I just got back from The Avengers, a movie I’ve been cutting snide remarks about on my Facebook for the better part of three weeks. I don’t know if this is the chicken quesadilla or the beer I pounded four hours ago, but I felt the movie was all right. And with it, I felt, maybe that’s were comic books movies are now in general, just all right. I think we can agree that this could be a peak summer for comic movies, with the aforementioned Avengers, the final Christopher Nolan Batman film, and the new Spider-Man film. But maybe, that’s a good way to send it out, with a final swan song of a new set of movies for Spider-Man and Superman. Almost poetic, I think, the two characters who helped spark both birth and the re-birth of the genre should be the ones at it’s end as well. Sure, there will be more movies past that, but I think those of us that have grown up on them will safely be able to say, “they don’t make them like the used to.”
Before the first Superman film, movies based on comics or sci-fi were considered B-material or children’s movies. But Superman made them bigger and more popular and as more of the films were made, they sought to distinguish themselves from each other by seeking their identities and challenging the classifications of the genre. What so may failed to understand was that what made the movies unique was what made them movies in the first place – that is, their content. Modern comics drew a thin line between our reality and our fantasies like no other art form had managed to achieve. They came loaded with backstory, a built in audience, plenty of opportunities to market and an endless resource for sequels and spin offs. Comic movies became great business.
So, we got more comic movies. And we craved even more comic movies. And they were given to us. And we demanded better comic movies. And we got them. They’ve given us all that we have asked and what have we ever done for them? We lack the basic respect of what we claim to love. The Spider-Man trilogy undoubtedly led to many comic books movies being green-lit and for that alone fans should be grateful. But, we’re all too ready to tear it to pieces and praise the new film as it’s superior and successor, blazing a swath while indifferent to what it has left in it’s path. I should know, because I am totally one of these people who is constantly beating up Sam Raimi on the internet. Like, at the drop of a hat and for no reason at all.
But comic movies should’ve stopped themselves instead of listening to us. As so many people flung themselves to the street like people escaping a burning building or a small child who isn’t ready to leave Chuck E. Cheese because… only a TRUE FAN… who respects the ART… and is in it for the LOVE… of COMICS!!! should direct The Avengers!!! And that was where I immediately lost interest. Somewhere out in the internet, is a podcast episode where I talk with Nick Jobe and Tom Clift about Joss Whedon directing the movie and I make my feelings known. How I’ve never really been a fan of Whedon and often assume that I’m just missing the appeal, about how I think a non-genre director makes an interesting choice, how you would want to see an Aquaman movie if James Cameron directed it, how I’d love to see Scorsese do a comic movie and by appealing to a core audience, you lose out on a larger one. Clearly, we know that doesn’t matter and that as long as you have likeable enough actors in the roles, the movies just don’t have to be too bad. You can say that either Captain America or Thor was good, but you cannot say both, because then you would be lying. And to suggest that Iron Man 2 was just as good as the first one is like saying that any cartoon you watched as a kid that had the word ‘New’ in the title was as good as the original. It might have seemed better, but it wasn’t. In fact, the whole thing is pretty ridiculous and probably had you laughing from the start. A few cool geek moments could not make up for the lack of a solid story throughout. Although, I will say that the Hulk was perfectly cast, finally, in Mark Ruffalo – an actor was found who you could have a really hard time believing might freak out at any moment, because nothing ever seems to really faze Mark Ruffalo, like not even getting blown away in Collateral. But, after so many hits and misses by Marvel, of course they would stumble onto the perfect recipe for their biggest film yet. And that’s what the movie was, a thoroughly enjoyable ride where you saw every turn before you hit it, but it just helped keeping the train running more smoothly that way. The movies no longer challenge us, we are challenging the movies. Sadly, we are winning.
For me, nothing will ever come close to these three Batman films and I make no apologies for it. Hell, I’m even glad this is the last one. I’m almost thirty one and I’m tired of marking out at the theater every Thursday at midnight in the summer. That’s how excited I was for Dark Knight, how excited I will be soon for Dark Knight Rises and how I feel I might never get as excited for regarding anything ever again, especially something as subjective as a movie. There’s been some great times, like Dark Knight, Sin City or Iron Man. But there have been far too many more low points, awful movies of perversions SO profound and disgusting that decorum prohibits listing them here. We’ve had it all now and it’s maybe time to put the comic book movie to rest. I’m sure they will be back, of course, probably in a time when we need them more than they’ll need us, back in a time to inspire us with hope and courage. They’ll come back to save us if they ever need to, for they will never be too far away. The comic book movies we deserve, but not the ones we need right now.
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Twitter: fandangogroover
May 5, 2012 4:31 am
I think we are a few years away from the final death rattle of the comic book movie epidemic. Before we get there I expect to see one or two great movies a couple of good ones, lots of average ones and a couple of tragically bad ones. Just like movies in general all the time.
The recent run of comic book movies, Nolan’s Batman movies and Iron Man being the high point started for me with Blade. Given a modest budget and a lesser Marvel character they created two really good movies (let’s forget the third). Previously there had been the odd good comic book movie like Superman or the Tim Burton Batman movies, but these were all made in isolation and surrounded by crap. Think The Punisher (1989) or Tank Girl (1995). After Blade came the X-Men then the floodgates opened.
And that’s how it will be again, there will be another Batman & Robin (1997) and the words “comic book movie” will be sniggered at. But then someone will come along and mage a great little movie based on a lesser character and the snowball effect will lead to another Dark Knight.
Lets hope there isn’t a Justice League movie. Nolan’s Batman wouldn’t fit and DC don’t have any other credible characters in current established movies.
Exactly. It will cycle thru again, I’m sure, but we will never see the deluge of comic books movies like we’ve seen this past fifteen years. I feel like it was a great ride, but there was so much excess that it made me appreciate the good stuff even that much more.
Twitter: pturner1010
May 6, 2012 3:08 am
Well said! I too am excited for TDKR… who isn’t? But I’m sick to death of comic book movies filling the summer cinema schedules. I want the summer to be filled with the kind of high concept but clever blockbusters I was raised on. Not endless recycling of characters that can never die and always end up fighting some giant CGI thing at the end.
Twitter: agracru
May 6, 2012 10:16 am
I’m not that excited for The Dark Knight Rises. And how do Nolan’s Batman films not fit that very description you provide, save for the CGI nemeses?
The Avengers, with a spoiler aside, is the epitome of the bloodless combat that dominated cartoons when I was a kid. The first two thirds of the movie is the Avengers beating up each other, knowing they’re not really going to hurt each other. And then they destroy thousands of alien soldiers and few blocks in Pittsburgh, by the end of which, you don’t care about these aliens or Pittsburgh.
And there are plenty of people who aren’t looking forward to the Dark Knight. Yes, they exist.
Twitter: agracru
May 6, 2012 10:45 am
Whedon makes the perfect director for something like The Avengers not just because he “gets” comic book films, but because he gets group dynamics. Anyone can execute a giant CGI orgy of spectacular smashing, but I think Whedon understands how important it is for those scenes that characters come first. So he spends the film giving us great character moments and making these figures matter, and when the big climactic battles come, we’re more invested in them.
But yeah, you need to have someone who “gets” comic books to direct comic book movies. Scorsese might make something interesting, but he wouldn’t necessarily make something that’s comic booky. “Comic booky” isn’t a barometer of quality, but if you’re not making movies that embrace that mien, you’re not really making comic book movies. Even Nolan, whose Batman films I have some issues with, manages to embrace the aesthetic in a number of ways that still make it a comic book story.
I don’t think comic book movies need to be “avenged”, but I do think that they need to be more than just spectacle. For everything that The Avengers is, I think it’s a huge reminder as to why we love superheroes and comic books in the first place, which I think elevates it above trash like Iron Man 2– which I agree is just deplorably, inexcusably bad.
I think all this talk about Whedon being the perfect fanboy director and the enormous box office take of the Avengers point to a different but much larger point that geek boy comic nerd fan culture is just merely popular culture as this point and the ever blurring line between pop and cult is nearly gone. I know that Patton Oswalt wrote a great op-ed about the end of geek culture recently, but the Avengers movie serves as a perfect example of serving up exactly what fans wanted. A comic savvy director, fights between the stars of past movies and they all overcome their issues to work as a team to beat the enemy in the end.
Which by the way, when they finally do work together as a team, they destroy an indomitable alien race all in about twenty minutes. Good for them.
Twitter: agracru
May 7, 2012 6:16 am
Of course superheroes are “merely popular culture”. They’ve been that way for years, though, ever since it became cool for the mainstream to go see Spider-Man and X-Men. I don’t think that has anything to do with Whedon, and I don’t think he’s doing anything other than exercising the mainstream appeal of the superhero for a broad audience. (Geeks, mind, will get the most out of this, but it’s not like only geeks have been looking forward to this team-up.)
The thing about Whedon is that he’s not the perfect “fanboy” director– for one, I’m not that big of a Whedon fan (I like the guy, just not a Buffy or Angel fan; I only ever got into Firefly). For another, I don’t think that anything that happens in The Avengers wouldn’t have happened with someone else at the helm– we would still have seen Thor and Iron Man tussle and such. It just wouldn’t have looked as good. And it wouldn’t have mattered as much. Again, that’s just because Whedon knows how to make a group of characters pop on-screen; nothing about the movie likely would have changed all that much with someone else penning it and directing it, I reckon, but it wouldn’t have worked half as well.
I’m confused as to how the Chitauri army is indomitable; they’re never for a second portrayed that way in action. It’s just really, really damn big.
Apparently, there is a LOT that would’ve changed without Whedon directing as the Zak Penn script that was green lit was admittedly torn apart by Whedon and completely re-written. And I’ll be corrected if I’m wrong, but I don’t think that being a visually stunning director is something that has been noted of Whedon. Not talking down the man, but this is his biggest film to date in a small sample size.
True, comics have always been part of pop culture, but never like they have now. Comics have permeated the zeitgeist to become the thing that is most popular and accepted when most comics are about being out of the mainstream and not accepted by society. There are many more social issues abound, but basically I feel that by homogenizing these comics to make a more profitable movie, a lot of times something is lost in translation. The Avengers is a perfectly good movie for it’s audience, unfortunately, I have out grown that demographic.
Twitter: agracru
May 7, 2012 8:34 pm
Let me be clearer. I’m saying this:
“A comic savvy director, fights between the stars of past movies and they all overcome their issues to work as a team to beat the enemy in the end.”
Would have happened even if Whedon wasn’t directing, because Marvel knows what fans expect from something of this magnitude/flavor. “Who’s the strongest hero?” is an age-old question among fanboys, and this delivers in spades until the heroes inevitably team up and beat the bad guy. So while the specifics and particulars may have been altered, stuff like this probably wouldn’t have.
Also, when I say “for years” I mean “since the early 2000s”. I wouldn’t say that they’ve always been part of pop culture, but they’re certainly a big part of it today, and like you say they’re becoming more and more a part of it with each passing year.
Twitter: kaiderman
May 6, 2012 5:56 pm
I love that between you and Brian we are apparently the anti-Avengers website. Need to post my own review before we lose half of our demographic.
I’m not even anti-Avengers, I’m anti-formula. When the movie becomes something so simple, it’s just to set up more movies and sell some action figures, then, yea, I’ll probably come out pretty hard against a movie that people want to speak of with hushed tones.
I went thru it a few years ago with Avatar.
Twitter: agracru
May 7, 2012 8:35 pm
So you’re against everything Pixar has ever done, then?
You’re comparing apples to oranges now unless you really think that Pixar movies are just cranked out by some machine that computes how to sell the most toys and get the most kids to see their films. Besides Toy Story, Pixar has never even done a sequel film, instead they try to do something different every time out. PIxar movies are the anti-thesis of standard comic book movies and the Marvel model.
Odd, considering they’re owned by the same company.
Twitter: manilovefilms
May 8, 2012 1:58 pm
Cars 2. Monsters University coming soon. Just sayin’.
That aside, I’m pretty much with you, Mike. It does feel like the era is coming to a close, or at least that it ought to soon before devolving into crap. I don’t doubt that there could be awesome stories to be told and movies yet to be done (Edgar Wright/Ant Man, anyone?), but I can honestly say that, outside of TDKR, of course, there sure as shit ain’t that much that I’m looking forward to, either. Sequels for all of the Avengers characters are no doubt on their way, as well as a proper Avengers sequel (or more), but it does leave me wondering what they’re really gonna add to the genre.
Twitter: agracru
May 11, 2012 7:01 am
This is exactly my point, though. Pixar doesn’t adhere to formula, and yet they still pull in tons of money through the ancillaries because of course Disney is going to profit via tie-in toys, bedsheets, pajamas, lunch boxes, video games, and so on. If you wouldn’t hold them to this standard of anti-consumerism, then it’s pure hypocrisy to hold another studio to that same standard, especially when Marvel just broke the formula by producing The Avengers in the first place.
Everything has tie-ins. Why is it bad for The Avengers but okay for Pixar?
Cars doesn’t count as a Pixar movie.
Edgar Wright is an amazing choice for a comic book movie director, he already made one of the best one in the past few years. But, I think they may become more redundant than before, so hopefully, we can wean ourselves off of them before such a time.