Occasionally something is announced, be it a director, actor
or even a movie and it creates a total shitstorm online. Friends this is one of
those times.
Jesse Eisenberg (The
Social Network) has been cast in the role of Lex Luthor in 2016’s Batman vs. Superman film. A film that
many agree is simply a disguised Justice
League since the announcement of Gal Gadot being cast as Wonder Woman.
Eisenberg’s casting has created a lot of talk about whether or not he is right
for the role, fair enough.
Like every other time the majority of the audience has
disagreed with the casting of a beloved comic book character a bunch of level
headed folk take the moral high ground and remind us all of the hate that Heath
Ledger received when he was first cast as the Joker. It seems almost to be
tradition to bring up that argument, it was even used when Ben Affleck was cast
as Batman. It’s a fair argument but you cannot apply it to everything I am
sorry. Heath Ledger had established himself as a great versatile actor was
before he was even nominated for his role in Brokeback Mountain. The nine other people who have seen 2005’s Lords of Dogtown will tell you that
Ledger pulled out a fantastic performance as the eccentric drunk surfboard
builder Skip Engblom. The point is Ledger took time to diversify and refused to
be typecast as the teenage heartthrob most wanted from him.
The above argument is not relevant to me anyway because I am
somewhat curious about Jesse Eisenberg being Lex Luthor. Yes it is true that
Eisenberg has never played a role like this before, or even moved away from the
awkward teenage stereotype. For me the character of Lex Luthor is one that neither
appeals to me nor have a great emotional attachment to like most fanboys claim.
This is the same reason I was happy for Iron
Man 3 to change the Mandarin as much as they did. It simply comes down to
if you’re going to bring ‘beloved’ characters to the big screen you have to
take risks, try and bring some originality and surprise people. As much as I
would have liked to have seen the likes of Bryan Cranston or even Joaquin
Phoenix in the role, you have to admit this is going in a new direction and
no-one is prepared for. You have to give it to Zack Snyder for that at least.
There isn’t much to say about Jeremy Irons being cast as
Alfred (Bruce Wayne’s Butler) as it is clearly a very good choice. For anyone
who has read Batman: Earth One you
can already visualize Irons as the gnarled battled hardened Alfred that has
never been portrayed before.
I’m sick of people all over Twitter jumping to conclusions
before they’ve even seen a film. These filmmakers and studios put a hell of a
lot of money and time into these films and no-one ever sets out to make a bad
film.
Follow me on Twitter for more film shit! - https://twitter.com/MaxKnowsFilms
