★★★☆☆ Wonder Man, created by Destin Daniel Cretton
Actors taking themselves *WAY* too seriously
Wonder Man
Created by Destin Daniel Cretton
Actors taking themselves *WAY* too seriously
Wonder Man is an eight-episode miniseries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) as struggling actor Simon Williams and Ben Kingsley as once-successful actor Trevor Slattery, who went to prison for posing as a terrorist (see Ironman 3, All Hail the King, and Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings).
Simon has a secret—he has superpowers. This is relevant only because super-powered persons are blacklisted from acting in film and TV, for liability reasons. And also because there is a government department, the Department of Damage Control, dedicated to locking such people as Simon up.
Trevor befriends Simon, for ulterior motives which I will not spoil. They audition for roles in the new movie, Wonder Man, a remake by famous director Von Kovak of an old superhero film by that name. (AFAIK, this is fictional—although there do exist a 1920 movie called The Wonder Man and a 1945 film called Wonder Man, those are entirely different.)
The film is almost entirely about acting. It takes itself very seriously. At one point, Slattery says this,
Acting isn't a job. It's a calling. It's the single most consequential thing a person can do with their life.
…to which my reaction is, “Get over yourself, man!” An actor is a person who makes a living by pretending to be someone they are not. Nothing wrong with that. It’s one of the arts. People who do it well serve a purpose. I admire them. But “single most consequential thing a person can do with their life”?
Please.
Now, let me be clear—I do understand the concept of fiction. These words are spoken by Trevor Slattery, a person who doesn’t exist. He says these words (or Ben Kingsley says them for him) because they were written by some writer as a thing that Trevor Slattery would say, and probably also believe. And they are that! We cannot assume because Trevor Slattery speaks these words, that any real person involved in making the show actually believes acting is the single most consequential thing a person can do with their life. But it kind of feels like that.
For me the upshot was that I enjoyed the show less than I might have. It felt to me like it was taking itself far too seriously.