Topic: The Movie Thread

Good trailer.
After watching some of the DC Fandome; I decided to catch up on this year’s superhero movies, starting with The Suicide Squad.

Gunn is really good at these, isn’t he? Lol

@Voltan I dunno, I’m a bit worn out by the fact Gunn has made the exact same movie about 4 times now. There’s having a style and that’s fine but I’m a bit bored by it now.

@nessisonett You do have a point, it’s a lot like Guardians. Still pretty good though.

Edit: Checking out Black Widow now.

I watched Black Widow last week. It was solid enough, though I can't shake the feeling it felt like filler. I did like Alexei and was kinda disappointed he never really got his moment though.

Wasn't sure how I'd feel after Spectre left me a bit underwhelmed, but I actually really liked No Time to Die. In general, Craig's run as Bond has been cool in terms of offering a very complete picture of this iteration of the character.

Granted, it has some issues. The villain's motivations and scheme are VERY undercooked and, if I'm being honest, Bond's fate would have been much more impactful if he'd had more chemistry with love interest Madeleine (which is why, IMO, the Vesper Lynd betrayal in Casino Royale was so devastating). It also has one of my least favorite intro songs in the entire franchise. However, as a send-off vehicle for this iteration of Bond, I thought it worked pretty well.

One suggestion: rewatch the previous Daniel Craig Bond films before seeing this one. It'll be a more rewarding experience that way. Tons of callbacks to earlier films.

As for rankings:

Casino Royale > Skyfall > No Time to Die > Spectre > Quantum of Solace

I saw the James Bond movie and I liked the James Bond movie.

@RogerRoger How would you rank them?

@RogerRoger Well, my sister who cries during everything was reduced to sobs, and I'm a heartless monster whose initial reaction to the ending was to laugh and say: "I guess Daniel Craig made damn sure he wasn't getting pushed into doing any more Bond films," so I'm guessing, for most people, the impact will be somewhere in-between those two extremes. But yeah, if that romantic storyline in Spectre didn't work for you, I doubt it'll be any more effective here.

Still, Bond self-sacrificially taking a face full of missiles was a pretty metal way to go out, and even if his romance didn't fully work for me, it was pretty cool to see this weary, aging spy live out his full life-cycle on film.

Kinda surprised you loved Skyfall so much considering how heavily influenced it was by The Dark Knight, though.

At least we can both agree QoS was a franchise low, although I don't think that's a particularly controversial observation at this point.

Sorry you had the film spoiled for you.

@RogerRoger @Ralizah Looking back on it, Casino Royale is probably the only Craig movie I fully like 😂

I remember really liking Casino Royale. I think I liked Skyfall, but I may not have even made it through QoS, if memory serves. And I’m not sure I even tried to watch Spectre. They all get jumbled in my mind. Either way, sounds like I need to rewatch these if I’m to try to enjoy this new film.

@RogerRoger Really? To me, Spectre feels like the Craig film that most resembles what I think of as 'classic' Bond. Which is probably one reason I didn't like it as much: part of what I loved about Casino Royale and even Skyfall is the way they diverged so heavily from standard Bond movie tropes, and Spectre felt like it fell right back into that hole, but without the willingness to fully commit to it (which would've caused the same sort of massive tonal shift you got with the Connery era when you went from the early gritty spy dramas to... whatever the hell Goldfinger was supposed to be ).

I do agree that Judi Dench's performance is largely what carries Skyfall. One of the best in her career.

@nessisonett Casino Royale is an almost perfect action-thriller. Genuinely one of the best movies of the mid-00s. I feel like it's one of those breakout franchise movies that most people like, even if they're not into Bond films in general.

I will say, while I like Skyfall a lot and thought No Time to Die was pretty good, none of his films ever fully recaptured the excellence of his freshman effort.

Which is OK. He could have been like Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan (shudders) and never had any truly excellent films! Hell, I'd argue Connery only had one (From Russia With Love).

@Th3solution Definitely. Moreso than any of the other Bond films I've seen, it requires familiarity with Craig's previous work as the character. A lot of the drama will fall flat if you don't, because there are a number of returning characters and callbacks.

@Ralizah Yeah, going back and watching the older ones (Moonraker is next but my mum point blank refuses to watch the later Moores so we’re gonna have to watch it alone), I realised that the actually good Bond movies are very much outnumbered by the mediocre. From Russia With Love is probably the best Connery as a movie but Goldfinger and You Only Live Twice have good moments outweighed by really really not good at all moments. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is my new favourite.

@RogerRoger A few quick searches reveals that all 4 of the “prequels” (if we can call them that for simplicity) aren’t available on the same streaming service. I have access to Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace through Amazon Prime, but the other two are on random services like Epix and Paramount+. Bummer. Maybe I’ll try CR and QoS if the mood strikes since I have access to those and then I can see if I’m enjoying the series enough to rent the other two.

But I’m with you, in that I am so reluctant to enter a theater lately. If I brave the grubby infested place, then I’m sure to prioritize Shang-Chi and The Eternals first. We’ll see.

@RogerRoger Skyfall’s Home Alone sequence is just… not good at all. Poor Sévérine is also horribly written, Bond completely takes advantage of her and doesn’t even care about her eventual fate. And don’t even get me started on how their attempt to ‘modernise’ Moneypenny just makes things worse. For every good sequence, there are several that just don’t stick for me at all.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Agree on the The Batman trailer. I was so hyped for it and then it was a bit of a letdown. But a poor trailer doesn’t always equal a bad movie, so here’s hoping 🤞🏼

As for the Marvel binge, I will definitely be curious to read your thoughts. I guess I must have forgotten that you’ve not ever indulged into the MCU before? Looks like maybe you tried Homecoming and liked it so ended up going back to the beginning with The First Avenger, Iron Man, etc.

The early films are a little hit or miss, but the quality really levels out in the middle and latter movies whereby they are consistently good, imho.

It wasn't an amazing trailer, but I really like Batman, so the movie would have to be pretty bad for me to not like it.

warily eyes The Dark Knight Rises

If nothing else, it'll be nice to get a proper superhero film again instead of the endless smart-alecky, mass-produced Marvel movies that Disney likes to churn out (that I've seen all of, because I live with people who love that stuff).

tbh, while a few of the episodes don't do it for me, I think I've enjoyed that What If...? series on Disney+ more than the entirety of the MCU.

Actually, and this probably a much less controversial opinion, but I also like The Mandalorian way more than any of Disney's Star Wars films. Maybe they should just stick to streaming series now. They're better at it.

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Reminds of that first Christopher Reeve Superman film. The part that sticks out the most to me about that wretched cinematic experience was the villains saying: "fire and guns won't hurt him" literal moments before hitting him with fire and unloading a bunch of guns on him. Probably the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a superhero movie to date (or at least tied with the part at the end where he spins the Earth in reverse to rewind time; that was another profound WTF moment for me as well).

@Foxy-Goddess-Scotchy Supes and Captain Marvel are both pretty boring. My issue with a LOT of superhero films is how invulnerable the heroes are. When characters are able to tank punches that send them flying a mile away and into a skyscraper without taking damage, the power creep has gotten to absurd Dragonball Z levels for me.

Which has always been the appeal of Batman, right? He's just an emotionally unstable rich dude with access to a lot of technology. He wasn't bitten by a radioactive bat or something.

Seeing him tank that much gunfire doesn't fill me with hope, but I'd love if it adopted a slower pace and emphasized the more detective-y aspects of the franchise like some of the best graphic novels did. IMO, 'Batman as Spectacle' will never top The Dark Knight.

And yeah, TDKR is almost certainly Nolan's worst film. Even as a Nolan fan, I hated it. A total misfire from beginning to end.

I'm not a Marvel person at all, but even I'll admit Spider-Man is a fun superhero. Definitely my favorite of the Marvel lot.

On the DC side, while the recent film wasn't great, I still really like Wonder Woman. My secret hope is that Rocksteady will come out with a Wonder Woman action game at some point.

I really liked the trailer for The Batman. Thought some of the cinematography shown was stunning and the action shots looked like what I want from a Batman movie. One of the very few films I'm excited and would pay to watch it at the cinema.

The Uncharted trailer features the worst Scottish accent I’ve heard in my entire life. Lord almighty.

Just watched Halloween Kills with the family. Haha, the 2018 movie wasn't very good, but this one is an active dumpster fire. Glad I watched it at home on Peacock, since it was a lot of fun yelling at the genuinely stupidly written characters, though. It has the same sort of appeal as a lot of the Friday the 13th movies: watching gruesome things happen to hilariously dumb people. Probably the hardest I've laughed while watching a Halloween movie since Resurrection.