Comic Book Movies

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I actually didn't mind Awkwafina that much compared to most MCU comic relief characters. She didn't make me laugh much, but didn't really annoy me as much as she could have if handled worse (like Darcy from the first two Thor movies). That said, I do agree that Tony Leung could have used some more screentime, even though I really liked the scenes that he was in.

[Avaitor]

Shang-Chi is probably the most I've liked a Marvel movie since Black Panther, although I did really like parts of Infinity War and Endgame. I agree that it's not too unique in terms of the MCU formula or origin stories in general, but I thought that it was very well-told, and the action is among the franchise's best.

I don't really have much else to add, but I wouldn't be surprised if this ended up my favorite of this year's Marvel flicks.

[Dr. Insomniac]

New trailer was cool, but what interested me more was hearing Pattinson, Kravitz, and Reeves discuss their take on Batman and Catwoman. They see their version of Bruce as a self-destructive rock star living in a decaying mansion, which explains using a Kurt Cobain song in the trailers.

[Daikun]

Here's the title of the next Ant-Man and the Wasp movie.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Peter, those are Cheerios.

[Avaitor]

I have to be honest, as tired as I am of Film Twitter, Eternals does look and sound kind of bad. Not much about the story has really interested me, and the visuals do look duller and flatter than advertised. And hearing that it's light on comic relief, even beyond Marvel standards does make it sound somewhat exhausting. And it does make sense, Chloe Zhao seems kind of humorless from what I've gathered about her.

But fuck, am I tired of it being spoiled all over.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just saw Eternals. Yeah, it was pretty dumb. Granted, I think I'd still say that Captain Marvel and Thor: The Dark World are a bit lower on my MCU rankings, but Eternals I think falls flat in a bigger way since it aims higher. It's funny, I wasn't really a huge fan of Jack Kirby's original run with the characters, nor the Thor miniseries directly following it, however for all of this movie's hype of being lead by an Academy Award winning director known for deeper films, most of the characters felt rather one-note. The Deviants in particular were pretty lackluster, and it actually made me appreciate Kirby's material a bit more since despite being a mess of ideas with little coherency from a writing standpoint, he did make the key Deviants more nuanced, less one-dimensionally evil characters. In that regard, despite his writing faults, I do believe that Kirby was ahead of his time in terms of his ideas and subject matter in the medium.

Oddly enough, I thought Sprite was probably the best realized character in the movie, despite clearly being meant as more of a supporting role. Her motivations and character arc made sense, and  she came off as a more interesting character due to her internal conflict and morally gray demeanor towards humanity.

Having Arishem talk was a weird decision. His voice sounded like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, and again I appreciate how Kirby chose to make the Celestials silent characters and have the Eternals themselves act as interpreters of their will. It gave them an heir of mystique and grandiosty that was seriously lacking in this movie.

Also, the twist villain trope rears it's ugly head again and needlessly convolutes the plot even further. I saw it coming, but still cringed when it happened.

Keep in mind that I'm not on the "let's all start bashing the MCU because it's the cool thing to do now" bandwagon. I still like the better MCU content and genuinely look forward to a good number of projects. That said, I will call out when I think something kind of sucks. I don't strongly dislike the movie or anything. I'm mostly dispassionate about it, which in a way can be kind of worse. I still think Neil Gaiman's run would have been a better template for the movie to build off of, but even going the way that they did, it could have worked better if it was focused on only two or three core characters and had a story far less up it's own ass.

[Avaitor]

I finally got around to Eternals, and it was alright. Far from the best MCU, but I'm not sure if this would even crack my bottom five. I agree with EK about Sprite being a highlight, but I also liked Phastos

Spoiler

even if he's responsible for the A-Bomb

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.

This wasn't as dour as I was expecting, but it's also not as strongly paced as most of the better films. And I do think that the backgrounds and camera work were generally strong, better looking than I was expecting.

But really, it would have been better if the supporting cast had more time to expand their roles, as most of them came off as two-dimensional at best. Maybe this should have been a miniseries on Disney+ instead.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just wanted to say, after getting used to so many of the more auteur directors bashing Marvel and comic book movies in general seemingly every other week at this point (I'm pretty numb and indifferent to it now), it's genuinely kind of nice to see one kind of stick up for the genre. In this case namely Paul Thomas Anderson.

I'm a fan of a lot of works from most of the naysayers as well, and it's not like there aren't legitimate complaints to levy at a lot of modern Superhero movies that aren't legitimately fair criticism. That said, I've always hated the idea that there's this unwritten rule that you aren't a true film fan if you enjoy something of that sort and don't exclusively indulge in more artistically-inclined cinema. God forbid people have varying tastes to fulfill different kinds of things that they want to see.

That doesn't mean that I don't have massive issues with Hollywood being exclusively dictated by massive corporations and creativity in big-budget priductiond being largely stifled. That said, it doesn't mean that the actual individuals working on these projects should have their work indiscrimately shat on, especially when saud work is not only helping to keep theaters alive, but in many cases the profits from which are at least partly used to fund the smaller, more personal films that many of these same auteur directors work on themselves. It's cool to see at least one among this bunch that seems to understand that.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, Stellan Skarsgard said it best in a recent interview. It's not superhero movies that are a problem, but corporations prioritizing them so much they give little time to mid-budget or independent films unless they're part of a popular franchise or have an established big-name director like Tarantino on board. That doesn't mean those movies don't exist anymore, but they're not in the public eye as much. Which inevitably frustrates numerous directors, some reasonably so, some not, culminating in Ridley Scott going on incoherent rants about millennials.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm not even going to try and downplay it, I fucking loved No Way Home. Like, I had an emotional response to it on several occasions, from cheering to being genuinely in awe of certain moments in the movie. It's not as good as Spider-Man 2 or Into The Spider-Verse for me, but it easily ranks as my third favorite Spider-Man movie behind those two. It's easily the best of the MCU trilogy, and one of my new favorite MCU movies in general.

It's not perfect, and I do have some (mostly) minor issues, but I'm not going to hide how elated it made me feel. To be honest, it's been a while since I've loved a solo MCU movie this much. It actually managed to surpass The Suicide Squad as my favorite comic book movie this year (and I love The Suicide Squad).

Spoiler

Besides the obvious reveals of Tobey and Andrew, I can't tell you how loud the audience cheered when Matt Murdock had his cameo about 15-minutes into the movie.

I'm also really glad that they mailed the nuance of Norman Osborn and Dr. Octavius. I was really worried that they'd play them off as generic MCU villains, but they did them justice here, which was a huge relief for me.

[close]

[Dr. Insomniac]

Yeah, it was good shit. Willem Dafoe and Alfred Molina stole this movie. I didn't realize how much I'd miss seeing the Raimi version of Green Goblin again until watching him here. I'm almost disappointed he isn't staying on as a recurring villain in future Spider-Man movies.

Spoiler

It was weird seeing Maguire Peter being so talkative and chipper. Guess aside from still having a complicated MJ relationship, the last 14 years have been good to him. While Garfield Peter was so miserable and desperate for friendship here. Even in short background scenes or when he cracks a joke, it's obvious his life since Gwen died has been absolutely rough on him. Especially during the scenes where all the Peters banter together, you can tell Garfield Peter's the most depressed no matter how hard he's trying to hide it.

And they really took the "Why is MCU Spider-Man now a trust fund kid with Stark tech and a Jon Favreau butler now?" complaint to heart. Holland Peter is put through the ringer in the second half of the film.

[close]

[Avaitor]

I don't have much to add that you guys didn't already say, but I absolutely loved No Way Home. And it does feel like they've taken the criticism from both of Holland's films to heart, and made the best possible version of them. It's no coincidence that I'm seeing even some of the MCU's biggest critics give this more of a thumbs up than usual.

Although personally, I do hope that when we next get a new live-action Spider-Man, that the stakes are lowered. This is the most amount of time Holland's Spidey spent in New York, and it just showed how much the character is meant to tackle nearby threats and not handle things at a universal scale. That's cool every once in a while, but it really shouldn't be every time.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So was the Sinister Five planned, or was the sixth member left out for some behind the scenes reason? Like Dehaan and Giamatti either said no or weren't available, the shit with Franco made him persona non grata, and Keaton was too busy being Batman again? I thought the sixth was going to be an AU Ned who turned evil and became Hobgoblin, but that didn't happen either.

No Way Home convinced me to rewatch Spider-Man 3 for old times' sake. I remember rewatching it a few years ago and liking it a lot more than I used to, but on this viewing, all the old criticisms came back to my head like "Sandman's motivations don't correlate to his actions and retconning him into Uncle Ben's death is stupid, the romance arc is too sloppy, both Peter and MJ are horrible to each other even before the Symbiote, this version of Eddie Brock sucks". But there's a mindless fun quality to it I admire, especially all the Emo Peter scenes. Honestly, despite Raimi saying he hated Venom and only added him in because of executive edicts, the Symbiote scenes have more gravitas to them than the Sandman ones. I doubt it would've worked as well if Raimi used Vulture like in his original plan.

Speaking of contested Spider-Man sequels, I've been noticing a lot of positive re-evaluation from Amazing Spider-Man 2 come out of Twitter and YouTube. Even seen a few genuinely argue it's the best Spider-Man movie. And I don't know why.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I've been seeing that too. I think at least some of that comes from people who were the right age for Garfield's Spider-Man movies, which is fair, time moves forward and all. But... really?

I actually didn't rewatch any of the movies before NWH, so maybe I should see if I can find the set with the pre-Holland films and give them all another go. It would be interesting to see what others are seeing in it.

So was the Sinister Five planned, or was the sixth member left out for some behind the scenes reason? Like Dehaan and Giamatti either said no or weren't available, the shit with Franco made him persona non grata, and Keaton was too busy being Batman again? I thought the sixth was going to be an AU Ned who turned evil and became Hobgoblin, but that didn't happen either.

Hmm, that's a good question. I wonder if Topher Grace was even asked, or if Sony wants us to forget that take on Venom.