Congratulations to Dr. Horrible creators

Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog online film delivers on its promise, and, because of the ending, quite a bit more.

Congratulations to the writers, actors, musicians, and filmmakers whose efforts brought the well-written concept to internet audiences.

A cross between Beauty & the Beast and Phantom of the Opera with more than a dash of kitschy sci-fi and pop-culture humor thrown in, the 45-minute film eyes our modern Western culture as a romantic setting fit for any tragedy or opportunity.

Told in three parts, the musical takes full advantage of editing to mingle different voices singing unique lyrics to the same theme at the same time but in different spaces. I was a little disappointed with the voice/mouth matching at some points, especially on Felicia Day's Penny in the Laundromat where the song-in-the-studio voice and the voice-off-the-boom-mic distinction seemed abrupt. But even the film version of Phantom of the Opera had these problems; I presume it is an unfortunate side-effect of converting a musical to film with modern technology.

The story follows Dr. Horrible, a.k.a. basement nerd Billy (played by Doogie Howser's Neil Patrick Harris), as he attempts to do something evil enough to get into to Bad Horse's Evil League of Evil, apparently his lifelong ambition. Like Felicia Day's The Guild webisodes, the story is framed and interspersed by webcam-like personal blog posts that Billy uploads to the internet. We discover there is a girl in his life, Penny (Felicia Day), whom he has met many times in the Laundromat but never talked to. The defining moment of his life in this story comes at the climax of Act I when Billy/Dr. Horrible is presented with the choice between his two objectives: complete a heist needed to meet his lifelong ambition or give attention to the girl of his dreams when she asks him to sign a petition to save a homeless shelter. He attempts to do both and so does neither. Instead, his arch-nemesis, Captain Hammer (Serenity/Firefly's Nathan Fillion), swoops to the rescue of Penny and interrupts Horrible's heist.

Act II includes perhaps the best music and singing in the film, the counterbalancing themes of Billy and Penny, with each voice speaking honestly to the way they see the world as a result of their attitudes and experiences. Billy's world is darkened by his failures; Penny's is tinged with hope at what good may lie within every individual despite their homeliness on the outside. The best (funniest and most meaningful and best performed) interchange in Act II comes as Billy attempts to woo Penny in the Laundromat with an obviously un-serendipitous frozen yogurt: falling in love with Captain Hammer, she observes that people have layers, to which Billy replies that yes they do but sometimes there's a third layer beneath the second layer that is the same as the first. She looks at him quizzically as he jabs a Spork into his leg. This moment, for me, was the epitome of taut writing and good acting perfectly placed within the story--a successful risk. By the end of Act II, Captain Hammer, who gets some of the best lines and whose Fillion has some of the best timing (i.e. "...The hammer--is my penis"), humorously but menacingly taunts Billy that he knows who he is and that he's going to go have sex with Penny just to spite him. After this, Billy truly becomes Horrible (but out of emotional reaction and not necessarily choice), bent on crossing the threshold he couldn't before--actually plotting to kill someone, in this case, Hammer.

The first two thirds are a fun romp, evocative and well-done but predictable. The third third, however, brings the entire story into focus with genuine emotional and reflexive punch usually reserved for productions that you have to pay money to see at a live performance--and no doubt difficult to accomplish in just 45 minutes. It subverts expectations and the story it tells is actually moving.

SPOILER ALERT

If we compare the story to the myths of our ancestors, however, the story actually is predictable--it is a story of thwarted desire and psychological transformation and mythic opposition where the fates deal stacked hands to mortal humans, who must choose whether to live as heroes or villains or something in between. Within our Hollywood mythos, however, where every adventure is neatly capped with a happy ending--overusing the structural resolution of the best of Shakespeare's comedies and romances--Dr. Horrible surprises. And it's clear its creators crafted the story to wow us in the end and resonate with our humanity, with two switches that make this film more than just something somebody threw together to see if it would work online.

Echoing our reality of celebrities and press conferences, Act III shows us a political and interpersonal landscape dominated by the foolish and charismatic, where people are thirsting for authority and identity and usually not prepared to take action into their own hands. The narrative pans out from the interpersonal love-triangle conflict to show us the effects Captain Hammers and Dr. Horribles and Pennys have on society at large. Captain Hammer has pressured the mayor into supporting Penny's homeless shelter and pompously takes the stage at the unveiling of a statue in his honor, singing his boorish but incisive reflection on the nature of his power. At the right moment, Dr. Horrible rips aside the veil and paralyzes Hammer with his freeze ray, capturing the audience and singing his lonely lament for how far society has fallen and how only his kind can save it through dictatorship. Horrible prepares to execute the frozen Hammer with his death ray, but predictably, his freeze ray fails at that moment, freeing Hammer. The two scuffle and the physically superior Hammer gains the advantage, takes the death ray, and prepares now to execute Horrible, while Penny huddles off-screen in the corner. He does what Horrible had not the opportunity to do: he pulls the trigger. This machine of Horrible's, too, backfires and sends Hammer flying across the room in fear. Nothing unexpected yet. The scene is staged so that we now expect resolution between Penny and Horrible, with whom the audience is sympathetic when he's Billy. But the first surprise is that the death ray fragments have shot across the room and mortally wounded Penny. Horrible hurries to her side. Felicia Day delivers a moving death scene (not quite as moving as Leonard Nimoy's Spock's in Star Trek II, but right up there;). Before her eyes go vacant, Penny still sees Horrible as Billy despite his mad-scientist outfit, but her last words are not to worry--Captain Hammer will save us. Here, the monster is born in pain and emotional repression and despair at having nothing else to live for--he has succeeded in killing and knows now what that means. While Hammer is reduced to a squeamish freak in costume reclining on a psychologist's couch, Horrible descends to take his place at Bad Horse's (played by an actual horse) table of the diabolical--that this happens, and so easily, is the second surprise. Our last glimpse into the Horrible world, however, is a brief webcam shot of Billy, removed of his Horrible clothing, more alone now than when he began his quest to join the league he now commands. His swelling Wagnerian song about his rise to totalitarian power ends in a pitiable whimper that offers no easy solutions.