Superhero Films: Will They Ever Take Off? - The Bear and Badger

cosmicjellybean

g.man wrote:

New Hellboy film seems to be getting an absolute mauling by the critics then.

Shame, I really liked those first 2 films.

It looked awful from that first trailer though, so not very surprised.

Wasn't sold on non-Perlman either at all.

superflyninja

Non Perlman lol

poprock

It’s looked crap from day one.

g.man

Yup.

RedDave2

Me and wife watched aqua man and given that we are both easy marks for this kind of thing, we both felt underwhelmed. Too long, too much happening, same old DC problems. And it's a real pity because some stuff is good and showed potential. But overall a bit of a mess.

regmcfly

Yeah, I thought the same. Dc getting a pass because everything else they've done recently is a flaming pile of garbage with spoiled nappies on top.

RedDave2

It's the same mistakes every time though. Too much special effects, way too much convoluted plot and nearly always an uneven tone. They always feel like films that started one way and then through a combination of producer over reach, consumer testing and marvel envy end up really muddled.

Says a lot that wonder woman is the best one and that would be average marvel at best.

djchump

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies - best superhero/superteam film.

LivDiv

There are Endgame spoilers out, pics, a video and plot details.
I wanna look at them but I can't find them because the internet is full of articles telling me how to avoid them.

I wanna spoil the movie for myself god dammit.

Found some details that seem legit but that is it. Fucking lefty liberals ruining the internet.

ChopperByrne

djchump wrote:

Teen Titans Go! To The Movies - best superhero/superteam film.

Absolutely loved that.

Was hoping the kids would ask to go again while it was still in the cinema.

g.man

Mayday! Mayday! Currently half way through Captain Marvel. Losing the will to live. Send help.

message ends

g.man

RedDave2

Damnit people, we need a gallon of iron bru, stat!

g.man

RedDave2

I didn't mind it but if youre bored by midway I cant really say it picks up much.

Paul the sparky

I finally watched it with Danielle last Sunday. Enjoyed it, much lighter tone and lower stakes

Spoiler:

and a good pallet cleanser following Infinity War that also managed to get me even more excited for Endgame. Job done. I thought Mendelsohn was class.

MattyJ

Capt Marvel was amazing in my opinion. Finally seeing a superhero woman on screen in power. Saying it's lower stakes is interesting because her realising her full potential and breaking free from being told she isn't strong enough is the key to the whole of endgame it seems.

Diluted Dante

MattyJ wrote:

Finally seeing a superhero woman on screen in power.

Did I imagine Wonder Woman?

MattyJ

Diluted Dante wrote:

MattyJ wrote:

Finally seeing a superhero woman on screen in power.

Did I imagine Wonder Woman?

Aye sorry was written quick. But I feel the impact of capt Marvel on women in general can be overlooked. It's not a film about someone who starts 'normal' and becomes all powerful, but more about how she is oppressed by the men in power until she breaks free. She is literally told repeatedly not to use her power.

g.man

So. Captain Marvel. *if you haven't seen it, there will be spoilers*

I have a ticket to see Avengers:Endgame.
That being said, Avengers: Infinity War ended with a sly nod to the impending arrival of Captain Marvel to help kick Thanos in the balls. But who the hell is this Captain Marvel anyway??? Despite having spent my childhood reading Marvel comics, I have no idea who this guy is? Oh ffs. I'm going to have to do some research amn't I?

To Wikipedia!

Ah right. It seems that Captain Marvel is some white dude who is an alien superhero, but wait, no, it actually seems Captain Marvel is a black earth woman who, wait, no she's really actually called Ms. Marvel and she's a white earth woman who's somehow been fused with the alien guy who was Captain Marvel. Oh for fuck sake. I'm just going to have to watch the bloody film aren't I?

Now I like Marvel films. Even the weaker entries tend to be decent fun, but I thought Captain Marvel was poor.
YMMV.
It commits the cardinal sin of just being very boring, which for a Marvel film is unusual. Even the weaker entries in the MCU tend to have something that engages me. If the story is a plonker, at least the casting will be spot on and there will probably be some witty banter to pass the time.

Not Captain Marvel though. This is badly written, badly directed, and perhaps even badly cast. The holy trinity of awfulness. Quite a feat that.

It's meant to be her origin story. The film starts with a dream of Carol Danvers crashing a plane on earth and being threatened by a LIZARD MAN. So we assume that she is human. By the end of the film, it has been confirmed that she is indeed human...and that's literally all we know about her. She is human. She was a pilot. She had an accident that gave her the soopa-powas. But who the fuck is Carol Danvers? What was her story? Her entire history of growing up on earth is literally reduced to a montage of her falling on her arse at different stages in her life. So not really marvellous then.

Now I don't know Brie Larson as an actor. Maybe she's awesome? Maybe she's Captain Fucking Awesome for all I know, but she's given absolutely nothing to work with in this film, and for that I felt sorry for her, because it made her look bad when she's presumably a decent actor. Honestly, you could have replaced her with an inflatable dummy in this film and I wouldn't have batted an eye-lid.

Conversely, Nick Furious has more of an arc in this film than the eponymous hero does. This is meant to be the origin of Captain Amazing, but what we actually get is the origin of Nick Furious finally fleshed out. I suppose that's nice if you're Samuel L Jackson, but it's a bit bizarre if you paid your ten dolla to see Captain Brilliant.

*As a sidenote, Jackson must have been paid a shit-tonne of money for this film because he's apparently spent all the money on plastic surgery, so I guess this puts paid to the myth that only women in Hollywood feel the pressure to remain looking forever youthful.

Anyway. The plot is a mess. Structurally it doesn't work. Little of it makes any sense, but it's all so inconsequential that I guess few will bother to question the many plot-holes and deficiencies.
It seems to have been structured in a quasi-non-linear fashion purely to service the reveal that the AUSTRALIAN LIZARD PEOPLE are...wait for it... the good guys. They're not actually trying to infiltrate America and take over the world, they're just looking for bar work, I guess?

So once Captain Fantastic realises this, she kicks the (now) bad guy in the balls and then punishes him by...sending him home. Whut? Rather than taking the fight to the newly revealed Planet of Alien Space Nazis, the film ends with her taking a gap year with the AUSTRALIAN LIZARD PEOPLE. M'kay.

Dull, dull stuff. And it's sad, because women deserve better than this. Marvel has always been about the flawed characters, their inner struggles, the conflict in their actions, and their growth as characters.
Prior to it's release, much was made of this being the MCU's first female lead film.
Sadly with Major Lazer, yet again we have another forgettable female protagonist. We know nothing about her. What was her journey through life? What struggles did she face? What does she believe in? What is her conflict? Ultimately what we're left with again is just another pretty face in a pleather onesie. It's Scarlet Witch. It's Black Widow. There are others too. It's a growing list. Female characters who started out working for the bad guys, then realising the error of their ways, switched to team good guys, where they're largely reduced to being fighting eye candy while the men sort out the big stuff. FFS, It's 2019 Marvel, maybe flesh these characters out a bit and treat them with the same respect you give to all the men in tights.

*Sidenote. Where does Carol Danvers hide her costume, when for the majority of the film she's just wearing jeans and a t-shirt? Maybe they could have given her a nice bag to carry it around in. I gather women like that sort of thing?

So, at the end of the day, not a terrible film really, just a very boring film that's not really worthy of anyone's time.
I watched it purely because of The Avengers connection. I needn't have bothered. Having seen it now, I know no more about Captain Sensible than I did prior to viewing, and I care even less.
If you haven't seen it, I suggest you don't bother. All you need to know is that she's an overpowered superhero who's going to turn up in Avengers: Endgame.

Higher. Further. Disaster.

g.man

regmcfly

Sammy J had de-aging SFX throughout the movie because of the time setting, so no, he didn't have to go through the same standards. It probably helps there's a shit load of material with him from the 90s as source material.

g.man

Spoiler:

cosmicjellybean

I don’t feel the same as you g, but I also can’t disagree with your critique.

I quite liked the small montages alluding to her past, and her piecing it together throughout the film. However she really isn’t given a huge amount to work with, and I thought most of the dialogue was straight-up cheesy nonsense.

I liked Brie and Lashana though, thought the scenes with those two were the best parts of the film.

Also the ‘only kids in the 90s will remember this!’ backdrop was kind of awful. I expected her to have to use a tamagotchi to save the world somehow.

g.man

Aye, it's been hugely successful, and most people seem to have enjoyed it. It was just a total misfire for me sadly.

digi

Enjoyed your write up g and agree with it all,
The only reason I watched it was so I had seen it all on the run up to endgame.

I enjoyed the after credits more than the actual movie.

cosmicjellybean

I think maybe it skewed a lot younger perhaps? If I was 10ish I would have really loved it I think.

poprock

I enjoyed the film. I also enjoyed G’s review. I CONTAIN MULTITUDES.

Paul the sparky

I'm 36 and managed to enjoy it.

I think g has grasped the shitty end of the stick a few times there though,

Spoiler:

I mean it's not perfect, but it does make sense, it was fun, had a good cast and will be as important for women as Black Panther was for black people. If it bored you I'm not sure how adding more back story padding to it will help that, and I don't think it needs it. Surely we're all familiar with the bullshit women have to deal with in everyday life by now, labouring that point wouldn't make for a fun film.

g.man

Yup. That's all absolutely fair enough, but the way the film was structured irked me, and I think her personal story deserved more than just a montage.

Diluted Dante

Even Rocky had a montage

g.man

Even Rocky had a backstory.

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