Marvel Cinematic Universe, Phase 4 & Beyond (and a chance to change your vote)

Shang-Chi completely dissolves into nothing in the last half hour

that weird critter thing and Ben Kingsley was a bit that probably outstayed its welcome but I liked both

Iirc Shang-Chi was good. Maybe because it seemed fresh? Or maybe just the stunts and whatnot felt more physical? Dr. Strange 2 felt stale to me, but it was probably better than the first one. Still, I seem to recall the artificiality of everything from his facial hair to his costume particularly distracting, which really unfortunately plays up the fakeness of the whole enterprise. Like, compare the Lord of the Rings movies vs. the Hobbit movie. The former hold up pretty well, the latter, coming years later, just look goofier and cheaper, even though they still cost piles of gold. It's like we're stuck in between FX cycles or something, where all the lighting or cinematography is off. Or maybe just the FX *are* getting better, making the uncanny valley ironically that much more apparent?

Spider-Man 3 was great, but don’t know if that counts

I didn't like it, tbh.

I should say, stuff like the Ant-man or Dr. Strange, they bum me out because between the cast, the vast supply of source material, the budgets, they feel like they really should be better. And yet they all come off kinda half-assed and uninspired, or like ambitious projects that ran out of time or money. Which maybe is the case? Or maybe they're just too fussed over and micromanaged, who knows. Or just as likely, covid fucked things up. I mean, it can't be a coincidence that these meh movies all arrived during the same conspicuous three year period, right?

Timely

So, why does #AntMan look like that? @__ChrisLee reports: https://t.co/xwvdHQXI27 pic.twitter.com/Hn1IDxiGN2

— Vulture (@vulture) February 22, 2023

This will come as a shock to you all but I, the biggest MCU fanboy on the boards, loved the new Ant Man movie

you can really see the 3 hour movie it wants to be but def the most enjoyable of the post-endgame bunch.

What Jonathan Majors brings to Kang is really something. And I appreciated the appearance in the stinger of a certain classic hat. Lol.

We just watched Spielberg's "War of the Worlds" for the first time in close to maybe 15 years. The budget was reportedly $130 million, which is close to $200 million today. That's about the reported budget of the new "Ant-Man," but "War of the World" looks *so* much better. Granted, it has its own problems, but Spielberg is an uncommonly gifted director, and particularly adept at working with special effects, so maybe that makes all the difference? Much of the difference? He understands how to spend his money, and uses smart, judicious FX to support his characters and stories, rather than the other way around. And by generally limiting his most conspicuous special effects to key set pieces, he gives them more impact, and that goes for practical effects as well. Maybe even more. Cars tossed around, buildings collapsing ... it all feels so tactile, with a weight to it, whereas MCU effects often might as well be flying toasters.

So what's changed? I asked my college-aged kid her opinion, and her immediate answer was "laziness." Which is ironic, seeing the hundreds of people in the end credits of something like "Ant-Man" that no doubt worked their butts off. But all these important little cogs of the big machine don't add up to much if the final product lacks any real passion or incentive beyond just being good enough to move the even bigger machine forward a few more inches.

Spielberg also didnt have the disney industrial complex sitting on his neck to meet the quarterly deadline

Yeah, maybe. I think the issue with the MCU, though, is that even the humans are barely human, seeing as much of their stuff is post-production FX as well, and when every inch of your creation of made with computers, it's hard to make anything else stand out as memorable. So, for example, in this Ant-man movie, one of the biggest (only?) set pieces is the pile of Ant-people. But it boils down to just another mess of CGI wigglies in a field of CGI wigglies. To paraphrase "The Incredibles," if everything is special then nothing is special.

I mean, I thought this movie looked perfectly fine

Yeah, no real complaints here.

There are a few problems I have with Marvel movies as a whole, but honestly for me the CGI has never been one of those issues. They do a really really good job. And there’s a lot of imagination in the settings (even if some of the climactic stuff tends to wind up a bit similar from film to film in terms of what’s happening.)

it's ultimately a matter of taste, maybe. is it bad? not really. is it particularly good? not really. it's just the best ugly cgi spacescape it can be, which imo is not enough if that's all there really is.

iirc (and I may not bc it was very forgettable) the war of the worlds looked pretty good and had not a single character of note.

whereas again: majors’ Kang is memorable as hell. it’s really his story.

tbf, War didn't need any characters of note because it starred Tom Cruise.

I enjoyed Doctor Strange 2, and found Love & War passable but fun, but the CGI for both looked like crap on my 32 inch TV.

I thought the big fights at the end of No Way Home, Black Widow and Shang-Chi were alright though - if everything makes sense spatially, it doesn't matter to me if the effects are a bit naff.

The nadirs are finale of the first Avengers movie (dreadful cap to an obnoxious movie) and the fight at the end of the first Black Panther (which was forgiveable).

Oh God, and the end of Wandavision

I enjoyed Doctor Strange 2, and found Love & War passable but fun, but the CGI for both looked like crap on my 32 inch TV.

This just reminds me of a conversation I had years ago with someone who was telling me Gravity was a terrible movie because he watched it on an airplane, possibly the worst possible setting to try to watch a movie so reliant on wide-scale spectacle and sound design.

lol, I watched "First Cow" on a little plane screen.

Disagree a bit - on a smaller 1080p screen, good CGI looks sharper than it does on larger set, but it does exacerbate the badness of bad CGI. I did see Love & War at the cinema too, where it also looked bad.

I think the problem with these big superhero movies vs. the comics is the same as say Star Trek movies vs. the show. Comics and the original Star Trek shows were serialized, there was room to do all sorts of stories. It sometimes is the small things that make the comics tick and when you got only 2 hours, it's got to be about stuff going boom.

These movies are suffering the same weight of failure just like the never ending yearly 'big tie-in' comic story lines.

Loki looked cool, but they actually did a bunch of stuff with retro design that was really neat.

If you have access to the Vice channel, two eps into Icons Unleashed: MCU. Lots of behind the scenes details on the company and its development of their properties. Ep 1 goes through the various financial situations and company management that led to selling their most recognizable properties, while Ep 2 dives into Iron Man. Great breadth of interviewees.

The previous Icons on The Fast & the Furious franchise was as entertaining and informative.

Still working through these with the wife and kids. We recently watching Infinity War for the first time and I knew enough to warn the kids that it would get sad and scary, but reminded them that we know lots of these characters come back and that comics routinely kill people off temporarily. It was pretty bold to end the movie like that, shit. I'm extremely late to the party but Spiderman turning to dust was pretty damn rough. I can't imagine having to wait a year for Endgame.

But that's it for Vision? He sure was underused.

Ah you've yet to watch WandaVision

watched No Way Home and Multiverse of Madness the last couple of weeks. I thought both were really good.

man they put Peter Parker thru the wringer in this series don't they. obv feels like an Infinity War type ending for him, which will have to be corrected. I liked the return of Molina/Dafoe/Foxx/etc, though they kinda left Dafoe hanging there in existential malaise as he warped back to his timeline. Garfield made more of an impression than Maguire in his return. He seemed more emotionally involved, Maguire seemed more bemused/stoned.

Multiverse of Madness was better than i expected. thought Wanda-as-villain made sense, if one hasn't forgotten the end of WandaVision. If one hadn't seen it, it would make vv little sense. I understand folks who wouldn't be down w/a film series that only tracks logically if you've seen a television series taking place between theatrical entries, and kinda wish they'd allow a scenario in which those who didn't see the series would be able to understand the why/what/how of her turn. other than that...the Raimi-ness of the film was vv welcome. Doc Strange mind-controlling his alternate self's corpse while forced-ally undead screaming banshees cling to it...i'm pro all of that. when he said, "who said it had to be living?" i may have replied, "aw yeah." also, it was so brutal in places, and i guess i'm specifically talking about Wanda going off like Carrie and dispatching the alt-universe illuminati. Raimi was really using the limits of PG-13 to full advantage.

obv feels like an Infinity War type ending for him, which will have to be corrected.

No, the opposite! It feels like they corrected all the weirdness from the past few movies, and finally set up "real Spidey," they way we know and want him to be (or at least I do, as a longtime fan). I was very into that ending.

i appreciate the ending, by correcting it i mean it's not the end of that particular storyline w/his old chums as much as it's a reboot within the series and there will be a journey back, as it were. i was also wondering if it was a way to take him outta the avengers storyline and back to solo adventures, primarily.

i don't think doctor strange is gonna come back with a spell to make everyone remember peter parker again, though maybe MJ will hit her head and remember. who knows.

Meantime via io9:

According to ComicBook, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 has been rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of violence and action, strong language, suggestive/drug references, and thematic elements.”

Not sure I understand why that is newsworthy in the least. Both of the other GOTG movies were PG-13. Was there an expectation that this wouldn't be?

That way you, the informed consumer, can know what you're objecting to. (If you are.)

I was just curious if maybe I missed something else like maybe there was consideration of this getting an R rating or something at some point.

so how fucked are things given Majors arrest?

on one hand, DC is rolling forward with releasing the Flash despite Miller's fucking crazy behavior. but I also suspect that he won't return and their flip over to Gunn as the DC machiavelli gives them an opportunity to do this. Majors has just been set up as the primary villain for, presumably, a number of movies/series. Unless charges are dropped or he's acquitted completely, I can't see how this doesn't fuck things up.

on the other hand, multiverse allows them to recast

re: majors himself: He was extraordinary in the Last Black Man in San Francisco. I guess he's been fine in the MCU, like most people are. Haven't seen Creed 3 yet. He undoubtedly has talent. It'll be really unfortunate if he also turns out to be a psycho.

June for them secret invasions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp_YZNqNBhw

And flerkens for all!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuk77TjvfmE

HYPE LEVEL SKYROCKETING

I was just thinking "hmm, but Kamala's grandmother and her people weren't from space, they were from another dimension.." and then noticed the music choice again

see what you did there

sorry, great-grandmother

Looks good (movie) but looks bad (that same distracting super-duper green-screen flatness that I guess we're stuck with until they actually start filming in space/other dimensions/better sets).

Is Kamala the first lead movie character who debuted on a Marvel tv show? I know some other characters (like Kang and Wanda's kids) have crossed over to the movies already. (This is if you count Monica as debuting in the Captain Marvel movie.)

Yeah, that would be the case.

Pretty much the three things you'd need to see for this are Captain Marvel, WandaVision and Ms. Marvel -- though I'm guessing both the end credit scene from Spider-Man: Far From Home and the forthcoming Secret Invasion series are both useful.

Love Kamala for being elated to have powers and meet her heroes. Same kind of audience proxy fun as Tom Holland’s Spider-Man and The Flash.

Will be fun to see how the MCU balances their release schedule and younger actors aging with the teasing of Young Avengers and new Champions rosters.

The Vice MCU series has been educational for revealing how much the early movies gambled on success, with one lesson learned being the establishment of a permanent art department to ensure continuity from film to overlapping film.

Trailer breakdown for those curious

https://gizmodo.com/the-marvels-trailer-breakdown-captain-marvel-2-kree-1850324881

Anyway, GOTG 3? A traet, honestly better than I expected. Among other things -- and the trailer hinted enough at this -- it's one hell of a mass market big budget anti-vivisection movie.

Also, will confirm that the whole GOTG-and-associated arc absolutely makes the most of color and design out of the whole series of movies. Kinda worth watching for that reason alone!