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Post by Jeremy on Dec 20, 2018 18:28:34 GMT -8
We're six films in, so... time for a thread?
The Aquaman film looks halfway decent, which is not something I ever thought I'd say about an Aquaman film. I'll probably catch it soon, though likely not till after the opening weekend tidal wave (get it?) recedes.
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 8, 2019 6:41:18 GMT -8
Aquaman is better than most of the other DCEU films, with the exception of Wonder Woman. This, however, is not a very high compliment. Though Aquaman boasts a lot of great underwater visuals, some fun action sequences, and a robust performance from Jason Momoa, it is... uh, one of the dumbest superhero films I've ever seen.
The plot somehow manages to be both overly convoluted and needlessly dumbed-down, due to a combination of pseudo-mythological exposition and lots of unnecessary onscreen captions, ensuring that everything is spelled out for even the most casual viewer. (Worst of all is a replay of an early scene during a third-act battle with the Surprise Cameo Monster.)
Every few minutes is another action scene, many kicking off with an abrupt explosion. (This only works the first five or six times the movie does it.) As evidenced by Furious 7, James Wan knows how to direct high-octane action. But couldn't he slow the camera down once in a while? (And - more importantly - couldn't someone have excised that totally out-of-place Pitbull song from the soundtrack?)
This film has been a massive worldwide hit, which doesn't surprise me at all. Global audiences champion spectacle over story, and Aquaman has more spectacle than a lens-grinding factory. The climax, which plays out like an underwater Return of the King, is one of the largest-scale action sequences you'll see anywhere on film this year. And yet, unsurprisingly, it's the one-on-one fights in the film which pack the most punch.
Aquaman is not a bad film, necessarily, but it just doesn't know when to quit. You may enjoy it, but please remember to turn your brain off before entering the theater.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 8, 2019 21:03:24 GMT -8
So I guess the short version is: MEH-YUH!
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 8, 2019 21:36:21 GMT -8
I mean, this movie features an octopus playing the drums. That should basically tell anyone whether they want to see it.
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Post by ThirdMan on Jan 9, 2019 1:33:10 GMT -8
It just looks like a rather generic CGI spectacle to me, but silly stuff like that, if anything, actually piques my interest...a bit. Is it at least better than the first two Thor movies?
I saw Ralph Breaks The Internet tonight, which I liked, but would still rank below Spiderverse, Incredibles 2, and Isle of Dogs, because with the Internet-based premise, it felt like it barely scratched the surface of creative possibilities. And was a bit too sentimental at times.
(If you want to follow the second half of this comment up, I'd quote it in a different film thread.)
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Post by Jeremy on Jan 9, 2019 6:03:08 GMT -8
It's certainly more entertaining than the first two Thor movies. There are also moments when the film is trying to take cues from Ragnarok in its tone as a mythological action-comedy. But Aquaman doesn't have Taika Waititi's off-the-wall talent to push the film from silly to sublime. (The special effects are also an issue in this regard - Ragnarok had believably rendered aliens, but things like the monster seahorses in Aquaman are very clearly CGI.)
Despite its flaws, the film is about to hit $1 billion at the box office - it's the highest-grossing DC film without the words "Dark Knight" in the title.
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Post by Jeremy on Apr 22, 2019 20:19:23 GMT -8
I saw Shazam, and.. it was really good. In fact, I feel pretty comfortable in calling it the best DC film of the decade.
The movie is just a blast from start to finish. Great cast, terrific script that balances hilarity and poignancy, and some solid (if lengthy) action sequences. Particularly clever is the way the film tries to appeal to both old and new fans of the Shazam mythos, by melding the original "Marvel Family" conceit of the 1940s with the modern "foster family" setup of the 2010s comics.
Now that the initial Batman/Superman/Justice League arc has fallen by the wayside, DC has started to grow more innovative, and between this and Aquaman, plus the upcoming Joker film (not set in the continuity, but still), it looks like things may be starting to shape up at last. Here's hoping.
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Post by Jeremy on Dec 29, 2020 20:17:45 GMT -8
I understand the impulse to grade DC films on a curve, since they kind of got off on the wrong foot with the Extended Universe thing and are still trying to find their way. But the first Wonder Woman was a legitimately good movie, a well-told story that excellently balanced its war-fueled premise and a war-averse heroine. It perfectly straddled the best of both worlds, and I was really excited for the sequel.
But Wonder Woman 1984 is... not a sequel worth getting excited about. It's messy and unfocused, with some legitimately terrible special effects, and a thin storyline that is mind-bogglingly stretched out for two and a half hours.
In a sense, the film was hamstrung from the start, since it functions as both a sequel (to the 2017 film) and a prequel (to the modern-day DC films like Justice League), and so it can't really develop Wonder Woman in any deep or interesting ways. So instead we get a regurgitation of the first movie's themes, where Diana wants to believe in the fundamental good in people despite extraordinary evidence to the contrary, but there is no World War I equivalent in the '80s for the message to work against. So instead we get a quasi-Trump media-mogul villain and an uninspired role for Kristen Wiig.
Okay, Wiig does her best in this film, as does Gal Gadot, as does (spoiler alert, except not really if you saw any of the trailers) Chris Pine. But they can only do so much. And there was no reason to bring back Steve Trevor, and doing so (especially in the cheap manner the film does) undercuts the ending of the previous film. It only emphasizes how heavily the sequel needs to draw on the original in order to justify its existence.
Maybe if they trimmed off (at least) a half-hour and gave Diana a meatier arc and didn't rely on SFX that looked like they actually were from 1984, the film would be decent. As it stands, it's just a mediocre action flick, barely above-average by DCEU standards.
(Also, did not care for that mid-credits scene. Jarring bit of fanservice that felt like something out of a Supergirl episode. Honestly, the whole film felt a bit like an extended Supergirl episode, but I digress.)
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Post by ThirdMan on May 21, 2021 15:34:55 GMT -8
Finally saw Wonder Woman 1984 (just arrived on Crave TV, for free), and thought it was a pretty standard blockbuster: nothing more, nothing less. I seem to recall some folks being DEEPLY OFFENDED by the film (perhaps because it had Arab characters as villains for a very small section of it...even though they were under the mind-control of the villain?), but I didn't see much to get worked up over. I don't think there are any overt racial politics at play. The Monkey's Paw conceit is an OK plot element to hang a superhero movie on, I suppose, but it's a pretty shallow conceit that can't really sustain the duration of a two-and-a-half-hour film on its own. Speaking of that, as I just watched it on a lazy afternoon, I don't feel like the movie dragged or anything, but that might just be relative to having indulged the 4 hour Justice League a few months ago. I guess the visual effects are kind of cheesy, but the way Wonder Woman moves is pretty cartoonish to begin with, and not likely to have much physical weight or credibility under any circumstances. Anyways, it's just a middle-of-the-road superhero film, and Gadot and Chris Pine are likeable enough to get one through it. I suppose if they make a third one, it'll be set in the modern day.
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Post by Jeremy on May 22, 2021 20:23:20 GMT -8
I think the Middle Eastern scenes were designed to be apolitical, but some people read it politically, since Gal Gadot is former IDF and the film takes place during the Reagan era. And also because people read politics into everything these days. Whatevs.
I can't say WW84 is one of the worst superhero films I've seen, but it's pretty dull. While technically admirable to have a film of the genre where the hero spends an unbroken hour without donning her costume, much of what fills up that hour is pretty bland, and the film as a whole needed at least 30 minutes sheared from its runtime. And Chris Pine still has good chemistry with Gadot, but bringing his character back was a mistake (and probably a studio-mandated one) that made this film feel like an emotional retread of the original.
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Post by ThirdMan on May 23, 2021 1:05:34 GMT -8
Ah yes, I guess she wasn't in her superhero costume for a good stretch of the film. I recall people kicking up a fuss about that w/r/t The Dark Knight Rises as well. I can't really say that it bothered me much here, or there, for that matter. And it kind of works thematically, given that they're playing with the idea of her losing her powers/true identity, similar to Clark Kent in Superman 2.
(SPOILERS)
And I suppose I didn't mind the thematic notion of her (and by extension, the film) clinging to the past by resurrecting her lover, given that her character ages so slowly, and whatnot. She had to have something personally meaningful to sacrifice in the end, after all. And here, it was more her choice than in the first film, allowing her to finally step into the future. But they definitely shouldn't go to that well again. Bring on a new love interest, or don't have one at all.
(END SPOILERS)
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Post by Jeremy on May 23, 2021 6:12:27 GMT -8
Wonder Woman's problem has long been that she doesn't have much of a human supporting cast, outside of Steve and Etta Candy. And if you set the original film in the early 20th century, neither of those characters would survive to modern times. The Lynda Carter TV series found a way around this, since the first season (set during WWII) had Lyle Waggoner play Steve Trevor, and the later seasons (set in contemporary times) had Waggoner playing Steve Trevor Jr. But that was mostly a casting workaround that would come off as quite silly if tried today.
The third film (which has already been greenlit, with Patty Jenkins once again directing) will most probably be set in the modern era. I kind of doubt they'll bring on a brand-new love interest, since the comics have never given her any long-term romances with anyone outside of Steve. Maybe more focus on Themyscira? I dunno, DC doesn't display much in the way of long-term plans.
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Post by ThirdMan on May 23, 2021 10:51:19 GMT -8
Ah. I didn't know that the first season of the Wonder Woman series with Lynda Carter was set during WWII. I probably caught a few episodes here or there when I was a kid, but don't remember much.
Yeah, if the franchise doesn't have much in the way of a recurring supporting cast, they should probably keep the movie runtimes down to two hours going forward.
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Post by Jeremy on May 23, 2021 13:57:42 GMT -8
Yeah, the show originally aired on ABC, but the '40s period setting was too expensive to maintain, so CBS picked it up for additional seasons under the condition that it would be updated to modern times. Neither version of the show holds up particularly well today (though some of it is still bizarrely memorable). Speaking of Wonder Woman on television, anyone remember that disastrous TV pilot with Adrianne Palicki some years ago? It was apparently terrible and never picked up for a series. Only interesting in that one of the supporting characters was played by Pedro Pascal, nearly a decade before WW84. It all ties together in the end...
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Post by Jeremy on Aug 6, 2021 14:37:13 GMT -8
The Suicide Squad is perhaps the most insane live-action comic-book blockbuster ever made, and I mean that in a good way. While the blood-soaked violence and excessive body count (this film earns every inch of its R rating, and then some) did wear things out by the end, it's clear that DC learned from the behind-the-scenes issues that plagued the first Suicide Squad movie, and let James Gunn do whatever popped into the swirling void of crazy he calls a head. The resulting movie is gleefully manic, yet also intermittently poignant, with several Squad members getting compelling character moments throughout the film. (Polka-Dot Man is developed far more than you'd ever expect a guy named Polka-Dot Man to be.)
The cast is excellent, with standout work from Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, and John Cena (giving perhaps the first legitimately good performance of his career). The musical cues, while not as overt as the ones in Gunn's Guardians films, do a great job of coloring the story and providing appropriate punctuation. There's even some clever use of establishing chyrons and a rare example of in medias res storytelling utilized appropriately. Not a masterpiece (it's overlong and uneven in its third act), but one of the best in the DCEU.
Admittedly, I might be a little biased towards the film as I watched it on the heels of binging another R-rated DC property, the second season of Titans (S3 debuts next week). Despite a promising start and a few standout episodes littered throughout the season, the show is quickly succumbing to the same issues that ended up ruining Arrow - clumsy pacing, overabundance of storylines competing for attention, and the need to prioritize grimdark twists above story and character logic. It all comes together (or rather, doesn't) in a spectacularly ineffective finale that haphazardly resolves a few dangling threads and features one of the most contrived character deaths I've seen on a TV show in years. We're getting to the point where Teen Titans Go! is a more creative and consistent vision of the titular team, and we should never be at that point.
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