Good or New Movies Review

[ZombieGenesis]

This post is deleted!

[Aria]

We went to a 5:30 showing and left the theater at 9:00, which I was very, very surprised by when one of my friends told me what time it was. Yeah, it's three hours long, but it didn't feel like it at all.

[Warma Sheen]

Agreed. I actually wanted more.

[Sockmonkey]

Endgame.

***Just in case..***

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Meh.

Granted, the superhero genre is not near and dear to me and of the MCU movies, I have always liked the Avengers movies the least because too. many. damn. people.

This, to me, felt really long and boring until the end when it got to be TOO MUCH. I might like it upon subsequent views though -- I'm usually initially disappointed with movies that are highly anticipated.

[Arkandel]

Endgame.

It was incredible. It was a different movie than I expected as it set its pieces up, then it went from strength to strength.

I don't know how any franchise, including Marvel/Disney's, can top this. We might have just peaked for some time.

[Auspice]

@Arkandel said in Good or New Movies Review:

Endgame.

It was incredible. It was a different movie than I expected as it set its pieces up, then it went from strength to strength.

I don't know how any franchise, including Marvel/Disney's, can top this. We might have just peaked for some time.

Feige really gave us a gift.

[Warma Sheen]

The truth is that it wasn't "Endgame" itself that we're experiencing, but the whole 22 movie, 11 year story that we all went on which was so spectacular. "Endgame" itself is great, but it isn't a fraction of what it accomplished if it is just some movie on its own. This was a monumental marathon of storytelling and commitment from (most of) the actors involved that just created something so beautiful it can't even be described well (at least not by me).

My favorite Marvel group was always X-Men and there's no comparison to that Fox franchise. And I only wish Star Wars would have been done half as well. But I do agree, we probably won't be able to experience anything like the Infinity Saga for a very, very long time, if at all in our lifetimes.

[Arkandel]

@Warma-Sheen I agree for the most part but that's hardly something we can hold against it. Is it the latest season of Game of Thrones diminished because a large part of its emotional impact is in having favorite characters imperiled and seeing how plotlines will be resolved after watching the show for years?

I think not.

[Rinel]

There were some good parts to Endgame, but the first half was remarkably disappointing.

As was the decision to repeat IW's "look now it is the ladies' turn to fight" idiocy. Especially unforgivable given how much of a non-issue women fighting was in BP.

[jibberthehut]

@Rinel You know, that was my complaint too about an otherwise good movie. I was like REALLY, we need to go there? To pointedly have all the females gather in one section and be like "It's cool, we got this, GIRL POWER"

:sighs:

[ZombieGenesis]

@Rinel @jibberthehut I wasn't going to comment on this movie anymore as I've encountered a lot of fanboi butthurt aggression if you mention ANYTHING negative about this movie but...I've thought about the "girl power" part of the battle and was it necessary? No, I don't think so. I also don't' think it really detracted from the scene at all and it was a kind of cool visual. I certainly wouldn't hold it against the movie. For me, I think they could have cut the first half hour or so easily in half and lost nothing but that time from the movie. Don't get me wrong, there was a lot of good stuff there but it's stuff I would have much rather seen in a director's cut of the movie instead of the theatrical release.

[Auspice]

@jibberthehut said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Rinel You know, that was my complaint too about an otherwise good movie. I was like REALLY, we need to go there? To pointedly have all the females gather in one section and be like "It's cool, we got this, GIRL POWER"

:sighs:

***=Using this since, well, people might be bothered by any tidbit of spoiler!***

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I was kind of afraid to bring that up, tbh.

Like, it felt so awkward and stunted, writing-wise. It lacked the flow of everything else. The ladies WERE fighting, yo. Scarlet Witch had her biggest moment of badassery YET, ffs.

But I didn't wanna be the person to go 'hey I hated how they had the women gather and go 'look at all us women folk calling out that we're women folk fighting' only to be dogpiled for being sexist.

It was just awkwardly written and broke the flow.

[faraday]

***=I'm not sure this is a spoiler (for Endgame, that is), but just in case...***

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@Auspice said in Good or New Movies Review:

It was just awkwardly written and broke the flow.

Yes, exactly. All the women were already fighting and being completely badass in other places of the battlefield. To have them all suddenly come together, without any of the guys, made no darn sense in the context of the story. It was just Marvel patting itself on the back, and it was cringe-worthy.

[Coin]

Lol, I liked it fine. It a neat visual and didn't take anything from the movie.

***NSFW content***

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Unlike, for example, making Thor's PTSD-based weight gain and alcoholism a joke the entire way through, even when he's talking with his supposedly understanding, empathic, loving mother. I think that bugged me a hell of a lot more than an image of a bunch of women together fighting just for the sake of the image. One's a positive, the other's a negative.

[ZombieGenesis]

@Coin ***=NSFW content***

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See, that didn't bother me because they did show howThor was really feeling at times(the scene with him and the Hulk in New Asgard for instance). I've known people who handled PTSD related situations in exactly the same way; they put on a mask of a fun-loving snarkster and buried themselves in drink. It's also a comic book movie, a separation from reality, and it led to some funny scene and, IMO, added character depth to Thor. Obviously these are just my opinions, however.

[Coin]

@ZombieGenesis said in Good or New Movies Review:

@Coin ***=NSFW content***

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See, that didn't bother me because they did show howThor was really feeling at times(the scene with him and the Hulk in New Asgard for instance). I've known people who handled PTSD related situations in exactly the same way; they put on a mask of a fun-loving snarkster and buried themselves in drink. It's also a comic book movie, a separation from reality, and it led to some funny scene and, IMO, added character depth to Thor. Obviously these are just my opinions, however.

***NSFW content***

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My problem isn't that Thor doesn't show how he's feeling, it's that the tone of the movie, the script and the directing, plays it for laughs. Even the person who is supposed to be understanding and supportive, his mother, tells him to 'eat a salad'. Even the part where he gets Mjolnir to come to him, which should have been a dramatic moment of triumph, is instead a comedic moment of triumph. And I'm not saying it just because I can analyze the beats and tone; I'm saying it because I was in a room chock full of people and when the entire audience laughs, even if you were going for dramatic, you missed the mark.

[Arkandel]

***=Did anyone else feel a little...***

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... sorry for Thanos or even impressed? The guy came down to Earth without any Infinity Gems this time and he still fought so many people in a row. First Thor+Cap+Iron Man went at him at the same time pulling no punches at all, then Cap with freakin' Mjolnir, then Wanda, then Captain Marvel, with assorted combinations of basically the entire Marvel Universe shooting all sorts of shit at him at one point or other. And they all had a deep, profound personal grievance to settle which would only end with his death.

It was kinda like that scene from Airplane! but with superheroes.

[ZombieGenesis]

@Arkandel ***=NSFW content***

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Thanos has become one of my all-time favorite cinematic villains. He was the man in this movie.

[Roz]

To a few of the points being discussed:

***=Spoilers!***

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The reason why the "Girl Power" moment can grate (which I know it does to some people, while others are unbothered) is because it's a cheap replacement for Marvel actually giving screen time to female characters having meaningful interactions with each other. It is a shortcut that they have to take because they have not actually spent enough time fleshing out their roster with female characters as they have male characters. (Fortunately, this does seem like something that's beginning to change with movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel, and I'm looking forward to the next Marvel phase coming in with a lot more diversity of different character types.)

This is also one of the reasons why the sacrifice of Black Widow for Hawkeye is so galling. (Although not the only reason. There is the gender issue, yeah, where Marvel kills off their first female hero character after refusing to give her a film for years and finally greenlighting a prequel film, but it also doesn't doesn't satisfy narrative or character arcs to give the guy who devolved into vigilante mass murder the second chance when his arc would have been so clearly satisfied by self-sacrifice in that moment, versus the woman who was coming into her own leadership-wise and was the one person holding the remaining heroes together and was prime material for leadership of the second wave of Avengers. YES I'M A BIT PEEVED.) ETA: Also the strong implication that Hawkeye deserved to live because he had a family after the cringey "I'm a monster" bit with Widow in Age of Ultron was...not great.

And count me in the camp that didn't appreciate how they handled Thor. Which was not about him burying himself in depression, PTSD, and letting himself go, but by how much they made a repeated punchline out of it. They made him into a joke for the vast majority of the movie. It felt like it was handled to be clownish, not informative.

Also omfg this movie did such a disservice to Steve and Bucky's friendship and also Steve's ending absolutely broke apart their entire time travel logic they were using for the entire rest of the movie.

Despite all of that, I actually really did enjoy the movie!!

[Auspice]

***=NSFW content***

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I think Clint dying would have cheapened the whole thing.

He had a family. He became Ronin because of the dark place he'd gone to in losing his wife and kids. The movie was this path of redemption for him. He was willing to sacrifice himself, but Natasha wasn't going to let him because she loves his family as much as she loves him and because she's a good leader. That moment was showcasing the kind of leader she'd become. If she'd let him sacrifice himself, it would've made her a shitty friend, a shitty friend of his family, and a bad leader.

Should Marvel have given us a Black Widow movie a long time ago? Yes. Of course they should have. But to think 'Natasha should have lived because we didn't get a Black Widow movie' is the same sort of thing that leads to OOC behaviors influencing IC.

Clint and Wanda talking at the end gives me hope that she'll step up into that mentor/leader role now.