Alejandro Inarritu Hurt by Robert Downey Jr. Over Superhero Criticism – newsdubai

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu doesn’t like superhero movies. The Oscar winner said in 2014 while promoting “Birdman” that superhero movies were a form of “cultural genocide,” adding: “I don’t respond to those characters. They’ve been married because audiences are so overexposed to plots and explosions and crap that doesn’t mean anything about the experience of being human.”

Robert Downey Jr. weighed in on Iñarritu’s comment in 2015 during an interview with The Guardian to promote his turn as Iron Man in the Marvel blockbuster “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” but the actor’s line was somewhat controversial. Downey Jr. noted that he “respects the hell out of” Iñarritu, but also mocked Iñarritu’s Spanish roots, saying, “For a man whose native language is Spanish to be able to put together a phrase like ‘cultural genocide’ just speaks to where bright he is.”

In a new interview with IndieWire from Telluride, where Iñarritu’s Netflix film “Bardo” was screened after its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, Iñarritu reflected on Downey Jr.’s response. Suffice to say, Iñarritu is still somewhat annoyed by Downey Jr.’s comeback.

“It was like, ‘Oh, you guys from your banana country,’” Iñarritu said. “If I was from Denmark or Sweden, I might be seen as philosophical, but when you’re Mexican and you say things, you’re pretentious.”

In his opening remarks, Iñarritu said that just the word “superhero” bothered him, adding: “What the hell does that mean? It’s a false, misguided notion, the superhero. So, the way they do violence to it, it’s completely right-wing. If you observe the mentality of most of those movies, it’s really about people who are rich, who have power, who want to do good, who want to kill the bad guys. Philosophically, I just don’t like them.”

“Bardo” opens in theaters on Nov. 18 and will stream on Netflix starting Dec. 16.