Having been the undisputed kings of the world for a decade or so, comic book movies have had an up and down time since 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Avengers: Endgame broke every box office record in the book in 2019. But 2024 has been a bizarre year for a genre that has not had a normal year so far this decade, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Joker: Folie a Deux is the latest example. Let's start with a💎 brief history.

2020's three attempts around the pandemic (Birds of Prey, The New Mutants, and Wonder Woman 1984) all struggled, with the latter two failing to even make back their budgets. In 2021 168𒊎澳洲幸运5开奖网:S𝓡pider-Man: No Way Home was a major success, but its 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:cameo fest has aged poorly now that the excitement has worn off. Marvel’s other post-pandemic movies of 2021 struggled to 🀅last long in the memory as TV shows confused things.

Across the pond at DC, The Suicide Squad showed a firm identity for what woulඣd prove to be DC's futur✃e, but Zack Synder's Justice League also clung to DC's past. Venom: Let There Be Carnage, a non-MCU Marvel movie, existed. In doing so, it has been the only live-action Sony movie worth caring about.

Comic Book Movies Have Been Up And Down Since Endgame

DC might have had the best comic book movie since Endgame in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Batman, but through Black Adam and Shazam: Fury of the Gods (who did not meet, despite that being ♛Black Adam's whole deal), as well as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom and The Flash, it has missed almost every other shot it has taken. Sony has a similar tale, succeeding with Across the Spider-Verse but leaving much to be desired with Morbius.

Marvel meanwhile had its finest hour be♎tween Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, both with the stamp of a director's voice clear for all to see, although the folly of this was shown through Thor: Love & Thunder. Elsewhere in the MCU, The Marvels and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania had very little going on besides being connective tissue to a story no one has watched enough TV shows to keep up with.

2024 Is Part Of A Long Comic Book Movie Trend

In 2024, we have an expected🦩 success that still surpassed expectations (Deadpool & Wolverine), a surprise failure (Joker: Folie A Deux), and an expected failure that still surpassed expectations by failing even more than we thought (Madame Web). Waiting in the wings we have Venom: The Last Dance and Kraven the Hunter. Venom ཧwill likely do as the previous Venom movies did and be uniquely a weird Venom movie that nothing can really replicate, and unfortunately, Kraven will probably follow its cousins Morbius and Madame Web in tanking.

But Deadpool and Joker both teach us lessons. Probably the wrong lessons that will make movies worse, so you know, hooray for that. Deadpool & Wolverine was a billion dollar hit, and I don't begrudge anyone who had a good time watchiꦐng it. I thought the plot was a little dull, some jokes a little one note, and Wolverine's backstory was too shallow for the supreme acting Hugh Jackman delivered. But, it was fun, and that was all it aimed to do.

There's nothing wrong with a movie just being fun, but my issue was Deadpool & Wolverine seemed fun by committee. Disney signed off on those Disney jokes, which not only makes them less fun when we all know that, but leads to neutered writing. Not even Deadpool & Wolverine's biggest fans can say much more about it than it being a good, turn your brain off romp, and I don't want movies that ask me to tu🌊rn my br♑ain off, especially when my lobotomised self is then fed 📖cameo goo.

At Least Joker: Folie A Deux Tries

Deadpool & Wolverine, like Spider-Man: No Way Home, made a lot of money playing a simple trick. But it can only be played so many times, and while we will see studios chase that dragon now regular superhero movies have proven inconsistent, the high will hit a 🔯little less each time. I'd much rather a movi♋e that did something more interesting with the comic book formula. I'd much rather see a movie like Joker.

Culturally, we're extremely weird about Joker. Yes, he is a violent criminal and a largely p🍸athetic figure. And yes, some people have taken being inspired by or relating to Joker way too far, using it as a mask to simply be horrible people or channel their rage towards women. But the idea that people might relate to an overlooked, downtrodden, lonely figure should not be alien to us. While all those who actively dress up as Joker to harass people are obviously in the wrong, I've never been entirely comfoꦑrtable with the idea that men who feel lonely and lost in life are inherently comedy figures to the rest of us.

Joker is based on The King of Comedy, which does a better job of framing this messaging. It's no surprise that without this structure behind it,𒁃 Folie a Deux is much worse.

I don't think Joker: Folie a Deux is a humiliation ritual because the wrong people liked the first one. But I do think it's a bad movie. The courtroom drama is dull, and while the Gary Puddles testimony and cross examination is a rare high point for the film, everything afterwards gets worse and worse, taking the movie from being dull into actively being bad. I think our cultural weirdness towards Joker, especially Todd Phillips' version, has blinded us to the fact that (implied) violent sexual assault followed immediately by a change of character for the better - a change that the incident outside of Joker's c💖ell could have facilitated alone - is an extremely nasty plot point.

I did not like Joker: Folie a Deux but I would still rather 🍨watch more movies like it than Deadpool & Wolverine, despite preferring the latter and undeཧrstanding it was a much larger success. But Folie a Deux is trying to be something, and while it is a wild swing and a total miss, that is always a better path to tread than Deadpool & Wolverine's successful attempts to be nothing.