Marvel Cinematic Universe

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So my non-spoiler opinions first, then the good stuff.

A solid 2/5. Lifted up by Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman (who could lift even the dullest of scripts - oh, look! She had to!). There was the germ of a good story under there that could have been good if the whole thing wasn't dripping in bathos and shallow humour. (Bathos is the literary term for Josh Whedon humour. Basically comic deflation of expected drama or art. Like Thor giving a big speech then being 'humorously' undermined at the last moment). Basically, this style of humour and inability to give any of the actors a chance to actually convey sincere emotion wrecks the movie.

Fun fact: the little girl is Chris Hemsworth's actual daughter.

Okay, I can't be bothered doing a lot of segregation of spoilers and not-spoilers. Everything else:
  • Christian Bale as Uncle Fester could have been very good. He has moments where his talent is allowed to shine through but the tone of the movie is all over the place and even very strong talent needs the proper setting to shine. His performance is one of the better elements of the movie but they waste him and never give him space to really breathe life into the character. I mean what can any actor really do with 'okay, twenty second shot of you realizing you have become a monster. Cut!'.
  • I liked when Thor gave the kids some of his power. Zero foreshadowing or reasoning WHY he could do that but it's one of the only elements of the film I didn't predict and I liked seeing a mob of super-charged children killing demons with random bric-a-brac. Again, made the finale hard to take seriously - see early comment about bathos.
  • I liked that Thor and Jane rekindled their romance. Natalie Portman sold that relationship well in the first movie and Thor seems in no way like the sort of guy who'd fuck that up. Nor her, frankly. They're two genuinely good people who are also smart and deeply attracted to each other. So whilst I was glad to see they rediscovered their romance the entire break-up seemed entirely forced. I mean - she's someone with the IQ of Stephen Hawking, the looks of, um, Natalie Portman. And as evidenced in this movie, the heart of a saint. He's a literal space-god, ruler of an actual kingdom and was willing to give his life to save her. And the make each other laugh. Who the Hell better do either of them think they're going to find? So very glad it didn't entirely place blame on him for the break-up or pair her off with Valkyrie like the rumours. But very forced and disappointing.
  • Following directly on from that, I dislike that Jane dies. The whole idea of Mjollnir "draining her life force" is stupid thematically and doesn't mesh with what's been previously established. They should have just said the strain was making it harder for her to fight the cancer and it would have worked as well. But that aside, I LIKE them as a couple and this denied me seeing them as a happy couple which is what I actually want from this movie. Perhaps I'm getting old but I actually derive more satisfaction from seeing them happy together than some CGI monster slaughter. And I didn't get it. Now, I do enjoy a good tragedy but this film was so filled with inept comedy and undermining of its own drama you don't get it. Probably Natalie Portman doesn't want to get sucked into MCU again. Still, it's got to rank slightly above Your Highness in the list of movies she should have got out of, though. I wonder how they got her to do this?
  • Asgard Disneyland is stupid. For one, why is everything so tawdry. Well, yes - the answer is once again 'comedy' but it's impossible to justify in-universe. I know only a portion of the Asgardians survived but they went from a whole people to a small village. And I know not all Asgardians have the power of Thor nor the magical knowledge of Loki - but they are still a semi-immortal, preternaturally strong and durable race. The exact degree to which Thor can do what he does because he's Thor and how much is due to being Asgardian has never been cleared up but I thought it was established that the Asgardians are a kind of light flavour super-hero just in themselves. Any one of them should be finding a myriad of things better to do than ferry a bunch of Americans around the streets for pocket change. A lot of them do magic ("I come from a place where they are one and the same", anyone remember?). It's just stupid as a concept.
  • The adoption / found-family theme. Why is this pushed relentlessly over and over by these movies? And I do mean relentlessly. It's a good message in and of itself but it seems to be pushed to a very overt degree. Blood families, no. Found Family - relentlessly. It's even pushed to the forefront in this one with Thor imagining having children with Jane only to be denied that and given this random child instead. Like I say, adoption is a good thing but is this some kind of Hollywood "real family isn't important" / urban bughive / immigration messaging or something? Like, it is everywhere.
  • Thor's new costume looks like a plastic action figure. Did nobody in the costuming department have the guts to tell the director? Or were they overridden by the merchandising department. It's distractingly bad.
  • Fucking Korg. Hate that character. "OOoh, look at me. I have an annoying voice and narrate what's going on. And oh look, turns out the only living part of my people is the face, that makes no sense but please laugh". If anything captures what's wrong with the MCU, it's this character.
  • Screaming goats. Ironically their brief appearance in the trailer was one of the things I liked as it's a call back to actual myths. Turns out they're really annoying.
  • What the Fuck is Russell Crowe's accent supposed to be? Greek? I mean I like the guy and I kind of like his Zeus. But wow!
  • Natalie Portman looks hot as Lady Thor. Love those arms. One more reason I'm annoyed we can't just have a movie of the two of them side by side for a whole movie as a super-hero couple who actually love each other.
Anyway, can't really recommend this movie even I really liked some of the cast.

Right - all that was my unordered thoughts on the movie. Click on the Spoiler button - you know you want to. :)
 
Product Placement said:
Will Marvel ever make a movie with sincerity, one thing to have jokes but they are always undercutting scenes which are meant to be impactful with unfunny quips.

Look at Rami's Spiderman movies, or even newer stuff like Wonder Woman or Shazam, those movies are still crowd-pleasers which do have lots of levity within them but they don't under cut the big dramatic moments with a unfunny joke. Also never felt like they are embarrassed to be a comic book movie, which many Marvel movie feel like they are with joking about how dumb something is such as a name rather than to just roll with it and not make it a big deal.

It really feels Marvel wants the movies to be parodies at this point but don't have the balls to just do parodies. With Deadpool coming to the MCU and with his movies being a proud parody of superhero movies, it is just going to make the issues with Marvel movies stand out even more.

But what I'm asking for is Marvel to stop putting out the same fast food style movie and take time to really make something good. Better to have 1 or 2 good movies a year than 3+ movies and 3+ tv shows which because of lack time are mostly shot on green screen and never look good or even look like the people are present within the world you have created with cgi artists who are overworked and rushed.
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I think you are misunderstanding something very basic. The current directors being sent to make a Marvel film (or any other popculture slorp) don't like comic book.

Imagine being a modern Hollywood director, you have sucked more dick than the average porn actress and sold your firstborn for Moloch. You finally get your big break... And it's a comic book film, a genre that you've been indoctrinated to hate every facet of it - the white cis characters, the fascist message or a strong men fixing everything, the disgusting racist fans. But you take it because that's multimillion dollar film.

And because they don't care about comic books they won't learn anything about it. They'll take some recent big event, fit into a pre approved formula and call it a day. But like the perpetual McDonald's wagies those directors are, they do the bare minimum and still manage to completely fuck it up because they'll decide to use their moral and intellectual superiority to lecture to the audience.

So the films will have some woke agenda inserted in (in a way that can easily be cut in international release) to educate the trolls, and every century old trope will be lampshaded because those idiot sheeple need to know they are dumb to expect something serious from a comic book film, and the audience, that's been raised to think that being laughed at is very funny, eat this shit up.
 
Saw Thor tonight.

I didn't mind it because I am a big Taika fan (please don't hurt me) and am very fond of his brand of humour, or maybe it's just his New Zealand accent, I think it does differ from other Marvel films comedy (which I do actually find annoying). But I can totally see why people who actually care about these movies and their source material would be more than annoyed.

Bale was criminally under used.

Russel Crowe was cool, I'll second the accent was weird but I liked his take on Zeus.

Nothing really spectacular but I enjoyed my time watching it, points for it being able to stand on it's own with out knowing what happened in the last 20 movies.

ETA: My experience with Marvel-verse is spread pretty thin, I maybe watch 1 out of every 5 movies they shit out.

I would give it overall a 2.5/5 - a fun and silly 2 hours spent but I will likely not think about this movie ever again.
 
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Found family is getting pushed hard because real family is the last big foundational cornerstone globohomo hasnt tipped over completely yet.

Fun fact most "found families" will exile you in a heart beat if you stop having the correct view or be involved in the thing that the "found family" likes to do. (Even if its something as stupid as going to anime conventions together)

Most real families will let the asshole kid come to Thanksgiving if they can shut the fuck up and not pick fights.
 
CharcoalChkn said:
I didn't mind it because I am a big Taika fan (please don't hurt me) and am very fond of his brand of humour, or maybe it's just his New Zealand accent, I think it does differ from other Marvel films comedy (which I do actually find annoying). But I can totally see why people who actually care about these movies and their source material would be more than annoyed.
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I think you nailed the view of a lot of us. We don't necessarily hate this style of humour or Taika in general, we just don't like it using these movies as a vehicle for it. Someone did a parody movie of this stuff like this - sure. But the thing shouldn't be a parody of itself. Plus it's predictable as Hell. When I see Thor begin to make a speech I just know it's going to flounder for one reason or another. He's an actual king and warrior who's been raised to this since birth. He should be able to make a proper inspiring speech. It's the fact that the "comedy" bends everything to its will and distorts it out of shape that is the problem. You can't take it seriously, you can't get invested in the characters or their needs and wants. And then the director thinks they can suddenly 180 and have a tragic finale just by shifting to sad music. It doesn't work. Having your cake and eating it like that takes a LOT more finesse.

Someone mentioned Shazzam. Now that movie has some very funny moments without turning itself into a pastiche or breaking established character over and over.


Change of topic: anyone know if it's public information how much actors were paid for their roles in this movie? I'd love to know how much Vin Diesel got for saying "I am Groot" once near the beginning.
 
Stab You in the Back said:
You grasp the concept of "luck" about as well as Alanis Morissette understands irony.
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Funny, I hate that song for that reason. That and it being the only song they ever play from her.

"Contrived conveniences", then. However you wish to describe the story taking steps to establish its own progression, but feeling inorganic and lacking any subtlety in their execution.

Overly Serious said:
I think you nailed the view of a lot of us. We don't necessarily hate this style of humour or Taika in general, we just don't like it using these movies as a vehicle for it. Someone did a parody movie of this stuff like this - sure. But the thing shouldn't be a parody of itself. Plus it's predictable as Hell. When I see Thor begin to make a speech I just know it's going to flounder for one reason or another. He's an actual king and warrior who's been raised to this since birth. He should be able to make a proper inspiring speech. It's the fact that the "comedy" bends everything to its will and distorts it out of shape that is the problem. You can't take it seriously, you can't get invested in the characters or their needs and wants. And then the director thinks they can suddenly 180 and have a tragic finale just by shifting to sad music. It doesn't work. Having your cake and eating it like that takes a LOT more finesse.

Someone mentioned Shazzam. Now that movie has some very funny moments without turning itself into a pastiche or breaking established character over and over.
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They can't seem to settle on just how serious or comedic you should be taking Thor, but with Waititi enjoying success with his portrayal, I'd say it's more comedy now.

Probably unpopular, but I liked how Thor's storyline was being treated at the beginning of The Dark World before all the usual MCU elements leaked in. He was also one of the stronger parts of Infinity War, striking a sort of balance between all of his earlier appearances. I was fine with either one, but Ragnarok and Endgame took demeaning his character too far.

Maybe they were afraid of him being too one-dimensional at the beginning, but he's gone through enough arcs and audiences have followed him long enough that I don't think it's a problem anymore.
 
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wtfNeedSignUp said:
I think you are misunderstanding something very basic. The current directors being sent to make a Marvel film (or any other popculture slorp) don't like comic book.

Imagine being a modern Hollywood director, you have sucked more dick than the average porn actress and sold your firstborn for Moloch. You finally get your big break... And it's a comic book film, a genre that you've been indoctrinated to hate every facet of it - the white cis characters, the fascist message or a strong men fixing everything, the disgusting racist fans. But you take it because that's multimillion dollar film.

And because they don't care about comic books they won't learn anything about it. They'll take some recent big event, fit into a pre approved formula and call it a day. But like the perpetual McDonald's wagies those directors are, they do the bare minimum and still manage to completely fuck it up because they'll decide to use their moral and intellectual superiority to lecture to the audience.

So the films will have some woke agenda inserted in (in a way that can easily be cut in international release) to educate the trolls, and every century old trope will be lampshaded because those idiot sheeple need to know they are dumb to expect something serious from a comic book film, and the audience, that's been raised to think that being laughed at is very funny, eat this shit up.
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It doesn't really come up much which is surprising because it's a thing soyboys used to demand a lot but there's interviews where it's mentioned writers have tried to bring in non-Marvel characters like those in Star Wars or the Rocketeer before getting shot down by the higher ups telling them they can't do that. So it's fairly clear even they don't care about even having name-only Marvel characters in their "Marvel" movies and want to do other things. It's very unusual.
 
That Chris Guy said:
"Contrived conveniences", then. However you wish to describe the story taking steps to establish its own progression, but feeling inorganic and lacking any subtlety in their execution.
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Except the story did take the steps. The body was originally used to lend credibility to America's story. As far as the audience is concerned, the body's purpose was finished once it resolved that minor conflict. A badly-written movie would have forgotten that the body was there (or, as you say, disposed of the body in a more permanent way). Strange: MoM is actually smart in repurposing the body during the finale instead of coming up with some other contrivance that enables Strange to participate in the final battle with Wanda. That's good writing: not just using the body for a cheap quip, but giving it multiple important purposes throughout the film.

Compare that to, say, Shang-Chi, which includes multiple flashback scenes which serve no storytelling purpose except to pad the runtime. And introducing characters like The Mandarin from Iron Man 3 who exist for no other purpose than the main character to point at him and go "boy, he sure is CRAZY!"
 
Stab You in the Back said:
Except the story did take the steps. The body was originally used to lend credibility to America's story. As far as the audience is concerned, the body's purpose was finished once it resolved that minor conflict. A badly-written movie would have forgotten that the body was there (or, as you say, disposed of the body in a more permanent way). Strange: MoM is actually smart in repurposing the body during the finale instead of coming up with some other contrivance that enables Strange to participate in the final battle with Wanda. That's good writing: not just using the body for a cheap quip, but giving it multiple important purposes throughout the film.

Compare that to, say, Shang-Chi, which includes multiple flashback scenes which serve no storytelling purpose except to pad the runtime. And introducing characters like The Mandarin from Iron Man 3 who exist for no other purpose than the main character to point at him and go "boy, he sure is CRAZY!"
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You have a point in that comparison to Shang-Chi where repurposing is better than elements that lead to nowhere. For me, it came across as an obvious red flag where Strange taking a vested interest on preserving his dead self somewhere for study would have been less suspicious. It's been used by others as an example before, but the malfunctioning freezer in Tremors is an example of laying the foundation correctly - completely benign point that was foreshadowed and becomes important enough it gets a character killed for it.

Maybe it's what I get for watching material marketed for younger audiences. Might have to go back and rewatch Raimi's Spiderman to see if he did anything like this before.
 
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namelessoracle said:
Found family is getting pushed hard because real family is the last big foundational cornerstone globohomo hasnt tipped over completely yet.

Fun fact most "found families" will exile you in a heart beat if you stop having the correct view or be involved in the thing that the "found family" likes to do. (Even if its something as stupid as going to anime conventions together)

Most real families will let the asshole kid come to Thanksgiving if they can shut the fuck up and not pick fights.
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These groups aren't found families. At best, they are like high school cliques, but instead of being build around being on a sports team or who's the prettiest, most popular mean girl, they center around a veneer of politics and social justice. They just use the term "found family" to justify why they throw their real families under the bus for a group of people who (loosely) hold some of the same opinions they do.
 
Just got out of Thor: Love and Thunder, and it was one of the most boring movies I’ve sat through. I didn’t crack a smile at any of the jokes, and Korg’s were probably the worst of them. I don’t remember what I thought of Korg in Ragnarok, but he was annoying here. Natalie Portman was wasted casting, and her constant attempts at quips were cringe-inducing. And when it came to Gorr, I just couldn’t care.

With this guy’s role in the story, he should be a serious threat. He’s going around the cosmos slaughtering the gods. He’s working toward a goal of complete deicide, but they barely do anything with it. He kills a god in his first appearance, amputates Sif for a shitty joke, threatens to kill Jane and Lesbo King, and that’s it. The rest of his screentime is spent acting like a homicidal Uncle Fester. Then in his final moments he entrusts his daughter to Thor just because of a last second change of heart.
 
First we had fans supposedly being carted off because of Infinity War and now this?
1657490113543.png 1657490169014.png

How can they say children can accept mature content when they clearly cannot?!
 
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