Topic: The Movie Thread

@LtSarge You probably know this already, but there are a couple different ways to watch the MCU movies. Either in chronological order or in release order. There are advantages to each. I’m partial to the chronological order because of the frequent call-backs to prior movies it’s nice to have things fresh in your mind when you start to connect the dots, which is harder to do when you’ve separated 2 movies that are back-to-back in time sequence but separated by 4 or 5 less related movies.

However, if you watch them out of release order, there is the rare spoiler you could be exposed to, but these are usually in the post-credit scenes. (Black Widow’s post credit scene is a classic example.)

This link has both the chronological order and the release order, and also includes the TV shows and where each of them fit in, time-wise:

https://www.techradar.com/how-to/how-to-watch-the-marvel-movi...

@Th3solution I appreciate the link! I looked through both orders and honestly, both seem fairly similar all things considered besides certain movies like Captain America and Captain Marvel. So to me it seems like the best way to go about this is to watch the movies in release order. It's too bad that the Spider-Man movies aren't on there, but The Incredible Hulk is on Disney+ despite what that site says. Maybe there are regional differences? Anyway, I think having a list like this will help me spice things up instead of having to watch through all movies of a series one after the other, e.g. Iron Man 1, 2 and 3.

But yeah, the whole reason why I'm doing this is not only to catch up with the movies but also because I want to watch the TV shows and just like I've read, all of them take place after Endgame. So in order to watch them, I need to watch the MCU movies and Endgame first.

@LtSarge Yeah, come to think of it — I watched each movie first in its release order and when I did a rewatch of the whole MCU about a year ago I did it with the chronological order and it was nice as a second viewing to do it that way. Captain Marvel comes really early in chronology, but is toward the end in the release. Black Widow is also way out of place in its release. Also the GotG movies are separated in the release, whereas together in chronology. A few other minor tweaks here and there, but it’ll be good to experience them like most of us did as each one came out.

Black Widow. It was ok, but feels like it has come a few years too late and bit superfluous at this stage. I have minor quibbles like Taskmaster being wasted in the film, Ray Winston's terrible accent, and why would a Russian sleeper family speak in English with a Russian accent when no longer a sleeper family? Not a massive problem, but I found it took me out of the film a little.

On the plus side, Winston aside the cast do a good job with standouts I thought being David Harbour and Florence Pugh, with the former doing a great turn as tragic failed father former super soldier. The action scenes were fine, if a little by the numbers.

Overall I did enjoy it but it is nowhere near Marvel at their best.

Just finished watching Iron Man 1. For some reason, I thought I had already watched it when I was younger but apparently not. Really good movie though and it was interesting to see the origin story of Tony Stark. It definitely has a different vibe compared to your typical Marvel movie, what with the Middle Eastern focus and all. I kinda wished we had seen more battles with him in the suit but that's what the sequels are for I guess. Anyway, looking forward to watching The Incredible Hulk next!

@RogerRoger I really enjoyed Terminator Dark Fate actually. Maybe I’m the massive minority 😂

Dark Fate was pretty bad, IMO, even given the generally low quality of the franchise post-T2. Felt like it took all the wrong lessons from the second film. It actually might be my least favorite of the sequels, even if it probably isn't objectively the worst one.

Anyway, saw some movies recently in the theater.

Ghostbusters Afterlife: Schmaltzy, emotionally manipulative, and with elements unashamedly ripped from the original film? Sure. Everyone knows the tone going in. With that said, it's still the second best Ghostbusters movie, even if there's a good distance between it and the original. Ghost Egon was creepy af, though, and the film lingered on him WAY too long. Really hate the way we're resurrecting dead actors via special effects these days. How long is it gonna be before we have entire films filled with the likenesses of dead actors engaging in roles they never consented to when they were alive? It's gross and morally dubious at best. Let Harold Ramis rest in peace.

I liked it, even if I'm not usually a fan of 'The Force Awakens' approach Hollywood has been adopting with sequels to older properties these days. It's probably what everyone needs after the 2016 dumpster fire.

Now just let it rest. Let it be. Ghostbusters never needed to be an institution. Let people enjoy the nostalgia porn and move on to other properties.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City: Is it a bad movie? Probably. But it's not like the first few games were exactly fine literature, either, and this is the closest we're likely to get to a decent cinematic adaptation of the video games. I didn't like how it tried to integrate the plots of the first two games, some of the acting is terrible, and most of the characterizations were off. But honestly? It was dumb fun and tries to capture some of the tone and imagery of the original games, which I appreciated. The cinematography is pretty nice in spots as well.

But keep in mind I also liked that recent Tomb Raider movie!

@RogerRoger No Time to Die definitely had its issues, but I'm curious what your specific criticisms are, given how much you seemed to dislike it?

Finally got around to watching the live action Lion King.

On it's own it's an enjoyable enough time (particularly the visuals were great enough that I kinda regret not seeing it on the big screen), however as has been said the ultra realistic renderings don't gel well with the more emotive/humourous aspects due to the lack of expressive facial expressions. That, and while most of the musical numbers translated fairly well and were good fun, it's rendition of "Be Prepared" was oddly limp. Oh, and while they had a few good moments, the hyenas' personalities seemed a bit neutered as well.

I don't regret watching it, but the original is still top in my mind.

@RogerRoger Given your fandom of the franchise, your criticism of the latest Bond film is very telling. Thanks for your shared thoughts.

You’ll probably remember that I recently posted about my random dipping of the proverbial toe in and out of the Bond movies. I had halfway planned to do a Craig run one day and watch all the latest Bond entries (and rewatch the couple that I’ve seen). The Craig series ending with such a thud makes me slightly less excited to do so. Although, I know it shouldn’t decrease the standalone quality of the other films, but I do feel supremely disappointed for you that they missed the mark on No Time to Die.

Just wondering — Do the other Bonds have a conclusive transition for their last film? Like, clearly this movie has been set up as some kind of farewell tour for Daniel Craig and there is a narrative attempt to make the passing of the torch to be sensical. I’m not well versed enough on Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, etc. — do their separate arcs have congruence and some kind of narrative finality to make the migration to the new Bond make sense? I kinda get the impression that it’s usually been pretty random (and perhaps unplanned) when a new Bond pops up.

@RogerRoger Thanks for the nice recap for a Bond novice like me. 😄 I figured you’d have the information at the ready.

As I might have mentioned earlier, I’ve been pretty haphazard in my Bond movie viewings. So much so that I don’t even know confidently which of the movies I’ve seen and which I haven’t. I think I’ve seen several of the Moore films, and one or two Brosnan ones. Might have caught a Connery film or two as well. Mostly I’ve been exposed to them when they were running in the background on the TV when parents or family was watching.

The first one that sticks out to me as memorable is Casino Royale. I do recall sitting down to properly watch that one and I really liked it. Perhaps starting there again will kindle a desire to see the Craig films through. It’s good to know they are relatively self-contained because watching a set of 5 movies is much more realistic than watching 25! 😅

@RogerRoger Yeah, I don't think anyone really expects a "good" Resident Evil movie. Given the very B-movie roots of the property, it's questionable if that'd even be possible. Which isn't to say that this adaptation couldn't have been done much better, but yeah, at least it was an honest attempt to get something like the games up on the screen. The previous Resident Evil films were RE in name only, unfortunately. They were also pretty hideously terrible films.

Some people hate the fetishized nostalgia of Ghostbusters Afterlife, and that's probably a fair criticism of the film, but, if nothing else, it's definitely a serviceable story in its own right. I just hope Hollywood closes the book on this particular instance of cinematic history and stops trying to revitalize something that always should have been one very iconic comedy film and absolutely nothing else (fat chance!).

I mean, I did directly invite it, so...

While you obviously had much stronger negative feelings about the film than I did, a lot of your criticisms basically echo my own. With that said, I did like the sense of finality it brought to this iteration of Bond, so I could mostly forgive some of the subpar action sequences, boring villain, and underdeveloped villainous scheme. Like Star Wars Episode III, I feel like, despite being subpar in many individual respects, the overall narrative momentum still carried it home for me.

I don't disagree about Mission Impossible doing Bond-esque adventure stuff better, btw. I guess I just feel like that's been true since the 90s, barring Casino Royale and Skyfall, both of which broke a streak of mediocrity in the franchise that has gone back decades. My open disdain for Pierce Brosnan probably doesn't help in that regard, though!

Sorry it disappointed you. It always sucks to look forward to a thing like you probably look forward to new Bond films and then feel gutted by the result.

@Ralizah I was thinking about the whole ‘disappointed by something you love’ sorta deal recently and I think I’ve decided that I honestly prefer them to be a complete dumpster fire more than a flat boring 6/10. There’s at least a certain amount of fun to be gleaned from ranting about how utterly sh*t something is. Whereas for example the first two episodes of Hawkeye for me were devoid of soul but I guess serviceable. That’s not as fun. When you genuinely love a property and want to love something then it being middle of the road is a worse sin. There’s nothing to even work with there. So yeah, I feel bad for @RogerRoger that he didn’t enjoy this Bond movie but at the same time, for me Quantum of Solace didn’t even have enough material to slag off so at least this one is rant-worthy!

@RogerRoger Ouch, that sounds rough. And I read the spoilers because my memory is like a fish and I'll have forgotten by the time I eventually watch it! As a bit of a Bond geek, I will certainly approach this one with a little caution, not least because of how I felt about Spectre and being miffed by its ridiculous pacing issues. It's probably even more disappointing because the wait for this one has been so incredibly long. Why is it that trailers reveal so damn much these days? It'll be interesting to see what I think when I eventually see it.

Ooh, and I really quite enjoyed Terminator: Dark Fate, too. Linda Hamilton is absolutely badass. Although I'm pretty sure my cinema outing that day is when I caught meningitis! Fun times.

I just have to ask, am I the only one who thought Thor: Ragnarok was absolute garbage compared to the previous Thor movies? How do you take everything from the first two movies, throw it all out of the window and on top of that, introduce a larger emphasis on comedy which doesn’t fit the series’ tone at all?

I loved the first two Thor movies because of how epic they were and what a badass Thor was. But they just made him into a joke in this movie, literally. He’s constantly cracking jokes and making himself look like a clown, which is completely out of character. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind humour in movies but they just went overboard in Ragnarok. I loved the jokes in the previous Thor movies because they were few and far between and very effective. For example, when Thor arrived to Earth and tried to become accustomed to it. Going to the pet store because he wanted a horse was hilarious. Throwing down the mug when he wanted another drink was good fun. The humour was moderate and felt fitting to an otherwise serious movie. But then they started having jokes literally every other minute in Ragnarok and that completely ruined my picture of Thor and the series as a whole. It basically turned the franchise into a Guardians of the Galaxy copy, which isn’t fitting at all. GotG is one thing and Thor is one thing, don’t mix those two things together.

There was also no build-up to anything. Thor is stranded on an unfamiliar planet for most of the movie and nothing of significance happened here. No character developments, no progress towards stopping Hela, nothing. Even Hela lost her menacing appeal when the entire movie was turned into a comedy. Ragnarok is supposed to spell out the doom of the world but everyone’s cracking jokes and enjoying themselves. Way to ruin the serious mood.

Not to mention how they just got rid of everything that they had done previously. Killing off all of Thor’s friends, getting rid of Thor’s love interest Jane, killing off Odin, destroying Thor’s hammer. I was seriously on the verge of just stopping at that point. There’s a difference between making losses meaningful in stories and just outright not caring at all about the things you’ve crafted. It genuinely feels like there was a completely different group of people who made Ragnarok compared to the first two movies.

I’m genuinely appalled by how awful this movie was because all the other MCU movies I’ve seen so far have been great. Ragnarok was just a bad Thor movie.

@LtSarge Thor 1 and 2 are kinda pants though. Thor 2 especially is just downright dull with a terrible villain despite Christopher Ecclestone being a great actor.

@nessisonett Yeah I mean, they are not my favourite MCU movies but at least they had their own identity. Ragnarok just feels like a new effort from Marvel Studios of making their franchises more comedic and therefore similar in tone to each other.

All Thor movies are bad Thor movies. Especially the second one which, no joke, I've never successfully been able to sit through without either turning it off or falling asleep. Ragnarok just seems like it knows it's going to be bad and resigns itself to embracing farce instead.

They basically went from a Jaws sequel to Sharknado.

I don't disagree with the criticisms, but I also don't know that much of value was lost in the transition.

@LtSarge
I liked Thor Ragnorok, it really made me laugh. I thought that big rock monster thing was hilarious. But then I am a fan of Taika Waititi films generally. Also I tried to watch one of the other Thor films recently (dark world? maybe) and gave up after about half hour coz I was bored of it. So guess there were aiming for a different audience with Ragnorok and found it with me.

@Sorteddan I almost guarantee it was The Dark World. The original is at least watchable.

@Ralizah
Felt a bit bad afterwards though. Don't even think I lasted till Thor had turned up! it probably improves when he does.