FLICKCHART’S GREATEST BATTLES

Raiders of the Lost Ark

vs.

V for Vendetta

Raiders against just about anything should be a no-brainer. Raiders should win every time. However, when one puts it up against a film as grandiose as V for Vendetta, one is forced to at least take pause. These films actually have a lot in common. Both revolve around a single-minded and tenacious protagonist’s attempts to halt the dastardly plans of a nefarious government. Hell, each protagonist even has a plucky yet fragile brunette to assist in the heroics.  So, if forced to make such a decision, how exactly does one go about choosing between which of these brilliant flicks could be considered better? For me, it had to come down to which taught the better lesson.

In V for Vendetta, we’re presented with a dark and twisted anti-hero. V is the product of a government weapons experiment gone horribly awry. After escaping his lab-rat existence, V is driven by a desire for revenge against the government that wronged him. His grand plan is ultimately based on exploding historical landmarks while blasting classical music from the public address system throughout London. When that doesn’t get the immediate results he’s looking for — namely, toppling the government through terroristic acts equally as alarming as their own — he decides to move on to the next best thing. V engages in psychological warfare against the aforementioned plucky brunette to ensure her loyalty to his cause. This seems to be the missing piece to his puzzle as, with Evey’s help, he is able to defeat the government  to blow up Parliament. Supposedly, this makes the people of fascist London free. In actuality, it just makes an absence of any functional government and, subsequently, the necessary public services said government provided. It also makes a giant pile of corpses. Essentially, what we learn from V is when the man gets you down, blow up everything in your path, leaving nothing but destruction and anarchy in your wake. Oh, and, of course, fuck the suckers that have to clean up your mess afterwards.

In Raiders of the Lost Ark, we have a very different picture of what a hero should be. Henry “Indiana” Jones’ day job is Professor of Archaeology. He strives to teach his students respect for history and the truth about buried treasure — that there really never is any. In his free time, he scours the globe for buried treasure to sell to museums for a tidy profit. Essentially, he’s cornering the market for himself by transforming any interest his students had in archaeology into a perception of tedium and monotony. Still, when his government requests his assistance in preventing the Nazis from locating the fabled Ark of the Covenant and, in the process, protecting his ex-girlfriend, Indy jumps at the chance.  Yet, Indy’s methods differ vastly from those of V. Instead of a deep-seeded need for vengeance, Indy is fueled by … well, apparently, a need to be a snarky know-it-all pain in the ass. He blows up his fair share of shit, but only in an effort to save his own skin from Nazis who were, in all fairness, trying to kill him first. Mostly, he just tries to mess with their intelligence and skew their maps. When that fails, he simply decides to keep pertinent information to himself (when uncovering an artifact containing the spirits of ancient Hebrews, close your fucking eyes if you don’t want your face to melt the fuck off your skull ) and allow his enemies to destroy themselves through their own greed.

Looking at it this way, I realized I never should have doubted the daring mental prowess of a character who may be the world’s only philandering professor of archaeology.-KS

Pan’s Labyrinth

vs.

Titanic

Art houses being over-excited about something that truly isn’t great, vs. Hollywood being over-excited about something that is kinda OK. Even though when I watched Pan’s Labyrinth, I was like “Shit! This really blows,” and when I saw Titanic, after purposefully and annoyingly avoiding it for over 3 years, I was like “All right. I see what they liked.” I still have to go with Pan’s Labyrinth. At least it was weird. I likes me some weird film.

Titanic had good acting in forced moments of sincerity in the middle of a cliché script, with wads of money thrown at it. A lot of very talented people put together a film that would offend only the oldest of farts. Pan’s Labryrinth, which I will remind you I didn’t like, at least tried something, even though they pretty much failed. They spent too much time worrying about how things looked and too little time presenting a compelling story. But at least they went for something risky. I would rather watch a person fall on her face attempting a back flip than watch a perfectly executed summersault.-KA