A Land Fit for Superheroes
15th June 2014
Mark Steyn does what he does best.
My boys wanted to see X-Men 12 or whatever it is, so we tootled along and climbed into the old 3D specs. The film has a novel addition to Kennedy conspiracy theory, and Nixon stages the world’s most disastrous photo-op. But other than that it doesn’t intersect with anything real. Indeed, it felt kind of weird to be watching a movie where the good guys have to figure out how to save America from the most advanced, evolved, giant-sized, invincible supervillains ever devised, and then leave the theater and return to a world where, in Afghanistan, America is losing to goatherds and, in Iraq, to jihadist bandits whose greatest strategic insight is that you wait for the Great Satan to give the Iraqi Army state-of-the-art tanks and guns and then you stroll into town and steal them all. You can see why moviegoers might prefer the comfort of enemies who are all-powerful beings. I’ve been a little queasy about this cinematic trend for a few years now.