Entertaining

 I will share a somewhat unpopular opinion: I don't like superhero movies. 

Oh boy, that's good to get off my chest. See, I live with people who looooove them. My boyfriend and my youngest son love everything superhero; they will watch every movie and series that comes along, often multiple times. They never get bored of it. I play along and will watch a movie once, but ask me to watch it a second time and I'll likely flinch...a 3rd time, and I will tell you that I don't intend to spend my waning years on earth passively absorbing entertainment I didn't like all that much the first two times. 

My boyfriend only seems to really like movies with elements of fantasy...whether it be superhero, sci fi, or something in between, if it doesn't defy natural law, he's not very interested. I'm the exact opposite; I want character driven, slice-of-life movies. And it's not that I don't think sci fi or Marvel movies can be fun or entertaining; they just don't hold my interest much and I find myself bored with them.

I have thought about it a lot because I want to like them; it would certainly make choosing "what to watch" with my partner a lot easier. And I think it's because there's no drama. Now, I know that seems insane on the face of it - what could be more dramatic than the world blowing up unless they find the last pretty rock? But it IS. Because in worlds where anything is possible and natural law and physics don't apply, anything is possible. I cannot suspend my disbelief that the good guys can't just pull off a hat trick whenever they want because, well, what's stopping them? Not really anything. 

Now, I suppose you could sort of say the same thing about any fiction; if a writer is making up a story, he or she can resolve it any way they want to. They can change the facts of the story easily to get to the desired outcome. But because those types of movies don't have an "anything can happen, even breaking every law of physics" sort of backdrop, there's more suspense. How the problems get resolved takes more creativity and thought. And, in many cases, it actually means something to the audience and can be useful (not to mention we probably have a frame of reference for the situations, depending on where we are in life). 

So yeah...I think I do have it figured out, why I don't care so much for fantasy. And I don't know if it will ever stop bugging me that it seems to be the only thing my partner likes, but lucky for him, I'm not perfect either ;)