Escape!

Not that Len Wiseman (the Underworld flicks, Die Hard 4.0) is the most talented director available, but word is that he's off the remake of John Carpenter's Escape From New York, to be replaced by Brett Ratner. There's a bit more to say about the flick, but with the current flux, I'll hold off, pending changes, in favor of explaining why this bodes ill. Ratner is responsible for the Rush Hour trilogy, and is widely hated for the third X-Men, a flick so bad I swore off going to the movies for the rest of the summer of 2006.

The LA Weekly's Scott Foundas is an intelligent fellow, and it was with curiosity that I read Foundas' "Brett Ratner, The Popcorn King" in early August, wondering if I had misjudged.

Foundas defends Ratner as a director of the people, neglecting the basic crumminess of his catalog. He hails Ratner as a paragon of populist entertainment, a who-needs-critics type of director with no interest in film but a natural talent for movies, for making people happy and taking in money hand over fist while doing so, citing Ratner's over-a-billion-dollars total box office intake. In reality, Ratner has some slight name recognition, but nothing like Foundas claims; he clearly runs in circles with people who'd recognize Ratner on a street corner.

An impromptu poll reveals that 33% of people (sample size three) recognize the name but can't quite place it. In Los Angeles circles, he does have better-than-average name recognition, some of it due to an apparent propensity for philandering and some of it due to the nastiness directed his way, with absolute justification, on the internet. I'm not sure why non-movie-people are even semi-aware who Ratner is, nor why a sane man like Scott Foundas would think there's anything worth defending about him, let alone big upping him for his box office billion and natural talent for accent jokes. Ratner's oeuvre simply isn't that exciting: Money Talks, Rush Hour 1-3, The Family Man, After the Sunset, Red Dragon, and X-Men 3. Of these, Money Talks and Rush Hour can be considered Ratner's financial successes; the Rush Hour sequels, Red Dragon, and X-Men box office grosses were based more on the properties than on any directorial ability. The Family Man made a little profit, but not too much; After the Sunset flopped. No film among these is particularly worth watching.

I would like to propose that we hear no more of Brett Ratner, Popcorn King. From this point on, all references to Ratner, and all potential directorial jobs, will be redirected to Gore Verbinski, who compares favorably to Ratner at every step of the way. Like Ratner, Verbinski started in music videos and commercials on his way to Mouse Hunt, a debut even more profitable than Money Talks. Ratner's Nicolas Cage family drama The Family Man offered a predictable It's A Wonderful Life angle; Verbinski's Nicolas Cage family drama The Weather Man looks equally usual at first, but takes a more difficult path, offering at least a few moments of interest; of the two, The Weather Man is the one to watch.

Next up, each director's foray into horror. Where Ratner went with the assured profitability of Red Dragon, the next installment in the financially reliable Hannibal Lecter series, Verbinski took on Ringu, a scary Japanese cisterns 'n sea demons story. If the script's removal of certain aspects likely to prove user-unfriendly to American audiences (see aforementioned sea demons) left some sizeable plot and motivation gaps, Verbinski's pale, dreamy approach held it all together; the film's most memorable, unapologetically unexplained sequence doesn't appear in Hideo Nakata's original. The Ring was a huge international hit and kicked off a movement still very much in progress, with execs regularly raiding Asian horror rosters for remakeable titles.

Finally, their successful trilogies. Say what you will about the poorly acclaimed third chapters (both blocked from screening in China, by the way), but Verbinski's trilogy, as wildly overblown as it became, was at least guilty of being overambitious, as opposed to merely restaging the first film in a slightly new scenario.

Oh, and about Ratner's billion-dollar Variety cover? Verbinski's last two flicks made a billion dollars each.