It’s a big month for superhero films.
With the release of Marvel’s Thor:Ragnarok and DC’s Justice League, the streak of wild box office success is likely to continue for such movies. In fact, it’s been a big year for these movies – Wonder Woman and Logan have even garnered Oscar buzz.
Some people complain about these films, arguing that they devalue the art of filmmaking. Personally, I couldn’t disagree more.
Of course, I am not a filmmaker. I have to imagine there is a certain degree of frustration when a struggling and talented artist can barely break through with a deep and visionary piece, while superhero movies are routinely given budgets of over $200 million.
My own love of film, however, began with watching these colorfully costumed crime-fighters on screen. In 2002, Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man hit theatres, and I spent hours pretending to be Peter Parker with my little brother. My young imagination was engaged by the ridiculously realistic looking (at the time) wall-crawler swinging through the streets of New York. I was hooked – not just on superhero movies, but on cinema in general.
As I matured, so did some of these films. Even today, I still enjoy the superhero films that help me feel a sense of wonder, but by 2008 I discovered a new kind of film – the gritty, dark, ubër-realistic type. It came in the form of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, one of the greatest movies I’ve ever watched regardless of genre. There was some cognitive dissonance at first – I left the theatre feeling as if I didn’t like the movie, probably because I was used to just watching for escapism.
In time, though, I shifted from wanting to be Spider-Man to Batman. I saw a hero with emotional turmoil and a deeper backstory, and I didn’t just want to be him – on some levels, I related to him.
From that point, I changed the way I looked at film – it wasn’t just a way to forget the world, but another way to process it. I had always watched deep films with my family, but now I started to seek out these movies on my own. I wanted to watch those that explored the human experience regardless of genre.
Interestingly enough, these movies seem in many ways to have matured along with me. We’ve come a long way since Tobey Maguire first used CGI to swing above the streets of New York.
Then, it could have been argued that superhero movies were their own genre. Now, the case could be made each of these movies tackles their own genre.
The wonderfully executed and barrier-breaking Wonder Woman, as well as Captain America: The First Avenger before it, both moonlighted as war movies.
Logan was a Western and something of a road trip movie as well, and Thor: Ragnarok seems much the same.
Spider-Man: Homecoming was a John Hughes-esque high school film.
And The Dark Knight, of course, kicked off the trend as a crime drama/thriller far ahead of its time.
Each opened my taste to these various genres and made me want to watch similar movies. As successful as they are, superhero films might just open our eyes to other stellar content being produced.
And if nothing else, they might spark the love of film in a child like they did for me.
