The Marvels - MCU

Clearly a Boards poll is the only empirical way to prove the buzz.

Did not know that.

Can't really blame him for pulling her in. Obi wan himself had to have gotten Mary Elizabeth Winstead a role in Ashoka too.

People complain about nepotism but its all who you know I guess. We'd do the same to those closet to us.

I don't think anyone who's even positive on this film is saying it's in any way great. It's enjoyable for the most part, and doesn't do anything really terribly bad. It's lacklustre, but has enough good bits throughout that stops it from being horrible. It's lower-mid tier of all the MCU films, but it's also not as bad as some of the very recent films like Black Widow, Quantumania and Thor Love & Thunder.

Marvel already seem to be trying to adjust things moving forward (given previous and now further delays for their slate of films), and the box office performance of this will likely only hasten that.

My thoughts. Very good, not the greatest film ever but still a fun night out. As others have said Iman Vellani is the Star of the show but she's got some stiff competition coming as seen near the end. I can see why people think Brie is too "stern" for the role, but I like her "Bad cop" turn. Teynoah Paris was quite good but even with the hindsight of 2020 Wandavision, her power development was a bit over the place. The plot around her first flight for instance.

7.5 creeping to 8/10

i'm going today. not expecting much, from this thread. but Brie Larson... drool.

I do enjoy the cinema but I must admit, it's getting harder and harder to get enthused about actually going to the cinema. The last thing I went to see I think was Mission Impossible or Across the Spiderverse (Whichever was later). I intended to see The Creator in the cinema but circumstances conspired against me. I tend to limit my cinema-going to movies that appear in my local "IMAX". Unfortunately simply because it is more expensive and less likely to have annoying scrotes. And that's a sad reason. I fully intend on seeing Miyazaki's next film in the cinema and spectacles like Dune etc. I see in the US they are releasing The Abyss in the cinema on Dec 6 for 1 day. Hopefully that will be done here too.

I will not comment on the movie quality itself as that would be unfair: I have not seen it. But I will say that I never had any intention of going to see it in the cinema. The trailer or characters simply did nothing for me. I only saw a few episodes of Ms Marvel but the girl seemed pleasant and full of energy but, y'know, I'm probably not core demographic :). I barely remembered Rambeau from Wandavision. I remember she started out interesting but then faded from my memory. And Brie Larson was just SO wooden in the first one and so over-powered that they had to "Poochie" her in Endgame. My biggest memory of her on that was her perma-smirk and of course.... THAT eye-clawing scene with all the female superheroes.

This is NOTHING to do with gender or representation or anything like that. For me is was simply: Not target audience for introduction of character 1. Forgettable character 2 unless you were heavily versed in the comics (Which I'm not) and wooden performance of an over-powered character 3

I mean Superman is the same. So overpowered that usually the first 1/3 of a film is trying to hobble him

Agreed. All the action scenes, battles, loud noises and flashing lights... they're good and fun, but not why people cared about the films. The MCU had the success it had because of the characters, and the stories that competent and experienced writers and directors brought to us with those characters. There were character arcs and development in solo films and across multiple films. Sure, it was never amazing or unique character arcs, they were always fairly standard, but with the right stories and performances, that's what a large proportion of the audience was ultimately there for. The fact that Endgame ended not with a "We're going to introduce Kang as the next baddie, and here's (CURRENTLY POPULAR ACTOR) who will show up as (MINOR CHARACTER FROM COMICS) in about 7 years", but instead ended with Steve deciding to give up the fight and go get his dance and have a life with Peggy.

The most recent films are focusing too much on the big CGI stuff, and inexperienced or rushed writers/directors are giving us so little reason to care about most of the characters, with such basic level character work that may as well not even be there. People don't care about the characters in a dangerous fight if they don't care about the characters. Stuff like Shang-Chi, the fight with his father was the crux of the third act, but the fight with the dragons after was just unnecessary CGI trailer-fodder.

Even when they have the guts of a decent story, like Jane Foster having cancer and becoming Mighty Thor, there were maybe two scenes about that which were done well, but most of the rest of it was sandwiched between awful jokes which completely worked against what they were doing. Doctor Strange MoM I thought had a decent story about Stephen realising he didn't always need to be in control and he could cede power to others, and then at the end he grows a third eye and f*cks off with Charlize Theron because they're more focused on setting up a sequel than closing out this story arc in a way that suits the character.

The Marvels, actually does okay in this regard. As basic a story arc as they come, but it was done pretty well.

She seems very cool

It's funny, I was rewatching Ms Marvel ahead of watching The Marvels and it struck me as to how artistic and colourful that series was and some of the cinematography, especially the bookend episodes. Case in point, the end credits.

And there's certainly a bit of a GOTG lite air about The Marvels.

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