Tom Jolliffe on the rise of the disposable character…
In recent years there has been a huge rise in the ensemble blockbuster. Films such as Avengers Assemble or the Fast and Furious franchise have popularized the ensemble piece and there seems no sign of this slowing down. Even now in the Marvel universe with standalone films there is a tendency to throw in cameo or supporting roles to other MCU characters. Spider-Man’s latest reboot of course will have a significant supporting role for Tony Stark, and undoubtedly do some setting up in preparation for Avengers: Infinity War.
Okay it may be exciting for comic book nerds to see all their favourites appear within the same film. Or perhaps a die hard fan of a lesser known Marvel character may enjoy the luxury of seeing their hero appear even briefly, when there might not be quite the demand for their own standalone film. However there seems to be some drawbacks to many of these ensemble pieces. For one, when so many characters are crammed in the run-time normally gets heftier. We’re now seeing every MCU film comfortably sprint past the 2 hour mark and begin approaching the 3 hour mark. This is also happening with the DC films. Films that perennially were seen as breezy B-pictures designed for quick, easy and disposable enjoyment are now approaching the lengths previously designated for the more dramatically engaging likes of The Godfather.
How do they fill the time? Well the modern blockbuster formula requires a dropping of trouser and showing off of endowment. This is the selling point. A blockbuster which can’t quite show enough bang for the back gets laughed out of the locker room, where-as something like The Avengers swings its plonker around with egotistic pride and we see relentless amounts of carnage. Action sequences go on, and on and on, and get louder, and louder and louder. Whilst more characters are thrown in and run-times increase it’s certainly not always to keep enough time spare to include adequate character development. If your character has already had several standalone films to already build a character (Tony Stark) it matters a little less for them to walk in and out of another film and go through the motions a bit. This isn’t a luxury for all of them though (I’m looking at you Hawkeye or War Machine, or Falcon). Still the need to give every character their own little moment also takes away from those who are supposed to get the more significant arc of the story. It all takes up time and within a film, time is a precious commodity.
So now we are left with a film so bloated with characters that the majority of them have token moments and flit in and out of attention without too much impact (beyond their “cool” action moments). Then there are the afterthoughts. Those characters that don’t quite work, or perhaps never have over the course of several movies, or quickly lost their appeal. Movie upon movie now is left with a deluge of disposable characters. They offer little in progressing the story. They don’t have much of an arc or they’re just plain dull (sorry Hawkeye…). It’s a waste of screen-time and needless reason to extend these films to gargantuan lengths.
In the case of The Fast franchise the one person that the ensemble factor has had the most impact on is probably the man most synonymous with the franchise itself; Vin Diesel. From the moment Dwayne Johnson stormed into the franchise, Vin has been second fiddle. He’s no longer franchise hulk of the films. What’s more there has been a significant shift in the tone of the films that we’ve seen progress from something daft (but almost unaware of it) to something that knows to keep its tongue firmly in cheek and just have a knowing wink and nudge to its own lunacy. Everyone is sort of in on the joke except for Dominic Torretto. He still seems stuck in the first film. His character hasn’t changed one iota, no matter how many token half-hearted attempts at development are thrown at him. He’s still the same beefy faced lug head who grunts “family” every now and again. To be honest Diesel has just as much development saying “I Am Groot” repeatedly in his other franchise.
The Rock knows the whole thing is ridiculous. Granted, like the others he doesn’t get character development but he’s given moments to shine with action, humour and no shortage of personality. You have other comical characters and of course some of the other characters within the franchise have grown increasingly more disposable as the franchise wore on (and indeed some have been disposed of along the way). The fact is one person who was lost which was felt was Paul Walker. The other one synonymous with the franchise. He was the more grounded of the two, and the more likeable. The franchise now really belongs to Johnson and Jason Statham (others like Tyrese Gibson play their part too). I think this is an example where the sheer amount of characters thrown in has actually lead to the series main player now becoming disposable. You could actually lose Vin Diesel from it and the films could carry on and maintain their enjoyability. The fact is, his character isn’t running quite on the same wavelength and without any interesting developments to make him emotionally relevant, in these films about self aware silliness and carnage, the one who isn’t self aware is now disposable.
I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron the other day for the first time. I’ll be honest, I’ve grown tired of this stage of Marvel. Every movie is interchangeable with varying degrees of effectiveness but they all boil down to the same arcs and tropes. Downey Jr. looks increasingly more weary playing Stark over and over again. Chris Evans as Captain America has now just about run his course. His arc came full circle several films back. Unless there’s a change in formula things will stagnate and grow dull. It’s happened for me already, and the die-hard fans will eventually catch on too. I watched this second mass gathering of a film and it honestly bored the life out of me. I just found the entire thing monotonous. Nothing was interesting. The action was too heavy on CG (even compared to the first, which I enjoyed as a piece of escapism without thinking it warranted the hype it got). Almost every character was dull. The big boys fell back on pre-established traits (whilst too much reference was made to other films from vast arrays of characters that not everyone may have seen). Like every other Marvel film too, it lacked a strong villain. The MCU film universe has yet to have a strong villain. They’ve yet to even have a mediocre villain. That hasn’t always been because of the ensemble factor of course, but in something like Ultron it certainly doesn’t help and any villain isn’t given enough time to develop. That being said Ultron as a character and in his delivery was a massive miss-fire. James Spader seemed to be playing his character from The Office as a megalomaniacal super-villain.
Last Christmas we saw the first entry in the Star Wars spinoff universe. Rogue One seemed to garner largely favourable reviews for its spectacle and fan service, even if people acknowledged the lack in interesting characters. This was a film where the new characters obviously come in cold. You need to make them interesting. You need to develop them and make them characters you can care about. Frankly I didn’t get the appeal of the film in the end. Aside from the last 3 minutes I thought it was rubbish. Vastly overrated, ineffective, lazy and lacking in any sort of excitement. The protagonists were as dull as dishwater and the rest of the film was more concerned with giving knowing nods to A New Hope. I don’t want to sound like a miserable sod here. I loved The Force Awakens. I engaged with the new characters a lot more, and whilst it was undoubtedly fan servicey, I bought into it. I enjoyed it. I also enjoy the Fast franchise for its unabashed lunacy.
The point is, Rogue One went the ensemble route. Its focus was too heavy on connecting to another superior film, at the expense of the story it was telling. Dull writing, poor casting in places and uninspired direction. This had been a film that the trailers sold very well too. I was really looking forward to it but it almost bored me to tears. I sat afterwards trying with every inch of my being to fathom how it had been so favourably reviewed, particularly when the dull characters are often acknowledged even by those who liked the film. Wait…so the characters don’t interest you, the acting is wooden but the film is still good?? O…kay. Is this the age we live in when everything is so disposable that our view on engaging cinema is changing too? Sometimes characters merely appear for no other purpose than to sell another movie entirely which just strikes me somewhat as cynical marketing. Concentrate on actually telling an engaging story in the movie I’m watching now, don’t start selling me the next one which will undoubtedly be exactly the same beat for beat.
It does seem there’s a massive shift, partly through technological and social changes that means we need constant stimulus and disposable entertainment. Maybe wide audiences are no longer deemed capable of focusing on one protagonist through a film, so they throw in half a dozen, sometimes more. Does it matter that maybe one, if you’re lucky, actually gets a decent arc within the film? Okay maybe it doesn’t when you’re 13 (to be fair it didn’t to me at that age) and you go to see an Avengers film. However when I watch most blockbusters now, which increasingly follow the ensemble route, I just find this increase in the disposable character a bit tiresome, particularly as some aren’t given even the benefit of having minimal impact by at least dying in the pursuit of the films goal. If you take The Expendables franchise as an example, it’s had three films to not even develop a single interesting character. It flirted at the idea with the first film with an oddly committed Mickey Rourke, or the unhinged Gunnar Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) but hasn’t done anything since. The villains were the most interesting characters in terms of theatricality (albeit without development) but they were underused. The rest all thoroughly disposable but aside from poor old Liam Hemsworth, never disposed of, thereby taking away any possible dramatic impact they are left to have.
It seems that we’re coming to a point where Hollywood may have to hit “refresh” and begin to concentrate on making the characters engaging. Quality over quantity and it would be nice to see films not so concerned with selling the next one already, or even the one 3 or 4 films down the chain (like come on…where the fuck is Thanos already?).
Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Are ensemble films throwing far too much into the mixer? Which franchise characters could you live without?
Tom Jolliffe
