So, 2017 in my opinion, has been the best year for superhero movies ever.
Sure, some of these aren’t as good as others, but overall it’s just been quite spectacular.
So, now that they’ve all come out, it’s time to talk about them.
Also, I’ve kind of made a bit of a mess for myself with this video.
Every year since 2014 I’ve done a best comic book movie of insert year where I pitch the
comic book films of that year against each other to determine which is the best.
It’s pretty fun, but a few months ago I made a video called Best Superhero Movie of
the 2010s, where I really talked about most of these so doing all that again seems kinda
pointless.
So this year I’m switching it up.
I’m gonna do quick little mini-reviews of all the comic book movies from this year up
front, including ones that I haven’t really talked about previously, and then I’m just
gonna go through a few points that I feel can be taken away from this year’s lineup.
Also, I haven’t seen Wilson, which is apparently based on a graphic novel.
So sorry if you came here for my Wilson review.
So first, quick recap of all the movies either based on comic books or graphic novels from
this year, I know some people will say they’re not comic book movies, they’re graphic novel
movies, whatever, just go with it:
The Lego Batman Movie Hilarious Batman spoof, it’s funniest for
Batman fans but still really enjoyable for a casual audience member, falters a little
in the third act.
9.5/10
Logan Emotional, exciting, well made, gripping,
brutal as all hell with some of the best performances ever in a superhero film.
9.8/10
Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 Not as good as the first, but a very enjoyable
funny film with likable characters and some super creative comic book-y aspects that gets
a little bogged down by some sometimes slightly rushed-feeling character development and a
slower middle part.
8.8/10
Wonder Woman Fun period piece superhero film with two very
charismatic leads that is great for most of it and then has a pretty disappointing finale.
8.8/10
Spider-Man: Homecoming Probably the biggest surprise this year for
me, and a pleasant one.
I was expecting it to be super average and it was so enjoyable and so much fun, plus
the really relatable fun teen Peter Parker stuff and the MCU aspect sets this apart from
the other Spider-Man films.
9.7/10
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets One of the most visually stunning comic book
films with an amazing world that is really dragged down by bad performances and an honestly
pretty terrible script.
I’m glad I saw it in the cinema, would not watch it again.
5/10
Atomic Blonde Has one of the best action scenes I’ve maybe
ever seen in a film and is overall a fun action ride, but the story is a little weak though,
with cliches, some confusing moments and motivations and a certain narrative device that just shouldn’t
have been in there.
7.6/10
Kingsman: The Golden Circle Considering it was my most anticipated film
of the year, I was disappointed, especially by the story and how it dealt with certain
characters and certain….plot lines it introduced, but I love the first film and the characters
that it set up so much that I enjoyed seeing them again.
Plus some of the new characters were pretty cool.
I know that’s subjective, but I liked that.
Plus there is some pretty spectacular action here and one or two decently interesting and
emotional moments occasionally.
6.9/10
Thor: Ragnarok Very funny film and easily the most memorable
Thor film, it’s creative and colorful and a joy to watch.
It doesn’t really have a lot of heart to it and a lot of potentially dramatic moments
are hard to take seriously which is a little disappointing.
Also not all the jokes land, specifically that opening scene, but on the whole it’s
just so much fun that you kind of forget about that stuff.
9/10
Justice League This is my X-Men Apocalypse of this year,
the movie a lot of people hated that I had a lot of fun with.
The story, possibly due to reshoots, is the biggest problem with this film, it’s quite
generic, and it does have a lot of stupid moments, and the villain sucks, but I had
a good time with it overall.
It felt like a long episode of the Justice League cartoon I watched growing up and that
was cool to see.
Plus I liked most of the characters and this is the best version of Superman we’ve seen
in a long time.
7.8/10
Also, here’s my ranking from best to worst cuz I know people will ask about that.
So yeah, here it is.
Alright, so, what is there to take away from this year?
Both positive and negative, trends that we saw in these films, and what’s coming next.
Well first up….
Creative control This point kind of relates to my next two,
but this year we finally got away from the studio notes and interfering kind of thing
more.
Well, for the most part.
Wonder Woman wasn’t cut to pieces like most of the other DCEU films and Patty Jenkins
got to carry out her vision, Taika Waititi brought a very distinct comedic style to Thor:
Ragnarok and people loved it, James Gunn got to make his sequel as weird as he wanted and
I loved those parts of it, and James Mangold got to make the Wolverine movie that he’s
probably always wanted to.
Really to look at this progression I’d say compare The Wolverine to Logan.
The Wolverine is a fun but not super unique superhero film.
It doesn’t feel like it was made by a person with a distinct vision, its enjoyable but
not incredibly memorable.
Logan feels like it is definitely made by someone who has a story they want to tell
and know how they want to tell it.
And surprisingly Fox is the studio that let James Mangold and the team behind Logan do
this much more risky venture.
Which is surprising for them for a lot of reasons.
Now sometimes full creative control isn’t a great thing, maybe someone could’ve said,
hey Matthew Vaughn and whoever’s writing this movie, that sex scene’s a little weird,
and this subplot is kind of bad, and this scene just doesn’t make a lot of sense for
these characters.
Oh also, you cured death.
But to be fair, some creative choices that were made in that movie I actually did like.
So hey, overall, this is definitely a positive trend I wanna see continue.
Different stuff This is great, I’ve said for a long time
that if superhero movies want to stay popular they have to change things, make movies in
different genres and take risks.
And that’s what’s been happening, and I love it.
And by the looks of the box office, most people love it too.
You just have to look at how Logan, Thor: Ragnarok, and Spider-Man Homecoming did to
see that if you make a good movie that is also different and more unique than others,
people will show up to watch.
And Justice League isn’t doing great at the box office, and that was a much more standard
superhero film in terms of story and ideas.
So yeah, people like when there’s a variety of different and creative stuff.
If everything’s the same then the market just gets oversaturated and people lose interest.
Of course quality is mostly still the biggest indicator of how popular a film will be, a
film can be very creative and still not be all that great, and a film can be more standard
in terms of plot and still be a ton of fun, but different and creative stuff is what’s
going to keep this genre alive.
This year also showed that there is room for all different kinds of inventive stuff, not
everything has to be similar.
For example, not everything has to be super dark but also not everything has to be super
fun Avengers kind of thing.
There’s room for stuff on both sides and places in the middle.
Mainstream stuff getting more meta Now this has been happening for a little while,
and with superhero movies really it started with the MCU I think, but mainly got going
with Deadpool last year.
And now this year, a lot of the mainstream stuff is super meta, even the stuff that you
wouldn’t really expect.
Like yes, Spider-Man and Guardians are very meta in their own ways, but Lego Batman is
just outright a Batman spoof through and through that happens to be animated Lego.
And Thor: Ragnarok in a lot of ways felt like a spoof of the MCU to me.
Like there were a few times where I expected the characters to turn to the camera all Deadpool
style and acknowledge what was happening.
So I think there’s still place for genuine stuff and frankly it’s kind of refreshing
when you see a movie of this kind these days that isn’t super snarky and self-referential,
but if it continues to be as funny as it was in these two films, then I’m happy to see
more.
More personal stories/solo movies still work This one doesn’t need a lot of explanations,
but it was nice to see this year that even though it seems like big team movies where
the world’s gonna be destroyed are the only movies out there, movies that have relatively
smaller stakes are still great and people still go see them.
Homecoming is a fantastic example of, hey, Vulture’s not gonna blow up all of the universe,
he’s just a guy selling weapons who Spider-Man has to stop.
And along the way Peter Parker grows as a person.
Great stuff, and it’s great to get little breathers here and there from this is the
end of the entire world type stories.
Big changes are coming Now, looking to the future of these movies,
this year really signalled that a bunch of stuff is gonna change.
Not so much for Marvel Studios, they’re sticking to what they do well and it looks
like that’s gonna continue going forward, but for Marvel/Fox and DC, yeah, stuff’s
changing.
Firstly, female led comic book movies got a big boost this year, a little from Atomic
Blonde which iI think was a decent commercial success, but mostly obviously from Wonder
Woman.
I thought this was incredibly obvious, but female-led superhero movies before this weren’t
failures because they were female-led, it’s cuz they were awful.
So now that a good one was made and it made a ton of money, finally these movies can get
more attention, as can women in the movie industry in general.
We’ve got a sequel coming up, plus Captain Marvel, plus maybe a Black Widow movie, and
really it’s just looking much better for these films going forward than it did at the
start of the year.
Then also for DC, Justice League’s so far pretty disappointing box office is gonna change
stuff up.
This was a hard turn into lighter more Marvel-ish stuff for the DCEU.
Now I actually liked this tone for Justice League, it doesn’t fit every character in
this universe but for this kind of thing, sure I thought it worked, and I’d be happy
to see that in a sequel.
But I hope DC doesn’t look at these box office numbers and say, oh people didn’t
turn out for that as much as we wanted, let’s completely change everything again!
No, try to stick with this world and just make it better, as in get better writers and
don’t reshoot and re-edit everything to death.
The story and structure of Justice League was my biggest problem, I actually kinda liked
how cheesy and colorful and cartoon-ish it was.
So regardless of which direction they go with this, I’m pretty sure something’s gonna
be switched up over at the DCEU, whether it’s in terms of actual content or quality.
And for the X-Men, this was already set in motion by Deadpool, but Logan really confirmed
what Marvel/Fox’s niche now is, different, outside the box, mostly r-rated superhero
films.
We’ve got New Mutants, then Deadpool 2, then Gambit, and now a Multiple Man movie.
Different genres with creative visions, sounds fantastic to me.
So those were my thoughts on the comic book movies of this year.
What did you think of all of these?
Let me know all of your thoughts down below in the comments.
While you’re at it be sure to like this video, check out my Instagram and Twitter
@bhl_hudson, check out this podcast about movies and TV and whatnot I do every other
Friday with a friend of mine, it’s called The Poorly Planned Podcast, and subscribe
for more videos like the one you just watched.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.