Interesting Critique of Superhero Films

[Lapis Exilis]

from a fan of both superheroes and movies - and it's not particularly glowing, but I think spot on in the point it's making: the sheer sameness of superhero movies.

The comic book film has become a gravy train to nowhere. The genre cranks up directors' box office averages and keeps offbeat actors fully employed for years at a stretch by dutifully replicating (with precious few exceptions) the least interesting, least exciting elements of its source material; spicing up otherwise rote superhero vs. supervillain storylines with "complications" and "revisions" (scare quotes intentional) that the filmmakers, for reasons of fiduciary duty, cannot properly investigate; and delivering amusing characterizations, dense stories or stunning visuals while typically failing to combine those aspects into a satisfying whole.

Superheroes Suck!

Thoughts?

 

[Teelie]

Critics always find something wrong with a movie that doesn't fit into a preconcieved notion of "appropriate" themes, story telling and characterization or plots. Fanboys of movies are even worse. They either blindly love or blindly hate the movie for daring to adapt their precious source material.

This guy is like a fancritic. Worse than a fan, worse than a critic. Nothing they do will satisfy his vague notion of what an appropriate comic book movie would be. I see it all too often with people who take movies a tad bit too seriously.

 

[Hermiod]

It's simple. You take a six or eight issue classic story and try to make a movie out of that. Problem is that you can't do that in two hours so you have to chop lumps out of it to make it fit so you lose some of the depth.

It's a design flaw but that doesn't mean that the movies aren't enjoyable or that they don't deserve to make the money they do. All those CG artists articles like these love to criticise work hard for their money.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I kind of agree with him. There haven't been very many superhero movies that have been wholly successful. Eventually they all succumb to being repetitive. I think the most successfull ones have been the Superman and Batman movies, and the original Ironman (haven't seen the sequel yet.) I think every superhero movie struggles with trying to be unique. They all seem to borrow from each other, unless they have a really unique story to present, and then there are the sequels where, most of the time, make the same mistake of having too many villains. So, what ends up happening is you get a few key moments out of each movie and the rest of it being filled with special effects and CGI. Origin stories also have to be compelling for them to work, otherwise we get something like having two Hulk movies within a span of a few years of each other.

That's kind of why I don't care too much about superhero movies in general. They're repetitive, unless they really bring something unique to the genre. But Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and Ironman managed to do something to me a superhero movie hasn't been able to do in years, which is make me want to see them at the theatre.

I'm seeing Ironman 2 this weekend.

 

[doubleohfive]

I don't know. I kind of agree with his assessment and perspective on Hulk and Superman Returns.

 

[Hermiod]

Origin stories also have to be compelling for them to work, otherwise we get something like having two Hulk movies within a span of a few years of each other.

Origin stories don't help, they always follow the same pattern. We're going to get two more soon with Cap and Thor.

Hopefully the Spider-Man reboot won't be another origin story.

 

[Captain Craig]

See what I did here

The slasher film has become a gravy train to nowhere. The genre cranks up directors' box office averages and keeps offbeat actors fully employed for years at a stretch by dutifully replicating (with precious few exceptions) the least interesting, least exciting elements of its source material; spicing up otherwise rote campers vs. slashers storylines with "complications" and "revisions" (scare quotes intentional) that the filmmakers, for reasons of fiduciary duty, cannot properly investigate; and delivering amusing characterizations, dense stories or stunning visuals while typically failing to combine those aspects into a satisfying whole.

Slasher films suck


Insert genre of choice and change keywords to fit.

Mobster movies anyone?
RomCom's perhaps?
Fantasy then?
Action movie of course.

This is just one guy who'll never be happy.

 

[Trent Roman]

^ Indeed. Targeting superhero films just seems fadish: how many films, regardless of genre, are wholly succesful from an artistic point of view, or present a truly original story? Very few. Superhero films, at least, tend to be consistently entertaining, which I daresay makes the genre actually better than most of the stuff that makes it to celluloid.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Silvercrest]

from a fan of both superheroes and movies - and it's not particularly glowing, but I think spot on in the point it's making: the sheer sameness of superhero movies.


Superheroes Suck!

Thoughts?

Ultimately you're talking about a genre that's heavily dependent on certain tropes. Maybe more so than any other genre. And the most central one is "overmuscled idiots in spandex, beating the crap out of each other." There are plenty of others.

That's inherently limiting, so yeah, sooner or later the movies will all seem the same. But simultaneously, you can't get rid of those tropes due to audience (fanboy?) expectations. If you try to move away from them, you lose your core audience. That's what happened with Ang Lee's Hulk. If Watchmen had stayed closer to its source material, it would have done even worse than it did. What can you do?

 

[Owain Taggart]

Origin stories also have to be compelling for them to work, otherwise we get something like having two Hulk movies within a span of a few years of each other.

Origin stories don't help, they always follow the same pattern. We're going to get two more soon with Cap and Thor.

Hopefully the Spider-Man reboot won't be another origin story.

As I said, origin stories have to be compelling for them to work. Otherwise, yes, they end up following the same pattern. I think that supports my argument.

 

[Lapis Exilis]

^ Indeed. Targeting superhero films just seems fadish: how many films, regardless of genre, are wholly succesful from an artistic point of view, or present a truly original story? Very few. Superhero films, at least, tend to be consistently entertaining, which I daresay makes the genre actually better than most of the stuff that makes it to celluloid.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

But the main premise of the article is comparing genres. What about his point that zombie movies (a genre with a limited central trope if there ever was one) have managed to produce a variety of different tones and styles while superhero movies tend to have nearly the exact same tone no matter what hero the story is about and what director is at the helm?

Or how about his point that the problem with superhero films is they tend to lack the courage of the conviction of the source material? That they softball important dramatic moments?

 

[Silvercrest]

Easy. Zombie movies may have only a few limited tropes -- but the zombies themselves are rarely the main characters, so you still have room to play. In my earlier post, the tropes I mentioned usually apply to the main characters, thus hamstringing the film more readily.

 

[Caliburn24]

It really just comes down to the perspective of being a critic.

Critics watch more movies than us, they also watch those movies with a different set of motives than us.

Critics see so many movies, that they get bored with the normal everyday entertaining movies that the masses of normal people like to watch. Do most mainstream movies follow a formula and pattern? Absolutely yes, because that is what people want. Critics would have you believe that the formula is utter garbage. But typically they only say it is garbage because they have seen it dozens or hundreds of times before, while your average joe has not.

This is why there is a massive disconnect between the movies that critics recommend, and the movies that people actually go and see.

Which has enormously helped the rise of the "layman" internet critic who is often just some normal guy with a keyboard and Rotten Tomatoes account.

 

[scnj]

First Movie

Introduction to character's normal, boring life
Superhero origin
Villain origin
Superhero starts fighting minor criminals
Superhero gains public admiration
Superhero has confrontation with villain
Villain's motives established
Public hates superhero
Villain threatens hero's family/friend/lover
Superhero has final battle with villain
Villain dies/is arrested
Public loves hero again

 

[RJDiogenes]

Superhero adaptations, movie or TV, generally fail to excite me because the producers generally mainstream the magic out of them. In their efforts to rework the source material into something more realistic in order to play to widest possible audience, they lose-- or throw away-- the creativity, color and surrealism that inform most Comics (and, unfortunately, modern Comics are doing the same thing to themselves). The Hellboy movie was of good quality, but the book itself is so dependent on Mike Mignola's unique vision that the movie seemed pale. On the other hand, the Sin City movie did a nice job of recreating the Miller ambiance; unfortunately, I never care much for Sin City. To date, in my opinion, the best superhero movie made has been The Incredibles; it comes the closest to capturing the feel of a real comic. The old Batman show somewhat captured the color and surrealism, but the stories were lost in the burlesque; the best way to do a superhero movie or show would be to make it look like the old Batman show, but play like something written by Kurt Busiek.

 

[opali]

^^^^

"Oh ho ho! You sly dog! You caught me monologuing!" -Syndrome

 

[Owain Taggart]

Superhero adaptations, movie or TV, generally fail to excite me because the producers generally mainstream the magic out of them. In their efforts to rework the source material into something more realistic in order to play to widest possible audience, they lose-- or throw away-- the creativity, color and surrealism that inform most Comics (and, unfortunately, modern Comics are doing the same thing to themselves). The Hellboy movie was of good quality, but the book itself is so dependent on Mike Mignola's unique vision that the movie seemed pale. On the other hand, the Sin City movie did a nice job of recreating the Miller ambiance; unfortunately, I never care much for Sin City. To date, in my opinion, the best superhero movie made has been The Incredibles; it comes the closest to capturing the feel of a real comic. The old Batman show somewhat captured the color and surrealism, but the stories were lost in the burlesque; the best way to do a superhero movie or show would be to make it look like the old Batman show, but play like something written by Kurt Busiek.

Exactly. A lot of them simply aren't gritty enough, or are too much black and white without a little grey. The Dark Knight was interesting in doing this. Basically, it's more interesting with the rough edges, without making them perfect people. If they have flaws, and I'm not talking weaknesses like Kryptonite but actual character flaws, I'll find it more compelling.

 

[stj]

Why don't Hellboy, Spawn, Daredevil, Darkman, the Fantastic Four, Zoom, Mystery Men, The Specials, Sky High, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and other superhero movies make the review? They fit the superhero half of a comparison of diversity of "tone" to zombie movies far better than The Crazies or 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later fit the zombie half, no matter what he says. Zombie Strippers and Dead Heat and Syfy Saturday night zombie flicks are part of the zombie equation too. The extended conceit of comparisons is worthless because he's so badly biased his samples.

And, as mentioned above, zombies are not story characters while superheroes are, which makes the comparison of story pretty dubious as well.

Trying to focus on the critique of the superhero genre, as exemplified in the capsule reviews of individual movies is kind of frustrating. The specific views are mostly inept, but worse, they are inconsistent. For all his talk of visuals, he doesn't seem to know that Superman had a genuine revisioning of Krypton. He doesn't realize that turning a series of cartoon panels in Watchmen into moving pictures would inevitably illuminate the conceptual flaws in the story that had been covered up by poverty of imagination. And if we're going to talk technique, dialogue counts. Trying to dismiss Iron Man on technical grounds by blithering about how Robert Downey Jr. wasn't really edgy rather assumes that people actually thought his Stark was edgy. I haven't done a scientific survey of opinion but I stronly suspect this is a classic straw man argument.

It's all such a convoluted mess one can only guess at what they reall beef is. It seems to have something to do with not being edgy enough. The cry for edgy seems to have much more to do with wanting to have your vicarious fantasies include sadomasochism than exploration of character. In relation to its depiction of society, the edgy seems to mean a backward view of society, with heroes defined by their glorious ruthlessness in the struggle with the demonic hordes of, well, what, exactly?

Batman Begins, which gets close to passing muster, has a scene in which Tom Wilkinson orates to Christian Bale as Bruce Wayne. The scene did not actually ring true, unless you mentally replaced the actors with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in American Gangster. The disguised fears in superhero movies can't be unmasked for real drama because it would be too obvious.

 

[Trent Roman]

But the main premise of the article is comparing genres. What about his point that zombie movies (a genre with a limited central trope if there ever was one) have managed to produce a variety of different tones and styles while superhero movies tend to have nearly the exact same tone no matter what hero the story is about and what director is at the helm?

It's just plain wrong. First of all, some of the comparisons are a tad unfair: while there have been superhero movies for a while now, they've been too infrequent to really be called a genre until the boom of the last decade. As a film genre, it's still young; and it must establish itself before it can reinvent itself. We loose track of that sometimes because the source material is quite mature and has reinvented itself a number of times. Secondly, even looking at the products of the last decade, it is demonstrably untrue--we've had a number of attempts to cross genres and created different kinds of superhero films in Hellboy, Hancock, Watchmen, Kick-Ass, Incredibles, superheros for kids or comedies etc; and even in the mainstream, it's ludicrous to say that "Iron Man", say, has the same tone as "Darevedil", for instance. Hancock aside, there haven't been really successful examples of 'out-genre' superhero films like a "Shaun of the Dead", say, but I'd say: give it time.

Or how about his point that the problem with superhero films is they tend to lack the courage of the conviction of the source material? That they softball important dramatic moments?

That's a broad-spectrum problem, owing to our terribly puritanical society, and the junta of the ratings agency. We saw it again with Kick-Ass: the film underperformed, and one of the reasons is that a key demographic got locked-out. Then there's the perception of genres. Realist adaptations, like "Precious", are allowed to go dark places because the cachet of drama grants it sanction; but fantastic pieces that tread even lesser territory are called out for being exploitative. It's not confined to superhero adaptations; see how "Golden Compass" was gutted of the original's principle themes out of the justified concern that it wouldn't play in a theocracy like the United States. To a degree, I wonder if there might not be a vicious loop at play: critics snub things with genre trappings because there's an association between the genre and mediocracy, or being SX-driven, whatever; and genre works, in turn, make little attempt at the kind of material that gets critical acclaim because it knows four times out of five it'll just get snubbed for its genre anyway.

Fictitiously yours, Trent Roman

 

[Teelie]

Why don't Hellboy, Spawn, Daredevil, Darkman, the Fantastic Four, Zoom, Mystery Men, The Specials, Sky High, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, and other superhero movies make the review? They fit the superhero half of a comparison of diversity of "tone" to zombie movies far better than The Crazies or 28 Days Later or 28 Weeks Later fit the zombie half, no matter what he says. Zombie Strippers and Dead Heat and Syfy Saturday night zombie flicks are part of the zombie equation too. The extended conceit of comparisons is worthless because he's so badly biased his samples.

Simple: including them completely invalidates the arguement so they must be excluded to make the claim sound true.