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riotengine wrote:

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Yeah, I thought it would have shown a lot of guts for Stallone to keep the helmet on through the entire film, but such is the curse of the modern comic book movie...ya gotta show the star's face.

Brian Flemming has pointed out for modern adventure films: "And cutting as much as possible to close-ups of the leading actor making faces is a given -- after all,
that face is what the studio paid a lot of money for". Unfortunately, that means that the hero cannot wear a mask or other extensive disguise in a film. That was one of the
criticisms of the Judge Dredd film, as you noted, that Stallone tossed the helmet aside so fast when the comic book Dredd rarely takes his off. (They seem to have managed
to convince Robert Ginty to wear a mask for Exterminator II and Hugo Weaving for V For Vendetta, but that is about it). The Phantom film with Billy Zane had the same problem. In that case, I bet that they either figured they had to show the character's bare face (a) to get audience sympathy or (b) if the film had succeeded, Billy Zane, who played the Phantom, wanted it as stepping stone to making himself a box office marquee value name, not somebody who get recast away as happens with Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, or even the Batman (nobody, not even Christian Bale, has played that last personage three times). So, both the producers and the stars want that bare face seen. The Shadow had a similar problem, since for many people, we see too much of Lamont Cranston and not enough of him as the Shadow. Of course, this problems goes back to 1934's Scarlet Pimpernel with Leslie Howard, which did not balance his screen time as Sir Percy Blakenely with this screen time as the Pimpernel (yes, I know that the Pimpernel did not have an outfit pace Zorro, but just seeing him [Blakenly] mostly just talking in parlor rooms does not seem helpful).

This represents a logical problem for the Death Wish films, since at least as late as the first 3/4 of Death Wish 4: The Crackdown, Paul Kersey (the vigilante) maintained his work as an architect, without the general public knowing that he served as the vigilante. In fact, the start of Death Wish 4 has someone summon him with a seeming blackmail attempt to catch his attention. However, several times in Death Wish 4, Kersey appears in places such as an arcade and a fishing factory without any disguise. He did not engage in rucuses in the middle of Los Angeles at noon or in highway antics, but surely even by 1987, such places as fisheries and arcades would have security cameras. (In Death Wish 2, Kersey, who worked as an architect in his day job, rented a room in a flophouse, donned a longshoreman's wool cap, bought an old p-coat, gloves, and beat-up pants with worn down shoes.)

(In the Death Wish novels, the vigilante, Paul Benjamin, acted more carefully. In Death Sentence, the vigilante dons a fake moustache, a fur cap, and dark glasses.)

http://www.slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming/archives/002625.html