They keep trying to push Kamala Kahn, but I never found her to be a very compelling character. Even less so now that they changed her powers. I watch almost all the marvel stuff but I couldn't make it through that mini-series, and I'm not very interested in this movie either.
Maybe it was because I thought the examination of the American Muslim community was interesting and not something I’d really seen before, but I enjoyed it. It wasn’t the best show ever, but it was interesting. The examination of The Partition was also interesting.
Ms. Marvel is up there in terms of my favorite D+ series and what you mentioned had a lot to do with it. The end of the season felt extra corny and like some generic Netflix production but overall it was really fun.
Mostly because of her, I would like to check out The Marvels in theaters but I just don’t think we’ll have time and, realistically, it’s going to be streamable in, what, a couple of months? That’s probably the bigger issue - there aren’t really movies I’m so excited to see that I can’t wait that long.
Yeah, I felt like it was more about the American Muslim/Pakistani experience than it was about superheroing, which is why it probably wasn’t popular with some people like the person above. But I was fine with that because I was learning things about a culture I wasn’t very familiar with. But thinking on it, it’s kind of a departure from other Marvel stuff. A lot less action and mayhem.
As someone who comes from a Canadian Muslim family, that’s probably the thing that made me stop watching the show. It was just so over the top in terms of Muslim culture that it just seemed off. The way Islam was brought in to pretty much every discussion, no one actually talks or acts like that, at least no moderates. It’s no different from people of Christian backgrounds who I am sure aren’t talking about being Christian 24/7. It just felt like pandering.
Yeah the cultural exploration was probably the most interesting aspect of it, otherwise she just seems like a palette swapped Jubilee. They leaned pretty heavily into that. Honestly, I wish they'd just created a different Pakistani superhero to explore this, it might have been more interesting. Other countries should have superheroes too, right?
If I recall correctly, her original shape-shifting powers led to some interesting character development in the comics, which fit in with her thematically wrestling with her identity. That all got discarded when she got the power to summon purple glowing rock things instead, leaving behind the most interesting part of the character to me.
Also I recall there were a lot of "hello fellow kids!" cringeworthy attempts at appealing to zoomers in the miniseries.
Agree to disagree. I find the Kamala Kahn character to be an effervescent relief to a series that's taking itself way too seriously or trying too hard for slap stick. Does that make this particular movie great? No. The movie itself is a pretty flimsy plot. The main trope of the movie is someone makes a mistake, the group comes together to resolve the mistake, and develop themselves during that resolution. So with that said, it's not really good at delivering that, it's not Trolls bad (the original one which the plot sucks, the music is quite good) but yeah there was a lot of room for lots of character development that was just not included in what was delivered. To me the movie pulled its punches on what it could have delivered.
But in these kinds of tropes you see classic character stereotype traits, in this case Kamala Kahn plays the lighthearted comedic foil and does so quite well through the movie. Needless to say the Captain Marvel character is our person who brings the conflict to be resolved and towards the end you are left with a pretty unsatisfying result. Like the issue is indeed resolved, but it's about as exciting as how I might feel when I've completed my taxes. Hooray, I got that done. Maria Rambeau is our power character consistently pushing the accelerator for the characters to resolve the matter. And she's pretty good at it, but there was absolutely more opportunity for her to flesh that out that they kept sacking her personal past to keep that in check. Which at some point one might go, yeah we get it, she's troubled and doesn't want to talk about it. There's a degree of too much "I'm the aloof character in this movie". I will say the final fight scene is actually good for the level of just skirting the level of frenetic and follow-ability. I've gotten to a point where I just tune out superhero fights when it just becomes a lightshow and camera pandemonium (ala the most recent Ant Man movie).
Like I said, it's not a horrible movie. I went to the 10am showing of it on Friday (with one other friend) and that was $40 and that's where I would say "Do NOT go see this movie for $40". But I really enjoy the Kamala Kahn character and the level of energy the actress brings to the character. It reminds me a bit of how bubbly my twenty-two year old niece is sometimes and that serves as a nice refresher given the backdrop of generally everything else. So, I will acquiescence, there's a likely bias on my part for the character.
Again, absolutely not disagreeing with your position on the character. I think Marvel (and this touches just every so slightly on the superhero saturation) has gotten so big that not every character is going to be widely welcomed by everyone. I think there's a point that the Marvel Superhero movies get so numerous that you have to start considering sub-genres for the movies. And perhaps Marvel should pull back a bit on the distribution (it's their ship ultimately to sail and sink if need be). But I really enjoyed the Kamala Kahn character in the same way that I enjoyed the Katy character from the Shang-Chi movie. I good comedic foil is like pepper, you need just enough to flavor the food and not too much to over power the food and both of those characters have carried that role quite well thus far. But like anything, Disney has every chance to run that straight into the ground.
I’m guessing the fact that no one could even talk about the movie until like 5 minutes ago didn’t help. I had no idea it was even coming out until a couple of days ago because the SAG strike kept everyone from doing press.
There was an absolute fuckton of marketing for it at the start of the year, like every other Twitch and YouTube ad I got was about that movie.
Then, nothing, so I thought it had been released and people weren't talking about it because it's just a massive snooze (Like with the Eternals movie).
I had little affinity for the movie to begin with, so seeing there was little public response after all the marketing just had me go "seems this is one to skip"
And now it suddenly comes out with barely any marketing going on in the past few weeks?
Which still makes me feel it must be a snooze, both because it wasn't marketed for release and because of the residual feeling the initial marketing caused.
Besides that, even before the pandemic neither me or my wife were big fans of going to the cinema, the noise, the seating and the gauging with drinks and food is just meh.
During the pandemic, we invested in an 75" TV, 200" projector screen and 8K projector and setup 7.1 audio in the living room.
We got as much popcorn as we want, can drink whatever we want, including alcohol and the only person that can annoy us is us.
And with most movies being available from a streaming service within a few months of cinema release, there's not much of any FOMO either.
I saw the movie a few days ago and while I didn't think it was bad, I'll admit the script is a mess. Some parts are a little hard to follow or poorly explained. Someone either got a bit lazy with the writing or did a poor job cutting it all together.
It feels like an editing issue. The film was fast paced and a lot of scenes just ask you to assume that they make sense. In truth they probably do, but they need a little bit of explanation.
Let’s talk Flerkins for example. Early in the film Goose eats some bad guys, teleports to Kamala’s living room, then spits them out. No one really comments on it. No one found it weird. We just defeat the bad guys and move on.
Next Goose spits up some science equipment. We learn that they’ve been missing for a while. They look fine but no one mentions that they still work, or we’re otherwise still preserved.
Finally we have the musical Memory scene. Ignore for a moment the eggs that hatched. Ignoring for a moment it happens when they’ve run out escape pods. We have “kittens”, we’ve established that Flerkins can eat people and they can hold what they’ve eaten for a while. So while the solution makes sense, and on paper they’ve earned the moment, it takes a moment to really put it all together. As a result it feels rushed and instead of just enjoying the scene you’re left wondering if it makes sense.
We’re only talking about cutting a few minutes here and a few minutes there, but it adds up.
Do you know for a fact that it’s bad? Have you seen it? Or are you just making an assumption because it has low box office figures which you are extrapolating as meaning it’s a bad movie? It’s rated above a 6 on IMDB and above 60% on Rotten Tomatoes, so it sounds like a lot of people enjoyed it.
Based on the non-response from the person above, I’m guessing they haven’t seen it either. Most Marvel movies are mixed in terms of reception, and some men, whether they claim it has nothing to do with gender or not, will not go see a superhero movie where women are the heroes. They don’t even hate the idea, they just don’t see “woman movies.” There are an unfortunately large number of men who feel that way.
But then, despite all of the people, all seemingly male, who told me that She-Hulk was terrible and it wasn’t about gender, I thought it was terrific. So what do I know?
Hey you get my upvote. I had a blast with She-Hulk. A lot of Marvel is uneven but enjoyable. I like how, even after the show called out big CGI battles, Marvel still pumped out big CGI battles. Was wildly self-aware and yet… here we are!
There is no Marvel fatigue. There is no superhero saturation. What there is, is simply trash. Make a shit superhero movie and the movie will just be shit. It has nothing to do with there being superheroes.
Hollywood doesn’t get it. People don’t seem to get it either. But these phases are just repeating itself. It used to be cowboys. It used to be cops. Then pirates. It used to be sword and sandals.
Cowboy movies are fun. So are pirate movies and superhero movies. If they’re made well!
The moment some execs look at a bunch of numbers and think “Oh, people will pay money to see X”, THAT is when things go wrong. No, people pay to see good movies. And Marvel used to be hype when they made good movies.
Youre mostly right but personally there is definitely superhero fatigue. I used to watch most marvel movies but nowadays the formula is sort of played out.
For me it isn’t superhero fatigue as much as “oh, I’ve seen the same story a dozen times now” and “I don’t even know this superhero, why does he need a Netflix show?” fatigue. The writers seem to run out of ideas and just milk the same formula again and again.
And at the same time you get something like the new animated Spiderman movies which are a dope, super fresh new take that is oozing creativity out of every frame.
they also do some of the shenanigans that made people annoyed back in my comic book days. My brother saw the iron man movies but not the avengers. So he was lost at what was going on with stark in the movie after the avengers. So because he had not seen another movie it made that one bad for him.
Not to mention every tv show thus far has basically been 10 episodes of padding, and 1 or 2 important plot points for future experiences. I won’t watch Echo, but I’ll look at the wiki afterwards to see what I missed. I watched episode 1 of Loki s2 and I’m considering doing the same now that the finale has aired. They’re all unimportant drivel, coasting off the brand name.
That’s what I’ve been telling people. My friends and I would religiously go the theatre nearly every Friday as adults. Pandemic hit and we obviously stopped, but once stuff started opening again, we went to see a couple movies but the quality has drastically dropped. We assumed it’s because we were coming out of the pandemic and stuff had been put on hold. In 2023, that excuse shouldn’t still hold up. Good writing didn’t stop during the pandemic, just production.
They love to blame flops like this on things like feminism, but generally it’s just because Disney has no idea what they are doing anymore after killing off the A-listers and then releasing nothing but wet farts for the last five years.
Yeah, I feel like Avengers: Endgame was an ending for the MCU. I’m not complaining, because a good story needs to have an ending, but I’m also not motivated to see superhero movies coming out after Endgame (at least not cosmic-scale superhero movies - I’ll always have a soft spot for Peter Parker).
That and they’ve oversaturated the market and made it hard for non fans to keep up. When you have to watch 2 5-8 hour Disney plus shows just to understand who the characters are in the movie (Maria Rambeau and Kamala Khan) then Disney as a company is probably doing something wrong. Comic people might love it but everyday joes not so much.
Yep. In order to understand this film, you have to have watched the Captain Marvel film, the Wandavision TV series and the Ms. Marvel TV series. Meaning this is basically a way to tie you down to Disney+ so you don’t miss out.
Yeah it’s like the films are kind of safe cash grabs, but then they also have this barrier to entry. Even as a fan of marvel I couldn’t finish all the mini series because some of them just don’t grab me, and then what?
They’ve made it hard for even the die hard fans to keep up.
One of the major reasons I never liked comic books was there was always a hundred different storylines going on. That’s now crept into the MCU and it’s just no longer fun to try to keep up with
Not to mention how expensive it is to go to the movies! For us, this has less to do with how medium the marvel movies have been and more that a single ticket is a month of a streaming service and I already cut all our streaming services. If I decide to splurge, it’s going to be on a month of content, not two hours.
Kinda common trope, old grumpy dude vs young misunderstood dude, they don’t like each other at first but eventually they get along. BUT, it’s done very well and overall has a heartwarming angle. 7.5/10
Leave me alone I’m obnoxious/spoiled/grumpy/a loner.
Oh no wait, it’s 5 mins from the end of the movie, let me change my entire personality through the use of some grand gesture.
It’s OK the first couple of times but gets boring real fast.
Amd most recently seen in ‘No Hard Feelings’ which started out sooo strong, had me proper laughing, and then descended into mediocrity. Such a letdown.
That’s called exposition, and when it’s obvious it’s being done it can be really bad.
Incidentally, I was just reading book 2 of a trilogy and rather than try to casually mention the events of book 1 here and there as a reminder—which a lot of books do—the prologue was a complete summary of book 1 written as a holy book from 1000 years in the future. It was a really cool way of doing it. Book 1 had chapter intros from the same future holy book, too, but have it as a big infodump was a great reminder of the story.
While I’ll admit I tend to be really forgiving for superhero films (these are just pure fantastical escapes for my brain), I don’t really get the hate for this film. I thought it was a lot of fun. Goofy? Hell yes! Uneven in places? For sure. But I found the first ‘team up’ movie in a long time to be quite enjoyable.
Iman Vellani was a standout, and Kamala Khan and her family provided a lot of joy in what could have otherwise been a very standard, overly-serious movie. Sure the singing planet was silly AF, and at first I was ready to groan and eyeroll myself out of the theater, it wasn’t that bad, and it also showed, like in GotG movies, the Marvel universe is full of weird and truly alien things. I’ll agree with @MimicJar, I do wish that they had leaned more into it than they did.
The effects were really good to my eye, and the entanglement related stuff was a fun way to add a lot of energy throughout (even if it wasn’t always handled consistently).
The villain was probably the weakest part of the movie; while her motivation was “trying to save my own world”, and thus like many MCU villains has some way of justifying the evil deeds, Dar-Benn felt a bit half baked. That said, it ultimately didn’t matter to me, as I was in it for the three Marvels which made up for what was a somewhat bland villain.
In the end, I found myself laughing and having a genuinely enjoyable time, and am likely to go back a second time. I’ll admit this was not the best MCU film of all time, but for me it was fun. Oh, and the end credit scenes were both pretty rad.
Went with my wife and I’ll admit, considering the bad press fit it going into the movie, we were pleasantly surprised, and both enjoyed it!
The quantum entanglement of their powers was a genuinely cool and tangible way to bring the galaxy-faring Colossus that is captain Marvel to give a damn about a street level young hero like Ms Marvel.
Nia DaCosta wanted to make the shortest MCU movie, and while the movie didn’t outstay its welcome, it definitely could’ve been longer. The singing planet was weird, but a fun, GotG weird, and definitely needed more screentime, e.g. having Darr Benn try to parlay with them in the medium of song (kind of how Star Lord and Ronan had a dance off lol!)
IMO It was a decent enough plot; it’s getting harder and harder to create a “the world is ending” storyline without treading old ground, but it held up nicely. It might’ve been cooler for them to happen upon a planet that’s already dead to really convey the stakes to the viewer, and they really should have tried harder to save Aladna
Darr Benn being able to hold off the three Marvels did break my immersion a little; even with being able to absorb the energy via the bracelet, 3 on 1 is a bit generous for someone who was just a generic grunt. Can’t complain though, it was still a fun fight.
The X-Men mid-credits scene was super hype! What the MCU needs is a host of recognisable characters to hold up the flag for the viewers to attach to. No one cares about Moon Knight, for example.
I just hope the MCU doesn’t become all about the X-Men, Fantastic 4 and Deadpool, and heroes like ant Man don’t just become footnotes in the current roster.
Overall, I’d rate it about 7/10! Definitely above average, fun, and Ms Marvel and her family added a lot of classic marvel comic relief that DC just doesn’t seem to understand!
Also can we talk about how incredible Brie Larson looked in her suit? She worked out like crazy and it showed! Big props to her! I just wish the internet wasn’t so upset with her!
My gf and I also enjoyed it! You have to be on board with the silliness, and I guess we were. My only complaints were few, I thought the villian could’ve been a bit better (I didn’t really believe she could take on Captain Marvel by herself, let alone with 2 super hero friends) and the breezy pace made me have some questions (it took until after the movie for me to realize why destroying the Supreme Intelligence hurt their sun) but the situations were fun, action scenes creative, and it didn’t out stay it’s welcome. Overall, it’s not amazing, but it’s better than most Marvel stuff I’ve seen since probably Shang Chi, and better than the reviews and box office had me thinking it would be.
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