In this week's reviews, the most beautiful MCU is also the worst, Pablo Larraín gives Princess Diana the 'Jackie' treatment, and robots and agents run on faulty programming.
When did the MCU start to look so terrible? Those early ones are shot on film, and stuff like Captain America: The First Avenger really seems to look good in my memory.
At some point though they switched to digital and even the ones people claim look good don’t usually look good. Like Thor: Ragnarok? People were 100% confusing colorful posters with the film itself. Sure there were a lot of “colors” in it, but they were still completely desaturated.
Me think change came when they stopped caring about CGI looking real. In first Iron Man, metal suit feel weighty and real — when Tony test out suit and smashes up his sports cars, suit feel like heavy thing that can do damage, and when he fall down, it feel like it hurt.
By Endgame, suit just weightless CGI bullshit (me confidently predict that in 30 years "nanobots are magic" era of movies going to look as cheesy and dumb as "computers are magic" movies from 80s look now), and when Black Widow fall out of 8-story window, and hits her spine on fire escape halfway down, she shakes it off and it completely forgotten. (Granted, that not about look of movie specifically, but someone forgetting to make these things feel lived-in and real. Although it sound like Zhao forgot to do everything but that in this instance.)
"That leaves room for a lot of superpowered energy blasts and a desperate scramble to stop the world from ending: an MCU movie, in other words"
how disappointing. if any MCU movie was going to break from this playbook, I thought it might be Eternals. Now that they've set such a huge stage, I think it would be fascinating to see a straightforward drama set in the MCU.
"a dead-faced, above-the-shoulders, some-mild-thrusting-implied moment that will go over kids’ heads and leave grown-ups wondering why such perfect creations have such uninspired sex"
Yeah, this was relatively big creative swing for Marvel, both in hiring Zhou and adapting one of Kirby's very heady, convoluted 1970s ideas. So me disappointed that it swing and miss.
Me have really enjoyed and defended MCU thus far, but to keep things going, they really need to figure out how to break out of formula of A) hero has to fight evil, slightly more powerful version of self, or B) hero has to fight supervillain on airborne platform while platform slowly fall to Earth.
Me do like that they built new formula for Black Widow and Shang-Chi, of family drama punctuated by ass-kicking. That work very well, and me would see several more movies on that template. But they also need to be able to keep taking chances like this one, they just need to figure out how to make those movies actually work.
I find it kind of amusing that the much-hyped gambit of hiring Zhao directly following her big Oscar success has resulted in the most tepid critical reception for one of these things... ever?
Scott & Keith, have either of you seen Black Widow or Shang-Chi? If so, how did they stack up? I feel like there hasn't been much fanfare around MCU releases coming out of the pandemic, which makes me wonder if the franchise is losing steam. But I did get the sense people liked the last two more than this one (I haven't seen them).
I haven't seen 'Shang-Chi' yet but I found 'Black Widow' to be in the B-, middle-to-bottom range for MCU movies. Really enjoyed Florence Pugh's performance, and also enjoyed a stretch in a middle were a dysfunctional family comedy suddenly breaks out in the middle of all the big action set pieces. But those set pieces become a problem as the film goes along: The cool thing about 'Black Widow' is that these are essentially human beings, not folks with supernatural powers, so you could stage a more grounded action movie around them. The film opts not to do that, especially in the climax.
I’ve seen BLACK WIDOW but need to see it again. (Not enough sleep on a Sunday afternoon at home = zzz.) Can’t really judge but I like what I saw. SHANG CHI is quite good up to a point. The lead is kind of a blank but Awkwafina, Leung, Yeoh and [redacted] help a lot. The end is pretty awful, though.
Yeah, I'm pretty much word-for-word with Scott's thoughts on BLACK WIDOW - it's not a great Marvel movie, it's not a good Black Widow movie, and it's not even a particularly good ScarJo action vehicle. LUCY and GHOST IN THE SHELL sure have their flaws, but at least interestingly and stylishly so.
Good point about the lack of fanfare - if you were 13 when IRON MAN came out, you'll have doubled in age in 2021, probably with kids and a mortgage, so even if you were psyched right through to ENDGAME, I would imagine it would be difficult to get yourself pumped to the same degree for a brand new decade-long cycle, now across multiple media to boot. And for 13 year olds now, this whole thing is kinda old hat. If it's the role for children to reject what their parents loved, well, that's the MCU.
I was mid-twenties in 2008, not into comics at all, but hey, it's got Robert Downey Jr AND a badass-looking Jeff Bridges? Edward Norton and William Hurt are in the SAME film? I can probably spare a couple of hours for ANY film that can boast the onscreen credit "with Stellan Skarsgaard". Casting of interesting people was the secret sauce to get people like me involved, but I'm not sure mid-twenties, non-comics folk in 2021 are anticipating something all that feverishly just because Tom Holland or Richard Madden's in it, any more than I did with whatever, say, Jamie Bell was doing in the mid '00s.
I think you’re onto something but it’s worth remembering Marvel has the ability to make Fantastic Four and X-Men movies now. Imagine the years of hype and casting speculation that kick off when those get announced.
True, but maybe it's telling that that seemingly isn't happening already. Covid obviously sapped Marvel's overall momentum so, to me at least, turned the Phase 4 vibe into something more like a new Phase 1, which is a significantly less enticing proposition. Whether or not that's the reason, there just seems to less general Marvel content beyond the immediate window either side of the latest series/film, but maybe that'll change when the schedule is back to what it was.
Thanks for putting The Beta Test on my radar! I liked Thunder Road and Jim Cummings seems like the sort of independent voice I want to support. Sounds like it might make a nice nightcap.
Also, if you're looking to flesh out the Darren McGrady character, the real Darren McGrady has a YouTube channel (featuring clips like "The Royal Chef makes Gumbo - Is It British?" and "You won't believe how The Queen eats pineapple... and other fruits")... I can't go so far as to recommend, but there was one shameful evening where I found him pleasant enough to watch more than I'm willing to admit.
I got to see Spencer last week and loved it. I thought it was good when I left the theater, but it's grown to great in my head since then. Larrain does such a great job of showing the gilded cage around Diana and capturing that desperation to escape. Despite the grand halls Diana is spending so much time in, he keeps things feeling claustrophobic; just about the only times you feel the size of the palace are when that size is used to intimidate and oppress. I think Jackie was probably better overall, but that was already an extraordinarily high bar.
Yeah, it definitely keeps growing in my estimation. If we hadn't done The Shining for The Next Picture Show already, it'd be a good pairing idea. Lots of shots of Diana walking through these immense, terrifying halls, penned into a nightmare maze from which she desperately wants to liberate herself.
Ooh yeah that's a fantastic point of comparison. It really does feel like a horror film at points. And I loved the billiard room scene for how much it made me hate Charles.
This is a great idea for a list: ranking TV episodes/movies/etc by how much they make you hate Prince Charles. Lots of options from the past few years, from The Crown, The Queen, this movie, the Oprah interview, episodes of the podcast You're Wrong About....
I thought of The Shining a lot even in the particular color choices of the paint/wallpaper in that bathroom (with that horrifying looking shower) and particularly the halls leading to the kitchen.
"a cross between Balki Bartokomous, Jar-Jar Binks, and Roger Rabbit" is a hell of a painfully vivid description. Can't help but think that while there is no way I'd enjoy that, it's an interesting stretch for Caleb Landry Jones.
I've not seen THE CIRCLE so can't attest to the nature or success of Hanks' villainy, but he's letting a great evil-beard go to waste. It's crying out for him to try something like Albert Brooks in DRIVE.
Ooh, thanks for that - I do read the Ringer but don't recall seeing this piece. CLOUD ATLAS and PUNCHLINE are in my pile of the Great Unwatched, so might bump them up a few spots.
Just dropping in to say THE CIRCLE is one of the most crazily, inexplicably bad movies I've seen in recent years. Many talented people making many big mistakes.
When did the MCU start to look so terrible? Those early ones are shot on film, and stuff like Captain America: The First Avenger really seems to look good in my memory.
At some point though they switched to digital and even the ones people claim look good don’t usually look good. Like Thor: Ragnarok? People were 100% confusing colorful posters with the film itself. Sure there were a lot of “colors” in it, but they were still completely desaturated.
To be clear I did read your piece and and am not counting Eternals. There’s 0 chance I see it so I can’t really speak to its visual style
Me think change came when they stopped caring about CGI looking real. In first Iron Man, metal suit feel weighty and real — when Tony test out suit and smashes up his sports cars, suit feel like heavy thing that can do damage, and when he fall down, it feel like it hurt.
By Endgame, suit just weightless CGI bullshit (me confidently predict that in 30 years "nanobots are magic" era of movies going to look as cheesy and dumb as "computers are magic" movies from 80s look now), and when Black Widow fall out of 8-story window, and hits her spine on fire escape halfway down, she shakes it off and it completely forgotten. (Granted, that not about look of movie specifically, but someone forgetting to make these things feel lived-in and real. Although it sound like Zhao forgot to do everything but that in this instance.)
"That leaves room for a lot of superpowered energy blasts and a desperate scramble to stop the world from ending: an MCU movie, in other words"
how disappointing. if any MCU movie was going to break from this playbook, I thought it might be Eternals. Now that they've set such a huge stage, I think it would be fascinating to see a straightforward drama set in the MCU.
"a dead-faced, above-the-shoulders, some-mild-thrusting-implied moment that will go over kids’ heads and leave grown-ups wondering why such perfect creations have such uninspired sex"
wow. so much for finally including sexy-times.
Yeah, this was relatively big creative swing for Marvel, both in hiring Zhou and adapting one of Kirby's very heady, convoluted 1970s ideas. So me disappointed that it swing and miss.
Me have really enjoyed and defended MCU thus far, but to keep things going, they really need to figure out how to break out of formula of A) hero has to fight evil, slightly more powerful version of self, or B) hero has to fight supervillain on airborne platform while platform slowly fall to Earth.
Me do like that they built new formula for Black Widow and Shang-Chi, of family drama punctuated by ass-kicking. That work very well, and me would see several more movies on that template. But they also need to be able to keep taking chances like this one, they just need to figure out how to make those movies actually work.
I find it kind of amusing that the much-hyped gambit of hiring Zhao directly following her big Oscar success has resulted in the most tepid critical reception for one of these things... ever?
Scott & Keith, have either of you seen Black Widow or Shang-Chi? If so, how did they stack up? I feel like there hasn't been much fanfare around MCU releases coming out of the pandemic, which makes me wonder if the franchise is losing steam. But I did get the sense people liked the last two more than this one (I haven't seen them).
I haven't seen 'Shang-Chi' yet but I found 'Black Widow' to be in the B-, middle-to-bottom range for MCU movies. Really enjoyed Florence Pugh's performance, and also enjoyed a stretch in a middle were a dysfunctional family comedy suddenly breaks out in the middle of all the big action set pieces. But those set pieces become a problem as the film goes along: The cool thing about 'Black Widow' is that these are essentially human beings, not folks with supernatural powers, so you could stage a more grounded action movie around them. The film opts not to do that, especially in the climax.
I’ve seen BLACK WIDOW but need to see it again. (Not enough sleep on a Sunday afternoon at home = zzz.) Can’t really judge but I like what I saw. SHANG CHI is quite good up to a point. The lead is kind of a blank but Awkwafina, Leung, Yeoh and [redacted] help a lot. The end is pretty awful, though.
Yeah, I'm pretty much word-for-word with Scott's thoughts on BLACK WIDOW - it's not a great Marvel movie, it's not a good Black Widow movie, and it's not even a particularly good ScarJo action vehicle. LUCY and GHOST IN THE SHELL sure have their flaws, but at least interestingly and stylishly so.
Good point about the lack of fanfare - if you were 13 when IRON MAN came out, you'll have doubled in age in 2021, probably with kids and a mortgage, so even if you were psyched right through to ENDGAME, I would imagine it would be difficult to get yourself pumped to the same degree for a brand new decade-long cycle, now across multiple media to boot. And for 13 year olds now, this whole thing is kinda old hat. If it's the role for children to reject what their parents loved, well, that's the MCU.
I was mid-twenties in 2008, not into comics at all, but hey, it's got Robert Downey Jr AND a badass-looking Jeff Bridges? Edward Norton and William Hurt are in the SAME film? I can probably spare a couple of hours for ANY film that can boast the onscreen credit "with Stellan Skarsgaard". Casting of interesting people was the secret sauce to get people like me involved, but I'm not sure mid-twenties, non-comics folk in 2021 are anticipating something all that feverishly just because Tom Holland or Richard Madden's in it, any more than I did with whatever, say, Jamie Bell was doing in the mid '00s.
I think you’re onto something but it’s worth remembering Marvel has the ability to make Fantastic Four and X-Men movies now. Imagine the years of hype and casting speculation that kick off when those get announced.
True, but maybe it's telling that that seemingly isn't happening already. Covid obviously sapped Marvel's overall momentum so, to me at least, turned the Phase 4 vibe into something more like a new Phase 1, which is a significantly less enticing proposition. Whether or not that's the reason, there just seems to less general Marvel content beyond the immediate window either side of the latest series/film, but maybe that'll change when the schedule is back to what it was.
Thanks for putting The Beta Test on my radar! I liked Thunder Road and Jim Cummings seems like the sort of independent voice I want to support. Sounds like it might make a nice nightcap.
Also, if you're looking to flesh out the Darren McGrady character, the real Darren McGrady has a YouTube channel (featuring clips like "The Royal Chef makes Gumbo - Is It British?" and "You won't believe how The Queen eats pineapple... and other fruits")... I can't go so far as to recommend, but there was one shameful evening where I found him pleasant enough to watch more than I'm willing to admit.
I got to see Spencer last week and loved it. I thought it was good when I left the theater, but it's grown to great in my head since then. Larrain does such a great job of showing the gilded cage around Diana and capturing that desperation to escape. Despite the grand halls Diana is spending so much time in, he keeps things feeling claustrophobic; just about the only times you feel the size of the palace are when that size is used to intimidate and oppress. I think Jackie was probably better overall, but that was already an extraordinarily high bar.
Yeah, it definitely keeps growing in my estimation. If we hadn't done The Shining for The Next Picture Show already, it'd be a good pairing idea. Lots of shots of Diana walking through these immense, terrifying halls, penned into a nightmare maze from which she desperately wants to liberate herself.
Ooh yeah that's a fantastic point of comparison. It really does feel like a horror film at points. And I loved the billiard room scene for how much it made me hate Charles.
Looking forward to seeing this next week!
This is a great idea for a list: ranking TV episodes/movies/etc by how much they make you hate Prince Charles. Lots of options from the past few years, from The Crown, The Queen, this movie, the Oprah interview, episodes of the podcast You're Wrong About....
I thought of The Shining a lot even in the particular color choices of the paint/wallpaper in that bathroom (with that horrifying looking shower) and particularly the halls leading to the kitchen.
"a cross between Balki Bartokomous, Jar-Jar Binks, and Roger Rabbit" is a hell of a painfully vivid description. Can't help but think that while there is no way I'd enjoy that, it's an interesting stretch for Caleb Landry Jones.
I've not seen THE CIRCLE so can't attest to the nature or success of Hanks' villainy, but he's letting a great evil-beard go to waste. It's crying out for him to try something like Albert Brooks in DRIVE.
I wrote a piece about Hanks’ darker side and it’s limitations a couple of years ago. Interested to see what he does with Col. Parker. https://www.theringer.com/movies/2019/11/19/20970642/tom-hanks-darker-roles-mr-rogers
Ooh, thanks for that - I do read the Ringer but don't recall seeing this piece. CLOUD ATLAS and PUNCHLINE are in my pile of the Great Unwatched, so might bump them up a few spots.
Just dropping in to say THE CIRCLE is one of the most crazily, inexplicably bad movies I've seen in recent years. Many talented people making many big mistakes.
Oh man, don't tell me that - makes me reeeally want to see it, but it's unavailable here in the UK (to a non-streamer at least).