(Here there be spoilers!)
The Marvel movies keep getting it right. They’re not perfect–there are things I would love to see done in a different way, and movies I want to see that aren’t being made (Black Widow), but what they are doing, they’re doing better than anyone else.
We’ve all seen the announcements, major events reminiscent of Apple conventions, wherein the stuff of comic books are plotted out in their latest big screen adventures. This year, both Marvel and DC have declared (civil?) war upon movie screens and wallets across America. Over the next six years, there will be over 40 (!) superhero movies featuring the characters of the two comics publishers released, setting the tone for blockbusters for the immediate future to come. On the surface, this sounds exciting – there’s never been a better time to be a comic-book movie fan.
And that might not necessarily be a good thing.
Let me be quite clear about what I’m trying to do here. This is not just a review. This is not a cinematic critique, an admonishment or a chastisement of artistic mediums. Rather, it is a cry for help for a certain individual’s life choices that have spread over into said artistic mediums, becoming patently obvious through the infliction of personality defects upon an aesthetic, influencing it through temperament, chronological pacing, and the attention span that would cause a pigeon to fly into a rage of conniptions and twitches before flinging itself suicidally into a lawnmower so as to bring an end to the overwhelming presence of the aesthetic of the aforementioned individual.
I write this because I’ve just seen Iron Man 3. And I’ve become utterly convinced that Shane Black is overwhelmingly addicted to c0caine.