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Wkd BO 07•14-16•17 - Audiences go Ape, Sick of Spider-man and Wonder Woman (finally)?

Justin Hammer is too memorable for film to be forgettable, despite how bad that film was.

That's it!

I knew Mickey Rourke was supposed to be a bad guy then he wasn't, but after that it just fades into a blur of shitty Iron Man clones fighting Iron Man and Rhodes or something.

I literally have no idea how the film ends.

I don't understand how anyone can hate The Incredible Hulk.

Maybe it's too simplistic for its own good, but the action is great, it moves at a decent pace, and the cast is solid. The final fight between Hulk and Abom is better than most finales to date.

Compare that to Iron Man 2, when you're dealing with one of the worst scripts in a cape film, complete with jokes about Tony peeing in his suit, because that's so funny.

Then you've got the CG, which is a huge downgrade from the first movie. His armor is TERRIBLE in IM2. Then Rhodes becomes War Machine by stealing the suit? There was no other way to do that?

The action is garbage too.

There's not a single redeeming factor in IM2. It is fucking phoned-in garbage.

I'm still confused as to how Marvel knocked it out of the park with the first Iron Man, then followed it up with two pieces of trash.

I agree fully except for IM3 - that is actually one of my favorite MCU films.

Go figure, I guess.

If the MCU was a TV show, Iron Man 3 would be looked back at fondly as one of the absolute best episodes.

But because people had to wait 3 years in between installments, the "Iron Man without Iron Man" plot kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth

Internet high five!
 
If the MCU was a TV show, Iron Man 3 would be looked back at fondly as one of the absolute best episodes.

But because people had to wait 3 years in between installments, the "Iron Man without Iron Man" plot kind of leaves a bad taste in the mouth
 

ZeoVGM

Banned
edit: Oh? No bad MCU movies? Okay then: Thor is absolutely shittastical borefest, as is The Dark World. Iron Man 2 I don't even remember. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good. Age of Ultron was just terrible, basically the counterpart of BvS. "Blandness supreme" should be Marvel's motto if it wasn't for Shane Black giving us Trevor, which is the best thing to come out of all that.

By contrast, Fantastic Four 2015 was actually promising and deeply caring in some aspects (Dooms helmet literally being fused into him, which the Alba versions neglected, and future attempts probably will too), but ruined by committee. I still want to see Trank's cut, because I sense that version would have worked to show the one thing in which the F4 are different from every other superhero: they have a family.

Green lantern we don't talk about. And we all know what BvS was too. But to say that 'therefore there are no bad MCU movies' is just a fallacy.

That isn't a fallacy. It's an opinion. And it's certainly not some insane idea considering there hasn't been a below-fresh movie on RottenTomatoes so far.

I remember Iron Man 2 perfectly -- for its high points (Justin Hammer, the final team-up with War Machine, Black Widow) and its low points (the party scene, the magical cure from Nick Fury). And I think Age of Ultron is a good movie that is also all over the place.

And don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying that makes my opinion fact. It's totally fine that you think those movies you listed were bad. And I disagree. I listed the MCU movies I find to be mediocre/average. I listed Green Lantern, X-Men Origins and BvS as examples because I think those are truly terrible films -- and they were critically panned as such. In my opinion, I don't believe any MCU movies are terrible like those. I think there are mediocre ones.
 
I find it bizarre that so many are falling all over themselves to exaggerate Homecoming's box office gross into being some sort of referendum on the character and the MCU but everyone seems to shrug off Apes' under performance without much note.
 
I find it bizarre that so many are falling all over themselves to exaggerate Homecoming's box office gross into being some sort of referendum on the character and the MCU but everyone seems to shrug off Apes' under performance without much note.

One's a universe
One is the end of a trilogy
 

3N16MA

Banned
I find it bizarre that so many are falling all over themselves to exaggerate Homecoming's box office gross into being some sort of referendum on the character and the MCU but everyone seems to shrug off Apes' under performance without much note.

The performance of Apes was anticipated for awhile. It was pegged at opening below the previous film for a good while now.

I had hoped it did better.
 

J_Viper

Member
The WW final act connects to the central struggle of the main character and features an emotional climax in her relationship with the 2nd lead. That's leaps and bounds beyond almost any superhero movie.

Yup. The film has issues but a lame boss fight is not among them. It built straight from the story and was well done. Some of the CG was problematic, sure.

Loved the scenes between Steve and Diana, but everything else was hit-and-miss, with the final encounter being particularly weak

There's not a memorable moment in the fight. It's just WW and you-know-who throwing shit at each other. It also doesn't help that the bad guy looks terrible.

At least the Doomsday fight has some nice imagery.

This is not a problem new to the genre, sadly. And not specific to MCU films, obviously. The first Fox Fantastic Four movie was doing fine until Doom showed up. Green Lantern had lots of problems, but the climactic last act against a cloud was by far the biggest.
no

Nah.

Iron Man 3 is awesome.
also no

Wait for it. It's inevitable.
Rocky
Rocky Balboa
Creed
Rocky IV
Rocky III
Rocky 2: The Dark World
Rocky V
 
The performance of Apes was anticipated for awhile. It was pegged at opening below the previous film for a good while now.

I had hoped it did better.

Right but there isn't the same level of soul-searching "Why" that Homecoming is getting.

I don't know, it just feels like there is an agenda. A lot of these posts feel like they were written years ago and have just been waiting for a major under-performer in the MCU And now there are people jumping through major contortions to make Homecoming's performance seem way worse than it is.

One's a universe
One is the end of a trilogy

Apes has been rebooted as many times as Spidey has (though to be fair, over a much longer period of time).

The recent Apes movies made too much money for a studio that isn't Disney to walk away from. Reeves may have been done after War but no way Fox would have stopped if War made similar money to Dawn. Series has already survived one creator handover in fine shape.

Fox is coming out of the summer with much worse prospects for future franchising than Sony will.
 
I don't think there is a single bad MCU movie. There are some that I can understand being called mediocre or average but in terms of being bad? I don't agree. Green Lantern is bad. Fantastic Four is bad. Batman v. Superman is bad.

The Incredible Hulk is near the bottom of my rankings but I don't understand how the above poster could say he felt embarrassed watching it. The opening "on the run" stuff was pretty great, as was the final battle. It's a passable fun-at-times movie. Average.

The original Thor is solid. The Earth stuff needed to be fleshed out more as the relationship between Thor and Jane felt rushed and unbelievable (while I loved the relationship between Steve and Peggy in TFA). The battle against Destroyer was bad. I think Hemsworth and Hiddleston's performances elevate the movie.

The same with The Dark World, which is probably the worst MCU film. It has some fun moments like a final battle that was way better than the first and an Asgard that felt alive. And it had Heimdall doing that badass "run up the ramp and stab the alien ship" thing. It just wasn't what I wanted out of the next Thor movie. I was also hoping they would take a more serious direction with Selvig as well, not the "crazy naked guy" direction they took.

Iron Man 2 simply has way too much going on without anything really coming together well. Justin Hammer was fantastic, however, and the action was much improved over the original. And of course, Robert was a joy to watch and that made the movie fun enough.

I feel like people online can only call something "dog shit" or "amazing" with no in between.
Keep cashing those checks 💰
 
Right but there isn't the same level of soul-searching "Why" that Homecoming is getting.

I don't know, it just feels like there is an agenda. A lot of these posts feel like they were written years ago and have just been waiting for a major under-performer in the MCU And now there are people jumping through major contortions to make Homecoming's performance seem way worse than it is.

I mean, it's always like this. Happened with the previous Spider-Man movie, Suicide Squad last year (rumor has it, it still hasn't broken even), etc. Comic movies have warped expectations.
 
I mean, it's always like this. Happened with the previous Spider-Man movie, Suicide Squad last year (rumor has it, it still hasn't broken even), etc. Comic movies have warped expectations.

Comic book movies have fans conditioned for their entire lives to be brand-loyal over being product-loyal or even character-loyal.

Stan Lee hammered that shit home starting in the 60s, and it never stopped.

Arguably EC did it in the 50s, but that seemed decidedly more tongue-in-cheek.

Imagine if there were Paramount fans ragging on every Universal release, going back decades.

I hate comic-book fandom.
 
Imagine if there were Paramount fans ragging on every Universal release, going back decades.

I hate comic-book fandom.

It's some of the goofiest bullshit, isn't it?

I remember asking someone once how weird they'd think it was if I told them there were people who sat around shitting on everything Random House ever put out because they were loyal to Harper Collins.

The film/publishing sides of this comics divide are 80% made up of the same creatives working at both places. It's literally the same storytellers telling the same sort of stories. They're just changing the fuckin' costumes every couple years. And then back again.
 

Raziel

Member
A few folks in the other thread said to wait for Mendelson's article, so here it is
'Spider-Man: Homecoming' Suffers MCU's Worst Second-Weekend Drop Ever

Sony's Spider-Man: Homecoming isn't remotely a flop. Yet the $175 million-budgeted Marvel Cinematic Universe entry earned another $45.2 million in its second weekend of release and has now earned $208.27m in 10 days. But the film did drop 61% in its second weekend, identical to the second-weekend drops for Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. And that $45m weekend figure, from a $117m opening weekend, is identical to the $45m third weekend of Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (in 2002) and the second weekend of Spider-Man 2 (coming off an $88m Fri-Sun/$180m Wed-Mon debut in 2004).

So, unless it catches up over the next month (and that's not remotely out of the question), we're looking at an identical multiplier to Amazing Spider-Man 2 ($202m/$91m) and Spider-Man 3 ($336m/$151m). That will lead to a domestic total almost identical to the $262m cume of The Amazing Spider-Man (from a $137m Tues-Sun debut) back in 2012. And adjusted for inflation, it will be noticeably fewer tickets sold than that 2012 reboot. And if the second-weekend figure holds up, the 61.3% drop will be the worst ever for a Marvel Cinematic Universe title.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottm...-suffers-mcus-worst-second-weekend-drop-ever/
 

GhaleonEB

Member
Loved the scenes between Steve and Diana, but everything else was hit-and-miss, with the final encounter being particularly weak

There's not a memorable moment in the fight. It's just WW and you-know-who throwing shit at each other. It also doesn't help that the bad guy looks terrible.

Guess I just fundamentally disagree. I really liked the gradual escalation of it - the bad guy is knocking Diana around a bit and she's slowly learning how to fight back, surprising herself along the way. Lots of good visual story telling, show not tell moments in there. The way the bad guy (let's call him Bob) pull his armor together, walking through the wreckage of the battle, was badass. It's got a great quiet moment when Bob extends his offer to Diana, and there's a moment when we can see why it might be appealing. Given how her naivete has just been shattered and the way her conversation ends with Steve, there's this moment when we think she might go for it. Or wobble a bit. But nope, she rejects that shit instantly. I love that they didn't go down that road one inch.

Diana's response to um, a bad thing happening during the fight felt genuine and gut wrenching, and had some beautiful imagery and sound design around it.

The only two notes in that fight that didn't work were some questionable CG, and Bob yelling "then I will destroy youuuu!!!" out of nowhere, when he'd played it cool and (slowly less and less) confident to that point. Well that and the
mustache in the flashback
. Quibble, really. Just a well written, staged, shot and (especially) acted sequence, particularly when set against its peers.

I don't think the film needed to end with that fight, but that's another issue altogether.
 

Penguin

Member
Folks should coordinate review schedules seems like Atomic Blonde's dropped too but getting drowned out in Dunkirk reviews
 

Busty

Banned
Folks should coordinate review schedules seems like Atomic Blonde's dropped too but getting drowned out in Dunkirk reviews

I know a few people that saw Atomic Blonde recently and they all dismissed it as some paper thin John Wick wannabe.
 
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Those RT scores. It's like poetry.
 
What actually IS the movie event of the summer? I'm hesitant to say it's Dunkirk.
Wonder Woman, probably. It's the run we're all gonna remember the most unless Dunkirk pulls in something crazy like $300M.

That's a goofy analysis. Amazing Spider-Man opened on a Tuesday and dropped 69% in it's 3rd weekend. 10 days into it's run it sat at $165.8m, SM:H is at $207.3m.
Yeah, it's completely ignorant to the difference between May and July makes with weekdays.
 
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