MCU: KEVIN's world

[Heartofice]

I’ve seen rumours that Marvel are really pulling back on tv releases this year too. Echo and Ironheart might be delayed with no sort of release date mentioned. Feels like a real change of direction is happening 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

48 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ve seen it pointed out that Phase 4 ramped up the number of films/shows in production during Bob Chapek’s tenure, then now he’s left, we hear of less shows and the films getting shunted back. Hopefully this is a blip and they can regain some quality (I’m still somewhat chipper about Ant-Man which I’m seeing later tonight, for whatever reason).

Covid likely had something to do with that strategy. 

[The Bard of Banefort]

I haven’t watched an MCU movie since Endgame, but I decided to watch The Eternals yesterday. I actually thought the movie had a lot of potential, but that the execution was very clumsy and that there was simply too much exposition. And I believe it would have been a better story had it been separate from the MCU.

I think Sersei was miscast, unfortunately. Her and Ikaris didn’t have enough chemistry and she was mostly just kind of. . . there. The marketing for the show played up Ikaris and Thena and barely even showed Sersei; the Reddit rumors at the time were that there was drama with the actress behind the scenes, but either way, Angelina Jolie gave a better performance despite not having much screen time.

Also, Druig really does suck. No charisma and his character didn’t make any sense. He’s morally conflicted about allowing humans to kill each other, but feels no conflict about using them like voodoo dolls.

Do you think they’ll even make a sequel for this one, or will it be like Hulk and they’ll envelop the characters into something else?

[DaveSumm]

Just saw it. No idea what the fuss is about, perfectly fine movie. 7 / 7.5? It’s exactly the movie I assumed it’d be before all the critic reviews came in.

[DaveSumm]

58 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Just saw it. No idea what the fuss is about, perfectly fine movie. 7 / 7.5? It’s exactly the movie I assumed it’d be before all the critic reviews came in.

I’ll add that, while I enjoyed it, I can see it as a valid complaint that it isn’t an ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ movie. Wasp has virtually nothing to do other than be present for the action. Janet is the far more relevant Wasp here.

But it remains funny even when they head down to the quantum realm and it keeps a good focus on Scott and his relationship with his daughter. One thing; you’re gonna have to get over the fact that people can breathe in the quantum realm. It makes no fucking sense at all but there it is. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

I enjoyed Quantumania, but that might be partially because I was expecting a Incredible Hulk/Dark World type of bad due to reviews. I agree Rudd doesn't get to have any fun though. And it's really Majors and Pfeiffer's movie more than anything. 

[Martell Spy]

I'm glad I went, I guess? Just saw it. Spectacular effects, but the story is kind of light-weight. I had more fun with Dr. Strange 2. I think it was worth $13 to see more of Kang and those effects on a big screen, but it also wasn't the movie I was hoping for.

[SpaceChampion]

2 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I’ll add that, while I enjoyed it, I can see it as a valid complaint that it isn’t an ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ movie. Wasp has virtually nothing to do other than be present for the action. Janet is the far more relevant Wasp here.

 

Nothing really to say Janet isn't the Wasp the title is referring to.

The tomatometer audience score is 84%. 

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Nothing really to say Janet isn't the Wasp the title is referring to.

The tomatometer audience score is 84%. 

Funnily enough… (what I’d consider to be a pretty mild spoiler):

Spoiler

Hank actually is the more ant-related character here, so the whole title could be about Hank and Janet.

I think I prefer this to the second one by a reasonable margin, but then I’m basically comparing Ghost to Kang there which is obviously no contest. Still prefer the first though, but I’ve always rated that higher than most. 

[Lightning Lord]

Saw it last night. It was fine. I'm not a parent but the stuff between Scott and Cassie seemed well-portrayed? I also counted holes, so that was engaging.

Spoiler

I like villains of Kang's ilk: threatening aura without cringe-inducing screeds. The actor for Kang was excellent for most of the film. I am pleased that his powers had limits, even if they were poorly defined limits, and that when he lost his suit powers, he was still depicted as a badass who absolutely thrashed Scott Lang...but he still had understandable limits. Not sure that all makes sense. He was super uninteresting when he could just murderbeam literally everyone all at once and no one could touch him. What's the point? Then, giant ants swarmed him and showed his techpowers had limits, that they could be pushed to breaking. I liked that - powers with limits.

Bill Murray didn't obviously die! Will we see him again? Hope so.

The mass of Kangs in the credits scene made me deeply concerned about where this is going, as they seemed far more of the Hey Look At How Evil We Are variety.

 

[SpaceChampion]

9 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

Funnily enough… (what I’d consider to be a pretty mild spoiler):

  Hide contents

Hank actually is the more ant-related character here, so the whole title could be about Hank and Janet.

Spoiler

Well, I noticed a moment when someone referred to Hank as Ant-man.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. 

[Denvek]

1 hour ago, SpaceChampion said:

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Well, I noticed a moment when someone referred to Hank as Ant-man.

Anyway, I enjoyed it. 

So did I. It's definitely following the MCU movie template but it does it better than most of the other post-Endgame films.

Spoiler

Although it suffers as an "Ant-man" film from the lack of Luis and the other Ex-Cons.

 

[Corvinus85]

I just saw it, too. It was okay, but the title is off. More like Ant-man and Ant-man's Daughter or maybe Ant-men and the Wasps, since even Hank managed to do something in the end, while Janet had more to do than Hope.

I thought MODOK was funny except for the cringe ending. OTOH, Bill Murray's cameo was a complete waste. 

Jonathan Majors was pretty good again, so looking forward for more of him. 

Personally I think that it was on average better than Thor: Love & Thunder, which didn't really work for me. And maybe this could have done with more Scott Lang humor while Thor could have done with less silly Waititi humor.

So if the quantum realm is outside time and space, why did Janet get old?  (They could have tried some ham-fisted comic-book science explanation)

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Corvinus85 said:

So if the quantum realm is outside time and space, why did Janet get old?  (They could have tried some ham-fisted comic-book science explanation)

I guess we have to assume that, despite being outside time, it still has its own flow of linear time. So Janet didn’t live from 1989 - 2019 (ish), but she did live 30 years there. It doesn’t really make sense, but we already know the TVA experienced linear time.

[Corvinus85]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

I guess we have to assume that, despite being outside time, it still has its own flow of linear time. So Janet didn’t live from 1989 - 2019 (ish), but she did live 30 years there. It doesn’t really make sense, but we already know the TVA experienced linear time.

But Kang didn't age. Or does he have some ability to not age? They should have given an explanation that there is still a cycle of life and death in the quantum realm if it's at a certain level. For example, Scott didn't experience the 5 years of the Blip the same, but maybe he was stuck in a pocket of the QR where the time flowed differently.

Spoiler

Just like the ants actually arrived much sooner than the people and developed an advanced society. I liked that part, btw. Made me think of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time.

 

[Denvek]

7 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

But Kang didn't age. Or does he have some ability to not age? They should have given an explanation that there is still a cycle of life and death in the quantum realm if it's at a certain level. For example, Scott didn't experience the 5 years of the Blip the same, but maybe he was stuck in a pocket of the QR where the time flowed differently.

  Hide contents

Just like the ants actually arrived much sooner than the people and developed an advanced society. I liked that part, btw. Made me think of Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time.

 

Kang seems to understand how time works in the Quantum Realm (and the multiverse as a whole) a lot better than anyone else, and he has more advanced technology, so it's not unreasonable that he could just choose not to age.

[Rhom]

Saw it.  Enjoyed it well enough.  It’s basically what I expected.

ETA:  Regarding post credits scenes. 

Spoiler

I knew going in that both had variants of Kang, but didn’t know specifics.  Mid credits scene was pretty good.  About what I expected when told it features variants.

The post credits scene was a great surprise to see Hiddleston and Wilson in there.

 

[Martell Spy]

18 hours ago, Denvek said:

Kang seems to understand how time works in the Quantum Realm (and the multiverse as a whole) a lot better than anyone else, and he has more advanced technology, so it's not unreasonable that he could just choose not to age.

I believe Kang described time as a prison that could be broken out of in this movie.

[3CityApache]

Saw it yesterday. Didn't expect much and that's what I feel I got. Wasn't terrible, but far from being great either. The humor (with few exceptions - holes!) felt forced, and most of the typical Marvel tropes were executed with no real heart in it. Kang was much less interesting here than in Loki and wasting Bill Murray in such a fashion has to be considered a minor crime.

Overall I'd give it 6/10.

[Heartofice]

So what is the reason these movies looks so terrible? Quantumania is maybe the most egregious example of everything looking like its 2 people standing in front of a projection screen pretending to react to things. Previous to that it was Thor Love and Thunder, which was almost as bad.

The effects work is so shaky in this movie, some nice ideas and cute visuals, completely wrecked by everything feeling completely disconnected.

I'm just trying to understand why this is happening. There are plenty of examples now where MCU movies and shows are coming under fire for their visual effects looking low quality, is it going to fix itself at some point or are we stuck with this crap?