[Film] The Marvels

[Pyperkub]

Saw this last night - loved Kamala and the Marvels, as well as the Flurkans.

But I'm getting sick of the Kree-Skrull stuff Marvel is shoveling into almost everything lately (maybe because Secret Invasion was awful? maybe) and I was glad it was short. Loved the epilogue with Hailee Steinfeld.

[Blackhawk]

Ok, I just got back. It was one of the better MCU films in a long time (although I haven't seen Wakanda Forever.) Guardians 3 might have been better, but it was also extremely heavy. The two introductions at the end (one right before the credits plus the credits scene) are awesome, and move things in a great direction. I just hope the fact that it flopped doesn't mean that this'll be one of those things we'll be talking about in 20 years saying, "Can you imagine if they'd been able to follow up?"

The weakest part of the movie was the villainess. She actually had a very interesting back story, but her scenes felt really out of tune to me. A few moments, you can really empathize with her, but the rest she’s just a crazy cackling villain with no personality.

I absolutely agree, and it really stood out while I was watching.

Spoiler:

She had all of the ingredients for the Thanos/Killmonger magic. Like they say (paraphrasing): A good villain makes a good point. A great villain is right. She was right. Her motivations were good ones - her methods were the problem. She could have been an amazing villain if they'd given her just a little development and treated as a character instead of a combat prop. It was a missed opportunity that could have made a really good movie into a great movie.

[coopasonic]

Now I know I've failed when Blackhawk got to see it before me. I'm off tomorrow and there are a few screens showing it nearby, so maybe...

[Smoove_B]

Just as an FYI, this will be streaming on Disney+ starting tomorrow (2/7/24)

[Scraper]

I watched this over the weekend and I can absolutely see why it bombed. The movie was not good. I know this is a Marvel movie but there was absolutely zero character development, for a movie starring Captain Marvel I found myself not caring about the character at all. The villain's plot was also way under developed and just asinine, it was literally Spaceballs level stupid. The only thing missing was Megamaid.

The scene that really sent the movie down for me though was the entire cat segment. That part was just way too campy and just overall contrived.

Also spoiler for the end action scene:

Spoiler:

When Captain Marvel and the bad chick are fighting near the space gate thingy the bad chick has both of the bangles, yet somehow Kamala uses her super powers to grab everyone and the bangles. On top of that draining our sun and sending it to another sun is really just completely implausible. Also, if the bad guy opened a gate from our sun to her sun then why did Rambo end up in another dimension when she went through the gate instead of at the bad guys sun?

Large parts of this movie made zero sense (even for a comic book movie) it's as if the writers had a bunch of boxes the studio told them they had to check and they didn't care how they got there.

In the end The Marvels was just as disappointing as Quantomania, and don't even get me started on that one.

[hepcat]

I also watched it over the weekend. It wasn't horrible, but it just didn't do anything that veered from the standard Marvel formula in any way. You could almost envision the writer and director huddling together over a table and going "Okay, here's the flowchart, let's stick to this as closely as possible!".

[Punisher]

.
Also spoiler for the end action scene:

Spoiler:

When Captain Marvel and the bad chick are fighting near the space gate thingy the bad chick has both of the bangles, yet somehow Kamala uses her super powers to grab everyone and the bangles. On top of that draining our sun and sending it to another sun is really just completely implausible. Also, if the bad guy opened a gate from our sun to her sun then why did Rambo end up in another dimension when she went through the gate instead of at the bad guys sun?

.

I believe

Spoiler:

1. Kamala was implied to be a mutant in her show right at the end. I think this happened at the last minute when Disney finally got Fox. It's possible that the bangle just amplify her powers.
2. The bad guy didn't understand the power of two bangles nor how to use it properly and instead of opening a gate, she punched a hole in space/time and into another universe.
It was an accident.

[JCC]

I watched this on D+ this week. It was... fine I guess? By and large it was fun and not boring. I loved the abundance of adorable Flurkins.

I didn't like the numbers in the final fight. If there are going to be 3 heroes and 1 villain, then they needed to build up said villain much more than they did in the film. All of the Marvel heroes vs. Thanos worked, because Thanos was so badass (and he had a massive army). In this film the villain was pretty tough, but I still was asking myself: Why does Marvel's version of Superman need help?

I also found the singing planet amusing but kind of goofy and stupid.

Anyway, good flick, not nearly near the top of my favorite MCU films, which is true of pretty much all of them after End Game with the exception of the most recent Spidey film.

Hopefully Deadpool will be awesome!

[Blackhawk]

I'd argue that Thanos worked because they gave him a personality and spent time building that personality. He saw a real problem, and genuinely wanted to make it better, but his solution was horrific. Much like Killmonger. Both were studies in the right way to write a villain. Like they say, a good villain actually has goals, but a great villain is right.

The single biggest problem with The Marvels is that the villain was no deeper than what was required for a boss fight.

I did like the movie, but they really stumbled on that part.

[Victoria Raverna]

They didn't actually spend a lot of time building Thanos. He appeared a few seconds in multiple movies but didn't really show much personality.

[hepcat]

We learned a little more about him in each movie from others though. By the time he took to the stage, we were already aware of his goals and his reasons.

[Blackhawk]

They also built him, fairly extensively, through his various minions, enemies, associates, and half-dozen adopted kids. His motivations didn't become clear until Infinity War, but by then we knew enough that they didn't have to spend half of his screen time setting him up. They could just focus on adding depth by spending extra time on his history and motivations.

[Victoria Raverna]

We learned a little more about him in each movie from others though. By the time he took to the stage, we were already aware of his goals and his reasons.

Not sure if you're right about that. I think we never knew his goals and reasons until Avengers: Infinity War.

[hepcat]

I’m pretty sure we learned about his goal of exterminating half the population of the universe before then. Gamora alone provided much of it as far back as the Guardians first movie. He might not have made a grand entrance until the Infinity Wars but he pervaded every movie prior to that in many ways.

[Unagi]

I mean, you are both kinda right though...

While they gave us Thanos early, every time I saw him - I wondered if I was supposed to know more than I actually did. I assumed the real true comic crowd was sitting on a lot of Thanos back-story and lore that I needed to piece together for myself throughout the movies.

[Blackhawk]

They just teased him in his first few appearances, but gave a lot of info through secondary characters.

They really didn't build up his motivations or personality, but they established who he was, his power, and so on long before he became a full fledged character. Them doing so gradually increased his menace, and them doing it in advance meant that when he really arrived on the scene they didn't need to waste their time establishing him. That, in turn, meant more time could be devoted to his character development.

[msteelers]

We watched this tonight and really liked it. It was fun throughout, had good action, and moved several characters stories forward in interesting ways.

[Scuzz]

We watched this last night and I am pretty meh on it. It played as a comedy about half the time, which worked sometimes but at other times it detracted from the drama of what was at stake.

The latest MCU movies suffer from the success of Thor Ragnorak. They all try to mix comedy into every scene, and it just shouldn’t always be there.

I thought the movie was shallow.

[Blackhawk]

I think that started with Guardians, and slowly grew. A few along the way (Ant-Man, Spioder-Man, Raganarok) did it so well that they seem to have seen it as confirmation of their direction, and just ran with it. It doesn't help that Deadpool 1 & 2 both came out in that same window.

It's Legolas Syndrome. Let people cheer for one cheesy thing, and the next movie will have ten cheesy things. If that one does well, the next will have 100, and after that they'll consist primarily of cheese.

[El Guapo]

I watched it last night, and liked it. It's not one of the great Marvel movies (Black Panther tier), but it was fun and funny with a couple powerful moments. Also I love Kamala Khan and the actress who plays her. There were definitely a few scenes that were kind of unnecessarily over the top - like the movie would've been better off if they'd cut the "space cats eat everyone and spit them up" scene and the "Captain Marvel in a musical" scene. But whatever, they were brief enough and the movie has Captain Marvel fly into a star, so not going to waste too much time nitpicking.

[El Guapo]

I think that started with Guardians, and slowly grew. A few along the way (Ant-Man, Spioder-Man, Raganarok) did it so well that they seem to have seen it as confirmation of their direction, and just ran with it. It doesn't help that Deadpool 1 & 2 both came out in that same window.

It's Legolas Syndrome. Let people cheer for one cheesy thing, and the next movie will have ten cheesy things. If that one does well, the next will have 100, and after that they'll consist primarily of cheese.

Studios hate risk, so if people tell them that they like something once, they'll see it 10 million times. They're kind of like toddlers in that way.

[rittchard]

I watched it last night, and liked it. It's not one of the great Marvel movies (Black Panther tier), but it was fun and funny with a couple powerful moments. Also I love Kamala Khan and the actress who plays her. There were definitely a few scenes that were kind of unnecessarily over the top - like the movie would've been better off if they'd cut the "space cats eat everyone and spit them up" scene and the "Captain Marvel in a musical" scene. But whatever, they were brief enough and the movie has Captain Marvel fly into a star, so not going to waste too much time nitpicking.

As much as I enjoyed many of the individual moments of the movie as well as all of the leads and the fantastic post-credits reveals, I think this was the ultimate problem with the movie. It's like there were multiple visions of the movie competing so the overall tone was just all over the place. The core plot from the villain's perspective was extremely dark and serious (on second watch I didn't realize how many people died in some of the scenes), but these crazy funny scenes really detracted from the weight of those losses. I don't know how they could have properly balanced it but it does seem like Guardians was able to keep the stakes high while maintaining a great sense of humor. Maybe they could have done with a less serious villain story and kept with the lighter tone for the entire movie, since the two scenes you mentioned were also two of the more memorable ones, I'm not sure.

[Zarathud]

This movie was enough for my wife to want to watch Captain Marvel. We had watched Miss Marvel series together, and she enjoyed the tone and humor. But she took a hard pass on Secret Invasion. She burned out on Marvel early in Phase 2 but came back for Loki not Thor.

She enjoyed the cat, and wanted to know more — and even guessed what was happening with it despite not having the background.

This movie was inconsistent internally, with the edits being glaring and showing some big changes. Probably to embrace the comedy.

The post credit was up her alley, as her comic fandom always extended to those characters more than Avengers.

[El Guapo]

This movie was enough for my wife to want to watch Captain Marvel. We had watched Miss Marvel series together, and she enjoyed the tone and humor. But she took a hard pass on Secret Invasion. She burned out on Marvel early in Phase 2 but came back for Loki not Thor.

She enjoyed the cat, and wanted to know more — and even guessed what was happening with it despite not having the background.

This movie was inconsistent internally, with the edits being glaring and showing some big changes. Probably to embrace the comedy.

The post credit was up her alley, as her comic fandom always extended to those characters more than Avengers.

TBH your wife is kind of crushing it on her MCU choices from what you have said so far.

[Zarathud]

She’s missed the past few Thors, Ant Man, Spider Man live action, and Guardians 2/3. So as many misses as hits.

She is highly selective in the actors she follows but she was done before any multiverse. She wouldn’t see the last Strange but she recognized Mr. Princess from her Chinese/Korean shows.

[stessier]

I just saw it and liked it. I wish they had leaned more into the Bollywood planet. Kamala Khan is so much fun - I hope they continue using all these characters.