Genre: Superhero
Premise: (from IMDB) Eight years on, a new terrorist leader, Bane, overwhelms Gotham’s finest, and the Dark Knight resurfaces to protect a city that has branded him an enemy.
About: The final film in Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy.  Last year, I did a “Nolan Theme Week,” breaking down Inception, Memento, The Prestige, and Batman Begins.  I also had Roger break down The Dark Knight.  Check out those reviews for my feelings on Nolan’s writing.
Writers: Jonathan and Christopher Nolan (story by Christopher Nolan and David Goyer) (characters by Bob Kane)
Details: 164 minutes

I’m just going to say it: Nolan, you’re getting sloppy.

And who can blame the guy really?  Nolan didn’t want to make this film.  At least that’s what I derived from his interviews after The Dark Knight.  However these days, you can’t just make two of a franchise.  That word “trilogy” has changed all that.  Once that word became popularized there was no such thing as a sequel without another sequel.  And hence we have The Dark Knight Rises.

Why is this important?  Because when you’re not 100% passionate about something, it shows.  And Nolan’s lack of passion is on display here.  I mean, how do you follow up one of the Top 5 villains in cinema history?  Sure, you try your best.  But deep down you know you’re not going to top The Joker.  It’s like trying to get yourself up for the Cincinnati Open after you’ve won Wimbledon.

Now, to Nolan’s credit, he doesn’t go all George Lucas on us.  He doesn’t bust out one draft and say “This is it.”  But there’s no question what we see in this Batman entry could’ve benefitted from another draft or five.  The Dark Knight Rises has occasional high points, but as a screenplay, it’s an occupational hazard.

“Rises” starts off eight years after “Knight” with our favorite billionaire hobbled by a bad leg and a really long game of hide and seek.  No one’s seen Bruce Wayne OR Batman in all this time and a lot of that has to do with Batman being blamed for Harvey Dent’s murder.  Commissioner Gordon knows the truth, of course, but for whatever reason (read: story convenience) he keeps it to himself.

Batman’s absence allows Scottish misfit and air filtration advocate Bane (who operates in the sewers of Gotham) to pick up where the Joker left off and make a play for the city, first through its finances, then through a football game with two pretend teams, and finally via a nuclear bomb.  After blowing up all the bridges to Gotham, he lets the world know that if so much as a shoe from the good guys reaches his city, he’s blowing it sky-high.

He can do this because he’s already taken out a hobbled Batman, sending him back to the prison cave he himself spent the majority of his life in, and is the only person to have escaped from.  This giant hole then becomes a test for Batman to “get his mojo back,” as he must climb up an impossibly high cave cliff to get out, and gosh darnnit if the final jump to freedom isn’t Matrix-like difficult.  Now if I were Bane, I probably would’ve, you know, KILLED Batman jusssst innnn caaaase he turned out to be the SECOND person to escape the cave.  But where’s the fun in that?

As you’d expect, Batman gets out of the prison to the excited chants of his fellow inmates, who he’s since become BFFs with, and races back to Gotham just in time to save the day!  Or does he?  Turns out Batty Bruce will have to make a choice involving saving Gotham or saving himself.  And since we know how cool of a guy Batman is, it’s looking like our winged crusader ain’t going to be saving himself.  Does that mean The Batman dies?  Well if Batman’s armor can’t even stop a kitchen knife from puncturing it, I doubt it can stop a nuclear bomb.  But who knows?  Stranger things have happened.

The Dark Knight is big and grand and epic and annoyingly confusing.  I mean, I understood the broad strokes of the plot, but that was it.  The rest of the script was as muddled as a first grader’s recollection of his day.

One of my big problems with Inception, as you all know, was the 16 hours of exposition needed before we got to the actual story.  Nolan makes a similar mistake here, but with character introductions instead of exposition.  We have four key characters introduced, only one of which I had even the vaguest understanding of what he wanted, that being Bane.  And to be honest, I’m even a little unclear on him.  Bane wanted to take over Gotham because…..because why again?  Because he wears a mask?  Because he’s bad?  Because bad people do bad things?

Who knows?  But hey, as Batman fans are quick to point out, The Joker didn’t exactly have a solid motivation either.  He made life miserable for The Batman because he’s twisted and sick and has nothing better to do.  And that seemed to work.  However, the Joker was incredibly charismatic – impossible to look away from – which covered up a lot of his plot-related shortcomings.  Bane just wears a mask.  A cool mask – don’t get me wrong – but that’s all I remember about the guy. That and he sounded exactly like Sean Connery.

That brings us to our other three characters – Cat Woman, Sleuthy McSleuthems, and Marion Cotillard. I still have absolutely zero understanding of what any of these characters had to do with the story.  The sad thing was that Cat Woman was probably the most memorable character in the film.  She was the only one with energy, the only one who brought life to scenes.  But if you took her character out, the movie would be EXACTLY THE SAME.  That’s Screenwriting 101 there.  If a character isn’t needed to tell the story, get rid of them.

That leads us to Sleuthy mcSluethems, aka Joseph Gordon-Leavitt.  Nooooooo idea who this character was.  He just seemed to pop up every once in awhile looking concerned and distrusting, which was perfect, cause that’s exactly how I felt!  (Spoiler) Clearly, the only reason for this character’s inclusion was his big reveal at the end, which was admittedly cool.  But this is another basic screenwriting tenant.  Don’t make us suffer through a “nothing” storyline JUST for a twist.  The storyline itself has to be interesting, twist or not.  And there was NOTHING about this character that was interesting or even relevant.  Again, had you taken him out, nothing about the story would’ve changed.

Finally, that brings us to Marion Cotillard, the most confusing of all the confusing characters. Who was she?  No idea.  I think she was rich?  Influential?  Owned a company that made the sharpest knives in the universe?  This character was easily the biggest misstep as she had nothing to do with the anything outside of her own twist at the end, which of course had zero impact on us since we didn’t understand who she was anyway.

So after the introduction of all these characters (as well as the re-introduction to Bruce Wayne), we finally got to the actual plot, halfway through the 164 minute running time!  And you know what?  When we did, “Rises” actually started to resemble a movie!  Bane takes over Gotham.  There’s a ticking time bomb (literally).  And Batman has to escape his prison and save the day.  The second half of the film, for that reason, was actually pretty solid.  But I kept asking myself – why did we have to suffer through all that nonsense to get here?  Did we really need to meet all those characters?  Did we really need to set up all those story lines?

It’s no secret that I like streamlined narratives, so I’m hard-wired to dislike this kind of script.  I resisted Dark Knight on the first few viewings for the same reason.  Eventually, however, I learned to like it.  An argument can be made for Nolan pushing the screenwriting medium – to not giving us the obvious “Fast and Furious” formula, but rather layering his stories with multiple character through-lines and heavier thought-provoking themes.  I get that.  But why do I feel like it was all done so clumsily?

Maybe further viewings will change my mind.  But right now, I thought this screenplay was a bloated mess.

What I haven’t learned:  Batman may be the most popular character in movie history.  I walk down the street and hear 50 year old men saying they can’t wait to see this movie.  40 year old women saying they can’t wait to see this movie.  I hear black, hispanic, and asians saying they can’t wait to see this movie.  More than any other film, this character seems to capture people’s imaginations.  People LOVE Batman.  So my question is, “Why?”  I ask because as screenwriters, our most important job is coming up with a main character audiences will love.  If we can do that, we can sell screenplays by the dozen.  So what is it specifically about Batman that makes him so likable by so many people?  I feel that if we can figure that out, it will help us with our own protagonists.

Genre: Drama
Premise:  An 11 year old boy survives a mountain plane crash and must use all the tools his father taught him to survive.
About: This one finished low on last year’s Black List.  Writer Will Fetters broke onto the scene with Black List script “Remember Me,” a couple of years ago, which had one of the more shocking endings I’ve read and ended up starring heartthrob Robert Pattinson.  He then scripted The Lucky One, which starred Zac Efron.  Fetters projects seem to have the young hunky actor market cornered.  Which begs the question – Which hunky heartthrob is going to play 11 year-old Norman Ollestad.  My guess is Alex Petteyfer.
Writer: Will Fetters (based on the novel by Norman Ollestad)
Details: 121 pages (April 15, 2011 draft)

I don’t know why but I was worried about this one.  I mean, dramatically, it had the makings for a good story.  An 11 year old kid survives a plane crash.  He’s gotta use all the skills his father taught him to survive.  That could be cool right?

Yeah, it could be.  Assuming there was some drama in the story.  Assuming there was ANY drama in the story.  Crazy For The Storm is one of the most boring screenplays I’ve ever read.  I mean at least with The Accountant, you’re sitting there going, “Is this writer insane?  What the hell is he going to come up with next??”  With “Storm,” it’s as if the story was stripped of every potential interesting development before being let out into the world.  For a cool premise, it’s shocking to see how little actually happens in this script.

It starts off in 1979 with this 11 year old boy named Norman Ollestad barreling down a slalom run.  Norman is competing against guys five and six years older than him, which means he does’t have the weight to get enough speed to compete.  Therefore, his father has taught him how to ski on ice to make up for it.  This trick is what allows Norman to win.

But Norman doesn’t seem too thrilled about the victory.  He’s more surprised than anything.  Cut back to some really high class hippy commune (does that even make sense?) on the beach where Norman goes skateboarding with his buddies.   It’s back here where we learn that Norman’s father, Norman Sr., has divorced Norman’s mom, leaving Norman to live with his mom and step-father, whom he detests.

While getting to know Norman’s home life, we flash forward to see Norman, his father, and his father’s girlfriend hop on a Cessna and crash into a mountain.  We then spend the rest of the script jumping back and forth between the crash aftermath and Norman’s recent past, particularly his relationship with his father.

What is that relationship?  Good question.  I have no idea.  All I know is that they talk about life a lot and Norman Sr. goes to a lot of weird places. For example, he takes his son down to Mexico to deliver a washing machine to his grandparents.  On the way, they’re shot at and nearly killed by Federales.  Fun scene.  Absolutely no idea what it had to do with anything.

Back to the mountain where Norman realizes his father and the pilot are dead, but that his dad’s girlfriend is still alive.  Little 11 year old Norman will now have to carry the 30-something woman down the mountain with him.  Don’t worry.  He drops her and she dies.  Still, it will be a challenge.  And if I’m to believe the premise, only his father’s life lessons will allow him to make it out alive.  Except they don’t.  At all.  He just sort of walks down the mountain.  And that is Crazy For The Storm for you.

I mean………what??

I don’t know how one script can be so boring.  NOTHING happens in this screenplay.  Which is really weird to say about a script where a plane crashes into the side of a mountain.  How can you write a script where nothing happens after that?  I don’t know but it happened.

Let’s start with the idea itself.  I remember when this book was optioned and this is how I recall the pitch:  A young boy grows up with an overbearing father who forces him to do a bunch of stuff he hates. Then, when the boy is stranded on a mountain after a plane crash, he’s forced to use all those skills his father taught him to survive.

THAT sounded like a story.  There was some nice irony involved.  A boy hating his father for ruining his childhood but then getting stuck in a situation where all the lessons he taught him ended up saving his life.  Good, right?

Well that’s not the story.  This story has a father who loves his son.  He’s nice to him.  He’s helpful.  He’s protective.  They’re best friends!  In other words, there’s NO CONFLICT WHATSOEVER.  Which means every scene between them is boring.  So when Norman gets stuck on the mountain?  No irony.  Just – “Okay, let’s use the things dad taught me.”

Except NOT EVEN THAT MAKES SENSE!  What did the dad teach him?  How to ski?  How to surf?  Am I missing something here? How do skiing and surfing help you survive a plane crash????  I think there’s one scene where Norman slides down a section of the mountain.  So that’s it?  Is that the big lesson he learned that saved his life??

The only conflict in the script, actually, is focused on Norman and his stepfather.  Not only is it boring, but it has nothing to do with anything.  There’s this weird totally separate subplot about the stepfather wanting Norman to focus on getting a football scholarship to USC.  Uhhhh, HE’S 11!  Shouldn’t we start with graduating 6th grade first?  And we already have skiing and surfing and skateboarding in this movie.  Now we have football??  Aggghhh!!  I’m so confused.

If I were advising this story, this is what I would do.  I would create way more conflict between father and son.  This story only works with irony.  Get rid of the stepdad character. He’s worthless.  Spend WAY MORE TIME on the mountain after the crash.  It feels like there’s 8 pages of mountain in the entire script.  Then, make the mountain scenes actually interesting.  There need to be more obstacles.  It needs to look like an impossible feat.  Outside of losing the girlfriend (who we didn’t care about anyway because her inclusion was so undefined), Norman basically jaunts down the mountain without a hitch.

Watch (or read) Alive.  Those guys had to deal with avalanches and starvation and isolation and turning on each other.  There was an obstacle at every turn, every few minutes.  Here, there are no obstacles!  Where’s the drama in that?

Then, when you do cut back to the past, only cut back to him and his father.  And build up more of a hatred there.  His father should be heartless, unloving, only about teaching his son to be better (at whatever it is he’s teaching him).  Norman then grows to resent his father.  That way the movie is about this kid who’s gone his whole life believing his father didn’t love him, that he only cared about torturing him, only to learn he actually loved him more than anything, because he prepared him for this moment.

I’m not even scratching the surface here.  There were SOOOO many other things wrong with this script – such as the fact that 11 year old Norman talked like he was 22 the whole time.  But I’ve already crashed this script into the side of a mountain enough.  I’m getting off this mountain.  Does anybody have a snowboard I can borrow?

[x] What the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[ ] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned: This script suffers from one of the worst mistakes you can make as a screenwriter – the passive hero.  Norman doesn’t talk much.  He doesn’t do much.  He just listens to his dad and reacts.  Even the 8 pages where he does act (on the mountain) feel restrained.  Be REALLY wary of protagonists who don’t talk and are followers.  There’s an incredibly high chance they’re boring.

Genre: Comedy
Premise: When washed up magician Bobby Glitter finds out he has a 9 year old son who knows all his tricks, he enlists him to defeat his old nemesis, Seth Desstiny, now the top magician in the world.
About: The Mallusionist finished on the 2007 Black List I believe.  I’ve already reviewed one of Robbie Pickering’s scripts, The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea (starring Chloe Moretz and Jessica Biel), which is nothing like this one by the way.  In fact, I thought that script was pretty sloppily written.  Not the case with this one, which is one of the tightest-structured comedies I’ve read in awhile.  Pickering’s writing partner, Ricci, used to be a boom operator.  He’s since made some shorts, but is still looking for his first produced credit.
Writers: Jase Ricci and Robbie Pickering
Details: 107 pages (undated)

Focus focus focus.

That’s the name of the game when you’re writing a screenplay.  The story has to be FOCUSED.  Without focus you have….hmm, what’s the opposite of focus?  Blur?  You have blur.  Or ‘unfocusedness.’  Whatever the hell it’s called, that’s what I spend the majority of my time reading – unfocusedness.  Even professional writers have trouble keeping their stories focused for some reason.

Now The Mallusionist isn’t going to win any screenwriting awards.  Heck, it probably won’t win any screenwriting contests.  But I’ll tell you what.  This script is focused.  And when you read as much rambling nonsense as I do (ahem, yesterday’s script anyone!), you appreciate when writers get it right.  These writers get it right.  Oh, and not to mention, it makes you ROTFL too!

Back in the 80s and 90s, Bobby Glitter was one of the best magicians ever to grace the stage.  He could rock sequins better than Dolly Parton.  But the bigger Bobby got, the bigger his head got, and pretty soon it stopped being about the magic.  It became about the girls, the drugs, the fame.  I mean sure, he could make a car disappear.  But what does that matter when you’ve also made your own SOUL disappear!

So one day a new magician bursts onto the scene who wears black nail polish instead of sequins.  He calls himself Seth Desstiny and he’s a huge fan of Bobby’s.  Unfortunately, Bobby blows him off, and Desstiny becomes obsessed with taking Bobby down.  During a national live show, then, that’s exactly what he does, spiking Bobby’s drink with every hallucinogen known to man.  Bobby freaks out (thinking everyone in the audience is a raccoon and starts attacking them), and the resulting fallout sends his career into a tailspin.

Cut to the present day and Seth Desstiny is the biggest magician in the world.  Bobby, on the other hand, is scraping by as a talent manager managing children’s party magicians.  You see, during the “drugged” event, Bobby lost his depth perception in both eyes, and is therefore unable to perform magic anymore.

But it gets worse.  Bobby owes the Quebecian magician/acrobatic team “Cirque du Sommeil” 95 grand.  And these French speaking performers aren’t as smiley as their costumes.  If they don’t get their money, they’re metaphorically pushing him off the tightrope. As in KILLNG him.  Like he’ll be DEAD.  So yeah, it’s not looking peachy.

But it gets worse.  One of the many women Bobby bedded during those rambunctious 90s ended up having his child!  And now she’s dying.  So she calls Bobby in to ask him to take care of the kid if she doesn’t make it.  Bobby can barely remember this woman and the last thing he wants to worry about is a kid so he tries to sneak the hell out of there.

But when Bobby realizes that his 9 year old chubby effeminate nerdy little son has learned all of his tricks, he sees a huge opportunity.  Seth Desstiny is holding a magic contest in a month and the winner gets a hundred grand and the opportunity to face off against him.  That’s all Bobby needs to hear.  It’s time to train Stevie!

But Stevie doesn’t want to do “magics” (that’s how he says magic).  Stevie just wants to watch Oprah, say words like “wondrous” and play G.I. Joes.  So Bobby has to do a little persuading.  Okay, a lot of persuading.  He tells Stevie that his mommy is probably going to die and the one thing she wanted more than anything was for Stevie to go to Vegas with him and become a magician.

Stevie will now have to square off against kabuki magicians, mime magicians, and the dreaded Dante Inferno, who it is rumored knows the ways of dark magic, if he’s going to get a shot at Seth Desstiny.  However, when Desstiny learns that Bobby’s kid is gunning for him, he plans to take him out before Stevie even gets the chance.

Okay so yes, this does read a little like a 90s Adam Sandler flick.  But the thing to remember is that the 90s Adam Sandler flicks were actually pretty funny.  At least compared to the abominations he puts out today.  But that’s neither here nor there.  I want comedy writers to take a look at the structure of this screenplay because this is about as perfectly structured as you can make a comedy script.

First off, you have the goal.  Bobby needs his son to win the Seth Desstiny Challenge.  That’s the main component that will drive the story.   Once you have that character goal, you can write every scene to push your hero towards that goal.

The second is stakes.  Bobby owes Cirque Du Sommeil 95 grand.  The winner of the Seth Desstiny challenge gets 100 grand.  So if his son doesn’t win the challenge, Bobby will be killed (now that’s high stakes!).  Now you can point out how ridiculous it is that the amount of money Bobby owes matches perfectly the prize money for the challenge.  I agree that this is ridiculous.  However, this is a comedy.  And in comedies, you can get away with this sort of thing.  I would never agree to this set-up in, say, a drama.

Finally, we have the urgency.  This is the only tricky component of the script because there isn’t a traditional ticking time bomb here.  But, there are two time-sensitive variables.  The first is the Cirque Du Sommeil guys.  They’re chasing Bobby and are always on his trail.  So we know that sooner or later, they’re going to catch up.  Remember, your hero being chased is a great way to create urgency!  We also have the competition.  This isn’t necessarily a “count down or else” scenario, but it does put a timeframe on everything.  Therefore, we know where the movie is headed, which is important if you want to keep the story focused.

I’m not going to say that every movie fits the G(oal) S(takes) U(urgency) model, but the traditional comedy is one that does.  So if you’re writing a comedy, you want to make sure these things are in place.

As for the guts of the script, I thought it was pretty funny!  It’s cut from the same cloth as Bad Santa, Bad Teacher and Bad Words.  Stevie is absolutely hilarious (“magics”).  His nonstop use of the word “wondrous” had me on the floor.  And the pure level of evil Bobby stoops to to get Stevie to work with him (“Your mom’s going to die unless you do magic”) was so deliciously wrong (but so right!) that I was smiling and shaking my head the whole time.  I also thought they handled Bobby’s transformation well.  When he starts loving Stevie as a son, it doesn’t feel forced for some reason. I’m not sure how they did this because usually these things read false.  But they were just dialed in here.  I liked this one WAY more than The Devil And The Deep Blue Sea.

[ ] what the hell did I just read?
[ ] wasn’t for me
[x] worth the read
[ ] impressive
[ ] genius

What I learned:  Update audiences on where we are in the journey.  Imagine you’re on a plane but have NO IDEA how long the flight’s going to be.  Sound like fun?  I don’t think so.  People never truly grow out of “Are we there yet?”  We need updates.  We need to know how much longer.  Therefore, your characters should provide a couple of updates during the script on where we are.  For example, on page 45 of The Mallusionist, Bobby tells Stevie, “Okay, we got five more warm-up joints before we get to Vegas for the big competition.”  It’s a seemingly insignificant line but it settles the audience.  It lets them know where they are on the journey.  I’m telling you, if you forget to update the audience, they’ll get impatient.  And impatience leads to boredom.

Genre: Sci-Fi