How to Fix Superhero Movies

We’ve explained how to fix Star Wars and how to make a good Smurfs movie. Now it’s time to focus on the superhero film genre, a genre that certainly needs some help. This summer saw the release of a thousand comic book movies (or maybe five) and none of the latest super-powered flicks seemed impressive or memorable. The Dark Knight and Kick Ass are proof that making a surprising and interesting comic book film is still possible, but most of the superhero movies are forgettable junk food. And we’re here to change that.

Hollywood, put on your listening goggles and take notes. Here’s how to make a good superhero movie.

Step One: No More Flipping Cars
We mean this literally and not in the “no more f-wording cars” sense. Stop flipping cars. Stop it. Every comic book movie made in the last twenty years shows at least one or a dozen scenes of a car flipping through the air like a fat, clunky gymnast. You can usually spot these scenes in the trailers. Sometimes it’s flipping as the result of an explosion. Sometimes it’s flipping because someone punched it. Most of the time the car is flipping because the writers gave up.

The first few times we saw car flipping scenes, way back in the early X-men and Spider-Man movies, it was a cool trick and an easy way to show the audience the power and severity of the situation. If cars were flipping, that meant something strong and dangerous was happening. Ooooh!

But if you put flipping cars in every single movie, the audience will become numb to the effect. A car tumbling through the air doesn’t mean anything anymore. We’ve seen it. Hollywood is acting like a magician who keeps pulling a quarter from our ears. Enough. We get it. Move on. Go flip something else, like a zeppelin or house boat.

Step Two: No More Origin Stories
Everyone knows that Superman comes from the planet Krypton, Spider-Man was bitten by a radioactive spider, and Batman is sad. There is no need for the movies to keep reminding us of these facts. There are reboots (don’t you just hate that word) of Superman and Spider-Man in the works and Batman is set for another reboot as soon as Christopher Nolan wraps up his trilogy. We’re not kidding. This is happening. Hollywood is so scared and desperate that they think rebooting the heroes is the only way to make money. And with each reboot comes another unnecessary re-telling of the origin. Maybe the second take on Spider-Man will be successful, but we were too busy yawning through the teaser trailer to be excited. (Count the car flips. It will help keep you awake.)

Superhero movies should literally cut to chase and show us tons of action. No one ever said, “Wow. I’m glad the filmmakers gave us over an hour of footage showing how Superman deals with relationships and only five minutes of heroics.” No one!

The trailer for the upcoming Avengers movie was released this week, and on one hand, we’re glad all the origin crap is out of the way. On the other hand…more flipping cars.

Step Three: Kill ‘Em Till They’re Dead
Instead of showing the origin of the heroes, show us their finales. Show us how they die. Show us how the story of Batman or Superman or even Captain America ends. Comic books do this from time to time in one-off books set in alternate timelines and universes, and it’s a great way to explore new stories with a familiar character.

Of course, no one in Hollywood will ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever let this happen. We will never see Spider-Man’s last story as an elderly web slinger who faces a villain for the one last battle. And on the off chance that Hollywood is brave enough to kill a major comic book character in a movie, the movie will end with sly wink and smile with someone screaming, “Ha-ha! Just kidding, folks! Come back in two years when we will show you this same movie again but with different, younger actors. 3D is a good thing.”

Step Four: Back the Camera Up
One of the few problems with The Dark Knight is the lack of clarity during the action sequences. The camera angle in this, and most superhero movies, is always too close and cuts away too fast. The result is dizzying, but fails to show you exactly what happened. This isn’t the case in actual comic books, where the reader can stare at each panel to understand and follow the sequence.

Instead of using the hyper-kinetic style, step away and show the action from a wide-shot. And let the camera roll. No more quick cuts. No 0.003 second close-ups of men gritting their teeth. And no flipping cars.

For an example of wide, single shot technique, watch the hallway fight scene in Oldboy, or the climatic fight in Unbreakable. And use wizard lightning to erase any memory you have of the “action” scenes from the Transformers movies.

Step Five: Watch Unbreakable
The Sixth Sense is a pile of lobster poop next to M. Night Shyamalan masterpiece, Unbreakable. It’s a quiet movie, and if you have the attention span of a gerbil then it will make you kick something, but it’s brilliant. As stated in Step Four, pay close attention to the battle between the hero and the psychotic murderer in the bedroom. It’s simple. It’s rough. There are no flipping cars. Instead we watch a hero grapple with a lunatic. And in this short bit of action, we feel more tension and exhilaration than in the entirety of Iron Man 2.

We know movie makers can make buildings go boom and fire rockets the size of Texas at a monster the size of two Texases. That doesn’t mean a movie must include those scenes. The audience is suffering from special effects fatigue. All the fancy ‘splosions and fireworks are washing over our bored faces. Like the flipping car, we’re tired of it.

Instead, calm the hell down. Make the action personal and give it meaning. There’s a scene in X-men: First Class in which a group of evil mutants attacks a government facility. There is a lot of running and jumping, and people screaming, “Get down!” But what the hell does any of that mean? Why were the bad guys attacking in the first place?

Answer: Because it looked cool.

But did it? Sure the teleporting guy was kind of cool, but that effect and mutant power was better served two films ago in X-Men 2 with the likeable Nightcrawler. Now the filmmakers are just doing it because…eh, it beats writing a good story.

Unbreakable only has one action scene, and it’s over in a matter of minutes, but it serves a purpose to the story. Not all superhero movies need to be as slow and deliberate as Unbreakable, but directors and writers could learn a lot by watching it. Unrelated: You should also watch Jaws, just because Jaws is awesome!

Step Six: Quick Notes
Use only one villain. Have super-powered women that are not just sex kittens in booty suits. Take risks. No more 3-D. Make better theme music. (Superman’s theme is a classic, but can you honestly tell us what the Green Lantern’s or even Spider-Man’s theme sounds like?) Get weird. Get funny. Have fun. Use characters no one has ever heard of and make these characters awesome. Stop copying other superhero movies (unless it’s Unbreakable). Make a SparkNotes superhero, who has the power to fly but only when no one is looking. (The hero is a tad shy.)

What should the SparkNotes superhero be called? I vote for “Lit Wit: The Wonder of the Skies.” Or, “Buckets: The Oddly Named SparkNotes Superhero.”

Hollywood, please call us with any questions or concerns. Thank you.

Who's your favorite superhero? Who should be the SparkNotes superhero?

Related post: How To Become a Superhero in 4 Easy Steps