Marvel's Phase 4

[MindFreak]

Oh, I forgot to mention a few things! 

Spoiler

Really preferred the look of Green Goblin in this. I always found his looks odd in the first movie, and this brought him towards the look of the 94 animated series. 

Also enjoyed Holland and Garfield questioning Tobey's web. It always was a bit weird. 

And that Murdock appearance was great. "I'm a great lawyer". Good stuff. 

 

Edited December 16, 2021 by MindFreak

[Sméagol]

Yeah loved it. Despite all the previous spoilers / speculation, the excitement seeing all those characters appear was real. And I haven't even seen the Raimi Spider-man films, but I'll catch up on those before seeing it for a 2nd time. I also absolutely loved some of the dry humour and really awkward dialogue. And the interactions with all those characters was great. Some great moments for everyone of them, even Ned haha.

 

Cool to see some redemption for certain characters, like Doc Ock and Andrew Spider-man, a.k.a. Spider-man 3. It was also great seeing this in a (relatively) full cinema. The crowds reactions when Andrew and Tobey appeared were great. Although it was disappointing there was no such reaction for Matt Murdoch, come on! I was fucking excited to finally see some justice, and the Netflix shows being recognized. A cameo like this is all I ever wanted, took 'm long enough! Bummed out about Aunt May though.. You know why.  

Ending was bittersweet. They handled the symbiote teaser well. I thought Doctor Strange looked great actually. Looking forward to that one.

Anyway, great way to end this MCU year on a high note after the dismal Eternals.

If Matrix ends up being great as well, after Dune and this, I can at least end this disappointing film year with a bang.

Edited December 16, 2021 by Sméagol

[MindFreak]

Cinemas here in Denmark are closing on Sunday. Feeling bad for those who didn't get the chance to catch Spider-man. Worst possible time - ever!

[bob]

Spoiler

My work Christmas party cancelled, but we'd already arranged a babysitter - so that meant Spider-man two days early baby!

 

The film is absolutely incredible. It is so so good. It's like they managed to make Tobey's Spider-man 4, Garfields Spider-man 3 and Holland's Spider-man 3 all in one film! There were so many nice call-backs and references, but they still managed to have a coherent plot running through the middle, and added all these extra jokes and moments into it.

 

I don't know how much of the film made sense for people who hadn't seen the other 5 Spider-man films, but I don't really care TBH - my wife had a great time and she only barely remembers some of them.

 

I love how they set up the next film (not sure if TH has signed on for any more), by stripping away all of Peter's support network. A lot of my criticisms about the TH spidey have been addressed. I know it's a common complaint, but i never liked how reliant he was on Iron Man, and I hated how none of his films took place in Manhatten! No skyscrapers = no spidey for me.

 

Anyway, the film is brilliant. Probably the 2nd best MCU film, after End Game for me.

 

 

[Julius]

I don't follow the box office as closely as I used to, but No Way Home has thrown the entire kitchen out -- it's opening weekend (and launch around the world) has been absolutely insane! 

From Box Office Mojo: 

Quote

Christmas arrived a week early for Peter Parker as his latest web-slinging adventure, Spider-Man: No Way Home, shattered records at home and abroad, pandemic be damned. Box-office watchers knew going into the frame that Tom Holland’s third standalone outing as the Marvel superhero would be big, the only question was how big? Well, the answer is…absolutely massive. In its debut weekend, the Sony tentpole raked in $253 million in North America and another $334.2 million from overseas, putting its mind-blowing bow at $587.2 million worldwide—the third-biggest global debut of all-time, trailing only the two most recent Avengers outings.

Considering all of the alarming news stories this past week about a new surge in COVID infections spurred by the Omicron variant, the hand-over-fist success of No Way Home caught many industry trackers off guard. Before the weekend kicked off, the latest Spidey installment (which also stars Zendaya, Marisa Tomei, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Doctor Strange) was forecast to open at between $130 and $150 million domestically. But those low-ball estimates were quickly left in the dust as No Way Home took in $121 million on its first day alone. In fact, after its first weekend, the film’s $253 million domestic gross already make it the top-grossing movie of the year in North America. Need another metric proving the film’s box-office might? Holland’s previous Spidey chapters—2017’s Homecoming and 2019’s Far From Home—opened to $117 million and $92.6 million domestically.

With overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, who gave the friendly neighborhood Spider-man’s latest a 94% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and audiences, who bestowed it with a rare ‘A+’ grade from CinemaScore (it’s only the fourth live-action superhero film to pull off that untoppable score alongside 2012’s The Avengers, 2018’s Black Panther, and 2019’s Avengers: Endgame), No Way Home became the first film to open to more than $100 million domestically since the pandemic began (the closest was Venom: Let There Be Carnage’s $90 million back in October). The PG-13-rated film’s $253 million three-day North American take came from 4,336 theaters where it earned a $58,348 per-screen average. It piled up an additional $334.2 million from 60 overseas markets, the biggest of which was the U.K. with $41.4 million. More good news on the foreign front: No Way Home has not even opened in China yet, where all things Marvel tend to do boffo business.

So, in summary:

• Biggest opening weekend for Sony of all time, finally surpassing Spider-Man 3. 
• Instantly the sixth best performing film of 2021 at the box office. 
• Third highest global and domestic opening weekend of all-time, behind Infinity War ($258m / $640m) and Endgame ($357m / $1.22b). It outperformed The Force Awakens in the midst of a pandemic! 
• Speaking of which, and I suppose this goes without saying when you look at the other numbers above: it's the biggest film opening of the pandemic by a loooooong shot. It's the first film to surpass $90m domestically since The Rise of Skywalker did so to round at 2019. 

Very much deserved in my opinion and a massive shot in the arm for cinema chains I'm sure, but even with how sold out Odeon showings were all day, and just how absolutely packed the Odeon I went to was on a Wednesday (!), I still think it has to be noted how insane this opening has been. It's the most flatfooted I've been by an opening since Jurassic World. 

I don't expect it to have crazy legs - MCU films are known to be some of the most predictably frontloaded in terms of box office performance - and I think Omicron will likely deter people from repeat viewings (I know that's the case for me -- any year before COVID I would have already been three times at a minimum!), as well as any other restrictions which might be coming our way (i.e. the potential for lockdowns following Christmas). Normally I'd expect it to close somewhere between $1.3b - $1.6b, but it's just so impossible to predict given the circumstances it's released into. 

Still, kudos to Marvel and Sony for a stellar film, they got it right creatively, commercially, and critically, which is to say they really nailed it. It was a strange experience for me (anyone else got more audience reactions than we seem to get on the UK? Not to complain but it felt bizarre!) but it felt so great to be watching a massive film like this in the cinema, which I haven't done since The Rise of Skywalker (and, you know, which didn't tarnish my affection for a franchise). Can't wait to see where they go with it next! 

[Ronnie]

Watched the first three episodes of Hawkeye yesterday, really good fun, enjoyed them a lot, though I suspect I'll forget about them very quickly. This one seems the most like a corporatey "product" than actually made with love. Still, Kate Bishop is loads of fun to watch, she's great. Love her chemistry with Clint.

Hopefully this show sticks the landing with the ending after Wandavision and especially Loki fumbled it badly, imo.

[flameboy]

On 2021-12-16 at 11:24 AM, Sméagol said:

Yeah loved it. Despite all the previous spoilers / speculation, the excitement seeing all those characters appear was real. And I haven't even seen the Raimi Spider-man films, but I'll catch up on those before seeing it for a 2nd time. I also absolutely loved some of the dry humour and really awkward dialogue. And the interactions with all those characters was great. Some great moments for everyone of them, even Ned haha.

  Hide contents

Cool to see some redemption for certain characters, like Doc Ock and Andrew Spider-man, a.k.a. Spider-man 3. It was also great seeing this in a (relatively) full cinema. The crowds reactions when Andrew and Tobey appeared were great. Although it was disappointing there was no such reaction for Matt Murdoch, come on! I was fucking excited to finally see some justice, and the Netflix shows being recognized. A cameo like this is all I ever wanted, took 'm long enough! Bummed out about Aunt May though.. You know why.  

Ending was bittersweet. They handled the symbiote teaser well. I thought Doctor Strange looked great actually. Looking forward to that one.

Anyway, great way to end this MCU year on a high note after the dismal Eternals.

If Matrix ends up being great as well, after Dune and this, I can at least end this disappointing film year with a bang.

You know what's interesting....everything got an insane reaction in the packed cinema I was in even the thing you saw none to!

[Happenstance]

 

[MindFreak]

Dr. Strange never interested me much growing up but I really enjoy his presence in the MCU. I think Cumberbatch does a tremendously good job with that role, and with the multi-verse set up now happening, it's exciting times indeed. And yeah, Multiverse of Madness looks interesting.

[Ronnie]

The Disney+ MCU shows hadn't really done it for me before now, but I thought Hawkeye was really fantastic. Finally an MCU season finale that doesn't disappoint!

The overall storyline was pretty meaningless and forgettable, but everything else was great. Love the characters.

Edited December 22, 2021 by Ronnie

[bob]

I watched the Hawkeye finale last night too.

Spoiler

I was a bit disappointed by the finale, and the whole series tbh.

When they did the Fisk reveal at the end of the last episode, i got really excited, because D'Onofrio's Fisk is one of my favourite villains - he was straight up terrifying in Daredevil just because of his influence and power, and how untouchable he was.

In Hawkeye, he felt a bit like a damp squib. They seemed to have nerfed him considerably in the MCU. In Daredevil he was the king of the underworld, and he owned the police and the courts. Daredevil struggles to get to him and eventually manages to defeat him in a gruelling fight.  In Hawkeye, he's sitting in some shit community centre surrounded by the Tracksuit bros, he turns up on his own to kill Mother Bishop, gets his by a car and then blown up. Very disappointing.

 

Overall the show was ok, although I was thinking it needed some better villains throughout the whole thing. The Tracksuit Bros were a joke, and Deaf woman and translator lacked any sort of identity. That's why i got excited when Fisk turned up, because i thought they finally had a good villain to work with, and then.....meh.

 

Yelena was fantastic though, I enjoyed all of her scenes - Florence Pugh is a great actress. 

 

I quite liked the dynamic between Hawkeye and Kate, although on her own I found Kate a bit annoying. Pizza Dog was the business of course.

 

The whole show was worth watching just for Rogers: the musical. If someone isn't currently writing the rest of that show, they are throwing money away IMO.

 

[Happenstance]

Just finished Eternals. I thought it was alright. Nothing special but a nice change of pace to the usual Marvel movies. Amazes me while watching that and some of the visuals on screen how far we’ve come from Iron Man 1 to this.

[BowserBasher]

13 minutes ago, Happenstance said:

Just finished Eternals. I thought it was alright. Nothing special but a nice change of pace to the usual Marvel movies. Amazes me while watching that and some of the visuals on screen how far we’ve come from Iron Man 1 to this.

Good to hear, I know nothing about it, been hearing a lot of bad reviews, but will watch It and see for myself.

Iron Man was 2008 so 14 years. That's insane in itself. But yeah it is amazing how far visual and special effects have come along in that time. I mean Lord of the Rings was 2000 and that had some amazing work in it. Can it go further, I don't know, I think it'll just be refinements. It's when we get realistic and not able to tell the difference in CGI created humans that will be the real moment.

[Happenstance]

9 minutes ago, BowserBasher said:

Good to hear, I know nothing about it, been hearing a lot of bad reviews, but will watch It and see for myself.

Iron Man was 2008 so 14 years. That's insane in itself. But yeah it is amazing how far visual and special effects have come along in that time. I mean Lord of the Rings was 2000 and that had some amazing work in it. Can it go further, I don't know, I think it'll just be refinements. It's when we get realistic and not able to tell the difference in CGI created humans that will be the real moment.

I didn’t necessarily mean the quality of the special effects but just the kind of things we are seeing from the comics actually being shown on screen. Iron Man being relatively grounded in reality compared to the things in this movie. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.

[darksnowman]

Question about possible future developments in the Spider-man films. Basically, all my Spider-man knowledge (and lack thereof) comes from the cartoon, so can someone familiar with the comic book storylines shed some light on this for me:

Spoiler

This character said something like "go get em, tiger!" on a news bulletin. This stuck out to me as as far as I'm concerned, MJ is the one that calls him tiger. So, is Betty being set up as a future love interest or what...?

 

[Sméagol]

44 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Question about possible future developments in the Spider-man films. Basically, all my Spider-man knowledge (and lack thereof) comes from the cartoon, so can someone familiar with the comic book storylines shed some light on this for me:

  Betty Brant (Hide contents)

This character said something like "go get em, tiger!" on a news bulletin. This stuck out to me as as far as I'm concerned, MJ is the one that calls him tiger. So, is Betty being set up as a future love interest or what...?

 

As far as I'm concerned that was just a throwaway line, but I'm also not a Spider-man expert. It's just too early to tell at this point.

Spoiler

But I've always been disappointed about the fact that they didn't cast the actress playing Betty Brant as Gwen Stacy instead. She was great in The Nice Guys, and thought she'd make a perfect Spider-Gwen.

 

Edited January 16, 2022 by Sméagol

[BowserBasher]

On 15/01/2022 at 10:23 PM, Happenstance said:

I didn’t necessarily mean the quality of the special effects but just the kind of things we are seeing from the comics actually being shown on screen. Iron Man being relatively grounded in reality compared to the things in this movie. I’ll be interested to hear what you think.

Just watched this this evening and I get how you meant what you said there now. we've gone from Iron Man (clearly set in our reality and following what we know, to Eternals which you kinda have to let your imagination take some control and not get wound up in it not being a grounded in our reality film. I don't know if some of these would have been attempted early on in the MCU as well. though they are standalone films in a sense, I don't know if the risks would have been made to make them if the MCU weren't so heavily established.

As for the film, I enjoyed it. Didn't know anything about it so went in blind with nothing to go on. Had heard that it wasn't getting great reviews but I've never really taken any note of them in the first place. May have been a tad overlong but it didn't feel like it was too bad time wise. As stated it is very much a different feel than many of the current Marvel films, there's a few lines that tie it to the others but again, you could easily watch this without knowing too much about the universe. Looks like there will be more and I'll be looking forward to seeing where things are taken.

 

[Sméagol]

Trailer isn't doing much for me.

[bob]

Everything up until he put on a silly costume looked really good - really intriguing. It looks like two different shows, but i'm likely going to watch it anyway.

 

Also, after having almost every American character played by a Brit in all their previous shows/films, they finally set a show in London and cast an American!? Not too sold on his accent. Sounds a bit Frank Spencer.

[MindFreak]

I like the tone of it and how different to the other Marvel movies and shows it feels. The costume could look a bit better, I guess, but I'm definitely interested. 

[MindFreak]

Finished Hawkeye yesterday. It was a good show, not outstanding but the overall story was enjoyable and I liked the humour in general, Kate Bishop was actually quite funny. The story was a tad confusing and I found the main villains to be less terrifying than I would have expected. 

[bob]

Watched The Eternals last night. It was ok. As a standalone film, it had its issues:

All the Eternals having all these cool powers was fine when you thought that they had just been gathered up and dropped onto the planet to protect it. But when you find out that they had been specifically created by a God to go and fight the Deviants - why were some of them just so useless at it? Some of their powers were just so mis-matched, why didn't he just create 10 Eternals who could all fly and shoot laser-beams from their eyes? What use was mind-control Eternal, who couldn't control the Deviants' minds? And for that matter, why specifically make one of your Eternals deaf? Did you run out of ear drums or something?

Why did Kingo fuck off at the final fight? That had to be a COVID scheduling thing right? He just wandered off...

The Celestials seemed to change in scale quite a bit - the one in the visual at the beginning was L A R G E, and seemed to fit snugly inside the Earth - would defo destroy the world when hatched. However, when the one Emerged at the end, he wasn't actually that big, and could probably have sneaked out without making too much of a hole in the planet.

Otherwise, I quite enjoyed it as a sci-fi film.


However, it didn't seem to mesh at all within the MCU. The stakes just seemed too high. The fact that a being the size of a planet appeared, and peered down on Primrose Hill, and everyone seemed to forget about by the time Spider-man rolled around?

Are they saying that these Celestials created all life now? That seems a bit odd.

The fact that they just randomly decided to kill off Ikaris at the end (although Icarus flying directly into the sun was quite funny), seemed a bit like they realised he was too powerful, and wanted to remove him.

What the hell were those after-credit scenes about? Harry Styles turns up and is Thanos' brother? WTF? I thought Eternals were space robots created by a Celestial, so how did one of them become the biological brother of a Titan?

Also, Ego was supposed to be a Celestial, so why were they 100,000 miles tall in this, and he....was about 5ft8?

Anyway, rambling thoughts aside, I can see why it didn't review well.

[Happenstance]

35 minutes ago, bob said:

Watched The Eternals last night. It was ok. As a standalone film, it had its issues:

  Hide contents

All the Eternals having all these cool powers was fine when you thought that they had just been gathered up and dropped onto the planet to protect it. But when you find out that they had been specifically created by a God to go and fight the Deviants - why were some of them just so useless at it? Some of their powers were just so mis-matched, why didn't he just create 10 Eternals who could all fly and shoot laser-beams from their eyes? What use was mind-control Eternal, who couldn't control the Deviants' minds? And for that matter, why specifically make one of your Eternals deaf? Did you run out of ear drums or something?

Why did Kingo fuck off at the final fight? That had to be a COVID scheduling thing right? He just wandered off...

The Celestials seemed to change in scale quite a bit - the one in the visual at the beginning was L A R G E, and seemed to fit snugly inside the Earth - would defo destroy the world when hatched. However, when the one Emerged at the end, he wasn't actually that big, and could probably have sneaked out without making too much of a hole in the planet.

Otherwise, I quite enjoyed it as a sci-fi film.


However, it didn't seem to mesh at all within the MCU. The stakes just seemed too high. The fact that a being the size of a planet appeared, and peered down on Primrose Hill, and everyone seemed to forget about by the time Spider-man rolled around?

Are they saying that these Celestials created all life now? That seems a bit odd.

The fact that they just randomly decided to kill off Ikaris at the end (although Icarus flying directly into the sun was quite funny), seemed a bit like they realised he was too powerful, and wanted to remove him.

What the hell were those after-credit scenes about? Harry Styles turns up and is Thanos' brother? WTF? I thought Eternals were space robots created by a Celestial, so how did one of them become the biological brother of a Titan?

Also, Ego was supposed to be a Celestial, so why were they 100,000 miles tall in this, and he....was about 5ft8?
 

Anyway, rambling thoughts aside, I can see why it didn't review well.

Spoiler

The power thing is odd but the way I rationalised it was you wanted a bit of variety for all situations. We saw in the various uses of their powers that they all meshed well in different situations.

I actually liked Kingo buggering off at the end. It was different to the usual conflict you would get from a story point like that. Instead of battling for what he believed in it was more that while he disagreed with them, he wouldn't fight them over it. A much more realistic reaction to that kind of situation.

Celestial size was a bit up and down but none of it mattered to me after seeing that incredible shot of one towering over the Earth at the end.

Celestials creating all life. I've got no issue with that.

Eternals and Deviants are a bit different in the comics so the Harry Styles/Thanos relationship probably makes more sense. We'll have to see how they expand on it.

I can't remember if Ego in the MCU was actually named a celestial or just his backstory ties in so well that we just associate him as one but either way, Ego is the size of a planet, only his avatar is Kurt Russell sized.

 

[Julius]

New trailer for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness:

Spoiler

...the voice of Sir Patrick Stewart – as Professor X?! 

This damn well better not be a Quicksilver in Wandavision type of deal. I really don't want characters "getting Bohner'd" to become a thing! 

Official poster too:

Spoiler

...an ornate eye on the left between the fragments of dark Doctor Strange and Wanda? Between that and the potential Professor X voice...

Illuminati confirmed?! 

 

Edited February 13, 2022 by Julius

[MindFreak]

It looks incredibly entertaining and interesting. Will definitely want to watch that in the cinemas. Damn.