Movie Reviews 2.0

[Orion]

Of course he has spider sense!

Spoiler

It's alluded to in his first meeting with Tony, and also during the battle I can clearly remember that he senses something that's going to hit him from behind and he dodges it. I'm sure they'll have more time to develop and show his powers in his movie.

As for the characters' power levels, I agree they're a bit all over the place but let's not forget that they are also all over the place in the comics, much more so.

I mean Wanda changed the entire universe once in the comics just by making a wish ("no more mutants" and ensuing dramas). But she did take down Vision in the film, and shows that she can control the Mind Stone - which would make her very, very powerful in Infinity War.

Most of these characters have variable powers depending on the era and even the events in the comics, hopefully they will show a bit of development in the next few sequels.

Spoiler

Well the spider sense was really subtle, slight, didn't even notice it. Usually he commands a fight with it and is usually untouchable. There have been cases where he has been able to single handedly take on entire teams of xmen with them not landing a single hit, iirc. If he had that kind of spider sense he would have owned the entire cap team, which is much weaker(with the exception of wanda) than an xmen team.

I just don't like the fact that vision, spidey, war machine, black panther were being challenged by caps team. The only person who's got any chance there is wanda and the camera work didn't show her as much.

BTW, anyone notice how xmen:apocalypse was blasted by critics despite a director with a solid record of movies? I honestly doubt the movie is significantly worse than DOFP or First Class. I'll wait until I see it before I draw my final verdict. But it is likely there are alternate reasons for them discriminating against it, perhaps many of the critics were offended a bit?

 

[I.S.T.]

Same director did Superman Returns and Jack the Giant Slayer.

He's no stranger to mediocre or bad films.

Edit: Kind of... conspiracy theorist of you in that post.

 

[Orion]

Same director did Superman Returns and Jack the Giant Slayer.

He's no stranger to mediocre or bad films.

Edit: Kind of... conspiracy theorist of you in that post.

From reviews I've seen opinions are again divided. Some think it's good, others do not. If a film contains potentially offensive material, it is not inconceivable that such may adversely influence some reviewers.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Of course he has spider sense!

Spoiler

It's alluded to in his first meeting with Tony, and also during the battle I can clearly remember that he senses something that's going to hit him from behind and he dodges it. I'm sure they'll have more time to develop and show his powers in his movie.

As for the characters' power levels, I agree they're a bit all over the place but let's not forget that they are also all over the place in the comics, much more so.

I mean Wanda changed the entire universe once in the comics just by making a wish ("no more mutants" and ensuing dramas). But she did take down Vision in the film, and shows that she can control the Mind Stone - which would make her very, very powerful in Infinity War.

Most of these characters have variable powers depending on the era and even the events in the comics, hopefully they will show a bit of development in the next few sequels.

Also....

Spoiler

It's worth remembering that none of the characters were going all out to kill or hurt the other team. They just wanted to prevent Cap from getting in the jet, thus the melee type guys were naturally going to see more action since Iron Man, War Machine and Vision were unable to use energy weapons and other more exotic means of stopping Caps team. Going by what happened to War Machine it seems pretty clear that the Vision was holding back during the main part of the fight. Plus, Caps team had giant Ant Man! That's gotta count for a lot!

 

[London Geezer]

BTW, anyone notice how xmen:apocalypse was blasted by critics despite a director with a solid record of movies? I honestly doubt the movie is significantly worse than DOFP or First Class. I'll wait until I see it before I draw my final verdict. But it is likely there are alternate reasons for them discriminating against it, perhaps many of the critics were offended a bit?

Discriminating against it?? Maybe it's just not that great?

 

[DuckThor Evil]

Have you seen this deleted scene from Avengers 2?

Today I'll go see Angry Birds and X-Men next week.

 

[pjbliverpool]

Have you seen this deleted scene from Avengers 2?

Today I'll go see Angry Birds and X-Men next week.

Cooool! Thanks for that!

 

[London Geezer]

Have you seen this deleted scene from Avengers 2?

Today I'll go see Angry Birds and X-Men next week.

Nice! Imagine if Banner turned green and also joined in.

About the power levels or missing powers thing, a lot of it can be explained away simply by the immaturity of the characters - Spider-Man for sure is a very young version of the hero and it's easy to go "he's young and learning". He didn't even have a name (the whole hilarious scene with Tony) and I doubt we'll hear the classic "my spider sense is tingling" unless it's for a funny tribute to the old days kind of line.

Vision too, he literally was born yesterday, and even by the time we get to CW, he does say he's still learning how to control the Mind stone.

That airport scene was very much a "let's not hurt them too much" kind of scene. Vision alone clearly could have decimated them alone, if he really wanted to. Or Wanda could have done some mumbo jumbo. Or Iron man could have at least finished the non-powered human ones with a couple of real missiles.

Point is, the power level of these people is always a function of the scene setup and how the battle is ultimately meant to end. Like in the comics, like in pretty much every film. See BvS, Superman would easily cut Batman in half with heat vision 'if he wanted to', in the first 5 min of the film. That's not the point of the movie though, is it!

 

[Dave Baumann]

In the Spoiler Special podcast I pointed to earlier (with some written points cribbed from it here) the Russo's point to some level of equalization, which includes Vision being on a leash and and Wanda limited by here own personal insecurities over the control of her powers.

And for my money, unleashed Wanda seems like she could be the most powerful individual of all the heroes in the MCU so far.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Just saw Civil War. Enjoyed it a lot, but the Winter Soldier was a better movie. The overall storyline for Civil War is good, but it's padded with a lot of extra stuff at 2.5 hours, where Winter Soldier seemed like a lot more of a concise movie. Black Panther is cool, and so is Spiderman, but their part in the whole thing is really just to setup more movies, rather than contribute to the story in any meaningful way. While that's not necessarily bad, I thought the movie was a bit long and had a bit too much spectacle. Still, I'd put it ahead of the Avengers movies. It has a much better story, more emotional range and makes much better use of the actors. Captain America might come across as a dick if I hadn't watched Winter Soldier, but I think viewing the series as a whole his motivations are understandable in a situation where right and wrong are ambiguous. Winter Soldier just had a great story that seemed perfectly suited to the character, and was based around a political issue that's very relevant. Civil War is also a well structured story, but maybe doesn't have the same relevance as an issue. Honestly have no interest in the infinity bullshit that's coming, but the Russo brothers at least give me some hope that it will turn out. I just think that story is destined to be style over substance.

 

[Dave Baumann]

The Thor: Ragnorak cast just got even more epic. Not only is Ruffalo there as a the Hulk, but now we have:

• Cate Blanchett as Hela
• Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie
• Jeff Goldblum as Grandmaster
• Karl Urban as Skurge

 

[Grall]

Namedropping never does anything for me (well, almost never... ), but I am looking forward to this movie. There's like...zero percent probability I won't be watching this in cinemas when it comes out. Maybe first day even, like with Civil War.

Not seen Goldblum in any movie since... Hell, Jurassic Park 2, I think. He's gonna be old by now. Looking forward to it, though! And cool to have some women characters as well, superhero movies often tend to be heavy on penises otherwise. Is Nathalie Portman in it again? I sure hope so, she's been great in the first two, it would be weird to not have her in the third as well.

 

[Malo]

No her character is not in this Thor movie. Mostly apparently because very little takes place on Earth.

 

[homerdog]

But I thought Natalie Portman's vagina was the wormhole to Plymouth and without it the pilgrims could never stop the indians from raiding the stuffing mines. Seems odd to leave her out. Of course I never saw the first Thor so I'm just going by the South Park version, which may be slightly different.

 

[Grall]

southpark "humor" never did appeal much to me, I'm afraid. Mostly seems like some crap overgrown, poorly mannered six-year-olds thought was funny.

 

[Laa-Yosh]

Not seen Goldblum in any movie since... Hell, Jurassic Park 2, I think. He's gonna be old by now.

Goldblum is in Independence Day 2 and the trailers were all around the net.

The only difference I could see at a first glance is that he has grey hair, apart from that he kinda looked the same.

 

[Grall]

He's looking very tanned.

 

[Malo]

Saw Civil War tonight and really enjoyed it overall. Seems to be a different approach to most of the previous movies which were much less serious full of purely action and one-liners. A refreshing look at what Marvel is doing.

A few issues I had with it

Spoiler: spoilers

• Bucky's programming is contradictory during the movie. Does he remember what he does or not? After he's awakened and escapes the holding facility then rescued by Cap, he asks what happened and what he did, indicating he doesn't remember. Yet later at the climax with Stark when he asked Bucky whether he remembers killing his parents, Bucky says he remembers them all.
• If Stark's parents were killed in 1991, how does Cap know about it? Did Bucky tell him?
• Warmachine falling from the sky and getting some apparently non-life threatening spinal damage was just stupid. Hero movie or not. He's a human being.

 

[homerdog]

Spoiler: spoilers

• Warmachine falling from the sky and getting some apparently non-life threatening spinal damage was just stupid. Hero movie or not. He's a human being.

Many (most?) of the things they do in those suits would instantly turn the wearer into primordial soup no matter how invincible the armor plating is, so I dunno why that in particular seems off to you

 

[Malo]

Many (most?) of the things they do in those suits would instantly turn the wearer into primordial soup no matter how invincible the armor plating is, so I dunno why that in particular seems off to you

Yeah I thought about it afterwards and it was rather silly to complain about that considering the pounding Ironman and Warmachine take in their battles.