Topic: The Movie Thread

@WanderingBullet Have no memory of posting that, and I don't see why I would, so I'm going to say: "nope; wasn't me."

Anyway, Civil War didn't have the bunches of CGI things, but it definitely has that dynamic of a chaotic battle where the superheroes are barreling at each-other from opposite directions. It's very weird.

As I said, Winter Soldier was an exception. It was pretty great. Probably a top three MCU film for me.

You're not incorrect that other special effects extravaganzas do this as well, but you can showcase large, CGI heavy battles without it literally being one group of things running at another group of things. It's all about the framing. Star Wars battles tend to make more dramatic sense, and, in the best films, the combat sequences have a logic and flow to them that makes them exciting to watch. The battles in these Avengers movies are more like something out of a Michael Bay Transformers film, where it's visually chaotic and noisy and there's no real sense of flow to the battle at large. You might remember individual sequences, such as Captain America attacking Thanos with Thor's hammer, but, beyond that, it's mind-numbing chaos.

To be fair, they did this same thing with Aqua-Man, and it was just as bad there. Aqua-Man wasn't really a coherent artistic experience, though. It was more like the filmmakers aped conventions from big modern blockbusters. It's like they watched Star Wars and Avengers films and just said: "Yes, we want all of that." So you get stupid scenes like the underwater chase with the manta ray machines, which was, for all intents and purposes, a sequence copied almost wholesale from a Star Wars film.

Another amazing achievement is how Marvel managed make all of of these characters popular, most of them (except for Capt. and Spidey) were essentially B-tier comics book heroes and villains prior to the MCU movies. I think in they've been quite spot on in terms of casting.

DC had three iconic characters in Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman and they messed it up in trying to make a team movie. I'm still hoping one day we'll get a great Justice League movie since it's my favourite superhero team.

@Ralizah My bad. I remembered it wrongly. You actually said:

This film won't even have the decency to accept the consequences of its events, marks my words.

DC can't compete with Disney's resources and, when they try to ape the MCU formula, it just comes off as uninspired. I think films like Joker are the way for DC to go: allow different filmmakers to take wildly different stabs at your classic properties.

Besides, we all know DC's real strength lies in their animated films.

@WanderingBullet Ah, now that definitely sounds like something I said.

And... well, it was pretty much stating the obvious. Everyone that was 'snapped' magically came back to life by means of time travel antics. Which is why the "weighty" ending of Infinity War did nothing for me. It was never going to stick. As such, the 'snap' was little more than a cheap gimmick in the context of the wider storyline.

I also found my old list and altered a couple of the old scores a bit.

Avengers: Endgame - 10 (Not a perfect 10 since it had some plot holes in regards of the time travel but a great effort by the creators in creating a satisfying ending to the Infinity Saga).
Thor: Ragnarok - 9.5
Avengers: Infinity War - 9
Captain America: Winter Soldier - 9
Guardians of the Galaxy - 9
Ant-man - 8.5
Avengers - 8.5
Iron Man - 8.5
Spider-man: Homecoming - 8.5
Doctor Strange - 8
Captain America: Civil War - 7.5
Captain Marvel - 7
Ant-man and the Wasp - 7
Avengers: Age of Ultron - 7
Black Panther - 7
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 - 7
Iron Man 3 - 7
Thor - 6
Captain America: The First Avenger - 6
Thor: The Dark World - 4
Iron Man 2 - 3.5
The Incredible Hulk - 3.5

@Ralizah

Which is why the "weighty" ending of Infinity War did nothing for me. It was never going to stick. As such, the 'snap' was little more than a cheap gimmick in the context of the wider storyline.

This sort thing has been happening in comics for as long as I can remember. No one ever stays dead.lol To be fair, they were some consequences in Endgame and because of that it didn't felt gimmicky or cheap to me.

@Ralizah Yeah, Disney has the Marvel movies and Star Wars to thank for that. The former alone has already made close to $20 billion in the last 10-11 years for them. Endgame has already earned $1.2 billion in it's opening weekend.

@WanderingBullet @WanderingBullet Sure. In Endgame. It indirectly led to some consequences. But the 'snap' itself was a meaningless event outside of its role as a motivating plot device in IW's sequel. Which is a big reason why I think IW itself is just deeply flawed. Not to mention how the entire film is a transparent mcguffin hunt. Or how multiple characters have to act like idiots for the ending to pan out the way it did.

I'd say, for me, the top five films would be:
(best to worst)
Iron Man
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Black Panther
Iron Man 3 (I actually disliked this one a bit upon first viewing it, but it gets better every time I rewatch it)

Bottom five:
(worst to best)
Thor: The Dark World (I'm unsure if I've ever actually been able to fully pay attention to this movie; it's SO boring)
Captain America: The First Avenger [EDIT: replaced Guardians of the Galaxy 2 with this; I just remembered much much I disliked it)
The Incredible Hulk
Thor: Ragnarok
The Avengers

I accept that these are controversial placements.

Anyway, it's pretty incredible how thoroughly Disney has amassed a veritable monopoly on big Western pop culture properties over the years, and how this has led to them practically taking over Hollywood and the box office. It's rather unnerving, actually. No good comes from so much power being amassed in such an ultimately small number of hands.

Ghost in the Shell 2017 (Amazon Prime Video) - The live action adaptation, and it was actually pretty decent. Questionable casting choice aside (and of which I personally ultimately didn't mind, as it was explained in the context of this version's story) it didn't do anything wrong, as in it checked all the boxes correctly in terms of world, characters, design, and even the basic themes that permeate the series (with a proper budget to boot), but it's big fault is that it just felt very "diet GitS", in an effort to make it a more easily consumable popcorn flick (I had to rewatch the original film multiple times to get it & I STILL don't really understand Stand Alone Complex, but I was able to piece together the basic plotline of this film quite early on), and partially probably an effort to appease the China censors (toned down the general "adult" content of the series, in terms of blood & sexualization). It's not bad though, and still a decent watch if you're into the series just to see the characters translated into live-action, or just want to watch a decent sci-fi flick.

Widows. Expertly well made film with some good performances from a great cast. Sagged a bit in the middle and was a bit slow for me, and the ending was a bit neat and tidy for my liking. Still overall an enjoyable watch.

I just got back from Avengers: End Game and feel inclined to drop some thoughts.

I know much has been said about it already, but I want to leave my take. I’ll try to not be as verbose as I usually am in these impression posts, since I know some people might be sick of hearing about End Game so much.

All in all, it was a really good movie. I wouldn’t personally rank it as the MCU’s best, but likely in the top third.
One of the basic things about the film that sticks out in my mind was how much heavier on exposition, plot, and characterization it is, as opposed to previous entries. Especially the “Avenger” mash up films (Avengers, Age of Ultron, Infinity War, Civil War) are chock full of the fun interaction of all these characters finally getting together and big fight scenes and loads of action, explosions, and combat scenes showing off each hero’s superpowers. And these intense visual and auditory displays of flashing light, color, and motion have been a joy to behold, although some people find them exhausting to watch. End Game, on the other hand, has much less of this. Especially considering its 3 hour run time there is remarkably little action. Granted the final battle versus Thanos and his minions does bring a huge amount of CG spectacle, with no holds barred — but this is one of the few fighting or action sequences in the film, outside of brief occurrences like Capt America fighting his former self and Hawkeye fighting the gangster in Japan, among others. Still, I was expecting more of these types of things scattered throughout, so the movies slow but methodical pace threw me off guard.
Now, just because I expected more action and a quicker pace doesn’t mean it was bad or wrong to follow the course they did with the film. It probably makes it a stronger film to depart slightly from convention.
The fact that they resisted the temptation to jump straight to the time travel and spent so much time developing relationships and building drama to make the pay off bigger at the end probably makes the movie better for those of us who have followed from the beginning, but makes the movie less appealing to the uninvested and to the ‘summer popcorn action flick’ seeking community.

The focus of the story so much on the surviving original Avenger group and Rocket, War Machine, and Ant Man, was fine but then strangely so little time was spent on Captain Marvel. After really liking her character in her origin story movie, in this film she’s nothing more than a convenient plot device to Deus Ex Machina the group out of trouble when needed and then disappear again. Virtually no emotional investment in her at all unless you saw her stand alone movie. So there was a little inconsistency there.
Other than some eye-rolling moments, a narrative inconsistency or two, a few immersion breaking attempts at political correctness, a couple episodes of forced humor, and a few times when the emotional aspects of the film felt a little manipulative for example, having Pepper Potts suit up for the final battle felt pretty cringeworthy, but I guess they had to set up the big emotional death scene of Tony Stark, so that was an eye-roller — so despite a small number of these trivial criticisms, the movie is a good way to have the story wrapped up. I definitely want to see it again, as I’m sure a subsequent viewing will help me appreciate some aspects of it more.

Looking forward to John Wick 3 and Godzilla: King of the Monsters this month.

Also the new Spider-man: Far from Home trailer just released.

@Th3solution Captain Marvel kind of needed to be absent in this movie. She's too powerful. Most of the other heroes have limited, well-defined powers, but the only limit of her powers seems to be whatever is required of her by the script. She's sort of like Superman, in that regard.

By political correctness, do you mean that really ham-fisted "gurl power" scene during the big battle with Thanos' forces at the end?

@WanderingBullet Man, screw Endgame. As far as I'm concerned, King of the Monsters in the 2019 blockbuster to beat. I'm ridiculously excited to see a smackdown between so many famous kaiju on a massive Hollywood budget.

@Ralizah Yeah, you’re right as it relates to Capt. Marvel But still, you’ve gotta find a way to include one of the most interesting characters in a more integrative way. I feel like I needed a better explanation than “There’s a lot of other problems in the rest of the Universe.” or whatever her excuse was for being AWOL for the last several years.
And yes, the “girl power” sequence did come across as PC film making 101. It was just so blatant as to be almost patronizing. I’ve got no problem with the message or intent, but when it’s just stuck in like that, I don’t know — it defeats the purpose and comes across as a transparent attempt to satisfy some agenda. As opposed to, say, Wonder Woman and the Amazon army, which feels a more natural display of “girl power” that fits in the context of the narrative. Anyway, it’s fine. It didn’t break the movie, it just would have been a more effective message promoting diversity if it was not such an obvious effort to shoehorn something in as what seems like almost an after-thought. Like they realized a lack of some checklist requirement they hadn’t met yet and so made up that scene. Still a fantastic movie though and I don’t want to give the impression that I didn’t like it. Nearly all movies have one or more scenes that don’t quite work.

As far as other movies I’ve watched lately, I decided I wanted to rewatch the Nolan Batman trilogy, as it’s been a while for me. Batman Begins was of course where I started and it really is an enjoyable film. I won’t break it down, other than to note that I never realized Geoffrey (sp?) from Game of Thrones is the little boy in it. I’m not a GoT fan per se, but I know enough to have seen a few scenes with him and it’s pretty funny to go back and see him play a cute innocent little wide-eyed boy. I always get a chuckle when I recognize actors or actresses in their early childhood roles. 😄

Wonder what's going on with the New Mutants movie. If been delayed three times already. The new release date now is April 2020.

@JohnnyShoulder Watched it at the weekend.

Enjoyed the performances for the most part - the 'twist' was pretty obvious from the get-go unfortunately.

I felt like it could have been... more. I like the concept, and the planning stages and interactions with the team were definite high points. The pacing felt a bit odd too.

Reason for the delay of the New Mutants is because of creative differences between the director and the studio. Rumor is that they might re-shoot 50% of the movie.

Also, Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse 2 is the works. Noice!

Seeing the end of Ender’s Game on TV again. Good movie until the end. They managed to “accidentally” have a prolonged war with a sentient intelligent species then felt bad afterwards. Wow, you really cared if you didn’t check or didn’t check until the end of the war, or really realized after you were defeated. Being desperate they’d come back to Earth or just attack another intelligent planet carelessly. It’s also hard to feel bad for a hive mind that really amounts a few sentient consciences. It does t exactly scrams a Mcintosh thinking intelligent species so much as one mind-controlled by a very secret few.

@Jaz007 It’s been a while since I saw the movie and even longer since I read the book series, but —
I don’t think humanity in general felt bad about the war afterwards except Ender and later his followers as he attempts to relay the thoughts of The Queen. The humans had no way of communicating with the Formics until Ender speaks to the Hive Queen at the end. And ironically, the Hive Queen states she had no intent to harm the humans until they kept attacking. And I don’t think humanity felt bad about the genocide as much as Ender, who was the unconscious deliverer of their demise. Some of the point of it is that this generational child prodigy Ender, the boy who was supposed to have never been born because of population control laws, ends up being the executioner of a species. Of course he was tricked into thinking he was playing a game and was driven to blow up the hive in his final “test” as a means to get expelled from the program, but he discovers he did exactly what the military wanted him to do and “won the war” in real life. He is the main person who feels bad and guilty. He is a victim of mankind’s treachery. But at the same time he is the slayer and destroyer of a species. The remaining books in the series follow his attempts to rectify his actions and bring the Hive Queen’s egg to a safe world to populate.
Anyway, I’m not sure the movie portrayed the whole story quite as well as it could have, but the end still packs a punch. It’s a great book and the series was pretty good too.

Eureka Seven: High Evolution 1 (Amazon Prime Video) - The first entry in a planned film trilogy to retell the story of the Eureka Seven TV anime, and as a huge fan of said series, I found that this missed the mark. It opened up at a point 10 years before the start of the series, showcasing an event that was central to the series' back story for the first time, and while this segment was a feast for the eyes, it's an absolutely terrible starting out point as it's full of in-universe technobabble that's not at all welcoming to newcomers, and even series fans who haven't watched it in recent memory. Then it decides to jump to an arc in the middle of the story, when Renton was living with Charles & Rey, while occasionally jumping back to the events of the first episode, that again would probably be confusing to newcomers, and also isn't optimal for a rewatch as well. Worse, this segment of the film (which is the bulk), is simply cobbled together by reusing scenes from the TV anime. Now, the series still looks good IMO (especially with how it's been remastered), but it's still a bit of a jarring transition moving from the modern film quality animation, to touched up scenes from the original TV series (especially considering the 4:3 aspect ratio).