Tom Jolliffe on the ever-increasing length of movies….
In recent times there seems to be a common aspect running through most blockbuster films. This isn’t the fact that most are remakes, sequels or adaptations (which is another common theme), nor the increasing reliance on using 3D as a gimmick or marketing tool. One thing that seems to becoming increasingly more common is lengthy running times. Now first of all let’s not pretend long running times are a new anomaly. You could point at obvious examples like Lawrence of Arabia, Gone with the Wind and Cleopatra, all over 50 years old, and all take about 50 years to sit through.
A problem in modern multiplex cinema is a lack of variety. As mentioned earlier, it’s mostly made up of sequels, remakes, or adaptations. Anything vaguely original still has enough elements from tried and tested, audience loving formula, that it may as well be a remake (Pacific Rim for example). We live in a time of CGI bombardment. Sequences can last up to half an hour of eye punching, ear bashing, sensual overload. There’s a blitzkrieg approach to editing. Films are often shot and cut in a way to suggest that audiences have low attention spans and need to be forced into concentration. Whether there is truth to this, or whether it’s a Hollywood marketing fallacy, is debatable, but it does seem the way to capture an audience’s attention is to assault the senses. So given the possible notion that younger audiences don’t have great attention spans, you would think most blockbusters would be brisk 90 minute affairs. However the majority of big movies happen to be comfortably over the two hour mark.
These days the latest DC or Marvel epic, or Tween fiction turned movie adaptation, tends to be a bum numbing, head ache inducing affair. Some films seem like an episode of MTV cribs, where-by we sit down and are shown just how money has gone into the home (or film in this case). If a film cost $200 million, the producers will sure as hell want to show every penny. It doesn’t matter if the audience is getting overloaded with visceral (often 3D) CGI imagery, with the sound cranked up to 11, it seems a pre-requisite now. Does it have to be this way? Do films with re-hashed plotlines, simple characterisation and predominantly sold on their action scenes, need to be so long? Did every Twilight film have to be around the 2 hour mark? Seriously? It was all inane dialogue, wooden acting, wretched CGI and horrendous characterisation, all at overly indulgent lengths. 90% of that entire franchise, clocking in at roughly ten hours for five films, was wistful staring.
The Marvel films all seem to be blending into the same film. In The Avengers, a film that took audiences and critics by storm, there wasn’t much in the film that felt different aside from the coming together of so many comic book icons. I enjoyed it, but I didn’t quite see the fuss. It didn’t have much depth, and granted it’s a film not expected to have a great deal, but it clocked in at 143 minutes. I don’t mind that it’s dumb fun. I don’t mind that because Iron Man was the biggest success of all the adjoining franchises, that all the other characters have to be ready with a wry quip, to be just a little more like Tony Stark. I don’t particularly need to see 20 minute CGI battle scenes. Half that length would suffice, whilst the film did take a little while to get going.
There are terrible and wholly unworthy exponents of the lengthy running time, Michael Bay being the best example. Is it necessary? Could studios not do what they do best and try to cut costs and cut corners? If the depth of material is only really that of a 90 minute film, then why stretch your film out over two hours, or in the case of Pocahontas 2, err…I mean Avatar, nearly 3 hours? The Hobbit, based on the one book, the shortest book of the entire Middle-earth canon, is being stretched over three films, all of which are above the two-hour mark. That’s perhaps the most needlessly excessive abuse of running time (as well as cashing in) going. The first instalment of Peter Jackson’s new trilogy was rife with problems, most notably how long, drawn out and dull it was. The material spread so thin. The embellishments beyond what was written in the book, not engaging. One key and memorable part of book, in which the trolls get turned to stone (a bit of the book I always remembered loving) is actually glossed over somewhat in the film. This was a moment where they could actually afford to stretch it out a bit, and the one moment where they didn’t bother.
Are people happy to sit through such long blockbusters? Box office suggests that on the whole we don’t mind, but how many times do you come out the cinema rubbing your bruised and abused backside…(no sniggering please!)? Or you get left with a silly indentation above your nose because you’ve been wearing 3D glasses for three hours, not to mention eye ache and ear ache. Okay, maybe I’m getting on a bit, but honestly when you’ve seen a good Spider-Man film, do you really want to sit through the remake, only 10 years later, which runs at over two hours. You’ve seen it all before. There’s the odd change but it’s still essentially the same movie.
Gravity was a great, nigh on perfect, example of how a blockbuster, cinematic experience should be. Now I’ll state now, I absolutely loved Gravity. It was a good, but not great piece of film. However as a piece of cinema, big screen entertainment, it was masterful. It must be seen on the big screen and it must be seen in 3D (this is the first film that I’ve enjoyed, and seen the point in, 3D). What else was great about Gravity? It was 91 minutes long. It had a simple premise and didn’t overstay its welcome, yet it still maintained, and exceeded, the levels of awe expected of a big budget blockbuster film. The action was incredible. Alfonso Cuaron uses his camera masterfully and the 3D really stands out. The whole film is engrossing but he knows perfectly, how to pace it. He knows when to reign in the 3D a bit to allow your eyes to recover. He knows how to pace an action scene so as to let you recover in time for the next.
The Avengers or the Christopher Nolan Batman films should not be the blue print to follow for how to do a good blockbuster. It should be Gravity. It is paced to perfection. It hooks you in immediately. It engrosses you with such a simple premise and keeps you hooked in, to the point you then start flinching when 3D objects start flying at you. You don’t think of you numb backside, or the fact you’ve been dying for a wee for the last 30 minutes, or that the people three rows in front have become bored and are playing on their phone, because those aren’t issues in this film.
Long running times aren’t new. However with an increasing lack in originality and fresh material in the cinemas, perhaps it’s time to start trimming the tent pole films accordingly. Gravity shows us the way, and the exceptional box office returns and critical success suggest that people would be just as happy to sit through 90 minutes than they would to sit through well over 2 hours. When we purchase a ticket we don’t expect to get our money’s worth through how long we’re sat in the seat. We have to endure 15-20 minutes of ads and trailers before the film starts. What we want is quality which holds our attention. It’s also easier to hold someone’s attention for 90 minutes, than it is for over 2 hours.
What are your thoughts on film length? Let us know in the comments below…
Tom Jolliffe
Originally published November 21, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
