R Ratings and When They Are Necessary

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Max Gross

R Ratings and When They are Necessary

Table of Contents

John Wick: Crazy, Chaotic Fun 3

The Raid: An Elegant Showcase of Violence and Mayhem 6

Action Movie Wrap Up 9

Blade Runner: An Artificial Tale of Humanity 13

District 9: A Bleak Look at an Unending Problem 16

Sci Fi Movie Wrap Up 18

Deadpool: Brutally Raunchy, Deadly Funny 22

Logan: A Beautiful Character Piece in a Chaotic World 25

Comic Book Movie Wrap Up 28

Superbad: A Surprisingly Funny Raunch-fest 32

Zombieland: One of the Great Zom-Coms 34

Comedy Movie Wrap Up 37

2 John Wick: Crazy, Chaotic Fun

John Wick (2014), directed by Chad Stahelski and David Leitch, and starring Keanu Reeves in his first truly great role since The Matrix, tells a very simple, very R rated story. John Wick is a former… member of the underground. I say that because it is never stated explicitly what exactly he did (in the movie, Viggo, the main antagonist, says that he is not the boogeyman; “he was the one you sent to kill the fucking Boogeyman”), though it is assumed he was an assassin. The movie starts with a (very) brief expositional montage, showing that John gave up his life as a hitman after falling in love with a girl, who unfortunately dies of cancer. The movie picks up with John mourning the loss of his wife, when suddenly he gets a knock on the door. He opens the door to find a little puppy with a note attached. His wife had arranged that when she died, John would be sent this dog so that he could love and care for something instead of receding back to his old ways of killing. He spends maybe two days with his new dog before a group of Russians break into his house, steal his car, and kill his dog. John then digs up his old arsenal of weapons and goes on a revenge murder spree.

This incredibly simple plot is one of the reasons this movie is so great. It knows what it is, and it doesn't try to be anything more. And yet, even with such a simple plot, the audience is very emotionally invested in these characters. Even though the plot can be condensed to “They killed his dog, he kills them back,” when you are watching the movie, you genuinely feel John’s pain about losing his dog. You know that it is less

3 about the dog, and more about how the last connection he had to his wife had just been murdered in front of his own eyes. After that, the movie loses all emotion, and

(intentionally) becomes “just another” mindless action movie. It is not that the directors fail at keeping hold of the emotional impact from the beginning; it is quite the opposite actually. They know you are already emotionally invested in John, and they don't want to beat you over the head with emotions while John is running around killing people.

This now brings us to the most important part of the movie. The violence.

Stahelski and Leitch do not hold back anything, creating some fundamentally different kinds of violence that are either horrifyingly or gleefully explicit. What makes you connect and sympathize so heavily and so immediately with John is the fact that the camera does not cut away when the intruders snap his puppy’s neck. Many people afterwards were very shaken by this, even though they had paid money to see Keanu

Reeves kill countless people. Something about killing dogs unnerves people more than killing humans. The rest of the violence in the movie, however, is arguably more graphic, less horrifying, and more fun. This kind of violence is really where this movie shines. It feels wrong to call it choreography, but the choreography, though it was almost exclusively with guns, was exhilarating, and beautifully creative. In one great scene, John is headshotting Russians left and right, and at one point, pistol whips one in the throat. As the poor henchman is clutching at his neck, gasping for air, John tries to shoot him in the head, only to find that his magazine is empty. Stahelski and Leitch give this gag the perfect amount of time without letting it take to long, and for maybe

4 three seconds, John stands there fumbling to reload his gun while his opponent is writhing in pain, before John manages to finish him.

And with an R rated gun movie, comes a lot of blood and gore. Usually. While it is clear that Stahelski and Leitch are trying to make an over-the-top action movie, it is also clear that they are not trying to make an over-the-top bloody movie. Of course, there is blood, but a very reasonable amount. With headshots, there are little bursts of blood, but they are almost unnoticeable if you’re not looking for them. No one ever has to clutch their guts as they fall out their bodies, and no one’s head explodes with as much blood as the one John Travolta shoots in Pulp Fiction. In fact, the closest the movie ever gets to even showing an explosion is when John lights Viggo’s money and blackmail stash on fire. Another common R feature that is noticeably scarce in this movie is cursing. Like the blood, it’s definitely there, but so infrequently that it almost seems like they should be cursing more, given that the most notorious assassin in the world is coming for them.

All in all, I would say that you couldn't tell this story as easily with a PG-13 rating. Though John Wick has less blood and cursing than most R rated action movies, since the choreography is the real main character of the movie, every action scene would have to be re shot in order to reach the more restrictive PG-13 standard. And in a movie where one of the main points is to showcase creative gun choreography, John Wick would end up being a very different movie if it was made appropriate for kids.

5 The Raid: An Elegant Showcase of Violence and Mayhem

The Raid (2011), directed by Gareth Evans, is a cult classic action film that took the world by surprise. Coming out of Indonesia and helmed by an unheard of director, no one expected this movie to be as good as it was. The plot the movie sets you up with in the beginning is a very simple one. We follow Rama, a rookie member of an elite SWAT unit. His team is tasked with infiltrating a run down apartment building that Tama, a vicious crime lord, has taken over and been using as a criminal safe house. Soon after entering the building they are discovered and then must face various enemies on each floor before finally making their way up to the fifteenth floor, where

Tama has been hiding out. The only exposition given about any of the characters is that

Rama has a wife who is expecting, so that is his motivation for making it out alive.

However, Evans expertly surprises us with plot twist after plot twist that explain more and more about the lead up to the team’s current situation.

The focus of The Raid is, obviously, the action. It is a martial arts movie, in the same vein as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), but the way it utilizes its modern setting is very creative. Though the protagonists are part of a special operations police unit, there few gun deaths in this movie. The most prominent use of them is in one scene, when the unit is hiding in a hallway, and are suddenly ambushed by a tenement firing squad. Aside from that, guns are, for the most part, neglected. This feels appropriate, however, because it increases the claustrophobic feeling of the movie. You

6 don't shoot someone who is standing five feet away from you; you try and fight them.

These fights are the highlights of the movie, and the frantic and perfect choreography shows the realness of these fights. While fights in movies, like the Star Wars prequels, often feel too perfectly choreographed and rehearsed, the fights in The Raid are expertly made so that while you know every movement up to the last detail has been choreographed, the fights still seem spur-of-the-moment. Even more impressive is that, after a while, multiple scenes of hand to hand combat may feel fatiguing to an audience, but Evans never lets you feel like you've seen any given fight before. While, yes, there are plenty of straight martial arts fist fights, he will also constantly have you thinking

“hey, I’ve never thought of killing someone with that before!” Weapons used to kill people range from fists to knives to machetes to splintered door posts to LED lightbulbs to refrigerator bombs, and everything in between. And while no one ever cares about all the nameless henchmen who are killed in action movies, there will be a few goons in this movie that you can't help but feel a little bad for, due to their particularly crude deaths.

Evans’ up-close-and-personal directing style, means that not only are the deaths creative and gruesome, but also very bloody. Though not quite as bloody as a

Tarantino movie, The Raid definitely does not hold back. That is not to say it was excessively bloody, having a lot of blood in a, purposefully, excessively violent movie makes sense, but even so, the blood may turn some viewers off. One thing that I did find a little excessive, however, was the cursing. There wasn't that much cursing in the movie, but there also wasn't that much dialogue, so the cursing to dialogue ratio was a

7 little high. It was definitely a realistic amount of cursing, but even so, it took me out of the moment sometimes.

All in all, The Raid is a fantastic movie that sets a new bar for martial arts, and even mainstream, action movies to hit. Though the script sometimes felt a little weighed down by slightly too much cursing, the violence and action scenes in this movie are so expertly choreographed and shot, that it would be impossible to make this movie at all without the explicit violence and deaths.

8 Action Movie Wrap Up

The action movie genre is a very diverse one. There are many different types of action movies, as each are often labeled as ‘action’ along with another genre (action adventure/action sci fi/action comedy). This diversity, however, is mainly seen in the world of PG-13 action movies. There are very few straight PG-13 action movies, due to the constraints that the MPAA puts on them, resulting in a creative blend of genres in many PG-13 movies, some of which I will go into further detail in other genres, as they are more relevant there.

However, the straight action movies that do have a PG-13 rating fall into two categories. The good and the bad. While this may seem obvious, the patterns that determine if they are good or bad are consistent. Among the bad movies are movies like the Olympus Has Fallen and Transformers franchises. They both make lots of money (the Transformers franchise being one of the most profitable ever), and seem to be critic proof. They exist as movie to go to so you can turn your brain off and watch fun explosions.

The good PG-13 action movies, however are very different. They are, for the most part, spy movies, like the James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Mission: Impossible franchises. These movies rely heavily on plot and intrigue, and by their nature are meant to avoid violence. These spy movies are all about infiltration and avoiding confrontation. The violence that (inevitably) does occur is rarely gruesome, and usually

9 either plain fist fights, or car chases. When people do shoot each other, the camera is usually a distance away to avoid showing detail, and stabbings never result in a bloody blade. Because the director must film like this to keep their PG-13 rating, they must rely something other than gore to sell tickets. No one goes to a PG-13 movie for it’s action scenes. They go to James Bond for car chases, to Jason Bourne for fist fights and hand to hand combat, and to Mission: Impossible for outrageous stunts. None of these are bloody, and all avoid taking lives.

Rated R action movies, however, do not need to follow these rules, and therefore do not need the crutch of anything to sell tickets. Their gunshots are close up (and if you’re Zack Snyder, in slow mo), and their swords are bloody. The protagonists are not necessarily ‘good guys’, their moral code is often a little grey, and, often, that is a big point of the movie. They are closer in content and plot to a bad PG-13 action movie but in an R rated action movie, you don't turn off your brain the same way you would for a

PG-13 one. While they often don't have incredibly detailed plots, the overall tone of these movies is often very layered, and the addition of perfectly choreographed fights and gleefully explicit violence make the fight scenes almost a dance that can be appreciated, even if you are not a fan.

All in all, PG-13 action movies are rarely straight action, and when they are, they are almost always either a spy thriller or just bad. What makes a good PG-13 movie good is its intricate plot and over the top stunts. A rated R action movie, however,

10 doesn't need any of those, and can instead rely on beautifully choreographed fight scenes that don't shy away from blood, and the morally complex world that the movie occupies.

12 Blade Runner: An Artificial Tale of Humanity

(Warning: The following contains full spoilers from Blade Runner. If you have not seen Blade Runner yet, why not? You’ve had 35 years to watch this masterpiece...)

(In this review, I will be discussing the far superior Director’s Cut version of the movie, released in 1992, as it is seen as the way the movie was supposed to be watched. While the Theatrical version bombed at the box office, the Director’s Cut is considered one of the greatest Sci Fi movies of all time)

Based on the short story Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, by legendary sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, Blade Runner (1982) is a deeply philosophical yet violent film. Set in 2019 Los Angeles, Blade Runner follows Rick Deckard, a retired Blade Runner, called back by his former boss to deal with a rogue group of Replicants1. Along the way, Deckard meets, and eventually falls in love with, Rachel, a person that he almost immediately identifies as a Replicant, even though Rachel herself believes herself to be human.

1 “Early in the 21st Century, The Tyrell Corporation advanced robot evolution into the NEXUS phase - a being virtually identical to a human - known as a Replicant. The NEXUS 6 Replicants were superior in strength and agility, and at least equal in intelligence, to the genetic engineers who created them. Replicants were used Off-World as slave labor, in the hazardous exploration and colonization of other planets. After a bloody mutiny by a NEXUS 6 combat team in an Off-World colony, Replicants were declared illegal on earth - under penalty of death. Special police squads - Blade Runner Units - had orders to shoot to kill, upon detection, any trespassing Replicant. This was not called execution. It was called retirement.” -- Blade Runner opening credits

13 Blade Runner is a story about humanity. While Deckard sees Replicants as “tools” to be discarded once they've worn out their usefulness, the Replicants themselves feel the same emotions humans do, so they believe that they should be treated like humans. This is best exemplified when Priss, one of the rogue Replicants, quotes René Descartes, saying “I think, therefore I am.” The primary goal of Roy and his fellow Replicants, Leon, Priss, and Zhora, is not to kill people or to take over. They do not seek revenge for their mistreatment. They merely seek their creator, Dr. Eldon

Tyrell, so that he can override the failsafe that only allows Replicants to live for four years.

This non-violent goal exemplifies the humanity in these robots. They have the same fear of their own mortality as we do. In the climax of the movie, as Deckard sits beside a dying Roy, Roy reveals to him the irrelevance of biology in humanity. “I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.” Roy, and the other Replicants Deckard has killed, have all accumulated memories, and they all felt sentimental. Deckard then realizes that that is what it means to be human. The ability of your memories to evoke emotions. Deckard has that ability, and so do Replicants. This is when Deckard allows himself to fall in love with Rachel, and at the end of the movie, Deckard doesn't even seem to mind when a fellow Blade Runner makes a reference to a dream Deckard had, implying that the dream may have been implanted and that Deckard might be a

Replicant (not really sorry if that spoiled anything for you. I did warn you).

14 Blade Runner’s story is so raw, and its cinematography is so visually dense, that it is easy to overlook its R rating. Though it is not an overly violent movie, when violence does occur, it is often very graphic. Multiple fingers being broken graphically, people being gagged and choked, and a man's eyes being poked out, are among the more disturbing parts of the movie. Deaths by gunshots are very ‘80’s looking, meaning that they are extremely gory, but also extremely fake looking. Aside from the violence, there is one scene where Zhora, one of the Replicants, is shown topless for less than a minute, and other than that, though Priss is a sexual character, she is never shown doing or saying anything explicitly erotic.

All in all, Blade Runner is a fantastic movie about what it means to be human. And with some easy cutaways or conveniently placed vases, all of the obscenity that makes this movie R can be removed from the film, without sacrificing any of the impact of the story. (Side note, the upcoming Blade Runner sequel, titled Blade Runner 2049, has been confirmed to be rated R. It remains to be seen what that will mean for the movie, but knowing what Director Denis Villeneuve can do with a PG-13 movie (Arrival (2016)), it will be interesting to see whether the rating will be irrelevant to the plot, or if

Villeneuve uses it to further the plot.)

15 District 9: A Bleak Look at an Unending Problem

District 9 (2009), directed by Neill Blomkamp, tells a moving story about a group of aliens trying to get home. Opening with a montage of news clips to give the necessary exposition, we learn that the aliens, colloquially referred to as “Prawns”, arrived on Earth in the early 1980’s, when their ship broke down above Johannesburg.

The government freed the million plus aliens from their ship and brought them down to

Earth, where they set up a “temporary” living situation called District 9. Of course,

District 9 is nothing more than a ghetto, and it does not take long before Prawns begin to turn to crime and humans begin to feel resentment towards Prawns.

Though on its surface, the movie seems to be making a statement about the government’s harsh treatment of aliens, in actuality, it is more about the subtle racism that pervades the atmosphere. There is no minority that suffers worse discrimination than Black people in 1950s Alabama, so to think that the movie is trying to say something about that seems a little too on the nose. However, when Wikus, the main character starts turning into a Prawn, his subtle diet racism really shows. Even though he is becoming one of them, he still puts himself before them, even if he doesn't realize it. That is the message of the movie. It is highlighting the fact that people look at aggressive racism and think to themselves that they're different, when in actuality, the fact that they aren't violent doesn't negate their imbued cultural racism.

16 That being said, District 9 is also its own movie, separate from cultural statements. The horrifying scenes depicted to show the humans’ mistreatment of

Prawns is really where the R rating comes into play. When MNU (Multi National United) discovers that Wikus was beginning to turn into a Prawn, they shove him into a bodybag and subject him to gruesome tests, including using Prawn weaponry to murder innocent captured Prawns. Other than the cursing, there is heavy cursing, but it is used in a way that makes it hard to notice. Though it isn't one hundred percent necessary, it doesn't feel unnatural or forced.

All in all, District 9 is a fantastic movie that really shows the horrors of mistreated minorities. Though it technically could be rated PG-13, the movie would lose its shock value due to the removal of the violence. The cursing can be done away with, but the violence is harder to take out.

17 Sci Fi Movie Wrap Up

Science Fiction is a movie and novel genre that has (ironically) been around for many years. There are many different kinds of science fiction movies that tell many different kinds of stories. Circumstantially, there is a difference in the purpose of PG-13 sci fi movies and rated R sci fi movies. Whether or not this is intentional I cannot say, but there is a big distinction between the ratings. Rated R science fiction movies fall under a few categories. The first type of rated

R sci fi movie is deeply human and philosophical. These are movies like Blade Runner (1982), which poses the question of what it means to be human, or District 9 (2009), which exposes not only aggressive racism, but subliminal racism too. These movies intentionally use science fiction and aliens to show and expose a very human part of us.

Many people shrug off seeing the new ‘White Guilt’ Oscar bait movie, but seeing a trailer for a movie about aliens struggling with a new life on Earth will attract those people and deliver the same message.

The next type of sci fi movie that will often be rated R is the spectacle. These movies are often (but not always) not as plot driven, as there is another aspect of the movie that is drawing people in. The Terminator and Die Hard franchises drew people in, not for their deep plots, but for the fun adrenaline rush you get from watching all the explosions and over the top violence, and while The Matrix (1999) had an interesting concept, what made the movie an icon was its incredibly ahead-of-its-time graphics and

18 choreography. These movies are less ‘good’ than they are ‘fun’, and that’s what makes them popular.

The last common R rated sci fi movie is the sci fi horror. Franchises like Predator and Alien, whose newest installment has just been released. This sub-genre is so popular that there is now an actual Alien vs. Predator franchise, which kicked off in 2004 and whose sequel was released in 2007. These movies are popular for posing the terrifying notion that, while humans rule Earth, we are not the apex predator (pun intended) of our universe. And while these R rated sci fi movies are responsible for some of Hollywood’s biggest macho men, like Bruce Willis, Sly, and Arnie, they are also responsible for (arguably) film’s most badass heroine, Ellen Ripley, played by Sigourney

Weaver.

PG-13 sci fi movies, however, serve another purpose. Instead of deep messages or thrill rides, these movies are often told for their compelling stories and world-building ideas. Movies like Minority Report (2002) and Jurassic Park (1993) are critically acclaimed for their fast paced cerebral stories. These kinds of movies often focus on one specific advance in technology - in Minority Report (2002) it was Pre Cogs, and in Jurassic Park (1993) it was bringing dinosaurs back to life- and discuss how it can be used for good or evil.

The more common type of acclaimed PG-13 sci fi movie is a world building movie. These often, but not always, are used to create a franchise. Star Wars (1977), possibly the most famous sci fi movie ever, is one of these, spawning six (soon to be at least eight) sequels, one (soon to be at least three) spinoff movies, three (soon to be at

19 least four) television shows, upwards of one hundred fifty video games, and countless books. And while Star Wars may be the most famous sci fi movie, it is far from the only world building one, others being movies like Avatar (2009) and The Fifth Element (1997).

All in all, while not necessary, the sci fi movie genre sets itself guidelines that only certain movies can do. For some reason, only rated R movies can have philosophical or political messages. There is no reason for this, but this separation occurs anyways. In the future, I would like to see more movies like Arrival (2016) come out, which tell an Oscar worthy sci fi story without an R rating. Though it is not a movie for children, I applaud it for shying away from unnecessary cursing or sex scenes. It is a shining example of what sci fi movies could be, and it shows that you can make a movie how it is supposed to be, and give it the rating it deserves after it is made.

21 Deadpool: Brutally Raunchy, Deadly Funny

My dad likes watching superhero movies with my brothers and me, but when

Deadpool (2016) hit theaters last February, we made an agreement not to see it together. Deadpool (2016), directed by Tim Miller, is a hard R comedy superhero movie, about a man with cancer who undergoes a torturous treatment which cures his cancer, gives him super strength and a mutant ability to heal extraordinarily fast. However, these gifts come with the sacrifice of making his Ryan Reynolds face horribly disfigured.

The plot of the movie consists of Wade Wilson (A.K.A. Deadpool) trying to track down the man who gave him his new face to force him to change it back. The main conflict of the movie, however, is Wade’s fear of returning to Vanessa, his fiance, and her leaving him because of his looks.

This movie had been in production since at least 2012, when test footage was made. Two years later, that test footage was leaked online, and the demand for a Ryan

Reynolds Deadpool movie skyrocketed. The movie was subsequently greenlit by 20th

Century Fox, and production began again. The main concern for the movie was whether it was going to be PG-13, like all of the other popular superhero movies, or go for the R rating that the character deserved. The rationale for each side was that while 20th

Century Fox believed that they could make more money off of a PG-13 Deadpool movie, the fans wanted the movie to be truer to the source material, which is very R rated. Thankfully, the fans and Ryan Reynolds himself won over the studio, and the R

22 rating was approved. What followed was the quippiest, most over-the-top superhero movie ever released, and to 20th Century Fox’s delight, it became the highest grossing

R rated film ever. When thinking about what makes this movie R rated, the answer is simply… everything. To begin with, while the love story aspect of the movie may seem endearing, it is still between a merc and a stripper. And when Ryan Reynolds is playing a vulgar hitman who’s in love with a stripper, you know there are going to be graphic sex scenes. Though Miller doesn't overdo it with the sex scenes, there is a sex montage in the beginning of the film, set to the song “Calendar Girl”, by Neil Sedaka. Other than that, the nudity in the movie is in the two scenes set in Vanessa’s strip club, because the nudity isn't the point of the raunchiness of the movie.

The point of the raunchiness is the violence and the language, and boy does the movie deliver. The violence is overly graphic, with scenes including Wade shooting three guys in the head with the same bullet, Wade “kebabing” an enemy with his katanas, and Wade sawing off his own hand to avoid being dragged to the X-Men mansion. Though some may find the violence unsavory, for fans of the character, it is a delight to watch on the big screen.

The dialogue, however, is the main attraction; after all, Deadpool did not get the nickname “Merc with a Mouth” for nothing. Deadpool as a character is an enigma in the comicbook world, being that he knows he’s a comic book character. In the comics, he constantly breaks the fourth wall to talk to the reader, and the movie is no exception. In

23 the beginning of the movie he specifically addresses the audience and explains what kind of movie this is. Throughout the rest of the movie, Deadpool constantly references things like Ryan Reynold’s previous superhero attempts (the terrible mouthless Deadpool in 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and the equally bad 2011 CGI fest Green Lantern), Hugh Jackman’s attractiveness, and Ryan Reynolds’ sub-par acting ability. When not breaking the fourth wall, however, Deadpool and his pals are making obscene comments like saying that Wade’s face looks like “Freddy Kruger face-f*cked a topographical map of Utah,” or implying that Wade was going to masturbate with is baby hands. My favorite joke in the movie has to be during a montage of Deadpool interrogating people to track down the main antagonist. Wade is pointing a gun at a terrified Asian woman and debating with himself whether it would be more sexist to shoot her or to let her live, and while he’s talking, he anxiously cocks his pistol to shoot her.

All in all, Deadpool (2016) could easily have been made into a PG-13 movie. And though it would have been funny, it would not have been Deadpool. Deadpool as a comic book and movie franchise is rated R soley for the purpose of being rated R.

Deadpool was created for the R rating, and anything less would have been an injustice to him.

24 Logan: A Tragic Ballad in a Chaotic World

(Warning: The following contains full spoilers from Logan.) Logan (2017), directed by James Mangold, tells the final story of Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine, and what a send off it was. Rather than being just another ‘bash ‘em’ superhero movie, Logan is a deeply moving character piece set in a superhero world. The focus of the movie is not on super powers, but on the people that have them. Logan, no longer called Wolverine, lives in a run down shack, where he keeps Charles Xavier, formerly Professor X, secluded from society. Charles is old and unstable; he has seizures, and being that he has the most powerful brain in the world, those seizures are very dangerous, not just to himself, but to others as well. Logan is tracked down by a woman who dumps a little girl on him and tells him to deliver her to the Canadian border. Logan wants nothing to do with it until a militia of men find him in his home and kidnap his partner, Caliban. While the plot of the movie is about Logan, Charles, and the little girl trying to get to the border, the movie is actually about Logan learning to care for others, and the relationship he builds with the little girl, who he later finds out was created using his own

DNA.

It was not until I saw the first trailer for Logan that I agreed with the R rating I knew it was going to receive. When I first heard that the final Wolverine movie was going to be rated R, I didn't agree with it. I felt like the studio was trying to cash in on

Deadpool’s success. Once the first poster was released, along with the title, I realized that maybe this was not going to be just a mediocre gore fest. I was familiar with the

25 “Old Man Logan” storyline in the comics, so I thought I’d give 20th Century Fox the benefit of the doubt, and when they released the first trailer, I was sold. The trailer made it clear that this was not going to be a “superhero movie”, and that they were not using the R rating just for the hell of it.2 And they didn't.

Nothing that made this movie rated R felt gratuitous at any point throughout its run time. There is one shot of a topless woman, but it is so brief that I missed it completely my first time watching the movie. There is cursing, but considering the subject matter (which I will discuss later), it is completely understandable and felt natural. The main physical reason for the R rating is the violence. It is incredibly explicit and not for the squeamish out there.

However, the violence is extreme for a reason. At this point in time, Logan is older and dying. He is not the man he used to be, and he has hung up his claws. The fact that suddenly he is thrown back into the fray is what essentially breaks him. When he starts using his claws again, he is not just angry at the enemies, he is angry at the world for making him fight again, and that anger pushes him over the limit. The way he kills all the nameless henchmen feels different than in all the other X-Men movies. Here,

Logan feels every death, and is angry at every person he has to kill, and the explicit violence shows his pure unadulterated fury in clear view of everyone.

2 I highly recommend watching both Logan trailers. In my opinion, they are the two most well made trailers I have ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Div0iP65aZo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaE_9pfybL4 26 This anger and emotion is also what makes this movie R rated. Though there are no checkboxes for subject matter that make a movie rated R, the themes covered in

Logan are not for children. The movie depicts children being tortured and attempting to commit suicide, complex topics like illness and mental decline, and more. The main issue that the movie deals with, however, is the death of friends. In one of the most shocking scenes in the movie, Charles has an epiphany, and suddenly remembers the reason Logan has kept him so far from society; Charles had his first seizure a long time ago, and that seizure killed all of the X-Men, teachers, and children in his school. He cries to who he believes is Logan that it is all his fault, but it is in fact a clone of Logan, and that clone proceeds to murder Charles. The audience, and the real Logan, are left to realize that Charles’ last thought was that he had killed everyone he ever cared for, and that Logan had finally taken his revenge by killing him. Those are heavy thoughts and not for a PG-13 movie. The movie ends with Logan dying trying to save the little girl. She prevails on her own in the end, but it is too late for Logan. He dies, and his daughter buries him, and the credits roll.

All in all, Logan is a beautiful movie with a lot of heart. It completely deserves its R rating, and though the plot could be told with a PG-13 rating, Logan is not about the plot. It is about the characters, and dealing with their heavy emotional baggage. And that story should be told with an R rating.

27 Comic Book Movie Wrap Up

The comic book movie genre is the genre that inspired me to do this whole project. Twice my dad and I got into a debate about whether comic book movies can be rated R. Before Deadpool (2016) and before Logan (2017). He said no and that all they do is make the kids who watch Captain America try to sneak in to see the “edgy” movie.

I disagreed. I said that if there is a reason for a specific movie to be rated R, then by all means, it should be. I explained that characters like Deadpool are already rated R characters, so what’s the difference between drawing him and casting him? My dad still doesn't think that Deadpool should have been made into a movie, and that Logan didn't need to be R. I obviously disagree. They both deserve to exist, and they both deserve their R ratings, and for one reason alone: the source material.

When deciding on a rating for a comic book movie, it all comes down to the source material. Deadpool, as previously stated, is an R rated character, so putting him in a PG-13 movie wouldn't fit, and it wouldn't feel like Deadpool. This was one of the problems faced by the first two Wolverine solo movies3. Wolverine is a PG-13 character when he’s with the X-Men, but an R rated character when he’s on his own. Many people felt that he was unnaturally toned down for the movie adaptations of those storylines, and were very thankful to hear that the “Old Man Logan” storyline wouldn't be approached the same way. Obviously, it payed off, with Logan being considered one of

3 X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013), which were both assigned PG-13 ratings. 28 the greatest comic book movies ever. And this all doesn't only apply to superhero comics. Many don't realize it, but there are many critically acclaimed R rated movies that are based off of graphic novels, including Sin City (2005), V for Vendetta (2005), the Academy Award nominated A History of Violence (2005), and the Academy Award winning Road to Perdition (2002). R ratings don't work for comic book movies, however, are when they are based off of PG-13 comics. On March 27th, when I heard Sony Pictures announce that they were launching an R rated Spiderman Villain-verse, I knew that I needed to make my

Senior Ex about this. Though I have defended R rated comic book movies’ right to exist,

I am not biased. Sony Pictures’ plan is a terrible one that should be scrapped even faster than the Han Solo spinoff movie. Though neither of these have legitimate reason to exist, other than for the studio to make money, I will focus on the Spiderman villains.

Spiderman is a PG-13 character living in a PG-13 world. The point of Spiderman is to depict an average high school student who suddenly has to deal with the responsibility of being a superhero. The classic line from Sam Raimi’s 2002 Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility,” completely sums up Spiderman’s world. Spiderman’s power is a metaphor for puberty, a topic for young teens, not adults who dealt with puberty ten years ago. The fact that there are adult fans of Spiderman does not warrant an adult depiction of him or his world. Wolverine is a rated R character. Deadpool is a rated R character. Spiderman is not.

All in all, comic book movies should have a much simpler time than other genres when deciding ratings. While it’s true that, like other genres, it largely depends on the

29 story you’re trying to tell, it first and foremost depends on the source material. Logan worked because of the kind of characters it was dealing with. Even if you were to tell the same exact kind of story (which is very deserving of an R rating), you can't put a PG-13 character, like Captain America or Spiderman, into that kind of a conflict. They were not created to deal with those kinds of issues. Batman is the PG-13 superhero that most dangerously walks the line between PG-13 and R, and even with the dark and gritty world that he lives in, and the amazing R rated graphic novels written about him4, there has never been a (live action) R rated Batman movie. I have all the respect and admiration in the world for Christopher Nolan, whose The Dark Knight (2008) is not only arguably the best comic book movie ever made, but is also PG-13. This movie could very easily have been rated R, but Nolan stuck to his gut, understood that he could tell his story without obscenity, and made the Oscar winning movie we all (hopefully) love. If

Sony could take a page out of Christopher Nolan’s book, I could get behind them, but for now, they've lost me.

4 The Dark Knight Returns (1986), by Frank Miller, and The Killing Joke (1988), by Alan Moore. 30

31 Superbad: A Surprisingly Funny Raunch-fest

I did not expect to like the 2007 Judd Apatow comedy, Superbad. What I expected was just a lot of sex jokes and immaturity. Though that was all true, this movie had something else too. It had heart. The movie follows two nerdy virgins, Seth, played by Jonah Hill, and Evan, played by Michael Cera, who make it their mission to have sex with their crushes by the time they graduate. When they are invited to Seth’s crush’s house for a party, they devise a plan to get them in bed with their fantasies. They send their even less cool friend, Fogell, to use a fake ID to buy them booze for the party, but hijinx ensues and that’s most of the movie. What sells this movie beyond just a teenage raunch-fest is the chemistry between Hill and Cera’s characters. Evan and Seth are incredibly believable high school best friends, and even though they argue and bicker all the time, it is very clear that they really care about each other and are going to miss each other when high school ends. This connected with a lot of teens out there, and myself, because, as seniors, we all joke around and tease our friends, but they still know that deep down, we’re terrified of leaving each other. Until this movie, both Cera and Hill were not very well known, but due to their performances in Superbad, it became clear that these were both talented actors.

There is too much to discuss when talking about why this movie is rated R. Long story short, Superbad is rated R for everything. The incredibly graphic language does not stop once the entire movie, and there is plenty of nudity as well. The thing is, I don't

32 know who deserves the credit for this, but it’s Cera and Hill’s performances that give all the profanity meaning. This is a great movie for older teenagers, because it deals with problems that they may not even realize they have too, and it can even be an enjoyable movie for mature adults that can find the meaning beneath all the sex talk.

All in all, Superbad is a surprisingly endearing movie that makes meaning out of immaturity. It definitely deserves its rating, because of its incredibly accurate portrayal of the average teenager. The movie, like its characters, uses profanity as a protective shell for its emotions. While on its surface Superbad seems like an obnoxious immature romp about two nerds trying to get laid, it is actually about two friends that try to prove their

“manhood” to cover up the fear they truly have about growing up and growing apart.

33 Zombieland: One of the Great Zom-Coms

Zombieland (2009), directed by Ruben Fleischer, is a hilarious movie with more depth than even the reigning king of zombie-comedies, Shaun of the Dead (2004). The movie follows a nameless group of people, played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody

Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin, who come together and create a tentative alliance to get themselves across the country. Each actor plays more of an archetype, rather than a fully fleshed out character, and their strong performances (especially

Harrelson’s) are what make this movie work. Eisenberg plays a paranoid OCD dork, who catches a ride with Harrelson’s brash and fearless redneck. They come across the helpless looking Stone and Breslin, playing sisters, but are hustled and get their car and weapons stolen by the siblings. Eventually, when they all get back together again, they decide it is in their best interest to work together to get to California.

As the movie goes on, it becomes clear that the movie is not about the journey. It is about trust. Throughout the entire movie, we never learn the characters’ names.

When they join together, to avoid becoming attached to each other, Harrelson’s character insists that everyone only refer to each person by their hometown, so

Eisenberg’s character is simply called Columbus, Harrelson’s is Tallahassee, Stone’s is

Wichita, and Breslin’s is Little Rock. And being that Tallahassee doesn't even want to know his companions’ names, he definitely doesn't want to open up about himself.

Wichita and Little Rock agree with Tallahasse, and are very cautious around him and

34 Columbus, who is on the opposite end, and desperately wants to find someone he can trust.

The turning point for these characters comes right after the funniest scene in the movie, where Columbus accidentally shoots Bill Murray in his own mansion, thinking he was a zombie. But as funny as that scene was, it also served as a connector for the four characters. Witnessing the death of a comedy icon and making him a (poorly attended) funeral brings the group together. They begin to open up, and it is revealed that the reason Tallahassee doesn't want to become attached to anyone is because he lost his son a few years back, and the pain was so unbearable that he closed himself off from all relationship to avoid going through that again. Unfortunately, this moment comes too early, and the entirety of the third act is only about the physical zombie-related conflict, rather than the emotional human conflict, and this brings down the movie a little bit for me.

The R rating (and most of the humor) stems from the almost non-stop zombie violence. While there is cursing, it is barely noticeable, and mainly insignificant. The violence, however, is gleefully gory, whether it’s a zombie tearing apart an unlucky human, or Tallahassee creatively dismembering an unlucky zombie. Columbus even has a “Kill of the Week” contest for whoever has the most creative zombie kill, and one of his “Rules for Surviving Zombieland (Earth)” is to always “double tap” (shoot the zombie one more time even if you think it’s dead, just to be sure).

35 All in all, Zombieland is a great, and surprisingly emotional, comedy, even if it drags just a little bit towards the end. And though cutting the cursing doesn't change the movie in any noticeable way, cutting the explicit violence removes, not only all the zombies from a movie where ‘Zombie’ is in the title, but also most of the comedic aspects of this comedy movie. Don't get me wrong, if there were no zombies in

Zombieland, it could make for a good PG-13 version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but this is supposed to be a comedy, not a drama, so its rating must stand.

36 Comedy Movie Wrap Up

The genre of comedy is one of the most difficult genres to dissect, because a) there are so many different styles of humor, and b) the comedy genre is evolving at a faster pace than most others, due to relevancy and taste. Our mindset as a people is always changing, and something that may have been thought of as ludacris in the 80’s is very commonplace now. In the 70’s or 80’s, it was not an issue for the ‘outlandish’ character in a comedy to be gay and the butt of all the jokes (like in Mel Brooks’ The Producers), but in today’s culture, even presenting a gay character as flamboyant in a non-derogatory way would be considered offensive. But aside from the constant shifting of post-modernist philosophy, our taste in humor has evolved as well. In 1994, Dumb and Dumber was a massive hit. It’s schoolyard innocence and immaturity made everyone laugh and feel nostalgic for their younger days. Why, then, did Dumb and Dumber To (2014) not have the same effect? Because in the twenty years in between the two movies, we as a society, don't find poop jokes and childish stupidity funny anymore, we just find it annoying. So in today’s day and age, what makes a comedy good?

It is very difficult to make a good PG-13 comedy. Not being able to curse is a true hindrance because a lot of what we find funny today is the different ways to curse and say vulgar things. This limits PG-13 comedies, and the effect is essentially that most good PG-13 comedies rely more on slapstick and physical comedy rather than verbal

37 comedy. When you think of what the great PG-13 comedies are, most of them are

Adam Sandler’s 90’s movies, and Will Ferrell and Mel Brook’s parodies. All of these movies focus heavily on slapstick, and this is because slapstick is always funny to children. There is only one major exception, and that is the now iconic Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). What makes Anchorman different is that, although there is plenty of physical humor, it is one of the most clever PG-13 comedies ever made. It stars an all-star cast, including Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, and

Christina Applegate, and what makes it funny is the cast’s ability to say the dirtiest and most offensive things without saying anything overtly vulgar. Some of the best, and still quoted, lines include “Why don't you go back to your home on whore island?”, “You are a smelly pirate hooker!”, and, of course, “I'M IN A GLASS CASE OF EMOTION!”.

R rated comedies, however, are always changing. Stoner comedies are not as popular as they were ten years ago, and sex jokes just seem distasteful. People are now looking for more depth to their comedies, whether that means the humor is just more intelligent (like Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s British comedies), the movie is overly vulgar for the sake of being vulgar or shocking (like Sausage Party and Borat), or some actual message behind the obscenity (like in Zombieland and Superbad). However, out of those three options, though yes, the second reason obviously needs to be rated R, the first and third reasons can absolutely be applied to a PG-13 comedy, as was seen in the aforementioned Anchorman. All in all, though a PG-13 comedy may rely heavily on physical humor, there is no reason they can't also be clever or substantive. This is not an issue with good

38 modern R rated comedies, because their vulgarity serves a purpose, whether it’s to hide something, highlight something, or emphasize something. I am calling out PG-13 comedies to take more from R rated comedies, and make their movies more enjoyable for all ages.