Last night I was having a casual chat with a good friend about the state of superhero films. He was very adamantly against superhero movies, and I usually (unfairly) reasoned that with his taste being much more cinematic and unforgiving, which is all well and good considering he’s got damn good taste. But, upon asking he reasoned that superhero movies lack something that horror movies give us in excess: stakes.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is planned out until 2019. At first that seemed exciting, now it feels a little daunting. So too, is the WB superhero universe, but we know so little about that world that I’ve left it out of this discussion for obvious reasons. While WB is still waiting on a massive hit, Marvel is waiting on a failure, but that’s a different article.
The problem with pre-planning your franchise is the distinct removal of any sort of long standing danger for your characters. It’s been the number one complaint against superhero comics for years. They all amount to who can punch harder than who, and often emotional beats are left in the dust to favor grand battles. While this may be entertaining and dare I say, enjoyable, it’s devoid of consequence.
I’m admittedly a pretty huge fan of the MCU thus far. I love the tone of the films and really enjoy the dialogue, action set pieces, and casting. But, now that I already know how Avengers: Age of Ultron ends what do I stand to get out of it. Sure there will be some surprises, but we know Captain America and Iron Man live to see another day. We know that one of them will fall to the edge of death, thus motivating the rest of the team to do something about it.
This really diminishes my enjoyment of a film that’s 5 months away from release because I know I can’t be floored by any huge reveals. I’m not even really asking for death, but something that shakes up the status quo. I know many people were blown away by the revelations in Captain America: The Winter Solider where SHIELD is infiltrated by Hydra. And, while I know this did help jump start Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D into something more interesting, it is still by and large the same show without any of the stakes. I mean one of the main characters turned out to be Hydra, and he’s still alive and very much a current cast member.
But speaking of death and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Phil Coulson was resurrected just in time to star in his own show. His death was the primary motivation for The Avengers coming together and defeating Loki in the original film, but this shared universe has yet to address the fact that Coulson’s death meant nothing. Which ultimately calls into question the entire team dynamic of The Avengers.
I want to sit down in a Marvel movie and legitimately not know what to expect. Except I know that I’m going to be spoon fed casting details, plot tidbits and other sorts of things until I can’t stand it anymore. But this lack of stacks pushes the idea of infallibility on Marvel’s behalf. They act as if they can do no wrong, that every film they release can be a monster hit, and in a world where Transformers 4 is one of the highest grossing movies of 2014, I fear they may be right.
But, I urge you to vote with your money. I’m not even going to say I’m not excited for Age of Ultron, I am, more than anyone I know. But, I’m not excited for Antman, this week we got a lazy trailer that didn’t even bother trying to tell a story. This is something that we don’t have to support, and something we don’t have to get behind. Marvel needs a failure in order to sober up, because it may push them to raise the stakes in order to create audience engagement again.
Guardians of the Galaxy worked so well because it existed outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as we know it. It has real stakes and doesn’t worry about whether or not it has to destroy an entire planet for you to believe it. But, it won’t last. The GOTG are now part and parcel of the rest of the MCU.
I want nothing more than my cinema to be unpredictable, for something to be truly engaging, and for my enjoyment of a movie not to be set against an already announced six film future that clearly outlines who live and who dies, who becomes the enemy when, and what to think of all of it. I’m not saying don’t support it, but I’m asking you to be more critical of it, and I know, the last thing the internet needs is more criticism, but blockbuster films need to focus on story first, and spectacle second.
