The Weak Hero in Movies

            What do you think the biggest movie trend of the year was? Many people think its the return of the fantasy genre ( with the new Hobbit movie), or the new biographies released (2 Hitchcock movies, Lincoln, etc.) . Actually in my opinion the biggest movie trend of the year was the love of the weak hero because it was shown in the highest grossing movies of the year.

            To begin with, the biggest summer blockbuster of 2012 featured a weak hero in The Dark Knight Rises. In this movie, Batman is old and weak with a bad knee and retired for 8 years. Christian Bale does a great job making him look old. Anyway, even tough Batman is not as physical as in the other films, he is more human in this film, with more flaws and errors helping the character identify with us. That is one example of how the weak hero was the biggest movie trend this year.

            Furthermore, another great and legendary movie franchise decided to go with the  weak hero take in 2012: James Bond. In Bond's new film Skyfall (directed by Sam Mendes), Daniel Craig makes a weak, old, and alcoholic James Bond. It was the first time in a Bond film were the spy is not a super fit playboy that can kill bad guys easily. This movie has a Bond that fakes his death for no good reason, and then can't pass the MI6 acceptance test for lack of physical and psychological ability, yet we still loved the movie and the character. It was the first time that people that came out of the cinema after a Bond movie that they didn't want to be Bond. Most people felt they were already him because of the way his mistakes are seen, and how he accepted them with the consequences they brought. That is another example on how the weak hero was the biggest movie trend in 2012.

            Last, I know this movie is not 2012, but it goes right to the point on how the weak hero is portrayed. Iron Man 3 just came out, and it features a weak hero. In this film, unlike the others, Tony Stark seems like a human instead of just the super cool guy with a robotic suit we see in the previous films. This film was based on the events of The Avengers, where Iron Man goes into a space portal, and defeats a god.  This causes him many traumas that cause him to reflect on the significance of his existence, and gave him anxiety issues in various scenes. This doesn't make Tony Stark look like the invincible guy he was in the past two films, making him relate to his audience more. That is my last example on how the weak hero was the most important movie trend of the year.

            To conclude, I think the biggest movie trend of the year was showing a weak hero in high grossing movies. This was shown in many films like Batman, Iron Man, and James Bond among others. I wonder what the next trend will be? What do you think?