If Hollywood is going to spend a gajilion dollars on famous movie stars, special effects, and stunt doubles, you’d think it could spend a few minutes working out decent plots. Though I’ve technically sworn off the movie theaters unless something really epic comes out, this summer I’ve seen several of the more fanciful action blockbusters. I’ve enjoyed their magic tricks and superheroes, and come away scratching my head at one plot fiasco after another. I tend to like my movies character-driven rather than plot-driven (a crass and only mildly useful distinction), but I make an exception for a really entertaining superpowers movie. The formula is so simple, I can’t believe it’s been so utterly abandoned in favor of a series of special effects set pieces. Formula: (Super) hero wants something s/he can’t get. Plausibility comes into play with the motivation of the characters– they have to want the things they want for believable reasons. Hero overcomes set of obstacles to get thing s/he wants. Stakes are raised and (not unduly) complicated as movie progresses (complications: surprises, conflicting desires, sidekicks). At a certain point we reach a climax where the stakes are so high, and the hero has so much to lose, that a decision is inevitable. The hero gets the thing s/he wants, at a high but not unconscionable cost. Then you spend a few minutes tying up loose ends, and then you roll credits. Simple enough.
Superman Returns. Ok, so where’s the plot arc? This movie, instead, spends two hours thinking up all the different ways Superman can return. He returns to his home planet. Then to Kansas. To the Daily Planet. To Lois Lane. To Gotham. To Lex Luthor. To the world. To his crystal castle. From the Dead. From the Dead again. To Lois Lane again. He then returns in the next generation, having passed on his super strength. Wait, writers! You forgot to show him getting reacquainted with primitive human plumbing! On another note, I can’t figure out if the movie is using Christian theology and imagery to tell the story of Superman, or if it is using Superman to tell the story of Christianity. Allusion is way, way more interesting than simple allegory.

X-Men 3. I love these superhero mutants, as they embody the greek gods of old: beautiful, fallible, able to manipulate the elements yet limited in scope. So when you make a movie about them, you have to get their motives right. The motives are everything. Good mutants want to live in peace with regular humans. Check. Bad mutants want to rule humans. Check. Humans want to “cure” mutants with their new, all-powerful neutralizing agent: a mutant boy. Check. Almost no mutants want to be neutralized. Check. So why, exactly, is it necessary for the X-men to have a to-the-death stand-off with Magneto’s crew over the boy? How does that fit with “everything they stand for?” And why is the government so pleased to find the X-men have, almost by accident, taken the mutant boy away to their special school so he can’t be used for weapons anymore? And why, when the mutants unleash their own all-powerful counter-weapon (an uncontrollable Shiva-like psychic who nukes everything with disinterested joy and rage), is there never a matchup between the boy and and the psychic? For that matter, why does the psychic mutant spend so much time staring into space when she could be having fun turning things to ash?

Pirates of the Caribbean. First off, you don’t need a 20-minute set-up for what amounts to huge joyride. Just cut straight to the heart. You don’t need the East India Company, or morally compromised fathers, or dungeons, or humiliated drunken sailors/jilted suitors to complicate an already complicated plot. I’ll give the cannibals a pass since I dig the giant fruit skewer so much. What you do need, however, is sufficient reason for three men to sail the world and fight practically to the death over a legendary heart-in-a-box. Their motives must be sufficiently clear before they engage in battle, in order to make the battle sufficiently enjoyable. I mean, Captain Jack Sparrow has spent the whole movie not knowing what he wants, and the jilted lover guy has only the foggiest idea of taking the heart back to the East India Company. Only Orlando Bloom, who can unfortunately creat a dead zone around him in nearly any scene, has a good claim to it: saving his eternal soul, which strikes me as a fine motivation.

Rewrites!

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