Reaching the Limit with Comic Book Movies

Warning: This review is full of spoilers for movies old and new.

The folks making comic book movies these days are running into an inflation problem. They all want to make their movie bigger and better than the previous one. This means that, dramatically speaking, the stakes have been getting higher and higher and, visually speaking, the special effects have been getting more and more eye-popping and mind-boggling.

Unfortunately, there is an upper limit on both.

“Superman,” made in 1978 starring Christopher Reeve, is generally regarded as the first comic book movie to “get it right,” as it were. In it, Lex Luthor triggers a massive earthquake in California, but Superman undoes most of the damage.

In “Superman 2,” (1980), General Zod and his fellow escapees try to take over the world. They don’t want to destroy it, they want to rule it.

The conflict in “Spider-Man” (2002) is personal. The bad guy just wants to kill Spidey. Nothing more.

But things took a bizarre turn that year with “The Sum of All Fears,” based not on a comic book, but rather on a Tom Clancy novel. In it, young Jack Ryan (Ben Affleck) prevents World War III. What he doesn’t prevent, though, is a nuclear bomb wiping out Baltimore. I remember leaving the theater thinking, “A nuke wiped out an American city and I’m supposed to think this is a happy ending?”

In 2012’s “The Avengers,” the title heroes prevent an alien attack, but part of midtown Manhattan suffers huge collateral damage. Throughout the Marvel universe — movies and TV shows — that event is treated like 9/11, with memorials and solemn anniversary ceremonies. The sense is, “It was bad, but we got through it.”

A year later, in “Man of Steel,” Zod is back, but this time he wants to destroy the world, not rule it. Superman stops him, but the collateral damage pretty much wipes out Metropolis. Assuming an equivalence with New York City, that’s 5 to 10 million people dead. You’ll forgive me if I have a problem with that.

In last year’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Ultron wants to destroy the world. The Avengers stop him, but an entire Eastern European city is trashed.

‘x-men’ is numbing

Which brings us to the latest mega-release, “X-Men: Apocalypse.” In it, a millennia-old mutant is awakened, and he tries to (ho-hum) destroy the world. Yes, it’s been done twice in the last three years, but there’s nowhere else to go. Stakes-inflation has reached its limit.

The only way to up the ante is to have the bad guy come closer to succeeding. Our heroes stop him, but not before every major city on the world is laid waste and tens or maybe hundreds of millions of people are killed. 

Our heroes should have tried a little harder.

Call me old fashioned, but I believe that in any kind of adventure movie, the hero or heroes should succeed. When the closing credits come up, you should be thinking, “Yay! They did it!” not, “So … civilization’s pretty much over then, huh?”

Similarly, effects-inflation has reached its limit, too. In 1978, “Superman” was advertised with the tag line, “You’ll believe a man can fly.” Back then, decades before CGI, that was enough.

Now, though, after Norse gods and giant robots and cities being lifted into the air, filmmakers have no stops left to pull out. The visuals in “Apocalypse” are spectacular, but also overwhelming and, ultimately, numbing. As a 12-year-old of my acquaintance said three-quarters of the way through, “There’re all these effects, but it’s kinda boring.

I’m sure there are lots of people, me included, who will go to the latest X-Men movie no matter what the reviews say. There are others you couldn’t drag into the theater with a winch. But if you’re on the fence, save your $11. “X-Men: Apocalypse” is a large, loud, long — very long — but ultimately empty spectacle.