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The Geek Beat: The Everymen of Summer 2009

by Elisabeth Rappe Aug 18th 2009 // 6:02PM

Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, The Geek Beat, Summer Movies



So, last week I rated and ranked the geekier girls of the summer blockbuster season, and now it's time for the men to be sorted and judged. Last year, I didn't bother to rank them and just gave the prize to Harvey Dent and predicted that Wolverine would take it this year. Well, we all know that isn't going to happen. Sorry, Logan, it hurts me as much as it hurts you. Maybe you'll earn the prize in 2012 or whenever it is you go to Japan.

Actually, the boys of summer have proved to be a bit of a challenge. It's hard to believe, but I think the girls actually fared better in terms of variety and interest. When trying to sort out who is the better man, I really feel that all our muscle bound and star-powered heroes came out a little wanting. It didn't look that way going into the season -- there was Wolverine, John Connor, Captain Kirk, Duke and Snake Eyes. Surely one of them would take the Coolest Guy of Summer, right? Wrong.

Now, admittedly on that list I have only seen Star Trek (Terminator: Salvation has long since vanished from the multiplex, and funds keep me from G.I. Joe), but while all had their fans and were enjoyable films, not one character jumped out as a star player. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto were certainly good (the latter especially), but I still feel they're a bit of a wait-and-see at this point. Another Trek film could dash their wow factor altogether. Sure, that seems unlikely, but think to the summer of 2008. Did you imagine that you'd walk out of your theater thinking Wolverine and John Connor were downright blah?









No, this summer belonged to something other than admantium-laced mutants, post-apocalyptic Messiahs, or pumped up Joes. To me, the defining characters were the most ordinary and unassuming fellows. They were men caught up in extraordinary circumstances who ended up defined more by their emotions than their martial art skills. Yep, you've probably guessed it -- my prize goes to Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) of Moon and Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) of District 9.



Both characters are defined by sheer drudgery and dullness. They're pencil pushers of the sort rarely seen in cinema, where everyone always seems to have cool jobs in asethetically pleasing offices. Hollywood doesn't like to portray actual working men and women who pound away at grimy keyboards, counting down the hours till they can go home to their families. It's ugly, awkward, and unhappy, and it's no accident that the only films willing to tackle how utterly dehumanizing corporate life is are rooted in sci-fi. Using the extraordinary to illustrate the ordinary has always been the mark of the genre. While I hesitate to say that either film really makes any grand pronouncements on the corporate culture, I think both lay out a very visible threat in Lunar Industries and MNU. The scariest thing about both isn't something as comic booky as "They want to take over the world!", but that they're a hideous mechanism that Sam and Wikus (and by extension, us) are totally complacent in. They just want to go home and cash that paycheck, and they just don't care about what goes on in the basement.

But Sam and Wikus are forced to care. And what's rather amusing and un-John Connorish is that both act out of sheer self-interest -- they just want to go home. They want their ordinary lives back. They don't give a crap whether they save anyone else (especially if those anyones are Prawns), and you can't quite trust either one of them. If you were with them on the moon or in District 9, there's no telling if they'd bring you along, or leave you to die. It's frightening and it's human, and in the end they both exemplify that part of humanity we want to believe in. Wikus and Sam both sacrifice something, and because it doesn't come with a surge of trumpets and adulation like John Connor or Captain Kirk expects, it's that much grander.




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Tags: District 9, District9, featured, Moon, The Geek Beat, TheGeekBeat

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