We have been hearing about superhero fatigue since the last decade and more so in the last few years, but I personally don't experience it. But I am the exception along with thousands of other fans who are still very much looking forward to more MCU movies along with DC's movie lineup.
But I do understand the novelty of these movies being worn off for lot of moviegoers. And that's fine. But I don't buy into the hype that these movies are ruining cinema. Marvel and Disney are huge and they have large media presence, but they aren't that massive to the levels of monopolizing the whole market of cinema despite having some of the biggest franchises under their umbrella. Cinema is bigger than Marvel and Disney, despite their record box office numbers.
Trailers, posters, umpteen promos are all movie marketing serving as a sales pitch and precursor to the movie, none of it is a true reflection of the movie's quality. It's hard to escape them but neither can they be used to reason that these superhero movies are dominating cinema, cause they are not regardless of their marketing. Only thing that truly matters in the end is the actual product, the movie itself.
Superhero isn't exactly a genre per se, but it's definitely subset of movie genre now and Marvel themselves are trying to blend different genres in their movies. There will be people who will always frown upon certain genre of cinema that isn't to their liking and they like to proclaim that the particular genre is ruining cinema, especially when it's being embraced by people at large. Critics/movie writers who aren't really into superheroes are forced to put with these movies if they want to stay relevant to their audience and to their field of work. So in the process they continue to take a dump on those movies.
Most mainstream movie critics tend to dislike summer popcorn/action movies in general and unless it's high brow comedy, and indie film, or a serious drama they'll poo poo the movie and dismiss it by tearing it apart on a technical level. Now that superhero movies have become a big thing I think they're a little more accepting of other movies that they would have trashed previously but the superhero movie gives them a much larger target for their snobbery. Luckily, we have things sites like Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes along with countless blog sties and forums (like the RPF) to give us viewers a much better view of whether a movie is truly enjoyable and not just whether it's high art, avant garde, or a textbook piece of film school genius.
https://twitter.com/devincf/status/598531482202714112
No surprise. Also as mentioned in one of the tweets, this has nothing to do with reading comic books, it's about the lack of understanding of some of the basic story and character motives in the movie resulting in an all around lousy article. Also she is clearly not fond of longform storytelling in general. But now going through her Twitter feed, her followers are praising her for the well written article. So what the hell do I know.
Now, it appears that Cracked.com has an interpretation of the film. I wonder where they came to this conclusion from. And why so much hatred for the MCU?
Not sure if Ultron himself is meant as a commentary on these movies, but the article has a clear point on the notion of shared universes and longform storytelling. Of course one-off movies obviously won't get extinct, but they will indeed become harder to green-light. Studios would rather bank on starting franchises with option of multiple movies rather than standalone movies. But there will always be a market for both and we will still continue to get standalone big budget movies.
Now, it appears that Cracked.com has an interpretation of the film. I wonder where they came to this conclusion from. And why so much hatred for the MCU?
Constantly using Devin Faraci as a source is kind of disengenouos, as the guy is the biggest Marvel fanboy in online movie criticism, and bareley ever writes about anything other than superhero movies any more. On Chud and early Badass Digest he was a contentious but always readable opinion on the whole range of modern cinema and genres. Now he a Marvel shill, at best. Superheroes damaging modern movies? Maybe movie critics :lol
https://twitter.com/devincf/status/598531482202714112
No surprise. Also as mentioned in one of the tweets, this has nothing to do with reading comic books, it's about the lack of understanding of some of the basic story and character motives in the movie resulting in an all around lousy article. Also she is clearly not fond of longform storytelling in general. But now going through her Twitter feed, her followers are praising her for the well written article. So what the hell do I know.
Devin has been a prolific writer since the early 2000s and still writes about various genres of movies like he did in the past. Yes he is a Marvel fanboy, but also a Star Trek fanboy, Planet of the Apes fanboy, Star Wars fanboy and a fanboy about cinema in general (Just like most of us here). Maybe I have shared his Marvel bits more than others but that doesn't mean his writing is limited to Marvel movies.
Even though I am myself a Marvel fanboy and an all around fan of comics and comic book movies, I have always made it a point to highlight many non-franchise movies on forums and social media, as I enjoy them just as the rest. But they obviously tend to get less discussion and more skepticism during the early stages. Movie critics ain't the only problem.
Welcome to BIRTH.MOVIES.DEATH. | Birth.Movies.Death.
And if anyone is wondering, Badass Digest and Birth.Movies.Death. are the same website. They re-branded and launched on May 1. The above article explains the transition.
Overall, I really enjoyed it. Some additional thoughts:
Pros
The action was awesome. No surprises there. I also really, really appreciated how it seemed like all of the team members had something to do and were given equal time for the most part. I actually think a longer cut of this film, or the film re-done as some kind of miniseries would have been great. But I'll get to that more later. I LOVED that Hawkeye had a real family outside of the Avengers. And I also really enjoyed the tension between Steve and Tony. Oh, sure, the film ends all friendly, but you know there's gonna be trouble down the line, and the seeds have been sown here. Ultron was a lot of fun, and I loved how well they handled the Vision. Speaking of the Vision, anyone catch when Scarlet Witch gets all mooney-eyed over him? Yeah. I wonder if they're gonna run with that storyline...
Cons
It felt like they were trying to take on too much. The film, even at 2.5 hours, felt rushed. That's not to say that it felt like wall to wall action. There were breaths between the action sequences. But it just felt very...busy. Again, a longer running time would've allowed for more development, I think. I'm also reaching the conclusion that I think I prefer the single-character-focused films more, even when they feature other folks. So far, I think my favorite MCU film is Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It felt perfectly paced, nicely focused, and really allowed all of its players to have a moment while still keeping the focus firmly on Cap. I appreciate the Avengers films as "big event" movies where everything from the single-character films comes to a head, but I think they're gonna need to allow for more time and/or maybe a little less spectacle in the future.
I was not a huge fan of the army of dummy-bots, but at the same time, I kinda understood how that was likely to happen. I mean, it's Ultron. He's a global threat. He's not gonna recruit an army of humans, and he doesn't have the kind of power of someone like Thanos, so, what else can he do? Still, it just felt kinda...I dunno...weak. I felt similar about the Iron Man 3 "House Party" bit. It was cool seeing the other suits, but it just felt like a ton of disposable tin cans being destroyed.
Lastly,
I was not a fan of killing Pietro. It was a nice touch in the moment, but it felt out of place. I gather this was a Joss move, and it's one of the areas where I disagree with Joss. Joss kills people to shock audiences and make them feel like the heroes are threatened, but it's kinda become his "thing" and it's old hat for me now. Also, it strikes me as kind of pointless in a comic book movie, when there's such a thing as "comic book death." As we all know, the only people to stay dead in comics are Uncle Ben and Batman's parents. Everyone else is fair game for resurrection. So, I don't even fully believe Pietro will stay dead in the future, if Marvel gets the sense that fans want him back.
Additional Thoughts
All the allegations of misogyny are, frankly, a load of horse**** drummed up by people wanting to see a controversy where none exists, and/or people blindly pushing an agenda. Look, I get the frustration about not getting a Black Widow movie. I think that sucks, too, and that she'd be an awesome character for a standalone film. But the whole "monster" controversy? People who saw that as a commentary on her sterility and therefore women in general were either not paying attention to the movie, or simply wanted to see misogyny there. They're also dead wrong because that's not what that scene is about at all. But, this being teh intarwebz, I suppose there's an echo chamber for any point of view, especially those of angry people with a chip on their shoulder who only view the world through a particular filter.
Moving on. I'm curious as to how they're gonna handle the new Avengers characters in the next phase, since it doesn't look like any of them are getting their own films. How will they be showcased so that we see some character development? I get that we're getting two movies a year apart, but it still seems like they have a LOT of heavy lifting to do. Plus, what with the showcasing of new, otherwise unrelated heroes, I'm curious to see how that all plays out.
Saw it again last night at the 2nd run theater. It's alright, great action sequences, but the weakness is in the editing. There are scenes that need more explanation for instance Thor's investigation and getting Selvig's assistance, the cave - a sequence that left you go... huhhh?
Definitely Ant-Man was the better of the two Marvel movies this summer. Looking forward to seeing Ant-Man again.
I think you can link things like that back to the amazon UK ad that got pulled rather quickly back in May - that being that they were offerring a cut at 3:15 I believe. The apparently had to cut down a good deal at the tail end for run time. I only hope that long BR was true and that we will get it.
I've been wanting to give this a rewatch, but from my first viewing I still think it was a missed opportunity to expand on the necessity for being off the grid to hide from Ultron. The idea that Ultron is completely in control of a vast hive mind of drones and interfaced with the internet, but Tony can fly around in his suits while the team all speaks over open comms is just a little crazy for me. It would have been cool to see Steve take things "old school" and lead them on a low tech/guerilla style assault on Ultron. I get that they were wanting to set up bigger things, and I absolutely love Vision, but it still had some shortcomings for me.
We have been hearing about superhero fatigue since the last decade and more so in the last few years, but I personally don't experience it. But I am the exception along with thousands of other fans who are still very much looking forward to more MCU movies along with DC's movie lineup.
But I do understand the novelty of these movies being worn off for lot of moviegoers. And that's fine. But I don't buy into the hype that these movies are ruining cinema. Marvel and Disney are huge and they have large media presence, but they aren't that massive to the levels of monopolizing the whole market of cinema despite having some of the biggest franchises under their umbrella. Cinema is bigger than Marvel and Disney, despite their record box office numbers.
Trailers, posters, umpteen promos are all movie marketing serving as a sales pitch and precursor to the movie, none of it is a true reflection of the movie's quality. It's hard to escape them but neither can they be used to reason that these superhero movies are dominating cinema, cause they are not regardless of their marketing. Only thing that truly matters in the end is the actual product, the movie itself.
Well for me, the superhero fatigue started to set in just a bit, because Marvel films to me were becoming...for lack of a better term....drawn out. Now, that's not to say I don't enjoy them. Just saw Ant-Man with my son and it gave me that Iron Man new feel to it in a way. Very good film. Good pacing, and good motivations. However, maybe it is the styling that has caused the fatigue for me. Example, when Man of Steel came out (yes I am a DC fanboy) it was so refreshing simply because of the tone. I know many disagree with a lot of things in the film, but I think BvS will clear up a lot of things, but the serious tone that Marvel lacks is a bit more my style. I have been having a bit of a hard time looking forward to superhero films, until I saw the BvS trailer and saw the Joker and Harley in the Suicide Squad trailer. Why? I don't know, maybe it's because those were the heroes I've always been into, but I lean more towards the way DC is going about the films. "Realism" to an extent. Not just in how things look or the explanation behind certain things, I'd say how they are portraying the heroes in a todays day in age. How would most react. Superman, although good is still two sided to people. Batman, although good, is very morally conflicted and can appear evil. That struggle, the tone, the grittiness I guess is what is refreshing to me that Marvel has kind of not included. They have always been kind of up beat despite tragedy.
And the fact that nearly every scene has to involve some sort of attempt at a joke. That was one of the things about age of ultron that started to get a bit annoying rather the funny. Too much is too much...
Was watching the movie and something bugged me. Why is Tony stark involved in the avengers. Didn't he quit being iron man in IM3. Didn't he destroy all his suits. Didn't he remove the reactor from his chest. Much like the wookie defense........it don't make sense.
