My sole complaint is that Pedro's face is too round. Reed Richards should have a long-ish angular type of face.
I like Mark Ruffalo, but I do wish Edward Norton could have stayed in the role. I liked his take on the character.
Here's the thing: Regardless of whether The Marvels is an unprecedented flop financially, a moderate disaster, a minor underperformer, or actually turns a profit when Hollywood accounting is done with it, it doesn't matter all that much to me. The few ways it might: Will Disney decide "The reason this flopped was because it stars unpopular characters/actors" and not do a Marvels 2 movie? Don't know, don't care all that much. I would be happy seeing these actors, but I'd be just as happy with umpteen Marvel characters who haven't had their MCU days in the sun. Will Disney look at the box office of this movie, most of its other 2023 offerings, DC's Flash and Blue Beetle and realize that they can't just print money by churning out superhero movies? I kinda hope so. Will Disney (or other film makers, conclude "The reason this flopped was because it features women/women of color at the center" and decide that they should avoid similar films featuring a predominately female cast? There's some danger of that, and I think that would be a shame. Will the financial performance of "The Marvels" hurt the careers of those on the creative side of the picture? I hope not. I think the actresses and director did a reasonably good job. I don't like the schadenfreude of those gloating over its financial failure, but c'est la vie.
Perhaps you haven't yet figured out that a very good portion of fandom is full of hateful, lonely assholes who lash out at anything that doesn't fit their pre-conceived notion of how someone else's creation should fit into their sad little world. It's why I actually have reverse schadenfreude over the Trekkies who cry about JJ Abrams "ruining" Star Trek, when the films (particularly the 2009 one) were critical and box office successes.
Well aware of certain sections of fandom. Also aware that there's not necessarily either a causation or correlation between box office results and quality of filmmaking. Some of the Marvel movies that were IMO worse than the Marvels that performed way better in terms of Box Office: Thor IV ($343m), Thor II ($206m), Iron Man II ($312m), each Ant-Man movie (ranging between $180-$216m).
If you are talking about The Marvels, it seems like most people who have seen it liked it. The audience score at Rotten Tomatoes is 83 percent, to the extent that is a measure of quality. The critics' score is 62. If you are talking about angst over JJ Trek, those films generally have both box office receipts (to the extent those can be used to suggest quality) and reviews to support the argument that they were not bad movies.
I'll say it again, post-Endgame MCU's problem isn't any particular movie, the uber-story of the multiverse saga isn't gelling together well enough. Bits of it are, but other bits are floating around by themselves. It's like when you're near the end of your bowl of Cheerios, and you have that island of Cheerios that stick together for dear life, and those dumb Cheerios that are floating off on their own. That's what phase 4-5 look like so far. "No Way Home" "Multiverse Of Madness" "Across The Spider-verse" "Wandavision" "Loki" "What If?" "Quantumania" and the credits scene of "The Marvels" are the Cheerio island, everything else is a loose Cheerio.
I'm talking about The Marvels. I haven't seen it and it's not because it's an all female cast. I don't go to theaters anymore unless it's something I'm super invested in. Indy 5 was one I had to see in theaters even thoughh I knew it wasn't going to live up to the original three, but it's Indiana Jones. The Batman is another one, Dune 2, The Abyss re-release. I think you get it, although I should have waited for The Flash. I've seen criticisms from random people, not The Critical Drinker, not the usual suspects, not CHUDS!, who say it's just a poorly written movie. The comparison I saw was Hella vs. this villain. They said Hella makes for a better villain. Again, don't know. I'll let you know in a few months. I didn't hate Captain Marvel and I quite like Monica Rambou and Mrs Marvel was okay, but I don't think general audiences really care about these characters.
Loki is probably the best Marvel TV out there and the most coherent and relative to the overall story that they have. I love Loki's character development and they actually made Johnathan Majors' Mr. Timely character likeable. If they can make some sense out of that and keep those writers, then that would save them.
That's one part of it. Another part of it is the MCU turning into homework. Watching a two hour movie every six months so I'm up to speed is one thing, but now I need to watch nine episodes of Wandavision and nine episodes of What If to fully appreciate the new Dr. Strange movie? Or nine Wandavisions, six Miss Marvels and six Secret Invasions to understand who the main characters in the Captain Marvel sequel are and what they're up to? But the biggest issue IMHO is Disney Plus itself. If I'm paying however much every months to watch the newest Marvel movies in the comfort of my home after a slight delay, why am I going to pay even more money to go out to a theatre and see one of them a little earlier?
Eh, "you need to watch all these shows to get the movies!!" is a cruel greedy marketing ploy, IMO. I think you can get "Multiverse Of Madness" just fine without "Wandavision" and "What If?". Hell, if anything, certain character deaths are a spit in the face to those fans. I've heard the MoM director didn't even watch them.
Just wiki the stuff you haven't seen, sheesh I watched Infinity War before Ragnarok and had no problem dealing with uh, is that Thor? I guess so. Apparently he's lost an eye and his planet is gone? Okay, let's roll
As someone who has watched all of the MCU, I'd say that there is nothing in The Marvels that requires having seen Secret Invasion, Wandavision or Ms. Marvel to understand. To the extent that you need to know anything from those properties (such as how Monica got her powers and how they work) the film explains that in a sentence or two and moves on. There might be a certain enrichment in watching the Marvels. For instance, having watched Ms. Marvel, I have a built-in understanding of Kamala's fangirling of Carol and her relationship with her family. But The Marvels quickly and clearly establishes these things for anyone who hasn't ever seen Ms. Marvel, and they aren't too complicated to get. I think the biggest thing is: why should I pay $20 to see a movie in theater that I can watch in three months with my streaming service subscription?
You know that and I know that, but I don't think the message that you don't really need to watch the tv shows to understand the movies is really being communicated by Disney at this point.
Cuz they want you to watch. It'd be like a bottled water company going "city tap water is just fine".
I think it's the same problem as the WNBA. Women often don't support women's shows about things in traditional male fields. They'll go with their boyfriends and crush on one of the Chrises, but they won't get the girls together to go see a movie dominated by a female cast by a female director when it's mostly about blowing shit up and punching people. Add to the fact that these are really secondary characters, so old fucks like me aren't invested in them like we were the superheroes we grew up with, it's doesn't have the cache of the first group of Marvel movies. I enjoyed it myself, took my teenage son, though since phase III the writing in Marvel has seriously declined. The first half was better than the last. But overall I'd give it a solid B+. Far better than Love and Thunder or Secret Invasion, which were both absolute crap. A shame it isn't doing so well. Iman Vellani is incredible, and I like Brie Larson. Teyonnah Paris has done some good stuff, but they didn't give her a lot to work with in this movie IMO.
No, I've gotten opinions from female fans, and... They liked Black Widow...and they fucking killed her. They liked Gamora...and then they fucking killed her, brought her back as a clone, and sidelined her clone. They liked Agent Carter....and they fucking killed her. They LOVED Captain Carter....and they fucking killed her. They LOVED Wanda....and they fucking killed her. They LOVE She-Hulk.....and they'll put in her a movie in 4 years to never. They love the X-Women....and they'll be in the MCU in 10 years to never. Yeah, I'd check out if I were a chick too.
Jon Hamm Addresses Potential MCU X-Men Role After Previous Mister Sinister Talks: "I Hope I Get A Chance"
We caught The Marvels last week, and really enjoyed it - at heart it's an 80's megamix of a movie, and I'm pretty sad it's doing so poorly at the box office, as it's light hearted in the vein of the first GotG. Writing could be better, and a looser cut wouldn't have hurt, but that's true of pretty much 95% of movies. I like the entire Kree plot was basically lifted from Spaceballs - they really needed a quick easter egg there, maybe a flash of an image of Mel Brooks titled Skr Oob. Photon was pretty much Buckeroo Banzai with superpowers. And the Khan family arc wouldn't have looked out of place out of a John Hughes movie with their acceptance of Kamala as a hero. And Goose... Flerkens are Mogwai and Gremlin combined. An 80's megamix so good, it was like Jive Bunny went to the movies. I could understand the box office drop if it was a mess, but it's not, it's one of the better movies since Endgame - which was always going to be difficult to get close to, let alone match or top - and genuinely fun.
Y'know, it occurs, if the CHUDs were at all smart, and not a bunch of man-baby reactionaries, they'd get all the lady fans to love the shit out of Carol Danvers, and then Kevin Feige would kill her, and their problem would be solved by strategery.
With time travel and variants and multiverses, no one is really dead. Of course, Gamora was done dirty IMO in GOTG 3 by being short-changed in both action and personality, and Wanda's character was done dirty in MoM. I'm pretty sure that CHUDs would not be satisfied if Marvel ever killed Carol Danvers. Or at least, they would find something to complain about or to generally be dicks about. "They treated Carol like she was some sort of big damn hero, sacrificing herself to save Earth! Like only men couldn't be heroic like that." "Woke Hollywood is just going to shove another Mary Sue down our throat." "Of course, since the villain was male, the message is that all men are eeeeeeeeevil" or "Of course, since the villain who killed her was a woman, Woke Hollywood issaying that men aren't good enough to stand up to her." or "Of course, since the villain who killed her is a sentient AI/without a gender/transgender/nonbinary, Woke Hollywood is stomping on the natural order of things where there are only two possible genders." "
I haven't seen it mentioned elsewhere, but I like how the first movie had Carol as this classic 90's American girl, then the sequel shows her decades later, after she deposed a dictator thinking she'd be a hero, only to almost destroy the world she thought she was liberating. She fucked up just like America fucked up. She even used to be a fighter pilot like Dubya.
