Comic Book Movies

[Dr. Insomniac]

WW84 did better than expected at the box office, even with the pandemic.

WW3 has been greenlit.

Ah, yes. Wonder Woman 3's plot is about banning evictions.

[LumRanmaYasha]

WW84 did better than expected at the box office, even with the pandemic.

WW3 has been greenlit.

Ah, yes. Wonder Woman 3's plot is about banning evictions.

Honestly? That'd be a better plot than WW84's. 

[Dr. Insomniac]

Spending all that money to have Jared Leto say that at the end of the trailer was a choice.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It feels extremely weird to say this, but I did like the Snyder Cut. Probably the best of his DC movies. There were still parts I didn't like, such as most of Barry's scenes, the yodeling in all of Diana's fight scenes, and Vic finding out about his powers came off as a US Army commercial. But I actually liked Steppenwulf, and thought the tone more operatic than the theatrical cut.

Spoiler

So why was J'onn Martha?

[close]

[Avaitor]

It's wild to see Snyder become increasingly vindicated now that his version is out, but it does sound like this is an improvement on the theatrical version in every way. I probably won't get to it while it's on the service this month, but I'm slowly gaining more interest in getting to it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Having seen it myself, I can say that it is in fact a Zack Snyder movie, with all of the good and bad implications that has. It's not really my cup of tea, but it is at least a much better realized story in terms of tone than the theatrical version. Still, while I did enjoy certain parts of the movie, it by no means felt like it needed to be 4-hours long, and this is definitely an opposite issue to the theatrical cut where it had to be less than two hours. I feel as though a good hour and fifteen minutes could have easily been cut and the pacing would have been much better for it.

It's also ironic that Snyder called out one of his critics for saying that he enjoyed superhero flicks like Saturday morning cartoons, when at least a third of the dialogue from this movie felt like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon. But I guess because he threw in a few F-words that makes it for adults by Snyder-logic.

I don't really mean to pick on Snyder too much here, though. In a way I'm still glad that this film got made as a case for a creator getting the chance to express their vision. I wouldn't mind that sort of thing happening for other films in the future where the original director notoriously had to leave the production for one reason or another (I'd still love to see an Edgar Wright Ant-Man movie, for that matter), so it's neat that it got to happen here, even if it's not for something that really appeals to me.

[Dr. Insomniac]

At least we didn't get his rough draft idea where Bruce cuckolds Clark and fathers a child with Lois. Granted, I spotted a pregnancy kit in one of Lois' scenes.

Found out the guy who played Jimmy Olsen in the Donner films was the cop she befriends here. Which was a cute way to make up for popping Jimmy in BvS.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I neglected to comment on it earlier but I liked The Suicide Squad trailer. I'll be seeing it regardless as I have faith that James Gunn can turn in at least a pretty good if not outright great combination of action and comedy, but the trailer seems to have the right tone and gets me just that bit more excited for the movie.

[Daikun]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

While it's been out for a while, I finally got around to watching Patrick Willems' video on the modern trend of R-rated superhero films, and it's a really great watch: https://youtu.be/6dfI_2dscGE

He pretty perfectly breaks down this current pop-culture obsession with trying to make things that were never intended to be for adults more gritty for the sake of trying to justify them as mature. The thing is, there is nothing wrong with adults enjoying something with children as their target audience. Plenty of great stories are fun for all ages because they are child-appropriate while containing themes and messages which we can appreciate more when we're older. Superman Smashes the Klan is one of my favorite comic books that I've read from the past year or so and it's clearly aimed at a grade-school audience. It works because it is written and paced so expertly and with such great use of theming that I couldn't help but enjoy the hell out if it as I read each of it's three-issue installments every couple of months.

Yes, there is a place for R-rated superhero fare. However, it has always struck me as aggressively counterintuitive to try and forcefully rebrand characters that were always meant to appeal to a young audience as now being some hyper-violent action dramas that go out of their way to make sure that a young audience should NOT be able to watch them.

[Dr. Insomniac]

It reminds me of when Mark Millar, who's no stranger to taking superhero stories and making them edgy often without reason or purpose and you can arguably point out that his work and adaptations of his work gave life to the rise of R-rated superhero shows/movies, said Man of Steel disturbed him.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I know it's supposed to be a Watchmen reference, but my second thought was "Why did Bruce drip strawberry jam on his suit?"

And whenever I see people talk about Keaton coming back as Batman, I've also found them wanting Burton and Keaton teaming up to do a Batman Beyond movie because it will "complete their trilogy" or fulfill their long-standing desires to see a true sequel to Batman Returns. Which I understand, Burton's Batman 3 is one of the biggest what-ifs in Batman film history next to "What if Heath Ledger never died?", "What if Affleck got to direct his own Batman film?", or "What if Aronofsky's Batman pitch went into production?" I sorta wish we could live in a timeline where WB never booted Burton off the director's seat too and let him make as many Batman movies with Keaton as he wanted while he was at the height of his creative talents, but modern-day Burton won't satisfy those decades-long hopes.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, aside from the post credits scene, Black Widow basically felt like a lost Phase 3 movie. The entire thing fits so distinctly between Civil War and Infinity War that had this movie released in 2017, it wouldn't feel out of place in the slightest.

As for the movie itself, it was very middle of the road. I enjoyed the family dynamics and general core characters, which tends to be what even average MCU movies are pretty good at for the most part, but the actual plot and villain felt completely forgettable. I like it more than Captain Marvel and Ant-Man and the Wasp, but that's pretty faint praise. It's certainly no Winter Soldier.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I know what you mean. Until the very ending of the film, there was nothing in it that felt prequel-y or even acknowledges we're watching a character who died a couple years back.

So I hated the first scene with the flashback. I don't know why, but the whole tone and shots felt off to me. Taskmaster was one of the weakest MCU villains by far. Not much of a Taskmaster fan, but they could've replaced the character here with literally any D-list Marvel villain and the plot wouldn't have changed. They were about as poorly served as Deadpool was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, albeit not nearly as offensive. I guess Ray Winstone's character doing a Harvey Weinstein impression as he talks about kidnapping defenseless young girls and turning them into his slaves made for a more sinister antagonist, but he doesn't drive the plot enough for it to work.

But I did really like Yelena. For a film made to make up for the other movies pushing Scarlett Johansson to a supporting role for a decade, Florence Pugh stole the show here. I haven't made the time to see Midsommar or Little Women yet, so her performance was a real surprise. All her jokes worked, and she's where most of the movie's characterization was in. The strongest parts of the film are when Yelena and Natasha bond and make up for lost time, and while I did like David Harbour and Rachel Weisz, I think the film could've benefited from spending more time on that relationship for a while longer.

Also curious what could have been if they used David Hayter's script.

[Avaitor]

I liked it a little better than you guys, but I agree that Taskmaster was a waste. Maybe it just felt refreshing to see a movie in theaters again and not worry about a fast-spreading disease, but I had fun, especially when it focused on the family. And even the more MCU-ish material worked fairly well IMO.

Looking forward to seeing where Yelena goes from here. I agree that she was the MVP of the film.