Rate the latest movie you've seen.

[Hydra009]

Never saw it...

Movies that don't (yet) exist tend to be like that.

[Hydra009]

So I saw Thor: Ragnarok.  It was kinda meh.  Pretty much what you'd expect from a Thor movie.  It has its strengths, but it has its flaws.

First off, I love the splashes of color.  I liked the actors - particularly the scenes with Doctor Strange.  The action scenes were well done.  And it had a very good ending.

Its biggest flaw is that there's something seriously messed up with the humor here.  It's so goofy and Buffyesque that it actually kind of hurts the tone of the film.  This is Ragnarok - Twilight of the Gods - it's some seriously dark and somber stuff.  Instead, most everybody acts in this slapstick, goofball way that doesn't match either the characters or the circumstances.  It's really jarring.  And a lot of the jokes were basically on this level.  That probably hurt the film more than anything else.

Whoever compared this to Guardians of the Galaxy ought to be...I dunno...I challenge you to a dance off or something.  The reason the humor worked in Guardians is that it's sarcasm used to cover deep emotional pain (Rocket), frivolity masking insecurity and loneliness (Quill), or naivety (Groot).  The humor works because it informs you about the characters.

The humor in Thor is nothing like that.  It doesn't reveal anything about anybody.  It's like a writer sat down at the writers' room and said, "You know what'd be hilarious?  If Thor saw Hulk's penis!" and everyone in the room thought it was stupid but no one had the guts to say that out loud so it went unchallenged.  That's what the humor was in this movie.  Let's try everything and no one can say no to anything.  So there's some good jokes mixed in with mediocre and bad jokes.

[spoiler]That and Loki's rulership of Asgard was a pretty weak payoff.  The trickster God achieves unrivaled power and the only mischief he gets up to was a self-praising play and a statue of himself.  That's pretty tame, amateur hour stuff.  I expected a lot more than that.  Asgard on the brink of chaos, at the very least.  Loki's reign is remarkably sedate.[/spoiler]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Never saw it...

The series is on Netflix and is worth a watch.

[SGOS]

So I saw Thor: Ragnarok.  It was kinda meh. 

I think I may have mentioned that I've been wondering when the success of Marvel movies would start to fade.  It's been such a wild and remarkable ride that Marvel has given us, but Hollywood trends come and go, and I don't think the momentum can be sustained.  I often forget and think that superheroes began with the Marvel franchise, but then I remember watching Superman on TV and Michael Keaton's Batman in the last century, not that I would bother re-watching them now.   Maybe there is only so much that can be done at each level of advancement.  As it goes with sequels, the first scripts often seem inspirational.  The next scripts start to feel stale, and then it seems as if writers run out of material.  Is this the beginning of the end for Marvel?  I hope not, but I think it will happen sometime.

Marvel might be losing it's luster.  Maybe it's audience fatigue and/or maybe they have shot their creative wad, which can happen as writers and creators over extend themselves trying to make things new and different.  For myself, when I have an inspirational idea, it usually turns out well, but when I try to do it again, it almost always falls flat.  It seems like good ideas have a shelf life.

[Hydra009]

Marvel might be losing it's luster.  Maybe it's audience fatigue and/or maybe they have shot their creative wad, which can happen as writers and creators over extend themselves trying to make things new and different.

Nah.  It's just one movie that was a bit overhyped (the promotional posters are gorgeous, tho).  And frankly, I've never been thrilled by any of the Thor films.

But I'm still pumped for Infinity War and Ms Marvel and Deadpool 2 and just about everything else in the works.  Probably half the films I watch are Marvel movies.  They've carved out one hell of a niche in the cinematic landscape.

If DC takes over or (more likely) no one wants to watch superhero movies anymore, then yes, they're in trouble.  Until then, a mediocre Thor movie mostly just hurts future Thor movies, but Marvel as a whole.

And about running out of ideas, they have 50+ years of material to work with.  I would kill to see Annihilation, Secret Invasion, Illuminati, Dark Reign, Annihilation Conquest, War of Kings, and Darkhawk.  And that's just off the top of my head.

[Blackleaf]

I'm just wondering what they're going to do after the blue skinned bad guy they've been teasing us with since the first Avengers has come and gone.

Speaking of stale, though, Spider-Man movies. Ugh. He's been rebooted so many times. If Homecoming were the first Spider-Man movie I'd ever seen, I probably would have liked it, but the comparisons I was making to the other movies just made it underwhelming to me. And weird, very weird. Now there's going to be a Venom movie that is separate from the MCU canon. Just...why?

[Baruch]

And yet, no love for Green Lantern ;-)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I'm just wondering what they're going to do after the blue skinned bad guy they've been teasing us with since the first Avengers has come and gone.

Thanos.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Speaking of stale, though, Spider-Man movies. Ugh. He's been rebooted so many times. If Homecoming were the first Spider-Man movie I'd ever seen, I probably would have liked it, but the comparisons I was making to the other movies just made it underwhelming to me. And weird, very weird. Now there's going to be a Venom movie that is separate from the MCU canon. Just...why?

Whollyweird is never, ever original.

[GSOgymrat]

And yet, no love for Green Lantern ;-)

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Please don't make the suit green. Or animated!"

[Cavebear]

DC is probably (finally) learning from Marvel.  Characters matter more than costumes.

[Shiranu]

Hotarubi no Mori e (Into the Forest of Fireflies' Light) - Just a super cute, 40 minute animated film about a not-quite-spirit and a human that fall in love, but are incapable of touching one another. It is both light-hearted and emotionally heavy, and I think it's a nice shift from American film. I would recommend it, it feels much more like a story you would read than watch.

[SGOS]

Darkest Hour 9/10

It was 2:04 hours long, but I could have watched another two hours.

[Cavebear]

Watched "Predators' last night.  I figured out who would last pretty quickly, and that weird guy of no apparent skill bothered me from the start.  Not the Most Wanted one, the quiet one.  I don't quite understand the ending when stuff dropped out of the sky. Was that just more animals to hunt, or the start of a human army?