There has been a lot of hatred for Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice, a film which I deeply loved. Our own Doug Mercer ripped it to shreds in his review, but was one of the few that really backed up his thoughts. I truly believe that a lot of this hatred has come from the internet making up its mind, for some reason, that people should hate this film. Guess what internet? You’re wrong. It’s ok to not enjoy something, but you’ve gotta back your shit up, and so far, you haven’t. There is a lot to love about Batman v Superman, and the world needs to keep an open mind. But this editorial isn’t just about that movie. It’s about the state of superhero films in general, and how what you want, isn’t good enough, and what you accept is half-assed. And that what you’re rejecting is something special.
To give readers a sense of how I feel about superhero films, these are my top 10 favorites in order:
- Watchmen
- The Dark Knight
- Batman Begins
- Kick-Ass
- The Dark Knight Rises
- Man Of Steel
- X-Men: First Class
- Spider-Man 2
- Spider-Man
- X2: X-Men United
Up next would probably be X-Men: Days Of Future Past and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I also really enjoyed the Hellboy films and first two Blade films, and the first Hulk film (not the second), and THEN I would start thinking about the current Marvel films. I have no love for the old Batman or Superman films; I didn’t love them as a child and they’ve aged very badly. I would like to note that I didn’t count Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice (as it will surely be in there some day, but it’s still so fresh). As a comic book reader, I’m very picky, but loved X-Men and Spider-Man growing up, and worship pretty much anything written by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, or Frank Miller. The only comic book I currently read is Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s Batman (it’s mostly novels these days).
I decided to write this article after seeing Deadpool, a film I enjoyed, but much more as a comedy than a drama or action film. It has almost all of the issues I have with most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films (which I do realize it’s not a part of). Its plot is very basic. Its villain is just a guy who looks like he loves MMA. It had a giant special effects sequence at the end which really wasn’t impressive. Ant-Man had all these problems, and like Deadpool, relied on being quite funny. Iron Man had a charming protagonist, but lots of boring action, forgettable plot, forgettable villain, etc. The Avengers had a lot of these problems, but had great character interactions, and a really good script. Its plot wasn’t much more than “some superheroes have a hard time working together to fight a bad person, then they get their shit together and win.” And I really don’t think I’m being overly harsh about that. I actually think Age Of Ultron is Marvel’s best movie plot-wise, and Guardians Of The Galaxy is clearly their best overall film. Deadpool had a handful of very creative parts (those opening credits), but fell victim to the Airplane school of “there’s too many gags being thrown at us and only some of them are good”.
Another problem with the Marvel films is that most of them feel very transitional. We know that the Infinity Gauntlet story is coming, and that’s exciting, but could you tell me the plot of Thor 2? Or Ant-Man? Or really even Guardians Of Galaxy, which I think is Marvel’s best film, is just about people coming together to stop a guy who’s evil and has newfound power. For the $18 ticket purchase, I need to feel like I’ve been on a journey, and that I didn’t just spend two hours waiting for something to happen that hasn’t happened yet. Or in the case of the Amazing Spider-Man films, have the franchise cancelled after publicly announcing three more movies which sounded like an awesome plan (especially after I really liked Amazing Spider-Man 2). Imagine if Marvel decided to scrap their future Avengers plans? People would be pissed! It’s like people are being taken advantage of, and are just letting it happen!
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