfortunately, the rest of the film wasn’t that good. The guy who played Jafar was NOT the right person and he didn’t play it the right way.
Casino Royale
Here’s another movie where the controversy surrounding it was completely unfounded. For decades, the actors who played the legendary James Bond all had dark hair. Not this one. Oh, no. Daniel Craig, in his first film as 007, is blonde. The idea that a blonde Bond was bad evaporated when people final saw the film. Not only is Casino Royale an excellent film in its own right, it’s one of the best James Bond ever made. Daniel Craig gives the character a much darker and harder edge that we haven’t seen since Timothy Dalton. You know what? It works. Daniel Craig has proved not only that he’s an excellent James Bond, he’s one of the best actors to take on the role. I would put him up there with Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan. I know THAT’S probably going to blow some gaskets, but it’s the truth from my point of view.
The Dark Knight
Here’s another movie where the casting of a certain character rustled some jimmies. The Dark Knight sees Batman taking on his most dangerous enemy yet, The Joker in a battle for the soul of Gotham City. That’s an oversimplification, I grant you, but the actual story is really good. Now, you already had two great Jokers in Cesar Romero from the Adam West show and Jack Nicholson from Tim Burton’s 1989 film. For this iteration of the Joker, Christopher Nolan cast the late heartthrob Heath Ledger as the main villain. People really got up in arms about how he wasn’t going to be as good as Nicholson or Mark Hamill or Cesar Romero. No. Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker was very different, but it was no less iconic. The introduction of the Joker is spine-tingling. Not only do you NOT see Heath Ledger at all, his voice is different. Heath Ledger BECAME the Joker. This particular Joker embodies chaos and anarchy in the scariest of ways. He’s not the kind of guy you want to meet in a dark alley. Heath Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award AND Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. The Dark Knight would become one of the greatest comic-book movies of all time, in no small part due to Heath Ledger.
Well, those are some movies that I found to not be as controversial as the initially appeared to be. A lot of it seems to come down to casting and potentially pissing off a particular group of people. Again, I didn’t really see anything of that sort, with the exception of The DaVinci Code, but even then, I don’t think they were deliberately trying to get a rise out of the Church. Getting all huffy over a movie because it might potentially be controversial is like judging a book by its cover. There’s more there than what you see on the surface. Judge for yourself whether or not certain movies are controversial. Don’t listen to anyone else, not even me. Think for yourself. This is Major Tom, signing off.