Because I'm a little behind and finally have Disney+, I checked Eternals today. It's very uneven film in my opinion.

I like the whole Eternals are robots to protect Celestials and how they react to this.

I dislike how I feel that nobody in MCU is bothering to make sense of all different parts of their universe. Celestials, Eternals, gods make even less sense than in the comics.

The interactions of the eternal family are the best part of the movie and could have more scenes. I would do a TV Show with just them talking and brining the old events to joke about each other.

Individual interactions are mostly good, but the romance between Sersi and Ikaris makes sense on a paper and is a complete miss in a practice. Which is funny because there was no romance between Druig and Makkari on a paper, but the actors just put in on a screen and the director decided to keep it.

Liked Ikaris as a villain. Otherwise his character would be rather weak, but his struggles with his mission worked.

Deviant Kro was meh villain. Could work, but like many Marvel villains would need to be reworked.

I'm really surprised how much focus was on Dane Whitman. He got the last scene of the movie and the final credits scene.

Probably 8/10 from me, but I always like supernatural history. Wouldn't be against a sequel from the same director, but I doubt it will happen.

 

I have a million opinions but I've mostly ranted out loud to people but I can paraphrase from my letterboxd reviews.

Ms. Marvel was mostly good, if suffering from the same issue all these six episode Disney+ shows have -- they are too short and have to use narrative shortcuts all the time. The Clandestines were an uninteresting enemy and the Karachi episode was a bit oddly paced -- but I felt like they pulled it off in the finale.

As for Thor, I really disliked that Korg narration, the movie seemed to think him speaking was inherently funny as opposed to when he actually says funny lines. The CGI was all over the place as was the overall visual look - sometimes (like the black and white fight stuff and the many gods designs) it looked great, many other times it looked cheap and rushed (which it probably was). Some scenes had weirdly harsh lighting which was pretty unflattering for men and women alike.

I was very displeased at how they treated the Guardians, and their dialogue was quite poorly written here. They managed it fine in Infinity War and Endgame but I guess either James Gunn helped or those writers were just better at it. The emotional moments didn't really hit for me and the comedy was pretty meh -- although a few moments did elicit a chuckle or two. There was a lot of clunky exposition too, and the ending was spoiled for me which probably made it worse to watch.

I thought Christian Bale was great, and I liked the silliness of that god city stuff. I was also happy to see the casting of the guy in the midcredits scene, he's a great writer and actor. The movie was four different movies, and Christian Bale was in two of them, while Chris Hemsworth was in all four and handled some better than others.

I still found it entertaining enough, I even liked that literal deus ex machina ending even if it's a very weird thing to add to the MCU. This and the Eternals are really adding huge changes to the universe and I wonder how well they'll be able to handle that.

I guess my ranking of the Phase 4 so far is:

1. Loki (I see no flaws I care about)
2. Ms. Marvel (See review above)
3. Wandavision (great except for the finale)
4. Hawkeye (fun enough and Hailee Steinfeld is always good, but it had a lot of pacing and story issues)
5. Moon Knight (Oscar Isaac was phenomenal and I liked the idea, but it was a mess)
6. Falcon and Winter Soldier (some good moments but not done well)

1. Spiderman No Way Home (predictable with a lot of fan service and silly plot points, but the performances elevated it)
2. Shang-Chi (Liked the villain and the sister a lot but Shang-Chi himself was written as the least interesting one in his own movie)
3. Black Widow (Florence Pugh was really amazing as was the rest of the Widow family, but the storyline and bad guy were... meh)
4. Eternals (flawed but audacious)
5. Doctor Strange 2 (fun and a great entry into the Wong Cinematic Universe (WCU) but they did Wanda dirty and was logically.... iffy)
6. Thor 4 (See review above)

My ranking of what I'm looking forward to:

1. GOTG 3 (easily)
2. The Marvels (the ending of Ms. Marvel pushed this one up)
3. Ant-Man Quantumania (sounds wild)
4. Wakanda Forever (be odd without Chadwick Boseman and how they deal with anti-vaxxer Letitia Wright)

We'll likely see the new schedule in SDCC but those are my opinions so far.

 

Just watched Thor

Left the theatre feeling completely dissappointed and like I just wasted my money.

It was an incredibly thin movie with absolutely no substance.

Christian Bale did so good in the role. Its such a shame that the movie never elevated itself to his level

However, I did laugh out loud a couple of times. Something that is very rare for me.

Also, I thought that Jane Foster was surprisingly charming. Good job in that.
But I did dislike that they made Thor a title when we all know its an actual person's name.

4/10.
Once again, Thor is the weakest part of the MCU. What a shame

 

We've really been losing interest in the most recent Marvel offerings, it seems. We went to see Thor in the cinema, but Doctor Strange had to wait for its streaming release.

Doctor Strange was an odd bird, to be sure. Horror elements, undercut by standard Marvel quips. Constant referring back to previous events, yet it felt like Wanda had been pretty much reset. Relentless fanservice, but only for the purpose of killing those cameo characters with a pretty callous disregard.

It was a movie that was experiencing a half-dozen different identity crises at once.

It leaves some pretty big unanswered questions, though. A recurring element of Strange's big moments is that it always comes with a cost. The bill comes due, as Mordo said in the first movie. Thus far, we haven't seen much evidence of that bill. Oh, he got a magic eye in his forehead, but in the post-credit scene he's completely cool with it and back to living his best life again. Perhaps the Dormammu hook we were given at the same time is evidence that the bill for the first movie is coming due at last, but if Strange is simply going to be able to up the stakes further, and keep pushing his reckoning back, I have to wonder if we'll ever see it. We're already at the point where we're talking about a cost somewhere around the level of 'multiverse collapse' which seems unlikely given how we can assume Marvel wants to keep this gravy train running.

America felt a bit... paint by numbers as a character to begin with, but as she's the only person who seems in any way actually affected by the events of the movie, she also became the high point. Wong is barely a character in his own right, Strange breezes easily through situations which should lead to character development, completely unchanged, and Wanda has just reset/repeated the growth that she theoretically already went through in WandaVision. America is literally the only proper character here.

I'd be interested to know how the planning for this and WandaVision shook out. Was this movie planned/pitched before WandaVision? Is that why they're stepping on each others' toes? Was the original plan to have a slightly more extended beginning to MoM, showing Wanda finding the Darkhold?

Thor was... I don't know.

It had so many of the elements of Ragnarok, but it just didn't work here. Korg seems to be played out as a joke and his narration really didn't work for me. The Gods element raised so many questions that it was occasionally hard to keep paying attention. And just how thick is Zeus? “He doesn't have the key.” Bro. You got anything else to add to that? A single sentence, maybe, that would probably go a long way towards avoiding any chance of Gorr somehow getting ahold of said key?

Back to the questions, though. Did the gods give any kind of shit about the Thanos thing? Do they 'count' for the snappening, or were they above it and pretty much unbothered? When they 'die', they don't? In what way is being 'dead' functionally different to being 'alive' as a god? Is it a different realm? Can it be accessed? What even are gods? In the early Thor movies we were pretty much lead to believe that it was a combination of magic and technology that resulted in them being labelled as gods, but now there's some kind of transcendental godly label that acts as a hand-stamp for getting you into the godly afterlife?

I think people have mentioned that Gorr's core motivation and plan to kill Thor are basically antithetical. Kill all gods because they are uncaring tyrants, fine, you can believe that. Kidnap some kids to lure your target into a trap, also fine. But if the target is one of the gods whom you believe to be selfish so fundamentally that you want to kill literally every single god in the universe, how is that a logical plan?

Visually, though, it was fun. Natalie Portman was also a highlight.

While I'm here, though, what is that ending? Is the kid the kid? The reflection in the water was of the 'my god it's full of stars' kind, and she seemed remarkably fine with suddenly not being dead, oh and also her Dad's dying. No biggie, though. Also, did Gorr ask 'can I have my daughter back, but make her awesome with laser eyes pls?' Why does she have powers? Is she actually just some kind of avatar for eternity?

Urgh.


Then we went back to watch Eternals, and you know? I think it's growing on me.

After all the senseless, directionless 'look, bright colours!'-fests, Eternals actually feels legitimately good. Oh, the walky-talky deviant is still completely pointless, but most of the rest of it works. I think the bit that got me this time was when Sprite asked, 'Why did Arishem make me this way?'

If that movie wasn't intentionally written as an exploration of what it means to lose your faith, then I would be very surprised indeed.

 

I haven't watched Thor yet, and I probably won't, but what has started to increasingly bother me is Marvel's blasé attitude regarding their last in-universe crisis, namely the Snap and the Blip.

New Asgard has an ice cream parlor, that's called 'Infinity Conez'.

The topic is an old hat by now, but the way it was handled (or wasn't) and depicted more and more feels like laziness and a missed opportunity.

We have seen the tiniest glimpses of the effects in Endgame (5 years later), but the real consequences of half the entire population disappearing only to unexpectedly reappear 5 years later were simply handwaved away in the shows and things were seemingly back to normal.

They could have explored the very world they had created for years to come. That would have been a dark and gritty world where Blade's lore could fit in, a world where the Punisher could have gone all out, where the remaining heroes would desperately try to handle the global chaos and in the process become something more than just celebrities and we could watch through various shows and movies the world reach a new normal.

A possible issue from the top of my head.

After the Snap crops and livestock rot and go to waste because there aren't enough people to tend to them, and the demand was literally halved (more with all the resulting casualties). After a short few years supply reached the new level of demand, but suddenly billions of people are back.

I'm sure Disney could have hired some scientists or programmers to simulate such a scenario, maybe even a faux documentary about it, like the Boys is doing on Youtube.

 

I don't think I have MCU fatigue. I have bad movie/bad lore building fatigue.

It was like they finished up with Endgame and had no clear direction where they wanted to head next.

 

I thought the new Thor was fun as fuck. Enjoyed it a lot.

Was an entirely enjoyable afternoon. Yep, that's a Marvel movie all right.

The rest will likely also be enjoyable afternoons just like all of the earlier ones were.

 

That does tend to be what happens when you hit the story climax you've been working towards for 11 years. Honestly, the name should have been enough to shout: Beyond here be dragons, because we don't know what the fuck we're doing.

 

That's a really good question to ask him because as far as I can tell he did it just because he just wanted to experiment with different forms of Eternals and Sprite was unlucky to get the least practical age for an immortal person.

 

@Steelbadger Apparently, Raimi didn't watch most of Wandavision, and relied on Olsen's guidance https://www.indiewire.com/2022/05/doctor-strange-2-sam-raimi-wandavision-1234722233/

 

Endgame was the perfect ending. Avengers Assemble and I am Iron Man will forever be among my favorite epic movie moments, up there with the Ride of the Rohirrim. But they didn't let it be the ending.

Let's not delude ourselves. At the end of the day, this is a Disney business and Disney is in the business of parents' butts in seats because someone had to take the kids to the movies. This whole thing is not without precedent. Disney did exactly this with SW: ignore the developments of the finale, just make more movies. The Snap and the Blip were presented to the audience of IW and Endgame as monumental events that changed the face of the universe. And then... sweep that shit under a rug, we got more movies to make.

MCU now suffers from a problem of scale. What is Thanos next to Arishem and uber-level gods from Love and Thunder? Exactly. It's tonal clash. It's like if you opened a sequel to the Lord of the Rings and it begins with the Valar getting their shit kicked in by aliens from the next planet over. You invalidate your big moments if the subsequent developments make them seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

 

I'm sorry, but how do you make a movie that's a sequel to a miniseries without watching that miniseries? One would assume that knowing the material you're making a sequel to would be an inescapable part of doing your job as the director. He really couldn't find two days to binge Wandavision and take notes?

 

He probably couldn't do it because it wasn't done until he was in a middle of filming. Olsen went directly from Wandavision set to Doctor Strange 2.

 

Then it's a dumb way to schedule their productions. How the hell do you make a sequel before the first thing is even finished? Well, apparently you do it the way they did and then the sequel is weak.

 

Yeah, so when I said I wouldn't be surprised if they were stepping on each other's toes, it sounds like they were. If this is true, it looks like a lot of the broad strokes of MoM were already planned out before WandaVision was brought up, and even then it was to just make sure that the physical continuity (who's alive, who's dead, the items that are in play, etc) was maintained.

After reading that my suspicion is that Raimi probably planned in the beginning for Vision to be the thing that Wanda was trying to get back, but was advised to swap out after WandaVision as that really would be re-treading the same territory. I suspect they probably consider her Vision-related trauma to be 'done' (he was barely mentioned in MoM), but in getting over losing Vis, she was forced to lose 'her boys', so they just had her make all the same steps (only, you know, bigger and colourifuller).

 

I think to an extent some of it was maybe COVID related problems, but still.

Also, IIRC, Raimi wasn't originally attached to direct, but replaced the original director (same guy as the first Strange, I think?), so he was probably playing catch up anyway.

 

Finally watched Strange 2 and it just wasn't very good? America Chavez felt like a plot token at best, Strange's character development was entirely assumed on the basis of "This is what happens in films like this" instead of shown, the horror comedy ended up being a bit too meanspirited instead of going in on the humor or the comedy, and the generic MCU blast fight scenes weren't good. There was a solid 5-10 minutes of Zombie Strange that were great but otherwise ugh.

 

Shang-Chi was real fun. I always like these scenes where regular guy turns out to be a master fighter and the whole stereotypical magical village of kung-fu masters was nicely done. Inclusion of Trevor was great to add a humor, even if my option of it being a bad twists in Iron Man 3 is not changing anytime soon, but at the same time the movie had one of the worst humor interruption in Marvel when they were on a plane. The ending could be a little better than the fight with CGI dragon and once again they wasted a villain with a potential, but overall it was a strong 8/10.

 

Ffuuuccccckkkkk loads of marvel stiff dropped today. Most of the next few phases announced along with some trailers.

I can’t work out what the plot to Black Panther is and it looks odd.

Only things I am looking forward to properly is Guadians, Loki and Fantastic 4.

 

A new Black Panther needs to be selected while Namor attack. Nothing more to that.

I wasn't expecting new Avengers movies at least not on SDCC instead of D23. I predict that Kang Dynasty will end with Doctor Doom taking Kang powers and he's going to be the big bad of Secret Wars.

I really want them to finally do X-Men, but it appears it's not going to happen before 2026. Doing a team movie and then solo Disney+ shows would be the best way to handle them.

I'm waiting for F4, especially Doom, and that's it. Everything else is fine, but nothing really exciting for me with Secret Wars a big maybe because the name doesn't really say if it will be more like old Secret Wars, new Secret Wars or nothing like either.