Dog days usually come at the end of the summer, not at the beginning. The studios seem to have this all turned around as most of the fare in theaters have been lackluster. For all that we were promised for a big return, the five majors haven’t really given much to write home about it. In an attempt to wait out until more interesting films are released, I perused the streaming services to catch up on previous material I had messed over the past few months. And let’s answer a question that is starting to plague me more and more: Do we really need superhero movies anymore?
You’ve heard of them, movies where beings with abilities beyond us mere mortals save the day. The genre has been the bread of butter of Hollywood for the past decade and a half. Upon watching two recently, I am starting to wonder if they are running on fumes. Video essayist Lindsey Ellis stated that super hero movies are the new musicals. Like they were in the sixties, we are seeing a glut at the cinemas. However, the box office has peaked in 2019 and haven’t seen those heights since. We may be seeing a patterning emerging.
For those interested in knowing, the films in question are Ant Man and the Wasp: Quantumania on Disney Plus and Shazam: Fury of the Gods on MAX. The criticism for both are exactly the same.
One thing is that I long for a real outdoor scene. All these computer-generated environments make me long for the days of seascapes and desert filmed in the real world. And I don’t even like Lawrence of Arabia, but it would be preferable to seeing another unfocused virtually visualized landscape. And I have to talk about the character MODOK in AntMan. Who thought that was a good idea of take Corey Stall’s head and blow it up out of proportion like that? If they were going for unsettling, then they succeeded.
Secondly, they need to hone the plots down more. Both films are so stuffed with subplots that never really go anywhere. Looking at you Shazam 2 with the oldest daughter wanting to move on and the one adopted son being obviously gay (Happy Pride everyone!). Ant Man was no different with freedom fighters in the subatomic realm being a part of Scott Lang’s daughter’s character arc. All of these get shoved aside by the end, because there were just window dressing on a bare bones script.
Thirdly, you have to make us feel like our heroes are in real danger. Say what you want about Superman or Thor, they are beings with superhuman abilities. Ant Man is just a guy in a suit that expands and contracts through technology. There is nothing particular superhuman about him. The peril should be intrinsic here. But even during a major battle, Scott and his daughter are quipping when they should ducking for cover. Same with the Shazam movie, Helen Mirren (clearly slumming) should be more powerful than he is. Why is there no fear when she confronts him though? The films have well trained us to feel what we do when we need to, but the formula is warring down.
Anything I liked about the movie was nil to minute. Mirren and Lucy Liu were fun to watch, although I wished that the latter would have gone over the top by the end. There is a better Shazam movie where Liu went full Rita Repulsa and was screaming and going crazy. At least that would be have been fun. But that is more than I could say for Jonathon Majors in Quantumania. All stoic calm that was supposed to be threatening just came off as posturing. Ryan Bergara of Buzzfeed Unsolved fame as a cameo in AntMan was fun. Too bad local boy Shane Madej couldn’t join. Michelle Pfeiffer, however, can make all this drivel sound like Shakespeare. It was enough to make you wonder if artificial intelligence has been making scripts already. Not gonna lie, this was a bad review to have to do. However, there should be some better films just around the corner.
