... FOR "'ANT-MAN,' 'TERMINATOR GENISYS,' AND THE ART OF DE-AGING ACTORS FOR BIG SCREEN PURPOSES"

If Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys have taught us anything this summer, it's that there's still plenty of life left in our older generation of actors yet. And I don't mean that in the metaphorical, gee-I-never-knew-they-still-had-it-in-them sprightly performance kind of way. After all, Michael Douglas is merely a supporting player in Marvel's latest bid for superhero supremacy, and spends most of his time standing on the sidelines, spouting exposition. Schwarzenegger, too, plays more of an expository machine than killing machine this time out, trying to make sense of so many fractured timelines and cracking jokes about being "old but not obsolete" (though box office pundits might beg to differ on that last one). The problem is, most of our marquee movie stars of yesteryear simply can't compete with the Vin Diesels and Dwayne "The Rock" Johnsons of today - Douglas, for all his vim and vigor, turns 71 this September, while Schwarzenegger celebrated his 68th birthday on July 30 - so they've been "promoted" to mentor roles or crotchety figures of fun in order to stay relevant. For one brief shining moment in both Ant-Man and Terminator Genisys, however, we're reminded of their past glories (and unwithered faces) with the help of some revolutionary CG effects, and the results, for a change, are breathtaking. Never before has a digital face-lift looked so good.

Granted, CGI hasn't always had the best track record for replicating human flesh on screen. Skin tones tend to look plastic, and contrary to popular belief, human beings do not move with the dexterity of stop-motion animated figures, with rubbery, elongated limbs. And yet filmmakers insist on pushing the technology to its absolute limits, regardless of necessity or common sense. Close-ups of faces, in particular, are especially unforgiving, since we're practically invited to get a cold, hard look at the imperfections of the process. Like this computer-generated visage of actor Bruce Lee, resurrected for a Johnnie Walker whiskey commercial that aired on Chinese television in 2013:

... FOR "THE DC/MARVEL CHARACTER CASTING SHUFFLE"

When we last saw him in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, depending on which screening you were (un)lucky enough to attend, Mr. Wade Winston Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) - aka Deadpool, aka Weapon X - was lying amongst the rubble of Three Mile Island, having literally lost his head in a battle with a certain adamantium-clawed superhero. Of course, not even a good decapitation can keep a good Deadpool down, which is why our final fleeting glimpse of the Merc With A Mouth came as a shock to absolutely no one: As his clearly not-dead hand crawled toward his clearly not-dead severed head, his eyes fluttered open, and his lips offered a pre-emptive "Shhhh...", in a bit of fourth-wall breaking that was perfectly in keeping with the comic books. X-Men Origins didn't get a lot of things right, but that was certainly one of them, and fans have spent the last six years anxiously awaiting the promise of that shot - a Deadpool solo spin-off movie, or at the very least, a follow-up film in which Deadpool played anything other a superfluous side character.

Which, come February 12, 2016, is exactly what we're gonna get. Directed by former VFX artist Tim Miller, and starring Reynolds, Ed Skrein, and Morena Baccarin, Deadpool: The Movie finally sprung to life following a two-minute sizzle reel that leaked to the Internet in July 2012. This bootleg test footage (also directed by Miller), in which a fully-costumed, heavily-CGI'd Deadpool slices, dices, and sarcasms his way through a car-load of hapless henchmen, really seemed to get the character's trademark snark down pat, and wowed 20th Century Fox executives enough to greenlight a feature film. Production then began on March 23, 2015, and ended on May 29; in between, Mr. Reynolds, always the cad, Tweeted a number of memorable reveals about the shoot (most of them NSFW), in an epic attempt to assure fans that the property was in good hands. And then, on July 11, all fears about the movie were finally laid to rest, when an exclusive trailer debuted to cheering crowds at the San Diego Comic-Con. It will be everything Deadpool devotees have come to expect from the character: quippy, profane, gratuitously violent, and a kick in the pants to all other comic book movies that came before it.

... FOR "'BIG HERO 6' AND CAPTURING THAT OLD MARVEL MAGIC"

First things first: Big Hero 6, Disney's 54th Animated Classic, is a charming, heartwarming, often exhilarating adventure that also happens to teach a valuable lesson about grief - how we cope with it, what we do with it, and how we channel that grief into something destructive or used for the greater good. (The screenplay, believe it or not, even incorporates Kübler-Ross's five stages of grief to some degree.) Having watched it at home for the 60th or 70th time (my five-year-old is obsessed with it), I can safely say that the fun and impact of the movie haven't lessened a bit since our first initial viewing - a sign of a quality film if there ever was one. What's also clear, and I'm surprised most reviews failed to focus on it, is that Big Hero 6 is very much a Comic Book Movie in the Marvel mold, with cuddlier characters and a CG bubble gum sheen to rank with Disney's finest.

"What's this?" you ask. "Big Hero 6 is based on a comic book?" "Why, yes," I reply, but one so obscure you're forgiven if you've never heard of it. Created by Steven T. Seagle and Duncan Rouleau (who own and operate Man of Action Entertainment, a writers' collective responsible for cartoons such as Ben 10 and Generator Rex), Big Hero 6 first appeared in a three-issue Marvel mini-series in September of 1998. They were a group of highly-intelligent super-beings, sanctioned by the Japanese government to protect the country from enemy attack. The team's initial roster included Silver Samurai/Kenuichio Harada (whose name should have extra resonance for X-Men fans), Sunfire/Shiro Yoshida, GoGo Tomago/Leiko Tanaka, Honey Lemon/Aiko Miyazaki, and Hiro Takachiho and his monster guardian, Baymax. (Future team members included Ebon Samurai, Fredzilla, and Wasabi-No-Ginger.) Needless to say, their comic book incarnations differ greatly from the characters in the film.

... FOR "MORE ACTORS WHO SHOULD PLAY OTHER ACTORS' FAMILY MEMBERS"

So here we are, back for another round of celebrity doppelgangers. Believe it or not, I'd just barely finished up our previous post on the subject when I immediately thought of 15-20 more AWSPOAFMs who could have just as easily made the cut. But that's all for the greater good, I guess, since I was hoping to expand this into a regular column anyway.

As expected, the reaction was a typical one, with enough Facebook friends submitting their own ideas for future brother/sister/parent pair-ups to last us an additional post or two. Also as promised, I will be taking those suggestions and including them here, one per post, in addition to some of my own. As always, your recommendations are welcome, either below or on FTWW's Facebook page. Let's keep this game going for as long as we can!

... FOR "FRANCHISE FACE-OFFS (PART 16 - 'SPIDER-MAN' EDITION)"

The fun of the Spider-Man comics has always been that Peter Parker is intrinsically One of Us. We just may be too modest to admit it. We all feel the awkwardness of our teenage years, we all dream of greater power and responsibility, we all yearn for the courage and the conviction to swoop in and save the day. Swinging through the spires and the skyscrapers of New York City, Peter's world feels grounded in the everyday (well, as "everyday" as a kid in a red-and-blue leotard fighting crime, anyway), and his quips and his wisecracks give him the edge over his enemies, not only stronger and faster but smarter and wittier than they are too. With skills like that, who wouldn't want to be Spider-Man?

Despite his enormous popularity, however, the concept for Stan Lee and Steve Ditko's iconic creation almost didn't make it off the ground. When pitching his initial ideas for the character, Lee recalls that his publisher, Martin Goodman, asked, "Don't you understand what a hero is?" Goodman felt that the idea of a teen-aged superhero - especially a high school nerd who was unpopular with the ladies - wouldn't appeal to readers, since most teens in comic books (think "Bucky" Barnes or Dick Grayson) served only as sidekicks to more experienced crimefighters. Little did he realize that audiences were clamoring for a character they could call their own; unlike Superman, say, with his godlike powers and chiseled physique, or Batman, with his unlimited gadgets and millions of dollars at his disposal, Peter Parker struggled with more conventional problems, like passing his classes or trying to hold down a job. And comic book fans fell immediately in love with him. Spider-Man debuted in Amazing Fantasy #15 in June 1962 and sold in record numbers (in 2011, a near- mint edition of this issue sold for $1.1 million to a private collector). He has since become Marvel's flagship character and company mascot, appearing in multiple comic titles, cartoons, radio plays, movies, books, video games, even a Broadway musical (with music by U2's Bono and The Edge).

... FOR "IMAGES ('X-MEN' 2000-11 EDITION - PART THREE)"

Part Three of our X-Men movie retrospective, in which we take a visual tour of the franchise's special (and not-so-special) pleasures.

Hidden gems and history lessons. Callbacks and cameo appearances. The X-Men movies are perhaps the most richly textured of all comic book franchises, with plenty of subtext and shout-outs for fans and non-fans alike. Take another look, though, and you'll see the films cribbing not just from themselves but from other popular series as well.


Fearful Symmetry

I spoke last time about the X-Men of First Class learning firsthand from President Kennedy, via television, of the impending Cuban Missile Crisis. Here it is again, in case you missed it:

... FOR "IMAGES ('X-MEN' 2000-11 EDITION - PART TWO)"

Part Two of our X-Men movie retrospective, in which we take a visual tour of the franchise's special (and not-so-special) pleasures.

So we've already established some of the many Easter Eggs and character cameos which make up Marvel's mutant movie universe. This includes, during an early sequence in X-Men: The Last Stand, a direct homage to Claremont/Byrne's two-part Days Of Future Past, in which our heroes are rounded up and herded into WWII-type internment camps.

That the latest X-Men sequel to enter production is also called Days Of Future Past raises some interesting theoretical questions, namely: Did they plan this sort of thing from the beginning, with every intent to revisit this particular story thread in the future? Or did the producers of X-Men 3 simply include the scene as a shout-out to fans, because they couldn't find room for it elsewhere? Evidence seems to suggest the latter, though wouldn't it be fun, in today's post-Avengers climate, to think that the makers of this $1.9 billion franchise had a particular endgame in mind?

... FOR "IMAGES ('X-MEN' 2000-11 EDITION - PART ONE)"

Some final thoughts on X-Men before we move on to bigger (and brighter?) things. I don't know if these types of posts will follow every Franchise Face-Off from this point on, but these Comic Book movies have definitely sparked my interest as of late. Perhaps this is because both comic books and the cinema are purely a visual medium: It's the images that catch your eye, after all, and if the story connecting them together happens to keep your attention, then so be it. That's just gravy for all those concerned. The best CBMs understand this and deliver on it, twofold.

The X-Men movies, like Batman and Superman before them, have gone through many different permutations over the years, each time trying desperately to please fans of the comic and kowtow to the demands of the cinema. Below, and during the next two X- centric posts, we cover a few examples of how the filmmakers attempted to do both:

... FOR "FRANCHISE FACE-OFFS (PART 15 - 'X-MEN' EDITION)"

If Batman & Robin signaled the death of the Comic Book Movie, then X-Men (2000) is undoubtedly its rebirth - a reverent, star-studded extravaganza that rang the box office bell in ways very few people expected. Sure, there were attempts to revive the genre in between - Blade (1998) springs to mind, starring Wesley Snipes, or Mystery Men (1999), with Ben Stiller and William H. Macy. But those were low-key adaptations of lesser-known characters, not the big-budget, big-name properties fans took to heart.

Consider, too, how the biggest Comic Book films up to that point, Richard Donner's Superman: The Movie (1978) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989), seemed to spawn only Batman and Superman sequels. X-Men opened the floodgates for future box office spectaculars including Spider-Man (2002), Daredevil (2003), Hulk (2003), Fantastic Four (2005), reboots of the Batman and Superman franchises, plus Marvel Comics' Cinematic Universe, culminating in The Avengers (2012) - currently the third highest-grossing film of all time. Superman '78 may have set the template for comic book verisimilitude (Richard Donner was an executive producer on X-Men), but it was X-Men that permanently whet the public's appetite for cinematic superheroics.

... FOR "'THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN' AND THE ART OF THE CYNICAL CASH GRAB"

Because there's no better way to ring in the release of The Dark Knight Rises than by talking about a competing superhero franchise from a competing motion picture studio...

I was just about to publish some thoughts on Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man last week, starring Andrew Garfield as everyone's favorite web-slinging superhero, when I happened across my friend Drew McWeeny's (second) write-up over at HitFix.com, which pretty much rendered anything I had to say on the subject moot. If you don't mind a spoiler-filled discussion on the plot's more "intricate" twists and turns, then you should really give that a shot, or at least check out Drew's initial review of the movie itself, as it sums up basically everything diehard fans find so frustrating about Spidey's big-screen reboot. (What follows is a slightly modified version of my original piece.)

... FOR "FRANCHISE CONTINUITY AND 'X-MEN: FIRST CLASS'"

A few notes on X-Men: First Class, now barely two weeks old in theaters. The short review (to be expounded upon in a future Franchise Face-Off): I liked it. The story flows better than it has in the last couple of X movies, it's more character-based than special effects-based, and the performances (particularly from headliners James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender) are respectful to past entries yet add their own wrinkles to the fray. Thinking back on it, though, the idea behind this fifth X-Men adventure confuses me: Is it a prequel? A reboot? Maybe a little of both? The characters are the same (albeit in younger, sprightlier form), the struggles are the same, and yet... the pieces don't match up with the other movies.