Avengers: Infinity War and the Power of Change
An ensemble cluster of action and color anchored by one of the best villains in the genre. The series’ most essential film.
Based on Comic Books
Films which are based on a comic book, a series of comic books, manga, or graphic novels
Shazam!
Not only does the movie walk on air, it never loses sight of the people on the ground. Few movies have been less ashamed to be themselves.
The Shadow
A superhero film justly thought of as sloppy, and wrongly ignored for being so spunky and beautiful.
Captain Marvel
The Marvel formula can’t save an unappealing heroine from the greatest power in her universe: herself.
Batman
Burton explores Gotham like a house inspector: he’s all about details, and forgets the emotions you need to make them worth it.
Thor: Ragnarok
It’s like a workout — a lot of flexing and then a lot of fatigue. Good movies never have to try this hard.
Alita: Battle Angel
A passionate lead performance can’t save Alita from burying itself in exposition.
Daredevil
Be wary of superheroes that seem like they were invented as puns. You might end up with a passionate mess, with 85% Dutch angles, undeveloped characters, and a soundtrack like a prepubescent DJ’s iPod on shuffle. “Justice is blind,” proclaims Daredevil. So is Matt Murdock. So is Mark Steven Johnson.
Watchmen
Snyder’s baroque maleness shines through and so does his purity. He loves superheroes. You have to decide if that’s enough.
Fantastic Four (2015)
If Fantastic Four is supposed the be the story of a superhero family, the 2015 adaptation makes them seem as unsupportive as you can be before civil action becomes your only option. Not only do they see no beauty or meaning in their heroic endowments, but they are so quick to give up their integrity after the accident that you think, as you never should, that these people don’t deserve their gifts.
Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut
Superman II is exciting even in its flaws: even its badness seems to defy other kinds of movies, like so long as Superman is on top of this, everything else will be okay.
The Fight to Be Fathered: False Politics in Black Panther
This is a film made with the intention of proving that black actors should not be typecast as thugs, yet part of its comedic scheme is the counter-marginalization that all white people are colonizers. Black Panther admirably opposes prejudice when it’s directed at certain groups, but I would have preferred it, especially if its goal was “elevation,” to oppose all prejudice equally.
Suicide Squad
Suicide Squad is a petty crime. It is a work of stupid badness, clumsy as a graffiti scrawl, and less motivated on a world stage where it hopes to earn $800 million than actual scrawls I’ve seen, on the bottoms of bridges where they expect to earn nothing but contempt.
Hulk (2003): Comic Myths and the Monsters in Us
Hulk is flawed and huge and bold. It’s about the monster’s curse of being a man. It’s a superhero film that means something.
Ghost in the Shell (2017)
What DreamWorks have done with Ghost in the Shell, if it is a cultural invasion, is more potent than catering to an international market (or their idea of it). The new film is an inversion of its material, to an extent that its entire symbolic framework has been hacked by the virus of three-act Western superhero stories.