Sigfried1977
Legend
Only thing I don't like about the Cap movies is that they all look like they were shot in various degrees of parking lot. That goes for both the settings and the washed-out colors.
Movie Reviews 2.0
- Thread starter Dresden
- Start date
Sigfried1977
Legend
Couple weeks ago I watched The Room in the theater. And unlike everyone else in the theater I've never seen the film before. What a fun experience. What a glorious trainwreck of a movie. I don't think fun bad can get much better. Took me a while before I figured out why everyone was throwing plastic spoons (which the usher had handed out to them at the entrance) at the screen.
WhiningKhan
Regular
Marvel movies really peaked at CA:WS. I'm sure Black Panther isn't bad in that crowd, but it's hard for me now to watch new Marvel movie trailers from the constant rolling of my eyes... I guess I've had enough of vehicles thrown over, incredible leaps with super-hero landings, and seemingly invincible characters wielding shiny high-tech gadgets yet still engaging in a pointless fistfight. Right now it feels like I won't be seeing any superhero comic-based movie in a theatre unless something really special comes out.
Lately I've been watching World War II In HD Colour with my kids. Much more interesting than the other 99% of content in Netflix. I _am_ getting old :|
Lately I've been watching World War II In HD Colour with my kids. Much more interesting than the other 99% of content in Netflix. I _am_ getting old :|
Any excitement for the new Tomb Raider movie, here? Anyone?
The trailer yesterday did not make me excited.
So black panther doesnt fight an evil version of himself ?
I guess we have different concepts of popcorn movie? For me a popcorn movie is a movie that does not take itself seriously and is full of piss poor humor to hide its lack of depth (e.g. Doctor Strange, Thor 3, Guardians of the Galaxy 2). Black Panther was the opposite of it and I don't understand what "fighting an evil version of himself" has to with being a popcorn movie or not?
EDIT - In short I go by this definition:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/popcorn_movie
Black Panther had all of those three when it debates the "closed vs open to the world" Wakanda approach. Unlike, you know, the typical bland good versus bad of most Marvel movies (with the exception of maybe Iron Man and Civil War).
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Sigfried1977
Legend
Popcorn movies don't have to be stupid at all. Sure, a lot of them are, but it's certainly not a requirement. Jaws, Jurassic Park, Ghostbusters, Gremlins, Fury Road, The Terminator, Robocop - all popcorn movies.
You are right, but many of those examples (Jurassic Park, The Terminator, Robocop) actually have decent messages, intellectual depth and take themselves seriously. Also when I said "full of piss poor humour to hide lack of depth" I was targeting Marvel movies specifically
EDIT - I would argue as well that no Jurassic Park sequel was capable of beating the original one in critical acclaim because they went for show only, bigger and badass dinosaurs and more action sequences versus actually posing the question like Malcolm did "should we?". Curiously enough this is the same question underlying The Terminator (should we chase A.I.?) and Robocop (should we remove emotion to make the perfect law enforcement?). They all show us a glimpse of the future and make the "should we" question while showing us the possible consequences. That for me is a sign of intellectual content and message. Just like popcorn movies don't need to be stupid, intellectual movies don't need to be boring
EDIT 2 - Sorry for another edit, but are you sure you are not mistaking the terms "popcorn movie" for "blockbuster movie"? I don't think they are one and the same...
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Sigfried1977
Legend
I think Popcorn movie simply means film that's not gonna go over your head when you're distracted by that giant bag of popcorn in your lap. Light entertainment basically. Blockbuster usually refers to films with ginormous scopes and budgets. The kind of tent pole releases keeping the company afloat when it's time to release all the Oscar baiters noone but the critics give a shit about. Titanic is a blockbuster. Dredd 3D is not. I'd call both of them popcorn movies, though. I also don't think a good movie needs a message. I certainly didn't find any overt messaging in the superb John Wick films, or The Raid, or many a tightly scripted action film from the 80s and 90s for that matter.
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I did: Never kill a man's dog
Now seriously, it is not that a good movie needs a message. A movie is not only its story and characters but also direction, art, scenery, props, music, etc. Some movies like the Fury Road you mentioned its very good based on its technical merits and by excelling at what it tried to do. However, I still see it as a popcorn movie. Did I like it? Yeah! Is it a brainless movie and a very good one at that? Yeah as well! Because it is a movie that does not even let you think at all with all the madness going on screen at blazing speeds. It does not really need a message.
Now compare with the endless stream of Marvel movies that instead of having at least constant action to keep you entertained, trade it up with high school (and sometimes primary school) level of humor between the characters. It worked well when it was a novelty, but after almost 10 years of the thing I cant help but roll my eyes at same jokes over and over again (the last Thor went so far as to re-use 2 jokes from the original GOTG!). Not only they don't have any message to pass, but they make feel bored as hell. To summarize, its not that popcorn movies are bad movies, it is that for a while now Marvel has been making mostly trash popcorn movies, IMO.
Sigfried1977
Legend
In the second one it's never kill a man's house actually
WhiningKhan
Regular
The actual term was 'usual Marvel popcorn movie'. All Marvels certainly are popcorn movies. A usual Marvel movie puts the hero fighting the evil counterpart. This was actually a good point from Davros - it's probably the central repetitive plot element leading to boredom, the other things I mentioned are just icing on the turd...
"Civil War" was a bit different there. I felt that was refreshing.
We are talking about movies adapted from super hero comics, so what more could we expect? I'm not bored about the central premise about heroes fighting villains. What bores me about Marvel movies is how they constantly rely on overstated joking moments that 99% of the time add nothing to the plot. Its gags for gags. I cannot see anything wrong with having heroes vs villains as long as the context and plot is interesting and is not simply skipped in favor of such gags. Which Black Panther refreshingly did not do (there were what, 3 jokes in the movie?).
FWIW and I'm surely going to get a lot of flack for this, Batman Vs Superman is still superior to Black Panther (hell it was superior to Civil War for me).
*runs away and hides*
An ingenious sound and the movie has many other very low bass parts. There are very good manufacturers for column speakers in Europe but I got most of the subwoofers from the USA (SVS). One of my subwoofers died watching Cloverfield. ^^ Fortunately, you can get spare parts and then replace them yourself. It's better than sending such an 70-80kg device around.
The Martian was one of the few movies where freinds told me that they prefered the movie while it's usually the other way around. They found the book too un serious for the dangerous situation. I can't say anything about this but I liked the movie very much.
The book is a lot of Mark Watney's logs, that is something he wrote/talked about after the fact. The humour is the coping mechanism, without it Mark would probably go insane. I think both the book and the movie are fantastic and both are worth spending time on.
WhiningKhan
Regular
The problem isn't heroes fighting villains but heroes fighting formulaic mirror-images of themselves. Iron Man vs Iron Monger, Ant-Man vs Yellowjacket, Hulk vs Abomination, Spiderman vs. Venom, etc etc etc
The alternative script seems to be "a number of heroes against an immensely powerful evil guy trying to destroy the humanity/planet/universe".
This is essentially why Winter Soldier and Civil War are clearly the two best Marvel movies, IMO - something at least a little more complex is layered on their scripts.
For me, personally, the humour in the movie and the movie not taking itself seriously have been redeeming factors, giving me at least some motivation to watch through the movies. But if a movie tries to be serious while still based on the same ideas we've seen countless times, I just can't take it anymore.
So basically you agree with me that they are replacing depth and content for gags. That does not work for me because I feel like I'm being treated like a 5 year old kid that gets easily distracted by something, to eat their food ("look at the plane weeee"). For me that is an insult to my intelligence and that is why I don't really tolerate it anymore.
Sigfried1977
Legend
My problem with Marvel movies isn't the quality really. It's that most of them are now on their second or third installments, and I'm slowly getting more and more tired of the formula. They also love their Macguffin hunts a little too much. Coming back to quality: I thought the characters, the writing and the genuine feeling emotions a dopey comic book movie like Guardians of The Galaxy brought to the screen were miles ahead of what was shown in critically overrated works of nothingness like Boyhood. Usually I do find them quite funny as well. Then there's the Cap movies which actually deal with some very intereting themes. They also feel completely different from the rest. The second one in particular reminded me of old-fashioned spy flicks. Not so much of your typically restless summer blockbuster. They aren't particularly quippy either. I also loved what Shane Black did with Iron Man 3.
Of the more recent ones, the one I enjoyed the most (even though I missed Sam Raimi's sense of style and epicness a bit) was probably Spider-man Homecoming.
I think it's the Assassins Creed problem: Most of these games were at the very least pretty damn decent, but if you consume one (or even more) of them in a year, the formula is gonna get stale unless you really switch things up.
Of the more recent ones, the one I enjoyed the most (even though I missed Sam Raimi's sense of style and epicness a bit) was probably Spider-man Homecoming.
I think it's the Assassins Creed problem: Most of these games were at the very least pretty damn decent, but if you consume one (or even more) of them in a year, the formula is gonna get stale unless you really switch things up.
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