Writing in the May issue of Vanity Fair, James Wolcott says he’s had enough. Running through the list of impending/current comic book superhero flicks — “Thor,” “X-Men: First Class,” “Captain America: The First Avenger,” “The Avengers,” “Iron Man 3,” “Green Lantern,” another Superman reboot, ditto another 
Batman, and on and on — he finds his enthusiasm waning. None of these movies are fun anymore, he says: “The more ambitious ones aren’t meant to be much fun, apart from a finely crafted quip surgically inserted here and there to defuse the tension of everybody standing around butt-clenched and battle-ready. ... The superhero genre is an American creation, like jazz and stripper poles, exemplifying American ideals, American know-how, and American might, a mating of magical thinking and the right stuff. But in the new millennium no amount of nationally puffing ourselves up can disguised the entropy and molt. ... Since Vietnam, whatever the bravery and sacrifice of those in uniform, America’s superpower might hasn’t been up to much worthy of chest-swelling, chain-snapping pride (invading a third-rate military matchstick house such as Iraq is hardly the stuff of Homeric legend). ... The movie that mirrors this post-millennial letdown isn’t a movie at all but Julie Taymor’s Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark,” savaged and mocked for months by just about everyone with Internet access. ... The haphazard storytelling of the musical muddled Taymor’s vision-idea, but at least there was an idea here to muddle, which is more than most superhero movies have.”
It’s been a few years since I’ve seen one of these epics, but judging from the last Batman movie I saw, the genre is distinguished by loud noise and exploding visuals, not ideas.
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