I was watching SPidey 3, and I realized it wasn’t a superhero movie at all. It’s a very good movie, but I realized many reviewers were rating it low because it had “too much story” for one movie.
Except the villains, as such, aren’t really the center of the story. They’re actually almost totally peripheral to it. The real meat of it is about the relationships between three people, which is almost, but not quire, a love triangle. It’s also about the choices we make and the grudges we hold, and our ability to let go of it. What it isn’t about it Spiderman beating up the bad guys. Superhero battles are in there, and they’re important, but more to move the plot along than to excite the audience.
I think you’re begging the question with your subject.
Where is it written that superhero movies can’t have a little depth?
Batman Begins, Superman Returns, I think these are good developments in the genre - emphasing the psychology of the hero and basically being more thoughtful expositions on what constitutes heroism and character, on top of the standard “knock the bad-guys down” approach that we’ve seen so much over the last seventy years or so.
I haven’t seen Spidey 3 yet, but what I liked about the first two was that the character was fairly well-developed. (I don’t mean he looked good in his costume.)
If Spider-Man 3 wasn’t a superhero movie, than Spider-Man the comic isn’t a superhero comic.
Superheroes have long grappled with personal problems (both down-to-earth and over-the-top) and allegorical issues. In fact, Spider-Man’s entire popularity as a comic character is based in that he faces more real problems than Superman or Batman. Batman never has to worry about paying the rent. Superman’s clashes with Lois are a step further removed from reality than Peter’s issues with MJ, Gwen, etc.
The superhero genre is broader and deeper than you think it is.
There are superhero stories that are just about people with superpowers beating each other up. There are superhero stories that explore more esoteric elements of the genre - the nature of good and evil, the powers as a concept, and so on. But there are also superhero stories that deal with the heroes, the villains, and the supporting casts, as PEOPLE.
Spider-Man has always, from the moment Stan Lee came up with the idea, been one of the last group.
Spider-Man has always been about choices made and the consequences thereof. It’s always been about his relationships - romance, family, friends, rivals, and out and out enemies - both as Spider-Man and Peter Parker, and how they effect him, and how he effects them.
I remember similar discussions about the Hulk. Many critics really liked it for much the same reasons articulated in the OP, but many viewers didn’t for the same reasons. Interesting.
I was thinking the same thing. HULK was almost totally not about, well, the Hulk, except in a conceptual sense. Even the scenes with Hulk in them weren’t really about the Hulk.
