2011 Superhero Movies Review

Now that the dust has settled, 2011 superhero movies can now be officially critiqued and graded.   It was a momentous summer for some of the lesser-known superheroes who finally got their own movie.  Let’s face it: Superman and Batman have had their time to shine  (and will for years tocome), but some of the other great superheroes received due attention in 2011 superhero movies.

Some quick notes about the 2011 superhero movies you might find interesting:

• In 2011, two star actors portrayed the second superhero of their respective careers.  Chris Evans helped Captain America gain some respect after playing the fun-loving Johnny Storm in Marvel’s Fantastic Four movies.  Ryan Reynolds gave Green Lantern its box office success this summer as Hal Jordan (a DC Comics character), previously playing as Wade Wilson’s Deadpool (a Marvel character) in X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  Some would also count Hugo Weaving, who mastered the part of the Red Skull, in that group, since he played V in V for Vendetta.
• Notable characters who reprised their roles in 2011 superhero movies: Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, and Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson.
• It was the biggest year for superhero films overall (five mainstream films) ever, and the most produced by Marvel in one calendar year (three).

Best Actor – It’s tough to give out an award for this category, since so much goes into the portrayal of superheroes, villains, and supporting characters.  When it comes to likeability, most people would dub Ryan Reynolds as the sure winner, due to his exceptional humor and personality. It would also be easy to crown Sir Anthony Hopkins (Odin in Thor) the champion, because let’s face it: does he ever do a poor acting job?  Tommy Lee Jones caught everyone by surprise when he made an outstanding character out of Colonel Phillips (The First Avenger).  But of all these talented actors, the most impressive was Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of Erik Lensherr, also known as Magneto (X-Men: First Class).

It takes a special person to be able to give an accurate representation of a character in a younger stage after someone has already portrayed the character in three movies previous.  Fassbender gave us an interesting look at what Magneto was like before he turned “bad,” and he didn’t stray from the black-and-white persona that Ian McKellan solidifed in the X-Men trilogy.

Best Movie – Once again, there is bias when determining an outright winner for the best of the 2011 superhero movies, and factoring in the acting and directing talent, the storyline, special effects, and everything else, makes it quite the task.  Thor was especially exciting because it was the first movie to connect to the Iron Man movies’ timeline and move us closer to an Avengers film.  Green Lantern had unprecedented special effects which were not even in existence up until recently.  Captain America made us believe that a superhero could actually fight for one country, and gave hope to those of us who sometime feel unimportant in life.  Seth Rogen gave us a taste of… well, not what we remember the Green Hornet as… but at least it was unique.  That being said, X-Men: First Class did something that no other movie did — it took us back to the beginning.  Sure, the other three big movies showed us how each respective superhero got their start, but none of them had four other movies to mold a story around like this one did.

First Class had everything you could hope for in a superhero movie: action, humor, a great story (despite the timeline problems with the other X-Men movies), good acting, a fantastic soundtrack, and best of all, a ton of mutant powers!  Like Fassbender, James McAvoy did justice to his respective predecessor’s characterization, and Kevin Bacon pulled off a pretty good villain, too.  The story of how Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr met, and how their friendship broke, is one you definitely need to see if you have any interest in X-Men at all.

Best Soundtrack – Not counting Patrick Doyle (Thor), all the composers for 2011 superhero movies are quite established in the Hollywood community.  James Newton Howard scored the music for both Green Hornet and Green Lantern.  Alan Silvestri had either the toughest or the easiest job by scoring a movie that needed music that was both patriotic and triumphant, but also not too cheesy.  However, in what might be called his most successful project yet, Henry Jackman’s score for First Class stood out, making this fifth X-Men movie run the table in our three categories.  He combines the classical sound of strings and brass with more modern rock elements of guitar and drums.  Jackman based the sound off of John Barry’s legendary James Bond scores.  Since hardly anyone cares about the soundtracks as much as I, any more analysis would be pointless.

So what did you think of the 2011 superhero movies?  Give us your opinion by commenting below!

Jack Stewart is a writer for Superhero Legacy