Rolling Marvel Cinematic Universe thread (+ a poll: Classic or Dud?)

It seemed overly schematic - now we punch, now we feel, meet back in 20 minutes for some punching.

don't forget the shoehorned-in setups for a couple of the next solo movies

Except for Ant-Man of course (which given Hank Pym's role in the comics seemed slightly odd).

so I watched Captain America: Winter Soldier over the weekend and... man these movies just aren't for me. Felt misled by all the "70s political thriller" talk around this one, when really the only similarity is some government conspiracy window-dressing. Otherwise it hits all the standard action movie beats - the initial fight scene, the setup of the central conflict, the initial defeat, the turnabout, the car chase etc etc. It was foolish of me to expect some kind of talky, low-key homage to "3 Days of the Condor" cuz duh why would Marvel ever allow that to happen when there are generic black-suited clad soldier thugs to be tossed around and CGI things to blow up and pithy one-liners to be delivered. The only sequence that piqued my interest was reel-to-reel Toby Jones booting up and of course that was just a throwaway bit. Again had the feeling that nothing was at stake. Of course nobody is actually going to die, and of course there is a total lack of normal/average people (even as background) to give any sense that the threat of Hydra has any real weight to it beyond providing a conflict for our heroes to resolve. These all stem from my basic disinterest in how "action" movies became codified since the early 80s with Schwarzennegger/Gibson/Stallone/Willis - I'm just bored by the tropes, the motions, the staging, the fight scenes, the explosions, pretty much everything about them. It's been noted here before but these are essentially standard action movies with fancier costumes and as such that doesn't leave much for me to enjoy.

anyway having come to this realization I have to say Dud overall.

okay so the new one's pretty good. story is meh, but it's just enough to hang some great scenes and set pieces on. some good zingers, some good character moments. some great cheadle scene heists. all the cgi has real heft to it, which is saying something.

this ultron is a different ultron than the one you might know from the funnybooks. spader makes him work. the vision is believable, which is saying something, and he gets one solid scene.

all in all, extraordinarily well-crafted and utterly forgettable. on to ant-man and panther i guess.

all the cgi has real heft to it

Counterpoint: Starting off with a massively fake-looking Thor in the first fight really threw me. The rest was pretty good though.

The nose- and lip-less Ultron, and some of his swagger, reminded me of Bill Nighy's Davey Jones.

the thing i appreciated most about it, post-man of steel, is that the avengers spend most of the third act very visibly trying to save lives instead of mindlessly smashing their way through buildings filled with thousands of people

yeah that quite clearly a direct response to Man of Steel

clearly inferior to the first one, but nevertheless just SO MUCH FUN - i couldn't possibly imagine anyone else playing Thor or the Cap. the casting is the absolute key to these.
really fun to see with an audience of 50% kids/young teens too - kids fucking love the Hulk.

the bit with a certain character and the hammer got the loudest audience reaction actually, and that wasn't fighty fighty at all. fun fun fun.

a couple across the aisle from me let out this astounded gasp at that bit and everyone in the cinema laughed at them

That couple OTM!

it's a great bit

yep - really top-notch craft and payoff on that

and yeah actually point taken - the hammer, throughout, is the exception to the massy CGI rule

Seeing this Thursday night — I idly wondered if there would be a midnight show, so I checked Fandango. Turns out the cinema isn't even waiting until midnight, so we're going to the 2D screening at 8. (I wouldn't have gone to a midnight show, btw.)

I think movie studios realize the midnight release thing was great, but it was depriving them of even more income by releasing a few hours earlier. I can't wait until it goes full cycle through the week and they start releasing on Friday again.

Martin Freeman confirmed for Cap 3.

should start working out right now

Heh. I'm guessing president or other pol behind Registration Act.

i was thinking the porcupine

for the more sane among you: http://marvel.com/universe/Porcupine_%28Alexander_Gentry%29

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2015/05/plague/

"Fant4stic II" grebt movie title

Fantastic Fourtuitussle

well these things aren't gonna any less crowded

Set for release in the United States on May 6, 2016, “Captain America: Civil War” is directed by Anthony and Joe Russo (Marvel’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Community”) from a screenplay by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (“Captain America: The Winter Solider,” Marvel’s “Captain America: The First Avenger”). The film returns Chris Evans (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” Marvel’s “Avengers: Age of Ultron”) as the iconic Super Hero character Steve Rogers/Captain America along with Robert Downey Jr. (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Marvel’s “Iron Man 3”) as Tony Stark/Iron Man, Scarlett Johansson (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow, Sebastian Stan (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Captain America: The First Avenger”) as Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier, Anthony Mackie (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”) as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Paul Bettany (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Iron Man 3”) as The Vision, Jeremy Renner (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Marvel’s “The Avengers”) as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, Don Cheadle (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Iron Man 3”) as Jim Rhodes/War Machine and Elizabeth Olsen (“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” “Godzilla”) as Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch.

After his debut in Marvel’s “Ant-Man” on July 17, 2015, Paul Rudd (“Ant-Man,” ”Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues”) will make his first appearance alongside the Avengers as Scott Lang/Ant-Man in “Captain America: Civil War.”

The film also includes outstanding additional cast, including Chadwick Boseman (“42,” “Get on Up”) as T’Challa/Black Panther, Emily VanCamp (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Revenge”) as Sharon Carter/Agent 13, Daniel Brühl (“Inglourious Basterds,” “Bourne Ultimatum”), Frank Grillo (“Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” “Warrior”) as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, William Hurt (“A History of Violence,” Marvel’s “The Incredible Hulk”) as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross and Martin Freeman (“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey,” “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies”).

“Captain America: Civil War” picks up where “Avengers: Age of Ultron” left off, as Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. After another international incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability and a governing body to determine when to enlist the services of the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers while they try to protect the world from a new and nefarious villain.

woah an incredible hulk callback

that might beat the return of bow wow and lucas black to the fast furious franchise for near-admirable No Episode Left Behind bone-throwing

lotta inverted commas and parentheses there jesus

i saw avengers 2 tuesday night and i kept thinking about how much fun it would be if marvel got back their f4 + x-men rights and did a secret war movie

so they've got thunderbolt ross but no mention of the ruff stuff

Missing u, Liv.

Never has such a silly movie been so boring, recent star wars films aside. Toneless (aside from self-serious), bloated, exhausting and unfun, the whole thing. Mark Ruffalo was the only one who didn't seem bored, RDJ was unusually lazy. Jeremy Renner didn't raise an eyebrow between sniping robots and telling his pregnant wife he'll build that addition to the nursery when he gets back from saving the world, one last time. An hour too long. But also the one marvel movie where the dialogue dragged less then the action.

That party scene in the first third was highly watchable, a half dozen mega-stars squirming through their wink wink one liners in a sad and increasingly uncomfortable attempt to establish they're just a couple of bros, underneath the tights. Sharing a few brews in the lounge while trading stories about that one time in Asgard with the staff and the demi-god. Yet to see a filmmaking team who can not make it completely awkward.

Despite packing in more digression's on morality per half hour then any piece of popular entertainment I can remember, this is a movie lacking anything resembling soul or heart or humanity. Professions of love and camaraderie emerge lifelessly from every major character. There's a lot of ive-got-your-back/knowing nods to each other in the midst of battle that fail to even reach enjoyable corniness because they're so devoid of playfulness.

No memorable action scenes either, or anything resembling a thrill in them. Lots of spinning cameras and slow mo cgi while people yammer on their earpieces to each other. Marvel costume department also meets the low bar set for itself, wtf is Hawkeye wearing? Quicksilver modelling yoga apparel, scarlett witch teenage rebellion.

Audiences deserve better from a summer blockbuster imho.

still loads better than most summer blockbusters tbh

Sometimes the more someone types "worst ever," "most since forever" etc the less you actually believe they see a lot of movies

That said I love the irony of an avengers pan full of hollow melodramatic language

In fairness, the party scene with a half-dozen megastars is the rock on which nearly every other film-making team has floundered.

Are they really megastars? Downey and Johansson maybe, but Cheadle and Ruffalo are perennial supporting actors, and the others are basically famous only because they play superheroes in these movies.

Marvel movies in general aren't flawless, but I think casting has been one of their strongest points, pretty much every main character embodies their roles really well, except maybe for Renner and Johansson, who are kinda bland. (Johansson was actually pretty good in Winter Soldier, but that movie gave her a meatier role than Avengers 2.)

While the hulk/widow story was not unaffecting for me, I completely understand the pain people are having seeing ScarJo spend so much of this movie making googoo eyes knowing no spinoff is on the horizon, esp post winter soldier

Was really in the right mental space for this movie and loved it.

http://36.media.tumblr.com/fbc4fc46d4421683461e36193623253c/tumblr_mu2q8gouWu1s01fsdo1_500.jpg
this is not a great peter parker choice

is that natalie dorners brother bc he look like her

Is that confirmed now? He was pretty good in Hugo and Ender's Game and I know they were looking for someone who was actually a teenager for a change.

Man, they're never gonna do Grown-Assed Spider-Man, are they?

“Marvel is courting Selma filmmaker Ava DuVernay to direct one of its diverse superhero movies.... Insiders suggest that Black Panther, due first in July 2018, is the most likely possibility.”

http://www.thewrap.com/marvel-courting-ava-duvernay-to-direct-diverse-superhero-movie-exclusive/

Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One in Strange — maybe.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/tilda-swinton-talks-join-benedict-798348

I used to want a Dr. Strange movie but now I don't anymore tbh

It's going to take a little shoehorning to fit Strange mysticism into the sleek teched-up vision of the MCU. The Thor films run into that problem as well. It suddenly occurred to me that an unmentioned but close comparable to the MCU is Doc Smith's "Lensmen" series.

I would be down with Ancient One Tilda; that's good casting

They were doing pretty well with the 'in my realm technology and magic are one and the same' thing until the mystical pool of whatever showed up in Avengers 2.

way to look for a Tibetan actor Hollywood

RUH-OH

That's an interesting Civil War rumour.