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The Marvel Things That Aren't "Marvel" Things


RIPPA

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I'm still jazzed for it, but the marketing for this one has been kinda blah. It's missing an emotional hook to go along with the FX bombast, like DOFP had with Old Xavier trying to save the future by saving his younger self. Most reports say the movie is centered on the Magneto/Mystique relationship, but you'd never guess that from the trailers so far.

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Fresh is such a Marvel mark lol. No mention of BvS or SS. I like the looks of the trailer and I think the movie will be very good but I am starting to think that maybe FOX/Singer should start to go in a different direction with this universe.

Absolutely. I am unabashedly 100% Marvel. SS looks alright, but I think BvS looks like trash.

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I personally thought it was the weakest entry in MCU:P2 and probably the worst movie that Joss Whedon has ever directed, but I still wouldn't say it's "bad". Not in a world where things like Frank Miller's The Spirit still regrettably exist. Heck, we've even got much worse examples of "lame followups which take great iconic characters played by the original actors and proceed to shit all over them", like X-Men 3 or Superman 4. It's hard to get terribly mad at Age of Ultron when it at leasts manages to give us a bunch of really fun individual moments: the party at Avengers HQ, the Hulk/Iron Man brawl, pretty much every dialogue scene with Ultron. Those were good enough to keep me from actively disliking the movie as a whole.

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 probably the worst movie that Joss Whedon has ever directed, 

 

He's only directed 4 actual movies. It seems like he would have done more, but he hasn't. Now I've not seen Much Ado, but I liked Serenity and Avengers more than Age of Ultron, but even so, worst make it sound bad. And it's not bad, It's good... not great, yeah, but it's not shit or anything.

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Much Ado About Nothing is not only the very best movie Joss Whedon has ever made (by a HUGE margin), it's also for my money the best nontraditional Shakespeare adaptation ever made, with Kurosawa's Ran being the only other one that even comes close. It is a completely fucking brilliant work of cinema, perfect in almost every way ("almost" being that, like every modern version of Much Ado, it's got little idea of how to make the entire Claudio/Hero subplot not come off as the most disgustingly misogynistic thing ever, which is Shakespeare's fault in the first place). It's easily one of my favorite films of all time, period.

It was around X-Men The Last Stand level.

Aw HELL no. X-Men 3 was garbage. Garbage script arc, garbage dialogue, garbage character derailment, garbage performances from most of the actors (I've never seen Patrick Stewart or Ian McKellen putting so little effort into any other film), and totally garbage fight scenes. Its combination of arbitrary retcons and shock-for-shock's-sake deaths for several main characters were actively insulting to the entire franchise; there's a good reason why the entire last scene of Days of Future Past was entirely devoted to the theme of "don't worry, THAT fucking movie never happened". In comparison, Age of Ultron was just mediocre and repetitive and not-as-good-as-the-last-one, with a few genuinely really entertaining sequences which I mentioned above (and I'd argue X-Men 3 had precisely zero really entertaining sequences, aside from the throwaway joke when they capture Multiple Man (but even THAT was illogical when you think about it; how'd Magneto convince him to willingly go back to prison?).
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Much Ado About Nothing is not only the very best movie Joss Whedon has ever made (by a HUGE margin), it's also for my money the best nontraditional Shakespeare adaptation ever made, with Kurosawa's Ran being the only other one that even comes close. It is a completely fucking brilliant work of cinema, perfect in almost every way ("almost" being that, like every modern version of Much Ado, it's got little idea of how to make the entire Claudio/Hero subplot not come off as the most disgustingly misogynistic thing ever, which is Shakespeare's fault in the first place). It's easily one of my favorite films of all time, period.

 

fIiYSkE.gif

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The Magneto/bridge scene was pretty cool.  I enjoyed the party at Avengers HQ and I enjoyed the Hulkbuster scene. Everything else...  Well, you tell me, Jingus.  Their little trip to Hawkeye's farm? The use of SW and Quiksilver? the Hulk/BW romance?  The overall use of Ultron? The final battle scene?  What did you like about any of that..

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Someone just out-Whedon loved me.

Wow.

(I found it very good, for the record. But wow.)

Actually, I don't know how much of a compliment it is to take a filmmaker who's best known for his writing, and then to most highly praise the one film where he didn't write the script. But to me, everything in MAAN just synergized in a practically seamless manner; it's a movie that feels like it turned out much better than it should have. This easily could've ended up like, oh, like that shitty Ethan Hawke version of Hamlet. But instead, ya know what it reminded me of? Clerks. Both Whedon and Kevin Smith are much better known for their writing skills than their directorial wizardry (Joss is of course much better at it than Kevin, but work with me here), but in both cases their relatively anonymous stylistic preferences behind the camera synced up perfectly with the material they were filming. And also it helps that the cast did maybe the best job I've ever seen at speaking the Elizabethan verse in a manner which comes across as natural and easy to understand, without going out of their way to over-emphasize each line to make beyond-damn-sure that the audience gets it (looking at you, Romeo+Juliet!).

And also, the slapstick was goddamned hilarious. How often do you ever say THAT about any modern movie ever? But the physical comedy here was executed brilliantly, especially in the scene where Benedict is outside and trying to spy on his friends while they're talking about him. Alexis Denisof was doing some genuinely Chaplin-level shit out there.

 

The Magneto/bridge scene was pretty cool.

No it wasn't, for several different reasons:

1.Since when is Magento THAT powerful? Before that, he'd never been able to lift anything that was even close to being that huge.

2.If he is that powerful, why doesn't he just drop the bridge on the prison and get the job done that way, instead of relying on his army of useless rookies, most of whom don't even show any superpowers during the fight?

3.If he is that powerful, why hasn't he used that level of power before? The entirety of the Statue Of Liberty is made out of metal, he could've just caused all the walls to collapse, the fight would've been over before it began.

4.Suspension bridges aren't really solid. If you rip one up as much as he did, it would've fallen apart apart like wet toilet paper, and he clearly wasn't concentrating the whole time to hold the entire thing together.

5.Most importantly, why didn't they have Jean Grey move the bridge instead? Magneto goes out of his way to recruit and mindfuck the most powerful mutant on the entire planet, and then does NOTHING with her. What's the point of her being there? She doesn't intersect with the rest of the plot to ever DO anything, she's off in her own little cul-de-sac of a subplot for the entire movie. "Magneto needs her power to accomplish something he can't do himself" would have entirely solved that problem, but they ignored the opportunity and in doing so created an even bigger plot hole.

 

Well, you tell me, Jingus.  Their little trip to Hawkeye's farm?

Didn't make much sense that he'd drag the whole team there, but it did at least try to give Hawkeye some depth to his character, which he needed much more than everyone else on the team. After all, besides his five-second cameo in Thor, he never appeared in any of the standalone films and desperately needed SOME kind of extra storyline.

 

The use of SW and Quiksilver?

Overall poorly-done, sure. A wasted opportunity especially with Quicksilver, Days of Future Past did his character MUCH better. Although, Wanda's robot-vaporizing scream of rage was a pretty awesome little moment, and I thought her monologue about "for two days, we waited for Tony Stark to kill us" was one of the better speeches in the movie.

 

the Hulk/BW romance?

Terrible. Worst part of the whole movie. No disagreement here, it should never have even been considered on paper, and in execution it didn't work at all.

 

The overall use of Ultron?

I liked it. Okay, his Skynet "protect humanity by destroying it" motivation was lame, but I thought Spader managed to put in an Andy Serkis-level performance through the CGI, he knocked it out of that park with his mo-cap and dialogue. That was the first evil robot villain I've seen in a long time whose personality actually felt unique and interesting.

 

The final battle scene?  What did you like about any of that..

It was generic and forgettable, but that's the worst I'd say about it. And in a post-Man-of-Steel-world, I thought it was hilarious how much time they devoted to showing the Avengers going out of their way to save all the civilians; but hey, it makes them look like better heroes. And I did find Hawkeye's little jokes during this part to be genuinely amusing.
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Man. I really liked Much Ado and honestly preferred AoU to the first Avengers

Then again, I have soured a LOT on the first Avengers and while I have quibbles, Age of Ultron has a lot that I love. It helps that I've gotten really into hypercompressed storytelling. I definitely feel like the end battle felt bigger mostly because the stakes felt higher than nondescript aliens and a guy who a single member of the team already beat.

Really though, the Hulkbuster fight alone should prevent the film from being 'terrible'.

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The only issue I had was when tony ran up to him and they collided and broken glass rained down on everyone around them among other things and it's not even so much that I care it was just marvel super fans trying to perform mental gymnastics for why it's different than zod throwing superman through a building and make no mistake it is zod doing the throwing. But both new movies appear to be addressing these "issues" of destruction and casualties so to me it's now a dead issue.

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AoU was ok. Saying it was worse than X3 is some "make contentious statements about movies" bullshit. Just some shitty hot takes from someone with questionable tastes in the entertainment they consume.

X3 effectively crippled a franchise for years with just the first 15 minutes alone. AoU was a largely forgettable stepping stone for a larger story. Let's stop pretending it was anything worse than that.

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