10 Superhero Movies That Broke All The Rules

By 2014, the superhero genre was about as well regarded as it had ever been, with Heath Ledger winning an Oscar for The Dark Knight and Marvel’s movies, especially, earning a string of great critical notices. It was widely, however, still ultimately a blockbuster genre, family movies not to be taken entirely seriously.

If Birdman didn’t change all that single handedly, Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s genre bending smash certainly went some way to redressing the balance. This thoughtful character study stars Michael Keaton as, essentially, Michael Keaton, an actor famous for playing a gravel-voiced superhero in his younger days who has never quite returned to that same level of fame.

Birdman recontextualises Keaton’s history as the Caped Crusader - the titular fictional superhero is an itch his character can’t scratch, a past he simultaneously wishes to run from and to. He engages in conversations with the forceful Birdman, who urges him to don the cowl once more for a comeback.

The super-heroics are scattered throughout the film, and among other things Birdman speaks to the influence of these movies on our culture.