{"id":2228,"date":"2011-12-31T09:13:47","date_gmt":"2011-12-31T16:13:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=2228"},"modified":"2011-12-31T10:07:52","modified_gmt":"2011-12-31T17:07:52","slug":"2011-in-review-superheroes-continued-to-bring-in-the-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/?p=2228","title":{"rendered":"2011 in Review – Superheroes continued to bring in the green."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Superhero films continued to fare well both with audiences and critics. \u201cThor\u201d opened with great promise in May making solid money. The campy approach taken by director Kenneth Branagh as well as a star-making turn by the beefy Chris Hemsworth laid the groundwork for \u201cCaptain America\u201d that was to follow in July. And from the same Marvel playbook but in a completely different universe and Hollywood studio, the world of the mutants developed dramatically with \u201cX-Men: First Class.\u201d Unquestionably, the best superhero film released in 2011, \u201cFirst Class\u201d gave us top notch performances primarily from James McAvoy and the man who was literally everywhere in 2011 Michael Fassbender. That movie was directed by \u201cKick Ass\u201d helmer Matthew Vaughn. <\/p>\n

Although \u201cFirst Class\u201d made money, audiences were slow to warm to the serious side of superheroes, which means it is more likely we\u2019ll see less sophisticated takes on the genre moving forward. And you really couldn\u2019t get any more unsophisticated than the toy\/comic book adaptation \u201cTransformers: Dark of the Moon\u201d that made crazy money by delivering a roller coaster ride instead of anything resembling a coherent story. The broadest and worst example of Hollywood excess and money grabbing, \u201cTransformers\u201d might have contained the best 3D visuals next to \u201cCars 2\u201d and \u201cHugo\u201d but gave viewers little to care about. Faring slightly better but still lacking emotional context and depth was \u201cCowboys & Aliens.\u201d That movie didn\u2019t even make great money and sadly did little to help Harrison Ford\u2019s comeback (that\u2019s not right, not a comeback, rather, a new career as character actor).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The DC Comics entry into the superhero space was \u201cGreen Lantern,\u201d a blah, but perfectly harmless film with some neat special effects. While most critics slammed the movie, I thought it was pretty cool (in a 13 year-old kid way), and I was impressed that the green effects looked as good as they did. My fear was that the greenish glow of the effects would make them look incomplete and fake. I was surprised how well they worked. Ryan Reynolds made a solid hero, even if the villain was hard to believe.<\/p>\n

The last superhero film of the summer was certainly the hammiest as \u201cCaptain America: The First Avenger\u201d two fisted his way to the top of the box office. I appreciated the origin story much more than the war story that followed. The smartest move by director Joe Johnston and his team was making use of special effects to slim down and shorten the muscular Chris Evans, who played Steve Rogers\/Captain America both before and after the super soldier transformation. This consistency of actor made the striking change credible and endeared the character with the viewer. Like \u201cThor,\u201d \u201cCaptain America\u201d hinted at the expected mammoth release of \u201cThe Avengers\u201d coming this May.<\/p>\n

Next: Pixar’s misstep and the continuing motion-capture controversy.<\/strong><\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Look for superhero movies to get more unsophisticated moving forward.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2229,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","has-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2228"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2295,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2228\/revisions\/2295"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyfilmfix.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}