"Journeys of Adventure among Its Far-Flung Debris": Three Theories of the Blockbuster Explosion Spectacle

Existing critical accounts of the blockbuster explosion spectacle cast it as a cynically commercial bid for spectatorial sensation. This article, however, argues that the optico-social, aesthetic, and political affordances of the effects-oriented explosion spectacle are far more radical than these accounts allow. To advance this argument, I shuttle between reappraisals of the work of three key early film theorists—Benjamin, Epstein, and Eisenstein—and close analyses of the celebrated "Quicksilver" explosion set piece in X-Men: Apocalypse (Bryan Singer, 2016). In the process, I seek both to enrich our understanding of this culturally ubiquitous and critically neglected blockbuster microgenre and to draw attention to the value of early film theory as a resource for blockbuster studies.