The Movie Thread Reloaded

[danbuter]

Eh. I liked Battle Angel Alita for it's really strange aspects. Chips for brains, split personality cyborgs, uncomfortable questions about human nature and how it could swing hard from a romantic view of humanity, to a horrible dystopian view of humanity.

I'm expecting the film to have scrubbed about 99% of that, and left the cyborg fights and replaced all the dialogue with Hollywood cliches.

A lot of that is still there. I recommend you see it.

[jhkim]

Eh. I liked Battle Angel Alita for it's really strange aspects. Chips for brains, split personality cyborgs, uncomfortable questions about human nature and how it could swing hard from a romantic view of humanity, to a horrible dystopian view of humanity.

I'm expecting the film to have scrubbed about 99% of that, and left the cyborg fights and replaced all the dialogue with Hollywood cliches.

A lot of that is still there. I recommend you see it.

I haven't read the original manga, but I was pleasantly surprised by Alita Battle Angel.

Admittedly I had low expectations, but it avoided many of the bad anime and bad Hollywood trends that I thought would be there.

[Spinachcat]

Anyone else just flat-out not give a fuck about Captain Marvel?

Brie Larson was a terrible choice and the trailers don't give us any sense of drama or story, just disconnected quick cuts that smell like political propaganda instead of a coherent story. But who knows? Maybe it will be an okay action flick.

Shazam - in huge contrast - shows perhaps too much in its trailers, but it certainly makes its tone/story very clear. Same with the Hellboy reboot.

[HappyDaze]

Brie Larson was a terrible choice and the trailers don't give us any sense of drama or story, just disconnected quick cuts that smell like political propaganda instead of a coherent story. But who knows? Maybe it will be an okay action flick.

Shazam - in huge contrast - shows perhaps too much in its trailers, but it certainly makes its tone/story very clear. Same with the Hellboy reboot.

Why do you consider her (Larson) a terrible choice for Captain Marvel? Is is because of her acting ability or her politics? If it's the former, can you give examples? If it's the latter, I really don't care about the politics of the actors (or writers or directors or whatever) in the things I watch.

[Spinachcat]

Brie has been boring and perfunctory in everything she's done, but she's Hollywood's darling of the moment. Her performance in Kong: Skull Island was surprisingly dull considering the hype around her, but most of that cast was a mess, and that film only held together because of Kong and the editing pace.

Maybe she's be amazing in the Marvel role, but nothing in trailers shows a hint of that - especially compared to the initial trailers for Wonder Woman (Gail Gadot), or compared to other female supers from older movies, look at the trailers for Underworld and Resident Evil which had a fraction of Captain Marvel's budget.  

As for her politics, she's standard Hollywood garbage.

[HappyDaze]

Brie has been boring and perfunctory in everything she's done, but she's Hollywood's darling of the moment. Her performance in Kong: Skull Island was surprisingly dull considering the hype around her, but most of that cast was a mess, and that film only held together because of Kong and the editing pace.

Maybe she's be amazing in the Marvel role, but nothing in trailers shows a hint of that - especially compared to the initial trailers for Wonder Woman (Gail Gadot), or compared to other female supers from older movies, look at the trailers for Underworld and Resident Evil which had a fraction of Captain Marvel's budget.  

As for her politics, she's standard Hollywood garbage.

Are you suggesting that Underworld(s) and Resident Evil(s) had good acting/performances from their female leads? If so, I don't think we're likely to agree on much because I thought those movies were trash (enjoyable popcorn-munching trash, but trash). I don't doubt that Larsen can pull off a performance on par with Selene or Alice--but that's setting the bar very low IMO. I'm more interested to see how her performance compares with that of ScarJo's Black Widow.

[Spinachcat]

The entire MCU is popcorn trash! And that's 100% okay because it's comic books, not the Iliad. The DC movies get themselves in trouble because they're overly enamored with "comics as American mythos" instead of "disposable monthly fantasy cartoon books".  

Very few action movies are more than popcorn flicks, regardless of the gender of the lead. What Underworld and Resident Evil have is compelling performances of the character from their leads (much moreso in the first films in the series before sequels take the character concepts off the rails) and that comes across in the trailers. And I'm not a Kate Beckinsale fan, but her Selene jumped off the screen as a unique character. There is no sense of the who/what/why of Captain Marvel from the trailer and that's due to Brie's vacant performance. The same vacancy she had in Kong, except now we get "angry vacant" instead of "scared vacant".  

I suspect Brie will be on the same level as ScarJo or JLaw's Mystique, but that's not a compliment.

But I could be wrong. I thought Halle Berry as Storm was a mess in the original X-men trailers, but she was great in the actual film and has since really commanded that character.

[Ratman_tf]

A lot of that is still there. I recommend you see it.

I haven't read the original manga, but I was pleasantly surprised by Alita Battle Angel.

Admittedly I had low expectations, but it avoided many of the bad anime and bad Hollywood trends that I thought would be there.

Hrm. Hrmmm. Hrmm. Maybe. I hate how hollywood takes a piece of fiction and turns it into a cookie cutter action movie, so your posts make me at least closer to the fence. I'll probably check it out on disk when it comes out.

[Ratman_tf]

But I could be wrong. I thought Halle Berry as Storm was a mess in the original X-men trailers, but she was great in the actual film and has since really commanded that character.

Huh, I thought Storm (And Cyclops) were horribly under-used in the films. I didn't expect them to write whole sagas about their characters, but we hardly got anything. As for performances, like I said, they were hardly there in the first place, and I found both characters to be underhwhelming.

[Godfather Punk]

Just saw Captain Marvel. I was entertained and sometimes pleasantly surprised, but then again I know nothing of Captain Marvel and I managed to avoid all spoilers beyond the first trailer.  Mostly I saw it in theater because I learned she would be someone important in [strike]Protectors[/strike]Avengers : Endgame and I'm gonna see that one opening weekend.
The humor was different enough from GotG or Ragnarok. I liked Brie, disliked the CGI job (or make-up effects) they did on Fury and Coulson. And I kinda guessed what the 2 post-credits scenes would be.

[deadDMwalking]

I really enjoyed Captain Marvel.  I'd put it in the top-tier of Marvel movies with Captain America, first Iron Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy.  Tone was a little more GotG - it was funny but didn't seem forced.  I felt compelled to register with Netflix and add my review; it was at 43% audience before I saw it and 34% after I saw it, but I can tell that the theater crowd really enjoyed the movie.  No spoilers, but I think people particularly enjoyed the cat (Goose).  I think you can discount the audience rating - it appears to have been manipulated by people that are not interested in a female super-hero lead.

There is a second post-credits scene at the very end of the credits; people who left after the first post-credits scene didn't miss anything particularly important, but I felt (and think the others in the theater) felt that it was worth watching the second one, too.

[Godfather Punk]

And the Stan Lee tribute at the beginning. :thumbsup:

[HappyDaze]

Captain Marvel wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It really suffers for not having a memorable villain much as Doctor Strange did. Overall, the whole thing felt like it was just crammed in backstory to get Captain Marvel into Avengers: Endgame. On its own, the film didn't really do much of anything or go anywhere. Larson did fine; in my eyes it was the story that dropped the ball, not the actress.

[Ratman_tf]

I really enjoyed Captain Marvel.  I'd put it in the top-tier of Marvel movies with Captain America, first Iron Man, and Guardians of the Galaxy.  Tone was a little more GotG - it was funny but didn't seem forced.  I felt compelled to register with Netflix and add my review;

Is it on Netflix already?

[Warboss Squee]

Captain Marvel wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. It really suffers for not having a memorable villain much as Doctor Strange did. Overall, the whole thing felt like it was just crammed in backstory to get Captain Marvel into Avengers: Endgame. On its own, the film didn't really do much of anything or go anywhere. Larson did fine; in my eyes it was the story that dropped the ball, not the actress.

It was better than Thor 2 or IM3. So definitely middle of the road.