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The Marvels 2023

The Question said:
Fair point, though I'm hopeful they'll flush that floater, as well. I'm pretty sure that even with the stolen title, nobody's going to pay to watch that.
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"Snow White" has been bumped back a year or so and looks like it is getting retooled to have, you know, dwarfs.
 
I saw it today, I enjoyed it. Definitely not the worst MCU movie despite the box office, probably not even bottom ten. The three leads had great chemistry and that really carried it. Iman Vellani in particular is great and could carry one of these movies on her own (which will probably never happen now!) It's incredibly fast paced to be sure, and the action is a lot of fun. I will say though that the first big action setpiece where they were all swapping places was the strongest one and the later scenes maybe didn't play up the switching enough. The final fight with the villain was way too short and should have been a bit more elaborate. But the general tone it goes for is "frantic fun" and it pulls it off. The singing planet and the cat sequence were great goofy fun. Kamala's family were amusing.

The downside of the fast pace is that a lot of the character moments don't get room to breathe. They could have certainly gotten more out of the conflict between Carol and Monica and drawn out Carol accepting Kamala as a part of the team a bit longer. The villain gets a pretty decent motivation with Carold starting a war on her homeworld and they could have done more with that too. And while I didn't have a problem following the plot I can see how someone not as up to speed as me could have a hard time with all the jumping around between locations, especially at the start. The movie doesn't really do anything to introduce Kamala and Monica beyond some quick lines about how they got their powers; I think they should have shown a bit of Kamala being a hero in Jersey City at least.

And, while I enjoyed the movie, it's really nothing we haven't seen before and I can understand why after 33(!) movies people might be thinking "I'll just wait for Disney+ if nothing huge happens."

CGI was mostly good, defnitely didn't notice anything glaringly bad like in Quantumania...up until the mid credits scene. The CGI Beast looked TERRIBLE. This had to have been done at the last minute, but I'm not sure how that would have worked during the strikes?
 
With the spectacular failure of "The Marvels," Disney has bumped "Black Captain America" back a year. Dunno why, it's not like they can change the basic premise--unless they chuck the whole thing, rewrite, reshoot, and bring back Chris Evans--might as well just get it over with and release it. They've also pushed back "Deadpool 3." Also dunno why, but for a different reason. Deadpool? Gold. Wolverine? Gold. Deadpool AND Wolverine? Virtually a sure thing. ...unless they pushed it back because they didn't want to deal with the reality that a comic book movie that actually stays true to its comic book characters and gives its audience what it wants can be a hit. THAT would be an Inconvenient Truth.
 
I feel like this film could have been really good had they not cut a whole chunk of it out to get to 90 minutes. The three leads are great and it's fun to see them together. The plot is pretty good for MCU standards. The villian is nothing but, well, that's an MCU film for you.

But the pacing is insane and there are parts of the film that are almost incoherant because how it's been edited. It's really annoying that there's probably a longer edit of this film somewhere that actually lets the story breathe and the characters interact with each other properly and we'll never see it because it tested bad with focus groups or something.
 
Look, people love to hop on the bandwagon and take a trendy shit on things like The Marvels. But break down the numbers:
  • 4th best weekend for a post-pandemic, PG-13 action sequel about an American fighter pilot.
  • 5th best opening weekend for a 2023 comic book movie.
  • 5th best weekend for a 2023, PG-13 film with a 30+ year old blonde woman in the lead role.
  • 4th best November opening weekend for a Disney film in which one of the main characters is a blonde woman with superpowers.
  • 15th best opening weekend for a November film that has a female protagonist.
  • 39th best opening weekend of the 2020s.
  • 5th best opening weekend for a MCU film with a female lead.
  • 19th best MCU Previews for a sequel and/or crossover.
  • 27th best MCU Previews.
  • 32nd best MCU Opening Day.
  • 33rd best MCU True Friday.
  • 33rd best MCU Opening Saturday.
  • 33rd best MCU Opening Sunday.
  • 33rd best opening weekend for an MCU film.
  • 56th best opening weekend for a Marvel film.
  • 76th best opening weekend for a Marvel or DC film.
It is without question a film. I rest my case.
 
I saw "The Marvels" this past Saturday & I think it's an OK flick I guess. But I thought that there was an overload of action sequences & not enough exposition. And I also found the basic narration of the movie to be confusing. Unfortunately I can't go into too many details here because I'm sure alot of folks haven't seen it yet.

I don't think "The Marvels" deserves to be doing badly at the box office. It's still a flick that's great to see on a movie theater screen. Do I suggest others see "The Marvels" on the Big Screen before it vamooses from movie theaters? ABSOLUTELY! I think folks should go see "The Marvels" while it's STILL on the Big Screen & reach their own judgments about it & not take mine or anybody else's opinion & review about it as objective fact.

I hope I posted a satisfactory NON-SPOILER review of "The Marvels" here.
 
CaptainWacky said:
I enjoyed watching the movie.
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I didn't mind Ms Marvel. It was the last MCU show I watched before ditching Disney+. I'm not surprised Iman is (supposedly) the highlight of the film.

The fairer takes basically cite the chemistry between the cast as a positive, but the villain and the plot are a mess.

As you say, it's all been done before. As one review put it, you've already seen this film 30+ times. The brand and the genre are on the decline. If this'd come out a couple of years ago, it might not have been a top grosser, but it probably would've made its money back, at least.
 
I do think the lack of promotion from the cast probably made a small difference. Not the main reason for the low box office, of course, but I'm sure Disney send their casts out to promote thing for a reason (because it works.) Iman Vellani being adroable on Hot Ones or something would have convinced at least 28 extra people to see it.
 
I am just perving on BoxOfficeMojo on this one. They thought "Quantumania" was a bomb. Or "The Flash." This thing is bombing on an "Ishtar" level. It's not going to make $85 million domestic. It's been in theaters a month and a half and in a little over a week "Wonka" has made more that it ever will.
 
Volpone said:
I am just perving on BoxOfficeMojo on this one. They thought "Quantumania" was a bomb. Or "The Flash." This thing is bombing on an "Ishtar" level. It's not going to make $85 million domestic. It's been in theaters a month and a half and in a little over a week "Wonka" has made more that it ever will.
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With few exceptions (Andor), if it's Disney (new Disney - not old Disney), it's a no-go for me. The MCU is fucked. Star Wars is fucked. They screwed Indy, they were roasted over their 100th anniversary Wish movie. It's been a disastrous year for them. The model is broken.

Absolutely stupid decision to increase MCU content post-Endgame.

I think COVID, the rise of streaming - along with the rising cost of going to the movies - has changed things irrevocably. I know myself I go to the movies a fraction of what I used to. Barbie is the only film I went to see on the big screen this year. In the past - even when I didn't frequent the theater as often - I'd still go several times a year. Not sure? Just wait several weeks for it to turn up on streaming.
 
In the early 19th century someone published a book, "The Well-Made Play," that told a producer how to make a play that would make money. I guarantee by the year 2000 Disney literally had a textbook on how to make hit content--film, television, parks, live shows.

In 1993 Disney bought Miramax because they needed a brand to release adult/mature movies. No one would've went to see Disney's "Pulp Fiction." The Disney studio itself tended to skew more towards girls with its Princesses, so they acquired Star Wars and Marvel to make money off content for boys.

But then, at some point they decided "fuck it." "Let's recast every superhero as a female person of color," shitting up their male demographic. "Fuck it, let's alter all our live action adaptations to make them more diverse and more feminist," ruining their female demographic content. [Yes, I'm oversimplifying and generalizing a bit but not that much] "Fuck it, let's figure out ways to wring every penny out of the suckers visiting our theme parks," ruining the thing that made Disney parks magical. ABC used to be the last TV network you could trust to be unbiased and family friendly. Tim Allen's "Last Man Standing" was a hit. But Tim was a conservative, playing a conservative character so they cancelled it. The "Roseanne" reboot was a hit, but then Roseanne said something as a private individual that They didn't approve of so they killed off her character and wrecked the show. Jimmy Kimmel was the last latenite talk show that was still fun to watch. But then Kimmel decided to go hard Left and destroyed his viewership.

Someone high up forgot that the purpose of being in business is to make money. Because they knew how to make money--again, I guarantee they literally had a book on how to make money--and decided "Mmmm, yeah... no. We're not gonna do that. We're gonna do Social Justice." Because if there's one thing people love is being preached to and lectured.

(I did look up Disney's Mission and Vision statements and they're...interesting. Particularly the Vision Statment gives me hives. I'd be curious what they were, say, 20 years ago, but I couldn't easily find that and didn't feel like doing any heavy research. That said:
Walt Disney’s mission is “to entertain, inform and inspire people around the globe through the power of unparalleled storytelling, reflecting the iconic brands, creative minds and innovative technologies that make ours the world’s premier entertainment company.”

Walt Disney’s vision is “to be one of the world’s leading producers and providers of entertainment and information.”

That "inform" and "information" give me hives. Maybe because, like they're brand, they've twisted and poisoned that. Information is good. Reeducation is not.
 
[EDITED TO ADD:] I'm working through The Holy Bible and I need some light reading as a break. At least some of "The Chronicles of Narnia" is in public domain so I'm working though that. I was struck by how closely the 2005 "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" movie followed the book so I popped onto Wiki to learn more. I was literally shocked to learn it was a Disney film. That's what a good job Disney has done at destroying their brand: In 2005 they made such a perfect, entertaining movie--with not very subtle Christian messages--that made them a pile of money (and served as fodder for wonks when another studio bombed with "The Golden Compass," the atheists' answer to Narnia). By 2023 I really had a hard time believing Disney made "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe." It was nothing like what Disney has become in less than a couple decades.
 
So they need to evacuate a space station in earth orbit quickly and they don't have enough escape pods, if only they knew someone in new Asgard who can bifrost large groups of people away. Or knew any wizards who could open a portal, or had any connections with people in wakanda, or shield.
 
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