#MOVIES THAT SUBVERT EXPECTATIONS MOVIE#

While superhero films may have a love subplot, the idea of using the genre as a plot device for a romance is quite daring. In this case, Griff’s ‘superpower’ of invisibility is used to highlight his isolation. Superpowers have frequently been used to emphasise or illustrate characterisation. His only means of escape is disappearing into a world where he is a superhero who fights crime and protects the innocent.įord effectively takes certain genre tropes of the superhero film and applies them to the character of Griff, emphasising his loneliness and setting up his relationship with the socially anxious Melody. Ryan Kwanten’s Griff is a socially awkward office worker frequently victim to bullying.

#MOVIES THAT SUBVERT EXPECTATIONS MOVIE#

While successful heroes, such as Captain Amazing, are able to use their identity for marketing (seen with his superhero suit covered in slogans and advertising), the underappreciated heroes select an identity which they clearly feel best suits them, even if it is quite ridiculous.Īrguably, Leon Ford’s feature directorial debut is not a superhero movie as it is a romantic comedy about a mentally ill man. What makes Mystery Men so underrated is its attempt to reclaim the nobility of the marginalised individual.

A hero named Captain Amazing kidnapped by a supervillain called Casanova Frankenstein is clearly tongue in cheek, especially when a group of second rate superheroes including Mr Furious, The Shoveler, Blue Raja, Invisible Boy, The Spleen and The Bowler, team up to save the day. The characters were all over the top spoofs of themselves. Since many comic tropes were not that familiar to audiences in the 1990’s, the filmmakers instead focused on goofball comedy and light-hearted laughs. However, nearly 20 years later and the film can be considered quite contextual, especially in the age of the Avenges and the Justice League. Essentially, this was a parody that had nothing to parody. Studios had died down following the disasters of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and Batman & Robin (1997) and Marvel Comics had not yet found success with X-Men (2000) and Spider-Man (2002). The initial success of DC Comics at Warner Bros. Mystery Men was a film released ahead of its time. However, the genre’s familiarity has already lead to a number of films that not only mock the genre but also use it to make a artistic or political point. While Steven Spielberg may have dismissed the recent Golden Age of superhero cinema, stating that it would go the way of the Western, the recent success of both Marvel and DC adaptations shows that the genre’s success will not be disappearing anytime soon.

But some of these films do not just mock the genre tropes they also use the genre as a means of addressing themes and issues that impact the real world. However, whenever a genre or concept succeeds, farce, parody and satire are never far behind.

These individuals were usually blessed with abilities, skills or wealth that allowed them to battle a great evil, usually in the form of a criminal with their own exaggerated identity. The superhero genre, however, also appealed to a younger generation of readers, with stories of unassuming heroes, usually marginalised in their lives, who assume the identity of a superhero.

The recent success in comic book films has been compared to the success of the early Western, both genres that told simple tales of good versus evil. So prevalent and successful this was that in recent years, several publishers have set up their own production companies, such as Marvel and DC. Since the turn of the century, studios have been desperate to acquire the intellectual property of comic book writers, especially superheroes, and transfer them to the big screen. You would have to be living under rock to not believe that the superhero genre is currently going through a golden age.

Movies that subvert expectations