“STAN LEE” My rating: B- (Disney +)
86 minutes | No MPAA rating
Some day someone may make a documentary about the world of Marvel that tackles all the really interesting questions raised by Stan Lee and his comic book (and later, movie) empire.
“Stan Lee,” though, isn’t that movie.
Directed by David Gelb and narrated by the late Stan Lee himself (his voiceover appears to have been culled from numerous interviews over the years), the movie drops no big revelations.
Lee’s rise to comic book fame and his late-in-life gig as the grand old man of comic books (doing cameos in Marvel movies) have been well documented over the decades; serious Marvel fans will find much of this doc old news.
Moreover, the film comes perilously close to starry-eyed idol worship. Probably that could not be avoided since this is essentially Lee giving us his life story — the project is from his point of view, after all.
You’ve gotta give Lee credit for sheer creativity and for recognizing the possibilities of a much-maligned medium.
“Comic books can have tremendous impact,” he tells us. “You can convey a story or information faster, more clearly and more enjoyably than any other way short of motion pictures.”
Lee dreamed up dozens of now-iconic fictional characters, and bucked the conventional wisdom by addressing real-life social issues in his stories. His output over the decades has been staggering.
The film refers briefly to some of the controversies raised by his career — particularly whether Lee (who wrote the early comics) downplayed the contributions of artists like Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby in the creation of the Marvel characters. The film has snippets of an ‘80s radio broadcast in which Lee and Kirby almost get into verbal fisticuffs, but director Gelb isn’t interested in digging too deep.
The doc makes the case — without actually saying so out loud — that Lee may have had a greater impact on modern arts and entertainment than any individual since Walt Disney.
I’m not just talking about Marvel’s box office clout. Back in the day Lee and company broke with comic book convention by giving us superheroes with flaws and anxieties; they also broke the unspoken color barrier (Black Panther) and made sure women were well represented among the supernaturally gifted.
In recent years “serious” filmmakers like Martin Scorsese have decried the dominance of Marvel movies, accusing the brand of dumbing down the audience with a diet of silly super powers and last reel smackdowns.
You won’t find even a hint of that controversy here.
The film is good looking and has a surprising amount of archival material (Lee apparently was a home movie enthusiast). And to illustrate those scenes for which there are no photos or films, Gelb has relied on dozens of intricately detailed dioramas (say, of the bustling Marvel offices) through which his camera wanders.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 