Captain America: Civil War - A Belated Review
I really wish that I had seen this movie in theaters. It took me a few months, but I finally managed to watch it now that it is out on DVD, having dodged spoilers since May, and some of the magic was lost for me. The climactic fight between the two sides felt strangely small and restrained, hidden behind the idea of superhero friends fighting each other. Carried by the threat of the villain, the MCU take on Baron Zemo. I feel like they missed their chance to expand upon some of the main heroes and their motivations. Why does Captain America so fervently believe that he is right? Iron Man’s motivations felt shallow and unfulfilling.
Death Doesn't Matter Anymore
Movies have raised the stakes. We have started to aim bigger and bigger. No longer are our heroes in any danger, or a simple building, plane, or even airport. Now cities are cast aside as fodder as the entire world is targeted, or even more. Each blockbuster feels like it needs to one-up their predecessor. It has created an ever increasing arms race of destruction, a spiral with no end in sight, and in doing so, it has made death and disaster cease to matter. X-Men: Apocalypse, Suicide Squad, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Avengers: Age of Ultron, and so many more.
We watch as our villains wipe out entire cities with a wave of their evil hands to prove how powerful and merciless they are. When they do, we are supposed to empathize with the victims and fear for the lives of our heroes. Instead we find ourselves feeling bored and eating for the writers to brush these events under the rug by the conclusion of the film with no one, except for the big bad, any worse for wear. Except for all of the dead civilians but hey, who cares about them. Read More…
Logan and the R-Rated Superhero
Deadpool came out almost a year ago and somehow managed to be a huge commercial success. With Logan coming out today, many have predicted that this success will be repeated. But what does this mean for the comic book superhero? Comics can be dark, frequently being much more explicit than their on screen counterparts. Glossy pages splashed with blood and gore, provocatively dressed heroines, and sinister plots spanning decades. Movies aren’t afraid of violence, but blood and sex make them squeamish.
Superpowers and Storytelling
We love our superpowered heroes. Flight, strength, laser beams and more in the hands of people just like us. And the more powerful that they can be, the better. But as our heroes cross the limits of humanity, it adds more and more complications to how the story fits together, and how we, as an audience, can relate. When you start looking at superpowers, the very laws that govern our reality start to break down, and writers have to deal with the way in which this affects the plot. In the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there are multiple characters capable of warping all of reality to their whim, unkillable monsters, stones that embody pure power, literal gods, and extradimensional entities that rule over time itself. Yet so many of these reality breaking characters play by the rules of our normal universe.
Superhero Fatigue
With today’s release of Wonder Woman, it has been a little over nine years since the release of the first Iron Man movie, and with it, the beginning of an international love affair with these spandex-clad superhuman, ripped from the pulpy pages of so many comic books. In these nine short years, we’ve seen the release of 36 mainstream comic book superhero movies, with even more films about the superpowers surrounding them.
It is an unprecedented inundation, and it shows no sign of slowing down, with juggernauts like The Justice League, Infinity War, Black Panther, and more on the horizon. And it is becoming harder and harder to keep getting ourselves excited at this point. The good guys beat the bad guy who had some sort of device/magic/being that threatened a city/country/world with total annihilation.