Superhero Backlash?

With the exception of Roger Ebert, Hancock has been universally panned.  I’ve read quite a few reviews and they all say the same thing; the main character is unlikeable, the plot has too many holes in it, etc., etc. (ironically many critics said the same thing about Wanted, yet they all loved that movie).  Is this a back lash against  superhero movies in general?  After all we’ve had  Iron Man,  The Incredible Hulk and Indiana Jones (he may not wear tights but Indy is a superhero nonetheless), with a new Hellboy and Batman movie still to come.   Personally I don’t think it is a superhero backlash myself.  It feels more like a Will Smith backlash on the part of many critics.  Why would critics be anti Will Smith you ask.  Well, he is one of the few people to come to the defense of Tom Cruise on his bizarre behavior and overly forceful advocation of Scientology, which had brought about a backlash on Cruise and this could have spilled over onto Smith.  Of course that might be reading too much into it.  It could just be that many critics are tired of every movie Will Smith makes going to Number 1 in it’s first week.  Or maybe I’m just not in tuned with what makes a good film and Hancock really is as mediocre as they claim.  Whatever the reason, it didn’t affect the box office as I and millions of other movie goers pushed the film to the top spot last weekend.  After all, it’s not the Fourth of July any more without a Big Willie Weekend.

1 Comment so far »

  1.  

    Neal said

    July 9 2008 @ 8:57 am

    A Will Smith movie is critic-proof, which I think fuels the ire of the critics even more. Burt Reynolds went through the same thing 25-plus years ago (although Burt’s movies usually deserved panning more so than Will’s). I haven’t seen the movie, but the main criticism I saw was that Hancock falls apart at the end. Not uncommon for most commercial films nowadays. The studios are so fixated on the concept and how they can sell it that they don’t care whether or not the story is any good. Oh well…nobody claimed it was Laurence of Arabia.

Comment RSS · TrackBack URI

Leave a comment

Name: (Required)

eMail: (Required)

Website:

Comment:

 
ss_blog_claim=b5a1e6409f3026c072bdf54929ffbeeb