I only really look at reviews for movies that I am already predisposed to view so that subset of the audience likely means more to me than you.
I agree, I don't think there are many times reviews got me to see something I wouldn't normally consider watching.
That sometimes critics reviews are good enough to get me to look at something other than my usual fare but that is based on why they give the review - not simply the number of stars.
This is also a good point. I read reviews more to find out what the movie is like.
The last one where reviews got me to change my mind was Thor: Ragnarok. I hadn't planned on it, but after reading the reviews I got the impression that it was a very different movie from what I had expected. I figured, you know, super punch-outs and so on... but the reviews made it sound like the comedy and the characters were really the main focus. The review that made up my mind said something along the lines of "the best buddy road-movie since Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye..." and I really did enjoy it. And like the critics who gave it strong reviews, I enjoyed it because it delivered something that felt quite different from a lot of the superhero fare.
Conversely, the latest Spiderman reboot got positive reviews but I didn't go anyway. The reviews basically made it sound like it was a good reboot that delivers exactly what you'd expect from a Spiderman movie, and I didn't give a
**** because I'm all Spidermanned out. I don't think I've seen the last 8 or 9 Spiderman movies.
...and on that note...
As much as the critics overdo "female/black" superhero rhetoric these movies do deliver a "hook" that brings people back to the theatres. Without it superhero fatigue would have settled in by now (I know I have no interest in another avengers movie but black panther piques my interest).
I would expect disney Marvel to look for the next "hook" to keep the genre alive. My bets are on a gender bending superhero.
I think there's probably some amount of audience that has been really longing to see a non-white superhero movie, much in the same way that so many women who wouldn't normally be at a superhero movie loved Wonder Woman.
But I can't really picture a transgender hero putting butts in seats. Not enough to promise a box office success, anyway.
I think the "hook" you speak of can take many different forms.
-quality. If something gets amazing reviews. "The Dark Knight" got incredible reviews, and did incredible box office as well. Of course, it also had...
-beloved characters. Batman, Spiderman, Wolverine. We keep seeing these guys in movies because audiences love them. Audiences didn't exactly love George Clooney as Batman, or Andrew Garfield as Spiderman, but even these "duds" still did pretty good box-office. I can't imagine how the next Wolverine will do, now that Hugh Jackman has hung up the adamantium claws. He's the only guy who's ever been Wolverine on screen, and it's going to be a thankless job to replace him. I digress. Even less successful reboots with these characters still did good box office. Even with Henry "Mr Plywood" Cavill in the lead role, the current run of Superman movies have been somewhat successful.
-something fresh. Movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool were big successes because they brought something completely different to the genre. They both had that "wow!" factor, in very different ways.
-classic source material. I include this only as a maybe. I personally really loved "The Watchmen" movie, based on the 12-issue comic book series that I also really loved. On the other hand, Fox really
**** up trying to bring classic X-Men story arcs like "Days of Futures Past" to the big screen and I have little doubt that the upcoming (?) Phoenix saga is going to end up equally
**** up. "Batman vs Superman" borrowed heavily from the classic "Dark Knight" limited series by Frank Miller, and likewise
**** up pretty bad. Trying to adapt beloved source material into movies is apparently a pretty mixed bag.
I don't think inventing more far-out concepts for movies is necessarily the "hook" that will keep people coming to the theatres. In a lot of cases, I think the "classics" are classics for a reason, and that characters like Spiderman and Batman and The Hulk and Wolverine keep showing up on our screens because they have an inherent appeal. Black Panther and Wonder Woman might as well, but up until now nobody has been willing to risk making a big-budget movie about them. It's a little sad that in present day making a movie about a black or female hero is seen as an "angle".
-k