Not sure if you fellows were aware, but this film came out last weekend. Just thought you dudes should know, ya know, Guys ...




And SPOILER ALERT Spider-Man and Black Panther are both in it too, and Ant Man. Which is kinda cool because you would think they would need to do some team balancing, but the team that gets both the new guys already has Vision, who is like Superman, basically. It's got a weird plot about some guy manipulating them, but the fights are kinda cool, like a big fighting game, like Injustice: Gods Among Us, but for Marvel, ya know?







P.S. Captain America makes out with his girlfriend's niece.

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

Turned it off after 10 minutes. Gobbledigook.

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"When I was a kid I always thought Chewy and Lando were brothers."

Probably going to see it with my daughter tomorrow night. I wanted to see it earlier but was traveling. Really looking forward to it.

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

To give a 'real' review... it was OK. The setup for the internal Avenger conflict wasn't very well done, and could have been resolved easily. It also left a lot of situations hanging that should have been resolved within this story. But, there were many fun superhero scenes and interactions. I do like the new Spider-Man and look forward to his film. An actual teenager playing a teenager (at least when they filmed this one), it is refreshing. They stayed very true to the character from the original comic (changing some events and supporting characters), and had his fighting personality flow naturally from that.

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

I've generally liked all the Marvel movies so I know going in that I'll like it. I read the comic event when it happened but I understand that this is borrowing the concept but not the plot so to speak. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing Black Panther in action as he's an old favorite. Kind of bummed he's on the side of registration but it's to be expected.

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

It's MUCH different than the comic, most pointedly in that they actually got the "no one is wrong" aspect is right, unlike in the comic where Tony and crew are fascist assholes. Also in that you actually feel the emotional stakes here. It seems like it's going to be a big story, what with all the characters and the giant fight everyone is talking about, but it's actually rather small and intimate and about the characters more than the spectacle. The movie is a total bummer, but not in a "grim and gritty" kind of way. It's a bummer because you see characters you love put through the emotional wringer.

If you've been invested in the Marvel movies, you'll enjoy it. If they are just casual entertainment to you, you'll like the action but will be bored by the rest.

Also:



It's not quite this straightforward is all I'm saying.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

See, I didn't feel it because the situation pulling them apart could have been so easily resolved with a little talk.

Very true. Cary, I think you will like Black Panther here very much. He also has one of the best lines in the film...

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

In addition...

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We'll pray. For the last time, we'll pray...

In that moment, yes, I can kinda go along with it, it is a stretch, but OK he's emotional, but I was talking about well before that, when they are talking about ...

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

I see what you mean and I can't tell you you're wrong for feeling that way. Valid impression.

For me, I think that stuff played out fine. Saw it again last night, and the stuff you're talking about


I get where you're coming from, though. The "if they'd worked a little harder at it they could have resolved things before the conflict" argument is valid. I don't think that issue is NEARLY as egregious as that other hero vs. hero movie, though. In this one, it felt very natural to me. You wanted to slap some sense into both Tony and Cap, but you -- or I, at least -- understood how and why they followed the roads they did.

But if it didn't work for you, I get that.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

My daughter and I both liked it a lot. I agree that it could probably have been resolved prior to the showdown but again, where's the fun in that? I'd have to agree with Ericubus' rating. Like Ultron, this kind of left me feeling nothing at the end. Unlike Ant-Man or Winter Soldier where I walked out feeling like I'd just had a blast. This was very good, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't as wowed as others seem to have been.

I do love Black Panther though and I really like seeing Vision evolve. I'm also glad that they left things the way they did. That's still in keeping with the comic scenario.



They better hurry up and get to Infinity War though. Some of these people are looking a little old in their close ups. Don Cheadle toward the end looked every bit of his age and granted, that was a moment when he was supposed to look defeated but still.

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

I sort of half watched this because with the internet, all things are possible.

Random thoughts:

Was there a point at all to the Kyrgyzstan/marvelopolis guy that He kept showing up through the movie but it struck me as the sort of thing that should have been left on the editing room floor.



Ant Man - the only Marvel(TM) film I haven't seen to date but Paul Rudd's small (heh, small!) part in this leaves me wanting to see more.

Also lots of parallels between this and Batman V Superman. In addition to treading similar territory, both and . Additionally fun that both Batman and Iron Man love their moms. Like, moms are what brought together the final act in both films. Weird. Were screen writers sharing notes or something?

In sum, one really good fight scene, some faux drama, and a lot of zoning out. 2.75/5. This is probably better than the Avengers films, for what it's worth.

I can't really argue your point about the marvelopolis guy because:



However, I can highly recommend Ant-Man. I saw it in the theater and liked it but on second viewing it jumped up into my top three. It's a very fun film and while the origin story formula thing is still there, it feels different from the other films. It's basically a caper movie with weird science.

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

SPOILERS

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You guys are so off on Zemo I don't even know where to start, mostly because I can't wrap my head around what you're saying.

In just a few short scenes he managed to become one of Marvel's most interesting villains (though in all fairness Marvel hasn't really hit it out of the park on the villain front). The plot can't move forward as it did without him. He's essential to bringing Panther into the fray, putting Bucky on the run, revealing the full truth about Tony's parents, getting Cap to become adversarial with Tony, making Cap a fugitive, and getting Tony to try and kill Bucky.

He destroyed the Avengers. That wasn't going to happen without his machinations. Without him, Cap just refuses to sign the Accords and walks away. Bucky remains a fugitive flying way under the radar. panther is not involved with the Avengers. Etc. Siberia was merely the culmination of everything he had been doing.

Take him out and almost everything that happens after Witch's accident never takes place. They have a debate about the Accords, and that's it. It's all set in motion due to him.

I get not liking him as a character. Taste is taste. Can't really excise him from the story without rewriting it from top to bottom, though, and in that case the only way you get the "civil war" is by writing all the characters out-of-character, which is what happened in the comic (which was a good idea badly done).

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

Zemo had the personality of a dust bunny. Dude didn't even have a maniacal laugh, WTF?!?

In the film, he started off interesting, but then deadpanned his way through 1.5 hours.

_________________
-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

I thought he was interesting because he wasn't evil, he was just hurt. He was just a guy. A guy with great skills, yeah -- he's revealed to have lead an elite secret intelligence squad -- but ultimately he's just a quiet, patient guy seeking vengeance. No scenery chewing, no sights set on conquering the world. He just wanted to cause emotional pain to people who caused him emotional pain.

It's one of the strengths of the movie, I think. For all the zillion characters in it and the super mega epic fight in the middle, the movie is oddly small and personal. The stakes have nothing to do with saving the world. They are intimate and personal.

He'll be back, I think, and he may be fantastic in his return thanks to what amounts to an origin story for him.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

This.

You're right in that he's a catalyst for things to go down the way they did, but he's a boring catalyst. I get what you're saying in that he plays a part in the way the story is written, but honestly any number of alternative and more menacing villains could have set all of those things in motion.

But if the writers are completely sold on Zemo, that's fine. I don't need him to be a cackling, maniacal villain. I'd just like him to show some sort of emotion as this plays out because dude literally had one expression the entire film.

Basically, if you reverse the roles he's playing the Denzel Washington part in a revenge action flick. Emote some goddamn it. Denzel would!

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

I think more menace would have detracted and distracted from where the focus should be: on the personal conflict. With this story, we shouldn't be worried about the bad guy, we should be worried about the growing divide between these characters we like. We should be worried about whether or not Tony is going to find out about what Bucky did. If the bad guy is more menacing, that pulls focus from the heart and soul of the story.

Calm, pained, and a touch of mystery was, IMO, the right choice here.

Your milage, of course, may vary.

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"Hitler had a pretty good idea there." - Eric

I was kidding about the maniacal laugh, but he never really showed the level of hurt or even hatred for these people it had to take to be motivated to do what he did. I have no issue with him being cold and calculating while carrying out his plan, someone with that level of training and experience probably would be, but show some of the level of depth and pain he had to feel to get there. A 1,000 yard stare, something. He was just . . . there. It was like, "Cut to plot device . . . 3 .2 .1 . . . and now back to the interesting people."

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-These are the demands and sayings of Ericubus.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. - George Lucas 1988

That's what was missing in my opinion. He had the calm down in spades. Yet even when they first showed him listening to his wife's message, he was calm. I didn't see hurt, or even him steeling his resolve to push his plan to completion. He was just "there" with a phone to his ear.

I'm not arguing about what the script/story needed. I agree that Zemo's character should work, but I'm disappointed in the portrayal.

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"Watch my stuff." - Monterey Jack

Like I said, I was half-watching the film. Anytime that guy was on screen, back to the internet because it seemed like fuck-all happened. He was a villain? Weird.

I enjoyed this aspect of the film too, especially the misdirection of making it seem like he's all gung-ho about re-activating the iced Winter Soldiers, only to have that be a giant red herring. So many of these Marvel movies end with, as one critic described it, "Big Things crashing into other Big Things", so I like the fact that the event that crippled and broke the Avengers into two squabbling factions wasn't the usual plot for world domination or mass extinction, just one guy with a grudge. He's not even doing it for some supervillain agenda, he just wants to spread around the pain they caused him. And this works because we've known these characters for the better part of a decade at this point, unlike Batman V Superman, where Bats and Supes become mortal enemies and then bros within the course of a single movie, with ridiculous motivations fueling both turns (the whole "Our Moms have the same name!" bullshit). Seeing Steve and Tony develop as characters and friends over the course of multiple movies made it truly effective and painful to see them forced to come to blows over their conflicting personalities. Shit just got real.

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We'll pray. For the last time, we'll pray...

I'll take that over Jesse Eisenberg's embarrassing mugging in Batman V Superman.

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We'll pray. For the last time, we'll pray...

Watched it last night. It's a fun film. Probably the top of my list out of all of these Marvel films.