Spoilery question about the mid-credit scene:
Was the furry blue guy Beast from X-Men? Was he wearing a white lab coat?
Yes, it was Beast. But instead of Kelsey Grammer in makeup it was Kelsey Grammer’s voice and low-quality CGI. He was wearing a white labcoat, and also mentioned “Charles”.
Also (since you obviously don’t mind the spoilers) there was a brief just before credits scene with Ms. Marvel attempting to recruit She-Hawkeye Kate Bishop for a new team. (Probably the Young Avengers instead of New Champions, or West Coast Avengers.)
The line from the trailer that every is talking about made me cringe. If that’s the example they put in the trailer it makes me less hopeful about the rest.
I will get around to watching all the Marvel stuff. I may not catch this one in the theater.
Movie was fun and good and does not deserve to flop. Theater was almost empty sadly.
I had too much to do tonight, but I thought “Hey, it’s been decades since I went to opening night of a movie.”
Just got back. LOVED IT. But I’ll admit, my expectations were pretty low after Secret Invasion.
Theater was only half-full, but it was Turn-Off-Your-Inner-Cynic fun.There were plot weaknesses, which I didn’t realize 'til I was driving home (way too fast, and I might have been making Light-Speed Hot Rod noises…).
The dialog and acting were great. There were close-ups of Carol’s face, or Kamala’s, and you could tell exactly what was going on inside. And I was glad they let Nick Fury be a badass.
If you even slightly liked Ms. Marvel, or Captain Marvel, go see this.
Walking out to my car, I texted a comic geek friend (who introduced me to Matt Fraction’s Hawkeye series):
“Spoiler: The end guest-starred PIZZA DOG!!!”
Just got back from seeing this, and it’s the best MCU film in a while.
The pacing seemed about right, the threat was clear, and serious, and the villain’s motivation and intentions were clear and understandable.
The main characters were clearly drawn, and continued and developed their established personalities, in ways that felt natural and organic to the plot.
If I had to give a summary of the tone, I’d say it was Guardians of the Galaxy crossed with Frozen.
A genuinely funny action adventure with heart.
“Stop running, and let the flerkins eat you”
Not sure I would put it above Gotg3, but definitely better than Ant man, Thor and Dr Strange.
Was going to wait for Disney+ to watch it, but you’re tempting me.
I am in agreement over here. I just saw it with the Teen (and we were 2 of 4 people in the theater on a Friday at 4:30, though that’s a bit early for the Friday crowd I guess). I wouldn’t consider it top tier MCU (Captain America: First Avenger, Iron Man, Guardians of the Galaxy) but it was definitely a good upper-middle-tier movie. I liked it better than Captain Marvel.
I also thought it was kind of fun that there were conversations between the characters that acknowledged each other’s feeling and needs. It was almost overdone, imo, but it was neat and unexpected for a superhero movie.
It doesn’t deserve to flop.
Its a decent but not great 62% on the tomato-meter, but the box office has not been kind-
https://collider.com/the-marvels-domestic-box-office-6-million/
The Marvels’ Poised to Deliver One of the Lowest Domestic Box Office Debuts in MCU History
The movie is expected to have a three-day domestic debut in the $40 million to $50 million range, which would put it at rock bottom for MCU releases.
The Marvels will fall short of the debuts of other mid-pandemic releases like Eternals and Shang-Chi, and it will also generate less than half of what Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania made in its first weekend.*
Personally I think Marvel is too damn powerful. Thus, not exciting to watch.
This is uncanny, I could have written this (except for the Ms. Marvel part, I haven’t seen any of the Disney+ TV MCU stuff and yet had no problem with Dr. Strange At the Mountains of Madness or whatever it was actually called). Mostly will be there for Brie Larson.
I had “superhero movie fatigue” before the MCU even started (but do watch some of the TV serieses). The only other MCUs I’ve seen are the three GotG and the first Thor. I watched The Marvels because of the continuation of Ms. Marvel. I have seen (as mentioned) Ms Marvel and also Wandavision. I watched only around 1.5 episodes of Secret Invasion. I don’t think a new viewer will be lost not having seen any of those. What I was completely lost on was having not seen the first Captain Marvel movie.
Watching The Marvels in no way made me feel like I was missing out on something great in skipping the rest of the MCU and does not make me want to catch up. Other than a few fun scenes, this pretty much felt like Superman 4 quality of film making.
I think Disney+ is largely to blame.
I don’t subscribe, so I can only see from outside the paywall what TV shows they’re offering . Wiki says:
Now Disney has an impressing back catalogue of movies and stuff for kids. For semi-grown ups and older - not so much, at least if we’re talking TV shows. In buying Marvel and SW they obviously betted that two very loved IPs could generate enough programming to make people justify paying, even if they don’t have kids in the age group that loves Disney.
But I can’t see that they have many real original new drama shows in their line up1. Of course, the offering will differ between markets, but at least over here, their hailing Grey’s Anatomy and National Geographic.
Even Apple TV has a more exciting line up, if we remove Marvel and SW.
1 There’s Willow and a couple of others I never heard of… It looks [per wiki] as if 5 of 16 drama shows aren’t SW and MCU. Four of them have been cancelled. One (The Crossover) is listed as Pending.
I saw it. It was cute. Very C+ or B- for the MCU.
Sadly, I didnt. But yeah, I like that actor.
I saw it today and completely loved it. My favorite MCU thing in years (I thought the lows of even the good stuff recently dragged my overall opinion down on most things). My theater wasn’t very crowded but I don’t know if it’s because there were so many screenings or what. Everyone in my theater seemed to be having a great time. And maybe now that the strike is over, the actors can do some press. And word of mouth might help for people who were on the fence. I really liked not leaving the theater feeling exhausted, mentally drained, emotionally manipulated, and really having to pee
Saw at a Saturday matinee. Maybe two dozen people in the theater. This might be first in-theater movie I’ve seen since the pandemic.
We loved it! The three Marvels were perfectly cast and written. Great character development and interaction among them. This is the kind of comic book movie I enjoy the most.
My favorite line, when they were on Planet Musical Theater, was ”He’s bilingual.”
Memories…
I think the difference is you don’t typically need to watch three other horror movies and several TV miniseries to follow the story of the next film or know how each episode fits in with the larger fictional universe.
Unfortunately the superhero film universes (both DC and Marvel) have become a bit of a mess, much like the comic books themselves. With all the sprawling storylines, characters, crossovers, reboots, multiverses and whatnot, it can be a lot to follow. The MCU Avenger saga was relatively tight. It introduced separate storylines for the core Avengers - Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hawkeye, and Black Widow and then united them in a big Avengers film. And even that wasn’t perfect. Multiple Hulks and no Black Widow film for example.
The Infinity War saga was even broader and more ambitious in scope with even more seemingly disconnected characters and story lines - introducing Scarlet Witch, Vision, Dr Strange, Ant Man, the Wasp, Falcon, Winter Soldier, Wakanda, The Guardians of the Galaxy, and of course Captain Marvel. Plus there was the whole Ultron/Sakovia/Civil War story arc. And yet they managed to stick the landing with Avengers: Infinity Wars and Endgame
Now the MCU is an even bigger and more convoluted mess. There’s the whole “multiverse” thing which is complex in and of itself without the MCU trying to figure out how to acquire or reintroduce other properties like X-Men, Fantastic Four, Blade, Thunderbolts and so on. And we don’t even know if it will have an actual payoff given Kang actor Jonathan Major’s real world legal problems. There are all these one-off stories like Eternals, Shang Chi, Moon Knight and characters like Daredevil who just sort of linger on the periphery.
All I’m saying is it’s a lot to keep track of and there has been more inconsistent level of quality.
I think horror fatigue is definitely a thing, we’re in a bit of a horror renaissance right now but franchises are always coming and going, being rebooted, etc. The problem there is that sequels always need to be bigger/badder, more bodies, more gore, bigger villain, to the point where it just becomes silly. I think this is why horror so often devolves into camp. But horror is cheap to make, so the door is always open for a new director to come in and get back to horror’s roots and start the whole cycle over.
Two things about Marvel that make “superhero” fatigue a unique problem, at least for me. The first is that the stakes are always epic. Spiderman can, generally, be a simple story about Peter Parker’s lonely struggle with power and responsibility, but by the end of every Spiderman series he’s saving the literal world. Infinity War ramped up the stakes to half of the life in the entire universe. Where do you go from there? You go somewhere that audiences struggle to connect with. I just can’t get worked up when the stakes are “everything” in every movie. I need some character pieces thrown in there, which is what the Infinity Saga did really well.
The other problem is all the punching. I just get bored watching invincible people punch each other.
Haven’t seen it but to me it seems marketing is the biggest flop.
If I wasn’t reading here I wouldn’t have known it was even out. And I really enjoyed the Captain Marvel and the Ms Marvel D+ show.
Yeah I get that my wife and I are not the prime demographic but still. I would have expected more pre release buzz?
For those who have seen it - could those with no previous MCU knowledge enter this cold and still enjoy it? (While those with full knowledge would get it more?)