NY Times: Have Superhero Movies Peaked?
There’s an interesting question posed by the New York Times film critic A.O. Scott in a new piece regarding superhero movies.
He surveys the Summer of the Superhero and notes the genre’s success, but then wonders if it might have hit a creative high-water mark. In other words, could the conventions of the superhero limit every superhero film, keeping it from exceeding The Dark Knight?
But to paraphrase something the Joker says to Batman, “The Dark Knight” has rules, and they are the conventions that no movie of this kind can escape. The climax must be a fight with the villain, during which the symbiosis of good guy and bad guy, implicit throughout, must be articulated. The end must point forward to a sequel, and an aura of moral consequence must be sustained even as the killings, explosions and chases multiply. The allegorical stakes in a superhero are raised — it’s not just good guys fighting bad guys, but Righteousness against Evil, Order against Chaos — precisely to authorize a more intense level of violence.
… the disappointment comes from the way the picture spells out lofty, serious themes and then … spells them out again. What kind of hero do we need? Where is the line between justice and vengeance? How much autonomy should we sacrifice in the name of security? Is the taking of innocent life ever justified? These are all fascinating, even urgent questions, but stating them, as nearly every character in “The Dark Knight” does, sooner of later, is not the same as exploring them.
As much as I liked The Dark Knight, I agree with Scott on its limitations, owing mostly to the abundance of "speechifying."
But, personally, I disagree with his main point. Watchmen, if it truly ends up following Alan Moore’s vision, would certainly represent a new creative high for the genre.
What Scott reveals in the piece isn’t the great limitation of superheroes, but rather a limitation in his understanding of what a superhero can be.
While I prefer Heath Ledger's Joker to no other screen supervillain, there was a lot about Batman Begins that I preferred to Dark Knight. Spidey is a completely different kind of superhero, so there are ways in which Spiderman II is superior. And while making Watchmen into a movie is a bit like casting God in a film of the bible, all indications are that the spirit of that graphic novel is going to translate to the big screen. When that happens, why wouldn't it break the same ground and have the same impact on storytelling in the film medium as it did with comics?There are a lot of high bars being set, certainly, but there are also a lot of achievements yet to come:* A compelling team story that captures principals' status equally (the Star Trek and X-Men problem)* Female stars (where is Joss Whedon's freakin' Wonder Woman movie???)* The unexpected, where instead of following existing legacy the film charters brand new ground for the characters (not just deviations from known mythology)* New formats for movies, like maybe a year-long theatre serial that spends 45 minutes opening for another filmWatchmen is so impactful because it violated the anticpated rules and put more humanity into the fantasy storytelling. You can easily see its effect on changing the way the comics were drawn and told. That kind of revelation will play out differently for the film industry than it did for print.Interesting article and post. Thanks.
It's fascinating to me that critics who would've marked ANY superhero film or even comic based film as inherently substandard by its nature of its roots in gene fiction now look to say it's passed it's prime. Again, that it has it's limits. There are reasons why they are critics and not xreative people; critics also inherently have their own limitations.What Mr. Scott fails to identify is that it's not just the numbers oARpeople seeing THE DRAK KNIGHT but the DIVERSITY — both genders, all ages, all colors and races. The film has struck a nerve in America. The Joker isn't just a terrorist or an anarchist; he's a personification of the TIMES. Not the NY Times but the time we live in. And even Batman sometimes seems helpless against him; what works with others doesn't work with the Joker. We are drawn to the movie because it seems to encapsulate this Joker Age and, in so doing, makes it understandable.This is what THE WATCHMEN is aspiring to be. They may have already been trumped by THE DARK KNIGHT.It's a point Mr. Scott seems to have missed. Critics see films often in private screenings. Perhaps Mr. Scott should go back and see it again in a theater full of people.
Joss Whedon's WW film died when he & Warner couldn't see eye to eye. Once he said he was going to change the costume, I lost interest.