I finally got around to going to the theater and watching Marvel’s new film The Fantastic Four: First Steps. It didn’t really move me to any significant degree.
I was a latecomer to the Iron Man films and only watched them because of my son - who is 50 years younger than me - but I felt in those films the characters were developed superbly and they were people I could care about.
I didn’t have to do any homework or be a part of any subculture to get what was going on all the way through Endgame even if many characters already existed in comic books
With the new F-4 I couldn’t care less about anybody. I think it was just assumed you were a nerd plugged into layers of subtext from previous film and comic book iterations so they didn’t have to bother. It struck me as lazy.
I liked the retro 50s – 60s sci-fi view of the future, but got used to it in about five minutes.
I’ve enjoyed all sorts of these types of movies, but they’re starting to get boring. It’s all empty hopeless posturing.
And just in the larger, sociopolitical, cultural context, I think, relying on superheroes to save you from the hard work of creating a just and livable society is objectively reactionary, and it keeps people in a state of dependence and childlike fascination with the powerful.
I make an exception for Deadpool because Deadpool isn’t full of itself and imagining that it’s transmitting an elevated message. It’s dumb fun often very clever and I’m totally cool with that.