I am disappointed in this season with last night's effort a complete snooze fest. Season 1 maybe relied a little too much on the mystery and surprise twists, but it also played with some interesting concepts on what is consciencesness, can robots be human, etc.
This season is just "the robots versus the humans' with a little bit of data mining conspiracy thrown in. I'm finding it harder to stay invested.
I've been watching, but have not gotten to last night's episode yet. I've still been enjoying it a great deal, but I have literally fallen asleep in a couple of the episodes so far this season. Then again, that's a pretty common occurrence for me no matter what I'm watching, so not really a fair representation of the quality of the show. I can see that it's a shift from the previous season, but I'd say I like it just as much as I liked the last one.
Legion continues to be outstanding, and is giving serious nods to Twin Peaks. The Jon Hamm narrated "instructional vignettes" have been a nice inclusion this season.
The Expanse is really getting into its own the third season, and I seriously doubt it will wait long for someone to pick it up.
Finally got to Ready Player One and Avengers: Infinity War. Runner daughter has read RPO and said the movie adaptation was fine, given that it had to meet the time constraints of a movie.
This season's Archer is doing about the same for me as last season's, as in "not enough". I know some people really liked Archer: Vice but for me nothing they done has matched the first two seasons.
I am very much looking forward to binging on two seasons of Legion this summer.
Also, on the transatlantic flights, I watched Murder on the Orient Express, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, The Post, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
* As mentioned in yesterday's cuppa, Deadpool 2 is very funny, very violent, and oddly poignant at times. While sad Deadpool isn't necessarily good Deadpool, the second half of the movie really picks up.
The parachute scene is the funniest thing I've seen in theaters in a long time, and Domino owns the screen every time she's on it.
* The Greatest Showman - Was decent. I was looking for entertainment, I got entertained. Luckily, I wasn't looking for anything remotely resembling historical accuracy.
* Bates Motel - Linds and I got hooked somehow, even though I really didn't care for about half the first season and most of the second. It finishes well, though. I enjoyed the Psycho episode.
the franchise is, umm, lucky, to have Zazie Beetz.
Avengers: Infinity Retcon Setup and DP2.
We (the Mrs and I) very much enjoyed both.
Also, I caught the entirety of Constantine on some cable station. Entertaining enough. Tilda Swinton was great.
Constantine is a closet favorite of mine. Not a great movie, but some really good actors (as well as Shia LaBeouf); I'm a Peter Stormare fan, myself.
also, Pruitt Taylor Vince. That guy is soooo good. Maybe a limited range, but what he does, he does great.
That is exactly the actor I most had in mind.
Avengers Infinity -- It was entertaining and fun to look at. I found it a bit tiresome as it was just a series of battles/fights. I'm not necessarily the target audience and I get that.
Game Night -- Since there are a lot of board gamers here, I was wondering if anyone sought this out. We saw it at $3.00 theater and it was a $6.00 well spent. Light, funny at times. Relatively breezy. Got in, entertained you, got out.
Still trying to get to Isle of Dogs.
Game Night is definitely on the list. Seems like my kind of thing.
Avengers Infinity War - Yup, it was exactly what I thought it would be. A few well-done gut punches, a few questionable narrative choices, prettier than I thought it would be, some nice surprises, and plenty to think about going forward. I still want a real Captain America movie, since we haven't had one for a while, and this made me want that even more.
I recently burned through many episodes of both The West Wing and ST:DS9, and wrapped both shows up again. I must have had an itch for good, bite-sized dramas that I've seen before. I enjoyed both immensely again.
Arrested Development: Fateful Consequences - We've been working through this one, and are about 2/3rds of the way through the season. There's too much Ron Howard, but otherwise this cut removes the biggest problem the original cut had, which was that you got tired of the individual characters before their episode was done. Breaking them up keeps them fresher.
I'm working on DS9, hoping to finish it by the end of the summer and then start an episode countdown at my site.
I look forward to this.
The problem with having a regular ol' Cap movie now is how do they dial it back from world-destroying cataclysms (two, now)?
The original Cap film was great because, for the most part, the scale was appropriate. Yes, he's a super soldier. But he's not Marvel's stand-in for the Superman deity. He's on a human scale. Likewise with the three Iron Man flicks.
I mean, Spider-man was still enjoyable. Black Panther was fantastic. The comic books go back to their regular storylines after epic crossovers. I enjoyed the London opening ceremony after the Beijing opening ceremony. I see your point, but it seems like a solvable problem to me... just scale back the budget appropriately too.
I think that would be harder to do for Captain America, though, since he's so much in the middle of the action for the Avengers movies and Infinity War. It's easier to have Black Panther or Spiderman or even Thor have their own films separate from the whole group because they are as much of a driving force for the plots of the movies where they are all assembled. I think an Iron Man stand-alone now would have that same problem, even though it worked well before.
I feel like Cap hasn't even really been "in the middle" so much as he has been completely forgotten. Even in Civil War it seemed like he was 2nd fiddle to Iron Man and some of the cameos.
My prediction is that, with the reintroduction of Red Skull in Infinity War that we'll get a final Captain America movie, when this is all done, despite all other indications that this is the end.
Dude, Team Cappy!
I'm going to disagree -- Cap has been plenty involved, and while he may have had less sexy than Iron Man and others in Civil War, he was always the focus of the movie. Plus...he was right.
I know he was right. And obviously so. That was why the movie spent so. much. time. and. effort. on Iron Man. Cap didn't even get a good monologue! In my take on it, he was supposed to be the focus of the movie but ended up not really being so, because of the aforementioned cameos and the effort to provide narrative justification to Iron Man. Indeed, it was almost more Bucky's movie than Cap's, given the big reveal and all. If they hadn't named the movie what they did no one would have picked out Cap as the main character.
(FWIW, I loved the original and Winter Soldier, which was the first Marvel movie to really show us how superhero flicks can be better than just smash 'em up romps).
I've been working on watching some of the Marvel movies I missed before trying to take in Infinity War. So I watched Spiderman: Homecoming last weekend. I liked it quite a bit. Tom Holland makes a great Peter Parker and the small scale of the conflict was nice. Plus, Michael Keaton is always fun to watch.
I'm still waiting for Thor: Ragnarok to get returned to the library, so instead I watched What We Do in the Shadows. It was wonderful, I laughed quite a lot and would highly recommend it.
I saw Black Panther a couple days ago and really liked it as well. The second act was great after what I thought was somewhat of a slow start. Its been said a lot, but Michael B. Jordan was a great villian, maybe the best in the Marvel movies so far.
Finally I took in a couple Korean flicks. Train to Busan is a really good zombie movie with 28 Days Later type zombies. Being set on a train keeps it pretty tight and tense throughout. Then I saw The Grand Heist, which is basically a Korean Ocean's 11 set in 19th (I think) century Korea. It was a lot of fun.
WWDitS is a great movie lead-in to Thor: Ragnarok.
That's why I was very happy to see it on Amazon Prime. I was also really impressed with Taika Waititi's on-screen abilities.
I saw a lot of people huffy about T:R because "that's not how Thor is supposed to act", or something. I thought it was hilarious and fantastic.
Perfect because I don't read the comics so I don't care whether they are true to the source material or not. It doesn't even make sense to me, anyway. Like, if you like they way they are portrayed in the comics, just go read the comics.
So much of the hemming and hawing could be avoided if people would just accept the fact that no matter how far the movie’s stray, they can never change a thing about the source material.
Comic book fans also should remember they aren’t the target demographic for the MCU. Their target is everyone.
I'm gonna sound petty here, but I'm not gonna lie, a lot of those complaints make me love some of these movies even more. Might be why I put the last jedi at the top of my star wars list. (also, I like it the best)
as a general rule, I want film adaptations to be "true" to the source material, in the sense that when you watch a film with knowledge of the underlying characters you can say "that felt truthy" even if considerable detail has been altered. I mean, if you are going to "adapt" someone else's intellectual property and just throw away everything but the suit and name, it ain't an adaptation. It's "inspired by."
That said, Thor in the comics was, generally, pretty much a bore with a giant stick up his butt. (plus, he had a literally lame alter ego, separated from the God o' Thunder by some magicks). I like the arc of the character in the films.
Ragnarok is so, so, so good. I love Doofus Thor a lot. It's easily in my top 3 MCU movies (the others are Black Panther and the first Guardians if you care).
Mine is:
Guardians 2
Guardians 1
Iron man 1
I really, really love the Guardians movies.
Guardians 2 is bottom five for me, no question. The first grew on me, though.
On rewatching I liked 2 a lot more than I did the first time. Same with Dr. Strange.
Guardians 2 was definitely weaker than 1, I'll give that.
haha, i've never met her but friends on all the medias*: mantis totally reminds me of shawn for some reason.
*i know that's uncorrect.
bottom five???!!!!
I'm not letting that slip by.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Elektra
Fantastic Four (2005)
Fantastic Four (2015)
The Incredible Hulk (Ed Norton edition)
Hulk (Ang Lee edition)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men: The Last Stand
Daredevil
I mean, seriously?
How many of those are in the MCU?
Only Ed's Hulk.
One: Incredible Hulk.
One of those is MCU, and I like it better than GOTG2.
Seriously, how do you not know what is and isn’t MCU? I would’ve pegged you to be able to rattle them all off in order.
they are all Marvel films. I refuse to acknowledge the walled garden of FeigeLand.
uh, i don't know, dude, you just acknowledged a pretty clear demarcation up there.
well, if we are gonna be honest, I just completely ignored the qualifer "MCU" and read it as "Marvel movies." Mea culpa, mea culpa. [I'm clearly out-dorked here, he says with love]
I'm not sure what "clear demarcation" I acknowledge "up there." I just whined about spoons putting GOG2 in his bottom 5 of what I interpreted to be his list of Marvel superhero movies.
Can't say that I've paid all that much attention to Feige's construction of a "shared universe" as some sort of canon. I mean, we ARE talking about comic book source material. If there is any eternal truth in comic book canon, it is that they change shit all the time. [see, e.g., the NEXT Avengers movie when they undo a whole bunch of what [spoiler] just did] 🙂
Here is my complete stream of consciousness MCU film rank list.
Cap Winter Soldier
Iron Man
Black Panther
Ragnarok
Guardians 1
Avengers 1
Homecoming
Cap First Avenger
Strange
Ant Man
Civil War
Infinity War
Guardians 2
Thor 1
Iron Man 3
Ultron
Iron Man 2
Ed Hulk
Dark World
In reviewing this list it probably reflects some pretty particular preferences on my part.
I would shuffle a few, but that's not a bad list to start from.
Yeah, it’s not far from my own either, though I kind of loved the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3.
The idiotic "fireworks" ending was a serious WTF?!
Wow, I had somehow actually forgotten about that. I watch all these just once and move on, typically.
A lot of my list is affected by simple RDJ fatigue. (I try to balance that by recognizing the importance of IM1's quality in opening the path for everything else.) I'm perfectly content if he's about done with the MCU, which I wouldn't say yet about Evans or (surprisingly) especially Hemsworth.
That's well said. Unlike the other two, seems the actor has become more important the the character in his case.
I think my list would look a lot like yours (a few "bump this up a couple places, bump this down a couple"), and I am with you entirely on the RDJ/Evans & Hemsworth bits.
Also, now that Loki is dead, they've got to find a way to bring everything back, right? Ragnarok 2, the rebirth, since that's part of what Ragnarok is supposed to be? I dunno. It seems like we just saw the 2nd act of Thor, not the 3rd act, and we still need that 3rd one to make the story complete. Much like I hope for with Evans' Cap, I anticipate another Hemsworth-led Thor movie.
As I mentioned before, I heard a lot of muttering regarding T:R and Thor being too jokey, but that particular blond Chris is just sooooo good at it.
"[SPOILER]'s powerful and useful too."
"Is he though?"
Since you guys are destroying everything I hold dear with Marvel movies*, I'll change the subject. Every time someone writes RDJ, my mind is not able to process it to Robert Downey Jr. and I end up picturing Iron Man as Ronnie James Dio instead.
*No worries, I'm being sarcastic here.
This Guardians 2 island is lonely.
I don't hate it (the line of films I actively "don't like" on my list is drawn after Thor 1) but I find a lot of the middle of it pretty saggy.
I kind of feel the same, and “fatigue” is the word I’d likely use as well. Right now I’m worried about actor changes and whether the films will get cheeky or weird with them. Mostly I’m worried about meta jokes. “Iron Man, there’s something that seems different about you!!1!1!1”
Meant this to go above, obviously.
Absolutely. I feel (hope) the effort they've put into and are still putting into continuing to build out the roster of characters means they won't end up putting new actors into old roles, which would be the worst. They can "end" a character like Iron Man, or (depending on what happens with IW2) they have at least a couple characters I could see taking the mantle of, say, Captain America without being "Steve Rogers", and they have enough established to take either or both of those routes without recastings or reboots any time soon.
The Ego storyline is a gripping one, but the humor just fails all over the place. If the first movie is a often-funny little kid, then the second movie is the kid who realized he made you laugh and then does the same gags over and over until you want to hurl him out the window. I absolutely loathed Drax in this movie, for starters, after thinking his part was completely nailed in the first.
I agree with you on Ego, although I do think 2 shows the limitations of having Pratt continue to carry a big chunk of your dramatic stakes. (Not to mention IW for that matter.)
Yeah, and the filmmakers seem to know it as well, as there were times I forgot he was even in the damn thing. Star-Lord is as passive as any superhero in any MCU movie in that one, unless I’m spacing some scenes.
Star Lord flips out about Gamora while everyone is juuuuuuussssst about to get his glove off was frustrating because it was stupid to begin with and acted out so poorly. I like Pratt and all, but yeah, that was some weak link shit. Half the universe dies because of that and all he did was stand there looking all wild eyed.
Haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll take your word and not read the spoiler for now.
Ahh. Yeah, don't.
Yep, was especially thinking of this.
I’m forever one or two (currently two) movies behind.
DK: yep.
SM: actually, i usually am as well. this and black panther are the first MCU movies i've seen in the theater.
That scene is precisely one of two things that I was thinking about when I wrote there were some questionable narrative choices above. Seriously, how did that make it in there? There is zero emotional impact to the Gamora/Star-Lord relationship as it is, and now we're supposed to believe it has the heft worthy of half of existence? I don't know how that made it through.
Just wait until the 4-hour Director's Cut comes out. Then it will all make sense.
Is anyone watching the second season of Westworld?
I've been watching, but have not gotten to last night's episode yet. I've still been enjoying it a great deal, but I have literally fallen asleep in a couple of the episodes so far this season. Then again, that's a pretty common occurrence for me no matter what I'm watching, so not really a fair representation of the quality of the show. I can see that it's a shift from the previous season, but I'd say I like it just as much as I liked the last one.
Legion continues to be outstanding, and is giving serious nods to Twin Peaks. The Jon Hamm narrated "instructional vignettes" have been a nice inclusion this season.
The Expanse is really getting into its own the third season, and I seriously doubt it will wait long for someone to pick it up.
Finally got to Ready Player One and Avengers: Infinity War. Runner daughter has read RPO and said the movie adaptation was fine, given that it had to meet the time constraints of a movie.
This season's Archer is doing about the same for me as last season's, as in "not enough". I know some people really liked Archer: Vice but for me nothing they done has matched the first two seasons.
I am very much looking forward to binging on two seasons of Legion this summer.
Also, on the transatlantic flights, I watched Murder on the Orient Express, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, The Post, and Kingsman: The Golden Circle.
* As mentioned in yesterday's cuppa, Deadpool 2 is very funny, very violent, and oddly poignant at times. While sad Deadpool isn't necessarily good Deadpool, the second half of the movie really picks up.
* The Greatest Showman - Was decent. I was looking for entertainment, I got entertained. Luckily, I wasn't looking for anything remotely resembling historical accuracy.
* Bates Motel - Linds and I got hooked somehow, even though I really didn't care for about half the first season and most of the second. It finishes well, though. I enjoyed the Psycho episode.
Avengers: Infinity Retcon Setup and DP2.
We (the Mrs and I) very much enjoyed both.
Also, I caught the entirety of Constantine on some cable station. Entertaining enough. Tilda Swinton was great.
Constantine is a closet favorite of mine. Not a great movie, but some really good actors (as well as Shia LaBeouf); I'm a Peter Stormare fan, myself.
also, Pruitt Taylor Vince. That guy is soooo good. Maybe a limited range, but what he does, he does great.
That is exactly the actor I most had in mind.
Avengers Infinity -- It was entertaining and fun to look at. I found it a bit tiresome as it was just a series of battles/fights. I'm not necessarily the target audience and I get that.
Game Night -- Since there are a lot of board gamers here, I was wondering if anyone sought this out. We saw it at $3.00 theater and it was a $6.00 well spent. Light, funny at times. Relatively breezy. Got in, entertained you, got out.
Still trying to get to Isle of Dogs.
Game Night is definitely on the list. Seems like my kind of thing.
Avengers Infinity War - Yup, it was exactly what I thought it would be. A few well-done gut punches, a few questionable narrative choices, prettier than I thought it would be, some nice surprises, and plenty to think about going forward. I still want a real Captain America movie, since we haven't had one for a while, and this made me want that even more.
I recently burned through many episodes of both The West Wing and ST:DS9, and wrapped both shows up again. I must have had an itch for good, bite-sized dramas that I've seen before. I enjoyed both immensely again.
Arrested Development: Fateful Consequences - We've been working through this one, and are about 2/3rds of the way through the season. There's too much Ron Howard, but otherwise this cut removes the biggest problem the original cut had, which was that you got tired of the individual characters before their episode was done. Breaking them up keeps them fresher.
I'm working on DS9, hoping to finish it by the end of the summer and then start an episode countdown at my site.
I look forward to this.
The problem with having a regular ol' Cap movie now is how do they dial it back from world-destroying cataclysms (two, now)?
The original Cap film was great because, for the most part, the scale was appropriate. Yes, he's a super soldier. But he's not Marvel's stand-in for the Superman deity. He's on a human scale. Likewise with the three Iron Man flicks.
I mean, Spider-man was still enjoyable. Black Panther was fantastic. The comic books go back to their regular storylines after epic crossovers. I enjoyed the London opening ceremony after the Beijing opening ceremony. I see your point, but it seems like a solvable problem to me... just scale back the budget appropriately too.
I think that would be harder to do for Captain America, though, since he's so much in the middle of the action for the Avengers movies and Infinity War. It's easier to have Black Panther or Spiderman or even Thor have their own films separate from the whole group because they are as much of a driving force for the plots of the movies where they are all assembled. I think an Iron Man stand-alone now would have that same problem, even though it worked well before.
I feel like Cap hasn't even really been "in the middle" so much as he has been completely forgotten. Even in Civil War it seemed like he was 2nd fiddle to Iron Man and some of the cameos.
Dude, Team Cappy!
I'm going to disagree -- Cap has been plenty involved, and while he may have had less sexy than Iron Man and others in Civil War, he was always the focus of the movie. Plus...he was right.
I know he was right. And obviously so. That was why the movie spent so. much. time. and. effort. on Iron Man. Cap didn't even get a good monologue! In my take on it, he was supposed to be the focus of the movie but ended up not really being so, because of the aforementioned cameos and the effort to provide narrative justification to Iron Man. Indeed, it was almost more Bucky's movie than Cap's, given the big reveal and all. If they hadn't named the movie what they did no one would have picked out Cap as the main character.
(FWIW, I loved the original and Winter Soldier, which was the first Marvel movie to really show us how superhero flicks can be better than just smash 'em up romps).
I've been working on watching some of the Marvel movies I missed before trying to take in Infinity War. So I watched Spiderman: Homecoming last weekend. I liked it quite a bit. Tom Holland makes a great Peter Parker and the small scale of the conflict was nice. Plus, Michael Keaton is always fun to watch.
I'm still waiting for Thor: Ragnarok to get returned to the library, so instead I watched What We Do in the Shadows. It was wonderful, I laughed quite a lot and would highly recommend it.
I saw Black Panther a couple days ago and really liked it as well. The second act was great after what I thought was somewhat of a slow start. Its been said a lot, but Michael B. Jordan was a great villian, maybe the best in the Marvel movies so far.
Finally I took in a couple Korean flicks. Train to Busan is a really good zombie movie with 28 Days Later type zombies. Being set on a train keeps it pretty tight and tense throughout. Then I saw The Grand Heist, which is basically a Korean Ocean's 11 set in 19th (I think) century Korea. It was a lot of fun.
WWDitS is a great movie lead-in to Thor: Ragnarok.
That's why I was very happy to see it on Amazon Prime. I was also really impressed with Taika Waititi's on-screen abilities.
I saw a lot of people huffy about T:R because "that's not how Thor is supposed to act", or something. I thought it was hilarious and fantastic.
Perfect because I don't read the comics so I don't care whether they are true to the source material or not. It doesn't even make sense to me, anyway. Like, if you like they way they are portrayed in the comics, just go read the comics.
So much of the hemming and hawing could be avoided if people would just accept the fact that no matter how far the movie’s stray, they can never change a thing about the source material.
Comic book fans also should remember they aren’t the target demographic for the MCU. Their target is everyone.
I'm gonna sound petty here, but I'm not gonna lie, a lot of those complaints make me love some of these movies even more. Might be why I put the last jedi at the top of my star wars list. (also, I like it the best)
as a general rule, I want film adaptations to be "true" to the source material, in the sense that when you watch a film with knowledge of the underlying characters you can say "that felt truthy" even if considerable detail has been altered. I mean, if you are going to "adapt" someone else's intellectual property and just throw away everything but the suit and name, it ain't an adaptation. It's "inspired by."
That said, Thor in the comics was, generally, pretty much a bore with a giant stick up his butt. (plus, he had a literally lame alter ego, separated from the God o' Thunder by some magicks). I like the arc of the character in the films.
Ragnarok is so, so, so good. I love Doofus Thor a lot. It's easily in my top 3 MCU movies (the others are Black Panther and the first Guardians if you care).
Mine is:
Guardians 2
Guardians 1
Iron man 1
I really, really love the Guardians movies.
Guardians 2 is bottom five for me, no question. The first grew on me, though.
On rewatching I liked 2 a lot more than I did the first time. Same with Dr. Strange.
Guardians 2 was definitely weaker than 1, I'll give that.
haha, i've never met her but friends on all the medias*: mantis totally reminds me of shawn for some reason.
*i know that's uncorrect.
bottom five???!!!!
I'm not letting that slip by.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Elektra
Fantastic Four (2005)
Fantastic Four (2015)
The Incredible Hulk (Ed Norton edition)
Hulk (Ang Lee edition)
X-Men Origins: Wolverine
X-Men: The Last Stand
Daredevil
I mean, seriously?
How many of those are in the MCU?
Only Ed's Hulk.
One: Incredible Hulk.
One of those is MCU, and I like it better than GOTG2.
Seriously, how do you not know what is and isn’t MCU? I would’ve pegged you to be able to rattle them all off in order.
they are all Marvel films. I refuse to acknowledge the walled garden of FeigeLand.
uh, i don't know, dude, you just acknowledged a pretty clear demarcation up there.
well, if we are gonna be honest, I just completely ignored the qualifer "MCU" and read it as "Marvel movies." Mea culpa, mea culpa. [I'm clearly out-dorked here, he says with love]
I'm not sure what "clear demarcation" I acknowledge "up there." I just whined about spoons putting GOG2 in his bottom 5 of what I interpreted to be his list of Marvel superhero movies.
Can't say that I've paid all that much attention to Feige's construction of a "shared universe" as some sort of canon. I mean, we ARE talking about comic book source material. If there is any eternal truth in comic book canon, it is that they change shit all the time. [see, e.g., the NEXT Avengers movie when they undo a whole bunch of what [spoiler] just did] 🙂
Here is my complete stream of consciousness MCU film rank list.
Cap Winter Soldier
Iron Man
Black Panther
Ragnarok
Guardians 1
Avengers 1
Homecoming
Cap First Avenger
Strange
Ant Man
Civil War
Infinity War
Guardians 2
Thor 1
Iron Man 3
Ultron
Iron Man 2
Ed Hulk
Dark World
In reviewing this list it probably reflects some pretty particular preferences on my part.
I would shuffle a few, but that's not a bad list to start from.
Yeah, it’s not far from my own either, though I kind of loved the Mandarin twist in Iron Man 3.
The idiotic "fireworks" ending was a serious WTF?!
Wow, I had somehow actually forgotten about that. I watch all these just once and move on, typically.
A lot of my list is affected by simple RDJ fatigue. (I try to balance that by recognizing the importance of IM1's quality in opening the path for everything else.) I'm perfectly content if he's about done with the MCU, which I wouldn't say yet about Evans or (surprisingly) especially Hemsworth.
That's well said. Unlike the other two, seems the actor has become more important the the character in his case.
I think my list would look a lot like yours (a few "bump this up a couple places, bump this down a couple"), and I am with you entirely on the RDJ/Evans & Hemsworth bits.
As I mentioned before, I heard a lot of muttering regarding T:R and Thor being too jokey, but that particular blond Chris is just sooooo good at it.
"[SPOILER]'s powerful and useful too."
"Is he though?"
Since you guys are destroying everything I hold dear with Marvel movies*, I'll change the subject. Every time someone writes RDJ, my mind is not able to process it to Robert Downey Jr. and I end up picturing Iron Man as Ronnie James Dio instead.
*No worries, I'm being sarcastic here.
This Guardians 2 island is lonely.
I don't hate it (the line of films I actively "don't like" on my list is drawn after Thor 1) but I find a lot of the middle of it pretty saggy.
I kind of feel the same, and “fatigue” is the word I’d likely use as well. Right now I’m worried about actor changes and whether the films will get cheeky or weird with them. Mostly I’m worried about meta jokes. “Iron Man, there’s something that seems different about you!!1!1!1”
Meant this to go above, obviously.
Absolutely. I feel (hope) the effort they've put into and are still putting into continuing to build out the roster of characters means they won't end up putting new actors into old roles, which would be the worst. They can "end" a character like Iron Man, or (depending on what happens with IW2) they have at least a couple characters I could see taking the mantle of, say, Captain America without being "Steve Rogers", and they have enough established to take either or both of those routes without recastings or reboots any time soon.
The Ego storyline is a gripping one, but the humor just fails all over the place. If the first movie is a often-funny little kid, then the second movie is the kid who realized he made you laugh and then does the same gags over and over until you want to hurl him out the window. I absolutely loathed Drax in this movie, for starters, after thinking his part was completely nailed in the first.
I agree with you on Ego, although I do think 2 shows the limitations of having Pratt continue to carry a big chunk of your dramatic stakes. (Not to mention IW for that matter.)
Yeah, and the filmmakers seem to know it as well, as there were times I forgot he was even in the damn thing. Star-Lord is as passive as any superhero in any MCU movie in that one, unless I’m spacing some scenes.
Dunno, in IW the whole
Haven’t seen it yet, so I’ll take your word and not read the spoiler for now.
Ahh. Yeah, don't.
Yep, was especially thinking of this.
I’m forever one or two (currently two) movies behind.
DK: yep.
SM: actually, i usually am as well. this and black panther are the first MCU movies i've seen in the theater.
Just wait until the 4-hour Director's Cut comes out. Then it will all make sense.
The Expanse probably coming back for season four on Amazon.
There we go.
Silcon Valley Season Five: Overall, I'd call the season mostly a disappointment (crazy how quick it went by too), however they sure ended it strong.