As you all know, the Justice League movie was released a couple of weeks ago and it is the last superhero movie this year. So now let’s have a review of this year’s superhero movies. In total we have six, they are Logan, Wonder Woman, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League listed in the timeline. Among these six films, four of them are produced by Marvel studio and other two are from Detective Comics. As a cinephile, I watched five of them in the cinema except for the Guardians of Galaxy 2 for that I did not watch the previous one and don’t want to skip it. The following rank only represents my personal opinions based on the watching experiences and means no offense to these amazing works.
1. Logan
Logan is the only movie, not superhero specifically, that makes me cry even after the credits scrolled. As a spectator, it breaks my heart to see a strong hero becoming old and powerless. I knew this point will come sooner or later from the beginning when Logan was beaten down by a few street punks. The Wolverine that can travel space-time and be harmless no longer exists while his healing power is losing.
In the end of the film, Logan, almost incapacitated, injects hormones that might kill him to protect his daughter and younger generations of mutants. Time has changed his appearance, character, body and even his power, but has never affected the adherence to his own faith. My tears started to drop when Laura put Logan’s tombstone into the symbol of X.
The hero never dies as pain and years never hit a real warrior down. Logan is already beyond a definition of a simple superhero film. The last time I had such a strong emotional reaction to a superhero film was Batman.
2. Wonder Woman
Finally, we have a personal superhero film about a heroine. It is the first female-led superhero film in more than a decade, and it is the first to be directed by a woman with Patty Jenkins at the helm.Wonder Woman is such a milestone that broke a superhero ceiling while it should not exist anymore.
A long time ago we have Black Widow and Scarlet Witch from neighboring Marvel and now Wonder Woman is enough to play a draw in terms of appearance and power. DC made a right decision in making Wonder Woman now. Gal Gadot utterly matches the image of Diana Prince in my mind like a stark and sharp sword that combines innocence and justice together. With Jenkins’s depiction and unique angle of women, I feel every tiny change of Diana’s emotions, her happiness and love during the snowy dance with Steve and the heartbreak when she lost him.
The debut success that Wonder Woman achieves will help abandon the opinion within the film industry that people do not see a movie entirely about women. Hopefully, it will offer more opportunities for female filmmakers to have a seat at the table and to lead further tentpole projects.
3. Thor: Ragnarok
I went to watch this film twice and laughed my head off every time. The previous two films have oil painting frames to tell the epic story of gods as the former directors whose past work was related to Shakespeare. However, this time Marvel invited New Zealand film director, Taika Waititi, for a change of style and it succeeded. The punchlines created to be funny do not affect the whole story whereas promoting the development of the plot.
What I have to say is Marvel finally creates a villain successfully. Even though Marvel has produced a slew of films with high box office, some shortcomings are being repeatedly criticized.In MCU, the abilities of villainous characters do not evenly match with the ones of protagonists. The antagonists normally cannot fight more than two rounds with the heroes and use tricks to alienate heroes. Compared of Joker and Lex Luthor from DC, Marvel did terrible at shaping a charming villain that makes the audience love and hate at the same time. But now we have Hela, Asgardian goddess of death, who can easily smash the hammer of Thor.
4. Spider-Man: Homecoming
I put Spider-Man: Homecoming in the fourth place, not because it is not as good as the top three but for that, I didn’t get the chance to watch it in the theatre. When I was in China it had not been released and when I arrived in the United States it has been pulled out. So I watched it online and it surprised me in lots of aspects.
As every fan of Marvel knows, Spider-Man: Homecoming is thefirst personal film after Spiderman has returned to MCU. Before this, we have two versions of Spiderman—Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. They both have shining points but weaknesses as well. I am not denying their acting skills.
Personally speaking, the Spiderman cast by Tobey Maguire was a classic but did not show the characteristics depicted in the comic books. The version of Andrew Garfield shaped a quite accurate character but they shouldn’t reappear the death of Gwen Stacy. I believe it broke the heart of every audience like mine.
However, the characteristic of Spiderman shown by Tom Holland this time is most close to the comic and makes up the past regrets in the meantime. For example, Peter Parker finally saved the beloved girl from falling. Also, he is not fighting alone against the evil force. He has friends from school club and Iron Man always holds his back. I would say Spider-Man: Homecoming is wonderful as it not only fulfills the fans’ appetite but also satisfies the audiences who are loyal to the previous versions. Tom Holland is in line with the Spider-Man's image of my heart.
One fun fact: Tom is a London-born actor and in order to interpret American high school life of Peter Parker, Marvel actually sent him to go undercover and to have an authentic experience in the Bronx High School of Science located in New York. One day Tom asked a girl sat next to her whether she knew about Marvel films and told her that he was actually the one cast Spiderman. Guess what? The girl didn’t believe him at all and laughed at her. I bet the girl is regretful when she watched Spider-Man: Homecoming.
5. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
I'll just leave it blank as I haven’t finished watching it.
6. Justice League
To be honest, I did not like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) but I know it is the foundation of the upcoming Justice League. So I forgave the poor method of storytelling and when I finished watching Justice League, I feel disappointed about it, maybe because I was holding a high expectation about the co-starring of Wonder Woman, the Flash, Superman and, Batman.
I have to say that this film has the most obvious defect which I found in Suicide Squad as well. Every main character has his own background story that has to be told in order to explain the superpower and personality. The Justice League and Suicide Squad do achieve it but make the audience feel confused as the whole speeds of them are not controlled correctly.
Take one part in Justice League, the resurrection of Superman, as an example, it should be a breathtaking moment for the fans of Superman and it deserves to be described in details. But the film only takes about ten minutes after they dig the body of Superman out of his grave. The failure of box office has already reflected the reaction of the audience. All I can hope now is the cut version of the director, Zack Snyder can tell more details about the whole story.
The above is the review and ranking of the superhero films this year. If you hold different opinions with mine, feel free to leave a comment below and tell me about rankings in your heart!
