It's incredibly difficult to make an earnest film that people don't just scoff at these days: instead, everything's got to be sarcastic, ironic and subversive or critics and audiences will just take a dump on it. The vast majority of blockbusters have to be grimdark because, with just a few exceptions (The Avengers, which is still plenty sarcastic), it's not enough for a blockbuster to just be fun anymore. Movies that show an ounce of heart without drawing attention to this conceit or throwing in some mocking one-liners are frequently ribbed for it: look at the vast majority of Steven Spielberg's family-centric movies over the last decade or so, and how brutally they've been pummeled in our cynical, post-9/11, Freedom of Information society. Can It Make A Comeback?: Doubtful. The world is a different place now, and snark isn't just a fashionable trend: young cinemagoers are bred to be skeptical and suspect an agenda in anything genuine, so these sorts of movies really need to wear post-modernism like a badge in order to succeed.