Marvel is Killing Its Own Movies

 

 

 

Copyright Marvel

 

 

 

 

Writing about Shang Chi is somewhat difficult because well, it's not the worst movie in the world. In fact, it's so aggressively average that it feels somewhat wrong to have strong feeling about it because there's really nothing in the film to feel strongly about. It feels slightly ridiculous to criticize the movie because it's as substantial as a marshmallow but, I still feel it's important to note why this movie is so drained of substance because ultimately, everyone loses in this approach. 

What it comes down to is that Disney isn't really interested in making movies with their Marvel properties. Everything, from the movies to the TV shows, is there to fulfill their obligations to the brand, to propel the overarching story lines spread across as many pieces of media as possible. This style of story telling isn't all that unusual or unprecedented, the studio system of early Hollywood matches the way Disney cranks these movies out at a production line pace. For something closer to home, spreading story arcs out over as many title, requiring people to buy multiple books just to understand the basic plot, resembles the business model the comic industry used in 90's to fuel a massive sales expansion. Both of these systems made their industries piles of money...until they didn't. For the studio system, the trust busting movement born out of the New Deal destroyed studio monopolies. The resulting creative freedom of the 60's and beyond meant that no one was really clamoring for the return of the five major film studios dictating what the public was allowed to see. 

Likewise, when the comics bubble burst, it nearly drove Marvel into bankruptcy, forcing it to sell of the licensing rights for some of their best selling titles to Fox and Sony aka the studios that produced X-Men and the original Spiderman trilogy. 

It's troubling then to see both companies fall back on business models famous for their failures, but to breakdown why it matters to us as audiences, let's talk about Shang Chi.

Naturally, for any martial arts film, the main thing we're going to judge Shang Chi are its fight scenes. Out of all the fight sequences in the film, the only one with any panache or personality is the bus fight scene in the beginning of the movie. It's a tight, enclosed space, we see Simu Liu's face for a large majority of it (which, kudos to him for that choreography) and the geography of the bus makes for some good interactions as the fight goes on. It's not a great fight scene, but it offers enough action and character beats that it at least qualifies as a scene.

The same cannot be said for the bamboo structure fight outside Xialing's fight club. On paper, the fight sounds great- Shang Chi and company battle his father's minions (and perilous heights) as they work their way down through down closer to street level. It's a very Jackie Chan inspired fight, except executed with a thousandth of the effort. There's a great video by sadly defunct Youtube channel Every Frame a Painting that breaks down what makes Jackie's style so fun to watch. A key component is being able to see every bit of the action in as full a frame as possible meaning, we see the full set and the characters at the same time as they move through the space during the fight. 

In Shang Chi, the exterior of the building is shrouded in darkness, the only close ups come in the hand-to-hand exchanges between the cast. This is a dead giveaway that the physical set was maybe three or four sections of the scaffolding with the rest filled in digitally after the fact.

Honestly, it sucks to make any movie this way, but action scenes in particular get the worse of it. Fight scenes get their zing from their physicality, once you remove that, all their power is gone. The key here is clarity, we need to be able to have a good understanding of the lay of the land and how our characters move through it. By muddling the layout in darkness however, we lose track of where everyone is and, because the only time we actually see them up close is again when the camera cuts in close we can't tell what floor of the scaffolding the characters are on. All this means that there's no sense of rhythm to fight, it's all just a jumble of movement with no climax, it just... stops.

Even so, the movie saves the worst fight scene for last. The duel between Shang Chi and his father Wenwu is one of the most boring things I've ever seen on film. Again, on paper, it should be an excellent scene. Here, finally, is the emotional reckoning between Shang Chi and his father, played out through violence because that is the only communication they share any more. It's here I can somewhat see where people can like the movie, because it allows audiences to trick themselves into believing that the movie is doing more than it is.

I call this "projection storytelling," meaning that the movie has just enough depth that you as an audience member can project deeper emotions into the story than what's actually there.  

The Harry Potter franchise is a prime example of this, as well as everything Marvel has put on Disney+ so far. In this case, it has to do with what should be the stakes of this movie which is the relationship between Shang Chi, his father Wenwu, and his sister Xialing. We find out that a gang out for revenge against Wenwu came to their family for something he did when he was still going down the immortal warlord path. The gang kills Shang Chi's mother Li, which sets Wenwu back on the path of embracing the power of the ten rings, returning to his immortal warlord self.

There's tragedy here, obviously, not only in Li's death, but in Wenwu's reaction. Returning to the ten rings, cuts Wenu off from feeling vulnerable ever again. He's so afraid of ever allowing himself to feel weak that he cuts himself off from being the father his children need in the wake of their loss. It's this choice, not Li's death, that destroys their family, what drives Wenwu's grief throughout the movie, driving him to impossibly desperate, mad choices.

All of this is there in the movie, thanks largely to an absolutely heroic performance by Tony Leung, but it isn't a plot or a theme the movie is actively exploring. Like I said, we can put the pieces together, but only because the movie leaves them lying around like scattered Legos. 

Which brings us back to the fight. 

This fight should be sad, a solemn affair between a son desperate to have just one genuine emotional connection with the father he loves. Except Wenwu is too far gone, too lost in his own grief and regret, to accept that vulnerability ever again, leaving no other choice but to put him down.

We've seen this done in other media before. Castlevania did it to heartbreaking effect, as did The Last Airbender. To pull it off though, you have to invest the time to build the emotional stakes via the characters relationships to make it work. Marvel refuses to do this kind of work because if their films are solidly about something, they cease to be blank slates for audiences to consume while projecting whatever depth they want onto the finished product. 

Sure, this leads to success at the box office. The movie also has a 92% critic rating and a 98% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Obviously, in the short term, making such paper thin product is a solid business strategy. Except everything turns, eventually, and a media empire built out of sandcastles is bound to be swept away by the changing tides.