Despite having seen it only the once, Dr. Strange is one of the most refreshing Marvel films in a while, despite it pretty much being an Iron Man in mystic doctor form.

I thought superhero movies had jumped the shark ~10 years ago.

I'm still hyped to see Ragnarok. And Black Panther. Basically I'm part of the problem.

I mean I'm an OG superhero movie hater, but this is ridiculous. Logan was good. Deadpool was good.

Logan was decent. It's the last superhero movie I saw. I wouldn't call it good. Deadpool is way over rated. It was amusing, at best.

Both these films were ok because they wrapped the same boring structure in something interesting. Thier novelty gained them points.

That being said both suffered from the same basic problem all superhero movies suffer; the characters are completley boring, the structure is always the exact same, and they always rely on a big boring fight scene to end them.

I literally have not even scene a trailer for the new Thor film, nor have seen the previous ones. I still bet I can explain the basic plot and characters almost perfectly. That is the problem.

Clovis,

You're old. Most people your age barely go to the movies. The young people who do haven't seen the same story a thousand times. They'll continue to make these movies as long as new generations of people keep coming.

(And if you look up the stats, don't forget a lot of adults are seeing movies when they take their kids.)

I wish the 'plexes would show super hero movies alongside stuff like Tarkovsky revivals. Clovis, Dom, and I could meet more kindred souls. Admittedly, only a few, but, on occasion, you do meet that odd person who appreciates, say, Kiarostami, Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane, Central Park in October . . . You get the idea.

And I'm really not all that high-falutin.

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Clovis isn't old. I'm ****ing old.

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We're all old.

I think I'm older than Clovis, but younger than you. I'm about to hit 50.

Just turned 64. But I'm younger than Zeno, now and forever.

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I'm almost 50, and maybe it's just nostalgia, but it seems like we had better movies aimed at young people back in the 70s and 80s, than the endless CG superhero crap they get today. Spielberg, John Hughes, teen comedies like Fast Times, etc.

There is no redeeming quality to these superhero movies. Today's kids are missing out imo. (/Grumpy old man rant)

Man I'm a spry young 43!

I would say that superhero movies are boring not because of structure but rather because they're telling boring stories about boring characters. The stories are boring because the characters are never in peril, and the characters are boring because the writers are lazy and bad. Then that makes the stories even more boring because not only are the characters never in peril, but you don't even care about the characters themselves or their relationships.

For me, Deadpool wasn't good because it was funny. It was good because it took the time and effort to make me care about the character, and his relationship with what's her name, and how his transformation into Deadpool took all that away from him. It was good because it was a good movie about good characters.

And Logan was good because Wolverine was old, he was sick, his **** doesn't work any more. He was in peril from the very beginning of the movie. And again, it was a good movie, well written and well acted. And yes, both these movies had a big fight scene at the end, but wtf do you want? Just like romantic comedies end with a kiss and Westerns end with a gunfight, super hero movies do have that structure imposed on them. But that doesn't mean that Westerns and romantic comedies and super hero movies can't be good.

Your comments here remind me of someone saying about The Big Sick, there's a limit to how good it can be, it's just follows the standard romantic comedy formula. But that's nonsense, any movie in any genre can be terrific as long as they filmmaker is telling first and foremost a story that connects emotionally with the audience. Then, depending on genre the movie might be some combination of: funny, touching, exciting, suspenseful, scary, whatever.

Superhero movies arent inherently bad its just that the simple fact they are superhero movies almost always means thier creators take little care or pride in the product.

It also speaks to my long held belief there is a strong inverse correlation between quality of the film and it's CGI budget. Superhero films have huge CGI budgets which means they are almost always terrible.

Sure. But I think with Logan and Deadpool there clearly was a lot of care and pride put into those movies. It's fine that you don't like them as much as me, but "there are no good superhero movies" is way overblown (and it seems like you agree that was hyperbole).

The Nolan Batman’s are the gold standard for super hero movies (even tho 3 was not good imo).

If you compare anything to them they pale in comparison including Logan and Deadpool. They’ve proven they can make an excellent superhero movie but just haven’t in a decade.

The Nolan Batman movies are awful.

Huh? That’s not a popular opinion.

Batman Begins has 8.6 on meta and 8.3 on IMDb. Dark Knight has 8.9 on meta and 9 on IMDb.

The Batman movies were good, but DC learned the wrong lesson from them and tried to make other superheroes dark & gritty, like the Zach Snyder Superman movies, and it just doesn't work for those characters.

Jeez superhero movies are a genre, some are good, some are terrible.

Just like any other type of film, people have different tastes.

But I'm surprised how much hate these get .

And I'm not a big fan of them either.


Just watched Free Fire, the shoot-em up with Armie Hammer ,Brie Larson and Sharlto Copley.

Set in the 70s, it's a story of an arms deal gone bad.

Action packed humor is how it's described.

I couldn't even finish it, it was so confusing and dull.

Which was disappointing, I like this type of story, a throwback to the 70s action flick .

The direction looked competent, the story and characters were weak.

Franchise superhero/action movies/shows will always have the problem of not being able to fully immerse the audience because the audience knows that the main characters are never truly in danger.

That and they need to fight and break stuff for 45 minutes and all but maybe a few references need to be understood by 13 year olds.

Movies for younger children, like UP or Wall-E, have more need to be good movies despite having to have some satisfactory resolution because the parents can't just drop the kids off at the theater.

I have nothing against the idea of superhero movies, it's just that I think they're in a rut. Around 2006 I started thinking: They've done some cool stuff with CGI, now maybe they'll explore something else. Maybe they'll leave CGI alone and have puppets -- yeah, that's it, they could use the Muppets -- Beaker Batman! But they didn't, it just the same old stuff.

Btw, I really enjoyed Lego Batman. It's on my short list for Best Flick of 2017.

I'm not sure the argument of the hero never being in any real peril holds up very well.

Aren't most movies like that?

Watched 'Shotcaller' after coming across it by accident. Thoroughly enjoyed it and have since watched it again. If you've seen 'Felon' in the past and enjoyed it, then this movie is for you.

Also quite enjoyed 'War for the planet of the apes' and 'Spiderman: homecoming'. Both we're entertaining throughout and also provided some good laughs.

Didn't enjoy 'It' or 'Atomic Blonde' as much as I thought I would - they we're ok though.

Also quite liked a netflix movie I saw recently called 'what happened to Monday'. Worth a watch if you've seen most of the other recent stuff already.

Agreed. I don't think the hero needs to be in peril, the problem is when the peril in the movie isn't real or it's too predictable. Too often the villain is trying to destroy the world/universe. Clearly he's not going to succeed at that because the hero is part of the world/universe and the hero isn't going to die.

In the Dark Night there were real perils: Will Rachel Dawes or Harvey die? Will one of the two boats blow the other up? Will the Joker kill his hostages?

Those are all real perils where the viewer doesn't know the outcome beforehand because the stakes aren't ridiculous. The villain could succeed at any of these and the world/franchise will go on.