Thor is the best,
I love the humor Hemsworth brings, but the weapon forging plot has probably been my least favorite on subsequent viewings because it's so detached from the Thanos story.
That's interesting. I wonder how it'll seem to me later. I rewatched Ragnarok after seeing Infinity War and found it even more entertaining than the two times I saw it in theaters. I wonder how that good will will carry over when I see IW again (probably next week).
However, I do have a major problem. They (first Peter Parker, then others) attribute the "blow the bad guy out the airlock" thing to Aliens when that's really just a reference to Alien! I guess maybe I get the young kid making that mistake, but somebody like Iron Man should correct him. Alien is the superior film and the originator of that little trick (there's a chance it's in Dark Star too, I guess).
I took it as Peter knowing Aliens but not Alien. Tony Stark has always been tricky because Downey likes to use pop culture jokes - Squidward - but Stark is supposed to be too busy in his lab to make time for watching movies and TV.
I agree about the Peter Parker being a dumb kid bit. But Alien probably would have been a pretty big movie for young Tony Stark. It's the littlest thing but it bugs me.
Some writers seem upset that they had less of an understanding of what’s going on than they normally do, as characters are barely introduced nor are their powers or importance explained. Others argue that it’s barely a movie, more like a series of setpieces with hardly any character development taking place within or between the explosions and fights. Still others claim that there are no stakes to the film thanks to its very comic book nature and the things that we know comic books do (namely: have something happen, then reverse or retcon that happening issues later).
Interesting that there wasn't so much about this with Deathly Hallows Part 2 even though it's the same situation. That one was clearly looked at as the last half of the final film while this doesn't get any of the same courtesy. So as much as I've read this, I've also read the criticism there's too much exposition, which I assume is the 90 seconds spent explaining the infinity stones to Tony Stark.
Yeah, I wonder where that difference in reaction comes from. Were people possibly believing the hype about this not being a two-parter? Were people just not thinking of these stories as being as connected as they are?
I think the criticism that says it’s impossible to understand what’s going on here without having seen all other 18 movies in the franchise is misguided at best and insulting at worst.
I see no reason to even include Ant-Man as a film that must be seen since he's not in this film and what little you need to know you get from Civil War.
I also wonder just how much was known going into production about Ragnarok and Black Panther. Characters from both films you would expect to see here are just gone without explanation, and with Ragnarok it completely negates the hopeful ending of that film, much like Alien 3 does to Aliens.[/quote]
That's one of the weirdest parts for me, but I think it can be explained by the filming schedules. I guess they didn't want to place their bets on movies nobody had seen yet when they were filming IW. I'm hopeful but not expectant that Valkyrie and co show up a little more in the second movie.
Critics need to catch up to what it’s doing, what Marvel’s place is in the culture at large, and what it means going forward.
I like this. I do think much of the criticism is based on old models regarding tentpoles, franchises and sequels. Marvel is doing something different and critics should adjust their thinking accordingly.
I think the old Ebert dictum about reviewing the movie based on what it was trying to do gets overused to defend crap, but I think it's valuable in this case. Could Marvel have made a movie less dependent upon knowledge from the rest of the franchise? Probably, but that's not what they were doing and so we probably shouldn't judge them for that (alone, if you can tie it into something else that's actually in the movie, I'm a little more willing to hear that out).
From David Ehrlich:
and in the end it turns out the Marvel Cinematic Universe was just the story of Tony Stark trying to figure out faster and faster ways of getting dressed. a noble goal, to be fair, but still.
150 minutes of dank colors in deep space. precious few sparks of life. as much as i admired the film's penchant for sadism, the Russo bros continue to be the absolute worst.
Speaking of critics, this post on Letterboxd, with over 1100 likes, is the worst piece of criticism I've found since listening to Josh Spiegel on Mousterpiece Podcast about The Happiest Millionaire, (where he criticized a film from 1967 for mentioning Benghazi in a song.) I had to find Ehrlich's original article for context. This was from Ehrlich watching the entire series, even though he largely despises the MCU. (I think he did either on a dare or as part of a fundraiser.)
It was that last comment that really drove me up the wall because I think many/most/all of us can make a Top 5 list of Blockbuster filmmakers worse than the Russo Bros. What makes them the "absolute" worst? I can get into things they might've done better, but I think many filmmakers would've folded at the daunting task of bringing such a narrative to the screen. The entire article comes from such a deep place of snark it shouldn't have been allowed to be reposted as criticism.
I like Erlich, but he's definitely a contrarian and has a thing against most blockbuster movies. I'm not going to defend him on this either. He's good for getting me to realize the things that are bad about things that I love and he's really good for finding stuff I wouldn't hear about otherwise, but this doesn't do either of those things and so I'm not super interested in what he has to say. Bah!
Thor is the best,
I love the humor Hemsworth brings, but the weapon forging plot has probably been my least favorite on subsequent viewings because it's so detached from the Thanos story.
I think the Thanos/Gamora part was the weakest because it wasn't grounded in anything.
However, I do have a major problem. They (first Peter Parker, then others) attribute the "blow the bad guy out the airlock" thing to Aliens when that's really just a reference to Alien! I guess maybe I get the young kid making that mistake, but somebody like Iron Man should correct him. Alien is the superior film and the originator of that little trick (there's a chance it's in Dark Star too, I guess).
Aw, Junior, you're a true film nerd and I say that with the highest respect.
I am much more appalled at the notion that Peter Parker, nerd extraordinaire, would ever call Star Wars or Aliens an old movie.
I strongly disagree about the Thanos/Gamora part. Some of the grounding work was done in Guardians 2, but a good amount was done in the conversation between her and Peter Quill. That scene, despite its comedic capper, was really moving for me even though we've seen that kind of thing probably a thousand times now. This is where the history we have with the characters as audiences comes into the picture. We know what kind of a guy Peter Quill is. He's always looking for the joke. But he doesn't do that here. He takes her seriously so we take her seriously.
I really don't have a problem with Peter Parker. He sounds a heck of a lot like most teenagers who think that anything made before they were born is old. Maybe he'll grow out of it, maybe he won't. But it suits him.
And thanks, DH. Glad you gave it your time.