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Are Marvel Cinematic Universe films actually good films?

DigModiFicaTion

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Well it all depends on what you classify as a good film.

If these are judged by an entertainment factor, then yes, they are excellent films. Not because I like them, but because it is obvious that the world likes them due to their sales.

Looking at them from a narrative perspective, they are intriguing as they are all linked collectively. But this isn't necessarily a good thing. Lots of these movies end up feeling like filler movies that eat up time and dollars in order to hold everyone over until the next Avengers movie.

Using a furthering of technology approach, these films certainly push the technological boundaries of cinema. Doctor Strange is perhaps one of the more visually complex special effects movies to date. From this stance, they are important for their technical advancement. But wasn't the same said about Star Wars Episode II and it's 75%+ digitally created scenes?

I personally judge a movie by its ability to convey a narrative that is filled with exceptional acting, intriguing visuals, and intelligent story telling. For me, Marvel rarely meets the bar on any of these. Far too often Marvel is trying to jam so much information and backstory into their films that character development suffers, narratives become convoluted, and reality is so dispended that what is left is a cartoony live action fist fodder fest. Marvel tries to explain too much too slowly. A concept or history can be presented in ways that further the story rather than backtrack it. Inception did this wonderfully buy explaining itself as it moved forward. We didn't need an origins movie for Cobb, we could fill in the gaps as we went along. And this is my main gripe about Marvel's movies. They hold your hand too much. I want a movie that makes me think about concepts, character motivations, situations, consequences, etc. Marvel is just too obvious with its motives and storytelling. The exceptions to this are the character developments of Loki and the Ancient One. And why? Because they are ambiguous. Captain America: Winter Soldier was a fantastic movie ranking right up there with Nolan's Batman trilogy, imho, because it was filled with ambiguity and mystery. Too often I'm left singing BB King's The Thrill is Gone while watching MCU films.

Now, I do like movies that aren't all brains and mysteries too, but I prefer those to be somewhat grounded in reality, or the reality in which they are set. Marvel breaks the laws of physics and anatomical resilience with its ridiculous CGI. Characters make maneuvers that are unrealistic and survive blows that would and should kill them. I find this in far too many movies who rely on CGI stunts these days. Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is a fantastic movie, but scenes like the one where Cruise is sucked into the plane and hits his back and head on steel frames would have killed him. These types of scenes are rampant in MCU films. I remember watching clips of Days of Futures Past and cringing at the hideous CGI sentinels (yes I know that Fox is responsible for X-Men and not technically MCU but it still looks the same). Take the first Matrix for example. The concept was to bend reality, and it did it just that, but it did so in a very tangible way. Characters were not CGI and their environments still reacted in a primarily realistic way. Sure the squiddies looked ugly, but this was 1999. Fast forward to 2010 with Tron Legacy. Another CGI world, but extremely tangible in its presentation. It had so many opportunities to go Marvel (over the top) in its battle scenes, but it kept itself grounded and that is why I love the movie so much. I believed that Quorra and Clu could leave the grid because they were presented as real characters. Their creation and existence mirrored reality. I feel that many Marvel movies fail to accomplish this important goal. I want a superhero movie to be believable. I want to see them exist in a reality in which they obey rules of physics. I don't want to go to the cinema to watch video game cutscenes. I want to see superb acting and sfx that complement rather than overpower or take precedence over such acting.

In short, I think a few MCU films are good. Captain America: Winter Soldier was even fantastic. But as a whole, the MCU are mediocre movies at best. This is just my personal opinion, and I do realize that the majority of the world disagrees with me.

I haven't yet watched Civil War due to the overly CGI'd slugfest scenes I have seen of it, but I'm hoping the thoughtfulness into creating character driven stories will win out. Personally, I'd like to see Disney tackle a different genre or story. I could imagine that they would do a pretty good job with the Redwall series, and there are plenty of those books to turn into a cash-cow. But I suppose not everyone is into medieval Anthropomorphism.
 

TM2YC

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The short answer? - Yes.

The medium answer? - They are "popcorn entertainment" but let's not pretend that's an easy thing to do right. It's far easier to knockout some low budget, pretentious film with limited appeal, for a limited audience. They are far, far better written and made than just about any other blockbusters out there and better than they need to be. They are films made with character, emotion and wit in mind. Most blockbusters don't even bother to try to mean anything, or make you feel something. So yeah they are great films. Some are better than others but to call any of them "bad" would mean you've been very lucky with the other movies you've watched in your life :D .

The long answer? - I can't be bothered. You either enjoy 'em, or you don't.
 

Gaith

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What TM2YC said. Are they good flicks? Yep, 14 for 14. Are they serious art films? No, and they don't try to be, so it's irrelevant.

A more interesting question is why superhero flicks are so popular lately, and what that says about the culture. Going by the data, it seems clear that stories of powered people, be they Avengers or mutants or wizards or Dominic Toretto's crew or Jedi, are more popular than stories of ordinary scientists with fantastical tech (Ghostbusters), ordinary Coast Guard members (The Finest Hours), ordinary PIs (The Nice Guys), ordinary ancient peoples (Ben-Hur), etc...

Could be people get enough non-powered characters on TV, and they want fantasy spectacle at the movies. Could be people feel helpless and weak in their everyday lives, and desperate enough to vote for blustery con artists on the transparently illusory hope of change, so they embrace narratives of people strong enough to defy the laws of nature itself in the way children embrace fairy tales. Could be superhero stories offer a comforting narrative in which straight white American men are the only people of any real significance, with a few women and foreigners serving token sidekick duty, as is their place. Or combinations of the above - take your pick.

That said, I do think the consolidation of media has oppressive effects on large swaths of the country. How's your local up-and-coming band going to make the big leagues when just about every third song on contemporary radio is Maroon 5, Adele, or a decades-old standby that's never gone away? How are local filmmakers going to make deals to get their stuff screened when corporate multiplexes are the only theaters in town? How's a local minor sports team going to make its mark when TV packages beam every single major league game straight into your home? The overwhelming common theme of superhero stories is "I matter - maybe more than anyone else on Earth." It's not hard to imagine why that might be a compelling narrative these days.
 

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Gosh, @"DigModiFicaTion".  I finally agree on someone on the MCU. 

@"Gaith", that is a very interesting question, and I think you are right.  Unfortunately, to say the least.  But then again, history is history and every part of it is important in its own way.
 

TM2YC

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Canon Editor said:
then again, history is history

Groucho Marx said:
...and art is art and east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... now you tell me what you know.

spaulding.jpg
 

Masirimso17

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Are the MCU films good? Well let's see, according to my personal ratings of each film:

Iron Man - 8/10
The Incredible Hulk - 7/10
Iron Man 2 - Not sure, going to rewatch and analyze soon
Thor - 8/10
Captain America: The First Avenger - 7/10
The Avengers - 9/10
Iron Man 3 - 9/10
Thor: The Dark World - 6/10
Captain America: The Winter Soldier - 10/10
Guardians of the Galaxy - 8/10
Avengers: Age of Ultron - Not sure, going to rewatch and analyze soon
Ant-Man - 7/10
Captain America: Civil War - Not sure, going to rewatch and analyze soon
Doctor Strange - 8/10

The ones I marked "not sure" are the films I haven't thought about in detail enough to give them a rating, but soon I'll rewatch and analyze them, and come back and rate it here. But yeah, they're good films. At least in my opinion.

The things pointed out in the article isn't Marvel's fault, though. Kevin Feige's grand plan for Marvel was genius because this is exactly what comic books did. I know it's an entirely different medium, but they're adapted from comics and it works for them.

Same goes for DC in theory, though their universe doesn't seem to be going to well. Man of Steel was IMO great, albeit controversial, and I think Nolan's input as a producer helped a lot. However when Warner decided to turn in into a Cinematic Universe, bring Batman and Wonder Woman to the sequel, continue with the storyline established in Man of Steel, and also try to do Doomsday, not to mention the lack of input from Nolan... It just didn't work. Suicide Squad also suffered from being mostly studio driven.

X-Men? Well, Days of Future Past was fantastic, but what was also supposed to be fantastic (four) ended up being one of the worst in the genre. Deadpool was great, but Apocalypse wasn't what it was supposed to be. Gambit is in development hell... And now the studio doesn't even know what to do with the series. I think it's time for another deal with Marvel...

Sony's Spider-Man attempt? I'm probably the only one who loves both Amazing Spider-Man films and dislikes the Raimi films. Nevertheless, they put too much faith in just one movie (ASM2) to kickstart their own universe. I mean, Amazing Spider-Man 3, Sinister Six, Black Cat, Amazing Spider-Man 4, Venom... 5 movies, all depended on this movie? It was suicide. Of course we all know ASM2 didn't reach its billion dollar goal and the plan fell apart. It was a shame, I was looking forward to it, but what do you expect from putting too much faith in this one movie?

And finally, Star Wars... As if Disney thought everything in their empire wasn't enough, they took a story with a beginning, middle, end and tragic, meaningful backstory (even they added deeper meaning to the mythos of Star Wars: watch "The Prequels Are Secretly Brilliant?" on YouTube to get the point of the prequels), and decided to turn it into another endless franchise. Spin-offs, I'm okay with. Trying to continue the franchise with a Sequel Trilogy? As long as it adds to the mythos of the saga... Except it didn't. Not only was Fan-Service Awakens not a good movie, a lazy copy everything from the OT, and had ruined old characters (except Chewbacca, he was good) and shit new characters (except Finn, I like Finn's story), but it added nothing at all to the mythos of Star Wars. Even the mediocre prequels had something to add. And I know, I loved the Force Awakens the first two times I watched it in theatres, but after rewatching and analyzing, I changed my mind. Sorry. I'll explain sometime later. Anyway, it seems the rest of the plan is doing fan service. We got another generic desert planet, another generic lush planet similar to Isla Cruses from Pirates 2... There's little to no creativity left. But all those are pre-judgements, and if the spin-offs are good and the other two Episodes have something to add to the saga, I'm okay with it. But, and this is a big but (lol), will this forever go on with countless spin-offs?

The point I'm trying to say here is that trying to tell a creative and meaningful story supported by state of the art technology, is starting to get lost as we see in Star Wars. And it seems the same with lots of other planned universes.


Tapatalk kullanarak iPhone aracılığıyla gönderildi
 

TV's Frink

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Masirimso17 said:
Not only was Fan-Service Awakens not a good movie, a lazy copy everything from the OT, and had ruined old characters (except Chewbacca, he was good) and shit new characters (except Finn, I like Finn's story), but it added nothing at all to the mythos of Star Wars. Even the mediocre prequels had something to add.

Where's the dislike button?
 

Masirimso17

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TVs Frink said:
Masirimso17 said:
Not only was Fan-Service Awakens not a good movie, a lazy copy everything from the OT, and had ruined old characters (except Chewbacca, he was good) and shit new characters (except Finn, I like Finn's story), but it added nothing at all to the mythos of Star Wars. Even the mediocre prequels had something to add.

Where's the dislike button?

Hahaha :D  Something like that could exist in this site, but I don't think it would be fair if the dislike would negatively affect my reputation points. Different opinions is the beauty of opinions after all. May I explain myself in its own thread?

I also realize I went way off topic. What I was trying to say was that the Cinematic Universe craze was not Marvel's fault, it was the greedy studios that decided it would be a great idea to make money. Star Wars right now is an example of that. I'm not saying this because they made a bad movie (I mean they did but that's beside the point) but because Disney's priority was to make money first rather than telling a meaningful story. Same for all other Cinematic Universes including those based on a comic book universe (though it works for them better in theory because they have countless stories to adapt). I mean, a Universal Monsters Cinematic Universe?! Freaking WHAT?!
 

TV's Frink

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Well we disagree because I think TFA had a great story (if you consider it Rey's and Kylo's story, which I do) but Disney also needed to make money.  All studios have to make money or they don't make movies.

I have seen three of the MCU movies listed so I can't really speak to their quality overall, but I did like the ones I saw (Iron Man, Avengers, GOG).  I haven't seen more because I generally don't care about superhero movies one way or the other.

...

Wait, shouldn't Deadpool be on that list?  That was not a good film.  That was a film made by high school bros who never grew up.
 

ThrowgnCpr

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I mostly agree with Frink on this. I thought TFA was great. It was a safe story, but I agree with the reasoning behind that. The characters, acting, effects, etc. were all fantastic.

As for the MCU movies, it's not fair for me to chime in, because I generally loathe comic book action movies. I really can't judge if they're good, because I don't enjoy the genre at all. Of the MCU movies that I did see (some begrudgingly), here is how I rated them on IMDb:

Iron Man (2008) - 5/10
Captain America (2011) - 6/10
Guardians of the Galaxy - 7/10

If you count Deadpool: 8/10 (it's juvenile humor, but I thought it was a fun watch).

Iron Man and Captain America both had great actors and story set-ups, but the over-the-top endings killed them for me. Guardians was surprisingly fun (@"reave" forced me to watch this), I will probably watch GOTG2, eventually, but I don't have interest in seeing other entries in the MCU.
 

TV's Frink

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Oh yeah I forgot about how bad Iron Man ended.  It was a 9/10 most of the way through and a 2/10 at the end.
 

TV's Frink

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And...I just realized that the love interest in Deadpool, who is thoroughly wasted, was played by Inara from Firefly.  Now I hate Deadpool even more for wasting her.
 

ThrowgnCpr

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TVs Frink said:
Oh yeah I forgot about how bad Iron Man ended.  It was a 9/10 most of the way through and a 2/10 at the end.

giphy.gif
 

thecuddlyninja

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Studios wanting to make money as the first priority is nothing new. It's their reason for existence. A24 is making good money from their fare, too relative to the cost.

I never understand why this is said as a negative. It's capitalism. That makes it more refreshing to me when somebody can make an interesting film within that structure. There's an art to that, and I think they're usually pretty damn good at it at Marvel.

I personally don't really distinguish them from "art" films, in that a filmmaker who says anything with a film is art to me. Calling highbrow stuff art films is, to me, like calling animation a genre. It's not, just a medium to tell a story. It can be simple, loud and with bells and whistles but it's still a piece of art to me, whether I care for the film or not. I would contend that it's harder to make a movie in the MCU that says something interesting than to make a very obtuse art film with no real story.
 

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I am with @cuddlyninja there. Anyways, if we want to put it that way, I don’t consider superhero action films on the same level as, say, my favourite superhero films, which I always felt went way beyond superherores, such as “The Dark Knight”, or “X-Men 2”, or even the first two “Spider-Man” films by Sam Raimi. I don’t know why but I always felt very close to that kind of film, and then when I entered the theatre, watching “The Avengers” I kind of fell flat. I find them extremely hollow and devoid of a message, which I felt the cited films, like many more, delivered strongly.
 

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ThrowgnCpr said:
Guardians was surprisingly fun (@"reave" forced me to watch this)

ooh, this sounds gangsta.
 

ThrowgnCpr

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ssj said:
ThrowgnCpr said:
Guardians was surprisingly fun (@"reave" forced me to watch this)

ooh, this sounds gangsta.

let's just say you really don't want to know the shit he has in his basement...
 
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