Thursday, August 25, 2016

What's wrong with those superhero movies?

One of the things that has bothered me lately is the lack of quality films when it comes to comic book movies. Many of the anticipated films have turned out to be less than stellar when they have been finally released. 

For example, the latest movie to disappoint is the film 'Suicide Squad', that despite its massive box office earnings didn't really manage to win critical praise. Its rottentomatoes rating, 26% fresh, is one of the worst of the year. 

Another movie that premiered before Suicide Squad, Batman vs. Superman, also turned out to be a critical failure. Even though the caped crusader was a big hit at the box office, it also managed to gather a disappointing 27% fresh rating from the critics.

Let's not forget that even before these two films premiered, we also had the god awful and completely unnecessary remakes of the Spiderman movies. These two films were pretty big artistical failures and were produced for no real reason at all. 

Now don't get me wrong, I haven't managed to see any of these new comic book movies yet. I haven't watched them, because at least in these cases I've been smart enough to trust the opinions of the film critics. 

In my view, it shouldn't really come as a surprise that these new super hero films aren't well made or to be more precise, well written. It's fairly evident that not enough effort or writing talent is invested in these franchises. 

In general, the biggest problem with the comic book films is with the screenplays and how they're written. It simply isn't possible to produce 1-2 quality super hero movies every year, when you consider that there aren't enough talented writers out there.

Let's keep in mind that in this current environment, it's very difficult to even make these movies compelling. Especially when you consider that studios won't allow any of their 'profitable' characters die, any writer is going to be in a tough spot. 

I mean, storywise there simply isn't enough drama, substance or entertainment in these movies. Since nothing of real consequence is going to happen to any of these characters, there aren't any real stakes in these films.

In any case, even though it's obvious that studios and their greedy bosses have gotten us into this current situation, it's not only their fault. It isn't fair to blame only these head honchos that superhero movies haven't been good lately.

At least in my opinion, some blame also has to be placed on those paying customers in the audience. Since they are willing pony up the dough no matter what, it's no wonder that studios keep producing 6-7 super hero movies every year.

In the end, none of this changes the fact that it's still very difficult to make good movies about these comic book characters. None of us should think that it's easy to make these superhero films entertaining and enjoyable.

In reality, when it comes to making movies, it's always going to take certain amount of luck before things are going to work. Every single thing simply cannot be controlled and you need to get lucky in the process too.

At the same time, the truth is that as long as the studios are not able to hire the very best writers out there, and are not willing to let them do what they want with these characters, things are not going to get any better.

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