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Its summer movie season and that means Hollywood cranks out all the stuff that they think will bring in the big bucks. I heard on television that 40% of the money that the movie studios make in a year comes from the movies released in the months of May through the end of August.
Now that I have bored you with yet another useless fact, I wanted to get to the heart of this article. That is the tone of the modern DC movies (Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy) versus the tone of the modern Marvel (Iron Man) movies. This stems from when my younger brother came back from work one day last month and said that the new Superman movie is going to be dark in tone. This is not news to me because I have looked at the modern DC movies that have been released and other than Green Lantern, they have all been very dark in tone. All three of the new Batman movies were just so dark and depressing that I did not go see any of them in the theater. If any of the movies are being run on cable then I might stop down and watch them, but it's not like I actively seek out the time to watch them. I mean Heath Ledger died after making the second movie and some people chalk it up to him being unable to separate himself from the Joker character that he played in the movie. My opinion on the matter of Mister Ledger's death is for another article and another time. When the Batman movies were being released, I really did not have any drive in me to go see them. I mean if I had a girlfriend and she wanted to see it I would have gone, but I did not. From what I have seen of the snippets that have been shown on television, in movie previews and the little bit I saw when it was run on a cable channel earlier in the year; there's all sorts of death and destruction in the Batman movies that seems so unnecessary. It seems so contrary to the Batman comic books that I have read over my past thirty plus years on the planet. I grew up in a time where Batman was more of a detective and crime fighter than a dark angst filled character with issues. That is why I enjoyed the New 52 re-launches of Batman and Detective comics.
On the other hand, we have Marvel's Iron Man trilogy whose latest installment was released early last month. When I heard way back when (2005 or so) that there was going to be an Iron Man movie coming out, I wanted to go see it so bad, but never had the drive to go the theaters and see it. Iron Man was always one of those super heroes I always wanted to be as a kid. I mean he was not bitten by a radioactive spider, exposed to a gamma bomb, hit with intergalactic rays, a thunder God, or born that way. He was pretty much able to maintain a normal life because his powers were not 'on' all the time. He could "Suit Up!" go out and save the world and be back to have lunch with whatever date of the week was lined up. The only thing was that early on he pretty much had to be near a power outlet to charge up to keep his heart beating. That was taken care of by the creation of the Arc Reactor in the first Iron Man movie.
The first two movies of the franchise that I have seen on cable were just a blast to watch. When Tony Stark comes out to the world in the first Iron Man movie and basically says "Hey I'm Iron Man" that was when I knew I saw a movie that I liked. Also seeing Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark at the beginning of the movie boozing it up all the time like in his early comic appearances I knew the writer really knew his stuff about the character and writing him. I was just wondering why they waited until movie three of the Iron Man series to introduce The Mandarin. I did have my reservations about Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark, but going into The Avengers movie last year and seeing the swagger that he brought to the role of Tony Stark I knew they had made the right call.
Unless DC can find some way to lighten up their movies, I'm not going to see any of them. I am hoping that when my nephew gets older, I can show him the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies because they are so much fun. On the other hand, I feel that the Nolan Batman movies and the new Superman movie are just not going to be cut out for an audience that might include tweens or early teens who their parents think "It's Superman; how bad could it be?" because they are thinking of the Superman of the original Superman movies they saw when they were young, and not this new vision for him.
I've already had enough depressing stuff happen to me and I've seen too much happen to this world that we don't need more. Movies should be about escape. Whether it is 'The Great Gatsby', 'Star Trek: Into Darkness' or another movie that is due out this time of year; they should be fun to watch and leave you thinking 'I had a good time' when you walk out of the theater. At least that is something I believe in and hope others will do the same.
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