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.
MTV has a new comics blog (wrap your brain around that), and already they have some
Blockbuster.com has been my preferred movie-by-mail service for more than a few years now, so it was a nice surprise to see them calling out an impressive number of 
If you watched the first full trailer for Frank Miller’s upcoming adaptation of The Spirit, you could be forgiven for thinking it had little more than the title in common with Will Eisner’s comic series.
," which took in $48.7 million in its first three days in 2005. …
What do you do when you desperately want to make a Batman movie, except you have little film-making experience and Warner Bros. doesn’t know you exist?
Considering the amount of massive blockbusters that have disappointed the fans this year, it is safe to say that all of your expectations will be met going into this movie. [[[The Dark Knight]]] delivers on so many levels that it becomes hard to critique it, and all that’s left is pure childlike enjoyment for approximately two hours.
, this film takes place shortly where we left off: Batman is patrolling the streets, crime is on the rise, and more and more “masked vigilantes” are stepping up to try and take out the [[[Batman]]]. Wayne Manor is still destroyed, so all of the caped crusader’s hijinks are based out of a new penthouse apartment, which is a nice change. Batman’s gal Rachel Dawes (originally played by Katie Holmes) returns, this time played by Maggie Gyllenhaal. This time, instead of Liam Neeson and Cillian Murphy filling the evil quota as Ra’s Al Ghul and Scarecrow, respectively, we get the late Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart as The Joker and Harvey Dent, which of course means we get to see a little Two-Face!
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While Robert Kirkman is still working away on the screenplay for the movie adaptation of 
