Lurker > Inviso

PerfectChaosZ posted...

Uhhh I was there when the fight for gay marriage started on the ground floor when there were like five of us getting spat on by the public you so want to court and did activism working for many many years to get it passed so choose your words carefully. There have been a million stories. But I remember this one particular instance, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it!" was much maligned as too aggressive, and people in the community just wanted us to tone done being gay to appease the non-LGBT watching but that doesn't work because it doesn't matter how you act it's your policy that they don't like and anything else is just an excuse to not like it. They will find another excuse.

Honestly, gay marriage is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. In 2008, California had a proposition on the ballot to legalize gay marriage. 2008 was also the year Barack Obama was on the ballot for the presidency. And in 2008, voters turned out en masse (especially minority voters) to vote for Barack Obama...which, despite him being a liberal candidate, also led to the gay marriage legalization failing at the polls. Essentially, the opportunity to vote for Barack Obama inspired a large number of minority voters to turn out compared to their regular numbers...but those voters are historically religious conservatives, and their inspiration to vote led to them turning out to vote against gay marriage, which was a policy in stark contrast to their religious conservative values.

If you support a policy that has minority support in the overall population, then inspiring apathy among your detractors is a far more effective strategy than trying to convert them to your cause. It's the reason the GOP is still a relevant political party, since all they need to do is make Democrats feel like everything is hopeless and nothing will ever change, and their reduce voters turnout and win elections.

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The way I see it, the vast majority of America supports cops. Loves cops, even. Hence just how many prime time television shows glorify cops and paint them all as heroes, protecting and serving us (while very rarely touching on any issues that ACAB is a response to.)

However, one of the good things about our country being such shit is that the population is largely apathetic about issues that don't directly affect them. So, despite being major cop fanboys, the voting populous isn't going to turn out in their favor just on a whim. So a targeted activism campaign that works on both informing malleable minds and avoiding aggravating people can pay dividends.

But when you adopt a message like ACAB, that comes across as extremely militant, and turns you into a direct and open enemy of that vast majority of population who supports the police, inspiring them to turn out AGAINST you as an existential threat to their beloved cops.

Basically, if you are ACAB, you're going to be anti-police regardless of whether or not you shout it from the rooftops. What you need is for the majority ACAH (All Cops Are Heroes) crowd to stay complacent and apathetic so they don't turn out to fight you in matters you're passionate about.

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I don't see a problem at all, Tony. I agree with the message or ACAB and BLM. But I'm not who you need to appeal to. You need the vast majority of the country to be onboard with that messaging, and they're just not.

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Tali nuuuuuuu

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Peace___Frog posted...

I can't find the source right now but it was something along the lines of, over 1,800 of Baltimore's current police force has at least one complaint lodged against them - and there's only 1,900 members of said force?

I understand Chris' desire for a more "pure" and "specific" argument here, but ACAB grew out of of frustration to the common refrain that it's "just a few bad apples." Those few will ruin the whole bunch, hence ACAB.

What Chris is saying is that, while you are completely justified in thinking ACAB, the message alienates the majority of the population who are easily cowed into thinking that the police do nothing but protect and serve. They immediately view ACAB supporters as the REAL bad guys, which further empowers the bastards cops who get to play the victim against the mean old internet mob.

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OUTLIERS:

Eddv - 57
PrinceKaro - 34
Johnbobb - 32
BetrayedTangy - 23
Lopen - 23
GavsEvans123 - 21
Mr Crispy - 21
VengefulKaelee - 20
HanOfTheNekos - 18
Illuminatusbubu - 18
Raka Putra - 18
Maniac64 - 17
Snake5555555555 - 17
TomNook - 17
Whiskey Nick - 17
Cybat - 16
ScepterOfLove - 16
StifledSilence - 16
Corrik7 - 15
Inviso - 15
XIII Rocks - 15
CoolCly - 14
Jesse Custer - 14
Red13n - 14
Paratroopa1 - 13
Sheep007 - 12
NBIceman - 11
Anagram - 10
Mega Mana - 8
MetalDK - 7
MetalmindStats - 7
ZenOfThunder 2

NBIce makes a BIG jump there and is no longer even in the bottom 5 for outlier scores, while Zen gets another spot-on to maintain his sole status at the bottom of the list. Meanwhile, Eddv further extends his lead by losing a third top ten member in the bottom 5 of the list, and Karo/Johnbobb duke it out for second place right behind him with similarly high placements.

Spoiler for Number 17: Just like is happening with this place, this movie was one of the four movies following in the immediate aftermath of an Avengers film.

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Inviso
The issue I have with this movie is that it feels largely like action for actions sake. The film opens with a raid on a Hydra facility, which introduces Wanda and Pietro as two of three new Avengers joining the team in this movie. And then for reasons largely unexplained (I know theyre explained, but the movie does a poor job of it), Tony has more PTSD over events that he supposedly dealt with in Iron Man 3, and creates a robot to defend the world. But the robot, Ultron, goes crazy and determines that humanity is the only threat to Earth, and this happens so fast that his motivations are never given cause to build and explain themselves. Its like Tony Stark builds the movies villain, who is a villain solely to facilitate the plot of the movie. The stakes never feel developed enough to justify the level of hype this movie is supposed to inspire. Heck, even the face turn from Wanda/Pietro happens SO quickly that it feels tacked on. So, in essence, the only thing Age of Ultron has going for it is some kickass action, which again, is fine. Its cool, even. But this is just a very flat movie and lacks personality otherwise.

Lopen
"Hey, look at me. It's your fault, it's everyone's fault, who cares. Are you up for this? Are you? Look, I just need to know cause the city is flying. Ok, look, the city is flying, we're fighting an army of robots, and I have a bow and arrow. None of this makes sense. But I'm going back out there cause it's my job. Ok, and I can't do my job and babysit. Doesn't matter what you did, or what you were. If you go out there, you fight and you fight to kill. Stay in here, you're good. I'll send your brother to come find you. But if you step out that door, you are an Avenger. All right, good chat."

That right there is the one good thing I have to say about Age of Ultron. And you know I'm all about positivity. So I figured I'd start with that.

My broader feeling on the movie is that Age of Ultron takes what many people who are down on Marvel movies call a weakness in the MCU writing and makes it an actual weakness. EVERYONE in the movie is a quip machine. While I disagree this is a problem with MCU writing in general, it does actually hurt Ultron because what makes MCU writing work is the villain is generally taking things seriously so there's still some gravitas to things. Ultron is joking right along with the heroes in this one. And yeah people are like "well it's cause he's got Tony's personality" and that ain't an excuse man. I can't possibly care about what's going on in this movie cause nobody in the movie does. It's just an endless string of explosions and banter that eventually concludes and is completely unnecessary viewing. I guess it introduces Vision and Scarlet Witch, but you can just skip this and watch Civil War instead. Just grating to watch for me.

Raka Putra
My least favorite Avengers movie for sure. It just didn't really sell the hype of seeing the Avengers together and Ultron was such a random villain, I feel. Like he came and went in the blink of an eye compared to Loki or Thanos. I don't have much else to say.

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HanOfTheNekos
Most of the MCU movies are watchable. I would say most are enjoyable, or at least neutral. I think two are actively bad. Depending on my mood, this is the better one.

Thats not to say a whole lot. The movie starts by forgetting everything done in previous films - people didnt go their separate ways. Tony didnt get rid of most of his suits. Banner isnt gaining control. Its like they ignored every movie between Avengers 1 and this one.

Ultron just kind of happens. His introduction sucks. His mouth is weird. Ulysses Klaw use is fun though. Why can Ultron just make bits of the road blast up? Like, what? Come on. And 4/5ths of his consciousness are uploaded into this new body (which is clearly Vision)... what does that even mean? Shouldn't the body be more conscious than Ultron at this point? He's an AI, can't he self-replicated? How does this even work? Seems kinda dumb.

They don't really sell you on the stakes. Ultron was a threat... but a very contained threat. How do you have an AI created by the Mind Stone put himself through the entire internet and end up contained to his own constructs? Is that hubris? I guess I got the part where Vision touched him and that supposedly cut him off from the greater network, but that feels kinda lame. Woulda made more sense for him to "show the Avengers what he could do" by hooking up to the network at the tower and blocking him off there.

Winter Soldier destroyed SHIELD... and Age of Ultron basically brought it back. What was the point? This movie should have been Avengers dealing with a world where the organization that created them had fallen, and how they hold up their own identity in a world where nobody trusts SHIELD, and wouldn't trust the Avengers Initiative, a part of SHIELD, anyway.

Why even do the whole HYDRA taking down SHIELD from the inside if you're going to just say "oh well that was the last of HYDRA, it was just von Strucker, they had an Infinity Stone but did nothing with it". At least throw us a curveball and show us that Strucker was behind Ultron in the first place. Make Ultron a result of HYDRA and make it be worth something. Bring back Red Skull or give us Madame HYDRA or something. Give us continuity. Not "oh here's one of the biggest bads in Marvel we can use him as a transitional villain instead of developing earth or Thanos more. Nah, you just get Ultron."

Like what the heck.

That was one hell of a rant, let's talk about some other things this movie didn't do well.

Whedon knew what he was doing. He set Clint up to die. He knew the audience would know it. Just to fakeout with Quicksilver... I guess we were supposed to have a lot of tension built up waiting on him to die... but they waited too long. The climax was already way past the tipping point... at that point, killing someone off is cheap. Avengers 1 was perfect with when it took out Coulson. This was... dumb.

And what the hell is with Banner and Widow? Who said "hey, let's go with this angle"? It wasn't natural. It made no sense when she was talking about running away with him. It was just plain dumb. And now Hulk had an opportunity to run away so that he can... randomly show up in Thor 3? Am I right? I bet he doesn't even show in Civil War. I guess we can eagerly await a stupid Planet Hulk movie, right?

The joke about Cap not liking bad language was drawn out too much. I completely get what people were saying about the humor in this movie. It didn't land. Something went wrong in the process of creating this movie, and I don't know what, but it felt so much like it was a Whedon movie that was trying to be itself and just couldn't fit the bill.

There were still some good lines, but even they felt weird and almost tone-deaf during the film.

I don't think I really got the deal with Tony this movie. They set him up, thanks to Wanda, to create Ultron... but why? Why did she do it? What was the point of her and Pietro anyway? They hated Stark, but cared about people. Why did they fuck around in the beginning of the movie? Why was she played to be weird but then wasn't that weird? Why didn't she and Pietro just kill Tony?

Let's talk about the good things:

1. Thor fucking kicked ass and saved this movie from being a complete disaster. The jokes surrounding people lifting his hammer, them returning to it at the end. His vision, him meeting with Selvig. His general combat. Him finding out that the Infinity Stones were in play and seeking that out. I am a little confused with why Thanos and the Stones would pop up in his fear vision anyway... that implies that he has some deep-set knowledge of it. But who is the purple man in the floating chair?

That's my entire list.

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GavsEvans123
Avengers: Age of Ultron (because A few days of Ultron, like, a week tops doesnt sound nearly as impressive) is rather disappointing, and is inferior to the original overall, which I didnt rate too highly (spoiler alert assuming the first film hasnt dropped yet). Thats not to say that it doesnt try though. The typical sequel approach of more characters, more plots and more big action setpieces is here, and some aspects are better this time, to be fair.

Hawkeye got shafted in the last Avengers, but Age of Ultron makes up for it. He carries this film, with plenty of interaction between him and other characters, like Black Widow and the twins. Hes also seemingly the most competent member of the team here. This is likely the closest hell ever get to having his own film, and he makes the most of it.

I used to not mind Ultron, but I didnt like him as much this time, because his jokeyness and quips diminish all the tension that was so effectively built up for him in the trailer (which worked so well that it briefly turned slower, darker versions of classic songs and nursery rhymes into a trailer clich). We were promised the Terminator and instead we got Bender. That said, I did laugh at his exasperated Oh for Gods sake! near the end when Hulk jumps into his plane. The scenes that do try to play him more seriously clash tonally with him being silly in the rest of the film, like the groan-worthy little people bit that brings about mood whiplash mid-scene. Baron Strucker also disappointingly jobs to hype him up, like how that Mouth of Sauron type guy Loki was hanging out with in the Avengers jobbed to hype up fellow chump Ronan.

The romance subplot between Hulk and Black Widow is a crack pairing that comes out of nowhere, since their most notable previous interaction involved Black Widow being terrified for her life as Hulk rampaged after her. For extra weirdness, this is fresh off Winter Soldier, where she spent a lot of time with Captain America, and Betty Ross isnt mentioned at all, which one would expect Bruce to at least think about as he was letting another woman close to him. Nevertheless, even if the idea doesnt work, I can at least appreciate what it was going for with trying to create a bond between two emotionally broken people, and Lego Avengers at least foreshadowed it a little thanks to the benefit of hindsight. (On a side note, Lego Avengers is one of my least favourite Lego games because I think its too big for how simple the gameplay is, and the unlockables are unusually lame. I guess Travellers Tales wanted to make a point of using different characters from Lego Marvel, but the upshot is that Lego Avengers is left with D-listers at best, and the only notable names are the handful of brand-new characters who had debuted since the previous game, like Kamala Khan and Jane Foster Thor.)

The action and setpieces are the most successful element of the film. These are great to look at and are very impressive in their scale, with the highlight being the big grudge match between Hulk and Iron Mans Hulkbuster armour, although the climax does feel a bit overly familiar. Its too similar to the first film, except with robots instead of aliens, and its the fourth MCU film in a row to end with a giant thing falling from the sky. Then again, it does set itself apart with scenes of the Avengers working together to save civilians caught in the battle.

I mentioned it earlier with Ultron, but the biggest problem with the film is that because everyone talks almost entirely in witty quips, you dont feel the stakes. Its funny at first, but it quickly gets tiresome, especially when characters start being dumbed down from how they are usually (looking at you, Caps Language! running gag), although there are a few good ones here and there (The entire film was building up to Visions I was born yesterday line, and no-one can convince me otherwise). At least the first film took itself seriously in a few scenes, a lesson thats been forgotten this time around.

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Mr Crispy
Age of Ultron wants to raise the stakes from stopping aliens from taking over earth to preventing human extinction, introduce new characters, and lay some more groundwork about the Infinity Stones for the Infinity Gauntlet arc. But it's just hard to care about any of it. I actually skipped this until about the time Infinity War came out and I could catch it on cable, and I don't really feel like I missed anything too important, just checking off points on a list to set up for future films like iterating the character and Infinity Stone counts.

There's a lot of outright bad or disappointing points tanking Age of Ultron hard. Backpedaling on Tony's character development from Iron Man 3 is disappointing enough, but "Let's put the AI controlling the alien army into our automated defense system built to defend against said alien army." is simply indefensible Bubsy level of WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG???? After all the build up of Hydra in Winter Soldier, it just gets unceremoniously sweeped under the rug so Marvel Studios doesn't have to feature them in any more movies going forward. The whole concept of Bruce and Natasha is simply the worst pairing in the MCU (even if they did interact with each other some back in the first Avengers), and is probably more to get rid of Hulk before Civil War.

Ultron wasn't bad (probably around the middle for MCU villains), but Wanda and Vision aren't very interesting. Some people think Age of Ultron gets too jokey, but it never really bothered me (other than the prima nocta line coming off as just creepy). The running gag of teasing Cap about being all "language~" is goofy, but the running gag of Rhodes telling war stories only for everyone else to be "So?" amused me. Everyone getting drunk and trying to lift Thor's hammer is a bit dumb, but it does tease Cap being able to use it in Endgame which actually was kind of cool.

Paratroopa1
It's surprising that in a series of films as vibrant and exciting and fast-paced as the MCU, one of the Avengers movies would be such a joyless, dull slog as this one. It's dark, brooding, overwrought, and not very much fun - it feels like they spend nearly the entire second act of the movie just being sad at Hawkeye's house. The villain's dull, the action scenes are uninspired, and the stakes feel weirdly weightless despite what's happening. The movie focuses a lot on the heroes' traumas but they mostly just feel like low-grade stressed out by their weird visions more than anything. Still, it's fun to see all the heroes together, so I don't completely hate the movie, but I think the party scene where everyone tries to pick up Thor's hammer is probably the only memorable scene in the entire thing. This film has the tone and pacing of a DCEU movie.

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ZenOfThunder
My girlfriend tapped out of this franchise after this one. It's pretty bad. I still joke around about Thor being like "yo I gotta wade into a pool of water and scream for a little bit just write me outta these next few scenes."

Anagram
I went into this movie with low expectations, and they were met. I remember how the end battle sequence is supposed to be this epic team-up of all of the heroes as they show off their stuff, and its just noise.

Snake5555555555
One of the MCUs few colossal misfires, what shouldve been the bigger, better sequel to Avengers ends up petering out in misguided character moments and a villain that falls short of his comic appearances. I actually like Spader as Ultron, hes at once sinister and snarky, but the material he is given is weak and his status as a premiere, well-known Marvel villain is MIA as the movie turns to generic robot nonsense. There are scenes I like: when the Avengers are each trying to lift Thors hammer, Hulkbuster, and Vision is extremely well-realized here. All in all, AoU encapsulates the worst growing pains of phase two. Theres the lack of confident direction in its lead characters, as Iron Man is back to his suits and Widow gets a confusing love plot with Hulk, as New Avengers are quickly shoved in something akin to a hail mary panic throw in case things start to fall through. Theres the boring villains centered in generic locations with cookie cutter motives. And lastly, theres an uneven shaky tone as the MCU tries to have its cake and it too with both humor and world-shattering gravitas which doesnt always gel together. An Avengers film should not be this uneven, but in some ironic inversion it still leads the charge for the next generation, but instead of being the shining example, it instead became a blueprint for how not to present these films going forward, and well, the MCU was all the more stronger for it.

StifledSilence
Imagine perfectly casting Spader as Ulton but putting him in a really boring and preachy movie that serves as nothing more than a bridge to Civil War. All the explodeys cant save this movie. I will say, however, the scene where everyone tries to lift the Thor Hammer with a crazy name is wonderful and would place high on a list of top MCU moments.

Illuminatusbubu
What a waste of an Avengers movie. After the first Avengers movie, you would hope much more from a crossover movie. What we get instead is a lackluster villain and a thanksgiving-like get together where the Avengers seem to be there together out of obligation and then go separate way when its all over.

Maniac64
Man was this a disappointing follow up. There were a lot of great elements here from Ultron, the opening avergers party, Vision showing up, the mind stone reveal. But it just didn't work. I also didn't like how they intro'd and handled Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, though it did make for some nice development for Hawkeye.

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Mega Mana
First Scene That Comes to Mind: Hawkeye's speech to Scarlet Witch

Age of Ultron is a movie with a TON of great scenes. The raid on Strucker; Iron Man's hex-induced vision; Ultron awakens; the hammer pulls; Ultron speaks with the Avengers; the Hulkbuster armor; Hawkeye's safe house; chopping wood; the highway chase; Vision is born; Sokovia rises; the team-up shot; a man with a bow; Quicksilver's moment; Vision and Ultron talk. There are so, so many great moments that it's odd that the whole just doesn't... feel great. The Black Widow and Hulk stuff in particular, both together and individually, are tough to enjoy or speak on.
Ultron is fascinating. He gets both better and worse with every rewatch. He is a fantastic funhouse mirror version of Stark, seeing the world's ills and wanting to take everything on himself, constructing new versions and improvements of himself at every opportunity, imprinting on young upstarts, heavy daddy issue rage, and lots of quips. He goes overblown genocidal maniac towards the end, but for the most part, he's very sins of the father. A better Stark villain than both Hammer and Killian.

The introductions of Ultron, Vision, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and the Bartons are all wonderful. The action is great. Hawkeye gets a great spotlight after a single do-nothing scene in Thor and half-the-movie mind controlled in Avengers 1. The Avengers spending a lot of time getting people out instead of just non-stop fighting was a nice touch. It set up a lot of things to come and, between the hex-visions and the Vision's origin, it is more essential viewing for the Infinity Wars double-feature than probably any other MCU movie. This movie is the shape of things to come.

ScepterOfLove
(No write-up.)

MetalDK
The only thing I thought that was memorable in this film was near the end with Hawkeye talking to Wanda to help her regain her confidence, and Vision speaking with the last Ultron bot about humanity

MetalmindStats
Id hardly call more Avengers a bad thing, even if this ones individual scenes and sequences do have a habit of veering off course, and even if its villain and plotting in general do tend towards the inane more often than not.

BetrayedTangy
This movie is a mess. For everything it does super well it also does something horribly wrong. Things like the hammer scene, Hulkbuster fight and some pretty solid character moments keep this movie watchable for me and I really think they deserve more credit than they get. However I think one of the biggest crimes this movie commits is how hastily they try to stitch together the lore. Which leads to the movie attempting (and failing) to make a good Ultron story while setting up Civil and Infinity War. This is so frustrating, because it completely wastes Ultron as a character AND fails to make us really care about Wanda or Vision. I feel like most casual fans went on a hiatus at this point which I would say is completely justified.

Jesse Custer
This movie feels more like a series of end credit sequences intended to tease and set up future events in the MCU than an actual movie. In fact, I cant think of any other MCU movie that planted more seeds for the future than this. Just to name a few, Age of Ultron gave us Wanda, Vision, Klaw, and the Hulkbuster suit, teases of Caps broken shield, Cap wielding Mjlnir, the Infinity Gauntlet, and the premise of Thor: Ragnarok, and thats probably just scratching the surface. The problem is Age of Ultron spent so much time building the future of the MCU that it often loses sight of telling a coherent and compelling story with developed characters (with a couple limited exceptions, most notably Bruce, who actually got a meaningful story arc).

Thats not to say Age of Ultron didnt have some strong moments. In particular, I liked the part where Ultron crashed the Avengers party to catch them by surprise, and the part near the end where theyre all fighting together looks great. But Age of Ultron strikes me as a movie thats only worth watching once to fully appreciate everything it sets up, and doesnt warrant a rewatch because its simply not that exciting overall.

TomNook
Not that memorable of a movie, but it was fine. It was nice to get more screentime of some of the slightly neglected heroes.

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PrinceKaro
So Tony ends up in a frenzy fueled by what can only be described as a combination of a god complex and fascism where he derides to a create AI life from alien tech with the intent of creating an army of robots to enforce their will on mankind. Might as well just make him go full supervillain at this point.
The design of our metallic adversary is already a big stumbling point, he looks like some rejected micheal bay transformer that doesnt at all fit the character's personality. He's got this advanced and very disturbing mouth for no apparent reason other than it seems Ultron's primary concern was being able to orally pleasure a USB port.
The movie then takes the predicable skynet route until it goes completely off the rails in the final act, culminating in the most idiotic feat in the whole MCU. This is the scene where Thor throws a woman up to the floating island from a great distance while falling downward a full speed. Lets assume that Thor is absurdly strong enough to chuck this girl a good thousand feet upward with nothing to brace against (he isn't, or at least the MCU version isn't), the force would fucking kill a human being.
The big redeeming feature of this movie is the introduction of Scarlet Witch, the MCU is in great need of more female superheroes in general, and in very great need of those who aren't just generic kickass warrior women.
This was fortuitous, considering how this movie utterly ruined the character of Black Widow for the rest of her stay in the MCU. Yeah, let's make our sexy covert superspy suddenly get all emo that she cant be a mommy because oh no I can't use my vagina to make babies my life is incomplete and I'm a monster!
As problematic as this was, disney's response was to cower to the social media lynch mob and in every upcoming movie strip her of personality entirely and make her as boring as Hawkeye. And that, my friends, is pretty fucking boring.

CoolCly
I think this movie gets too much hate. I guess if you hate Ultron and/or hate Joss Whedons style of dialogue, theres no way you could like that movie, but I dont live in that world
I love Ultron. As soon as the there are no strings on me trailer came out, I was in love. This, and the RedLetterMedia video Ultron California, are works of art.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmeOjFno6Do
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf-_230SjbM
Ultron just works so well as a reflection of Tony Stark. Clearly youve never made an omelette.
I love the Scarlett Witch in general and I like her here. Quicksilver is good too, but their origin is a little shoddy. Baron von Struckers plans just dont make any sense. The post credit scene that introduced them implied he had some machinations and its just all swept under the rug a victim of this movies packed nature.
Thats definitely a problem with this movie. Theres too much. Thors vision quest goes nowhere. It all weighs down the movie.
But even though theres too much its pretty much all awesome.
The party at the beginning, Jarvis interacting with Ultron, the farm and Fury, creating the Vision, the floating Sokovia island. Quicksilver trying to step up in being a good guy. Hawkeyes speech to the Scarlet Witch is one of the best moments in the MCU. I love all this stuff.
I think the movie is done a REAL disservice by stealing Ultrons good body for Vision I like the giant robot army for everyone to fight, but not having a main body that can beat down the Avengers is a big loss for the movie. The robot army feels like paper and Ultron Prime wasnt much stronger. I think a stronger Ultron would have made the climax more impactful.
Overall, this is a good movie. But the way its so packed holds it back, and maybe it was a little to focused on humour. I wish there was a stronger Ultron.

Eddv
Only thing I care about less than Tony Stark is his fucking armor.

VengefulKaelee
Ultron is definitely the star of the show here, and James Spader's charisma completely carries the movie. Also appreciated is the actual characterization of Hawkeye, and the scenes towards the beginning where the Avengers were just hanging out and being themselves (in particular the scene where everyone's drunkenly trying to lift Thor's hammer is low-key one of my favorite MCU scenes). There are too many mindless action scenes for this to be anything great overall, but it's still an engaging, if not spectacular, comic book movie.

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Sheep007
I think this is around the point in my list where I actively start enjoying these movies. Theres three clear tiers, with my top three being above all the rest, and everything above this in that entertaining film with a fair amount of great stuff in tier. So, yeah, I actually enjoy Age of Ultron. Ive heard a lot of criticism about this movie, but I kinda like it. Its messy in places, sure. I dont have a clue what Thors doing for most of it, but we already established I hate him and always will (please tell me that the Thor movies placed below this? They did, right?) so Im just happier with him out of the way. The first act of this is really strong: I like the start sequence, I like it whenever the nightmares come in, just because Im a sucker for those sorts of scenes, and I love Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. That may be in part because Elizabeth Olsen is the most attractive main actor (Sorry, Mr Hiddlestone) in the whole MCU and puts a cute accent on top, but thats beside the point. These new powers are cooler and have more creative potential than everything introduced nefore, and I find mystical powers more interesting than the techy ones which most of the Avengers up to this point have. I also find Vision as a concept interesting, and Ill always enjoy Tony fucking up and having to do something to fix it. Furthermore, it manages to develop some of the background Avengers more: Clint becomes a lot more interesting in this movie and I love his dynamic with Wanda, while even though the Natasha/Bruce romance doesnt quite sell me, its a decent idea. The Mjolnir/party scene is really good too, it shows the entire group just pissing around, which is always going to be great with so much acting talent available. I wish there were more scenes like that, and it manages to add more character and worldbuilding than some entire movies do *cough* Ant-Man 2 *cough*. The pacing, however, is dreadful, Ultron is a mediocre villain (or rather a good idea with not-great execution) and the humour is a little toooo Marvelly/quippy for me to warm to, but I think other people have probably addressed all that, so Ill stick to mostly praise.

XIII Rocks
I feel like Avengers movies are kind of better by default to me, because I like almost all the characters involved and here there's simply...more of them and they're all handled pretty well here. I don't even take major umbrage with the Hulk/Widow subplot - I thought the chemistry between them was demonstrated in the first movie and it felt a natural continuation. Take my past love of the characters out of it and this movie hurtles downward, but it's still great seeing all these different characters on screen and interacting (the Iron Man/Cap chopping wood scene, for instance). That thrill still wasn't lost in the sequel, especially the scene where they all try to lift the hammer, even though it badly needed refreshing with new blood after this (and it was). I like the relative complexity of Ultron, Spader's performance, and the way he becomes a dark mirror of Stark, though a lot of that is more of an excuse to give the Avengers an actual chance to beat him (such as him waiting in Sokovia for them to arrive before enacting his plan). I originally thought it was silly to have Stark be responsible for Ultron but in hindsight this was a good call; the way this plays into his larger character arc from IM1 to Endgame was perfect. I like the scale of the action and some of the team moves and shots. And I like the way they used Hulkbuster.

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Whiskey Nick
(No write-up.)

NBIceman
Look, I understand why people dont like this one, I really do. Ultron is too jokey and nonthreatening. Hulk/Widow is terrible and completely without chemistry. Wandas accent is terrible. The pacing is pretty bad. And hey, I never took a film class at college (to what Im sure is the collective shock of everyone reading), but even I can tell theres a lot of weird editing going on in it. But Ive gotta say With the exception of Hulk/Widow, which is just indefensibly bad, none of that bothers me too much. Im a lot more forgiving of Joss Whedons worse tendencies because I tend to think his creations have enough good stuff that it far outweighs the bad, and AoU is no exception. I always forget just how many enjoyable parts it has until I rewatch it. Theres a ton of Hawkeye, who I love. Its the only film in the franchise where all of the Avengers just take a little time to hang out with each other, and those moments are a lot of fun. Hulk vs Hulkbuster is a really cool fight. And yeah, there may be too many jokes, but I dont mind that when most of them are still pretty funny. Its even got the best mid-/post-credits scene. All said, theres some movies lower on my ranking that just straight-up dont connect with me, where this one straight-up does. Its not a top-tier Marvel offering by any means, but I do think its way over-hated.

Corrik7
The beginning scene was cool. A lot of the debate among each other was interesting. The hint that Captain America could lift the Hammer that paid off in the end was awesome. Scarlet Witch was a welcome addition, though the Vision kind of ended up being a let down. Tony Stark's hubris creating the villain was needed in the universe to set him into check and this led to the angle that many other movies would feed off of. Ultron himself wasn't as strong as I expected and his robots seemed more like gimmicks at times than credible threats. A good movie though.

Cybat
I have always been a sucker for the big team-up episode, which is one of the reasons I got into comics in the first place. So even though this movie clearly has a lot of problems, especially when compared to the other three Avengers movies, I still enjoy it quite a bit. The long shot during the climax of all of the Avengers battling Ultron bots together is possibly the most comic-book-y thing in the franchise. Also, this movie does contain one of my favorite scenes in the whole franchise, which is the afterparty scene where all of the Avengers just hang out, make jokes, play with Mjolnir, and bond. We really need more scenes like this especially now that a new team of Avengers is coalescing.
But I would be remiss if I didnt mention some stuff that does not work at all. James Spader was a great choice for Ultron but the disconnect between his tone in the trailers and in the actual movie was jarring, and made him seem pretty unthreatening. Thors bath of foreshadowing was really weird and out of nowhere. And man, does the Bruce/Natasha relationship not work at all.
One last thing I will mention is that this movie is actually a huge turning point for the universe; a large number of things that happen after this can be traced back to some event in this movie. The ramifications of Starks arrogance and Sokovias destruction are still being felt today.

Johnbobb
Ultron is better than people give it credit for! James Spader is good! The pacing is weird. Paul Bettany kills it! Hulk/Widow is weird and bad. Vision just casually lifting Mjolnr like it's a fucking baton is one of the best scenes in the entire MCU hands down.

Red13n
This is the movie that has grown on me over time. I think it got a lot of flak because people wanted something more out of phase 2, some sort of epic conclusion. At this point, we knew phase 3 was going to be a thing, we even had a small idea of where it was going to go. Age of Ultron didn't feel like it was leading to this, but now that its had some time to digest, this movie really set a lot of the groundwork for future films, and I've come to appreciate a lot of the foresight they had in how it played out. We get Tony's obsession with protecting the world from threats they cant imagine, but also having to deal directly with his own failure. We begin to see the costs to the world the avengers bring, an escalation in power of opposing forces("Enhanced" is a term they seem already familiar with), and a world that doesn't see the Avengers quite as the heroes the audience sees at the time. While Ultron doesn't necessarily feel like he brought the highest stakes we might have expected from a team-up film, and I think alone its not the strongest of movies, I really appreciate how much of this film ended up mattering to the MCU as a whole.

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18. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Total Score: 533 (TB30)

Whiskey Nick 7
NBIceman - 9
Corrik7 10
Cybat - 10
Johnbobb 10
Red13n - 11
Sheep007 - 12
XIII Rocks - 12
PrinceKaro 13
CoolCly - 15
Eddv 15
VengefulKaelee - 15
Mega Mana 16
ScepterOfLove - 16
MetalDK 17
MetalmindStats 17
BetrayedTangy - 18
Jesse Custer 18
TomNook - 18
ZenOfThunder 18
Anagram 20
Snake5555555555 - 20
StifledSilence 20
Illuminatusbubu - 21
Maniac64 21
Mr Crispy 21
Paratroopa1 - 21
GavsEvans123 22
HanOfTheNekos - 22
Inviso 22
Lopen 23
Raka Putra - 23

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ScepterOfLove posted...

Guess I'll chime in and say me ranking Captain Marvel second to last had nothing to do with Brie Larson or her comments about critics. She's a great actress, and anyone who disagrees can watch her performance in Room to be proven wrong.

As someone else said, I think the terrible amnesia plot held her and this entire movie back. It was the first time I left a Marvel movie without being excited to learn more about the main character and the section of the interconnected universe they inhabit. The script was one of the MCU's most bland, the 90s references tacked on with no payoff, and Carol's journey was boringly predictable. It was just a forgettable movie for me.

I'm excited for CM2 though, mostly because it has a new director. And I love Monica Rambeau from what we've seen in WandaVision so far.

Yeah, I don't care about Brie Larson one way or another. I don't think she's great, but I also don't think she's terrible. My biggest problem with Captain Marvel is that it felt like the kind of bland, origin story plot we saw a bunch of in Phase 1 (hence two such movies already being eliminated), but it didn't even have a proper origin story. Carol Danvers is already super powerful when we meet her, and the only struggle she really faces is that she can't beat Jude Law when artificially restricting herself to play by his rules. As a result, there's like, NO suspense in the entire film. Genuinely, it's like watching The Incredible Hulk with a slightly more interesting and witty lead.

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OUTLIERS:

Eddv - 54
PrinceKaro - 29
Johnbobb - 24
BetrayedTangy - 23
Lopen - 18
Mr Crispy - 18
GavsEvans123 - 17
TomNook - 17
VengefulKaelee - 17
Illuminatusbubu - 15
Snake5555555555 - 15
HanOfTheNekos - 14
Jesse Custer - 14
Maniac64 - 14
ScepterOfLove - 14
StifledSilence - 14
Raka Putra - 13
CoolCly - 11
Inviso - 11
Paratroopa1 - 10
XIII Rocks - 9
Anagram - 8
Cybat - 8
Corrik7 - 7
Red13n - 7
Mega Mana - 6
MetalDK - 6
MetalmindStats - 6
Sheep007 - 6
Whiskey Nick - 6
NBIceman - 2
ZenOfThunder 2

Awwww, NBIceman finally loses his perfect record and drops, only to wind up in a tie with ZenOfThunder, who is apparently also have a very good run thus far. Plus weve got a solid five people in the running for third place down there. Meanwhile, Eddv extends his lead with his second-highest outlier score yet, and Johnbobb also passes Tangy en route to the top three outlier spots.

Spoiler for Number 18: Thus far, weve eliminated films from the Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain Marvel franchises. Now a new franchise loses its first (or perhaps only) film.

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Raka Putra
Eh. I dunno if it's because the movie comes so late in the canon, but I find Captain Marvel to be perfectly forgettable. The main character herself, 'Vers', was among the blandest of them all. I also feel her powers are poorly explained. Though I do like the mystery and twist of her identity. That was cool.

Whiskey Nick
(No write-up.)

ScepterOfLove
(No write-up.)

TomNook
It gets points for having a lot of Nick Fury, which counts for something. Otherwise, it suffers from Captain Marvel as a character being both boring and unlikable. Her origin story is laughably nonsense given how powerful she actually is because of it.

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GavsEvans123
This was the only MCU film I hadnt seen prior to this project, so its completely new to me. Its a shame then, that I found it to be quite unremarkable. Theres nothing terribly wrong with it, and at no point did aspects of it actively annoy me, but at the same time nothing really sticks out positively either.

Perhaps its because there isnt much to Carol as a character that is unique to her? She has the brash, hotheaded personality weve seen from several previous MCU protagonists. She is often mocked and dismissed by others, but refuses to give up, which is a trait she shares with Captain America before he was given the Super Soldier Serum. She does have amnesia for a lot of the film, which is unique to her in the context of the MCU, but its difficult to give that too many points because the amnesiac hero trying to discover the mystery of their origin is one of the biggest storytelling cliches out there. That said, the Kree exploiting that to recruit her and have her fight for them deserves some credit, and blasting Jude Law mid-evil-monologue is another creative way of skipping the final battle. How unfortunate for him that he should face the one hero for whom talking isnt a free action.

More than anything, I think this film suffers from coming too late in the MCU. It would have fit right into Phase 1, with its simpler story, smaller cast, and being a prequel to most of the franchise (Only Captain America: The First Avenger is ahead of it in the timeline), but in Phase 3, alongside the more ambitious Black Panther or Spider-Man: Homecoming, it doesnt compare favourably. Then again, those films had the advantage of their protagonists having already been introduced, so the comparison isnt entirely fair. We got this film when we did so that Carol wasnt too much of a deus ex machina in Endgame, but with only the post-credits scene tying into that, which feels pretty inconsequential here and could have easily been placed at the start of Endgame, did we really need this film before Endgame?

On the plus side, Nick Fury has his biggest role in a while here, and its an entirely new side to the character. Prior to this, hes always been the stern authority figure who manipulates everyone because he operates on a need-to-know basis, and as far as hes concerned, nobody needs to know most of the time. In this film, hes much more mellow, a fresh-faced relative rookie who hasnt been conditioned to distrust others by default yet. I never would have guessed that he, of all people, would be a cat person. Where is the cat now anyway? Its in Furys office at the end of the film, but did he take it home at some point? Maybe its died of old age by the present day?

Its also a bit weird that Ronan and Djimon Honsou return from Guardians of the Galaxy, despite them being one-off villains who are long-dead and had few clamouring for their return. I guess theyre there because as mentioned earlier, this is a prequel, but nothing new is revealed about their characters, so the opportunity isnt taken advantage of. Im now imagining the next Ant Man film having a flashback of Rumlow and Sitwell carpooling to work when Luis cuts them off in traffic, and theyre both so outraged by this flagrant disregard for the rules of the road that it makes them join HYDRA.

Inviso
This movie has a LOT of flaws. Like, first and foremost, it FEELS like a complete filler movie in the grand scheme of things. It comes in that brief period between Infinity War and Endgame, and seems to serve entirely to introduce a character who is all-powerful and vital to the solution of Endgame. And the thing is that Captain Marvel herself is really, REALLY boring. Were introduced to her in the worst possible way, with her story in medias res, so shes already an alien super soldier, completely detached from every man status. And from minute one, with the exception of her initial capture by the Skrull, and her eventual capture by the Kree, Carol Danvers is perfect and the strongest character of all time. Shes witty, but not charismatic; its like someone being written as a lead in a Marvel movie, rather than an actual character. And then shes clever and strong and there never feels like a real moment of danger she faces. It makes for a very boring plot. Really, the main saving grace of this film is literally EVERYTHING involving Nick Fury. HES great, because HES the everyman that has to deal with all the random crap going on as a result of aliens on Earth. Also, that final scene with Jude Law was great, and its a shame that it took until the end of the movie to see it.

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CoolCly
This movie has all the pieces of a good movie maybe even a great movie. And it executes them all with mediocrity.
The overall main problem comes from Captain Marvels character arc. Its the opposite problem of the first Thor movie, which Ill get to later. Captain Marvel at the start of the movie is a somewhat brainwashed soldier of the Kree empire, and by the end, shes seen the lies shes been fed and where she came from, and chosen to stand against the empire she believed in and fought for before, choosing her humanity. This is a great character arc, and there are many moments in the film that contribute to this, like exploring her homeworld and forging her partnership with Fury, meeting her old friend, learning about her past and how she got her powers, and discovering the Skrulls real goal. This all good stuff that shows the path she takes to where she gets by the end. Except.. Danvers doesnt actually change. Shes exactly the same character at every point in the movie. She makes all the same wise cracks, she doesnt take anything seriously, and tends to do whatever she wants. I think this is a somewhat conscious choice to show her as an empowered woman who doesnt take shit from any of the male characters but it really destroys her growth as a character. The revelations of her origins and the Kree empire should be really ground breaking and challenging for her, and compel change. And the structure of the movie kind of hinges on this. But. I dont feel like it had any impact on Danvers at all. Learning about the Krees motives wasnt emotionally impactful for her it was just new information that caused her to change sides. This REALLY brings down the movie to me if the performance of Danvers had grown along with all these revelations, this could have been a really great movie.
Theres a lot of other things that I thought could have been executed better too. Furys scar was a weak throw away joke, and the cat turning out to be dangerous was telegraphed WAYY too many times and the actual moment where it happened felt SOOO generic and poorly timed I couldnt believe it. It was a scene in a hallway set up JUST for this to pay off, the shot held for awhile on the victim and the cat for a while and made it very clear what was about to happen and then it just happens. The FX wasnt even that good. And then the scene is over and Fury moves on. Imagine if they only hinted at it once or twice, and then in a critical moment for a characters well being for the plot, the cat steps in. this could have been so much better.
The song montage didnt feel like it flowed that well with what was going on. I dont mind it as an idea at all, but it didnt really work, and Danvers doesnt feel like shes operating at the right power level at that point, which is always a problem. Movies like this should always have a good bead on the strength of its characters and how they should be performing in a situation, and I dont think they handled this well. Its very tough to do this with Captain Marvel since her upper end is sooooo high which makes it even more important they do this well.
I thought the final confrontation with YonRogg was a good idea conceptually but the really hammed up way he tries to get her to fight him and her just owning him didnt feel like the I dont need to take your shit moment they want to it to be just a deflation of the tension between these characters. They didnt take the impact of the revelations in the movie on Danvers seriously earlier in the movie, and they cemented that here.
Theres a lot of good things though. Coulson is used just right, and Fury was awesome. The Skrulls were fine (though a bit generically used at times in the first half of the movie). Talos is great.
Overall this is a good movie, that I think could have been GREAT if things had been executed better.

Red13n
Marvel celebrates having their first female superhero movie by...making sure she has as little character as possible. Unfortunately Vers is stuck in this near permanent limbo, a character that was a poorly developed Kree soldier and the human that apparently they were for much of their life. We end up with a fairly generic story, generic underdeveloped villains where the threat becomes a recycled villain that gets little more than a what amounts to a cameo appearance. The whole 90s gimmick unfortunately doesn't really amount to anything beyond evoking a bit of nostalgia and letting a couple characters have an appearance.

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Mr Crispy
The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochy Show of the MCU. Now, I think this movie definitely gets a lot of unwarrented hate from nasty people. But it's definitely the MCU movie that feels the most designed by committee, focus group tested, etc..

I don't think the idea of skipping over whatever doofus was originally Captain Marvel in the comics for Carol was a bad idea on paper. MCU versions of characters don't necessarily need to be the same as the comics, and the MCU made people who know nothing about comics like and become invested with Marvel characters they knew nothing about (...basically every Marvel character except Spiderman? and maybe the Hulk?). Carol isn't really one of them.

Marvel Studios leeched the popularity off of Infinity War with the Infinity War teaser and putting Captain Marvel in the schedule between Infinity War and Endgame, but she was pretty much wasted in Endgame. Marvel tried to imitate the success and popularity of Guardians of the Galaxy, by trying to make the same thing but with 90s nostalgia and music. Also bringing back Ronan, only for him to get completely clowned as soon as he showed up and immediately sulked away with his tail between his legs because Carol was more powerful and unique than even an Infinity Stone (well, that's paraphrasing a bit). Fury thinks highly of her, and credits her as what inspired him to come up with the whole Avengers Initiative. The scene where Carol is trying to choose the colors of her suit seems a bit like premature celebration on the part of Marvel. "Remember these characters that you like in movies that we made that you like? Captain Marvel is the next one you'll love!"

I don't actually hate Carol, or the movie. It's just a bit facinating how blatant it is, and maybe a bit sad. I don't pretend to be an expert on comics, but they definitely seem to struggle when trying to produce comics that actually appeal to female readers particularly compared to anime/manga (as a significant amount of anime/manga series directly aimed at/made by girls/women get made, instead of targeting them indirectly while trying to check off as many differnt demographics as possible)

Well, getting back to Captain Marvel for a final summary. The movie is just average overall. It lacks a good opponent on about the same level for Carol to actually fight against. The space police are doofuses, Ronan is a laughing stock as already mentioned. Though that's a problem with a lot of Marvel movies. The story of how Fury lost his eye is amusing, and how he lies about how he lost it. I actually like how they tried to humanize the Skrulls and make them more sympathetic, with families and who just want to live quietly and - particularly since the original concept is clearly intended to promote paranoid right wing fearmongering about COMMUNISTS!!!! ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!! etc. are secretly hiding everywhere in America trying to destroy the American way of life exclamation mark. Retconning the story into the timeline in the first place is a bit of a bad idea. Carol has to get written out to explain why she's not around when Earth gets attacked, but her defending Earth is also used to explain why aliens didn't attack sooner despite knowing that the Tesseract was there. Even though she wasn't there.

ZenOfThunder
It's fine but it made me fall asleep. Brie Larson is kind of a shit actress, I don't know why everyone was so crazy about Room. Monica Rambeau should just be Captain Marvel going forward.

BetrayedTangy
I really wish I liked this one more, because theres some good stuff in here, I just cant get past its flaws. A lot of people have pointed to Larsons performance as the chief issue; I dont think this her fault though, I blame the writing/directing. I liked the plot they were going for, but they failed to remember the most basic rule of storytelling. Show dont tell. They had some really good setup with her toxic relationship with Yon-Rogg, but instead relied far too heavily on the corny flashbacks once she got to Earth. Which leads to my next issue, Carol wasnt the only character ruined by bad writing. Fury and the Skrulls got dunked on pretty bad too, I dont want to really get into it, because I think theyre going to fix a lot of my issues in the Disney+ series, except for how he lost his eye. Theres no redeeming that. Also fun fact, in this movie Fury says he cant eat toast if its cut in half, but in Age of Ultron hes seen doing just that, hinting at Far From Homes post credit scene. Easily one of my favorite easter eggs.

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Lopen
I went into this one expecting the worst of self-congratulatory "rah rah girl power" especially seeing Endgame first, but what I got was a decent enough film. Captain Marvel is a lot more interesting and personable here than in Avengers: Endgame, and the throwbacks to the 90s are pretty fun and give this movie a slightly different feel from other MCU stuff. BUT the villain is wasted and everything from the movie that isn't dealing with happenings on Earth is kinda dull and unmemorable. I'll take Asgard over whatever space tripe Captain Marvel comes from every time.

Mega Mana
First Scene That Comes to Mind: The flerkin revealed.

I just watched Captain Marvel for the first time yesterday, and I thought it was good. It's a day later, and I've already written a novel about the first Iron Man, but I cannot come up with much to say about Captain Marvel. The action and humor were good, with Carol Danvers' and Nick Fury's instant camaraderie the best part of the movie. The Kree/Skrull plot and trickle-in of backstory was well-handled. I quite enjoyed the early training and Earth happenings through past the Pegasus base. The Skrull memory-device was a startling and cool feature. As an Agents of SHIELD fan, I loved what we got of Coulson. I thought Brie Larson was wonderful. It was a Phase One origin story in some of the best ways.

Then things started falling apart a bit right about when the Skrull showed up in the house drinking a juice box. Best friend Maria Rambeau felt very wooden, neither shock nor familial chemistry ever vibing. The Skrulls turned from dangerous spies and terrorists into plucky comic relief far too casually. Jude Law and his Kree team were forgettable at best, and the ship fights rather boring. The cat/flerkin had too many points of acknowledgment before the reveal that it lost a sense of surprise or anticipation for the reveal. The stakes both felt way too dramatic and were done away with far too easily, especially in the case of the Accusers' portion, though the Skrull family-in-hiding was excellent and hit perfect emoitonal buttons. And the Supreme Intelligence stuff was easily the worst, with off-putting casting and absolutely hackneyed nothing story beats (SI: "You are a failure who fails." CD: "I am a human who gets back up!") that actually began to detract from the story.

It was good. Not great. I will remember it for Brie Larson's great dialogue with Sam Jackson, maybe some Coulson, but I don't think much beyond that.

Corrik7
This movie is decent. It leaves me with questions though. Why did a blast of energy create this hero of this power magnitude? Like, she basically becomes the strongest person in the entire universe almost from a random blast. Why isn't everyone out there doing this to themselves? I mean, there is some cool stuff as far as shapeshifting and mind erasing and so on. Honestly though, I hate that they created a hero in which nothing tangibly seems to possibly be able to defeat her. The movie isn't that fun when you know she can't lose. It also makes the usage of her questionable all throughout the universe also later on.

MetalmindStats
An uneven movie stitched like a patchwork quilt around a strong cast topped by a magnetic central character. Sadly, it tends to meander in a pacing-independent way whenever Carol Danvers isnt front and center, and too often even when she is.

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NBIceman
Even in the comics, Carol Danvers is not a very interesting character, and this movie really doesnt do a whole lot to challenge that perception. Brie Larson does what she can, but most of the instances where some personality shines through are just very brief moments like her mockingly hissing at a Skrull or the oh, shit, its on now grin after her powers get unlocked. Unlike another Phase 3 Marvel movie, though, the rest of the cast actually does manage to make up for it here. Young Fury brings great Buddy Cop energy, the Rambeaus contribute some legitimate emotional depth, Talos is immensely likeable (I actually love everything the MCU has done with the Skrulls so far), and its always good to see Coulson. Im also a huge fan of Fury being inspired to name the Avenger Initiative after Carols call sign - its a small detail all things considered, but it still somehow feels really momentous as a piece of the lore. Even with all those great individual moments, though, it does feel like the collective film is missing something with how dull its main character is. Hopefully she can build off of her Endgame portrayal in the future.

Paratroopa1
I really wanted to like this movie more than I actually did. After all the dumbass discourse that this movie went through, it would have been really satisfying if it was one of the best movies in the MCU, and if Brie Larson had one of my favorite performances, but she didn't, and it wasn't. It's fine, but it fails to elevate itself above fine. Carol Danvers just isn't an interesting character in this film. She's like... sort of vaguely tormented by not being able to remember her past life, but it doesn't really affect her that much, and the performance doesn't really elevate her to anything more than normal person who is kind of sarcastic sometimes - she doesn't really have any sort of growth from the beginning to the end of the movie. Which is a shame, because after the boring first act, the movie is a ton of fun and has some high peaks. I like basically every other character - Talos is cool, young Fury is cool, Mar-Vell is cool, Maria Rambeau is cool (little wonder that Lashana Lynch got the 007 role). The Skrulls are probably more fun as enemies than as allies, but I think that was a sensible direction for the movie to go in since, well, the Kree are pretty awful, but all of the mistaken identity stuff is fun in both roles regardless. I liked the scene where they go through Danvers's memories through the POV of the 'bad guys' and I liked all the scenes with her and Fury together at SHIELD and everything at the end is pretty fun, I just feel like there was missed opportunity to give Captain Marvel herself some actual depth here instead of feeling like a faceless protagonist. It's a fun movie that feels like it has no meat to it.

XIII Rocks
I like the 90s stuff, even if it was a particularly American brand of 90s and slightly too early for me (I was only 5 in 1995), so not all of the references clicked or got the nostalgia going. This is a superhero origin movie told in reverse, which is an interesting way to structure it, and there is an appreciable upgrade in Danvers' powers once she uncovers all the information so it still works. Something about this feels like a phase 1 movie - maybe it's the focus on the tesseract, or maybe it's the fact it feels like such a "basic" superhero movie, I don't know. This movie is kind of aggressively "fine". I think there's a lot of good to it and some laughs but it's not a particularly remarkable one. That said, one particularly cool thing it did was the casting of Ben Mendelsohn and Jude Law. Noted villain actor Ben Mendelsohn (see Rogue One, Ready Player One) is playing a guy called Talos - which just sounds villainous - on the side opposed to the protagonist. Jude Law, who often plays charming and/or heroic characters (Dumbledore, Watson), is her mentor. But soon enough things are revealed and there's a double turn. Nice touch! I think Brie Larson does a good job, she has some great moments of attitude. I love her read of "...ok," when that guy says "don't make me do this", for example. Solid movie, unspectacular, but a good watch.

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Sheep007
I enjoyed Captain Marvel well enough. Samuel L. Jackson and Brie Larson basically doing a buddy cop routine is the clear highlight, but the vibes of a lot of the film are just a little off? Its quite a visually appealing movie, and I like the 90s aesthetic, as well as the idea of the whole Kree/Skrull thing, which, while a little convoluted and not handled perfectly, was engaging enough. I felt like the characters were entertaining and had decent enough motivations. The plot, however, got a little messy, and probably either needed trimming or just reworking entirely. Ive seen a lot of complaining about Carol, but shes fine, nothing special and generally an inoffensive character, a bit like Steve. She has an arc, and its okay, but nothing that I personally care about all that much, plus it feels like it comes more from her memories than any action she takes in the film itself, which is a little unsatisfying. One of my bigger problems is the militarisation of the film I understand that Marvel need to have good relations with the US military in order to shoot most of their films the way they do. Despite this, it feels a little crude to have what feels like a ham-fisted commercial on how strong women join the armed forces slapped in the middle of what is meant to be an emotional movie: its really reminiscent of shitty adverts for the royal navy that we get in the UK. When Carol regains her memories, I get We need more strong female CEOs and dictators! vibes. I know thats a personal thing, but I cant bring myself to care as much about the character because the most emotional moment we see for her is portrayed in that way. The MCU has run into a few issues where it sometimes tries to critique militarism, but cant go all that far because itll either alienate its base or miss out on using military stuff for filming, and I think that cheapens the messages in its own movies (Captain Marvel isnt the only one with this problem, but its the one which feels the most blatant when watching it). Overall, its fine, they could have done far better or far worse and I feel like they didnt take some risks which they could and shouldve in part because of corporate worries about the whole female lead thing (although that bit is pure speculation). Also, its not as funny overall as the higher up movies especially, which is a shame given that literally everything I saw Brie Larson in before this was a comedy. At least Samuel L Jackson steals the show, as always.

Snake5555555555
What is Captain Marvel but an unsatisfying mix of decent ideas with the shakiest of executions. It has Skrulls, the Kree, a 90s period piece setting, an early Fury appearance, themes of finding where you belong, and Captain Marvel is just keen to keep everything at arms distance without going in depth on any of them. The Skrulls are the closest to being pulled off correctly, portrayed as victims of genocide in a storyline that has a lot of emotional weight. Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, I think she really brings all shes got to the role and infuses the first titular female character in the MCU not only an admirable strength but also a vulnerability and a struggle to search for who you really are on the inside. Yet these are only two pieces of an otherwise extraordinarily bland film. MCU films are rarely bad in the traditional sense. Every MCU film is almost laser-cut to perfection, designed to be good, but ironically when no deviation is taken from this cutting you have a very generic film on your hands with forgettable locations, action scenes, and villains that all just excuses to get to the next plot point. In this sense, Captain Marvel is a huge let-down for its first lead female hero despite some otherwise gleaming potential. It all feels just a bit too little, too late.

Anagram
I felt nothing while watching this movie.

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Cybat
Unlike the Mandarin twist in IM3, I absolutely love the canon-breaking twist in this movie. The reveal that the Skrulls are the unambiguous good guys in the Kree-Skrull war (for now at least) was totally unexpected and incredibly well done, down to the fake typecasting of Ben Mendelsohn. And the implications of having Skrulls as allies set up some very intriguing possibilities that of course we started to see pay off in Far From Home a few months later.
Unfortunately, not everything in this movie was as well done as that. The other twist involving Jude Laws character was painfully obvious, and the flashback setting was underutilized. Yeah, there were some 90s references and stuff, but they had a real chance to give some interesting depth to characters that most people had met and forgot about like Korath and Ronan and there was still just nothing there. And it was fun to see Coulson again but they easily could have made even the slightest reference to anything from Agents of SHIELD and they just didnt. Unfortunate.

MetalDK
From when she crash lands onto Earth back into the final act, I thought this movie was actually pretty good. Decent "who can you trust" type movie, I thought the 90s nostalgia was there but not thrown constantly at you like the trailer kinda did. The final act though felt very rushed and kinda comedic more than anything.

PrinceKaro
So an extraterrestrial woman falls to earth after being kidnapped from earth and having gotten cosmic powers from an alien due to a science accident while trying to prove herself as a soldier and wow really are we gonna put every superhero origin ever into this character.
The film plays out a lot like Thor 1, where an alien comes to earth and doesnt understand earth culture but defends it from other aliens. It is extremely formulaic and filled with too many cheap gotchas in an attempt to keep things interesting.
It felt like I was interested in everything going on but the story of the titular character. I liked the idea of fighting against the Kree supreme consciousness. I liked the idea of Skrulls being oppressed good guys. I liked Nick & Phil's excellent adventure. But all of these things play very little into the main plot, which is just Carol going around earth arbitrarily and occasionally beating up grandmas until the anticlimactic final where she turns super saiyan and curbstomps the overmatched villains in what seems more like an afterthought.
I was hoping that with a female headlining a marvel movie we would get a female hero that was interesting, and well, that is not really the case. Carol is like this inoffensive protagonist from a western video game that you are supposed to like just because, and everything about her is quickly forgettable. I struggle to name any defining characteristic of her other than her arrogant streak.
Nothing really to marvel at here, I've seen it all before.

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Eddv
I honestly wasn't wild about this one but I will give it this - it tried to actually be a movie that said something and made a point. It didn't get there and succumbed to Jon Favreau shortcuts to its detriment, but it could have been a good movie, which puts it ahead of the pack.

Johnbobb
HEY YOU FUCKERS ON TWITTER BRIE LARSON IS WAY BETTER THAN YOU'LL EVER BE AND CAN KICK YOUR ASS WITH OR WITHOUT MARVELABILITY AND THIS IS JUST A DAMN GOOD SUPERHERO FLICK THROUGH AND THROUGH.

VengefulKaelee
Captain Marvel has essentially the same basic story beats as almost every other MCU origin story movie, but it just does it better and far more engagingly than any of the Phase 1 stuff ever did. Nothing spectacular overall, but Brie Larson gives a great performance, as does Ben Mendelsohn, and the '90s aesthetic is fun without being overbearing. Goose is also a highlight one of the great cat characters in a movie, with single-handedly more character than the entire cast of Tom Hooper's Cats adaptation combined.

HanOfTheNekos
People are going to say I overrate this one. Maybe theyre right! I thought it was a very standard origin movie, but one that was refined in a way to be better than the rest.

The supporting cast was dynamite. Fury of course was stellar... learning why he got the eyepatch in the first place was amazing too. On that note, Goose was amazing and I can't understand anybody who wouldn't enjoy him. The main Skrull was super likable, especially once you hit the middle point of the movie. I LOVED that Korath was in this movie... his first appearance got me really hyped because... what a throwaway guy from GotG to bring back. Yes.

AND MY MAN PHILLIP J COULSON WHAT A HUNK OF HOT AMAZING EVERYTHING SO FUCKING GOOD YESS

Other little things I loved... Danverss original Kree uniform... LOVED the colors.

Now for the issues. The climax was too long. I get it - they needed to show just how badass she was and her powers, specifically to give audiences hope in seeing her come to Endgame. Ronan was pointless in this movie... but having Danvers blast through the ships and fucking his shit up was important because we all got fucked over by Infinity War and even Ant-Man and the Wasp ended on a dark note.

And then the post-credits scene where shes just fucking there in Natalie Rushmores face? Yes.

StifledSilence
More Nick Fury and shapeshifting aliens set in a lovely time warp to the era of my childhood? As Sam Jackson said in another movie, Shit, negro, thats all you had to say!

Jesse Custer
Captain Marvel was a good movie overall. As someone with plenty of nostalgia for the 90s, I enjoyed the setting and all the 90s references. I also really liked young Nick Fury being a central character (with some impressive de-aging technology that was far more convincing than other movies like Gemini Man). And although I feel like Carol Danvers may be a bit overpowered for the MCU, it was fun watching her eventually go Super Saiyan and easily destroy all the bad guys. Oh yeah, and Goose. Cant do a write-up of Captain Marvel without mentioning the true star of the film. I wouldnt have expected to appreciate a gimmicky pet character, but they really made it work and I kept wanting to see more of Goose.

I dont have much in the way of criticisms about this movie, and the only reason I couldnt rank it higher is I like a bunch of MCU movies more.

Illuminatusbubu
Serves as an appetizer to the much more looking-forward movie in Endgame. A basic storytelling that sticks to the standard backstory in a superhero movie.

Maniac64
Persoanlly I really enjoyed Brie Larson's take on the serious and seriously strong Captain Marvel. I also really liked the twist of having the Skrulls, a race of villains fans had been speculating and predicting for years, not be evil. I do hope we get some evil Skrulls eventually but I like that we arent' making the entire race evil. This is a multi generation war, there isn't going to be clear good and bad guys. Going so far back in time was a really interesting choice and getting young(er) Fury was a lot of fun and kind of sets him up to become the guy who would start the Avengers and be ready to deal with all the crazy shit that SHIELD has to deal with.

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19. Captain Marvel
Total Score: 533 (TB29)

Eddv - 7
Johnbobb 8
VengefulKaelee - 9
HanOfTheNekos - 12
StifledSilence - 12
Jesse Custer 13
Illuminatusbubu - 14
Maniac64 14
Cybat - 15
MetalDK 15
PrinceKaro 15
Sheep007 - 15
Snake5555555555 - 16
Anagram 17
NBIceman 17
Paratroopa1 - 17
XIII Rocks 17
Lopen - 18
Mega Mana - 18
Corrik7 19
MetalmindStats 19
Mr Crispy - 19
ZenOfThunder 19
BetrayedTangy 20
CoolCly 20
Red13n - 20
GavsEvans123 - 21
Inviso 21
Raka Putra - 21
Whiskey Nick 21
ScepterOfLove 22
TomNook - 22

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hockeydude15 posted...

The biggest companies in America go to great lengths to make sure their work force isn't unionized. I'm sure they do that for their employee's benefit and not the fact that they would have to pay the base line worker more or give them basic benefits.

Yeah, this is just common sense.

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Corrik7 posted...

No. His exact words he conveniently left out when showing I said that. Because I never said to do that to stick it to the rich. I said both parties are for the rich. I then talked about things in the confines of our current system. You can sit here and act like people are out to help the poor yadda yadda while they are trying to pass SALT tax deductions with a straight face all day, but it just makes you look like a fool. Yes, Democrats are fools. Republicans and Democrats pit the middle against the lower all the time to keep you preoccupied while protecting the rich.

Regardless though Tony made up nonsense then picked out something that said half of what he said minus all the nonsense to try and justify his dumb comment.

Do you not understand how making a comment that says all you just said (about how the system is broken and both parties don't give a shit and the GOP wants to give everyone crumbs to keep the rich rich while the Dems want to make everyone poor so the rich stay rich,), and then following that up with a post about how you believe the minimum wage should be LOWERED, comes across as though you feel like lowering the minimum wage would be at least SOME KIND of solution to the above-mentioned issue? Can you at least accept that the flow of those two posts carries the implication that "The system is currently broken" -> "This (minimum wage is too high) is something that should be fixed" -> "This fixed thing will fix the broken system"?

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Corrik7 posted...

No. He is being dumb. Don't justify nonsense. He needs to know he is being dumb. Stop sticking up for nonsense because he is "on your side".

It's not nonsense. It might not have been your intention, but that is the exact attitude your posts conveyed, hence me trying to spell out how it came across.

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Corrik7 posted...

Lol you literally just cut out half of what you actually said lolololol. That's kindergarten shit.

Corrik, your argument was that neither side gives a shit about sticking it to the rich because both sides essentially want to hurt the middle class so that everyone is equally poor, rather than elevating anyone.

The next post you made suggested lowering the minimum wage.

It's not unreasonable to see those two posts in rapid succession and think you're offering up "lower the minimum wage" as an alternative to the current system where politicians don't do anything to stick it to the rich.

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masterplum posted...

That just doesn't work though. What if someone is born with a physical disabiltiy and can't walk. Does that person person deserve a minimum wage job? What about someone who is constantly absent because of mental illness? A 15 year old? Someone living in downtown San Fransisco? Does rent with 6 roomates count as affording rent?

Tying a minimum amount required to work doesn't make sense when minimums are so dramatically different for different people. We don't need rubber room jobs where peopel are bored silly because they aren't capable of real work

This was addended soon after, but the work requirement was brought up because too many people refuse to accommodate "lazy" people that "don't want to work". Thus, it makes for an even more difficult sell than raising the minimum wage already is.

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I consider the whole character to be "Iron Monger". I didn't realize people would think differently. >_>

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Iron Monger is FINE. Especially since Marvel has SO MANY bad or boring villains. But he's not great, because again, Marvel's top tier villains...I'd only really say Loki, Thanos, Killmonger, Vulture, Mysterio, Ego and Hela are all that amazing. That's only a little less than a third (or a little more than a third if Loki is counted twice.)

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masterplum posted...

It's a thousand times harder to get around personal income tax than any of the roundabout ways to hurt rich people. Economists in general advocate for a corporate income tax of near zero because corporate income taxes are dumb and don't achieve anything other than companies obfuscating how much money they actually are making. The rise of the golden parachute came about specifically in response to laws that tried to punish executive pay. They just changed from executive pay to executive stock options

And if you start taxing them personally, they just move to a country where the tax burden is less expensive, but their immense wealth will still allow them a comfortable lifestyle. That's nationalism for you.

Note: I'm not saying DON'T tax the wealthy more. I'm just saying "Just tax them more and do nothing else" won't have the effect you think it'll have, thus rendering the goal of it relatively impotent without reaping any of the benefits that other solutions would offer.

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masterplum posted...

I said what you had to do in that exact post

And I saw that and repeated to you that they will find a way around it. There is nothing "unavoidable" when it comes to the super rich. How do you think they became super rich in the first place?

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masterplum posted...

I feel like the number 1 thing socialists miss in these conversations is that evil rich people aren't going to just take the L. If there are ways to loophole around improving people's lives they will do it, either by cutting hours, cutting benefits, or just going out of business and moving to Ireland.

You have to hit rich people where it is completely unavoidable, non avoidable personal income tax. Billionaires can pay A LOT of lawyers to weasel out of everything else.

Then you can use that money to directly help poor people

So in other words, never do anything because rich people will squirm out of literally ANYTHING that hurts their bottom line.

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Iron Man 2, MI.

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PerfectChaosZ posted...

Which is why the raise should have went up alongside the pay increase so you'd still making two dollars more (or whatever) like you were

Exactly. The hand-wringing over "everything will be more expensive" is like...so what? Cost of living has already FAR outpaced take home wages since the Reagan years, so I can't imagine prices would rise THAT much more to maintain the same level of inequality.

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I remember I used to work at my college's campus bookstore. I started working there in high school because of familial connections, and wound up working there for like, ten years total? And I remember that at one point, I had gotten a very slight raise due to my longevity with the company. Soon thereafter, there was a minimum wage increase, and I found myself making the same money that new employees were making. New employees that I, as a veteran employee, was forced to train to do their fucking jobs. It pissed me off. It sucked and made me feel worthless since I was valued the same as new people who had no idea what they were doing.

So I do GET the mindset of people feeling undervalued by the minimum wage increase, but there are really two lines of thought you can go down. A. I could be pissed at the newbies and think they're undeserving. I was making exactly what I deserved, and therefore they deserve less than me. Or B. I could be pissed at the company and think they're screwing me over. I deserve to make more because I've been around so much longer than the newbies.

Option A just keeps the poor at each other's throats by telling the veterans "Hey, those fuckers don't deserve to match you", and telling the newbies "Hey, those fuckers think you're worth less than them".

Option B aligns the poor by giving the newbies a living wage so they're not fighting over table scraps, and helps the veterans by letting them know who's REALLY keeping them down.

It's not unlike our country's long history of systemic racism, designed to make poor whites feel like it's okay that they're poor so long as black people have it worse than them. Give an oppressed class another oppressed class to hate and they won't turn against the oppressors.

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NBIceman posted...

By the way, Inviso, I emailed my leftover writeups to you a couple days ago - I assume you got them?

Yup.

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Corrik7 posted...

Many manufacturing jobs pay that or less, first of all. Secondly, I said if devalues them. Even if you make $25/hr. Your work is devalued when you are only making $10 more an hour for a harder job with more responsibility, possible safety issues, and such... Coupled with price increases of whatever nature.

It sounds like those jobs should be paid more as well then. And someone was talking about price freezes, so that would prevent inflation, wouldn't it?

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It doesn't help that Thor 1 doesn't really DO too much of that comedy. The only fish-out-of-water scene I can remember is him smashing the coffee cup. Otherwise it's just a weird guy not really interacting with the human world all that much because he's more focused on getting home and finding Mjolnir. It's the biggest flaw I have with the film, honestly, and it's part of what makes it so...dull.

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Jesus Christ. Is Fox seriously gaslighting THAT hard? They get up in arms when people riot and destroy property without harm to human lives (aside from a violent police response, often inciting the riots in the first place), but when GOP Cultists violently invade the U.S. capitol, that's "marching peacefully and patriotically"?

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ZenOfThunder posted...

fuck how did i make my shitty writeup about the dutch angles and not chris hemsworth's ridiculously light blond dyed eyebrows

Yeah, his eyebrows are SO weird-looking in Thor >_> I didn't even think to mention it until other people said it in their write-ups though.

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OUTLIERS:

Eddv - 42
PrinceKaro - 25
BetrayedTangy - 22
Mr Crispy - 18
Lopen - 17
GavsEvans123 - 15
TomNook - 14
Johnbobb - 13
Snake5555555555 - 12
Raka Putra - 11
ScepterOfLove - 11
CoolCly - 10
Illuminatusbubu - 10
Inviso - 9
Maniac64 - 9
Jesse Custer - 8
Paratroopa1 - 8
Corrik7 - 7
HanOfTheNekos - 7
StifledSilence - 7
VengefulKaelee - 7
XIII Rocks - 7
Anagram - 6
MetalmindStats - 6
Red13n - 6
Mega Mana - 5
Cybat - 4
Whiskey Nick - 4
MetalDK - 2
Sheep007 - 2
ZenOfThunder - 2
NBIceman 0

NBIceman stays perfect for a fourth movie in a row. How about that? Meanwhile, Eddv just continues extending his lead with some verylets say unique opinions on the Phase 1 films. Meanwhile, Karo overtakes Tangy for second place as the field starts to spread even more.

Spoiler for Number 19: The first half of our first tie is also the first phase 3 movie to fall.

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Corrik7
This movie was decent. It introduces Thor to us who has to figure out how to regain his powers. He falls in love with Natalie Portman. Maybe the weakest part of this movie is that the villains were a bit weak and boring (again) and that the rest of the universe seems to at times possibly contradict how much of this movie was necessary. Don't get me wrong, I liked this movie when it came out. It just doesn't age well.

MetalDK
Too Shakespearean for my liking, but wasnt god awful.

NBIceman
Marvel hadnt quite built up the cache yet at the time of Thors release where they felt comfortable enough to just get weird and do whatever they wanted and still be confident that the masses would eat it up. They had to take this combination of Norse mythology and superhero craziness and try to make it palatable for general audiences. The result is an odd mishmash of dumbed-down Shakespearean writing for anything relating to Asgard and a bunch of awkward jokes during the Earth portion. And its not great. No one in the movie feels like they have much chemistry, either. Im not a big Natalie Portman fan, Kat Dennings is the least funny human being on the planet, and Anthony Hopkins seemed kind of embarrassed to be in a comic book film like this. Even Hemsworth, whos really become a great Thor, clearly wasnt comfortable with the role yet. Lokis good, but pretty underutilized. There was a better movie in here somewhere, I think, but it wouldve taken a more talented director than Branagh to find it. At least my boy Clint shows up, even if he doesnt really do anything.

Raka Putra
Touched by An Alien. Thor eventually grew on me but definitely not from this film. Here he's still a run of the mill jock-ish fish out of the water and the actual plot was blah. Not a good start for the God of Thunder.

ScepterOfLove
(No write-up.)

ZenOfThunder
DUTCH ANGLES = GOOD FILMMAKING

MetalmindStats
The very definition of a perfectly okay, entirely watchable Hollywood tentpole to blow two hours on, lacking any serious highlights or real lowlights.

Sheep007
How do you make a kingdom filled with Greek warrior gods boring? Ask this movie. I think this may have been the first MCU film I watched, and I just found it dull. This may be an unpopular opinion but frankly, I cant stand Thor and this rings true in the majority of his appearances. This dude is the god of lightning! How can you not make him more interesting? Sovngarde feels lifeless aside from the protagonists family. The jokes on Earth have been done better so many times before, and most of the humans are just as dull as all the Nords. On the plus side, Zeus and his brother have some chemistry, and theres a reason why Tom Hiddlestone keeps getting brought back. Hes just that damn good. I also just really like the concept of Ukonvasara (I had to look that one up) and it needing someone worthy to pick it up Ive talked more about this in the Ultron writeup.

BetrayedTangy
Loki might be living in Thors shadow, but damn does he sure overshadow him in this movie. I think where they really screwed up was Thors characterization, they make him far too unlikable in the beginning. I get thats the point, but they really give us no reason to root for him, meanwhile Lokis on this really heavy emotional journey and you can totally understand how things start to go to his head. Unfortunately this is Thors movie and we get way more of him on Earth and his lazy romance with Jane. It really feels like the studio didnt have much faith in the movie and went for the simpler audience friendly story.

Jesse Custer
This was such a boring movie. Im guessing they thought stripping Thor of his powers would allow him to develop as a character. But forcing Thor to get some humility as a mortal did nothing to make him interesting, considering his powers were about the only reason to care about him at this point in the MCU. Even the portions of the movie that took place on Asgard were largely unmemorable. And it didnt help that the final confrontation between Thor and Loki was so anticlimactic. Basically it seemed like they had no idea what to do with a Thor movie, but knew they needed one to set him up for The Avengers, and therefore just came up with a bunch of bland filler to call a movie.

StifledSilence
Thor is a douche and Natalie Portman is so fine. Then character development and whatever. See ya in the sequel! Cha Ching!

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Mega Mana
First Scene That comes to Mind: The Destroyer in New Mexico

There were a lot of scenes in this movie I didn't remember, particularly everything before the fight in Jotunheim and everything after the Destroyer fight. I remembered Darcy being more annoying than she was (she wasn't!), Jane being less of note (she was excellent), and Loki being more... smooth? Mercurial? instead of out-and-out villain. Like, there feels like disconnect between every scene he's in where you think for one moment he could be misunderstood and that would inform what happens next, but... it's haphazard.

Like, most of Loki's plot is a haphazard series of events and not an expert scheme. He sneaks Frost Giants in to disrupt Thor's coronation and manipulates their band to go fight in Jotunheim and break the peace so Thor will be reprimanded and Odin will keep the throne in war. But the Frost Giant origin just happens, Odin's collapse just happens, and then his actions are just smug lies and messy disasters. He's just a jerk.

I was quite entertained by the human elements of the movie, more than expected. I like Thor's growth over the course of the movie, and how he's tempered by the oath on his hammer and Loki's news of his father's passing and edicts. Again, based on future movies and how Loki is treated as a character after this movie, I was expecting more from their exchange, but Thor simply thanking his brother for the news and accepting his punishment was a really great moment for a character who'd be more prone to stubbornly resist and grouse and seek vengeance not long before. Decent enough movie. Further credit to Idris Elba, Anthony Hopkins, and Stellan Skarsgard. String!

Paratroopa1
This is the point at my list at which I effortlessly enjoy every film, so suffice to say the MCU is pretty easy to enjoy overall. Thor's a fun little movie. Fish-out-of-water stories are pretty easy to win me over with, and there's some fun situational comedy out of Thor being all like 'what's up with earth' and everyone else being all like 'what's up with Thor'. I like the scene of Thor fighting through the facility to get to the hammer and discovering he's not worthy to wield it, and his eventual self-sacrifice to regain worthiness is predictable but satisfying. There isn't a whole lot else here though. The human side cast isn't that great, and the chemistry between Thor and Jane feels like it comes out of nowhere (Thor's like a thousand years old and he just kinda falls for this human woman for no reason? I know she's Natalie Portman but still). The parts in New Mexico feel like a high-budget tv show, and Asgard doesn't feel lived in at all - it feels like one of those sterile cgi sets in the Star Wars prequels.

Red13n
This was our first taste of Thor and it was pretty clear early on that normal super serious Thor doesn't really work. This wasn't the complete bore that The Dark World forced upon us, but it also wasn't great either. Loki is here and we get our first taste of how he'll end up one of the more memorable characters in the MCU. But Thor is here and hes too naive for asgardian politics, then gets banished to earth where we get to see him continue to be too ignorant of earth customs. It will feel more than played out by the time it is all done.

VengefulKaelee
You know, I would like this movie a lot more than I do were it not for the weird directorial choices that Kenneth Branagh makes throughout. One of my biggest filmmaking pet peeves is Dutch angles with no apparent purpose, and this movie is only one step removed from the likes of Battlefield Earth in that regard. It's a weird, distracting stylistic choice that completely takes me out of the movie during several key scenes. That being said, I do love Chris Hemsworth as Thor, the visual aesthetic and Shakespearean tone of Asgard, and a lot of the supporting performances between the likes of Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgrd, etc., it's just one hell of a stacked cast. Unfortunately Natalie Portman's character turns out to be pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things (and Kat Dennings is just kind of annoying). So yeah, Thor is one that I wish I liked more than I do, due to its often-quite-strong script and cast, but it's dragged down by some bad stylistic choices and poor use of its female characters.

Whiskey Nick
(No write-up.)

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XIII Rocks
Dutch angles
Dutch angles everywhere
So many dutch angles.
Apart from that I like how they got Kenneth Brannagh to do what is prooooobably the most "Shakespearean" MCU movie - Brannagh compared it to Henry IV/V pre-release but there's obvious very broad comparisons to be made with the fantasies too. Couple that with hiring Hopkins, who obviously nails it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEs4lUlqc6I) and you have a movie with strong acting... credibility. Props to Hemsworth and Hiddleston for doing a great job as relative unknowns. In terms of the plot, Thor's arc in the movie is obvious, but ultimately satisfying. The way Loki is handled is excellent, creating sympathy from the start for probably the MCU's greatest villain. But the movie is short on satisfying action and Thor kind of looks...weird here. Like go back and look at him. Look at his eyebrows. wtf?

HanOfTheNekos
Good action, good world building. Most of the characters, including side characters, were well-developed and heavily appreciated. I LOVED how they did Hawkeye... just a little taste of him... and he doesn't even do anything.

Coulson... the guy gets a LOT better in Avengers. But to this point, he's shown in every movie but Hulk... and Captain America? So he's basically the guy. It's nice seeing how SHIELD develops and everything, bit by bit.

I didn't really like the romance aspect of Thor. It felt cheap. Like, let's use Natalie Portman's star power, and write in a typical love story just cuz a hero needs a love story. It gives him a little bit more heroism to destroy the bridge in the end cutting her off. That said, Loki specifically told Heimdall there were other ways to travel the realms, so...

It was solid. A little more enjoyable than being completely neutral.

Inviso
As a character, Thor is great for throwing into a fish out of water storyline, because hes powerful enough to make that sort of thing funny. And in broader terms, I like his storyline over the course of the film. His character in the first quarter is basically the spoiled villain prince we see all the time in high fantasy stories, and yet he immediately gets smacked down to Earth (literally) and has to work to EARN his heroism, rather than just assuming it by way of his natural strength. Living amongst the mortals is a great way to teach him humility, and in theory, it makes his eventual resurrection feel EARNED. Similarly, I like Lokis characterization for the most part. We understand why he feels like a second fiddle to Thor, and why that might drive him to make rash and dangerous decisions. Unfortunately, I feel like having two major characters, each with their own major stories, waters down each individual story. Thors redemption is basically him being told his dad is dead, and realizing he needs to be a better person because of this. Lokis backstory is a bit cobbled together with just a LITTLE too little of a narrative through line. Its all still good, but it could have been better with a little more time (given how short the movie is.)

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Touch fuzzy. Get fuzzier.
Inviso