Month: February 2020

Released: May 1993

Directors: Annabel Jenkel and Rocky Morton

Run Time: 104 Minutes

Rated PG

Distributor: Hollywood Pictures

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Cast:
Bob Hoskins: Mario
John Leguizamo: Luigi
Dennis Hopper: King Koopa
Samantha Mathis: Daisy
Fisher Stevens: Iggy
Richard Edson: Spike

In the grand pantheon of entertainment, we have films of such renown and scale like Ben-Hur, Spartacus, and Lawrence of Arabia.  These grand epics have shaped the industry for decades and have risen the bar for what constitutes an epic film.  Many films have tried to replicate this classics, but few have succeeded.  All these films have laid the foundation for what could be the greatest film of all time…..Super Mario Bros.….wait, what?  No, no, no, that can’t be right.  Are we talking about the same movie here?  Super Mario Bros.?  From 1993?  The one starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo and Dennis Hopper?  Oh, dear.  When it comes to movies based on video games, you usually don’t get more notorious than Uwe Boll as a director, as his “films” like Alone in the Dark and House of the Dead seem to indicate.  However, they were NOT the first movies of their kind.  There were movies ABOUT video games before 1993 like Tron and War Games, but there had never been a movie that was actually based on a video game until Super Mario Bros.  Here we go.

65 million years ago, a meteorite struck the earth that wiped out all the dinosaurs.  Apparently it also split the world into two different parallel dimensions.  One dimension saw humans evolve from monkeys and the other one saw them evolve from dinosaurs.  Fast-forward 65 million years and we end up in Brooklyn with two brothers, Mario and Luigi.  These two plumbers end up running into Daisy, who runs a dig-site near the Brooklyn Bridge.  They soon discover that Daisy is being hunted by King Koopa from the other dimension because she has a piece of the original meteorite that when brought together will merge both dimensions allowing Koopa to rule both worlds and eliminate the mammals from OUR world.  Everybody get that?  No?  You’re not the only ones.  The story presented here is so bonkers that you would think that you were on drugs.  I think somebody was, because there’s an awful lot of fungus in this movie.  The original game didn’t have much of a plot: Mario and Luigi have to rescue a princess from a giant turtle dragon.  That’s all you needed to know from the game.  That element of game did make into the movie, but that’s really about the only thing the movie really gets right.

I can’t really say that there’s anything wrong with the cast here.  Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo are pretty good as Mario and Luigi and Dennis Hopper always makes a great villain.  This is where things really start coming apart, however.  It’s not that the acting is awful, I mean it can be, but the problem is that the actors had to deal with a script that was changing daily.  It got to the point where Dennis Hopper refused to memorize his lines, because they kept changing.  Hoskins and Leguizamo were told that they were going to be making a certain kind of film, but when they showed up on set, it was very different from what they were told.  Very few things in the film match up with the game.  Mario and Luigi don’t even get their iconic costumes until about half-way through the film.  The character of Daisy isn’t even from the original game.  No, she’s from the GameBoy title, Super Mario Land.  It is incredibly obvious that there were major issues behind the scenes that kept the film from having a coherent tone and look.  Normally, I would accuse studio interference with these kinds of absurdities, but the real blame lies with the directors.  They insisted on making the film their own way instead of doing what Nintendo wanted.  Instead of a bright and colorful film, we get a dark, gritty, dystopian-style of a film that just doesn’t work.

I’ll be honest:  There is stuff in this film to like.  I actually kind of like the look of the film, despite the fact that it doesn’t work most of the time.  The set designs and some of the creature designs are not terrible.  Some of the visual effects are pretty interesting, but the clashing tones of the film really work against it.  It wants to be this goofy sci-fi comedy, but at the same time, it wants to be a dark and gritty action film.  The Super Mario Bros. film is far removed from the game that you could barely recognize it.  My brother and I grew up with the original game, so when the film came out, I was confused, as were a lot of people.  This didn’t feel like Super Mario.  This felt like a cheap Blade Runner knock-off.  They also dragged poor Lance Henriksen into this film with a ridiculous cameo.  From what’s been released about the film’s production, there was some serious shit going down.  Both Hoskins and Leguizamo were so uncomfortable with their roles that they resorted to alcohol to deal with it, and you can tell in certain scenes that Leguizamo was hammered.  Dennis Hopper got into a 3 hour shouting match with the directors about their complete lack of professionalism.  Apparently, there was a point where the directors’ agent told them to get off the set.

All production problems aside, Super Mario Bros. had the misfortune of being released in May of 1993, a few weeks before a small indie film called Jurassic Park hit the scene.  Super Mario cost about 48 million to make, but it didn’t even make back half of that.  For a movie that kicked off the video game movie craze, it fell flat on its face.  It was so bad that Nintendo refused to do another movie based on a video game.  This was 27 years ago.  Obviously, Super Mario’s failure didn’t stop other studios from giving it a shot.  The following year, we got Street Fighter with Jean-Claude Van Damme and Raul Julia.  Another failure.  It was 1995’s live-action adaptation of Mortal Kombat that proved you CAN do a video game-based movie properly and be successful.  For about a decade, Super Mario Bros. was considered to be the lowest point for video game-based movies.  That would change when film “auteur” Uwe Boll entered the scene with House of the Dead. Suddenly, it seemed like Super Mario was Citizen Kane in comparison.  For the most part, movies based on video games have been met with failure or mixed success.  There have been a few recent releases, though, that seem to show film-makers taking the source material seriously.  Movies like the latest Tomb Raider and Sonic The Hedgehog are good examples of movies of this sort.  What’s really funny is that despite the issues, I find Super Mario Bros. to be a fairly entertaining film.  Good?  Not remotely, but I don’t think it’s the abomination that a lot of people said it was.  It might not seem that way, considering what I just said about it, but I actually had a bit of fun, considering I hadn’t seen the film in over 20 years.  Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper are all fun to watch, with some fairly creative visuals, but this is not required that you seek this movie out.

My Final Recommendation: Oh, Super Mario Bros., what did they do to you? 6/10

There’s something incredible about reading a book or watching a documentary about events or people that existed hundreds or even thousands of years ago.  Reading about history and watching historical films is like opening a window into the past.  Learning about our history as a species offers us a unique opportunity to learn about the mistakes of the past and not repeat them in the future.  It’s not only important to read and understand the history of your own country, but others as well.  If you’re looking for inspiration to tell a good story, all you have to do is look at the past 10,000 years.  There are so many stories that can be adapted into novels or movies.  From the rise of the Chinese Empire to the fall of Rome, there is always a story that can be told.  For this list, I’m going to be looking at the best and worst historical films that I’ve seen.  For this to work, I’ll be looking at how well each film portrays a particular part of history.  Some inaccuracies can be forgiven if the authenticity of the time period is intact.  So, let’s take a look to the past and see what we can find.

The Best: Tora! Tora! Tora!

Tora! Tora! Tora! is a World War II film about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  While the film was not necessarily a big hit when it came out, it has since been revered by many historians and film buffs to be one of the most historically accurate and spectacular films set during World War II.  What separates this film from a lot of other war movies is the fact that while half the film was directed by an American crew, the other half was directed by a Japanese crew.  Because of this, the authenticity of the film is legitimate because it shows the events leading up to the attack from both American and Japanese perspectives.  Another thing that really sticks out about this film is the attention to detail.  From the Americans spotting a Japanese mini-sub to the fact that people were warned about the Japanese attack AFTER it happened.  Not only that, the visual effects and the battle sequences are second to none.  One scene sticks out in particular:  When the Japanese attack an airfield, a remote controlled plane explodes but it ends up crashing into the other planes.  The crew that you see running for their lives are actually running for their lives.  It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, but it ended up in the final picture.  This is a must-see if you love World War II movies.

The Worst: Pearl Harbor

Since I brought up the best movie about Pearl Harbor, it’s only fair that I mentioned the worse one.  What’s wrong with this movie?  5 words: Michael Bay and Randall Wallace.  Seriously, though.  There are a lot of problems with this one.  First of all, there’s a lot of flag-waving patriotism in here.  So much that it made ME cringe, and I’m an American.  The movie was supposed to be about the events leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, but what we get instead is a horrendously written love story that forces history to take a back seat.  Not only that, there are things that happen in this film that couldn’t have possibly happened in real life.  For instance, Ben Affleck’s character is somehow allowed to fight for the British while still being a part of the US Military.  Military service does not work that way.  That’s actually insulting, and I would hope that British citizens would also be insulted at that.  If there’s one thing that Michael Bay knows how to do, it’s action, and the battle sequences in this film are excellent.  The weak-ass love story and overall lame script is the fault of writer Randall Wallace, who I’m going to be bringing up again later on this list.  Pearl Harbor could’ve been something really amazing, but Wallace and Bay managed to turn a movie about one of the most pivotal moments in US history into a cheese fest.  Oh, and they re-released a “director’s cut” that added more gore attempting to make the film more “realistic.”  Please.

The Best: Lawrence of Arabia

For someone who claims to be a huge fan of movies, I regret to inform you that I had never seen Lawrence of Arabia before this week.  I’d seen images and video clips, but never the entire movie.  So, when I finally sat down and watched all 3 hours and 45 minutes of it, I was completely blown away.  I love historical epics like Ben-Hur and Spartacus, but Lawrence of Arabia is in a league of its own, I think.  Peter O’Toole, in his first leading role, plays T.E Lawrence, a British officer who attempted to unite the tribes of Arabia against the Ottoman Empire.  The film’s accuracy is still being debated today, but most regard Lawrence of Arabia as one of the greatest films of all time.  I’m not entirely sure I’ll do a review of the film, mostly because I don’t think I can add anything to the discussion.  It’s definitely worth watching, though.

The Worst: Braveheart

It’s one thing for an historical film to have inaccuracies.  It’s going to happen.  You’re never going to get every single detail right, and sometimes you shouldn’t, because it would otherwise be boring.  But when a movie completely disregards the actual history of the figure that it’s trying to portray, you have to wonder why they would even bother.  Such is the case with Braveheart which is EXTREMELY loosely based on the life of William Wallace, one of Scotland’s legendary heroes.  Before I started actually reading into the history of William Wallace, at least the history that I could find, I found Braveheart to be an extraordinarily amazing film with epic battles and a great story.  Besides, Mel Gibson not only starred in, but directed this film as well.  Unfortunately, as soon as you start even scratching the surface of the history of William Wallace, the entire movie falls apart.  I have never seen a movie get so much wrong in terms of historical accuracy.  The dates are wrong, the actual historical figures are mostly misrepresented, and certain events never actually happened.  The whole prima nocta thing?  Never happened.  Princess Isabelle?  In reality, she would have been about three years old at the time of the Battle of Falkirk.  I understand the need to embellish things for the sake of drama, but when you butcher history this badly, and on purpose, I might add, it does a major disservice to not only the historical figure, but the people of Scotland as well.  While Mel Gibson definitely took some liberties with history, Randall Wallace is absolutely guilty of the weak writing of the film’s characters, to the point that they don’t even resemble their real-life counterparts.  I honestly haven’t seen the movie since.  Look, the film is well-shot and well acted with an outstanding musical score and epic battle sequences, but it doesn’t make up for the fact that the film-makers decided to try and re-write history.  I don’t care how the film-makers try to justify it.

The Best: Tombstone

I love Westerns as much as the next guy, but Tombstone is probably my favorite.  It’s not just my favorite because of the stellar cast that it had: Kurt Russell, Val Kilmer, Michael Biehn, Powers Booth, Dana Delany, Billy Zane, Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton.  It’s my favorite because it takes Wyatt Earp, one of the most legendary lawmen in US history, and focuses on one particular period in his life, his time in Tombstone, Arizona.  The events that happened in the film are mostly accurate to what actually happened.  For instance, the infamous gunfight at the O.K. Corral was one of the coolest set-pieces in the film.  Aside from Ike Clanton picking up a gun and fighting back, the fight went almost exactly how you saw it in the movie.  There’s also one neat little detail that most people don’t realize is actually true: Wyatt Earp throwing Johnny Tyler out of the Oriental.  It didn’t happen in exactly the same time period, but the fact that the film brought it up was amazing.  This was an outstanding film all around with Val Kilmer and Michael Biehn basically stealing the show.

The Worst and the Best: The Birth of A Nation(1915)

I bring up D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of A Nation for a reason.  This movie has significance in film history.  The movie pioneered many filming techniques that are still in use today.  It was also one of the first Civil War epics ever made.  What makes this film so egregious in terms of it’s history inaccuracy, is the fact that it got enough right to lend some form of legitimacy to everything that was happening on the screen.  Make no mistake about it, D.W. Griffith’s film is about as racist as it can get, whether that was his intention or not.  Yet, at the same time, the film is very anti-war.  The first half of the film is actually really good, with some really good story-telling.  It’s the second half of the film when it really starts getting offensive.  Yet, I can’t bring myself to say that this film shouldn’t exist, because of its importance.  People should look at this film and learn from it.  Not just with the techniques that were invented for the film, but in how to tell a story and how NOT to be racist.  There are a lot of lessons to be learned from this film, even in this day and age.  What lessons you learn from it are up to you.

The Best: Das Boot

It’s been said that history is written by the victor.  Very rarely do we get a peek of what it’s like on the other side.  Wolfgang Peterson’s submarine masterpiece, Das Boot is a look at life on a U-Boat in 1941.  The film is based on the book of the same name and based on the real-life submarine of U-96.  It seems strange that one could sympathize with Germans during WWII, but you have to understand that a lot of these guys that put out to sea probably have no idea what’s going on back home.  Their captains might, but the sailors are just fighting for their own country as any good soldier/sailor would do.  What makes this so interesting is that there is not one ounce of Nazi propaganda in the film aside from one really pro-Nazi officer.  Everything in this film is handled realistically, from the cramped quarters to the absolute chaos when they get depth-charged.  It’s absolutely white-knuckle.  The visual effects and action sequences are absolutely astounding.  What I also like about this film is that, like in actual history, the German navy was one of the least pro-Nazi branches of their military and that is reflected to a certain degree here.  The captain is clearly anti-Nazi and very skeptical about the war.  It just goes to show you that even in a war with defined lines as WWII, there’s still a lot of gray to be found, regardless of which side you were on.

Well, those were some of the best and worst historical movies that I’ve seen, with the best ones being mostly respectful to the history and the figures of that period, with the worst ones basically not giving a shit about history.  When history is done right in movies, it’s one of the best things ever.  When it’s not, and you’re a fan of history, it’s aggravating.

Released: February 2020

Director: Jeff Fowler

Rated PG

Run Time: 99 Minutes

Distributor: Paramount Pictures

Genre: Action/Adventure/Family

Cast:
Ben Schwartz: Sonic The Hedgehog(Voice)
James Marsden: Tom Wachowski
Tika Sumpter: Maddie Wachowski
Jim Carrey: Dr. Ivo Robotnik
Lee Majdoub: Agent Stone

Ah, video game-based movies:  The laughing stock of film and gaming communities everywhere.  Back in the early 90’s, somebody somewhere decided that it would be a good idea to make a movie based on a popular video game franchise.  The idea had merit and if done properly, it could appeal to both film and video game fans alike.  That was the intention anyway.  Unfortunately, the first attempt at making a movie based on a video game ended in complete disaster: Super Mario Bros.  EVERYBODY hated this movie: Movie fans who weren’t familiar with the video game, the fans of the video game, and some of the people that worked on the movie.  That was the first and last film that was approved by Nintendo.  The following year, we got Street Fighter, based on the popular fighting game and…well…it wasn’t good.  It wasn’t a total waste, as it featured an amazing performance by Raul Julia in his last film role.  That one is a bit of a cult classic, in a “so bad, it’s good” kind of way.  1995 gave us the live action film of Mortal Kombat and….wow.  It was actually pretty decent.  While it didn’t feature the blood and gore of the games, it maintained the essence and story of the original game that featured some lively performances from Cary Hiroyuki-Tagawa, Linden Ashby, and Christopher Lambert.  Combine that with some decent fight choreography, this little film actually surprised a lot of people back in the day.  Sadly, we wouldn’t see another decent video-game to movie adaptation until 2006 with Silent Hill.  So, yeah, movies based on video games have a troubled history to say the least.  There have been notable exceptions like the newer Tomb Raider, Warcraft, and Prince of Persia.  But most of them have been absolute failures.  That brings me to today’s review of Sonic The Hedgehog.

Sonic The Hedgehog follows Sonic as he’s brought to Earth from a distant world and spends the next 10 years living just out of sight.  He keeps following local Green Hills cop Tom Wachowski, who is looking to move somewhere where he feels like he can do more good.  After accidentally creating an energy blast that wipes out power in the state, the government sends in mad scientist Dr. Ivo Robotnik to investigate.  After discovering Sonic, Tom decides to help him get to San Franciso to help find his rings which he accidentally dropped through a portal.  The story is very simple for what it is, and you know?  It works.  The story was written in a way that kids could follow, and there is a surprising amount of heart to it, especially during the moments when Sonic feels that he’s truly alone in the world.  It’s quite touching, really, despite the film being totally predictable.  For what Sonic was trying to accomplish, I think it’s just fine.  It moves at a brisk pace and never overstays its welcome.  99 Minutes is the perfect length for this film.

Before I continue with the review, there’s something I need to say:  I don’t like it when audiences have influence over how a film-maker creates his movie.  Catering to fans is rarely a good thing, and only ends with the film not being as good as it could be.  When film-makers try to predict what fans want, they end up with too much that pushes the story out of the way or they completely under-deliver with a half-baked film.  In the case of Sonic The Hedgehog, however, the audience was absolutely right.   When the original trailer for Sonic came out, the backlash was swift and unforgiving.  To the credit of Jeff Fowler and the folks at Sega and Paramount, they listened and delayed the film until this month so they could fix the visual style of the character.  I mean, look at the picture above: The difference is night and day.  The Sonic on the right is far more expressive and true to his video-game counterpart than the atrocity on the left.  In most cases, I would usually feel that the audience is generally wrong.  But this time around, I was in full agreement, and it was the right call to make.

With that said, I want to take a look at the visuals in the film.  There’s nothing here that you really haven’t seen before, and sometimes the CGI isn’t that great.  However, it wasn’t trying to be revolutionary and kids under the age of 8 aren’t going to care.  The CGI does its job.  It’s flashy, it’s entertaining and it looks pretty faithful to the video game, which came out in the 90s.  This film is essentially a live-action cartoon and it was designed as such.  I absolutely appreciate the effort that the animators and designers did in re-designing Sonic, and I think that makes for a better experience.  I loved the opening sequence on Sonic’s home-world that looks like they pulled it right of the game.  The loops and overall feel of the opening sequence just feels right.  Also, I really like how Paramount changed the stars in their opening logo to Sonic’s rings.  That was a nice touch.

One of the strongest aspects of this film are the performances.  James Marsden, who played Cyclops in the original three X-Men films, plays Tom Wachowski, a local sheriff.  I’ve always thought that James was a good actor, and he also provides some of the laughs in this film.  He’s got some pretty good comedic timing.  Tika Sumpter plays Tom’s wife, Maddie.  I think she was pretty good and she gets her fair share of laughs.  Ben Schwartz provides the voice of Sonic and he’s absolutely fantastic.  He gives the character the energy of a kid with a heart of gold, and he just sells it.  Speaking of energy, let’s talk about Jim Carrey.  This is a guy who hasn’t been on the big screen in years, spending a lot of his time doing art and stuff like that, but I have to tell you:  He steals the show.  As someone once said on YouTube, this is vintage Jim Carrey.  I’m talking Ace Ventura/The Mask Jim Carrey.  For a guy that’s pushing 60, he’s got a crazy amount of energy and it’s on full display here.  He should be allowed to play mad scientists more often, as he’s so good at it.  If you’re a fan of Jim Carrey like I am, you’re probably going to like this movie more than most.  If you’re not a fan, you’re going to find his shtick intolerable.  Overall, the human characters are surprisingly not annoying and Sonic is fairly relatable.

There’s really a lot to like here.  The action is snappy and spectacular, the humor is mostly on point and really funny at times.  I caught myself laughing out loud more than I usually do, so that’s a plus.  While there are definitely issues with some of the CGI in the film, it’s quirky and silly enough that it mostly doesn’t matter.  This is a film that knows what it is and isn’t striving to be more than that.  Honestly, if you’ve got family with kids under the age of 10, it’s a perfectly safe film for them to see, with the occasional fart joke.  There’s nothing offensive here that could make parents cover their children’s eyes.  If you’re fan of the original Sonic games, this is a must-see.  It gets a lot right, and doesn’t treat the audience like they’re idiots.  For fans of old-school Jim Carrey, he hits it out of the park with this one.  He’s incredibly fun to watch, and while he gets the most laughs, he does get upstaged here and there, and his reaction is priceless.  The chemistry between the characters is incredible, and you’re buying it throughout the entire movie.  Even if you’re not a Sonic fan, there might be something here for you.  Sonic The Hedgehog is easily the most family-friendly film in years that I could recommend.  As a video-game based movie, Sonic is one of the best ones.  The effort and care that they took in crafting this film is nothing short of amazing.  Yeah, the film has problems, and if you’re not a fan of Jim Carrey, you’re probably not going to like it, but for the rest of us, it’s a pretty good time at the movies.  I definitely recommend it.

My Final Recommendation: “How are you not dead?” “I have no idea!” 8.5/10

You’ll have to forgive the click-bait title, but this is a topic that I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while.  It came to me before the film Joker was released last October.  All the previews and marketing of the film were about a broken man living in a broken society who would end up becoming one of the most notorious comic book villains of all time: The Joker.  Because the film wasn’t your typical comic book film and was rated R, some people became concerned that a film that centered around a mass-murdering psychopath would have a negative impact on society and specifically those who were “deemed to be vulnerable to certain ideas.”  Without actually seeing the film and understanding the context of Joker, people automatically assumed that it was a film that glorified violence and anarchy, which couldn’t be further from the truth.  The film was about a mentally ill man who was abused and neglected not just by his own mother but by a broken system and a broken society.  He was failed by a system that was supposed to help people like him.  The film was about compassion, or rather the lack thereof and what it can do to a person.  There was another film that was supposed to be released last year, The Hunt, but was shelved because of a certain number of mass shootings that happened near the film’s original release date.

The film is about a group of conservative people who were kidnapped by “liberal elites” to be hunted for sport.  Because of the mass shootings, the film was delayed.  People had complained about the level of violence in the film.  People up to and including the president condemned the film for its violence without actually ever seeing it.  From what I understand about the film and the latest trailer that was released, it is a violent movie, but it is also a biting satire against both conservatives AND liberals.  Personally, I’m looking forward to seeing it.  It’s going to be released on March 13 of this year, which is a Friday.  It looks funny and exciting.  People have been blaming movies, video games, and music for the ills of society for decades, and there isn’t a shred of proof that any of this has a direct correlation to the violence that’s being committed today.  That’s not to say that films don’t have power.  They most certainly do.  They have the power to inspire, to educate, and to entertain.  But I’m not seeing anything from the two films that I just mentioned that could be considered dangerous, at least not to people of sound mind, which I hope most of us are.  If you want films that could be considered dangerous, you need to go all the way back to 1915 with the release of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.  The film was based on a book written by a notorious member of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist group.  When the film came out, it was quickly snatched up by the KKK as propaganda to recruit new members, which it did.  THAT was a dangerous film, because it inspired acts of violence and hate by the KKK.  I doubt that was Griffith’s intent, but that’s what happened.

Let’s move forward a few decades to 1960.  This was the year that Alfred Hitchcock released his most notorious thriller, Psycho.  There was a lot of controversy surrounding this film.  The infamous shower scene in which Janet Leigh’s character was killed sent shock-waves through the entire industry.  Nobody had ever seen anything like that before, yet, nothing was actually shown.  You didn’t see the knife penetrate the skin, all you saw was a knife going up and down and blood going into a drain.  The film had also featured Leigh’s character in a bra with another man.  Again, it wasn’t something that had been seen or done before in cinema.  All the controversy in the world actually ended up working in the film’s favor because people were lining up in droves to see it.  Are you seeing what I’m getting at here?  When you accuse a film of being dangerous or controversial, all you are doing is drawing more attention to it.  People, being the curious creatures that we are, are drawn to controversy like moths to a flame.  If you yell fire loud enough and long enough, somebody’s going to come see what the fuss is.  That’s just how we are as a species.  But to assume that a film is dangerous because it may contain extreme levels of violence is incredibly short-sighted.  If you actually watch Joker, there isn’t a whole lot of physical violence.  It’s all emotional and psychological.  Avengers: Endgame had a hell of a lot more violence than Joker, but you don’t hear people complaining about that.

But that goes back to my original question: Can movies be dangerous?  For the average adult?  No.  For children?  Possibly.  I mean, you don’t really want to show a 6 year old a film like Texas Chainsaw Massacre or I Spit on Your Grave.  It’s hard to say if there would be lasting psychological issues for the child if they saw those films, but I’m not an expert.  There are some children’s films that have some pretty dark imagery, though.  Take an animated film like The Black Cauldron, and that could give kids nightmares.  I’m an 80s/90s kid, so I grew up with some pretty dark animated movies.  Here’s what I’m thinking:  I’m actually far less concerned about films being dangerous than the audience.  I’ve seen a lot of death threats issued against directors, writers, and actors because some people didn’t like the way a film was supposed to be made.  Guess what?  If you don’t like the direction a film is taking or what the film-makers are doing with it, you don’t have to see it.  If you feel that the film’s content is too extreme or controversial for you, you can skip it and move on to something else.  People who accuse films of being racist, controversial, extreme, or dangerous are not understanding the intent of the film-makers.  In fact, they are refusing to understand.  They’re just trying to cause a commotion where there doesn’t need to be.  If the film’s intent is to sow chaos, disorder and to incite violence, then yeah, that could be dangerous with the wrong group of people, but I would argue that 97 percent of movies that are out there today don’t do that.  That’s what I’m seeing.  Can movies be dangerous?  Not by themselves, no.