3) Don’t Forget The Villains
They say a hero is only as good as his/her villain, but the superhero movies of 2016 definitely under-delivered in the bad guy department. To be fair, two of these movies were mostly devoted to the conflict between the heroes themselves, but the rest of them don’t have that excuse.
Though terrific actors like Oscar Isaac and Mads Mikkelsen were contracted, they were given little to do. Doctor Strange gave us the typical reverse-of-the-hero with rogue Master of the Mystic Arts Kaecilius, while Deadpool at least lampshaded its stereotypical bad guy by crediting Ed Skein as “British villain” in its fun opening credits sequence. Meanwhile, you would expect Suicide Squad, a film all about supervillains, to produce a strong antagonist for them to face. Instead, we got a scantily-clad Cara Delevigne and her rubbish CGI demon brother.
[zergpaid]Apocalypse is perhaps the most disappointing. One of the coolest X-Men antagonists in the comics was reduced to a Power Rangers villain with a predilection for face painting. The best villain of the year was definitely Civil War’s Zemo, but even then, we could have done with a bit more from him.
The common problem here is that, in each case, the villain is an afterthought. This is best shown in Lex Luthor from BvS. Whatever you think of Jesse Eisenberg’s Riddler-esque take on the character, his nonsensical plan had clearly not been thought through at any stage of the filmmaking process. The same goes for his non-existent motivation. A problem shared by most of the villains in the rest of 2016’s comic book films.
In the future, we’d love for Marvel and DC to remember that a good threat is a key element in making an exciting superhero movie.