Anyone else fed up to the back teeth of all the superhero shite?

[Reno]

I don't need telling whats in them, I've watched loads. With my kids.

I watch them with my cat. That doesn't make them "cat films"

 

[Knotted]

Its dumbed down shite for people who cant focus or pay attention. Like watching Transformers with a five year old full of Kiora.

The couple of X-Men films that I have seen were sort of uneventful, not flashy action filled eye candy at all. Having a short attention span, I was just bored by them (and it would have been even worse if I had seen them as a kid).

Action film I did like - Mad Max Fury Road, now that's a great film for short attention spans.

PS What am I doing with my life - I'm commenting on a thread on a subject I know next to nothing about like I've got something to say

 

[killer b]

I watch them with my cat. That doesn't make them "cat films"

tell that to your cat.

 

[krtek a houby]

The couple of X-Men films that I have seen were sort of uneventful, not flashy action filled eye candy at all. Having a short attention span, I was just bored by them (and it would have been even worse if I had seen them as a kid).

Action film I did like - Mad Max Fury Road, now that's a great film for short attention spans.

PS What am I doing with my life - I'm commenting on a thread on a subject I know next to nothing about like I've got something to say

Can't advise on the attention span but good call on MMFR.

 

[krtek a houby]

tell that to your cat.

That would be Doctor Dolittle

 

[spanglechick]

The couple of X-Men films that I have seen were sort of uneventful, not flashy action filled eye candy at all. Having a short attention span, I was just bored by them (and it would have been even worse if I had seen them as a kid).

Action film I did like - Mad Max Fury Road, now that's a great film for short attention spans.

PS What am I doing with my life - I'm commenting on a thread on a subject I know next to nothing about like I've got something to say

Oh god, I thought MMFR was so boring. Plus the first forty mins or something is almost non stop shouting.

 

[krtek a houby]

Oh god, I thought MMFR was so boring. Plus the first forty mins or something is almost non stop shouting.

Theron is great, mind. She's doing well in the action roles, what with The Old Guard and Atomic Blonde.

 

[N_igma]

Oh god, I thought MMFR was so boring. Plus the first forty mins or something is almost non stop shouting.

It’s one of the best action films of the 21st Century in my opinion. I was enthralled from beginning to end. Each to their own I suppose.

 

[Dandred]

Was annoying me by the second marvel movie.

 

[krtek a houby]

Was annoying me by the second marvel movie.

Marvel studios or just Marvel comics that made it to film? If it's the latter, you've got Howard the Duck, The Punisher and Blade to chose from...

 

[Knotted]

Oh god, I thought MMFR was so boring. Plus the first forty mins or something is almost non stop shouting.

Fair enough. It's a visual and sonic assault on the senses, not an engaging human drama (although it's good for visual story telling and characterisation). I found it refreshing.

 

[skyscraper101]

What I find particularly irritating is endless action scenes, with EXPLOSIONS and FIGHTING and LOUDNESS which go on forever.

Because CGI places no limit on the cost of blowing stuff up or doing what would otherwise be some risky and expensive stunt back in the day.

So they just lean into that shit, and dispense with anything actually interesting. OH had some Avengers style movie on and I had to leave the room it was annoyingly loud, and repetitive.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Oh god, I thought MMFR was so boring. Plus the first forty mins or something is almost non stop shouting.

Me too. I just don't like action films. They just don't interest me. I've said it a few times on here but I glaze over once the running around and fighting starts in any film so if that's the whole film, well, it's not for me.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Theron is great, mind. She's doing well in the action roles, what with The Old Guard and Atomic Blonde.

Funnily enough, I liked Atomic Blonde and actually found the fight scenes in it quite engaging.

There's one scene towards the end where she and a baddie are clearly getting absolutely knackered over the course of the fight. That was considerably more interesting than the usual good guy somehow fights off 6 bad guys because they all take turns to come at him.

 

[8ball]

I watch them with my cat. That doesn't make them "cat films"

A cat I know especially like the Iron Man films.

 

[8ball]

Because CGI places no limit on the cost of blowing stuff up or doing what would otherwise be some risky and expensive stunt back in the day.

Yeah, like those LEGO movies.
That would never fucking happen.

 

[Reno]

A cat I know especially like the Iron Man films.

My cat likes the wide shots with superheroes flying across the screen. Is it a bird, is it a plane....

 

[Dom Traynor]

Having watched and enjoyed all of the MCU films and watched and not enjoyed any of the DC films, I would argue that they are actually the perfect distillation of the comics I was reading as a 12 year old and they appear to have actually used those stories as their base. Now I stopped reading super hero comics (on the whole - I stuck with Savage Dragon for years) a few years after that (and there were plenty of storylines for teens and adults I just moved on to other things) it's clear that the producers and directors and writers are the same generation as me (late thirties early to mid forties) and are making the films they wanted to see at the time.

That doesn't change the fact that they're massive capitalist money spinners but there is no doubt that the creators are genuinely engaged in a labour of love - there's no less spirit or creativity than an art house film which I can also enjoy.

Speaking as someone with ADHD there is no way these films are made for short attention spans.

Anyway as a gateway drug for the open minded sceptics I would recommend Ant-Man and Ant-Man and Wasp...

Also Venom (which is not MCU of course but is Marvel).

 

[freakydave]

I do like some of them, one that hasn't been mentioned on here is Dr Strange. I just loved that character on the cartoons when I was a kid because he had the thing that (completely not unique to me) he was a 'good guy' on his own terms rather than being part of the ideology. The film kind of lived up to that, and the psychedelic battle with the other wizard was as good as the comics portrayed how it should be.
I do hate how it's meant to be taken seriously. I didn't follow the Avengers series, but I saw the last one on a plane and it was like watching a computer game, I was especially annoyed by Spiderman turning up because Spiderman is his own world and he is like Batman, the whole point of him is that he is lonely. I also resented the way that it was marketed as intriguing but it was like 'wow, Spiderman will be in The Avengers films?'
It's a bit like how football has gone, one of the big stories last season was if Saudi Arabia will buy Newcastle, it's interesting in a way, but it's so postmodern. Even as someone who is not interested in comics or capitalism, I know that Spiderman is owned by Sony and so he appears in Disney films on a limited basis. Sorry, drunk rambling bullshit

 

[8ball]

“Even as someone who is not interested in comics or capitalism” made me lol.

 

[freakydave]

“Even as someone who is not interested in comics or capitalism” made me lol.

I feel that by making the minimum effort I can get right to the root of why nothing works

 

[krtek a houby]

I do like some of them, one that hasn't been mentioned on here is Dr Strange. I just loved that character on the cartoons when I was a kid because he had the thing that (completely not unique to me) he was a 'good guy' on his own terms rather than being part of the ideology. The film kind of lived up to that, and the psychedelic battle with the other wizard was as good as the comics portrayed how it should be.
I do hate how it's meant to be taken seriously. I didn't follow the Avengers series, but I saw the last one on a plane and it was like watching a computer game, I was especially annoyed by Spiderman turning up because Spiderman is his own world and he is like Batman, the whole point of him is that he is lonely. I also resented the way that it was marketed as intriguing but it was like 'wow, Spiderman will be in The Avengers films?'
It's a bit like how football has gone, one of the big stories last season was if Saudi Arabia will buy Newcastle, it's interesting in a way, but it's so postmodern. Even as someone who is not interested in comics or capitalism, I know that Spiderman is owned by Sony and so he appears in Disney films on a limited basis. Sorry, drunk rambling bullshit

Post 120 mentions the good Doctor. Spiderman is quite sociable in the superhero world, actually. He's teamed up with numerous others over the decades, the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Punisher, Black Widow, Invisible Girl, Shang Chi, Ghost Rider, Morbius, Blade and many more, include a few DC crossovers.

 

[freakydave]

Post 120 mentions the good Doctor. Spiderman is quite sociable in the superhero world, actually. He's teamed up with numerous others over the decades, the Avengers, Defenders, X-Men, Punisher, Black Widow, Invisible Girl, Shang Chi, Ghost Rider, Morbius, Blade and many more, include a few DC crossovers.

I know that Batman has also probably teamed up with Aliens against Rupert the Bear or something. I love geeky stuff, but I object to it being taken seriously

 

[T & P]

Yeah, I don’t necessarily dislike the genre and have genuinely enjoyed a few of them, but fully agree with the OP.

It’s the sheer over-saturation of them that’s the most defeating for me. Ultimately I don’t give a shit about any of the characters or universes to pay that much attention to the storylines anyway, but IIRC they’ve reached the point whereby they’re rebooting their own reboots from just a few years ago. I mean, excluding ‘Into the Multiverse‘, which is an animation film that can be safely excluded from the live action films (as well as being fucking good), how many standalone Spider-Man movies have there been in the last twenty-odd years? Three with one actor and three or four more with another I reckon. I also recall two seemly disjointed Hulk standalone films by different actors within the last decade. And there have been so many X-Men flicks going back and forward in time I’m surprised they haven’t done a kindergarten years prequel with Xavier and Magneto in their diapers.

The Avengers Endgame mega-epic showdown film last could at least have served as a conclusion to many of the superhero storylines, but no... plenty more in the pipeline.

The amount of green screen running time is also out of control, and not just when special effects are unavoidable. Compare the look and feel of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy with subsequent efforts.

We need a fucking break from superhero films, or at least a good 75% reduction in the number of forthcoming films to be released in the coming years. It’d be good for the genre as well.

 

[skyscraper101]

But we're in this era where everything has to be as mainstream as possible. Because, now more than ever, the main Hollywood studios are so risk averse. It's all about guaranteed projections, all ages appropriate, and stuff that the Chinese market will allow. It's tiresome.

 

[Reno]

I wonder whether the pandemic will change something about the current Hollywood model of pouring most of the money into a small amount of extremely expensive blockbusters, because these films are unreleasable under current conditions. We'll see how Tenet is doing, but I doubt it will make nearly as much money as it would have under normal circumstances. The films which are financially viable now are more moderately budgeted ones, which have a chance of making money on streaming platforms.

 

[krtek a houby]

I wonder whether the pandemic will change something about the current Hollywood model of pouring most of the money into a small amount of extremely expensive blockbusters, because these films are unreleasable under current conditions. We'll see how Tenet is doing, but I doubt it will make nearly as much money as it would have under normal circumstances. The films which are financially viable now are more moderately budgeted ones, which have a chance of making money on streaming platforms.

Tenet is released next month and am considering a cinema trip. Nolan films tend to be great cinematic experiences. But, as you say, current conditions might not lend themselves to box office. This may well change the budget and nature of film for a while, productions being smaller scale, making story above spectacle be the hook for (home) audiences. Interesting time for cinema...

 

[fucthest8]

PS What am I doing with my life - I'm commenting on a thread on a subject I know next to nothing about like I've got something to say

It's ok, that's what 93% of Social Media is.

 

[freakydave]

I wonder whether the pandemic will change something about the current Hollywood model of pouring most of the money into a small amount of extremely expensive blockbusters, because these films are unreleasable under current conditions. We'll see how Tenet is doing, but I doubt it will make nearly as much money as it would have under normal circumstances. The films which are financially viable now are more moderately budgeted ones, which have a chance of making money on streaming platforms.

My guess is that it will just move Hollywood further towards the Chinese market and as a couple of other people said, that will mean more stuff like this. I don't think that mid range films are disappearing though, I think it's more like what Scorcese was getting at last year how Marvel films aren't cinema. You go to a huge cinema with 20 huge screens and watch some spectacle where there are 20 odd film stars as superheroes and $300m of special effects and it's great safe fun. But there are also a load of independent cinemas and no shortage of great films, it's kind of two different things.
I also imagine that there will still be people like Spielberg, Scorcese etc who manage to get through the system and change cinema for the better.

 

[scifisam]

I love them overall - obvs there are some I don't like.

Thing is, I don't always want to be bludgeoned over the head with emotional development and "this is the way people act in the real world." I already live in the real world and see enough of it. The best superhero movies usually have a lot of character development and address interpersonal issues - like alienation from society, loss of parents, trying to come to terms with growing up, trying to balance relationships and ambition, and even bigger issues like arms dealing, collateral damage, group friendships breaking down, etc, etc. And in general they don't give an easy resolution to those issues - not the superhero movies of the last fifteen years or so, anyway.

The later Marvel movies also don't shy away from addressing the issues that having superheroes in the world would cause, despite what some people claim.

My daughter's just pointed out that superhero movies have the advantage that they are able to be more abstract - you can tackle difficult issues without making them personal and relevant only to a very specific set of circumstances. Nobody has ever actually been adopted into a family of Gods even though they're actually from a race they were at war with, but there are plenty of adoptions from different societies. It's, for want of a better word, a gentler way of approaching those issues.

Some dramas, even good ones, when they explore interpersonal relationships, sort of go "he's sad. This is how he's sad. This is another way he's sad. This is a character commenting on how sad the person is..." I get it. Now show something else.

I don't believe there is such a thing as bad subject matter, just poor execution. Even with superheroes or zombies, the occasional excellent film or TV series comes out. Train to Busan was a zombie film but it was also one of the greatest action films in recent years.

I think there are quite a few excellent zombie movies. 28 Days Later is astounding - beautiful, with a plausible storyline, and interesting characters who react in realistic ways (good and bad). The Girl With All the Gifts is an extremely cerebral movie despite it being about zombies.