BY BLUE KAUFMAN
I’m going to be honest here, some of the best movies in this past decade have featured superheroes. These films have supplied us with various technological advances, not to mention several unforgettable screen characters, including Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) in Iron Man and The Joker (Heath Ledger) in The Dark Knight. With that, I think it’s fair to say that the golden age of the superhero movie is past us and superhero movies have run their course.
As with many successful franchises, sometimes you have to put on the brakes, no matter how successful its films are. The Rocky movies will forever be tainted from the release of five sequels too many. All good things must come to an end, and that includes superhero movies. These films have completely lost their value. Captain America, Thor, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Green Lantern are just a few examples of the overdone products movie studios have been regurgitating lately. It’s not even that they’re necessarily horrible movies, it’s just that, we’ve seen it all already. These rehashes are the same stories with identical jokes and character arcs.
Dreaded sequels have tarnished even the best superhero flicks. After an impressive Spider Man 1 and 2, Spider Man 3 was a huge let down; it was ridiculous to the point of being silly. Fantastic Four also had a disappointing sequel. Honestly, I don’t think anybody bought Jessica Alba’s portrayal of a “brilliant” scientist.
Over the years, superheroes have regressed from bad to worse. Could the 2011 Green Lantern movie be any lamer? Apart from the superficial looking battle scenes, the story was thematically inconsistent and chaotically constructed. They should use that film as a form of torture for prisoners at Guantanamo Bay because it was seriously that dreadful. Even The Dark Night Rises, with all due respect to director Christopher Nolan, seemed to fall short of its beloved predecessor.
Personally, I think it would be appropriate for a 5-10 year moratorium on all crusaders, caped or otherwise “super” vigilantes in the film industry. Maybe then we could unite and salvage the gleaming image superheroes once stood for. Oh well, until then, up, up and away!
