Last night I saw the stunningly beautiful film “Tale of Tales” in the theater, an artistic combination of three fairy tales based off of the tales of Giambattista Basile. It was beautiful, it was immersive, and it was enjoyable – but the story left something to be desired. Yet as the credits rolled I was satisfied with the experience – until the group behind me (who had talked during the first five minutes of the film) decided to share their negative opinions with the entire theater and immediately burst out into laughter.
I’ve always been raised to respect others' opinions, so it wasn’t my place to begrudge them their opinion that the movie was bad – but their reasons for disliking it sparked some ire in me. According to them, incredible art direction and atmosphere meant nothing if there wasn’t an action sequence every other scene to hold their attention.
Now, not everyone is going to like arthouse films, I realize that. But their critiques brought to my attention some growing trends in the film industry that worry me – the least of those being an increasing lack of interest in “slower” films. No, I’m more worried about the dominance of CGI-filled action movies, superhero blockbusters, and the utter proliferation of remakes and unwanted sequels.
In theaters now there are more than 10 movies that fit the above criteria, and even more “summer blockbusters” are on their way, such as “Ghostbusters,” “X-Men Apocalypse,” and “Ice Age 5.” Yeah, they’ve made five of those. Now, I’m not trying to say that those movies are automatically awful simply because they have a superhero or are the third in a series, I’m only trying to point out this trend.
Let me give an example. The upcoming “Ghostbusters” film, starring an all-female cast, has been the source of a lot of debate. Many women are justifiably excited at the casting, while others are vocally against it for myriad reasons – some more reasonable than others. Personally, my problem with it is that the studio chose to use an incredible cast of hilarious comediennes and waste it on a remake that absolutely no one asked for. It’s not as if past comedies with a female-dominant cast have flopped, in fact three of the most popular comedies of the past few years (“Mean Girls,” “Bridesmaids,” and “Pitch Perfect”) have had incredible box-office success. But instead of using this cast on another original script, the studio saw a past cash cow and decided to scrub it up, recast it, and present it as something new.
But here’s the thing, it’s not new. And neither is the 20th "Captain America" movie or the 100th “Saw.”
And hey, I’m guilty too. I’ve loved the X-Men since I was a kid and I’m so happy to see that the X-Men franchise is producing some really amazing movies. But there comes a point where there are too many of those movies. Where studios start to see that the way to make money is to make cash cows, because that’s what’s made money in the past. And so, quality suffers in favor of pumping them out as quickly as possible in order to capitalize on the trend – one only needs to watch the train wreck “Batman v. Superman” to see a perfect example of this.
I know it’s never going to stop. The opinions of people like me mean nothing compared to box office earnings. But maybe I can convince you, dear reader, to recognize these trends and try to give a little more credence to movies that can take a completely original concept and turn it into something timeless.
And please, wait until you’ve left the theater to make fun of a movie. That’s just common courtesy.