A compass that always points in the wrong direction still provides information, so they say.
You will report back and say “it was worth it for Loki”. And also “it would be awesome to sit and watch Idris Elba butter toast”.
Your mom could not have played Heimdall.
Not well, no. And certainly not as well as a department store dummy, though standing stock still and staring straight ahead was never her strong suit.
Trigger - I look forward to hearing how you liked Thor - It was a lot more awesome than it had any rights to be, in my book. So many great characters. Loki steals the show, but Heimdall is pretty awesome as well.
Thor was a lot better the second time through, in my opinion. It wasn’t structured how I hoped it would be–way too much dicking around on Earth with boring/annoying (the intern) secondary characters–but rewatching it I was able to appreciate the cool stuff (pretty much everything with the Asgardians) without resenting the time spent elsewhere.
Another thing that improved my experience the second time around was that I recognized Hawkeye. The first time he just registered as a mini-boss-level agent who happened to grab a bow. I didn’t know he was supposed to be Hawkeye until I discussed the movie later.
I didn’t expect to like Thor either but I did. It wasn’t great but it was certainly better than fair and I liked that there were a few truly humorous scenes where the humor didn’t come off as forced.
Captain America was just ok. I loved the production design and the acting was good all around but there was just a bit too much action-y combat for me.
Like others have pointed out, it’s worth watching these (and Iron Man) before watching Avengers which to me has become one of my favorite comic book themed movies. It’s basically all the things I did like about all these Marvel superhero films and something I had been hoping to see since my childhood in the early 80s. I felt that way about X-Men when it first came out but now it really looks low budget and small scale compared to Avengers.
Now, if they’d only make that X-Men & Teen Titans crossover comic into a film. Or Moon Knight.
Well?
What is “Ghost Rider 2?”
For those still confused about which film studio has the rights to which Marvel characters, this infographic may help. And if you’re not confused, come for the adorable cartoon heads anyway. :)
As for rating the various film franchises:
[ul]
[li] Spider-man 2 > SM 1 > Amazing SM > SM 3 (but Garfield & Stone have more chemistry than McGuire & Dunst)[/li][li]X-Men:First Class > X-Men 2 > X-Men 1 > X-Men 3[/li][li]The Wolverine > Wolverine:Origins[/li][li]Iron Man 3 > IM 1 > Iron Man 2 (unless we’re talking villains only, in which case IM 2 > IM 3 > IM 1)[/li][li]Thor 1 = Thor 2 (the first film has a more coherent plot, the sequel has crazier action scenes, neither film does Natalie Portman any favors)[/li][li]Incredible Hulk > The Hulk (but Jennifer Connelly > Liv Tyler)[/li][li]Blade 2 > Blade 1 > Blade 3[/li][li]Daredevil > Elecktra[/li][li]Punisher:War Zone > Punisher[/li][li]Ghost Rider 2 > Ghost Rider 1[/li][/ul]
I also thought Blade 2 was quite well done (especially the opening sequence). If only they hadn’t ruined the end with the ridiculous sped-up CG fight sequences.
“Great movie - shame about the ending” is also my response to “The Wolverine.”
The only thing that really got me about the ending was the thing with the claws. Not a spoiler but everyone who’s seen it knows what I am talking about. It wasn’t a great movie, regardless, though; everything not-Marvel seems that way now. They are just playing at a higher level.
So far, I haven’t seen a bad Marvel movie; even my least favorite (IM2) is still a good movie but something has to be last on the list. As to the prior movies with Marvel heroes, Daredevil/electra/Ghostrider/et al, isn’t that when Marvel formed their own studio and started to take those back in-house? Every other effort was farmed out to someone but once Marvel Studios came into being, the difference in quality was astounding.
IM, Cap and Thor were really good intros to the characters and there hasn’t been anything come off as well as the run up to and including the Avengers.
In fact, my biggest fear is what is going to happen when these stars’ contracts run out. RDJ and Sam L. are crucial parts to the machine. Are we living the the Superhero movie Golden Age right now?
Now let me end on this Shalamadingdong twist: I liked the Garfield Spiderman. It didn’t replace the Raimi version, which is indeed a kind of gold standard but rather is just a different take, more complicated and less comic-book symbolic.
What an odd movie Thor is, eh? I guess overall I’m kinda “eh” on it–not really hating or loving it in particular. I found myself really, really liking the scenes of Thor on Earth. When Natalie Portman and the underused Stellan Skarsgaard are onscreen–with or without Thor–the movie has a lot of jump to it. As soon as the action switched back to Asgard, I could feel my own disappointment; as much as I liked Thor on Earth, anything Asgard just bored me to death. All the Asgard stuff–all of it–felt like it was lifted from bad 1980s cable tv sword and sorcery flicks with Marc Singer in them. I didn’t care about Asgard or the Jotuns or anything else really. More Thor on earth.
I don’t think you’re going to love Thor 2, then.
I wonder. I felt pretty much the same way about Asgard but I felt like Thor 2 was a tighter and more satisfying movie overall despite only really caring about the Earth side of the equation.
None of the Asgardian mythology gets any more interesting (and the villains are the most generic I’ve ever seen), but Loki is in his element here, far more than in the first film. It’s worth watching for that alone—and the cool action sequence at the end.
I agree, somehow the Asgard stuff works better in Thor 2. For one thing, it looks a hell of a lot better - the cheesy 80s feel is gone, and the CGI is of much higher quality. Maybe because you see the lakes, aqueducts, etc., and it feels more like a real place in which some action takes place, and not just a briefly-glimpsed CGI backdrop.
It’s not as if they’re the only great actors in Hollywood! I think it’s pretty much well-established in Hollywood’s Diplodicus-like hindbrain that great actors are just as important for Superhero movies as they are for “serious” movies, so the Golden Age is going to continue till the public gets bored with superheros.
When that will be - I predict another good 10 years or so (pretty much until all the A and B lists have had a couple of movies about them). Even though hoity-toity types like to laugh at superheros, we all love 'em really, even the hoity-toity types. In the quiet, first-person anonymity of the cinema, we all become kids again watching Supes fly, or Spidey biff someone.
So the lifetime is really until all the half-decent stories, origin stories, villains, etc., have been dredged up and displayed and repetition starts setting in and becoming really blatant; until the bandwagon is full of producers of third-rate crap.
As I mentioned in the Wolvie thread, that’s the only part which made any kind of goddamn sense to me.
Now let me end on this Shalamadingdong twist: I liked the Garfield Spiderman.
I liked Garfield & Stone; as I said, I thought they had better chemistry than Tobey & Kirsten did. Actually, most of the cast was great; and some of the stunts & effects shots were nice. But the plot was a hot mess and a lot of the actual super-heroing was rather dull, I thought. When Peter Parker is more interesting and fun than Spider-man, you’re doing something wrong.
I had the opposite reaction. I know what Midgard is like - I spend quite a lot of time down here, actually - I don’t really need to see more of it. Asgard & the other realms, OTOH, are “virgin territory” as far as the Marvel movies are concerned; I was way more interested in seeing more of them than running around New Mexico. I think Thor 2 had a weaker script than the first, but I’m glad they spent so much time in Asgard - and then proceed to wreck the shit outta it. :)
This thread finally gave me enough motivation to plan to watch two movies this weekend in the Marvel universe: Thor and Captain America. Both have been on Netflix Instant Watch for a while, and after reading all the opinions here, I decided to make today the day!
Sadly, it looks like they’ve both been removed from Instant Watch. :(
Oh well, this happens all the time with Netflix. They’ll be back. It might 2 years from now. It might be 5 years, but they’ll be back.
WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING ABOUT BEASTMASTER?!