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Mel Gibson: Marvel movies are “more violent than anything that I’ve done”

Whilst on the comeback trail with his new movie ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ earning enthusiastic reviews, Mel Gibson has taken a stab at the current big boys of blockbuster cinema.

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From his Oscar-winning ‘Braveheart’ to ‘The Passion of the Christ’ to ‘Apocalypto,’ Gibson’s directorial works have long been noted for their harsh, unflinching, some might say fetishised depictions of violence.

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However, speaking to The Washington Post about the violence in his films, Gibson accuses Marvel movies of being worse.

“[The action] almost has to be — I don’t mean to be callous about it — but it has to be like a sporting event… You have to know who’s who, who your protagonists are, who’s doing what, what screen direction it’s all going in.

“In the midst of that, you have to have what appears to be chaos. It’s ordered chaos.

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“To talk about the violence question, look at any Marvel movie. They’re more violent than anything that I’ve done, but [in my movies,] you give a s**t about the characters, which makes it matter more. That’s all I’ll say.”

We can hardly fail to note that, to date, Marvel Studios have not made a single film that was rated above a PG-13/12A, whereas all of Gibson’s films – bar his 1999 directorial debut ‘The Man Without a Face’ - have been R-rated.

However, the highest body count of any of Gibson’s films was in ‘Braveheart,’ which reportedly featured 184 onscreen deaths – whereas Marvel’s ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ was recently declared to have the highest film body count ever, showcasing 83,871 onscreen fatalities.

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Of course, no Marvel movie has ever focused on bloodshed and suffering as intensely as Gibson’s films tend to - and whether viewers care more about the characters in Mel Gibson movies than they do in those of Marvel movies is open to debate.

This is hardly the first time Gibson has disparaged superhero cinema, as earlier this year he blasted ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’ as “a piece of s**t. I’m not interested in the stuff… Real superheroes didn’t wear spandex.”

Gibson’s ‘Hacksaw Ridge’ opens in UK cinemas on 27 January 2017.

Picture Credit: WENN, Icon Entertainment, Marvel