Perhaps people may argue that we started too early with Thor (May, in UK) or that we had not fully defined, as a cinema, a summer status, but this year has yet to really show its teeth. With two noticeable departures.
Pirates of the Caribbean - On Stanger Tides (2011)
Thor (2011)
Perhaps there's something in the water at the minute, or we are simply in a mode of nostalgia, but the world seems to be content to live in its past glories.
Whether this is Marvel films, now free from its shackles and developing superhero epics similar to Spiderman's ten years ago, or Thor, the new breed, born of the renegade director, much as Hollywood cinema gave birth to the renegades of Bay et al in the 90s.
What to think of with all this? Where all the proper films? Well, the first idea to establish is that, like it or not, these ARE the proper films of the Summer, and for goodness sake, suck it up - they are enjoyable. Obviously, Christopher Nolan is being watched hawkishly on his take on the concept, but one must not forget that, 3D or not, Superheroes are designed to bring the world happiness, joy, the concepts that we somehow cannot forge on our own advances.
Long live the superhero genre, as long as it taps into what we need to survive.
