@2BFree: How satisfying the emotional arc is depends on how offended one is by the white savior complex.
Wait is there supposed to be an emotional arc in Avengers? I figured the only emotional arc was getting to see Hulk fuck Loki up was pretty great emotionally :-p
Granted, for however I was unimpressed with Avengers, the new Batman movie looks like a joke, a parody of itself. I cannot imagine a world where that will be a good movie.
The remark was relative to the Avengers which had none at all.
Which I prefer to white savior complexes.
While you disagree with the story itself or its "message," you can't disagree that the way Avatar was told as a story was far more artfully and consistently done than the Avengers. The former was paced professionally and technically executed very well for what its story was.
The Avengers, meanwhile, suffered from some poor editing, odd pacing, being overly long, and including extraneous characters. The Avengers may have been a "better" story, and you may find the "moral" of Avatar to be "wrong," but Avatar is still a better movie from any critical perspective.
Avengers was entirely average in all regards. Average execution. Average acting. Average story.
Granted, for however I was unimpressed with Avengers, the new Batman movie looks like a joke, a parody of itself. I cannot imagine a world where that will be a good movie.
It's funny I liked Avatar, but I thought that movie was over long and poorly edited where I thought Avengers had much better pacing and a tighter story.
I thought Avengers had extremely well-written dialogue, great jokes that weren't your typical summer blockbuster type jokes, excellent star-power (all of the actors were fantastic), and had good build-up. If you generally don't like action movies, then yes, you'll be bored. But I thought the movie did a great job of not being overly-action until the very end, but hey, the long action scene is WAY better than some long action scenes have been in the past. Also, if you really think the movie would've been better without Black Widow and Hawkeye (I'm assuming that's the two you picked), then you missed the sheer number of awesome things Black Widow did. Hawkeye I can see your argument, but Black Widow had fantastic scenes and was super relevant.
Actually if I was going to remove any one avenger from the movie I would have taken out Captain America, other then a few jokes about being out of time, they didn't really spend much time on him nor did he really have any conflict he needed to resolve in the movie compared to the others other then a passing reference to hydra.
The remark was relative to the Avengers which had none at all.
Which I prefer to white savior complexes.
but Avatar is still a better movie from any critical perspective.
So heavy-handed, overwrought, overly-long, and hamfisted are your criteria for what makes a movie "good?"
Avengers did exactly what it needed to in order to tell its story - no extraneous bullshit anywhere. Avatar took far too long to make a very simple point, and it did so with a plodding lack of elegance that is almost admirable for its sheer awfulness.
Take it from a guy who tells stories - you're usually better off getting to the point, unless you are trying to carefully craft a specific atmosphere.
The Hunger Games was better told than either film.
I really like Captain America. I felt he was important to provide a foil for Tony, giving him someone to argue with (since he was buddies with Bruce, and Thor and Nick Fury were arguing about stuff, and Black Widow was busy being smart).
I really like Captain America. I felt he was important to provide a foil for Tony, giving him someone to argue with (since he was buddies with Bruce, and Thor and Nick Fury were arguing about stuff, and Black Widow was busy being smart).
The point was if you had to remove one avengers, I thought Hawkeye being converted and having to deal with that was way more interesting then anything the Cap did and they could have easily had his role filled by another character like Hawkeye if he wasn't converted :-p
Yea, I keep telling people that there is no way the Third Batman movie in this series is going to be anywhere as good as the second one.
I mean the reason the second one was so good was the Joker and well.. Not going to see him in this one.
If it's not going to be as good as the second one, then it's going to be awful. Only Arnold and Adam West have managed to make Batman movies worse than the most recent two.
Yea, I keep telling people that there is no way the Third Batman movie in this series is going to be anywhere as good as the second one.
I mean the reason the second one was so good was the Joker and well.. Not going to see him in this one.
If it's not going to be as good as the second one, then it's going to be awful. Only Arnold and Adam West have managed to make Batman movies worse than the most recent two.
.... I'm not going to start this argument again, I have two problems with the current batman movies, how batman talks when he's in costume (he sounds like he's trying to hard) and the tech is trying to be "military grade but not really" which doesn't feel like batman. Other then that I've been enjoying them.
I agree with Rym on this thing. Though I wonder if we think the same heroes were superfluous. I have trouble seeing any of them other than Iron Man as being much of a character. Thor had a role, what with the antagonist being his brother... but Thor is a bro, and that's pretty much the sum of his character. Hulk was well done for a hulk in a movie, but what the fuck does hulk do? Hit things and be melancholy about hitting things. I thought Captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye all felt relatively tacked on. Black Widow had a couple good scenes, Cap had a couple good lines and semi-symbolic poses, but meh.
I didn't actively dislike the movie, but when people come at me with super excitement about it I'm not sure what they saw. If I want CGI and explosions, I'll play a video game. It was fun... but nothing significant.
If you generally don't like action movies, then yes, you'll be bored.
Err, I love action movies. The "action" here was largely nonsensical at the end, however. The final fight was WAAAY too long.
Also, if you really think the movie would've been better without Black Widow and Hawkeye (I'm assuming that's the two you picked), then you missed the sheer number of awesome things Black Widow did. Hawkeye I can see your argument, but Black Widow had fantastic scenes and was super relevant.
Hardly. Trivial to remove from the story altogether. They brought nothing important to the narrative.
Avengers did exactly what it needed to in order to tell its story - no extraneous bullshit anywhere.
Black Widow and Hawkeye were 100% extraneous. Half of the fight at the end was extraneous. All the extra scenes of "saving specific civilians" in the second half of the fight were extraneous. Captain America's "internal conflict" barely mattered, and his beliefs were never truly challenged.
The movie was entirely 45 minutes too long.
Also, in being tied to not killing main characters or changing them in any meaningful way, they ended up with a half-assed "Iron Man learns self-sacrifice to be a true hero" arc that is barely told and, when it concludes, rings hollow.
If you generally don't like action movies, then yes, you'll be bored.
Err, I love action movies. The "action" here was largely nonsensical at the end, however. The final fight was WAAAY too long.
Also, if you really think the movie would've been better without Black Widow and Hawkeye (I'm assuming that's the two you picked), then you missed the sheer number of awesome things Black Widow did. Hawkeye I can see your argument, but Black Widow had fantastic scenes and was super relevant.
Hardly. Trivial to remove from the story altogether. They brought nothing important to the narrative.
Well this is something that you see in almost all superhero team comic books. There are too many characters for them all to matter in a single storyline. So what happens is there are multiple storylines that go on simultaneously, each one with different characters as the focus. It's just not possible to come up with a sensical story where every single team member is involved in a meaningful way.
Even when you have a big epic world-saving showdown and all the characters are there, only a few of them are actually important. The rest are just there fighting, but aren't deeply involved.
Let's say you are reading Avengers, and you care what Thor is up to, but you don't care what Captain America is up to. It's disappointing if the only issue that month is focused on Cap. This is why there are so many sub-teams in underwear pervert land. JLA, JLI. JSA, X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, X-Men Blue/Gold, West Coast Avengers, the list is ridiculously long. And even with all those sub-teams you still have multiple simultaneous storylines per book. Even a book like Spider-Man has multiple simultaneous unrelated plots that are only occasionally tied together.
Team comics are like a tabletop RPG with too many players. The spotlight shines on only a few at a time, the rest dick around on their phones. If you make a movie about a superhero team, and you insist on including every character on the team, some of them just aren't going to do very much other than fight.
The score? Really, Rym? Why would you expect anything from the score in a Marvel movie and why would it be your very first complaint?
Good superhero movies always have amazing music. Even B:TAS has the best. It's very important. Almost every great film work I can think of, movie or TV, has first rate music. If you don't have it, you are already off to a bad start.
Also, in being tied to not killing main characters or changing them in any meaningful way, they ended up with a half-assed "Iron Man learns self-sacrifice to be a true hero" arc that is barely told and, when it concludes, rings hollow.
That is one point I'll give you, I also hate when they pull the "YOU KILLED THE HIVEMIND NOW EVERYTHING POWERS DOWN OR DIES! BS. " But I overlooked that because of my enjoyment of what you called an over long combat sequence. Plus no one wants to see the "clean up" of the demoralized aliens.
You kinda feel if Joss Whedon had complete control over that material he would have killed Iron Man there.. I mean it's not like Joss Whedon has backed away from killing main characters before. I'm sure that was Nixed by Marvel considering Iron Man 3 is filming...
but I enjoyed Black Widow and Hawkeye in the movie and I think they did a pretty good job of making them work when they are hanging out with a god, a power suit, a super solider and a Hulk. Though it would have been nice if Black Widow's awesome scene with Loki actually caused them to prevent his plan from happening with the hulk.
Black Widow and Hawkeye were not extraneous. That's like saying Gordon Freeman being a Ph.D. is extraneous to the story of Half-Life.
Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances accomplish the impossible - making them heroes. It's a staple of heroic stories that has existed since we told stories.
I figured I'd stay right the fuck out of this one right about the moment Scott Lead with the usual "Anyone who disagrees with me is fundamentally flawed either in their reasoning or as a person" trick. Apart from this comment, it's a plan I shall continue unless sufficiently compelled.
This is something I've noticed in most recent "Summer Action Movies". The actual action has no tension and is very difficult to follow. There is so much CGI and shaky camera movement that you cannot tell which computer (alien/robot/superhero) is fighting another computer (alien/robot/superhero). Compound that 45+ min fight scenes and it just becomes tiring and meaningless.
Now compare that with this action scene from Heat, which I considered one of the greatest action sequences ever put to film. Look at the pacing, the camera angles, the build up, and sound.
Comments
I mean the reason the second one was so good was the Joker and well.. Not going to see him in this one.
The Avengers, meanwhile, suffered from some poor editing, odd pacing, being overly long, and including extraneous characters. The Avengers may have been a "better" story, and you may find the "moral" of Avatar to be "wrong," but Avatar is still a better movie from any critical perspective.
Avengers was entirely average in all regards. Average execution. Average acting. Average story.
Hunger Games was, from a critical perspective, far far better told than The Avengers was.
Also, if you really think the movie would've been better without Black Widow and Hawkeye (I'm assuming that's the two you picked), then you missed the sheer number of awesome things Black Widow did. Hawkeye I can see your argument, but Black Widow had fantastic scenes and was super relevant.
Avengers did exactly what it needed to in order to tell its story - no extraneous bullshit anywhere. Avatar took far too long to make a very simple point, and it did so with a plodding lack of elegance that is almost admirable for its sheer awfulness.
Take it from a guy who tells stories - you're usually better off getting to the point, unless you are trying to carefully craft a specific atmosphere.
The Hunger Games was better told than either film.
I didn't actively dislike the movie, but when people come at me with super excitement about it I'm not sure what they saw. If I want CGI and explosions, I'll play a video game. It was fun... but nothing significant.
Hardly. Trivial to remove from the story altogether. They brought nothing important to the narrative.
The movie was entirely 45 minutes too long.
Also, in being tied to not killing main characters or changing them in any meaningful way, they ended up with a half-assed "Iron Man learns self-sacrifice to be a true hero" arc that is barely told and, when it concludes, rings hollow.
Even when you have a big epic world-saving showdown and all the characters are there, only a few of them are actually important. The rest are just there fighting, but aren't deeply involved.
Let's say you are reading Avengers, and you care what Thor is up to, but you don't care what Captain America is up to. It's disappointing if the only issue that month is focused on Cap. This is why there are so many sub-teams in underwear pervert land. JLA, JLI. JSA, X-Men, X-Force, X-Factor, X-Men Blue/Gold, West Coast Avengers, the list is ridiculously long. And even with all those sub-teams you still have multiple simultaneous storylines per book. Even a book like Spider-Man has multiple simultaneous unrelated plots that are only occasionally tied together.
Team comics are like a tabletop RPG with too many players. The spotlight shines on only a few at a time, the rest dick around on their phones. If you make a movie about a superhero team, and you insist on including every character on the team, some of them just aren't going to do very much other than fight.
You kinda feel if Joss Whedon had complete control over that material he would have killed Iron Man there.. I mean it's not like Joss Whedon has backed away from killing main characters before. I'm sure that was Nixed by Marvel considering Iron Man 3 is filming...
but I enjoyed Black Widow and Hawkeye in the movie and I think they did a pretty good job of making them work when they are hanging out with a god, a power suit, a super solider and a Hulk. Though it would have been nice if Black Widow's awesome scene with Loki actually caused them to prevent his plan from happening with the hulk.
Ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances accomplish the impossible - making them heroes. It's a staple of heroic stories that has existed since we told stories.
Now compare that with this action scene from Heat, which I considered one of the greatest action sequences ever put to film. Look at the pacing, the camera angles, the build up, and sound.