Bryce Zabel's MOVIE SMACKDOWN!

The Dark Knight (2008) -vs- Spider-Man 2 (2004)

DC/Batman/Nolan -vs- Marvel/Spider-Man/Raimi

The Smackdown. This may turn out to be our All-Time Heavyweight Smackdown -- the equivalent of Ali versus Frasier -- where both of the fighters are at the top of their games and both deserve to wear the champion's belt even though only one can.  The DC/Warner "The Dark Knight" in the ring against the Marvel/Columbia "Spider-Man 2" pits two comic book film sequels against each other, both of which are considered better than what preceded them, and what preceded them was considered fantastic.  Both are directed by the same men who were trusted with the franchise a second time after they had shed themselves of the responsibility of an "origin" story and could get deeper into their redefinition of what makes the character really come alive.  Because this Smackdown is bigger than life to begin with, we're handling it in a different way, too.  Each film will be represented by a separate critic who passionately advocates victory for his favorite film.  Then, at the end, you get to make the final call in our reader's poll.  Let's get the fight started...

The Challenger - The Dark Knight.   "The Dark Knight" picks up where "Batman Begins" left off.  Millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne has literally gone to the dark side, prowling the streets battling crime using his new Batman alter-ego as his cover.  The way the new film tells it, he's been pretty successful:  criminals are afraid to come out at night, he's got a cozy relationship with the cops, and most people are pretty happy he's getting the job done.  With the crime lords looking for a new move to counter the Batman, they find an unstable, but powerful, ally in the Joker. 

We saw this film at a DGA (Directors Guild of America) screening at Howard Hughes Center here in LA on an IMAX theater.  Given that director Christopher Nolan was there for the Q&A afterward, I have to assume it was projected to the highest technical standards.  It was breathtaking. 

Nolan said that the thing that drove him to do this sequel was his desire, after creating such a vivid new re-imagining in "Batman Begins," was to answer the question:  "Who is the Joker in this world?"  He has done that, and more.

You'll hear that Heath Ledger is phenomenal in this role and he is.  Literally every second he is on the screen, you're simply afraid to look away because you'll something unique and special about this final performance given by Ledger before he died.

Something else that Nolan has done differently here is to give us Gotham City as it's meant to be.  He admitted that his first take was a little art-directed and that in this case he went for a "slight genre shift" by shooting a great deal more on location (mostly Chicago) and to give us a crime story that is more in the tradition of Michael Mann than Tim Burton's first time out with Batman.

Rendition (2007) -vs- The Kingdom (2007)

Terrorizing Hollywood
Review by Jonathan Zabel

The Smackdown. Hollywood has decided that it's okay to make movies about terror but, based on the two that are now in the theaters, the powers that be in Tinseltown haven't decided whether they should be honestly thought-provoking or just politically correct. They have decided, though, that things go better when things blow up. "The Kingdom" started with a suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia and soon "Rendition" will give us another one in a faux-Arab country -- both complete with high body counts, senseless death to innocents and the potential trade-offs in the decisions to seek justice or revenge.

"If this is about the parking tickets, I'd still like to talk to a lawyer."

The Challenger. Rendition refers to a process in which a suspected terrorist is forcibly taken to another country for questioning, and it's one of the rare hot-button political issues that probably doesn't get enough press.  Critics have called it "torture by proxy," and that's exactly the position the film takes.  Anwar El-Ibrahim is an Egyptian chemical engineer living in Washington D.C. with his pregnant wife.  (Casting Reese Witherspoon off-type was a bold move, but since she still looks and acts like a Southern belle you never quite believe her in the role.)  Before you can say "extraordinary rendition," he's being waterboarded in a secret prison after being kidnapped by the feds in an airport.  Jake Gyllenhaal plays the CIA analyst who's tortured by the thought of torturing an innocent man, and his heavy conscience seems to be meant to serve as a proxy for the viewer's.   

The Nines (2007) -vs- Go (1999)

Three Part Disharmony
Review by Jonathan Zabel

The Smackdown.  "The Nines" begins with the protagonist tightly winding three pieces of green twine around his wrist to make a bracelet.  Just like "Go" (also written by veteran screenwriter John August), you'll have to do some mental basket weaving to figure out what's really going on.  Instead of the traditional three-act structure, both movies are split into three short films that are as interconnected as... yep, you guessed it, a twine bracelet.

"OK, so I'm a game designer who designed a game about being a screenwriter on reality television who wrote a screenplay which I'm acting in. Wow, just shoot me..."

The Challenger.  Allow me to blow your mind for a second, here.  If God is a Ten and human beings are the Sevens, then what would the Nines be?  That's a good question "The Nines" doesn't really get around to answering, except to say that they'd really enjoy playing The Sims.  In their advanced version of the game, we're the Sims - mere playthings that can have our lives erased or reset in an instant.  Ryan Reynolds plays a godly game addict who's forgotten he's even playing, leading some other Nines to infiltrate his world with the intention of screwing it up so badly that he'll come back home.  Long story short, it turns out that any creator is ultimately responsible for his creations.

"Don't look at me like that. All I said was that I'm gonna take a crap-load of ecstasy then screw over a drug dealer but there might be a police sting operation going on, no biggie. These chips baked or what?"

The Defending Champion.  "Go" never makes any bones about being a minimum-wage "Pulp Fiction," the coveted score here being $400 instead of a mysterious glowing briefcase.  We start with Ronna, a disenchanted supermarket drone who spits out "Paper or Plastic?" like an insult.  She's going to be evicted--on Christmas Day, no less--unless she can summon up some cash, pronto.  Her ingenious solution?  Taking over a minor drug deal for Simon, a coworker who wants to escape to Vegas for the holidays.  As you might imagine, things go from bad to worse when she attempts to cheat Simon's dealer after losing the drugs during a run-in with the cops, a decision whose consequences echo throughout the next two stories.

The Scorecard.  Thematically, the two contenders couldn't be more different.  "The Nines" attempts to answer a complex philosophical question from three different angles, each represented by Reynolds as he transforms from actor to screenwriter to game designer.  "Go" exists for the sake of its own excess, each incident piling up on the last because the characters are all too impulsive to worry about what they're doing.

Three parts to each, but only one decision here...

God of War II (2007) -vs- God of War (2005)

• We believe that thumbs are best used for game controllers, not for movie reviews. With that in mind, here is our site's first GAME SMACKDOWN!
  

Videogame Review by Jonathan Zabel

The Smackdown.  The "God of War" franchise is one of only a select few based on original IP that have broken out into major mainstream success.  Hard as it might be to believe today, SONY took a pretty big risk when they greenlit the original, "God of War."  We do live in the age of movie tie-ins and sequels, after all.  I can only imagine the reaction from execs when legendary designer David Jaffe gave them his first elevator pitch:  "There's this bald Greek dude, Kratos, OK?  And the gods screwed him over!  Armed with only a kilt, a bunch of body paint, and the two swords chained to his arms, he's going to get revenge..." But they bought it, obviously, because we have "God of War II" to play now.

"Griffins are mythical beasts with the body of a lion and the wings of an eagle... but don't worry, I fixed the second part."

The Challenger.  When you're making the sequel to an almost universally acclaimed game, you've basically got two options:  (1) Change as little as possible and improve by degrees or (2) spend the goodwill of the fans trying out innovative new mechanics.  SONY Santa Monica took the conventional path with "God of War II," but I can't say I really fault them for it.  Everything has been dialed up to 11 both in terms of scale and intensity.  Let's take the opening stage as an example, in which Kratos is drained of his godly powers and forced to square off against the humongous Colossus of Rhodes (which has been granted ghastly life by a vengeful Athena).  It chases you across the entire island as you frantically attempt to slow it down by breaking its arms and cutting out both of its eyes.  Eventually, you climb inside the statue and deliver the final blow using a sword given to you by Zeus himself.  Did I forget to mention that was the first level?

"Where's Harry Hamlin when you need him?"

The Defending Champion.  "God of War" impressed critics and gamers alike not because it was original, but rather because it took almost every concept that action games have been trying to do for years... and it did them right.  Most of the gameplay revolves around the combat, which is context-based.  Press the correct button or sequence of buttons at the right time and you'll perform a devastating finishing move.  You can never behead enough Gorgons if you ask me!  As far the story goes, there's no argument that ashen-skinned Kratos is a certifiable badass in addition to being one of the most unrepentant anti-heroes gaming has ever seen.  Finding out the true reason behind his unflinching desire to kill Ares (the God of War), regardless of how it might damn him, is a surprisingly compelling story considering the medium in which it's being told.

The Scorecard.   "God of War II" is, in many ways, simply the logical extension of the first game, but that doesn't mean there aren't some meaningful differences between the two.  More specifically, the plot of the second feels like a "greatest hits" compilation of Greek mythology, as you cut down heroes like Perseus (who killed Medusa), Theseus (who killed the Minotaur of Crete) and anyone else who happens to also be seeking out the Sisters of Fate to change their destiny.  Admittedly, having to pause to go Wikipedia a mythical figure or three is a bit distracting...

Grindhouse (2007) -vs- Pulp Fiction (1994)

Review by Jonathan Zabel

The Smackdown.  Quentin Tarantino is a man dangerously close to something, and you'll get different answers as to what that something is depending on who you ask.  Acceptable answers would include: (1) dangerously close to falling in love with his own myth, (2) dangerously close to never being able to eclipse the shadow already cast by his cinematic legacy, or (3) dangerously close to genius. 

"We don't do Zombie, got it?"

The Challenger.  "Grindhouse" is a double-feature that pays loving homage to trash cinema, the types of flicks you could easily imagine catching in a seedy theater during the 70's.  Complete with fake trailers for imaginary films (like the unspeakably cheesy "Werewolf Women of the SS"), you're paying the price of admission more for an experience than any sort of coherent narrative... and that's fine by me.  Robert Rodriguez's half of the offering is "Planet Terror," a gross-out zombie flick with as much in the way of brains as the shambling corpses it depicts.  Tarantino's offering, "Death Proof," is a low-rent road movie that's arguably a whole lot more interesting in the plot department.   

"And I thought Stayin' Alive was a theme, not a disco thing."

The Defending Champion.  Some critics weren't quite sure what to make of "Pulp Fiction" when it debuted at the Cannes Film Festival, but 13 years later pop culture has made the call and declared it a classic.  You could write pages on how this film took the conventional wisdom about what constitutes a "hit" and threw it out the window (something I've had to do as a USC film student), but all most people are going to notice is how much fun watching is, since it remains true to the pulp fiction tradition in that no day is uneventful and no character is ordinary.

The Scorecard.  Both films have a relentless energy that's almost impossible to resist and give the impression that you're in the hands of someone in love with every frame.  Still, you really need look no further than Tarantino's cameos to know that this virtue can be taken to excess.  In "Pulp Fiction," his brief appearance is a pleasant surprise, a sly nod towards self-reflexivity and another clever "screw you" to established Hollywood formula.  When he shows up in "Grindhouse," it feels pointless and indulgent both times.

The Decision.  Don't get me wrong, "Grindhouse" is wicked fun and I had a blast watching it.  I'd only put the thought out there that perhaps Tarantino has been allowed to stay in the candy store a bit too long, and that sooner or later audiences are going to tire of the cinematic equivalent of empty calories he's offering.  "Pulp Fiction" hangs on to the title because it broke the rules back when it still meant something.