I assumed the sling was because he’s still not fully recovered from reversing the Snap.
I believe so, and since as Smart Hulk he can’t get as mad and heal himself, it might last for awhile. (This is totally based on Comic!Smart Hulk and may not be accurate.)
Watched this weekend and liked it, although I like the first half more than the second. Seems like the kids could have done a better job of convincing dad not to open the gate, and it was very convenient that dad locked them in the prison with Ben Kingsley and the furry creature from the other dimension.
It had some of the heart and look of Wuxia (Asian martial arts hero) movies, not too Disney or Marvel-ized.
A couple recent movies I would recommend for those that like this sort of martial arts movies, these are set in medieval times rather than modern:
Brotherhood of Blades
Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame
Shadow
We watched this over the weekend and I thought it was…decent. I liked the tone at the start leading up to the bus fight, which was very fun. That was honestly probably the highlight for me. Many plot points were absolutely ludicrous: Dad sends a card to his son to try to get him to reconnect with his sister, which he ignores, so then sends a horde of killers to steal his necklace, with the rationale that “I knew they wouldn’t be able to kill you. I just wanted us to be together.” But like, what if they did kill him, or his friend? I mean, he escaped death by sword by inches about 20 times in that fight! What if he didn’t eat a balanced breakfast and was a little slow?
Then, let’s lock you into a cell. With a back door. That’s open. Leading to Ben Kingsley and his magical butt creature who just happens to be able to lead them to the magical land that’s nearly impossible to get to that Dad is going to in three days. I mean, I’m willing to suspend disbelief in these movies, but COME ON.
The ludicrous BMW commercial/forest maze was already well covered above.
But honestly my biggest problem was that the acting was almost uniformly bad, with a few notable exceptions. Just bland as fuck. Akwafina got the best comic lines (many of which were well written) but gave a master class in the different between “saying words” and “acting.” (She did the former.) Simu Liu was largely bland and shapeless, though he has some charm as “Shawn” before the big reveal. Meng’er Zhang never met a facial expression she failed to deliver. Ronny Chieng was in a different movie. Florian Monteanu may as well have been just an animated sword. I blame the director, honestly, when so many actors are so flat. On the plus side, Michelle Yeoh was very good and Tony Leung was pretty good - at least his facial expressions added some depth, anyway.
All that said, I still enjoyed it well enough. I don’t come to Marvel movies for the acting or coherent plots - they just usually do better than this. The costume design was a lot of fun, and the action sequences mostly delivered. The quips were pretty funny, even if not delivered well. Kingsley was a weird but interesting touch. I liked the family dynamics overall, even if the “evil power mad immortal guy gives up it all for a woman” idea didn’t really work for me.
7/10
I just found this interesting and I’m always amazed by how much goes into making movies.
Over all, I really like this one, but Tony Leung’s tactics when attacking the village at the end really bothered me. The whole bit with the non-lethal energy crossbows just didn’t work for me. I mean, he knows about assault rifles. We see his minions using them in the 10 Rings Greatest Hits montage. Plus, what happened to, “Burn the village to the ground!”? I didn’t notice if the villagers were using similarly non-lethal means, but I think the last act would have benefited significantly if the final battle had been more high stakes. Would have made the part where they unite against the common threat if there’d been more blood on both sides.
On a somewhat similar note:
Shang-Chi: I lied to you when I said I didn’t finish my first contract. I’m a killer!
Katy: Yeah, no doy. I saw you kick like, six guys off the side of a building last night.
On the other hand, I fully expected tearing open the big tentacle dragon would release all the souls he’d eaten and restore all the people he’d killed, so kudos for avoiding that.
#MinionLivesMatter
Reminds me of the TV show Daredevil where Daredevil’s Catholic faith won’t allow him to kill so he has to rely on non-lethal techniques like throwing a guy down a metal staircase headfirst.
Yeah, but that was an assassination, not self-defense.
I am totally delighted there’s a Judge Dee movie. Actually, there’s three of them. I’m going to have to find subtitles.
More on-topic, I saw the movie. I’d probably give it 7/10. Good fight scenes (especially everyone’s favorite bus scene), some humor, weak writing, and too much “not fighting at your best”. (Ten Rings should have beaten his son into unconsciousness in about 10 seconds, but decided to hold back. IMO, the boss should always be clearly more powerful than the hero.)
But… he didn’t do that. He didn’t contact the sister at all, he attacked and invaded her underground fight club. Where the presence of her brother gave her some warning, and almost allowed them both to help each other escape.
As far as we can tell, daddy:
(a) wants their pendants
(b) honestly at-least-kinda loves and cares about them and wants to capture them
(c) doesn’t want them hurt
He also has nearly limitless resources.
How does it possibly help his cause for the two of them to (i) be in the same place and (ii) be potentially on their guard?
That was the most bug-shit crazy movie I have ever seen. I swear, the plot and screenplay were written by someone deliberately trying to parody the self-seriousness of wuxia movies, and then the filmmakers didn’t realize it was a joke and just made it beyond serious in all possible ways. It is INSANE. Kind of worth seeing just to gawk at, but hard to actually recommend, imho. And enormous parts of the plot made no sense whatsoever.
I figured that he used Shang-Chi to draw the sister’s pendant out into the open. If he’d initiated contact with the sister directly, and certainly if his men had attacked her, she would never have revealed its location. But he played on Shang-Chi’s do-gooder nature to cause her to show him she still has it.
I have to defend this film. It is a gorgeous, crazy ride. My take from the Recently Seen Movies thread:
It’s a wild ride for sure. I haven’t seen all that many wuxia movies but Shadow definitely stood out with some crazy scenes, especially when they attacked the town/fortress.
The director is notable for his incredible cinematography and (literally) incredible plots. If you enjoyed Shadow at all, I’d recommend checking out Hero and House of Flying Daggers.
All this talk about Shadow has me laughing.
My wife and I HATED Shadow. We LOVE Hero and Flying Daggers, but we found Shadow to be absolutely terrible, like easily his worse movie. Like…it was worse than his ludicrous Great Wall movie.
Shadow was boring and bland. I couldn’t believe how incompetent it was.
To each their own, though. Flying Daggers is outrageously amazing, though.
Not a fan of ninety-nine percent of Superman’s rogue’s gallery, are we?
Superman being overpowered is one of his most frequent criticisms.
Apparently One Punch Man does this properly, but in general it’s a bad idea.
I watched this last night and liked it. I did sense there were some plot issues, but generally with Marvel I tend to just go along with the ride and enjoy it without too much thought.
I went and reloaded on snacks during the BMW drive through the forest, so that does seem to have been a good decision.