Just Stop Already! Issue #5: Making Every Blockbuster Funny

 

Just Stop Already!

 

Movies are a great art form, but Hollywood is a business, so if something translates into a financial success—whether it’s a genre or type of movie or a trend—chances are it will be exploited and repeated until people are sick of it. But, sometimes producers, writers, and/or directors want to cut corners, or are just desperate to make money, or are creatively bankrupt. All of these factors result in frustrations for the audience that take on many forms, and in this series I explore some of the tropes, trends, bad habits, and financial exploits of Hollywood films. Sometimes when it comes to movies, I feel like saying…just stop already!

 

Issue #5: Making Every Blockbuster "Funny"

Is comedy dead? Apparently not, because if you watch any mainstream blockbuster movie made in the past decade, it will be chocked full of jokes, gags, and intentionally funny moments. Maybe as its own genre it is dead, and some creators, actors, and comedians cite various reasons as to why this is, but one big reason is because no one wants to go out to a movie theater anymore to see a movie branded as just a comedy. A visually exciting movie is often the only thing that will draw reluctant viewers from their homes these days, but there used to be a time when not every movie of this type came off like it was trying to be hilarious—and I mean really trying hard.

Humour has been an element of great blockbusters since the very beginning. Jaws, Star Wars, and Indiana Jones, just to name three of the earliest examples, all have witty lines and characters who will make you laugh multiple times. One is a horror/thriller and one is a space opera and one is an action/adventure. None of them are comedies, but all of them are made more enjoyable with their small doses of comedy. Most importantly, the funny bits are not distracting. They are a garnish on an otherwise already delicious visual feast.

Why do so many movies include forced humour now? There’s actually a very simple, one word explanation: Marvel. In the 1990s and early 2000s, blockbusters underwent a revolution because of the developments in computer technology. Films like Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Jurassic Park, and the Lord of the Rings trilogy turned the tide as far as how big special-effects-heavy movies were made and what was possible within those kinds of movies. Computer generated imagery became more and more prevalent, bigger and more ambitious digital creations became possible, and the realism achievable with those creations kept going up. One genre that had been somewhat hampered by limits in technology before this revolution was the superhero genre.

Marvel Studios took a gamble and produced a film based on the non-mainstream hero Iron Man in 2008, which ended up being a hit largely thanks to Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of Tony Stark/Iron Man. Director Jon Favreau made the movie in a very improvisational style, which allowed RDJ to really bring his comedic skill to the role. Iron Man has some very funny lines, amusing moments, and intentionally laugh-out-loud situations. The movie was a hit, and as it worked out, another Marvel movie went into production not long after Iron Man’s release about a superhero who had never had a mainstream film role before, either. Thor came out in 2011, and instead of taking the material too seriously, it was played up mostly for laughs. Whether or not that’s what translated to the film being a hit is debatable, but clearly Marvel took note that this comedic approach worked, and I can understand why.

Many of the Marvel superheroes are, admittedly, goofy by design. The comic books that serve as inspiration for the films are often full of puns, outlandish ideas, and silly action. Thor was already out by the time Marvel Studios had hired Joss Whedon to co-write and direct The Avengers, an ambitious crossover between Iron Man, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, and Captain America, with a few more heroes thrown in for good measure. The Avengers is really what laid the foundation for the Marvel formula, and this idea that a funny blockbuster was more likely to be a successful one. The Avengers was a massive hit, and it was undeniably hilarious at many moments throughout, with a through line of sarcastic wit and a steady supply of quippy lines from many characters. The immediate Marvel follow-up was Iron Man 3, helmed by Shane Black, who had established himself many years prior as a guy who could make a funny action movie, so it was a no brainer hiring him. Even though the third Iron Man isn’t remembered as fondly now as the first film or The Avengers, it’s easy to forget that it, too, made well over a billion dollars, which was a big deal after The Avengers had broken box office records only a year earlier.

So the Marvel Cinematic Universe formula was set: lots of action, lots of jokes, and lots of memorable funny parts. Is the MCU the sole set of films to blame though for this trend of every blockbuster trying to be a comedy and an action film? I believe there were other earlier successes that also contributed. The aforementioned Lord of the Rings trilogy is notable for inserting some much needed humour into the adaptations of three novels that were sorely lacking levity to begin with. I haven’t read Lord of the Rings myself, but from what I understand, most of the jokes and comedic bits and lighthearted moments were not adapted from the source material. The production of those movies was a huge risk that paid off in spades. They won numerous awards, made a ton of money, and have been defining pieces of pop culture ever since they came out in the early 2000s. Studio executives correctly deduced that the films would not have been as successful had they been lacking that humour.

Another early 2000s blockbuster success that brought humour into a movie primarily categorized as adventure, action, and fantasy, was the film based on the Disney ride, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It was full of witty lines of dialogue, intentionally surprising moments that prompted laughter, and most importantly of all, a pirate by the name of Captain Jack Sparrow played by Johnny Depp. Depp made Sparrow into an instantaneous icon, and after the film scored big at the summer box office and the Academy nominated him for best supporting actor, it was clear the humorous nature of Sparrow was an integral piece of the film’s success—which the studio milked until it went dry. Every subsequent Pirates film featured Depp in a more prominent role, had him doing ever more intentionally funny things, and it got old even before the Marvel formula got old. The humour (particularly the more forced humour of the sequels) of Pirates is more of a precursor to the Marvel humour than Lord of the Rings, because Disney ended up acquiring Marvel Studios just a few years after Pirates turned into a film franchise.

Even before the MCU, other Marvel movies used humour to appeal to audiences, to varying results. Sometimes it helped lighten the otherwise serious tone, like in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, and other times it turned the film into a misfire, like with Fantastic Four and its sequel. But if we were to pinpoint when, exactly, humour became a requirement for big blockbusters amid the MCU successes, it actually came after The Avengers, because at that point it was not quite a formula yet. The Avengers was the first big Marvel superhero movie team-up, and the comedy worked well because it was funny without undermining the credibility of such an outlandish, epic film.

This Avengers success translated to the production of Guardians of the Galaxy, which was helmed by a guy who had figured out his distinct sense of humour long before The Avengers came out. James Gunn was the perfect writer/director to hire for Guardians, and that movie cemented the formula, because it was the second epic superhero team-up, and it was fully intended as a comedy. Even though not all Marvel movies that followed were positioned as squarely in the comedy genre as Guardians, they used the quips and jokes as part of the appeal. People kept coming to see them expecting to laugh out loud, but the law of diminishing returns meant each movie that followed kept getting less and less funny.

Am I hypocrite when I complain about this issue? Absolutely, because I loved Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and that movie uses the Marvel comedy template. It is a fantasy comedy through and through, with jokes and gags being used constantly to make it more accessible and entertaining. But, it uses humour effectively, and maintains that same vibe as Pirates and Guardians, which is a vibe that I find a bit difficult to pinpoint, but when it works, it just works. The problem is not when a movie uses humour in a clever way, it’s when it’s used inappropriately or unnecessarily just as a means of adding appeal. The Fast and the Furious franchise started out with a fairly serious first entry, and while some would argue the movies got better the less serious they took the concept, I think the sweet spot was achieved in Fast Five when there was a level of self-awareness that hadn’t yet morphed into being completely and utterly ridiculous just to make people laugh and try to appeal to what they thought audiences wanted more of.

So far I've focused on blockbuster successes that have contributed to this trend of over reliance on jokes, but there were a few films (also in the superhero genre) which failed and yet made the same contribution to Hollywood producers believing blockbusters have to be hilarious. As the MCU blossomed, the DC Cinematic Universe tried to establish its own superhero film franchise with the far more serious Man of Steel directed by Zack Snyder. The sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was considered a financial disappointment, and one of the reasons for this that the studio cited was its overly serious tone. This response trickled down to the subsequent Suicide Squad and Justice League, the latter of which had its own set of production troubles which led to Joss Whedon (Avengers director) finishing the film, which turned it into a total joke, quite literally. A general consensus among many blockbuster fans by the end of the decade? Marvel is better because it's more fun. DC is worse because it's too dark and too serious and not funny enough. A joke about this was even included in Deadpool 2. For the record, I don't think the primary issue with the DC Cinematic Universe films from 2013-2019 was that they weren't funny enough.

Some of the forced humour in MCU entries has actually tainted my overall enjoyment of the movie, and at times is the only real glaring issue I have with certain ones. Captain America: Civil War stands out. It's a mainly serious movie with high stakes and battles both large and small scale. It did not need so many jokes needlessly shoehorned in, especially that one at the end with the Stan Lee cameo. It’s even worse in Infinity War and Endgame. Not every joke falls flat or sticks out as unnecessary, but it’s obvious there was a mandate to include a certain number of jokes per scene given previous successes. Had it been any other movie, I think the editors would have used a sharper blade and cut a number of those humourous moments to strengthen the impact of the scenes, instead of letting them undercut the tension. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is too full of jokes, in my opinion. I preferred the third one partially because it wasn’t constantly making every character the comedy relief in every scene and took breaks from trying to make the audience laugh at every opportunity. Now that we have reached entries like Thor: Love and Thunder and Ant-Man & The Wasp: Quantumania, it’s painfully obvious that it doesn’t even matter to Marvel if the jokes are good anymore, just so long as they are there in needless quantities.

Again, it’s not that I’m anti-humour in blockbusters, I just think it should elevate them instead of become a detriment. Here’s a perfect example: Jurassic World Dominion. The original Jurassic Park had some great moments of humour that come off as genuinely funny largely because they are situational. When Dr. Malcolm strolls up to the mound of Triceratops dung and says “Now that is one big pile of shit” it’s worth at least a chuckle. When Dr. Sattler says to Dr. Grant that Dr. Malcolm “slid into her DMs” in Jurassic World Dominion it is a textbook example of the screenwriters thinking a more modern way of speaking will come off as humorous when it comes out of the mouth of an older character, when in fact it just sounds unnatural and is more likely to make you roll your eyes than laugh. I can confirm that the full audience I saw Dominion with did not laugh at all when Dr. Sattler said that line, and it wasn’t the only “funny” moment that got crickets instead of giggles.

Even though many blockbusters have proven over and over again that funny = money, I’m beginning to wonder if this constant bombardment of ill-timed jokes might start to die down as superhero movies continue to saturate the new release slates and box office numbers keep declining. What it really comes down to is the need for more clever writing. When a movie like Dungeons & Dragons can succeed using the same strategies Marvel has used repeatedly it proves the point that humour alone is not all you need to make your movie successful. It can help, of course, but if that’s all you’ve got, and it isn’t that great, then you’re doomed. 

I know I talked a lot about Marvel movies, but this issue which started with those films now crops up in many, many other blockbusters, too. Some more examples: the Pacific Rim sequel, Terminator sequels, Mission: Impossible sequels, Disney Star Wars sequels, and even sequels/reboots to films that were not funny at all to begin with: The Predator and Halloween (both 2018). Now that Deadpool is in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it could make or break future MCU entries, because he is a character who is clearly meant to be in a comedy superhero film, but not every Marvel character is meant for that, despite the studio trying to convince us otherwise. I don’t want humour to disappear from blockbusters completely, but let’s cut some of those jokes and focus more on just making something good instead of trying to make something funny so it makes more money.