The 1990 movie Liam Neeson called 10 years ahead of its time: “The instigator of the current crop”
Very few movies can genuinely be called originators, but as far as Liam Neeson is concerned, he’s been in at least one of them. In fact, you could even push it to two, maybe even three at a push.
Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins was far from the first superhero movie, and it wasn’t even close to being the first Batman movie, but after it was released, it became the benchmark and blueprint for virtually every single one of those never-ending dark and gritty reboots that dominated the 2000s.
Neeson didn’t even think Taken would be released in cinemas, and he only landed the leading role because Jeff Bridges dropped out. After it became a surprising box office success, though, every ageing actor decided that they wanted to get in on the neck-snapping, throat-punching business, and the results ranged from the mediocre to the fucking terrible.
Starring in a pair of films that ushered in a craze, no matter how long or short-lived they were, is an impressive achievement for any actor, but the grizzled veteran’s third contribution flew much further under the radar than the other two, but feel free to argue if it deserves those flowers or not.
“I’m not saying this in a boastful way,” Neeson prefaced, before continuing in a slightly boastful way. “But I think Darkman kicked off all those series of action heroes again, fantasy action heroes. Darkman was kind of the instigator of this current crop of films, with Spider-Man and all that sort of thing. The originator is actually Darkman.”
Does he have a point? Sort of. Sam Raimi’s superhero noir arrived a year after Tim Burton’s Batman, cost a lot less to produce and made a lot less money, which is enough to make you think that it didn’t really make much of an impact in the grand scheme of things, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Eight years later, the incoming superhero boom was prophesied by Stephen Norrington’s Blade, which, like Darkman, was an R-rated superhero flick that dwelled in darkness, treated costumed crimefighters with the seriousness and sincerity that had been lacking in the neon-and-nipples era, and turned a tidy profit on a budget much less than the average studio release.
Two years later, Bryan Singer’s X-Men opened the door, and two years after that, Tobey Maguire’s first outing as Spider-Man blew them clean off their hinges, leading to the onslaught of comic book adaptations that have been saturating the marketplace for the better part of a quarter of a century.
That film was, of course, directed by Sam Raimi, who got his first taste of the genre with Darkman. It’s hardly definitive, but you can’t say that Neeson is 100% wrong in calling the cult favourite the Trojan horse that led to the 21st-century superhero explosion.
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