I did enjoy the Wolverine movie. That was pretty good, but I had this thought at the end. There’s a shot where they pan hard away and into the clouds. It starts in close up on Wolverine and pulls up and away until he is a speck, and then totally invisible and clouds wash the screen. My first thought as the shot began was, “hey, here’s a nice helicopter shot.” Then I did a mental hand slap to the forehead. Duh, nobody uses helicopters anymore. It’s all CGI, and as a result, a little too pat.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand that CGI is an absolute necessity for modern special effects and a movie like Wolverine just couldn’t be great without. I mean, it would require a very different script to make a modern superhero movie without mega CGI effects.

Still, one of the details I loved about the Tom Jane Punisher movie a few years ago was how they handled the action. In the extra features they have a stunt piece in which they discuss their aversion to CGI, at least in that film. If a car crashes in the film, it really crashed. Not just ‘virtual’ crashing. and believe me, if you haven’t seen the movie, you will see what I’m talking about when you do. The success of such feats, of course, require actors and crew that are willing to train and rehearse and work together. Maybe that’s why a guy with a supercomputer and a software development background and a more or less unlimited budget is somehow more desirable.

I should mention that the good Punisher is not to be confused with the more recent War Zone Punisher which sucked for its crappy implementation of special effects and derivative nonsense that just didn’t hold up. Kind of like the awful Observe and Report and my pick for all-time worst waste of film, The Cooler. I will have to blog about that piece of crap some time.