via Warner Bros.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is already being bogged down by the same issue that has been haunting many superhero flicks of late, so we’re trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s putting us off, whether talking about DCU movies or the recent MCU Phase 4.
An overemphasis on one particular trope often comes at the cost of outing your formula as the bland, unsophisticated ripoff that it really is, and if you’re wondering why most superhero movies and TV shows these days fall short of appealing to even their most diehard enthusiasts, it’s because audiences are growing weary of watching principally the same concept play out in different contexts over and over again.
Blockbuster cinema exists through the vicarious amalgamation of literary storytelling, and often without bringing anything of its own to the table. The major outburst of genre filmmaking in the late ’70s was accompanied by a great deal of innovation, as directors raced to translate ideas from words into motion picture magic. But as time passed and demographics formed, creative input slowly morphed into a list of checkboxes, and thus we entered the golden age of superhero cinema.
It’s becoming increasingly apparent to a lot of viewers that the MCU might finally be out of ideas. After all, how often are you going to tell the same story with the same structure until people catch up to your tricks? The DCU hasn’t fared any better in that regard, with a cinematic universe that has been all over the place, neither going in any particular direction nor showing any measure of consistency even with their successful outings. (All of that was before Warner Bros. handed the reins to James Gunn, of course, and it remains to be seen what will become of the director’s hard DCU reboot.)
Indeed, both franchises may have forgotten the number one rule of the game; if you insist on sticking to a tried and tested formula, you should be very careful not to overuse any single trope. And the trope Hollywood is currently milking to death? An over-reliance on generic CG monsters that give the superheroes something to fight, and that all have one thing in common: Being utterly forgettable and indistinguishable from one another.
Let’s take a look at all the movies from the last few years. We had the Dweller in Shang-Chi, which was essentially a demon in the form of a serpentine creature. We had the Deviants in The Eternals, who took a page out of… well, every sci-fi horror movie out there. We even had the Seven Deadly Sins in the original Shazam! and we can all agree that was the most underwhelming part of that film.
Now, here comes Shazam! Fury of the Gods again, and instead of learning from its mistakes, it’s basically doubling down on the genre’s fixation with CG monsters in the form of Helen Mirren’s Daughter of Atlas. Don’t get me wrong; the inclusion of the Dame will actually improve the movie’s fighting chance in the bigger superhero rivalry that’s going on between the two industry moguls, but when it comes to the action, Billy Batson and the gang will have to contend with the character’s monster form.
There’s something incredibly shallow about superheroes dealing with these hard-hitting emotional conflicts, only to fight generic monsters in the climax. Thanos was also mostly CG, but when you think back on the fight in Avengers: Infinity War or even Avengers: Endgame, the stakes were nerve-shatteringly high and every blow, every choreographed move, meant something in the context of the larger narrative.
With these newer movies, we’re dealing with fight scenes that don’t really mean anything, and as dismaying as it is to realize, they’re not even well-choreographed most of the time. This basically reminds us of the next step in the evolution of those tedious “sky-beam” space portals in a lot of movies a few years ago. The Man of Steel, The Avengers, and Suicide Squad are just some examples, and you can definitely find more of them if you don’t exclusively search among superhero flicks.
Hollywood has a serious problem with rehashing old ideas time and again, and something tells us they don’t even realize they’re doing it. This string of failed movies will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for studio execs. And sure, it might not solve every problem when it comes to the tired tropes of the superhero genre, but at the very least, we won’t have to deal with these seemingly random CG monsters either.
via Warner Bros.
Shazam! Fury of the Gods is already being bogged down by the same issue that has been haunting many superhero flicks of late, so we’re trying to pinpoint exactly what it is that’s putting us off, whether talking about DCU movies or the recent MCU Phase 4.
An overemphasis on one particular trope often comes at the cost of outing your formula as the bland, unsophisticated ripoff that it really is, and if you’re wondering why most superhero movies and TV shows these days fall short of appealing to even their most diehard enthusiasts, it’s because audiences are growing weary of watching principally the same concept play out in different contexts over and over again.
Blockbuster cinema exists through the vicarious amalgamation of literary storytelling, and often without bringing anything of its own to the table. The major outburst of genre filmmaking in the late ’70s was accompanied by a great deal of innovation, as directors raced to translate ideas from words into motion picture magic. But as time passed and demographics formed, creative input slowly morphed into a list of checkboxes, and thus we entered the golden age of superhero cinema.
It’s becoming increasingly apparent to a lot of viewers that the MCU might finally be out of ideas. After all, how often are you going to tell the same story with the same structure until people catch up to your tricks? The DCU hasn’t fared any better in that regard, with a cinematic universe that has been all over the place, neither going in any particular direction nor showing any measure of consistency even with their successful outings. (All of that was before Warner Bros. handed the reins to James Gunn, of course, and it remains to be seen what will become of the director’s hard DCU reboot.)
Indeed, both franchises may have forgotten the number one rule of the game; if you insist on sticking to a tried and tested formula, you should be very careful not to overuse any single trope. And the trope Hollywood is currently milking to death? An over-reliance on generic CG monsters that give the superheroes something to fight, and that all have one thing in common: Being utterly forgettable and indistinguishable from one another.
Let’s take a look at all the movies from the last few years. We had the Dweller in Shang-Chi, which was essentially a demon in the form of a serpentine creature. We had the Deviants in The Eternals, who took a page out of… well, every sci-fi horror movie out there. We even had the Seven Deadly Sins in the original Shazam! and we can all agree that was the most underwhelming part of that film.
Now, here comes Shazam! Fury of the Gods again, and instead of learning from its mistakes, it’s basically doubling down on the genre’s fixation with CG monsters in the form of Helen Mirren’s Daughter of Atlas. Don’t get me wrong; the inclusion of the Dame will actually improve the movie’s fighting chance in the bigger superhero rivalry that’s going on between the two industry moguls, but when it comes to the action, Billy Batson and the gang will have to contend with the character’s monster form.
There’s something incredibly shallow about superheroes dealing with these hard-hitting emotional conflicts, only to fight generic monsters in the climax. Thanos was also mostly CG, but when you think back on the fight in Avengers: Infinity War or even Avengers: Endgame, the stakes were nerve-shatteringly high and every blow, every choreographed move, meant something in the context of the larger narrative.
With these newer movies, we’re dealing with fight scenes that don’t really mean anything, and as dismaying as it is to realize, they’re not even well-choreographed most of the time. This basically reminds us of the next step in the evolution of those tedious “sky-beam” space portals in a lot of movies a few years ago. The Man of Steel, The Avengers, and Suicide Squad are just some examples, and you can definitely find more of them if you don’t exclusively search among superhero flicks.
Hollywood has a serious problem with rehashing old ideas time and again, and something tells us they don’t even realize they’re doing it. This string of failed movies will hopefully serve as a wake-up call for studio execs. And sure, it might not solve every problem when it comes to the tired tropes of the superhero genre, but at the very least, we won’t have to deal with these seemingly random CG monsters either.