{"id":422482,"date":"2026-04-29T00:07:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/422482\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T00:07:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T00:07:21","slug":"the-first-film-i-saw-at-a-cinema-was-christopher-reeves-superman-it-upended-my-childlike-mind-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/422482\/","title":{"rendered":"The first film I saw at a cinema was Christopher Reeve\u2019s Superman. It upended my childlike mind \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do superheroes need rescuing? The answer would appear to be \u201cyes\u201d on National Superhero Day \u2013 that\u2019s today, April 28th, and it\u2019s an actual thing, created by Marvel<\/a> in 1995 to \u201chonour superheroes, both real and fictional\u201d. <\/p>\n

Whatever about real superheroes \u2013 emergency workers, medical researchers, the guy who fixed the wonky controller on my Nintendo Switch last year \u2013 the comic-book variety have had a tough time of it lately.<\/p>\n

To say we\u2019re living through the twilight of the superheroes might be an overstatement. But they\u2019ve been in the wars, particularly on the big screen, where it has become fashionable to decry Marvel, DC and all the rest as the harbingers of a cultural apocalypse.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t take my word for it \u2013 ask Martin Scorsese<\/a>, who singlehandedly begat the great superhero backlash by asserting that superhero films are \u201cnot cinema\u201d and are closer to \u201ctheme park rides\u201d. In other words, less Taxi Driver, more Tayto Park.<\/p>\n

Nobody would disagree with one of the greatest directors of all time. Nor is he alone in his wariness. \u201cOne of the things that has happened in the last few years is that the movies that typically make lots of money tend to be big franchises,\u201d the actor Charlie Cox said in 2018.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat means Marvel movies, DC movies, comic book movies \u2026 Harry Potter. Hollywood makes so many of these big franchises that there isn\u2019t much space \u2013 literally cinema space \u2013 for smaller independent movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

The paradox, of course, is that Cox was speaking while promoting his leading turn in Marvel\u2019s Daredevil, in which he played the eponymous crime-fighting lawyer, tortured Catholic and keen acrobat. <\/p>\n

But while backlashes are often healthy, in that they challenge the status quo and upend received wisdom, it\u2019s worth pondering whether all the superhero hate has gone too far, and if there\u2019s a risk of throwing Batman out with the bathwater.<\/p>\n

To those who love them \u2013 a club that obviously does not include Scorsese \u2013 superheroes are the essence of cinema itself. The first film I ever saw at a cinema was the original Christopher Reeve Superman, a film that upended my tiny, childlike mind.<\/p>\n

Years later, my brain was detonated all over again by Tim Burton\u2019s grimdark kitsch extravaganza Batman, which I watched three times in the cinema, a figure trumped by the even battier sequel Batman Returns (I went to see it four times in 10 days).<\/p>\n

Those films were weird, warped and wonky \u2013 and they made the everyday world seem so much less mundane. <\/p>\n

No, they haven\u2019t weathered the years particularly well. Jack Nicholson\u2019s Joker is broader than a barn door, while there are moments during Kim Basinger\u2019s performance as Vicki Vale when it looks as if her soul has three-quarters left her body. But they offered something a Scorsese movie perhaps never could: pure, unrefined escapism.<\/p>\n

The same is true of the grand cultural punching bag that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It has had its low points, of course \u2013 a great, dreary dribble of them, in fact, ever since the studio started pushing out content on Disney+.<\/p>\n

Yet, at its best, the MCU is pure cinema gold, a rocket-fuelled thrill ride with quips aplenty and a pace that rarely lets up. Junk food for the mind? Maybe, but what\u2019s wrong with bingeing on something tasty and throwaway? It isn\u2019t a crime to enjoy a decent Hulk smash now and then. Or to look forward to the arrival in 2026 of a new Avengers, a Spider-Man prequel and a Supergirl reboot.<\/p>\n

Comic-book movies stay with you, too. Nothing brings me back to my childhood more powerfully than John Williams\u2019s Superman theme, a glorious, grandiose celebration of superherodom at its silliest. We would miss them if they were gone. The good news is that, despite what the detractors think, they\u2019re not going nowhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Do superheroes need rescuing? The answer would appear to be \u201cyes\u201d on National Superhero Day \u2013 that\u2019s today,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":422483,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[109922,93,61,60,2563,25164],"class_list":["post-422482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-christopher-reeve","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-marvel","tag-tim-burton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422482\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/422483"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}