I watched the latest Doctor Strange film with Jane over the weekend. Her pick, not mine. I've got nothing against the Doc, it's just that I've missed a couple of Marvel movies and wasn't sure I'd be able to keep up. As it turned out, I was fine. The missing jigsaw piece was the television series, Wanda Vision. If you missed that, you were in all sorts of trouble.
Jane hadn’t seen it and turned to me a couple of times in the first half hour with no idea what was going on. Normally, she's the one who has the entire plot figured out by the end of the opening scene.
Anyway, we pushed through to the end. Not something we always do with long movies these days. I often find we have to finish off the last 30 or 40 minutes in the following days.
It was fun. I enjoyed it. There were a couple of call-backs and references I didn't get because I had missed a bunch of Marvel stuff, specifically the last Spiderman movie. And it was a weird choice calling the female lead, America. I know that's a real name, used by real people, but it also felt ham and distracting.
The effects leaned super heavily on CGI, as you’d imagine, and it was pretty good CGI. But I do wonder if the whole MCU experiment has got to the point where it's now excluding people who have not invested a huge amount of time in watching all of the many, many releases. Both cinematic and on TV.
I saw it a week or two ago, and it left me a bit cold. The ending was telegraphed from the second scene, and all. But the real problem for me was that the Marvel universe has been a bit of a super-powers arms race for a while, probably since Captain Marvel, which was a good movie IMO, but leaned on introducing yet another "most powerful avenger". I liked them better in the early days, when an ordinary human with good aim could fit into the team, and none of them could come anywhere close to destroying all possible universes if they threw a tantrum. The banter/dialog was better back then, too. I don't remember any dialog from Strange 2 at all. Probably means that I should watch it again :-)
Even as a kid it gave me the proverbials when comics et al went into multiverses and time travel as it meant they'd run out of storylines and then it just gets too lazy, messy and a pita to keep up with. Kill superman a million times and you still have a trillion more you can use. The marvel stuff isn't too bad - nice, light and fluffy popcorn but i've reached a point where the kids are old enough to go see them themselves, i can save the dosh for something else and stream it (they are up to something like 30 movies plus all the tv series). Used to drive the kids mad when i referred to Thor as Snore. Waititi definitely saved that character. There's a bit in Boy where the titular character is desultorily walking along the road and he picks up a rock and puts it on the top edge of a roadside reflector hoping to catapult it into space and it doesn't even fling back and the disappointment is palpable. Waititi is a bloody genius for those little things. The Boys though . . . . hoo boy.
If you want more multiverse madness and it's still playing in your neck of the woods make all efforts to see Everything Everywhere All At Once. One of the most jaw-droppingly original, funny, absurd, and moving films I've seen in a long time.
I saw it a week or two ago, and it left me a bit cold. The ending was telegraphed from the second scene, and all. But the real problem for me was that the Marvel universe has been a bit of a super-powers arms race for a while, probably since Captain Marvel, which was a good movie IMO, but leaned on introducing yet another "most powerful avenger". I liked them better in the early days, when an ordinary human with good aim could fit into the team, and none of them could come anywhere close to destroying all possible universes if they threw a tantrum. The banter/dialog was better back then, too. I don't remember any dialog from Strange 2 at all. Probably means that I should watch it again :-)
Even as a kid it gave me the proverbials when comics et al went into multiverses and time travel as it meant they'd run out of storylines and then it just gets too lazy, messy and a pita to keep up with. Kill superman a million times and you still have a trillion more you can use. The marvel stuff isn't too bad - nice, light and fluffy popcorn but i've reached a point where the kids are old enough to go see them themselves, i can save the dosh for something else and stream it (they are up to something like 30 movies plus all the tv series). Used to drive the kids mad when i referred to Thor as Snore. Waititi definitely saved that character. There's a bit in Boy where the titular character is desultorily walking along the road and he picks up a rock and puts it on the top edge of a roadside reflector hoping to catapult it into space and it doesn't even fling back and the disappointment is palpable. Waititi is a bloody genius for those little things. The Boys though . . . . hoo boy.
Yeah CGI and Marvel are fun . But for non CGI summer movie Top Gun 2 was fantastic . Cruise calls it a love letter to aviation. Indeed
If you want more multiverse madness and it's still playing in your neck of the woods make all efforts to see Everything Everywhere All At Once. One of the most jaw-droppingly original, funny, absurd, and moving films I've seen in a long time.