Digital Journal — On a whim one day, I rented Bullitt, the Steve McQueen action vehicle (pun intended). Released in 1968, it predated computer-generated imagery (CGI) by five years. The 1973 sci-fi classic Westworld is credited by some as being the first to use CGI.
Bullitt was made back when realism was cool. Everything had to be realistic. Shooting a scene in a hospital? Use real doctors and nurses. Doing a car chase? Use real cars, in a real city. Your character is involved in the chase? Do some of your own stunt driving (this came easily to McQueen; he was into racing bikes and cars long before Bullitt).
While I watched the film, my pulse noticeably quickened when it came to the famous chase scene. Bullitt, a no-B.S. San Francisco detective, is on the trail of two hitmen who killed a mob informant and seriously wounded Bullitt’s partner.
In the film, Bullitt drove a dark-green Mustang Fastback GT with a 390-cubic-inch engine. The bad guys? A black 1968 Dodge Charger R/T with a 440-cubic-inch engine. Once the chase is on, you are riveted for the next nine minutes — a period without one word of dialogue. Just grunts, gunfire and squealing rubber.
That scene helped Bullitt win an Oscar for best editing and a place in movie history as one of the greatest car chases of all time. Some die-hard fans even retrace portions of the route.
It got me thinking: With all the technological wizardry modern-day filmmakers use to thrill me, they often have me groaning over how fake and cheesy something was rather than leaving me high on adrenaline. The rush is certainly no greater than with older movies. But in a video game age, am I just missing the point?
First things first. Two offenders that haunt me to this day: Vin Diesel’s XXX and the Bond franchise’s Die Another Day.
When I see movies like these, I’m not demanding a total absence of logical flaws. They’re action movies. They’re supposed to take me out of reality for two hours and leave me with a racing pulse and a couple of memorable catchphrases. But there are limits.
James Bond surfing away from a crumbling glacier on a piece of cowling from a jet-powered ice racer, after he was almost zapped by a sunbeam-harvesting Doomsday weapon? Fake! Vin Diesel snowboarding down a mountain ahead of an avalanche massive enough to bury his ego? Fake!
Please, filmmakers: I’m willing to suspend disbelief for a thrill, but only up to a point.
Now in the “plus” column: For all its flaws as a movie, the freeway sequence in The Matrix Reloaded put a shit-eating grin on my face. Pounding techno, gunfire, near-death experiences and the feel of virtual wind in my face — now that’s worth the fourteen bucks! That sequence, however, was actually a blend of reality and CGI.
Two of 2004’s blockbusters were heavily into CGI: I, Robot and Spider-Man 2. For me, Spidey was the better film. The effects weren’t the story; the story was the story. I found myself agreeing with Roger Ebert’s thumbs-down on I, Robot; he was in grump mode about the “robots crawling all over everything.” In an interview with VFXWorld, Robert Dykstra, the visual effects supervisor for Spider-Man 2, said he thought films were getting to the point where live action and CGI were becoming indistinguishable. With all due respect to the multiple-Academy Award nominee, it’s getting closer, but we’re not there yet.
Here’s my personal manifesto that I would nail on the doors of action directors and their filmmaking teams:
- Spectacle isn’t enough. There has to be a reason for the action.
- Characters and plot matter.
- Simpler is sometimes better in visual design; 100 CG cars blowing up isn’t necessarily more spectacular than one real one.
- Don’t let your imagination outstrip the technology.
When filmmakers use CGI to get themselves out of plot traps, it shows. When the technology isn’t good enough for a given scene, it glares.
But here’s the rub: Some films are simultaneously produced as video games. For example, Spider-Man, The Matrix and the Bond films are available as games. Not only that, most of today’s prime movie-going demographic grew up with a gaming console in their hands. If you were raised on PlayStation, you’re visually conditioned to a less-than-perfect virtual world. For the gaming generation, do onscreen jolts trump authenticity? I suspect they do. So does York University professor Seth Feldman. Audiences today “just enjoy looking at the illusions,” he says. “But it’s like everything else. Some of them are done well and some of them aren’t.”
Box office numbers haven’t suffered. Four of 2004’s highest-grossing films relied on CGI and raked in $1.5 billion total (Shrek 2, Spider-Man 2, Harry Potter 3, The Day After Tomorrow).
While Bullitt raised the bar in its day, it wouldn’t compete if it were re-released today. While its chase scene stands up, the rest of the movie just doesn’t have the restless energy or soundtrack that modern action entertainment demands.
Today’s filmmakers can do so much more. I just wish they could make me feel the excitement on the screen. But for the most part, they don’t.
This article is part of Digital Journal’s national magazine edition. Pick up your copy of Digital Journal in bookstores across Canada. Or subscribe to Digital Journal now, and receive 8 issues for $29.95 + GST ($48.95 USD).
