Movies Talk Archive May 01 2016 to May 31 2016

26 May 2016 09:21:05
I seem to be the only person in the world who thought Civil War was a bad movie? Now don't get me wrong there's worse movies out there but I just did not get the movie, everyone in the theatre was cheering ever minute and me and my girlfriend were sitting there expressionless. I love marvel movies I've seen the majority in the cinema and The Winter Soldier is one of my favorite movies but I just thought Civil War was boring it was filled with unnecessary dialogue and basically there was no repurcussions. Personally I thought BvS was superb and Xmen apocalypse was great, and that's coming from someone whocant stand Bryan Singer. Just wondering am I the only person with this view.

{Ed001's Note - if we were all the same it would be boring. One friend of mine hated Civil War because she couldn't stand the idea of the superheros fighting each other. She liked Apocalypse as well.}

03 May 2016 10:57:10
Saw the Captain America:Civil War this weekend and thought I'd share a review.

It's fascinating when rival studios go into direct competition with each other. From White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen through Antz and A Bug's Life to Armageddon and Deep Impact, studios push out films with almost the exact same premise which come out within a few months of each other. This year it's Warner Brothers/DC vs Disney/Marvel putting out Batman V Superman:Dawn of Justice (BvS) against Captain America:Civil War (CW).

It's difficult not to view CW as a torpedo expressly designed to sink the fledgling DC universe, arguably the biggest financial threat to the money train that Marvel's currently riding. The basic premise for both films is that two superheros battle over an ideological difference. DC bodged their effort, the central conflict was contrived, the character motivations lacked logic and world building swamped the story. Marvel sensed a knock out opportunity and have waded into the fight with a film featuring no less than 12 heroes.

I'm a marvel fan boy, a paid up member who's seen all 13 films in the cinema but I recognise that the quality of the films varies. Age of Ultron was a disappointment which suffered many of the same flaws of BvS, could CW be a return to form? I'm delighted to say yes. The purpose of CW is to set up a conflict between Captain America, Iron Man and the various characters that support them. The film lives and dies by this conflict and it's based on regulation, should the Avengers be free to act of their own accord or should they answer to a higher power? In the real world the answer's obvious but in the Marvel world, where Captain America is able to be morally perfect, it's a legitimate debate. Each hero gets their own motivation for their position and none feel forced. Of course we don't want the film to be a bunch of superheros sitting round a table debating ethics so a spark is needed to turn the conflict physical and that's where Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier comes in.

Once the lines in the sand are drawn the two sides square off over the fate of Bucky, is he a vicious assassin who needs to be brought to justice or a brain washed innocent? This leads to the film's main set piece a fight between the main characters plus a number of others to flesh out the battle. This set piece is one of the film's highlights whilst simultaneously being it's weakest point, whilst it's spectacular it doesn't serve the story as anything but an excuse for a massive fight. The characters Hawkeye and Antman are parachuted in and both have excellent moments but neither need to be there. A further two new characters are introduced, of the two the Black Panther comes off best, his introduction is natural and the character is interesting enough to get me excited about his solo film. Spiderman is more jarring, it's clear he was added to the film late in the process and his introductory scene really hurts the film's pacing. Having said that his contribution to the main fight is great and there are signs that Marvel will re-invigorate a character that's creatively in a rut.

With the fight out of the way the film can return to it's central conflict, Cap vs Iron Man. Chris Evans and Robert Downey Jnr are the heart of this film and they're both excellent. Marvel struggled with Captain America initially, his first solo film was a well made but a bog-standard adventure and he was arguably the weakest character in Avengers:Assemble but since then the studio and Chris Evans have nailed it. Not only have they perfected the super soldier action scenes but Cap has been fleshed out with the interaction of his golden age morals with the murky world of modern politics. Despite the abundance of secondary characters this is definitely his film and Chris Evans carries it effortlessly. Whilst Cap is ostensibly the hero of the film, Iron Man's actions are completely understandable and in no way does he come off as a villain. Robert Downy Jnr plays Iron Man as a weary hero wracked with guilt who's just trying to do the right thing and his frustration that Cap won't come down from the moral high ground to his level is played perfectly. The fact that it's heart breaking to see these two characters fall out is testament to the quality of the film.

Some have called Captain America:Civil War the best marvel film yet but, whilst it's very good, to take that title I'd want to see an edit half an hour shorter with Ant-man, Hawkeye, and Spiderman removed. It's still far superior to BvS though and DC will have to do something very special with Wonder Women and the Justice League to claw back some ground.

{Ed001's Note - I am really looking forward to seeing this now, cheers. Excellent review.}

03 May 2016 12:41:40
Cheers Ed, if you like the Marvel films you'll love it.

{Ed001's Note - I love the Marvel films mate, so I was excited about seeing it anyway.}

03 May 2016 23:06:30
Great review of the film, also looking forward to the black panther now after his part in this

15 May 2016 10:26:07
Personally I feel that this was the best 'ensemble' marvel movie by a fair stretch. Before the movie I was worried how they would build a story around so many characters but they pulled it off to a tee. The fight scene I thought was brilliant, it gave you what you wanted as well as setting up the rest of the film. I thought ant mans and Spider-Man's roles stood out in particular.

As a whole the movie flowed effortlessly and I have to disagree about the removal of the characters, I am now very interested about Spider-Man's solo film, Hawkeye has become a good character and one the fans are invested in without getting a solo film. And ant man, the one that I thought would flop and be outshone by the others arguably stole the show and added the one liners that marvel is famous for without forcing them down are throat, like the avengers movies.


Now to the comparison between marvel and dc, currently it is a no contest. Dc and BvS in particular felt incredibly rushed, they crammed so many characters in and because the fans have no investment in the majority of the characters it just didn't work. However I feel it can only be judged once the other Dc films come out as it was clearly laying foundations for the universe. Switch back to cap vs ironman and it worked because the whole movie franchise felt it was building up to this, we didn't need ten minutes of 'this is ant man and this is why he is important' he could just slot into the film just like the other characters.

DC can learn a lot from marvel, but because it's playing catch up they tried to quickly to have a similar film to cap vs iron man when in reality they should of just laid the ground work with the solo films and build up to BvS.

Finally, special mention to the black panther, a new character in a film like that could easily have been glossed over, but he managed to play the part in such a way that you want to see more.

{Ed001's Note - the brother in law took me to see this, loved it. Spiderman is now a great character, for the first time ever I am looking forward to a Spidey movie. I didn't feel Ant Man was as bad as his solo film, but I didn't see him as a good character and the super size thing didn't work for me. The only good bit was after that when he was put down, as it summed up how I feel about him as a character. Just an annoyance, rather than someone who improves it.

I love Black Panther from the comics, so I was really glad to see they made him work and really gave him a character of his own.}

15 May 2016 12:17:15
Seeing how Spider-Man works maybe fox will let the other characters get involved, but I can't see that ever happening.

I think I like ant man because I expected it to fail so badly, just thought it was going to be a gimmick in both his solo film and in the new movie.

Can't wait for phase three of marvel, but also looking forward to suicide squad as the film as so much potential.

Hope things worked out with the funds ed001!

{Ed001's Note - I still feel Ant Man is a gimmick, an annoying one, sorry. I just don't like the character at all. I am also looking forward to Suicide Squad and the next set of Marvel films.

Things are good thanks to everyone on the sites. Out of trouble now, just got to pay back what I borrowed, which shouldn't be an issue as I have paid the rent for the next 4 months now and then off to stay with the auld folks to save more.}

15 May 2016 13:36:14
No need to apologise, these sites are opinions after all, and good to hear about the finances.

16 May 2016 16:00:10
Few things I would like to add to your synopsis. Firstly the two films had such different origins to the eventual films. BvS was an ensemble of a number of DC story lines whereas civil war was an edit of a marvel story. Civil war original spanned something in the region of 120 different comics and was an event that took over marvel for a long period of time, BvS main plot is based on a few pages of 1 comic. This difference alone is going to result in two extremely separate film results. Secondly BvS is a rushed piece of work and some scenes come off as extremely poorly executed, eg the 'introduction' of flash and aquaman. However the studio had admitted its intentions were rushed, man of steel 2 was canned, and I think a solo batman film was originally intended to air prior to BvS. The lack of both meant the the universe had to be shoe horned into 1 film. Thirdly As I haven't seen civil war yet I can't comment on the film, but in the comics there were 4 moments that were instrumental in the stories progression. Now I'm not sure if they are spoilers, I know 1 won't be due to an actors contract length and 1 won't due to the characters not being introduced yet but rather than state them explicitly I will say there are 1 catastrophe, 2 deaths and 1 demasking. Each of these moments change the path of a multitude of heroes and add the complexity needed to the story. Now I may be being a comic nerd but I can't see the story being given justice it's the exclusion of at least 2 of these events. The catastrophe can be replaced with the events of winter soldier and age of ultron, and one of the deaths just results in the registrar being scraped so it may be the concluding chapter but could be deemed unnecessary. The death of 1 character is so necessary to the original story it's crazy if it's not there and the demasking is the catalyst for a number different characters change in opinion.

Now civil war appears to be a successful film, story telling wise, especially compared to BvS. However the aspects of the storyline that I know are missing has made me less than eager to see it than I was for BvS. The only thing I know for sure is that these films aren't actually competing against each other. In fact I would go as far to say that each studio is hoping the other has similar levels of success as this will continue the demand for more films.

Now I can go in and on and on but even I feel like this is a waste of everyone's time already. Enjoy the film, or don't, cest le vie.

{Ed001's Note - actually I found it interesting.}

17 May 2016 16:26:33
El Paso, I understand where you're coming from but remember this isn't an adaption of the comic, it's a story very much in the film universe which takes inspiration from the comic. You could argue the films need a big death in general to introduce some vulnerability to the characters but it's not imperative to this particular story.

17 May 2016 19:29:37
As I stated, I've not seen civil war and so don't have a complete knowledge of the story used.

However the deaths in the comic were so pivotal and one was especially so important to the development of the story arc on both sides of the pro/anti registration camps that it is hard to imagine it being as powerful a film as it could have been. The second death was the catalyst for the future of marvel comics and could have been for the mcu also. I am fairly certain that neither will take place in the film, the first as the character in question doesn't have the same depth or standing in the cinematic universe. The second will be due to a characters contract length extending for another 3 films (I believe) including civil war.

It is a shame that the story won't follow the comics as they were so dramatic. The best part of the comics were the lack of right and wrong. Instead it was 'what's right for you isn't right for me' and one of the best executed examples was the dynamic between Luke cage and cap, with cage expressing that caps ideaology was more right to him than Starks. All taken place over the course of almost an entire comic in the basement of a house in New York.

However as I conceded before, the story can be adapted and characters/events can be changed. It's just there were some events that will be hard to replicate/replace with the same impact, for me and those who read the comics, and as such I'm not as eagerly anticipating this film as others in the mcu.

18 May 2016 11:59:09
Spiderman was probably my favourite part lol

{Ed001's Note - I thought he was finally the character he is in the comics, or at least how I remembered it.}