First of all I am not going to pretend I am a Marvel/Disney fan, I am a fan of the Marvel comics animated series such as Iron Man, X Men TAS 90s era and Spiderman TAS 90s era and overall love the characters. I can’t say I am a diehard DC fan of each DC character, but what I can say for sure is that I am a diehard movie fan, any genre, as long as it’s a good movie in each perspective.
I have been a fan of Batman since I was 5 and I saw Batman 89 in the cinema (first movie I saw ever at the cinema). I love the character and overall WB movies so far. With the exception of the toy commercials that were brought to us by Joel Schumacher and his “vision” for a more nipple, neon, credit card owner Batman. Nolan for me defined the character as a solo outing not connected to a bigger universe and I am happy that now we will get a different version that exist in a wider and more expanded universe.
Now to the point, do I want Marvel to fail so I can brag out DC movies, NO! Do I want to see a proper Spiderman movie and a proper Iron Man movie YES! Marvel is huge trend right now, people that were laughing at me for watching Batman movies back at the day are now watching all Comic book movies and act like experts in the category and that is annoying a bit. It’s annoying because they hop on trends, not because they support the movies and love the characters.
Overall I will not stand here and pretend that everything Marvel/Disney has done is bad and that everything DC has done is good, nope that is definitely not the case. DC has done a lot of films that have been a separate entity, given to different directors, producers and brain trusts – that to me is a mistake. Marvel have done the same and that is what people have forgotten. We had an era of Marvel movies that were scattered all over the place, over at Fox, Sony, Universal, New Line, Columbia Pictures, Artisan entertainment, Republic Pictures etc. Now to be really honest, that as well hasn’t produced the best results as we all know, why because it was done in an era where the CBM genre was feared in terms of how the characters looks, what the origin story is, what the villain is, what the story can be and mostly the worse FX had to allow at that time of the cinema in general.
A great example is the cult classic Superman movies of the 80s, were they great for their era, YES! Can I watch them now as serious as back then, NOT REALLY! It’s not a problem of material, it just looks silly at this day and age and environment to be looking at a guy hanging on a wire in front of a blue screen in his underpants, simply not a very 21
st Century vision or feel to it.
I would say that of that era Batman ‘89 and Batman Returns ‘92 were the best movies of the genre to not be silly in that way, be mature enough and provide good actor portrayals of both the heroes and villains.
That time however has passed too, now we have enough experience in the movie industry to give people some amazing CGI and visuals that are more close to the comic books they came from and represent their powers more faithfully.
I understand that Marvel/Disney studios have had a great box office success and their fans have been thrilled with that (still as fans of the comics they should be, as some of those characters received their first big screen chance ever), but I am starting to think that we are going to some of the Marvel movies by default just to catch a teaser of what’s next and we pretty much know what will happen in about 75 % of the time.
I admit that I am not giving any of the films (Marvel/Disney) so far a solid 10/10 so far but that’s not because I hate them, but because I know what they can be.
Iron man (2008) started out great, it came pretty close to the origin in the comics, it had RDJR looking like he jumped out of the page of the comics, in terms of acting maybe he brought a little too much RDJR but that is not a deadly sin as he was the first one to do that ever on the big screen. Yes Tony Stark is very close to Bruce Wayne and that caused a bit confusion to regular movie goers that started to think that all heroes coming from comics are made with a template.
That didn’t stop fans seeing it. Where the movie failed for me, is (where Marvel/Disney fans brag they are always on point) not being faithful to the comic. They claim that Marvel is 100 % on point in that department but I didn’t see that in the villain.
Obadiah Stane played by Jeff Bridges was a formula driven villain that started their worst trend, the fear of more “out there villains” in their solo movies.
The same year Marvel/Disney released The Incredible Hulk which solidified that approach, “villain is same as hero or similar but evil”.
The bad thing is that feature films don’t have the run time to both give us the origin of the hero and the villain and that mostly hurts the villains, but in Marvel’s case that is no excuse. The Hulk movie before that did something similar but they both failed because Hulk needs someone with a lot more dialogue to engage viewers that are non-diehard fans. As we saw later, when he is around the Avengers, he is great as a character that interacts with his fellow super hero buddies and can bounce off them in a fun way. I am not going to discuss Punisher War Zone because it then fell under Lions Gate at the time and I don’t think a lot comic guys were involved that had a greater plan.
Next up was Iron Man 2 - when I saw the trailer I said to myself, great Whiplash is coming (Ivan Vanko), he played a sort of behind the scenes villain to
Justin Hammer’s non-threatening corporate arms dealer who wants to build a similar suit to Iron Man’s. I was taken aback by the fact that he (Justin H.) really reminded me of Obadiah and and Whiplash was really cut back in terms of performance and character development. I think Mickey Rourke could have been the MCU’s Heath Ledger if he had a better director and more freedom. For me the movie fell short in many places and the most enjoyed moment was the Whiplash VS iron Man fight in Monaco. The movie had an opportunity to be amazing but decided to be a safe cash cow in my opinion.
The MCU then gave us Thor, first time on the big screen, great casting, good director, but I don’t believe
Kenneth Branagh is the most accurate choice for action/cbm genre. I really enjoyed the humor but for me it was too 16
th century-inspired in terms of dialogue.
It’s another dimension and people (or gods?) should not behave like they are from Earth, but live in the last century and are from England, like tea and have a picture of the Queen in their castle. The frost giants were the new formula villains that come in dozens, look the same and are disposable in a minute or less,
This I despise even more that the mirror villain as described above. Where the movie failed was Loki for me, he is playing this as a friend/enemy with good/bad intentions and failed to engage me in the fact that he is in any way a threat. The fact that he has been used in some many Marvel/Disney movies as a villain is beyond me. Anyway, I know that people love him for various reasons, but I am talking about the character not the actor or the comic book counterpart – don’t get confused. The movie became famous for non-comic book fans with its jokes and punchlines which I really didn’t like. That’s not what a Thor movie should be and I believe in a re-booted MCU one day someone who was a great love for his Comics will do him justice.
Marvel/Disney then released Captain America TFA, to me that was their most difficult movie, a man that existed in the 30s -40s World War 2, a character that is very close to Superman – a good guy basically with super powers and a moral compass, very scary territory. Chris Evans played that 123’000 times better than the Human Torch. The intro of the movie was a bit too much for me, to be honest, it felt like Indiana Jones in WW2 meets Superman and the Super Serum.
Red Skull again fell into that trap “I have the same powers as you but I am evil” and Nazi. The whole super weapons laser guns in the 30s era was so of putting to me visually and logistic wise. It really took me out of the movie, but that wasn’t really the biggest flaw. The biggest flaw was Red Skull, to be quite honest, this type of acting and look I would expect from a show like Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D but not from a big Hollywood movie. The actor choice felt formula-tic as well, it’s almost as someone said “who is the go to bad guy in Hollywood, who is also cheap? “. Ok got him on the phone, he will do it.
Now for The Avengers …… I know I am going to get a million hate comments below, but I don’t think this is the best CBM of all time, not even close. Was it the biggest event then, YES! Was it a new trend in its inception, YES! Is Joss Whedon in my top ten directors, NO! What was good about the movie, well they made me feel like all of them are important to their universe and team ( minus Hawkeye ). They gave me this feeling of unique experience seeing those characters together in one giant movie, nice action and unexpected humor.
What they again failed to give me was a villain (Loki I don’t really consider as one) , and the generic army of Chitauri solidified the faceless CGI forces in many Marvel movies, that die by the ton and don’t impact a second of my attention in doing so.
We’ll see them in robot version later in the sequel (AOU) and in Thor (TDW) as Malekith’s minions, Red Skull had them in soldier version (CA TFA), another trend I hate has been now created. The movie made a lot of money, that however I don’t consider success , if you don’t believe me go see Reservoir Dogs by QT, it made 2 Million but it gave me chills and had me with my jaw to the floor when people suffered and died. Acting was on another level from each cast member.
Let’s say that they really insist on getting PG 13 and want the kids with their parents in no matter what, how long can those clichés go on without people being able to predict your next movie by default?
After The Avengers crushed it, people wanted more of the same and Marvel gave them Iron Man 3, the posters showed numerous Iron Man suits and the mandarin, we know geeks are dying to see The Mandarin and we know general public wanted to see iron man again so it was a guaranteed cash cow.
We got the RDJR show again, we got the corporate villain again, this time he didn’t want to have an armor, he had powers. Yes - in 3 movies they finally changed ½ of the formula, movie was a big [frick] you to the Mandarin, which was then covered in a quick move (as it was a murder of a president executed by the CIA) by a One Shot. Thanks but no thanks. Final battle was ok I guess, but it could not really bring me in.
Thor TDW is something I really don’t want to discuss - it had the same mistakes I mentioned before with the villain, a total missed opportunity if you ask me. Comedic relief was ok I guess as they do in Thor movies lately. They did really used some darker lens as compared to the 1
st movie, anyone that knows movies would immediately know that the director was changed. The biggest problem I had with the movie was however the part where I see Loki and Thor working together back as brothers, the same guy had New York Crushed by giant flying FishFace/DragonWhales in Avengers and probably responsible for many deaths of innocent people ( or you thought that people died only in MOS).
Marvel, or as I call them – Disney then presented us with CA TWS.
The movie every Marvel fan points out to DC fans as “see, we can do serious political movies”.
Where it failed, for me personally, was the fake death, the villains (all 3 of them were missed chances) The Winter Soldier could have been huge if only they decided to give him a voice, make him self-driven and
maybe angry at what he had become or at least fighting with it.
Robert Redford is a great actor but playing a suit isn’t going to cut it for me and the twist didn’t engage me. Crossbones - his origin seemed a bit like, this guy is a bodyguard now but wait till he gets some scars, he will be worthy of Caps attention, Falcon and Widow were ok in it for me personally and were used cleverly as Captain America by himself is a bit of a drag and kind of boring (no pun intended). I think it could have used less political games, SHIELD is HYDRA plot points. The fact that HYDRA can infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D on such a level for such a period of time and not be caught ,really makes me wonder why does the MCU need it on the first place and what kind of idiots work there to not get this uncovered earlier.
More personal reasons and motivations could have been put in place, but coming from the Russo bros, it was a great first action movie.
Guardians of the Galaxy I loved as a comedy/buddy cop/space adventure/fantasy movie. It won because no one was expecting anything out of it before the trailer and that’s where the director found his moment and made it its own. It was funny, it was visual artistic, it gave us another point of view as to the MCU and the music became a separate hero. All in all to me Ronan was totally misused - I would have used him as a second in command instead any generic army in the upcoming Avengers IW 1 & 2 movies along Thanos.
But I guess they felt they really don’t care for him as much, but would rather use Loki 1 000 000 times as a pop up villain here and there. Fun movie for the kids and everyone I would say, no luck in the villain department as per usual.
I don’t really want to get into Avengers AOU and Ant-man as much, both movies followed the usual footsteps of the now established Marvel/Disney formula. AOU to me has moments that were copy pasted from the first one literally, Quicksilver only died because FOX killed it before Disney did in X Men DOFP, if not he would have been a member of The New Avengers for sure. We know that death in the MCU is only temporary and then you turn up alive in the next instalment.
Avengers were brainwashed by Scarlet Witch as Hawkeye was in the first one, Hulk fought a fellow Avenger as he did in the first one (villain plan to use him against the Avengers), Thor wanted to strangle Tony Stark again, their villain was again their own product, Loki’s scepter was in the mix not really explaining how it got in HYDRA possession after it was in The Avengers one movie ago, Black Widow was again forced in some sort of flirt (which she doesn’t need at all), Ultron felt as much as a villain as he felt an idiot by the end of the movie. Again trying to make us believe that in such a situation they were saving each individual life, somehow one person at a time in such a disaster ([frick] you MOS). Joss W. sounded like the king of one liners during the entire movie. Ultron’s plan was straight out of the villain school for AI gone bad.
Ant-man an abandoned child adopted by a parent that geek-ed out in each interview (we see you Payton). Paul Rudd, Michael Pena, T.I , what ? Michael Douglas is a legend YES and we love him truly - but come on man, change up the paste with “the villain is the same as the hero but evil” thing already, yes Pena is funny we know that but its not a heist movie we can assure you. A heist movie would have the main character steal something worth and if Pym really didn’t need Scott, his daughter could have done it herself. They totally misused the quantum realm (not sure if that is what they called it in the movie).
All of the repetitive tricks they use so far got me scared for the new movies coming out. Will Civil War be another Iron Man solo movie pretending to be a Captain America movie that is pretending to be an Avengers movie, we’ll see - I hope it has some depth this time. It may be a good move to focus on the heroes at each other’s throats instead of another bad villain. I am not existed for the movie from what I saw from D23 footage, I will wait for the official trailer and decide again but I guess I can pass this one.
Also Dr. Strange, now I really want this to be some trippy, crazy, original stuff and break the mold, re-invent Marvel/Disney for another audience. Disney is doing such great stuff on Netflix, why not do the same on the big screen. I am waiting for The Inhumans the most out of anything else they got going on, I really hope they make some visual masterpiece that we have never seen from their studio so far and make me stare in the blank after the credits roll out.
Black Panther please be good and have a unique villain, don’t have a total opposite of you or a generic army in your movie, and don’t try to be Batman as well. GOTG 2 , we know it’s going to be good and fun , but if they kill of another HUGE Marvel villain in such a manner I will never go back and see another GOTG movie ever. Ant-Man and the Wasp, no thanks! Thor 3 (Ragnarok), well I am glad they gave YOU a chance but don’t believe Hulk will save the movie as much as Marvel believe it. Avengers IW 1 & 2, I hope I am wrong but if anything like AOU I am not excited at all, Thanos looks more CGI that Ultron even, just doesn’t feel like something new – maybe the Russo’s reinvent the Avengers and make them a bit more epic and less one-liner-y. Captain Marvel HELL YEAH, bring it on. Make her the heroine she needs to be, give her a unique villain, make her feel different than Widow and Scarlet.
If Marvel doesn’t not take their worst trend into consideration, even the general audience will start to recognize their moves and not be as excited for their movies. Movies made for money eventually die out, that’s why we need more than just formula driven substance, we need each movie to feel really different than the other. Naming them a “heist” movie, a “political” thriller is not enough, they need to stay away from things already known within the universe. Don’t have the template bad guys over and over again, people will catch up.
Let the bashing beggin below !