The Dark Knight, a planned Sam Raimi directed Spider-man 4, and the potential of a larger, broader cinematic universe in the wake of Iron Man’s post-credits scene made 2008 a big deal. I was 12, and I loved everything, and now I’m 26 and couldn’t be more apathetic towards superhero films. I loved living in that culture. Drowning in forums, rumors, set leaks, concept art and more, and now I’m… 26… and none of that matters. Whether our tastes have developed or not; don’t we miss when we felt like those little things mattered? Films were being made one at a time, directors/writers were fulfilling (most) of their vision, scripts were being written AFTER it was a hit, and creativity was booming. Not just for the artists, but for the audience as well. Rumors, speculation, and the next step in progression for our heroes was something we salivated over. What was coming next? Who will fight our hero? We left these films sparked with imagination about where the storytellers we trusted might take us next.
That doesn’t happen anymore.
Movies are day and dated years in advance with selling points tied to how it’ll connect to one of the previous or forthcoming entries in their slate. These movies aren’t selling what our hero may accomplish in their story, they’re selling what it’ll mean to someone else’s story. The trailer for Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania has preceded most films in the last quarter of 2022, and it’s one of the worst culprits of sequel teasing ever assembled. Its sizzle has nothing to do with what the story will mean for Ant-Man and his friends, but what it’ll mean for the larger MCU. Lame. Black Adam did something similar earlier this year. The Rock was selling Black Adam’s introduction to the DCEU on the foundation of, “the hierarchy changing”, in the grander scheme of the universe. The marketing campaign had little to do with what Black Adam will do for the story, and more to do with the manufactured, less meaningful stakes of what we’ll buy our ticket for next. In the case of Black Adam, we will never see that movie despite The Rock’s fiery, WWE-style campaign. The box office could have potentially saved it if they focused on making a Black Adam movie instead of a DCEU movie with Black Adam in it. Which is what most of these superhero movies have become.
On the opposite end of that, Matt Reeves’ The Batman is one of the last superhero movies to understand how special superhero movies can be. Into the Spiderverse accomplished the same thing in 2018. The two films do have elements that are going to be stepping stones for the larger corners of their respective universes, but it is only ever serviced by the hero, and not the other way around. The heroes aren’t being bent to their will to make decisions in their films that’ll service the larger part of the universe, they’re shaping the exterior of the film within their individual story. The larger Spider-verse is going to play a huge role in Across the Spider-verse in a few months, but the original film used the multiverse to guide Miles Morales, and he returned the favor. He was able to grow through that journey in a manner natural to what the form asks of heroes, instead of being forced to fit in a puzzle he didn’t belong. The same will be said for Robert Pattinson’s Batman. The Batman was a launching pad for silly spin-offs, but the consequences of the major players’ actions in the film helped pave the way there. The story was still about Bruce Wayne’s search for absolution in a mangled, crowded habitat with other creatures of the night. Who knows where the sequel may take him next, but this type of storytelling used to matter, and the subgenre desperately needs it to come back.
Superhero films can’t ride the high of a few scattered films like The Batman and Into the Spider-verse, and hope they keep audiences interested. There’s a reason so many people have expressed that they are a breath of fresh air. It’s because they remind the audience of how good we used to have it.
When we talk about the greatest superhero films ever, our minds race toward the usual suspects, but we continue to talk about them the way we do because they understand the fundamentals of storytelling. At the end of it all, they’re trying to make enough money to produce a sequel, but they never lose sight of the story they’re trying to tell. They aren’t crowded by ancillary characters who’ll pop in and out of subplots that belong in a different movie. They aren’t stopping the momentum of the story to make sure WatchMojo can clearly define what “that scene means for the future of the universe”. They aren’t regurgitating jokes, structure, or character banter to drive character dynamics and story. The superhero movies of old were simple, distinguishable, and so easy to fall in love with because they understood what superhero movies mean to us. On a textual level, not a meta-textual one.
Superheroes are more than interconnected comic-books. They’re people imbued with power (often-defined as curses), that have jobs, friends, family, and romantic interests that are the most personal extensions of the audience. It’s what the best superhero movies do, and why most of them can’t even register a conscious emotion these days. The disinterest in the minutiae couldn’t be more clear. The obsession with broader implications is a motion driven by box office receipts. A proper business minded approach, but that fiscal cynicism has taken over. No one is talking about these movies within the parameters of the individual effort. They’re only talking about it in relation to what’ll come next. It’s why the staying power of these movies only lasts for a weekend. They’re hype generators, emotional voids, and virtually meaningless on a thematic level. The medium has evolved, but the subgenre has devolved. They’ve forced the visual effects department to work harder for lesser results (God forbid they delay a movie). They’ve spun threads to hammer every week of the year with a new episode, short, or cameo to hold us over until the next one. The market has become so saturated by this identity, that they have become meaningless avatars of lesser entertainment. The months of buildup, anticipation, and conversation around these films are in the past. We can’t formulate a creative thought about them because they’ve shown their cards, told us what comes next, what to subscribe to, and expressed every emotion in the most blatant, concrete text imaginable. Good movies don’t do that, and when the sub-genre isn’t doing that anymore, it’s an infrastructure problem.
Sure, the market is asking them to play a different role, but they’re being abused. The power they hold over the box office is undeniable, and they should be better. Some of the original waves of films aren’t guilt free, and a bit imperfect, but at least they aspired to represent the best parts of themselves. At least you can tell that they had fun making them instead of it being obvious that most of the actors are contractually obligated to be there, and the directors weren’t studio puppets destined to fulfill the needs of the producer instead of the audience.
Perhaps my passion for this topic stems from how formative superhero films were for me. That isn’t exclusive to me, as they are the gateway for most moviegoers to discover different avenues of film. When we revisit the previous generations though, we can tell that they were made with far more care than they are now. We can watch Sam Raimi’s Spider-man trilogy, and understand how the adoration for the material bleeds into the narrative, character, and emotional arcs of the story. The same can be said for Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. If you’re tired of hearing about these examples everytime we have this conversation, then the gold bar should be elevated. All these films are doing is looking at that bar and telling themselves they can’t achieve that height. The amount of capital within these movies should elevate the craftsmanship. You’d think it, but that is the flaw in the program.
All it has become is an uncreative force of capital growth, and that is what has registered these superhero films as meaningless drivel. The amount of money has become so overwhelming, that money has become the root of misunderstanding the significance of artistic merits and replaced it with financial metrics. The subscription boxes, the “YouTube-ification” of storytelling, has guided the audience’s line of thinking to fit within the parameters of an overarching universe, and not within the beats of a narrative. Films are being judged on how they fit in a universe. How they pave the way for the road ahead. The opening line of the consensus for Wakanda Forever on Rotten Tomatoes reads, “a poignant tribute that satisfyingly moves the franchise forward…”. In the Multiverse of Madness reads, “...labors under the weight of the sprawling MCU.” Shang-Chi reads, “...isn’t entirely free of Marvel’s familiar formula, but this exciting origin story expands the MCU in more ways than one.” I won’t repeat every relevant Rotten Tomatoes consensus, and an RT consensus isn’t the end all be all, but it is telling. The merits of these films (whether they sought to do it or not) are only being gauged in relation to that universe, and to be frank, good movies wouldn’t do that.
(For good measure, I did the work for you and Batman Begins, “... is a film that understands the essence of one of the definitive superheroes.” Superman Returns, “...gives the Man of Steel welcome emotional complexity. The result: a satisfying stick-to-your-ribs adaptation.” There was something about these films that mattered more than they do now, and that is crystal clear.)
When we watch films, no matter what type of film they are, there should be an emotional register that feels like it matters. We should be able to communicate with the heroes’ journey that grants us the opportunity to unveil a little bit more about ourselves in relation to their heightened dramatization of palpable conflict that takes shape in silly capes, chiseled cowls, and latex masks. Even that isn’t tangible anymore as these outfits and costumes have become digital renders that appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. Putting on a costume unexpectedly isn’t difficult anymore because the convenience of maneuvering plot matters more than trying to draw conflict out of unexpected circumstances. They’ve become so over-complicated, inflated by money and other productions, that the truth of simplicity, sincerity, and earnestness has become obsolete. They’re hollowed out shells of miscalculated, half-baked ideas led by characters who have arcs as meaningless and confusing as any, and yet they still draw enough attention to continue being made the way they are.
If anything, they’ve done a great job of making millions of people feel like they’re a part of something greater, but very few can walk away feeling like there was an emotional transaction worthy of a cent.