Ninchilla
It looks utterly bonkers. I have no idea how you assemble a coherent story that includes all those bits.
Can't wait.
It looks utterly bonkers. I have no idea how you assemble a coherent story that includes all those bits.
Can't wait.
Re: the Strange trailer:
Spoiler - click to showThat's definitely Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier on the Illuminati council, right? I mean, it's 100% his voice, and everything about it is screaming "major multiverse crossover reveal" – and this would be an easy way to get the X-Men into the MCU without having to lay a shitload of groundwork.
Ah. I see all the really interesting bits have utterly passed me by. That's quite exciting.
Finally got to see Spider-Man: No Way Home this weekend, about three months after the rest of the world.
Pretty much everything in it had been comprehensively spoiled for me by the time I sat down to watch it (in some cases by Promoted Tweets from official accounts, which was infuriating) but it was still a spectacular watch. I can't imagine how it would be to sit down to this with no idea at all what was going to happen in it.
It's such a confident movie. It just assumes you've seen everything you need to leading up to it, and kicks off from the very beginning. It also has no time for the standard superhero template of "lots of exposition/big CGI fight in the middle/big CGI fight at the end" and is pretty much non-stop from start to end.
Easily the biggest "event" movie of the MCU since Infinity War/Endgame, and one of the most straightforwardly enjoyable of the whole sequence.
Spoiler - click to showAndrew Garfield steals the whole movie. I really ought to watch The Amazing Spider-Man movies, he at least seems like a great Peter Parker even if the villains look rubbish.
Also:
Spoiler - click to showDaredevil cameo!
It's kind of mad that they released this and Eternals back-to-back, it's hard to imagine two more different takes on the superhero genre. This was a long movie that felt like a short movie, Eternals was a long movie that felt like a life sentence.
Yep, watched it tonight and thoroughly enjoyed it. Re your spoilers - I was going to say the same two things!
Spoiler - click to showI can't believe you've not seen the Garfield ones! I still think he's the best spiderman by miles - funny, physically right and and genuinely moving when needed. The villains are a bit rubbish, but that's the case in most superhero films, Doc Ock apart. Even Dafoe was a bit wasted in the original Raimi one. Speaking of which, I thought Maguire was surprisingly not annoying in this new one. He looked old though, which I guess is forgivable given it's somehow 20 (TWENTY) years since his first one. Jaysus.
Also
Spoiler - click to show Not sure the plot made any sense at all really… Where did the villains go back to? And when…? Does time pass the same in all realities? Presumably they don't reappear at point of death and then just die anyway but cured…? I guess the explanation is timey wimey magicy wavey handy blah and all is well. Good good.
The only thing I didn't like was Dr strange's American accent, why couldn't they just let him be English…?
The only thing I didn't like was Dr strange's American accent, why couldn't they just let him be English…?
Dr. Strange was never really a character I followed, really, but in my head he was always American. A New Yorker, at that.
I just saw an ad for Spiderman (streaming/blu-ray release? Do they even do blu-rays any more?) that spoiled something huge.
I assume I'm the only person in the world who didn't already know that spoiler, and I don't follow the films enough to be annoyed. But I was still surprised they plonked it right in the advert.
Yeah, they were pretty careful with spoilers for the actual cinema release, even down to digitally editing characters out of the trailer so their appearance wouldn't be spoiled. Then they went in completely the other direction for the digital/blu-ray releases, stuffing every advert full of huge reveals.
They must be assuming everyone who wants to watch the movie has already seen it - but I don't think that's the case - I definitely avoided the cinema over Christmas due to Covid, and I can't have been the only one.
Maybe this is their cunning plan to save cinema. "Go watch our movie on the weekend of release or we'll ruin everything in it for you by the time you get to watch it".
They did similar with Endgame, but it was actually still the latter part of the theatrical release when they started with the spoilery trailers. It’s like they assume all the people that care about spoilers see it in the first few weeks, and then after that it’s those bits that will bring in everybody else, either because the talking points are what will entice people, or possibly the threat of yet more spoilers.
Anyone watching Moon Knight?
Not familiar with the character at all so it's all new to me. It's certainly different. The first episode is basically "What If… Dick Van Dyke Didn't Realise He Was Batman". Then by the third episode it's gone full-on Indiana Jones.
But it's effective, more creepy than most MCU stuff, I'm not quite sure where it's going and Oscar Isaac is excellent in the lead role(s).
We're waiting until it's all online so we can binge. Sounds right up our alley.
We've seen the first two, and are really enjoying it. Isaac is fantastic, and I love Khonshu's threateningly deadpan, over-it-but-I-will-fuck-you-up energy. I'm intrigued to see how it resolves itself; Spoiler - click to showSteven is by far the more interesting, unusual character compared to Marc's off-the-shelf Haunted Badass #3 - I hope they find a way to balance the two, rather than sideline one completely.
There's a big hint in episode 3 that
Spoiler - click to showthere is a third, as yet unseen, personality.
If it manages to keep it up, it'll be the best MCU series to date, for sure.
We threw The Batman on tonight, intending to watch the first third or so, but somehow managed to make it through the entire three hours.
It's really quite good! Oddly felt less lengthy and bloated than Nolan's second and third Bat-outings, though it suffers from the modern blockbuster thing of not really knowing when to end. Could've done with a couple fewer scenes right in the closing minutes.
It's got kind of a "binging a miniseries" vibe; especially with the generally low-profile effects, crime thriller plotting. I liked the detective/puzzle solving element, which recent efforts have definitely downplayed, and the Riddler's perspective on his relationship to/with Batman was a great counterpoint to the broader legacy theme – which all dovetailed nicely at the end with what was frankly a more positive, optimistic tone than I expected from the Rorschach voiceovers that opened the film.
Pattinson was excellent as both the super-intense, self-serious Batman and the fragile, exhausted Bruce Wayne, in a way I don't think any previous version has managed to balance quite so well. Zoë Kravitz was fine as Selina, but I don't think I really buy her infatuation with Batman.
Definitely worth watching if you have the chance, though there's no way on Earth I'd have made it through in the cinema – being able to pause made all the difference.
We endured saw THE BATMAN in the cinema, and definitely felt the length; it's at least one setpiece too long, and as a result feels weirdly like Spoiler - click to showthe Riddler won? I mean, he didn't kill the mayor, or whatever, but he blew up the sea wall and flooded half the city. Seems like a win to me.
I agree on the performances, too - Pattinson is very good, Kravitz less so.
Have you seen the deleted scene with [REDACTED EVEN THOUGH EVERYONE ALREADY SURELY KNOWS]? Spoiler - click to show I understand why they cut it, but I kind of like it - I mean, it's just Silence of the Lambs, but it makes for a very different take on the Batman/Joker relationship. Don't know why they work so hard to obscure Keoghan, though; if you don't know who he is within two seconds, I can only assume you've somehow never heard of Batman before.
Coincidentally, I also watched The Batman last night, and also agree with basically everything aniki said, as well as Ninchilla’s point about the “result”.
Spoiler - click to showAt one point, just for a second, I almost expected the sea wall explosions to be dreamy flash-forwards, that foreshadowed what Batman was just about to prevent.
Spoiler - click to showThe fact that no-one had everything figured out was one of my favourite things about it though; for most of the film Bats has about as much effect on the actual plot as Indy does in Raiders (ie, basically none), largely being there just to be good at riddles and offend the police, and Battinson’s discomfort and then visible unclenching when he realises Riddler doesn’t know who he is excellently done.
Spoiler - click to showI also really liked the surprisingly hopeful end; what I mentioned above was one example of how this is still “early” Batman, which was nicely conveyed by the reactions to him from both public and police, but also his three very different entries to the club.
Also worth a mention is the cinematography - it’s a very nicely shot film and, much as I enjoy the MCU, I was reminded that they tend to be quite devoid of flair in comparison.
So, yeah, good film, well shot, well acted - Pattinson is very good, if possibly a bit too stylistically My Chemical Romance as Wayne, as are Dano and Farrell, and I did like Wright’s Gordon - and so on. I was cautiously optimistic, and still pleasantly surprised, so am looking forward to watching again, and seeing where they go next.
Not really sure how I feel about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It establishes a lot of things that are, I assume, massively important to the future direction of the entire MCU, but it all comes across as somehow fluffy and weightless.
Spoiler - click to showThat might be because of how vaguely the film ends; America Chavez is learning magic in Kamartaj, for some reason, but with no clear indication of her character's next steps. Surely she should be heading out into the multiverse, popping up in cameos in other franchises to tie them all into the MCU? Strange has a new third eye which dramatically reveals itself right at the end, but then in the mid-credit stinger it seems not to be a big deal anymore? Apparently every other reality knew about the Multiverse except the mainline MCU? There is apparently an infinite supply of students at Kamartaj, which makes Mordo's "too many sorcerers" in the first movie's stinger entirely accurate. All the magic super-books are destroyed now too, so they're no longer a threat (though I'm a bit glad to see a Macguffin reduction in this franchise).
Spoiler - click to showI did like how the film included a bunch of other non-MCU comics characters just to kill them all off, though. The violence was a good bit bloodier than other entries in the franchise, and I wasn't expecting as many jump scares as we got (though I suppose that is the point of a jump scare).
Spoiler - click to showAnd it tied into WandaVision much more directly than I anticipated – though it makes sense for that grief to continue fuelling Wanda's arc.
Maybe it'll be a stronger film in retrospect, once the dominoes it has set up start to fall, but for now I'm pretty cold on a lot of the film. I do wonder if this'll be a theme of Phase 4, with the TV and Movie elements merging into a more comic-style approach of ongoing, intersecting storylines and fewer of the big event crossover movies.
I might need to percolate on it a while, but I thought it was very weak. Probably the worst MCU movie since Age of Ultron.
Saw it. Liked it. Can see why some might not enjoy it, it's not amazing. Not a big fan of Wanda as the baddie.
Might have got a bit excited to see Spoiler - click to showReed Richards.
The other multiverse movie, Everything Everywhere All At Once is a bit good. Enjoyed it way more than Strange 2.
She-Hulk trailer:
Some VERY dodgy CGI in there which I assume will get ironed out before release. Good to see Tim Roth back though. And the tone again looks different from what we've seen from Marvel so far.
I'm extremely happy Tatiana Maslany's getting some high-profile work. Hopefully it doesn't descend into the typical CGI slug-fest by the end (especially with how ropey some of those effects look), but glad to see it has a bit of a sense of humour.
That looks very silly indeed. I'm in.
It's going to be so disappointing when they kill off Gorr at the end, instead of keeping him around for future movies, just like they did with Lee Pace's Ronan in GoG. (I'm assuming. The MCU has a bad habit of using one-and-done villains.)
I'm having severe mixed feelings about Ms. Marvel. Iman Vellani is an absolute delight as Kamala Khan, 100% perfect in the role and just a joy to watch. But everything else about it is giving me serious early-seasons-Agents-of-Shield vibes.
I've not re-read the comics run recently – and don't intend to until this series is finished, in an attempt to limit the comparisons it's got to live up to – but I remember it being a lot more coherent.
Spoiler - click to showPlus, did the MCU really need another supernatural parallel dimension? There was a theory, pre-release, that the bangle was a Kree weapon, and that Kamala's family were descended from a Kree sleeper cell; that would have tied it all into Captain Marvel in a tidy way – explaining why Danvers shows an interest – as well as being a nod to the Inhuman source of Kamala's abilities in the comics. This is just a bunch of disconnected Noun Soup, for what – a bunch of characters we aren't going to see after the series ends anyway? Why not tie Kamala into the wider MCU more concretely?
And it just looks so cheap. 🫣
Haven't seen episode 4 yet but based on the first three I'm enjoying it a lot, admittedly more for the teenage drama than the superhero stuff. The family side of things is impeccably well-observed and also the kind of thing you don't really see in mainstream shows very often, so I think it's earned a place at the table on that basis alone.
Mostly I'm just liking the fact that all of these MCU shows are so different. Going from Moon Knight to this is quite the jump. The Star Wars shows on the other hand all seem to be merging into one.
Yeah, most of the Kamala Khan stuff is solid, but I'm not sold on the Ms. Marvel bits. I remember the comic integrating those two sides of the much character more smoothly than here.
Though I'm not so keen on how she immediately has a crush on every boy (except the obvious one).
Is it just me, or are more and more movies nowadays feeling like they could use another draft or two before shooting? I've got the benefit of hindsight, obviously, but the last few films I've seen definitely felt like they had at least one subplot underbaked.
Thor: Love and Thunder is definitely one of them.
There's no real connection between the hero and villain's arcs, which is what would really make the finale work, thematically. Gorr's whole deal is just disjointed as a whole; he's so torn up about his daughter's death that he…kidnaps a bunch of other people's kids? People unrelated to his actual grudge? I don't understand his behaviour. I feel like the film is trying to make his crusade feel morally grey, but he's just a bit too cartoonishly ghoulish.
Jane has been so notably absent from the recent movies that the attempts to flesh out her and Thor's relationship in flashback just feels cheesy. Is this a common MCU narrative problem caused by the franchise's insistence on only telling tentpole, world-shaking blockbuster stories? Not entirely, in this case – politics around The Dark World's director is an undoubted contributor – but the lack of any room to breathe has definitely hurt the emotional core of an MCU relationship before.
(You also get this with the opening Guardians scenes – the film wants us to believe that there's history since Endgame, but we're not allowed to see any of it )
Likewise Valkyrie, whose dissatisfaction at being a mostly bureaucratic monarch is mostly told, not shown, and who doesn't seem to get any resolution in the end. Sif is here too, with little explanation or fanfare.
And as with the Doctor Strange sequel, it's hard to tell what the point of it all is. I'm wondering if Feige's insistence that there is a plan for Phase 4 is desperate ass-covering, because as it stands right now, I'm feeling absolutely no momentum for what comes next. And with a full slate of announced projects in both TV and films for the next few years, that feels like the Marvel machine night finally be running out of steam.
And as with the Doctor Strange sequel, it's hard to tell what the point of it all is. I'm wondering if Feige's insistence that there is a plan for Phase 4 is desperate ass-covering, because as it stands right now, I'm feeling absolutely no momentum for what comes next. And with a full slate of announced projects in both TV and films for the next few years, that feels like the Marvel machine night finally be running out of steam.
Not seen Thor yet, but completely agree with you about Strange. There was a lot to like in individual scenes (especially when they let Raimi be Raimi), and some obvious "oooo crossover!" pleasure to be had, but it all felt so inconsequential. Nobody changed really, there was never any doubt about how it would end, the non-superhero bits were massively underbaked (say what you want about Whedon, but he understood the need to ground things somehow). It's all so shallow compared to what came before.
The lack of peril for protagonists is kind of essential to the superhero genre I guess, but the lack of context, lack of progression for any of the characters and the lack of a meta-narrative is becoming an issue. The run up to Endgame had Thanos in the background all the way through, which helped even dross like The Dark World seem relevant. These films used to be events. At the moment, it's more like they're churning out expensive, feature length episodes of Supernatural…
I'm having severe mixed feelings about Ms. Marvel. Iman Vellani is an absolute delight as Kamala Khan, 100% perfect in the role and just a joy to watch. But everything else about it is giving me serious early-seasons-Agents-of-Shield vibes.
Having watched the whole thing now - sadly you were right. I've not seen a series squander its early promise this badly for a very long time.
Spoiler - click to showThey had the perfect team in Kamala, Bruno and Nakia for a low-stakes, high-spirited adventure, and that's pretty much what the first two episodes delivered. But then they completely ruined it by introducing a whole squad of bad guys that turned out to be the biggest dullards since the Eternals, followed by a whole squad of equally pointless good guys and a two-episode diversion to Karachi. By the time the story returned to New Jersey in the final episode I was beyond caring.
I'm looking forward to seeing Kamala again but I'd rate this show overall as low-tier MCU.
I quite enjoyed the last episode - in large part, I think, because it had such smaller stakes. All the Clandestine/Veil stuff was horrendously rushed and made zero sense.
Just started watching The Boys. I’m five episodes in, and someone just called the Australian with the dyed black beard ‘British’.
I actually had to stop and google it, apparently he really is trying to do a British accent. It ruined the rest of the episode because it was all I could focus on!
Aside from him it’s great so far, though. Brilliant first episode.
Interested in your thoughts on Homelander, he made the show for me.
I really enjoyed the first season of The Boys, but bounced off it halfway through the second season as it felt it was just going through the motions. Also I couldn't understand a damn word Frenchie said, to the extent where I was tempted to put subtitles on.
The third season has had stellar word of mouth though so I probably need to go back and give it another go.
Finally got around to watching Dr Strange Fights a Bunch of CGI for Two Hours, sorry Dr Strange and the Multiverse of Madness.
It's fine. Absolutely fine. It's action-packed, doesn't outstay its welcome, introduces a decent new character without giving her much to do, and generally acts like a live-action version of What If…? - which is OK. It has more CGI than any movie I've ever seen, and a lot of it is surprisingly ropey, but it gets the job done.
It just suffers a bit from the Phase 4 problem: everything's all set-up and no pay-off. It doesn't feel like it's really going anywhere or progressing anything, but it doesn't quite stand alone on its own merits either. The nature of multiverse stories makes it all feel slightly inconsequential. Again we have a mid-credits sequence that introduces yet another unknown character and promises great things next time, not this time, but next time.
Remember Phase 1? A handful of characters introduced over the course of a few movies, then brought together to fight a common enemy. Each mid-credits sequence led directly into the next movie. That was fun; maybe they should try that again. Now maybe Marvel are working towards an epic crossover where Kamala Khan, America Chavez, Kate Bishop, Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, a couple of Eternals and a handful of Loki variants come together to fight… I dunno, someone or other, but it doesn't feel that way right now.
Looks like they've just announced two Avengers films for 2025, so I guess that's what they are building towards.
I'm enjoying Phase 4 opening things up. No film or series is a classic on their own but as a sprawling collection of stories in a world full of superheroes (and magic and aliens etc) it works well. Phase 4 feels closer to the experience of reading the comics than the MCU has before.
Looks like they've just announced two Avengers films for 2025, so I guess that's what they are building towards.
Yeah, they've clarified their upcoming schedule a bit.
Phase 4 now ends after the next movie (Wakanda Forever) and series (She-Hulk).
Phase 5 runs for 18 months from the start of 2023 to mid-2024 and includes (for movies) Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3, The Marvels, Blade, Captain America: New World Order, and Thunderbolts - and (for TV) Secret Invasion, Echo, Loki S2, Ironheart, Agatha: Coven of Chaos, and Daredevil: Born Again.
Phase 6 is less well-defined but includes Fantastic 4, Avengers: The Kang Dynasty and Avengers: Secret Wars.
There's a bunch of other stuff we already know about, including an MCU Deadpool movie and three new Tom Holland Spidey films, that have to slot in there somewhere too.
These three phases together are known as The Multiverse Saga - as opposed to the first three phases which were The Infinity Saga.
That's a packed schedule. I guess Phase 4 was the disjointed "introduce new stuff" phase then and we should start to see things coming together next year sometime.
Daredevil Born Again is one of the best comics Marvel has ever made so that’s interesting. I would be surprised if they could do it justice within the MCU though. My advice to you all is to read the comic before you see the show.
Thinking about it, it might not have much to do with the comic, they probably just wanted the title because they are bringing Daredevil back.
Oh, Born Again is an actual comic run? I assumed it was just the title of the Daredevil reboot but I can't imagine they'd use that name if they weren't at least planning to use some elements of the storyline.
Apparently it's 18 episodes, which is something of a departure for these shows. Charlie Cox (as Daredevil) and Vincent D'Onofrio (as Kingpin) are confirmed - unsurprisingly, as they've both already been in the MCU - and there are strong rumours that Krysten Ritter will be reprising her role as Jessica Jones.
Born Again is the peak of Daredevil vs Kingpin.
there are strong rumours that Krysten Ritter will be reprising her role as Jessica Jones.
I read that Charlie Cox's Daredevil is showing up in Echo, where he's specifically looking for Jessica Jones, so having her pop up again seems likely. (I'd be surprised if D'Onofrio doesn't appear in Echo as well, at least in flashbacks.)
I missed the trailer for Wakanda Forever that was shown at the weekend:
A great trailer, quite old-school really in that it makes the movie look fantastic without giving away the entire plot.
This was always going to be a tough movie to make after the tragic death of Chadwich Boseman, and it might be sacrilege to say so but Black Panther was one of my least favourite MCU movies - I hope they can knock it out of the park with this one.
Just started watching Ms Marvel, which I think is good, but I can’t tell for sure because I can’t understand what the characters are saying. Anyone else had this?
It’s peak American-teen-mumble, spoken at 100mph. Am I just getting old?
We just routinely watch most stuff with subtitles these days.
I quite enjoyed that first episode of She-Hulk – we always knew the CGI was going to be a bit ropey, so frankly getting disappointed about it at this stage feels pointless, and anyways I'm just here for Tatiana Maslany.
The episode structure was a bit unusual, though. Using the flashback as a way to introduce Jen's fourth-wall break was pretty smart, but it had a weird effect on the momentum – especially with multiple character blackouts happening in rapid succession early on.
Still, it's a strong first episode. It set the tone and introduced the character, and I like the reluctance to use her powers in a way that's different from Banner's fear. One of the things I liked about early Luke Cage was that his abilities weren't really helpful in dealing with the institutional power he was up against; I'm curious to see if She-Hulk treads any of that same ground, and if it manages to walk the line more consistently than Cage did.
We were a bit confused by the latest episode of She-Hulk:
Spoiler - click to showWe all assumed Megan Thee Stallion was some kind of Marvel villain we'd not previously heard of, so we were super-disappointed when it turned out she was just some rapper.
Other than that, though, enjoying it a lot.
The final episode of She-Hulk is absolutely batshit. The series overall has been easily my favourite Marvel TV show and it’s definitely ended on a high.
I loved it. I think I preferred Loki overall but She-Hulk was still great.