…a tribute. (Open spoilers, includes a brief scene not in the movies)
This is pretty much how I feel and why I enjoy the DC movies more. They’re messes, but they’re ambitious messes and I find that ambition more entertaining than reliable popcorn fun.
While I find the Marvel movies to be of varying quality (I mean, Logan is a Marvel movie, right?) I will admit, when I first watched Iron Man several years ago, my only thought afterwards was “That was a redneck movie” and a feeling of amazement that it had such a high rating among critics.
Not in current terms, not being a Marvel Studios production. It’s a 20th Century Fox film, based on Marvel Comics characters.
Yeah, the Marvel movie rights thing is complicated. There’s Marvel itself, which has its own studio (now owned by Disney) which does the Avengers movies and everything that ties into them (Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, Captain America, Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant Man, Dr. Strange). Then there’s Sony, which had the movie rights for Spider-Man for a long time (all of the Spider-Man movies before the most recent one), but Disney just recently came to an agreement with them that’s profitable for both companies and lets Spidey join in with the Avengers set of movies. And then there’s Fox, which still has the movie rights for the X-Men (and Wolverine/Logan and assorted other characters) and Fantastic Four, but there’s a deal in the works if the FTC approves it, which they might not because Disney is starting to look like a monopoly.
The movies made by Marvel themselves have been pretty consistently good, at least to most folks’ tastes (a few have been lacking, but then there are a lot more that are good). Sony started off strong with the Spider-Man movies, but they went downhill some, which is probably what led them to agree to the deal with Disney. Fox has mostly done a decent job with the X-Men movies, but every attempt they’ve made at Fantastic Four has stunk horribly. But they’ve kept on making FF movies anyway, because they original deal by which they got the rights said that the rights reverted to Marvel if they don’t make one every so often.
I suspect that’s why some people only like dramas. Drama is the only genre where you don’t have to compromise and do something stupid for the sake of the art. People can act as real people do and make decisions as real people do and consequences can be realistic as well.
But as someone who prefers action, comedy, and horror, I make allowances for stupid as long as it isn’t too obvious. And to the movie industry’s credit, once a majority of the audience notices the stupid and is offended by it, it tends to go away. You don’t see too many horror movies these days where teenagers split up and wander around in dark places alone once they know there’s a killer around.
Marvel movies are a lot more intelligent than the older source material though. A LOT. Old comics didn’t even try. I hear the newer ones try to be as smart as the movies, but I haven’t gotten that far yet.
The reason I don’t like Marvel movies is that they’ve lost all semblance of dramatic tension. They’ve done the “oh, he/she’s not really dead” so many times that, now, when I see someone in peril, I really don’t care because they’ve brought so many characters back to life it doesn’t really matter any more. Like how many times has Loki died? Also, there’s never a sense of closure. Because there is this Marvel Universe now, the story is never over. Each movie is just a chunk in an ongoing storyline that never ends. Each movie is just a setup to the next and I don’t want to watch 17 movies to watch the latest one. It’s spectacle for the sake of spectacle. There is no compelling story any more. No stakes. No drama. Just boring setup after boring setup.
Zero. He’s faked his death once, but that’s only to be expected from the Trickster God, and we, the audience, knew he did it almost immediately.
And people doing stupid things just for the sake of the plot is at least as common in drama as it is in any other genre, probably more so.
As a big fan of Marvel movies, I don’t look for dramatic tension. I look for comedy and kick ass action. I suspect that Marvel movies are getting funnier precisely because people are starting to notice the stupid plot twists, and the internet magnifies the issue so that even casual fans become aware of them. So they are going more in a comedy and self-parody direction, consciously, before it happens to them unintentionally, which is how movie franchises die. I guess they figure that as long as they entertain people will still shell out. I think they are right.
But it’s still the same as the DC movies. I watched Batman: Assault on Arkham again last night. At the end, the Joker, pinned inside a wrecked helicopter, rides it about 50 stories to the ground where it explodes.
Then later they say his body was never found. :rolleyes:
Or the scene in Batman: The Red Hood where the Joker is on top of a truck, surrounded by cops with rifles; and all I could think of was “Won’t someone just SHOOT THIS FUCKER???”
Plot and future movies/comics require that these assholes never die, so they can be villains for the next story, or maybe the one after that.
The Marvel movies do seem to share the same plot quite often: there’s a company or place led by the hero but the jealous brother/second in command wants to steal the secret and run the show himself. Iron Man and Ant Man are basically the same movie. I hear Black Panther has a similar plot.
As regards regular people picking up the Chitauri weapons, that has been explored on Agents of SHIELD (an early episode about a helmet and the dangers of space boogers), the short “Item 47” in which small time crooks use a Chitauri gun to rob banks and Spiderman: Homecoming in which Vulture’s tech is scavenged from battle leftovers.
And he actually makes sense. Twisted, horrible, and there are many places where Arkcon and I would be hiding into each other’s shoulders if we watched together, but logical.
One of the reasons people watch movies is simply that: in movies, loose ends get tied. Any gun is Chekhov’s gun, any seemingly-stupid thing is explained. Unlike in real life, where sometimes the stupid just seems to pile up.
It’s not as though I’m seriously worried for the health of Batman either or realistically think “Well, they killed the Joker, guess we’ll never see him again!” That’s not so much a Marvel thing as it is a comics convention. Who actually takes “The Death of [Hero]!” issues seriously?
Oh, hey, turns out there was a clone on Dimension 31-XYZ and they time traveled to the moment the other hero died and now no one remembers them ever dying!
The disconnect is even harsher if they play up the “corrupt Gotham” angle, i.e. the entire Gotham Police force is thoroughly crooked but the rise of James Gordon (and the extra-legal crusades of Batman) will eventually clean it up. If a psycho like the Joker ever lands in GCPD custody under any circumstances, how is it that he doesn’t “accidentally” fall down a flight of stairs six or seven times? Corrupt cops are notorious for “tuning up” suspects, sometimes lethally, but not all of their victims are innocent. If you’re going to create a fictional universe where a psychopath can kill 20+ people in a single spree *and *routinely escapes custody to do so again, how is it that only rare individuals like Batman go vigilante? Gotham should be full of people willing to form posses and lynch mobs to dole out extralegal punishment, including most of the ones who went to the trouble to become cops in the first place.
The problem with brutality inflation (where stories involving multiple murders become commonplace, even expected) is that it makes the notion of superheroes who don’t kill seem not only quaint, but downright foolish.
Hell, they couldn’t even be bothered to wash his face after he was arrested in the movie. Speaking of “incredibly stupid” moments in comic cinematic history :rolleyes:
It was never completely clear if his white-face was cosmetic or permanent (in the comics, it’s the latter), I admit, but I remember thinking it was strange that they mentioned they’d checked all his clothing for labels in an effort to identify him and found none… but then let him get dressed in his own clothes again instead of issuing him a prison jumpsuit.
No, it was definitely make-up in the film. When he’s talking to Batman (and gets slammed into the table), it’s clearly coming off in spots.
There’s really no valid reason for why the cops would have this mystery mass murderer/thief/crime lord in their possession and NOT immediately clean him up and take photos. I’ve heard various lame justifications and fanwanks but the obvious answer is that he’d look stupid and non-Jokery and cinematic needs came before logic or realism.
Which is fine, in its way. It just reflects my opinion that the Marvel films work better because they go with the silly flow on this stuff whereas it falls apart when you’re trying to be all grimdark and taken “seriously”.
They at least try to justify it in the movie. Gordon comes in and tells everyone to stay away from the Joker because he doesn’t want to give his lawyer anything to use.
Fair enough - it wasnt clear* to me* if it was make-up or permanent, for what it’s worth, since I’m not very observant most of the time.
Yeah, that’s exceptionally lame. “Hey, we can’t follow legitimate police procedure because lawyers!”
Especially since rifling through his clothing is apparently fine but washing a guy’s face for a positive ID on a mass murderer that it took an entire police department to capture is mysteriously beyond the pale.