The Marvels , you know that new superhero movie

[sktarq]

Yup... That seems plausible... It certainly isn't giant studios making a bad product and then using media shills to gaslight and insult their own audience in a pathetic attempt to deflect blame. That would never happen... No company would be that stupid, right? Right?

Nope and those companies would NEVER troll those they call trolls themselves would they?

And as someone who knew people who basically acted as a troll on the internet as close to a full time job (basically while at was at work when they were not cheating on me) I feel reasonably certain that even these most organized trolls couldn't move the needle on review bombing a billion dollar movie more than once. Sure noisy minorities make up a large part of the conversation but that it true at both ends...and mostly it seems like people have defaulted to the Irish Goodbye.

[warty goblin]

I've yet to see a good review of this, and these are all critics who got access to press screenings. The most damning so far is suggesting it's worse than, and reminiscent of, Thor Love and Thunder, which is so bad my fiancé and I turned it off after like 40 minutes because it was actually painful to watch, in that uniquely horrible way that only the deeply unfunny thing convinced of its own hilarity can be. So, ouch.

[Ramza00]

I like Holland's spiderman well enough, that I'll concede that nostalgia at least supported his last entry, and it might feel very different if I hadn't seen all the prior films. Certainly the movie has applause pauses after character appearances that would feel somewhat odd to someone just watching the film without that context. Not a bad film, but a particular kind of film.

Holland is fine but everything felt off watching his Spider-Man, like watching the original trek except the characters are in an alternate universe mirror trek. I guess that is my fault, bringing my expectations into it. I was hoping to get familiar Parker but who does crossovers instead of Parker having the insane wealth Tony brings to the table. So while Holland is fine.

I just never gave him a chance. Worse one can make an arguement that there was an arc with heart over his 3 movies and how many team movies, was it 3 let’s say it’s 3 plus cameos in other works and shorts. And god I am picking at the wound for I just realised MCU Peter is agent Coulson and gosh that feels a betrayal to the Everyman ness of Coulson having no powers and he is Government white bread like an X-Files character, and a betrayal to Peter.

So yes I feel fatigue and a little sour, and I hope I do not feel this with Monica Rambeau, and I also afraid to let Kamala into my heart and for her to become whatever MCU Peter is (nothing wrong with Tom Holland, and I get he is a favourite for many of people for that is intra generational storytelling and I am excited for people identifying him. It makes sense in my head how kids these days see Anakin Skywalker as Clone Wars Anakin and not bad dad Leia and Vader Nebula, Gamora, and Thanos)

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Edit let’s bring more vibes that are inverted and dread (please do not, let’s be chill) but based off the AMC preorder your seat, I am going to get awesome seating in the showtime I am choosing 😎 (none of this IMAX or 3D stuff)

[ArmyOfOptimists]

I've paid zero attention to any of the characters in or the plot of the Marvels, but from experience, every time that people from Hollywood use the words "review bombed" or "smear campaign" or "online trolls", you can generally translate it to "we don't want to admit that our movie's not very good so we're going to blame the audience for not liking it enough".

I don't really follow what Disney/Marvel said about it. What I can do is look up things like the CinemaScore or PostTrak polling and critic reviews, which were all positive, plus the movie being listed as one of the most anticipated films of 2019 on IMDb and Fandango. And then the Rotten Tomatoes viewer score plummeted to 33% with more reviews on its opening day than Infinity War received in its entire run. Which I think you can agree is strange - why would a movie that, while successful, had half the sales get so much more attention? It certainly wasn't the first bad Marvel movie either. We'd had both Thor movies and Age of Ultron before then. It's not hard to look at the hate campaign across the internet aimed more at Brie Larson's Wrinkle In Time speech and see a connection there.

For what it's worth, I don't think the movie is incredible either. It's about even with a lot of the middle of the road Marvel movies. It's a fun and campy superhero film that's a decent watch, though I think Larson either isn't the best actress for Danvers or the MCU creatives have a different direction for her. Danvers was a soldier before a superhero and has been an outsider from most of the societies she protects. She should be more like Captain America minus the patriotism: Someone who views their position as a duty and a mission, professional on the job and serious about saving lives, but with an edge of sadness because they never really belong in the world they're protecting. The way the MCU portrays her is a bit too light-hearted and Larson is wearing a grin in almost every scene. Then again, that's an issue with the MCU writing as a whole; they don't let their characters have serious scenes anymore without quipping.

...

Agreed. The nice part is that No Way Home ended with Peter Parker more as we know him. A superhero, but also a poor schlub in a run down apartment facing the world without any of the Stark tech that's suffocating his stories. I do worry they went a bit far, though. Peter might not have always had the money or the tech, but he did have his family and friends. MCU Pete has nothing at the moment, which does make a good opportunity to do a symbiote or Black Cat story with him where he's tempted to go darker without any of his support structures in place. On the other hand, that's probably too soon and I'd like at least one movie where he's just the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man we all love.

[Ramza00]

though I think Larson either isn't the best actress for Danvers or the MCU creatives have a different direction for her. Danvers was a soldier before a superhero and has been an outsider from most of the societies she protects. She should be more like Captain America minus the patriotism: Someone who views their position as a duty and a mission, professional on the job and serious about saving lives, but with an edge of sadness because they never really belong in the world they're protecting. The way the MCU portrays her is a bit too light-hearted and Larson is wearing a grin in almost every scene. Then again, that's an issue with the MCU writing as a whole; they don't let their characters have serious scenes anymore without quipping.

Fair but I want to underline this is opinion even if fair

• Carol was originally a soldier,
• then she did her whole Woman Magazine arc with Ms Marvel Vol 1 from 1977 to 79, which is meant to be Political much like Neil Adams Green Arrow Green Lantern was meant to be political from 1969 to 1983
• Then a different editorial people happened and the Ms Marvel book was canceled and they did the cursed Avengers 200 1 issue arc which wrote Carol out (not going to elaborate the plot of this issue, you have google, it was cursed and is one of the events that lead to the 2005 X-Men decimation, even though that is more Wanda.)
• Then a year later Chris Claremont reinvented Carol and we got Binary and Rogue stealing Carols powers in the X-Men books. This is because Claremont wrote several of the Ms Marvel issues while also doing X-Men and non X-Men books and he hated Avengers 200 so the solution is to give her a trauma and reboot her for Chris thought Carol got fridge (before Gail Simones coined that term in the 90s)
• Then in the 1990s Carol got rebooted again
• and in the 2000s Carol got reboot again which has mostly stucked.

My point is your comment is totally valid and valuable , but which Carol or a mix match ^{which we got} for she is a 50+ year character.

=====

Should have introduced her, Carol’s roommate, Jessica Drew as a friend of Fury since Jessica is a former spy. But we can not have that due to Sony issues and Jessica being an awesome bad ass in the Spider-Verse movies.

Agreed. The nice part is that No Way Home ended with Peter Parker more as we know him. A superhero, but also a poor schlub in a run down apartment facing the world without any of the Stark tech that's suffocating his stories. I do worry they went a bit far, though. Peter might not have always had the money or the tech, but he did have his family and friends. MCU Pete has nothing at the moment, which does make a good opportunity to do a symbiote or Black Cat story with him where he's tempted to go darker without any of his support structures in place. On the other hand, that's probably too soon and I'd like at least one movie where he's just the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man we all love.

Sounds like a good 6 episode arc for a Disney plus show 🙃 which is never going to happen but I joke.

=====

Sidenote the actors can not do any promotion due to the Screen Actors strike, (I am thinking about this since there is a tentative deal announced today)

How much of Marvels success is all that promotion which can not happen if their is a strike?

[Murk]

I am actually looking forward to this!
I thought Captain Marvel was perfectly mediocre. And I have a soft spot for Larson.

But mostly, I do not feel that "interconnected universe" has lost its appeal. I love franchising!
My main problem with nowadays MCU is the opposite: that there are too many separate threads going nowhere. So many movies and Disney+ shows that got no follow-up and didn't impact the interconnected universe at all.
In the early phases were "Thor will return" meant Thor would indeed return, and I loved that. Because even if the movie was bad, itgave me the feeling that I didn't watch a bad movie for nothing: I watched it for the continuing story.
But now "Shang-Chi will return" means "Shang-Chi might return seven years from now" and "The Eternals will return" means "The Eternals will not return if the movie flops". And that makes me feel I watched a bad movie for nothing.


So I'm happy to see a movie gathering characters and connecting loose threads.
It seems to be too little too late, but it's still an improvement.

[GloatingSwine]

I've paid zero attention to any of the characters in or the plot of the Marvels, but from experience, every time that people from Hollywood use the words "review bombed" or "smear campaign" or "online trolls", you can generally translate it to "we don't want to admit that our movie's not very good so we're going to blame the audience for not liking it enough".

Captain Marvel was the movie that forced Rotten Tomatoes to change their policy to 1. Only accept reviews after a movie is actually out, and 2. put in some kind of verification that the person submitting the review had actually seen the movie.

It was getting mass-negative reviews before it was out.

Now maybe literally every one of those had a pre-screener copy and they were telling the Real Truth and nobody went to see it (remember it was also the movie where there was a wacky conspiracy theory that Disney were buying up all the tickets to artificially make it look like it was making money) but that's a considerably dumber explanation than that there's just a large segment of very online people who don't like it when women.

[Saph]

Captain Marvel was the movie that forced Rotten Tomatoes to change their policy to 1. Only accept reviews after a movie is actually out, and 2. put in some kind of verification that the person submitting the review had actually seen the movie.

It was getting mass-negative reviews before it was out.

Now maybe literally every one of those had a pre-screener copy and they were telling the Real Truth and nobody went to see it (remember it was also the movie where there was a wacky conspiracy theory that Disney were buying up all the tickets to artificially make it look like it was making money) but that's a considerably dumber explanation than that there's just a large segment of very online people who don't like it when women.

Yes, I remember lots of people telling me when Captain Marvel came out that there was a MASSIVE HATE CAMPAIGN against the movie and it was AWFUL that so many people were judging the movie so badly and these negative reviews were OBVIOUSLY DISHONEST and it was CLEARLY because the main character was a woman and didn't you agree that it was VERY IMPORTANT that this movie was a success so that we can BEAT THE HATERS and you don't want to be a hater, too, right, so you need to see the movie and say good things about the movie otherwise THE HATERS WILL WIN.

Funnily enough, none of these people ever seemed to have very much to say about the content of the movie. Actually, I got the impression that they considered the content of the movie to be kind of irrelevant. All that seemed to matter to them was trying to convince you that you were a bad person for not liking it.

[GloatingSwine]

Yes, I remember lots of people telling me when Captain Marvel came out that there was a MASSIVE HATE CAMPAIGN against the movie and it was AWFUL that so many people were judging the movie so badly and these negative reviews were OBVIOUSLY DISHONEST and it was CLEARLY because the main character was a woman and didn't you agree that it was VERY IMPORTANT that this movie was a success so that we can BEAT THE HATERS and you don't want to be a hater, too, right, so you need to see the movie and say good things about the movie otherwise THE HATERS WILL WIN.

Funnily enough, none of these people ever seemed to have very much to say about the content of the movie. Actually, I got the impression that they considered the content of the movie to be kind of irrelevant. All that seemed to matter to them was trying to convince you that you were a bad person for not liking it.

How do you honestly review the content of a movie that you haven't seen because it isn't out yet?

[Saph]

How do you honestly review the content of a movie that you haven't seen because it isn't out yet?

Look, my day job is being a professional author. My income is very directly tied to reader opinions of my books, and the reviews they write of them . . . so it's probably not a surprise that I pay pretty close attention to reviews, review weighting, and how they shape public opinion.

And I've had some pretty nasty reviews! Just to give you a few examples, here are some of the reasons reviewers have given for giving my books "I'd rate this zero stars if I could"-type ratings:

• Book was priced $1.99 higher on Amazon than the reader thought it should be
• Reader didn't like the main character's race and sex
• Reader didn't like my race and sex
• Reader got a corrupted version of the book file on their Kindle with bad formatting
• Book was a novella instead of a novel (note: the cover said 'NOVELLA')
• Reader met me one time in real life and didn't like me so went online to tell everyone not to read my books

. . . I could go on, but you get the point. Point is, when I'm writing about bad reviews, it's not some abstract concept for me.

But you know what? Not a single one of those really unfair bad reviews made any real difference. Because for every unfair bad review, there was at least one unfair good review. Someone who just happened to be in a good mood that day, or was easy to please, or who liked something else I wrote and so would have given this one 5 out of 5 no matter what. And more importantly, the really unfair reviews, bad and good – the ones that really have nothing to do with the book's quality – are a drop in the bucket compared to the normal ones. The law of large numbers wins out.

I suspect that when The Marvels comes out, it's going to get completely trashed by reviewers (Disney slapped an review embargo on it, which is usually something companies only do when they know people are going to REALLY hate their product). And when that happens, I'm sure the marketers and PR-types will try to blame unfair reviews or a hate campaign. But I'll be surprised if many people buy it this time. They've gone back to that particular well a few times too often.

[Murk]

And more importantly, the really unfair reviews, bad and good – the ones that really have nothing to do with the book's quality – are a drop in the bucket compared to the normal ones. The law of large numbers wins out.

Except when there are no normal ones because you haven't published the book yet.
If you haven't published the book yet, all the reviews are unfair, so the normal ones do not win out. There are no normal reviews for an unpublished book.

And that's what happened to Captain Marvel on Rotten Tomatoes, and that was an issue, and it's a good thing they've solved it.

I agree "these reviewers haven't actually seen the movie because the movie isn't out yet" won't be a valid excuse this time.

[Lemmy]

The change in RT for Captain Marvel wasn't a "we have to get rid of the trolls" change. It was a "we have to protect big studios" change. They just disguised it as the former... Because trying to dismiss any and all criticism as bigotry has been Hollywood's primary modus operandi for the last 10 years.

There really wasn't any actual evidence that unfair negative review bombing was any more common or intense than unfair positive review bombing... In fact, there were more reviews saying the movie is 9 or 10 than reviews saying it's a 0 or 1, and clearly neither case was true... But of course, RT and Disney will never say that.

RT has changed their rules, deleted reviews and even frozen scores multiple times now... Always to protect big movies from big studios, as it has a very obvious vested interest in those movies and studios being successful. In fact they are OWNED by a big studio.

It (and nearly every other major review site, TBH) hasn't been trustworthy or reliable in years. Hell! Not even 3 months ago, it was leaked that a PR firm was paying reviewers to hide negative reviews. And if you're surprised by that or think that's a rare case... I've got a bridge to sell to you!

[GloatingSwine]

They changed the rules to make sure that people leaving reviews had actually seen the movie they were reviewing.

That's not "protecting big studios" that's the bare-ass minimum for maintaining any sort of integrity for their own platform.

[Ramza00]

I am sorry but irrational people, irrational emotions, and irrational belief systems exist (#1)

But #2 there are many different types of irrational emotions too many to list here. But in this case the hate campaign was not tied to hate but instead envy, desire, and perceived narcissistic injury that somehow disrupts your place in the world. It is very easy to describe with that 2019 campaign.

Of course with #2 it is still irrational, there is no proper ratios in this irrationality it can all be an imaginary force, much like hype^{positive valence} can be an imaginary force … well the same applies to anti-hype … hype with a negative valance which is also imaginary.

=====

*shrug* there can be no winning or losing, no meeting of minds, for people disagree on the underlying premises much like how people may get excited for a thing or remain chill for a thing may be very different. This is because #3 all that irrational and imaginary stuff is still a very real force in this world and one should not discount it or mock it, even if one ignores it for after a point it is no longer helpful.

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People were reviewing a movie before it came out, this is #4 stereotyping, literally one of the definitions for it.

I suspect that when The Marvels comes out, it's going to get completely trashed by reviewers (Disney slapped an review embargo on it, which is usually something companies only do when they know people are going to REALLY hate their product). And when that happens, I'm sure the marketers and PR-types will try to blame unfair reviews or a hate campaign. But I'll be surprised if many people buy it this time. They've gone back to that particular well a few times too often.

I am sorry but this is flat out wrong, review embargo’s, NDA, and associated legal structures are literally standard practices with hollywood and has been so for decades.

This is not something new, or done with a single specific movie, it is literally standard procedure. What is new is usually Disney and Marvel are flooding the zone with their own PR and scheduled interviews to build hype.

Something that is absent with this movie due to the rules of the Screen Actors Guild strike where actors can not promote the movie.

[DammitVictor]

With all that said - I want at least one Spiderman movie where Tom Holland is just allowed to do the Friendly Neighborhood thing rather than doubling as Iron Lad with an AI in his head.

I mean, I get it and I wish you the best, but have you considered the Clone Saga as a Disney+ "miniseries"-- supposedly a one-and-done but it goes on for six more seasons-- starring Tom Holland as Peter, Ben, Kaine, and Jessica Drew?

[Tyndmyr]

It wasn't online reviews (which were mostly bombed and fake).

Bombed in the sense of people who dislike it, sure. That doesn't make that opinion fake. If it's botted or something, then sure, but plenty of people like me who can't be bothered to go do ratings like or dislike movies, and audience sentiment is real, even if some of the metrics measuring it are imperfect.

It was post-screening audience polling and I'm not sure how you fake that.

Opening night audiences are, on average, more enthusiastic than viewership in general. This is a known bias that is embraced by the movie industry because everyone wants positive news. Cinemascore's ratings effectively range from As to Bs. If you got a C somehow, then your movie is utterly awful and hated by everyone.

In addition to that bias, Cinemascore only polls about 400 people per movie, of which they get about a 65% response rate, which means a fat margin of error thanks to the small sample size..

Film studios are also the main customer base for Cinemascore's exit polling. This can also produce something of a bias towards what their customers want to see.

Therefore, almost every film gets rated at least B+. Of all the films ever polled, only 22 have ever received an F rating. By this distribution, an A- is a mediocre rating at best, and indicates that the most avid fan segment considered the movie alright, but not amazing. Even an A is honestly pretty common.

MCU films to be rated A- include The Incredible Hulk, Thor: The Dark World and Black Widow. The only MCU film to ever receive a flat B rating was Eternals, and no MCU film was rated lower. Almost every MCU film is rated A or A+.

Therefore, the rating for Captain Marvel is not exceptional or indicative of a good film, and The Marvels has not yet received official scoring for exit polling because the opening weekend isn't finished. Preview numbers are obviously even more wildly suspect and are not used for anything other than advertising.

People coming out of the theater had very positive things to say about it. I'd argue that's the most honest form of reviewing you can find. Sentiment may have been changed later because of the smear campaign against the character, which would've impacted merchandise sales. And nobody wants to sport the stuff that's going to attract the "Ackshually, let me tell you why that movie was terrible..." types.

Merchandise is ordered prior to movie release, and most sales for movie merch are front loaded. You tend to sell the stuff immediately after opening. Popular films can have a longer tail, sometimes for decades in the case of true hits, but if nobody's buying merch for a film opening weekend, that generally means that enthusiasm isn't that strong. It indicates that even those who gave it an alright rating as a way to spend a couple of hours are only modestly interested.

This is her second movie, though. I assume you're talking about Endgame

No, I'm talking about the decision to mostly sideline the headlining character in her own second film in favor of two new heroes. That's an indication of lack of faith.

I've paid zero attention to any of the characters in or the plot of the Marvels, but from experience, every time that people from Hollywood use the words "review bombed" or "smear campaign" or "online trolls", you can generally translate it to "we don't want to admit that our movie's not very good so we're going to blame the audience for not liking it enough".

Yeah, pretty much. Trolls always exist. There are probably people that will bash the original Black Panther just to get a reaction. Those people have relatively little impact on the overall reception to it, which was quite positive. Those trolls also hated on Eternals, but so did everyone else, and that latter group mattered quite a lot more.

So, sure, you absolutely have trolls, but they only get leaned on as an explanation when the movie is not great, and they are used to dismiss feedback from people who are not trolls as well. It is a convenient excuse that gets trotted out quite a lot these days.

How do you honestly review the content of a movie that you haven't seen because it isn't out yet?

Pre-release screenings mean that some people see it before general release. Now, there are probably people who lie about this....but that probably didn't start with Captain Marvel. People have been seeing and rating movies for ages. Pre-screenings for critics to get those early reviews is an intentional part of advertising, it didn't come about as an oversight.

I'm perfectly fine with saying that many of those early reviews for Capt Marvel and other films were fraudulent, but I observe that this was only a problem when the data hindered sales, and I strongly suspect that if the fraudulent data was positive, no cry would have been raised.

Hell, corporate decisionmakers couldn't even see through the trolling good reviews for Morbius, and did a re-release that utterly failed.

The salt is over the negativity, not dishonesty.

I suspect that when The Marvels comes out, it's going to get completely trashed by reviewers (Disney slapped an review embargo on it, which is usually something companies only do when they know people are going to REALLY hate their product).

The very fact that review embargos exist is a pretty solid point in favor of my argument that they care only about positivity, not accuracy.

[Kareeah_Indaga]

Opening night audiences are, on average, more enthusiastic than viewership in general.

Reel Rejects said in their The Marvels video that the audience was provided with alcohol too, and that that was usually a bad sign for the quality of the movie. I don’t know if that would help the score much, but I suspect it would help, at least for those first reviews.

[warty goblin]

Reel Rejects said in their The Marvels video that the audience was provided with alcohol too, and that that was usually a bad sign for the quality of the movie. I don’t know if that would help the score much, but I suspect it would help, at least for those first reviews.

Well whatever they did or did not do, I don't think it worked because the early critic reviews are still absolutely savage.

[Tyndmyr]

Reel Rejects said in their The Marvels video that the audience was provided with alcohol too, and that that was usually a bad sign for the quality of the movie. I don’t know if that would help the score much, but I suspect it would help, at least for those first reviews.

Yeah, that's at least an attempt to buy some goodwill. Doesn't seem to have worked, but it at least indicates that they knew there was a problem.

Reviews to date are not looking good: ‘The Marvels’ Arrives As The Third Worst-Reviewed MCU Movie Ever. That author even tries to defend The Eternals as a decent film, so I don't think he's particularly anti-MCU...just...by all accounts it is not an amazing film.

[Ramza00]

see everyone in several hours on the other side of the marvels threshold

[Psyren]

Seeing it this evening, will update after.

I mean, I get it and I wish you the best, but have you considered the Clone Saga as a Disney+ "miniseries"-- supposedly a one-and-done but it goes on for six more seasons-- starring Tom Holland as Peter, Ben, Kaine, and Jessica Drew?

We're already getting my ideal vision of Ben Reilly (i.e. tryhardy brooding 90s comic edgelord version of fan-favorite character that became a parody of itself) in the Spiderverse continuity. See also Jean-Paul Valley. I have no notes.

[Batcathat]

We're already getting my ideal vision of Ben Reilly (i.e. tryhardy brooding 90s comic edgelord version of fan-favorite character that became a parody of itself) in the Spiderverse continuity. See also Jean-Paul Valley. I have no notes.

I'm always gonna have a soft spot for the blond barista Ben Reilly. I started reading Spider-Man right at the end of the Clone Saga, so Ben was "my" Spider-Man for quite a while there.

[Lemmy]

They changed the rules to make sure that people leaving reviews had actually seen the movie they were reviewing.

That's not "protecting big studios" that's the bare-ass minimum for maintaining any sort of integrity for their own platform.

They changed the rules so that only people who bought tickets through their platform could review it (I'm not user if that's still the case)... But the fact remains that they never bothered to do anything about POSITIVE review bombing, which was at least as common and intense as its negative counterpart...

But of course, when a big studio movie starts getting mostly negative reviews, suddenly they changed the system and accused every critic of being a bigot. They did something very similar to the sequel SW movies, going as far as deleting thousands of negatives and freezing scores.

But, hey... I'm sure RT was just trying to be fair and impartial and not at all just trying to protect big studios, like the one that owns the site...

-


Oh, and back to The Marvels:

Even the director of the movie moved on to another project 1 month before filming for the Marvels was even finished... How good a sign is that? When the director of a 300+ million dollar movie gives up halfway through and moves on to something else?

[Ramza00]

Saw Enjoyed, it is fine, two spoiler blocks one with vibes and one with plot

Before I start, I have seen Captain Marvel 2019 and WandaVision 2021

I have not seen Ms. Marvel or Secret Invasion. I bring this up for total movie length is 105 minutes, but really this is a 90 minute movie and 15 minutes of setup for they are not sure you know the 3 leads.

Spoiler: Vibes and guesses who will like it or not, aka genre

Show

Oh people are going to hate and loathe this movie, while other people are going to enjoy it.

If Captain America 2 was a 70s Spy Thriller, and Guardians 1 was a Star Wars … then this vibe premise is a Thanksgiving Family movie where people have not seen each other for years, and there is 1) friendly charm between people 2) long grudges and miscommunications so these two people are doing silent treatments 3) Hijinks 4) things come together 5) etc etc like a Family Thanksgiving where people are fighting and also people are having fun.

Thus you are going to see this as a MCU movie that is a B rating. or you are going to see it as a C or D rating, and some people it is going affectively be like nails on chalkboard and be a F.

I had fun but other people are going to loathe this. Backstory I am from a divorced family, with 6 on one side for aunts and uncles and 7 on the other side, including adoptions, divorce, step siblings, yadda. You are going to get it or hate it.

Spoiler: Plot and Cameo / Next Movie Game

Show

So in reverse order, end credits. After the movie there is a pre credit about assembling a team, and then a mid credits with an AU crossover, then an end credits with no visuals just cat sounds. So once you see the AU crossover you can leave the theater.

=====

The villain has no name. Yes the villain has a name but literally this is a ghost story, a haunting and she is a hungry ghost trying to steal to rectify what was stolen from her. The villain exist but is an obstacle and a mirror for Carol. Literally down to aesthetics and the fact her gauntlet allows her to steal Captain Marvel and Ghosts / Photon / other Captain Marvels powers.

I am glad they made the movie be 90 minutes plus 15 setup, though some may say it would be stronger with 15 more minutes of charm like Avengers 2 had the drinking scene. Whatever.

The plot is about people not talking and not communicating thus people will be annoyed by this. I would change about 5 minutes of stuff making things a little more clear what is going on, like how the Kree Supreme Intelligence is not just the leader but also the plumbing computer and when you break that you messed up how Hala regulating life on their biosphere and not just a civil war. Spend a minute or two explaining how Carol ****ed up even if her intentions were good.

*shrug*

I had fun, but gosh the internet is going to be unbearable for many of the criticisms are going to be fair and people are going to want to “make” you like this or “make” you dislike it, and I just do not care for this reactive type of fandom.

It is a rollercoaster mass media product, it is not a source of identity, it is a theme park. I had fun, take care everyone.

Even the director of the movie moved on to another project 1 month before filming for the Marvels was even finished... How good a sign is that? When the director of a 300+ million dollar movie gives up halfway through and moves on to something else?

This happens all the time like Steven Spielberg with Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park. The movie is out now so 🍿

[ArmyOfOptimists]

No, I'm talking about the decision to mostly sideline the headlining character in her own second film in favor of two new heroes. That's an indication of lack of faith.

By that metric, none of the original Avengers except Iron Man have any faith behind them. Captain America was "sidelined" in his second movie with the inclusion of Black Panther and Black Widow and his third movie was basically an Avengers film with how it equally featured Iron Man as well as just about every other Marvel hero. Thor was "sidelined" in his third movie with Loki, Hulk, and Valkyrie. Hulk still hasn't had a solo outing at all, and Black Widow's only solo movie came after the character was dead and also "sidelined" her with her sister.

The actual reason is that Larson pushed for Ms. Marvel to be included in the sequel before Captain Marvel had released.

As for the rest of it, you're really grasping at straws here. You wrote a whole lot about how an A rating from filmgoers is actually meaningless because most Marvel movies get A ratings, which is the whole point. Despite flaws that keep it from anywhere near the best of the bunch, the first movie wasn't any worse than most of Marvel's catalog, yet it somehow attracted tens of thousands of negative reviews, a conspiracy about Disney buying tickets to boost sales numbers, and a YouTube campaign of hatemongers that continues to this day. That's the mother of all review bombs.

I know the internet is addicted to hyperbole, but it's possible for something to just be decent instead of the best thing ever or a crime against humanity.

[ecarden]

Saw it...it's fine. There's a couple of great scenes, a couple of great lines and a lot of standard MCU fare. This is very much a vibes movie, not a plot movie though.

[Lord Ruby34]

Saw Enjoyed, it is fine, two spoiler blocks one with vibes and one with plot

Before I start, I have seen Captain Marvel 2019 and WandaVision 2021

I have not seen Ms. Marvel or Secret Invasion. I bring this up for total movie length is 105 minutes, but really this is a 90 minute movie and 15 minutes of setup for they are not sure you know the 3 leads.

Spoiler: Vibes and guesses who will like it or not, aka genre

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Oh people are going to hate and loathe this movie, while other people are going to enjoy it.

If Captain America 2 was a 70s Spy Thriller, and Guardians 1 was a Star Wars … then this vibe premise is a Thanksgiving Family movie where people have not seen each other for years, and there is 1) friendly charm between people 2) long grudges and miscommunications so these two people are doing silent treatments 3) Hijinks 4) things come together 5) etc etc like a Family Thanksgiving where people are fighting and also people are having fun.

Thus you are going to see this as a MCU movie that is a B rating. or you are going to see it as a C or D rating, and some people it is going affectively be like nails on chalkboard and be a F.

I had fun but other people are going to loathe this. Backstory I am from a divorced family, with 6 on one side for aunts and uncles and 7 on the other side, including adoptions, divorce, step siblings, yadda. You are going to get it or hate it.

Spoiler: Plot and Cameo / Next Movie Game

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So in reverse order, end credits. After the movie there is a pre credit about assembling a team, and then a mid credits with an AU crossover, then an end credits with no visuals just cat sounds. So once you see the AU crossover you can leave the theater.

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The villain has no name. Yes the villain has a name but literally this is a ghost story, a haunting and she is a hungry ghost trying to steal to rectify what was stolen from her. The villain exist but is an obstacle and a mirror for Carol. Literally down to aesthetics and the fact her gauntlet allows her to steal Captain Marvel and Ghosts / Photon / other Captain Marvels powers.

I am glad they made the movie be 90 minutes plus 15 setup, though some may say it would be stronger with 15 more minutes of charm like Avengers 2 had the drinking scene. Whatever.

The plot is about people not talking and not communicating thus people will be annoyed by this. I would change about 5 minutes of stuff making things a little more clear what is going on, like how the Kree Supreme Intelligence is not just the leader but also the plumbing computer and when you break that you messed up how Hala regulating life on their biosphere and not just a civil war. Spend a minute or two explaining how Carol ****ed up even if her intentions were good.

*shrug*

I had fun, but gosh the internet is going to be unbearable for many of the criticisms are going to be fair and people are going to want to “make” you like this or “make” you dislike it, and I just do not care for this reactive type of fandom.

It is a rollercoaster mass media product, it is not a source of identity, it is a theme park. I had fun, take care everyone.



This happens all the time like Steven Spielberg with Schindler’s List and Jurassic Park. The movie is out now so 🍿

I can mostly agree with all of this. I saw it and I think I enjoyed it. The jokes mostly landed for me, and the character dynamics were fun. However, the plot was nonsense.

Carol's powers were also all over the place, but I expected that coming in.

Mostly it just left me without much in the way of strong feelings. It was a movie. I watched it. I had more fun at the dinner with my buddy afterwards.

[Carl]

Honestly your love or hate for this having seen it is probably going to depend entirely on weather you like Khamala Khan or not. She's the heart of this movie stealing every scene she's in, but if you don't get her character at all the movies energy is going to fall flat.

As someone who allready liked Khamala, (though i didn't expect to going into ehr series, my limited prior interactions with the character where very meh), this movie hit a very high note. Still haven't watched guardians 3 or any of the spider man movies, but easily the best of the post Endgame movies for me with that caveat in mind. I'd rate Loki and Hawkeye higher, but thats mor a nod to how good those were than anything else.

You also don't really have to worry about having seen any other series, it helps, but the characters are introduced just fine on their own within the movie.

In terms of trailers vs movie, the first 2 represent the first half of the movie well whilst the final one represent the final half of the movie fairly well. Things go from light-hearted fun to "Oh Shoot" really, really, really fast. But not in a jarring way, it's handled smoothly enough to work, but it's still very sudden.

Without getting into spoilers on details the whole "Captain Marvel is a boring Invincible hero" actually gets addressed in universe, and the emotional factors of that being addressed hang over the entire final act of the movie and even into the credits.

As a whole the movie mostly avoids the pacing issues that have dogged the rest of the post endgame movies, but it doesn't get away from them entirely, having to squeeze in the multi-verse connection does feel like it gives the characters less time to cope with their emotional issues. Khamala is the balanced happy one of the bunch, but Carol and Monica both have serious issues, both individual and with each other that really felt like they needed a bit more time on screen to address. But those moments still mostly hang together, it's not like past movies where they get a 5 second acknowledgment, they're there and they manage to incorporate them even into the action scenes.

Spoiler territory now covering a couple of things i think are going to be memed and some more on the whole "invincible superhero" thing, includes end of movie spoilers

Spoiler

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The fact that in several scenes, including technically the big finale, Monica's powers are used to weld things together, is obviously prime meme material of her as the uman welder. She even welds the fabric of spacetime back together at the end.

The other prime meme material moment is finding out that thanks to what Carol describes as a political marriage she's technically a princess, and thus if your being literal minded, now a disney princess. It's poked fun at in the film several times itself during the later half of the movie.

Ultimately Carols big ongoing journey that isn't remotely complete by journeys end is her dealing with the fact that she's not an invincible superhero who can fix everything. She tried to save the kree from themselves by destroying the supreme intelligence, but without it's guidance they fell into a civil war that has left hala virtually uninhabitable, and she blames herself for it hard. Her staying off Earth in all the years in between is entirely a case of her guilt over that and her attempts to put it right leaving her feeling unable to come home until it's fixed.

The scene doesn't feel forced but it's one of those scenes that suddenly happens catching you off guard and reconteculises a lot of her actions throughout the prior parts of the movie.

She ultimately lightens up a bit by the end thanks to Monica and Khamala having a talk with her, and also Monica figuring out a way Carol can use her powers to fix hala's sun which is dying as a result of the civil war. But her failure to prevent Monica getting trapped in another universe at the end is clearly hanging over her heavily even as the credits begin to roll. She's handling failure better, but it's an ongoing journey for her.

[Psyren]

Saw it, loved it! Kamala's continual fangirling was precious. And Monica getting to really show off what her powers can do is fantastic.

Without spoiling, I saw the split between the three leads as Kamala being the heart, Monica being the brains, and Carol being the muscle. But it's not as clean a split as that, because there were instances where Kamala got to be the heavy hitter and Carol got to be the smarty.

The ending scene and the mid-credits scene got audible gasps from my theater. Marvel's future is looking pretty good.

There is only a mid-credits scene (stay for this), and no post-credits so you can leave after the mid-credit one.

[Talakeal]

Surprisingly good. Not as heavy or as epic as an Avengers or Guardians movie, but a lot better than most of the stand-alone Marvel movies.

Khamala was great, I hope we see more of her.

The choice of music during the flerkin scene just about killed me.

Unlike the first one, there is no real feminist message, which for me is a downside, but I imagine a lot of people are hesitant to see it for "political reasons", and if that is you, I would say you don't have anything to worry about so go ahead and watch it. There is a bit more sapphic subtext than the first one, which might bother you?

Also, really disappointed at the surprise cameo, as I was thinking it was going to be Nebula, as she is my favorite MCU character and given where she was at the end of GotG3 she would be in a perfect position to lend aid here.

Overall, a very fun movie, but not one of the greats. 7.5/10.

Also, the pre and mid credits scenes are amazing setup. No post credit scene so you can leave after the mid.

Spoiler: Credit Teases

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The pre-credit scene was actually spoiled by the headline on yahoo news yesterday. What the hell? Anyway, they have introduced pretty much the full roster of Young Avengers and then some, but they really need to actually, you know, make it? At this rate, the cast of the young avengers is going to be older than the cast of the regular avengers was in 2012.

I really thought Monica was trapped in the Negative Zone at the end, and thought this would be a great setup for the Fantastic Four movie. But no... they went straight for the X-men. Nice to see they got Kelsey Grammar back in blue!