The Movie Thread Reloaded

[jhkim]

Spoiler warnings for Endgame...

Watched Black Widow. I like almost all of the Marvel films, but this one just didn't hold my attention. IMO, it was mediocre at best (on par with Iron Man 3).

I was pleasantly surprised by Black Widow. I think the major problem with it is in the way it was released. It's a prequel where the main character was already killed off without much ceremony in the last big event, and it doesn't give much direction to the plot going forward. I think with a few changes, this could have been a great follow-up to Civil War that sets up for Phase 3, and could have made her struggle and death so much more memorable in Endgame. But released as it is, it's a struggle to engage with it.

That said, I thought it had some great material. I loved David Harbour as Red Guardian and Florence Pugh as Yelena. And it nicely kept up that Natasha is the Avenger who consistently outsmarts her opponents. It's a clever superspy movie within the MCU background.

[Lurkndog]

I tried to watch The Tomorrow War. I figured "Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski, that sounds pretty good." It wasn't.

It's like a bunch of A-List scripts were involved in a horrible car accident. There's the one movie that has Chris Pratt leading a ragtag group of civilians into combat for the first time, and that's pretty compelling. There's another one where Chris Pratt is a would-be scientist who's stuck teaching high school, and that's OK too. There's a time travel movie with Chris Pratt going into the future and meeting Yvonne Strahovski, and that's also really good stuff. There's one where Chris Pratt is trying to be a good father to his kid while reconciling with his crazy paramilitary dad. And there's a bad video game where Chris Pratt has to shoot a bunch of aliens that look like Spider-man villains.

All of these get slammed together at 100 MPH, and it doesn't do good things to any of them. After the accident, they had to graft together what was left into a grotesque mockery of a movie. Storylines start up, get going, build some momentum, and then crash to halt when the movie suddenly switches tracks, and the audience is left hanging. There are multiple places where it feels like the movie should have ended there and it would have been OK. Eventually, I just got tired of being yanked around at random, and just hit stop.

Your mileage may vary. If you have Amazon Prime, it's free at least.

[Wntrlnd]

I agree about Black Widow. It reminds me of Solo. A prequel (midquel?) movie that are just supposed to tie up some loose ends but doesn't really have any important twists to validate releasing it after Endgame.

[jhkim]

I agree about Black Widow. It reminds me of Solo. A prequel (midquel?) movie that are just supposed to tie up some loose ends but doesn't really have any important twists to validate releasing it after Endgame.

They have a similar problem - telling the story of a character who just died in the main plotline. But Solo set out to be an origin story, and I felt it was much more about filling in holes. ("It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!") There was no way it could have been released in order as the first film.

While it has flashbacks to her childhood, Black Widow is mostly about her as the already-established character around the time of the Civil War movie. With just a few tweaks, Black Widow *could* have been released during the main sequence of movies, and along with Black Panther it might have been a nice bridge between the Earth-bound plotlines of the earlier movies and the cosmic clash of Infinity War.

[Ratman_tf]

I agree about Black Widow. It reminds me of Solo. A prequel (midquel?) movie that are just supposed to tie up some loose ends but doesn't really have any important twists to validate releasing it after Endgame.

They have a similar problem - telling the story of a character who just died in the main plotline. But Solo set out to be an origin story, and I felt it was much more about filling in holes. ("It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!") There was no way it could have been released in order as the first film.

While it has flashbacks to her childhood, Black Widow is mostly about her as the already-established character around the time of the Civil War movie. With just a few tweaks, Black Widow *could* have been released during the main sequence of movies, and along with Black Panther it might have been a nice bridge between the Earth-bound plotlines of the earlier movies and the cosmic clash of Infinity War.

I heard a reviewer say that Black Widow should have been released in the place of Captain Marvel, A super powerful character shoehorned in at the last minute who went on to have fuckall to do with the Infinity War business.

[Wntrlnd]

I agree about Black Widow. It reminds me of Solo. A prequel (midquel?) movie that are just supposed to tie up some loose ends but doesn't really have any important twists to validate releasing it after Endgame.

They have a similar problem - telling the story of a character who just died in the main plotline. But Solo set out to be an origin story, and I felt it was much more about filling in holes. ("It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs!") There was no way it could have been released in order as the first film.

While it has flashbacks to her childhood, Black Widow is mostly about her as the already-established character around the time of the Civil War movie. With just a few tweaks, Black Widow *could* have been released during the main sequence of movies, and along with Black Panther it might have been a nice bridge between the Earth-bound plotlines of the earlier movies and the cosmic clash of Infinity War.

I heard a reviewer say that Black Widow should have been released in the place of Captain Marvel, A super powerful character shoehorned in at the last minute who went on to have fuckall to do with the Infinity War business.

Still.
Captain Marvel did at least introduce the Skrulls as well as Monica Rambeau. It fleshed out the Kree a bit more than Guardians of the Galaxy did. It set up Fury's drive to create the Avengers and also likely lead to splitting S.H.I.E.L.D into two with S.W.O.R.D

CM set up more for future movies than BW who pretty much only sets up a Dark Avengers and maybe some russian superteam in the future with Red Guardian and Ursa Major (the huge guy that arm wrestles with Red Guardian.)

[jhkim]

Captain Marvel did at least introduce the Skrulls as well as Monica Rambeau. It fleshed out the Kree a bit more than Guardians of the Galaxy did. It set up Fury's drive to create the Avengers and also likely lead to splitting S.H.I.E.L.D into two with S.W.O.R.D

CM set up more for future movies than BW who pretty much only sets up a Dark Avengers and maybe some russian superteam in the future with Red Guardian and Ursa Major (the huge guy that arm wrestles with Red Guardian.)

I think the two movies have very different focuses. Captain Marvel is about setting up a connection between SHIELD and the cosmic plot.

Black Widow is about closing off Earth plots. All three of Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron, and Civil War had featured Hydra as an enemy - but they were never rooted out and dealt with on their own ground after being exposed in Winter Soldier. Instead, they were red herrings and eventually became overshadowed by the giant cosmic plot. Black Widow gives a decisive win as a transition point to the cosmic plot.

[Shrieking Banshee]

I gotta say Im amazed how people keeping going to see marvel films. Its like the same cake over and over with different frosting.
They are painfully formulaic. I felt the series reached its peak by Avengers 1. Everything since then could only be more of the same but biggerererer.

Which it has been with a few minor variants.

[Ratman_tf]

I gotta say Im amazed how people keeping going to see marvel films. Its like the same cake over and over with different frosting.
They are painfully formulaic. I felt the series reached its peak by Avengers 1. Everything since then could only be more of the same but biggerererer.

Which it has been with a few minor variants.

Oh, I agree. I hit saturation with the first Avengers movie, coasted to Ant Man (which I really liked as a change of pace) and only watched some of the subsequent movies because they were on and I had nothing better to do. Watched Infinity War and Endgame because my brother/roommate is still an MCU fan so I watched them out of the corner of my eye while doing other stuff, for example.

I think they're really going to run the franchise into the ground with "Phase 4". They've told the big story, and what's left is one big anticlimax. It's time to put this franchise on the shelf and be proud of what they've accomplished, but doing that means going out and taking a chance on something new instead.

[Shrieking Banshee]

I think they're really going to run the franchise into the ground with "Phase 4".

I sure hope so. Because that will give me hope that modern audiences can get sick of SOMETHING.

[Ratman_tf]

I think they're really going to run the franchise into the ground with "Phase 4".

I sure hope so. Because that will give me hope that modern audiences can get sick of SOMETHING.

The live action Transformers series cured me of that hope.

[jhkim]

I gotta say Im amazed how people keeping going to see marvel films. Its like the same cake over and over with different frosting.
They are painfully formulaic. I felt the series reached its peak by Avengers 1. Everything since then could only be more of the same but biggerererer.

Oh, I agree. I hit saturation with the first Avengers movie, coasted to Ant Man (which I really liked as a change of pace) and only watched some of the subsequent movies because they were on and I had nothing better to do. Watched Infinity War and Endgame because my brother/roommate is still an MCU fan so I watched them out of the corner of my eye while doing other stuff, for example.

Interesting. The first phase were some of my least favorite, mostly because they were generic origin stories - which I found dull. The Avengers was quite good, but where I thought the series got the most interesting was when it started branching out. I found the later solo movies the most interesting because they had more distinct style and difference, and got out of being generic origin stories.

For example, Guardians of the Galaxy isn't a generic superhero story the way that the first phase were. While Doctor Strange is a standard-ish origin story, it at least was really visually distinct and creative. I liked that the Spider-Man movies skipped having an origin, and got straight to doing interesting stuff with the character.

The Avengers was better than the team-up sequels (with Infinity War being particularly dull for me) -- but I thought the solo movies got more interesting and varied over time, and those are my favorites of the series. All series have their ups and downs - but by the standards of action movie franchises, I think it's been quite good.

[Ghostmaker]

I think they're really going to run the franchise into the ground with "Phase 4".

I sure hope so. Because that will give me hope that modern audiences can get sick of SOMETHING.

The live action Transformers series cured me of that hope.

In defense, everyone knew what they were getting into with the live-action TF films. Two words: Michael Bay.

(I do love the guy, he does great pyrotechnics work and sFX and he's got a work ethic that keeps films coming in on time and within budget. But I don't have any illusions either. )

[Lurkndog]

I think they're really going to run the franchise into the ground with "Phase 4". They've told the big story, and what's left is one big anticlimax. It's time to put this franchise on the shelf and be proud of what they've accomplished, but doing that means going out and taking a chance on something new instead.

IMHO we hit "peak Marvel" around Infinity War. They told the big story, and they are losing a lot of their top stars as they age out of action movie roles, or just want to do other things. They've also cherry-picked a lot of the classic storylines, and the content coming out of present day Marvel Comics is decidedly inferior.

The problem is, the movie biz is the only thing keeping Marvel afloat. The comics side of the business has already gone financially bankrupt in the 1990s, and is probably not breaking even at present. They have enough money in the bank to keep the lights on in the Marvel bullpen for decades to come, but if the movies falter, the comics industry won't save them.

I'm wondering if Marvel won't completely reboot the MCU at some point. That would allow them to recast their tentpole characters, and properly integrate Fantastic Four and X-Men from day one.

[hedgehobbit]

I'm wondering if Marvel won't completely reboot the MCU at some point. That would allow them to recast their tentpole characters, and properly integrate Fantastic Four and X-Men from day one.

Between all the alternate timelines and multi-verses they shouldn't have any trouble introducing "new" versions of old characters. I'm surprised that they haven't announced any plans for an X-Men X-Force movie.