Oh look, another more or less copy-paste speculative thread about ye olde 'comicbook film fatigue' that's just an excuse for whining.
How many threads and articles have ruminated on this subject over the years? With films like Logan and Wonder Woman (the start of a series of female led superhero narratives, hopefully/finally?) still being created, I hope the trend continues for many years to come. I don't believe we've ever had it so good. I'd rather Joss Whedon was making a Bat
woman film as opposed to -girl, but it's still a big budget female superhero film directed by him, which has frankly been a very long time coming.
Marvel Studios need to stick their neck out a bit more after Logan - not to try and ape it, but to be more distinct with individual MCU entries - but the MCU's still something I never thought I'd see as a kid, a teen, or a young adult; faithful interconnected comicbook adaptations centre stage in pop culture, and done by people who genuinely care about the characters and stories (typically boasting superb casts). Nerd culture seems to be particularly ungrateful, perhaps more than ever.
Kingjackl said:
I think it was Doctor Strange that really did it in for me. A lot of people liked that movie, but I just saw it as a weaker 'Iron Man'. The same basic theme and premise with half the effort.
Quite. I hated when Iron Man used dimension warping magic to reverse citywide destruction in a narrative ultimately about the rejection of materialism and Western oriented ego.
..oh wait, none of that happened.
Isn't the devil in the details with larger than life characters and narratives? 'Heroic' struggles always tend to tread the same eternally engaging territory, after all. I found a certain death scene in Doctor Strange more profound and affecting than anything in any Iron Man, and his abilities were superbly realised. As I often say, pure spectacle's been hardwired into the medium since the very beginning, and so there will always be worth - and a need - for spectacle. Simply judged on some of its visuals, Doctor Strange was a worthy MCU entry.
(nothing is perfect, of course, and I certainly wanted the film to be even weirder)
But where Iron Man played it straight, Dr Strange played it for a gag ("Dormammu, I've come to bargain"). An inventive gag, but a gag nonetheless.
Erm, a gag's bad since when? Do you just want grimdark? Did Star Lord's dance off jar with you as well, then? I'd have preferred a more somber Doctor Strange, actually, and was initially a little disappointed with the MCU version. But judged on its own merits - and Cumberbatch's performance - it's still pretty damn good, and it's still a heartfelt iteration of a character I never thought would get their own tentpole feature.
The difference is they were still trying to tell stories during Iron Man, whereas by Dr Strange they were committed to the idea that story doesn't matter because only the Avengers movies are (theoretically, anyway) allowed to have stakes.
I'd say Scott Derrickson would heartily disagree with that (as would the writers of even Ant-Man, which is so often derided or dismissed simply for not being an Edgar Wright film).
