Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie Thread

[Pooker]

Spoiler

I had two people in the theater after the after credit scenes in total shock that Natasha died. They both couldn't figure out when it happened. One said it must have been the very last scene of the movie. 

 

[Maxx]

1 hour ago, theshadow said:

  Hide contents

I'm not sure that is a fair criticism there is no way anyone went into any of the MCU solo films thinking the title character would die.

 

Spoiler

There's an inherent suspension of disbelief that comes with watching MCU and many other movies, and other forms of media.  That's damaged when you know for a fact the character survives because you've seen their death in another film.  It particularly damaging when a film decides to offer up a lot of spectacle.  The best parts of the movie were all the smaller character moments, and when it leaned hard into spy films and smaller scale action sequences.  When it's oh no will Natasha survive this avalanche, or falling out of the sky at the end?  Not so much, because we already know she did. 

There's a difference between "Oh there will be a sequel we know she's going to survive" and "oh we know, without any doubt that she survives because we've already seen the films that follow and her eventual death"

So yeah, perfectly valid criticism.

 

[Lint]

Anyone find it odd ScarJo complains about all the shots of her butt in IM2, but this movie is filled with many panning shots of her butt..

[Jimmy]

1 hour ago, Lint said:

Anyone find it odd ScarJo complains about all the shots of her butt in IM2, but this movie is filled with many panning shots of her butt..

Nope (although I would say I didn't clock those at all). 

Firstly, it's about authorship. A female filmmaking team making a film where Black Widow is the hero, is complex and where they actively make fun of her showmanship. In this film, there's a feeling of empowerment throughout and she would've been heavily involved in the creative process. It's about intent, right? Black Widow isn't presented as a sexual object, she's an empowered assassin trying to make sense of her past. 

She literally watches a Bond film, it wouldn't surprise me at all if anything like that was an attempt to reclaim elements of the spy genre. 

I don't remember IM2 that well, but she's just been introduced, very much sexualised, without a great deal of character arc. Also made by a predominantly male filmmaking team where actors still felt it hard to speak up about what they were comfortable with. 

So yeah, not odd to me. 

[Lint]

5 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

Nope (although I would say I didn't clock those at all). 

Firstly, it's about authorship. A female filmmaking team making a film where Black Widow is the hero, is complex and where they actively make fun of her showmanship. In this film, there's a feeling of empowerment throughout and she would've been heavily involved in the creative process. It's about intent, right? Black Widow isn't presented as a sexual object, she's an empowered assassin trying to make sense of her past. 

She literally watches a Bond film, it wouldn't surprise me at all if anything like that was an attempt to reclaim elements of the spy genre. 

I don't remember IM2 that well, but she's just been introduced, very much sexualised, without a great deal of character arc. Also made by a predominantly male filmmaking team where actors still felt it hard to speak up about what they were comfortable with. 

So yeah, not odd to me. 

Ok, so you putting it into perspective as a film maker, it does make sense. 

For me, as a lay person, it did seem a little odd

[Jimmy]

11 minutes ago, Lint said:

Ok, so you putting it into perspective as a film maker, it does make sense. 

For me, as a lay person, it did seem a little odd

It's something you can apply to any art and just every day life - it's about authorship, power dynamics and consent, amongst other things. 

[Kaney]

I enjoyed Black Widow more than I expected for sure. Even without the aforementioned stuff about it being a foregone conclusion that she would survive, I wasn't really sure what the point of it was, in terms of the greater MCU. Like someone said earlier, if it came out right after Civil War I think it'd be less odd but it didn't detract from the actual film.

Spoiler

Yelena was fantastic in every scene I thought, and the end credit scene immediately ramped up my interest in Hawkeyes show. Surely then there'll be a place for Red Guardian and Taskmaster to resurface.

Taskmaster, eeeeeh. I don't think they took advantage of the concept properly at all. The first fight where she fought with Caps shield moves was interesting, and she used a bow and arrow once. It looked like she was going to use Black Panther type claws against Red Guardian but next time we see them she is swinging a sword about? I thought it would have been a great dynamic with Natasha trying to figure out how to deal with the mimicking but she never really seemed to acknowledge it, let alone be bothered by it.

I really enjoyed the nod to the original Avengers film, when Natasha was confronting Ray Winstone. She used the same pretend-to-be-meek deception that she used to trick Loki into revealing his plan.

Overall yeah it was good. Bring on Shang-Chi!

[tristy]

This might be one of my favorite MCU movies, honestly. I know the Marvel formula isn't for everyone, as proven by the conversations I had earlier in the thread, but this is almost note perfect for my tastes. Funny, really good action scenes, introduces characters that are fun and interesting, and closes the book on a huge part of the MCU and opens a lot more doors as well. Some of these fights are as good as the Winter Soldier movie ones, IMO.

Taskmaster and connections to the first Avengers movie + other thoughts:

Spoiler

Loki mentions "Dreykov's daughter" as one of the many things that Natasha regrets, when she is extracting information on his plan from him.

They can go a lot of ways with Taskmaster - Antonia could keep on being Taskmaster, and either be a villain, a hero, or an anti-hero. Maybe she joins up with Valentina's new crew, who knows. There's also the possibility of Valentina, General Ross or someone else recovering the tech for the Taskmaster Protocol and using it for their own purposes.

I loved Melina, Alexei and Yelena. More so the last two, but the Melina character had her moments too. I need more Red Guardian in my life, and we're already getting more Yelena in Hawkeye. David Harbour was fucking hilarious in this, and Melina was too with some of her deadpan humor.

I get entirely why they wanted to hold off on releasing this, given how well it's doing at the box office all things considered, but, man... this movie is exactly what we needed in 2020, I think. They would have done monster numbers, I think, if they released it on Disney Plus last year while everyone was stuck at home. Fuckin' Trolls made a truckload of cash, this could have (and still likely will) do very well on D+, I think.

[Tigerstyle]

We watched it on D+ was enjoyable.

[IDOL]

I thought Florence Pugh was a strange casting choice when the cast was announced, but I was wrong. She stole the movie.

[Lint]

Black Widow Surpasses Expectations Raking in $218 Million WorldWide

$80M Domestically, $78M Internationally, $60M on D+

[Warhawk8492]

I went in wanting to like the Black Widow movie, and was NOT let down, loved it.

[Lint]

Only thing I would've liked was more Taskmaster.  Felt really kinda underused and underdeveloped.  Natasha had basically no reaction to Taskmaster using the same moves as her, Steve etc...

[IDOL]

6 minutes ago, Lint said:

Only thing I would've liked was more Taskmaster.  Felt really kinda underused and underdeveloped.  Natasha had basically no reaction to Taskmaster using the same moves as her, Steve etc...

Spoiler

She was confused, and thought Taskmaster was a Ross project attempting to arrest her.

 

[Lint]

10 minutes ago, iDOL said:

  Hide contents

She was confused, and thought Taskmaster was a Ross project attempting to arrest her.

 

That still doesn't explain the complete lack of reaction to Taskmaster completely copying her and others moves.  She was kinda surprised at the kip up, but that was it

[GoGo Yubari]

In the grand balance of things, adapting Taskmaster as totally emotionless almost felt like a weird counterweight to having adapted Ultron into an MCU quipster. By far my least favorite part of the movie, just because I really like the original conception of that character and I don't think we'll ever get there from here.

Otherwise, I enjoyed it once it got past the early setup. It definitely at points had a feeling of weightlessness to it (and the fact that I've just not rewatched Civil War or Infinity War since either came out so the stuff tying together how Nat gets to where she is in the latter was half-lost in me), but the two main things it set out to do was give a proper farewell to one of the founding Avengers and introduce the character who's probably filling that role going forward in Yelena and it really nailed both. The joke about the Black Widow pose was really when I found my way into the movie, got the first proper reaction from the room I was in.

[Lint]

I think Florence Pugh "stealing the movie" actually kinda makes sense, if you realize this movie is more about establishing her then it is expanding ScarJo

[Roster Depth Sicko No. 2]

Just watched it, had mixed thoughts.

Spoiler

I thought it was okay. If I was gonna score it, it gets probably a solid 6 for me. I think scoring it purely depends on what perspective you have on it.

As a standalone addition, it was a great Black Widow movie. Hit all the right notes for the character. The world building around her was excellent, Florence Pugh and David Harbour were great and hopefully they'll reappear down the line (Florence definitely is). As a set up for Pugh, it was brilliant.

In a wider MCU context, it would have had more impact straight after Civil War. Knowing her fate already hinders the stakes, as others have said. A 2 hour movie to set up a 2 minute end-credits scene seems excessive, but it needed to be done. JFD is still a delight however, didn't expect to see her again so soon, and not talking to that character either.

It served a purpose, but I think it should have been done earlier.

 

[IDOL]

The Smells Like Teen Spirit cover and the human trafficking/red room opening was superb.

[JasonM]

4 hours ago, iDOL said:

The Smells Like Teen Spirit cover and the human trafficking/red room opening was superb.

I really liked the opening crawl, but I felt the cover song fell apart completely at the point where it went into the gibberish part at the end of the song.

It works in the original, but when the song is sang at about 65RPM it became excruciating to listen to.

But I guess everyone has different tastes. It's honestly a non-thing taken across the entire film which blew my expectations away.

One thing I did get confused by, ending spoiler-ish:

Spoiler

At the end of it all, Natasha says she'll let Ross capture her to keep the rest of her widow-fam safe. Which makes sense.

Except then immediately it goes to a '2 Weeks Later', and she's a free woman, and in the final stages of her going off to help the others escape from The Raft, that place everyone of Ross' prisoners got locked up at.

So this implies that Natasha either got released (why?) or that she manages to break out from captivity. The latter would've fit a small scene, like Ross stepping out of a room for half a minute then returning to an empty seat and nobody knowing where Natasha has gone and making them look foolish.

Just a small weirdness that could've explained a bit better. In the grand scheme it doesn't matter because we all knew how it would end, but it was still a bit confusing all the same...