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Why are blockbuster movie scripts so... bad?
I've been going to the movies more in the last year than I have in the previous decade, because I have a coworker turned friend that likes to watch films in theaters and it is a cheap way to hang out with him (protip: bring your own snacks and drinks in a backpack instead of buying from the concession stand and watch the morning matinee instead of purchasing the more expensive evening tickets). And what I keep noticing is that, while they are very pretty, the writing in them is absolutely, uniformly awful.
I'm not even talking about politics here. I'm talking about how nobody in Mufasa ever stops to think about "wait a minute, how do I know that Milele even exists?!" the way a level 1 intelligent character would. I'm talking about how half the runtime of Jurassic World Rebirth is pointless action sequences that contribute nothing to the plot. I'm talking about how Brave decided to waste its amazing prologue by focusing the movie around the mom turning into a bear.
If you are already spending $200 million dollars producing a movie and a similar amount marketing it, why can't you just throw in an extra million to hire Neil Gaiman or George R. R. Martin (or, hell, Eliezer Yudkowsky) to write your script for you?
But... it doesn't seem to be a question of money? It is certainly possible to find much better writing in direct to video films than in theatrical films, despite their much lower budgets. Everybody agrees that the DCEU was a pile of crap, while there were have been some very solid entries in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies series. I recently watched Justice League: Gods & Monsters, and I was hooked from the first scene of General Zod cucking Superman's dad to the end credits; I wasn't looking at my watch wondering how much longer the movie is going to last, the way I do when watching a blockbuster.
Previous discussion.
I'm particularly annoyed by the decline within the John Wick franchise.
The first movie? Goes hard. Taut cinematography, pacing, and music. The bathhouse shootout still gives me bumps. A+. It even manages to stay somewhat grounded, allowing for the Secret Assassins stuff.
And then it goes downhill from there. Half the population of New York shot dead with no repercussions. The lore getting ever more convoluted while simultaneously becoming nonsensical. The fight scenes got way worse.
The last mainline JW movie I saw, which must have been number 4, I gave up on halfway through. When the story wants me to believe that a blind man somehow manages to be a dangerous assassin on part with John Wick, I fucking give up. The man uses a katana most of the time. Has nobody tried shooting him from more than 20 meters away? How is he not hard countered by a JBL speaker blasting Fetty Wap?
It's no surprise I barely watch movies these days.
The bulletproof suit enables lazy writing.
I'd call myself a gun nerd, and I'd say that the first John Wick treated firearms with respect. It all went downhill there after.
I don't care what your "bulletproof" suit is made of, if it's any durable fiber I'm aware of, it's not going to stand up to rifle caliber rounds. Kevlar? Aramid? Not happening. Not without looking more like a bomb suit with plate inserts, at the very least.
Guns became a matter of convenience later on. At just about the same point the blind assassin was up to his nonsense, you had bows and arrows versus guns. What.
Right now, it seems that John only gets hurt when it suits the plot. He doesn't feel like an ultra-lethal human operating within range of plausibility, he's just a superhuman with chronic constipation, which is why he doesn't seem to enjoy his prowess.
The choreography also went to hell. Everyone stands around waiting for John to act, more often than not. That visceral sense of fear, the impression that John was going up against competent foes and beating them through sheer skill? Gone.
I mean, being fair, at this point a competent foe would have a small army of snipers watching out for John. And might just fire a grenade launcher at him if he shows up (it almost worked the first time they tried it). So there has to be some kind of suspension of disbelief or unspoken code for the fights to unfold the way they do.
I do really find it annoying that the first movie basically made him an ultra-capable one-man-army in a relatively grounded criminal underworld, but as that criminal underworld was expanded, it became WAY less grounded. And so did John's capabilities.
By the third it is implied that "The Table" functionally runs the world?
I dunno. I like the smaller scale ideas like the Continental being a sacred space where ceasefire is enforced, high class gun and clothing stores in major cities that specialize in outfitting assassins, and the local cops being clued in/on the payroll, which helps explain why they don't interfere when stuff pops off.
Basically, the very concept of John Wick works best in a world where criminals/crime syndicates have a heavily enforced honor code, but are also constantly fighting with each other and stay completely in the shadows, vs. going balls to the wall in a busy street. Simple fridge logic: why the fuck don't the bystanders in cars just STOP when they see a shootout occurring? Also applies to people who keep dancing in a nightclub while men are being slaughtered with axes all around.
Anyway yeah. I will defend the series pretty heavily, but it now operates almost entirely on "rule of cool."
I really have to wonder how much they're paying for more and more hitmen to crawl out of the woodwork, after John has already racked up triple digit kill counts over the last movie. All the monetary rates I can remember being quoted seemed grossly inadequate, I'd rather go work at a fast-food chain for minimum wage if the risk premium is that poor.
(I grant that the franchise runs on ROC. But there's only so much I can suspend my disbelief before it breaks my neck with it)
Far be it from me to criticize the economics of an action film, but yeah, there genuinely CANNOT be enough contract killings needed in this world to justify the number of assassins that populate New York.
I can imagine that intergang warfare flares up from time to time which requires hiring on more talent, but if most of them have enough downtime to just hang out in the city, and need money badly enough to go after the most feared killer alive, there must not be much else going on between gang wars.
And it would nice to portray an assassin who sees the contract to take out John, looks at the monetary amount, shakes his head, and goes back to his crosswords b/c screw that.
My headcanon is that "The Table" gets involved in international politics by taking contracts from nation-states to kill elites/politicians/businessmen in other countries and this is where most of the money in the assassin economy comes from, and the main reason they maintain such strict procedures and rules, so that various governments 'trust' them to keep things orderly and in exchange, tolerate their existence rather than declare war on them.
There's literally nothing shown in the movies to corroborate this, of course.
I expect John Wick, Chapter 5: Head Cannon to come out. Featuring Keanu Reeves, and a .22lr pistol strapped to his skull. That's about the only uncharted territory left.
Might I make a suggestion:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=iGpZ9xaQLYQ?si=SHm5raEAkD18v4fD
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