We’re
kicking off this blog with a Kitsch-off. A Taylor Kitsch-off!
It’s 2012. Beautiful spring day.
Clear skies. Birds sing. And you’re Taylor Kitsch. You’re having a great
fucking day. Of course, most days are
great fucking days, because you’re Taylor Kitsch, an actor and all around
handsome sonfabitch. But today is special. Summer movie season approaches, and
you’re primed to be its god damned King. You look at your calendar, and there
they are – the dates that will forever cement your immortality:
March 9th
May 18th
July 6th
The release dates of John Carter, Battleship and Savages,
respectively. You did it, man. Now all you can do it sit back and watch, as you
become the biggest movie star in the world…A Disney franchise, Universal’s tent
pole and legendary filmmaker Oliver Stone’s new movie. It’s gonna be a your
year.
Of course, as we know, it wasn’t his
year. 2012 saw Kitsch’s movie star dreams fail spectacularly with two of the
biggest bombs in recent memory and a poorly received Oliver Stone film. But the
question here is, was it Kitsch’s fault? And I submit, with great resolution,
well, kinda.
Full disclosure, I didn’t see
Savages. Maybe it was amazing. Maybe Kitsch was amazing in it. I don’t
know. I also don’t feel that Savages has
any great impact, positive or negative, on Kitsch’s perception as a movie star.
By the time it came out, it was really just piling on. Kitsch was drowning with
Carter, Battleship killed him and Savages
were the tiny fish that picked at his corpse.
So let’s start with John Carter. And before we get to the Kitschy parts, let’s
just talk about the movie. Critics weren’t kind to it. Neither was the general
audience. There was a lot of pre-movie buzz about inflated budgets, clashing
egos and, really, nothing about the actual movie. Some cited poor marketing and
a generally bad release strategy on Disney’s part. Probably true. But all
together, it was easy to get the impression that people wanted to see Carter
fail. And so it did.
Okay, fine, but what about the
movie? Well, it’s a goofy bit of fun. And maybe that’s where some of the
problem lies. Here we have a movie with laughably made-up words (Barsoom!),
silly aliens and magic portals with nary a smile in sight. Everyone one’s so
serious. Everything’s so dire. But, damn it; this is supposed to be fun! Look
how many arms those green alien have! And what about the weird bulldog thing?
Can’t someone laugh a little? Crack a joke or something? My favorite scene in
the movie, where Carter discovers his new Martian abilities, may also be the
only one that shows him actually having a good time. There’s just no sense of
levity in this thing. And, in a way, it sort of forces the audience to create
one. If there’s no outlet, then I’m going to laugh at the silly costumes. At
the weird alien customs. Because they’re silly. And weird. And, in a better
movie, our surrogate, Carter, would have done that for us.
But, that’s not the movie Carter wants to be. It wants to be cool.
It wants to be a grand adventure. It wants to be Star Wars. And when it’s working, it can be pretty cool. It can be
a grand adventure. But it’s never Star Wars. There’s a scene in the movie where
Carter flat out murders hundreds of his enemy. The aliens just keep running at
him, and he slaughters them ALL. And there’s a certain energy to the scene,
some kind of boyhood fantasy – almost like playing with action figures - that’s
absolutely mesmerizing. Unfortunately, that feeling never comes back. Instead,
we get generic a blockbuster. A princess forced into marriage. A powerful
weapon. A comically evil villain. A battle scene. And they’re all fine.
Sometime they’re even good. But it’s so rarely new. So rarely exciting.
Still, taken as a whole, the film
amounts to a decent bit of entertainment. Great? Not even close. But nothing as
bad as its reputation would suggest. All of which leads us to Kitsch. Earlier, when I so boldly declared him kinda
the problem with his movies, well, I stand by it. He kinda is. John Carter has
its issues, to be sure, but, at the center of them is Kitsch. He just does
nothing to help. He’s competent. Good looking. A fine actor. But he brings
nothing. He’s just a face. And watching this movie, I can’t help but think of
an equally dumb piece of populist entertainment, Independence Day. And what
Will Smith, in particular, brought to that movie takes it from dumb, to
wonderfully dumb. He’s just so much fun. And where Kitsch is all scowls and
grimaces, Smith is “Wooooah!’s” and big toothy grins. It’s infectious. The
audience has as much fun as he’s having. We can’t help it. Being good enough in
a movie like this simply isn’t; if you wanna be a movie star, you gotta act
like one.
With Battleship, however, Kitsch
faced a far more uphill battle. Here, he’s cast as the lead in a $200 million
movie based on a board game. An entirely plot-free board game. About
battleships. And it gets worse. Because the plot they cooked up is patently
absurd. It’s something about sun-allergic aliens who come to Earth because of a
signal we beamed into space. Much of this is explained in a hilarious
pre-credits text scrawl. And most of it never makes sense.
But here’s the thing -- I sorta
enjoyed Battleship. The movie is a breathless series of “and thens”, lurching
from one ludicrous plot development to the next. First there’s a secret
government satellite, and then the movie is inexplicably about a chicken
burrito, and then our hero is somehow a commander in the Navy, and then there’s
a soccer match, and then war games, and then aliens…and it never stops. And I
love it. It’s a huge part of why I find
the movie so much fun in spite of itself.
But what about Kitsch? How does he
anchor all this madness? The answer: slightly better than he did with John
Carter. For the most part, he still takes himself a little too seriously.
There’s just a lack of charm. So when he gets the girl or when he’s promoted
despite being an alleged fuck up, it’s all hard to believe. With a smile and
some charisma? Hey, maybe. It’s a movie about an old-timey battleship fighting space
aliens, after all.
Unlike Carter, however, some of that movie star charisma pops up in this
one. Occasionally, we’ll get a glimpse into what casting directors must have
seen in the first place. A reason to believe Kitsch should be here. His introduction
scene is a nice bit of absurdity. And he’s enjoyable in it. But, again, I’m
reminded of what, say, a young Tom Cruise might have brought to this role. A
great lead performance makes a movie. It’s so much easier to forgive flaws when
our hero is just so damn fun. And with
Cruise running around the deck of a Battleship, smiling and eating chicken
burritos, it’s easier to imagine a better movie. Of course, Battleship would
still be dumb. It’s Battleship. But it could have been a lot more fun.
And in the summer of 2012, that was
Kitsch’s biggest problem. He just wasn’t fun. He looks like a movie star, sure.
But he doesn’t act like one. He’s a decent actor, so he’ll keep working. I’m
guessing he’ll kill a supporting role or two. And maybe then he’ll get a shot
to lead a smaller movie. I just hope he has a good time doing it. And I hope it
shows. Because while he’s not the reason his movies failed, he’s certainly part
of it. And worse, he did nothing to help. He just kinda showed up, did his job
and hoped the special effects would do the heavy lifting. But they can’t. If
you’re gonna lead a blockbuster, it’s on you to be the special effect.
So we’re in the summer of 2013 now,
and Taylor Kitsch is decidedly not a movie star. And again, it’s kinda his
fault. His choice in movies didn’t help, but actors have done far more with
worse movies than John Carter. But I
like imagining a parallel universe where Kitsch walks out of that summer the
biggest star in the world. And, had those movies hit, he would have been. Not
that I’m a huge fan or anything, just fun to think about. Our blockbusters
would look a little different; they’d certainly have more Kitsch in them! In
any case, he’ll probably be back. And in the meantime, we can watch new people
fail to conquer the summer blockbuster – hello, Armie Hammer.
