Our heroes are already superheroes, minus capes: Ranbir Kapoor

The mother of superhero movies, The Avengers, opens today, but Ranbir Kapoor is unimpressed. Talking to Anupama Chopra in the first episode of her new show, The Front Row with Anupama Chopra, the actor says he’s rarely liked a superhero film.

Excerpts from the interview:

Anupama:

Ranbir, you were saying that you don’t really enjoy superhero movies.You’re not such a big fan. Why?

Ranbir:

No particular reason. I’m a big fan of the new Batman series that Christopher Nolan has done. I guess what we tend to forget is that even if we are making a superhero film, it’s not just that “I am making a film about a superhero”. It’s the kind of storytelling that you’re doing and the kind of the villain that plays such a powerful role in making a good superhero film.

Anupama:

It’s only as good as the villain.

Ranbir:

Absolutely. Then it just makes the superhero look cooler. You want to root for him. But it’s not that I hate superhero films. It’s very rarely that I’ve liked a good superhero film apart from the early Superman series and the Christopher Nolan Batman series.

Anupama:

Tom Hiddleston says that superhero movies offer us a modern mythology and it’s a faithless mythology. Religion has no part of it. Do you think that might be true or are we projecting too much into popcorn entertainment?

Ranbir:

Director Dibakar Banerjee once told me, “We all want to make these artistic films, we want to make good story films and depressing films and happy films and all that. But if we go by train in the morning we see women and men sitting with thalis and they’re cutting vegetables. They’re going to work and they’re coming back. They want to come and they want to escape. They want to see the hero beating up bad guys and they want to see entertainment.” So popcorn entertainment is a good thing. But I don’t think they are bastardising any mythological culture or anything of that sort. I think in the Hindi film industry, the audience likes to see our heroes who are superheroes themselves without wearing underwear and a cape.

Get your fix of film reviews, star interviews, discussions on cinema and film trivia in The Front Row with Anupama Chopra, every Friday at 8.30 pm on Star World