Tag: Iron Man

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

I’ll start with the bad: there’s no Stan Lee cameo in this film. That’s weird, it’s the end of an era. A definitive part of these movies will now no longer happen. You’re so used to it that you expect it, then when it doesn’t happen you remember why, and it’s kind of depressing. But enough about sadness, onto this post-genocide film. This is the first film in the MCU to come out after Endgame, so a lot of eyes are on it. It’s also the first one after Iron Man and Captain America have left. So this needed to be great. Anything less than that would leave it being dubbed a failure. Thankfully this is great, simply great. The story is fantastic. I mean, everybody who knows anything about comic books knows that Mysterio would actually turn out to be the bad guy, so when that happens it’s not exactly a surprise. Jake Gyllenhaal continues to remind you that he’s actually really good. Not as good as he was in Nightcrawler, but good enough to annoy you that he’s not in more films.

Mysterio-700x500
Continuing my theory that all good looking people are evil.

The way they do it is pretty damn great though, featuring callbacks to characters you probably don’t even remember existing. It also continues the emerging relationship between Peter Parker and MJ in an incredibly sweet way that will melt the coldest of hearts. A similar heart-warming moment occurs between Ned and Betty Brant. Oh, I guess I should talk about spoilers. I can’t talk about this film without mentioning spoilers. Particularly for the mid-credits scene. Tbh I have been kind of underwhelmed with quite a few of them. They’ve mostly been jokes or otherwise moments which didn’t feel worth waiting for, the notable exception being the Ant-Man And The Wasp mid-credits, which used the mid-credits scene to not only provide an emotional gut-punch, but also make you genuinely excited about what happens next. This tops it. The first one anyway. The second one shows that Nick Fury hasn’t been Nick Fury, he’s actually been one of the Skrulls from Captain Marvel this entire film (you do have to wonder how long that has been going on, how many times in films has Nick Fury not actually been Nick Fury?). This is kind of interesting for the future as it shows how he’s preparing to set up an earth defence system.

Umbrella-Over-the-World--20002
Don’t know what it is but I imagine it will be more sophisticated than this

But it’s the one before that which is the most interesting: J. Jonah Jameson turns up! Not as a newspaper editor, but as some kind of internet “news” prick like Alex Jones. He plays doctored footage which implicates that Spider-Man committed mass murder. He then shows a video of Mysterio announcing Spider-mans real name. Well, he goes “Spider-mans real name is Pe-” and then it cuts out. You think it’s salvageable. You feel safe. Then it comes back “real name is Peter Parker” then shows a picture of him. This is a huge game-changer for the character. But you know what? I REALLY wish it happened earlier. Just imagine if the two Spider-Man films were somehow earlier, and this happened whilst Tony Stark was still alive. This leads to Peter Parker becoming hated by the world, Tony tries to protect him but Captain America thinks he’s guilty. THIS kicks off Civil War, leads to characters dying, and the guilt of that stays on the conscience of Peter Parker. Then the guilt on Captain America when he has that realisation that he’s been leading a war against a teenager. The emotion of that “shit, I wasn’t thinking, I was a complete prick” moment would have been off the charts. I would have loved that, and not because of how disappointed I was with the lack of consequences from Civil War. Now, that’s all well and good, but who has to play Jameson? JK Simmons was the PERFECT casting for that role and is the best part of the original Spider-Man trilogy. I may not be a big fan of those movies, but I have to admit they nailed that and anybody replacing him would have to try VERY hard to delete JK Simmons from peoples memories. Which poor bastard is replacing him? Luckily they got the perfect replacement. This guy is not better or worse than JK Simmons, but is on the same level. Once you watch this movie, you won’t be able to unsee this guy as Jameson. Instead of JK Simmons, we have……..

JK Simmons

Screen_Shot_2019_05_06_at_9.05.57_AM.0
I know, I’m crying with joy too

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

So yeah, go see it, it’s brilliant, and sets up the next stage perfectly, shit’s changing, and it’s going to be great to see.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) (Spoiler-Free Version)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

A few years ago I saw a film called Men, Women & Children. A film that had moments of okayness but failed to maintain even that. The main reason for this was it had too many characters and it couldn’t focus on all of them, as such some felt underdeveloped and the time spent with them felt utterly pointless. There was concern that the same would happen with this. This had a lot of characters, and all of them were somebody’s favourite (yes, even Thor), so if you didn’t do them properly then you’re going to annoy a lot of people, and in the age of social media, especially with such a highly anticipated film, the slightest inkling of dissatisfaction and they’d be nerd-rage akin to if you said “maybe not everybody has to be white”. As it is, this balances the characters pretty well. Whilst the characters are split into separate groups, there’s no real “core” group. None of them seem more plot-focused than the others. That being said it’s not entirely equal. It seems like the Guardians characters have a lot more to do within their groups than the others. Surprised there’s not really any new characters in it, I mean, there’s an allusion to one at the end but the only new people are the villains. This is slightly odd as it means that these are the only ones in the entire universe. Where was Stallone etc from Guardians Of The Galaxy 2? You’d think they’d have heard of Thanos’s plan and tried to stop it. Or anybody from Agents Of Shield (is that still going? I got incredibly bored by it quite quickly so stopped watching). It’s going to be incredibly difficult to introduce new characters after this, as the first question anybody will ask is “where the fuck were you when this happened?” Before it’s been mostly localised destruction, but maybe with the potential of worse things happening later. This was half of existence being threatened with extinction. There should have been a lot more people.

I mean, yeah that would have meant the film would be like seventy hundred hours long. But even if you just mentioned “earth has been closed off to visitors” to explain others not being there it would be better. Don’t get me wrong, I did love this film. The character interactions were fantastic (although still disappointed nobody said “no shit, Sherlock” when Doctor Strange and Iron Man shared a scene). It was great that the established groups got split up and we got characters sharing scenes who had never interacted before. On the downside, this causes a problem for any future films. The same problem that hit the MCU post-Avengers. From now on whenever a character has a solo film you’ll be wondering why nobody else is helping. If any other Iron Man films happen in the future then he has space-travelling assistance to come help him.

Has to be said that the fact that this film works, and works brilliantly is a true testament to the skill involved. The script is incredibly tight and focused, barely any fluff at all, which considering how long it is is quite impressive. It looks great, the scenes on Titan, in particular, look stunning, The setpiece in Wakanda, whilst not exactly disappointing, isn’t as stunning to look at as you feel it could be. And the music is still a bit of a letdown. Marvel doesn’t really have a great track record when it comes to original music (Black Panther being the obvious exception), they have that one piece of Avengers music they use, but every time I try to think of that I get the Harry Potter music in my head. Even the Saw franchise had a recognisable theme they used as shorthand for “shit’s about to go down”.The power of good music (and not just in a “using established songs) way) is underappreciated in modern cinema but could work wonders. If MCU had character themes then the introductions would be a lot better, imagine if you see a character in the darkness, you have no idea who they are but then a familiar theme plays, exciting you before you even see them.

So yeah, if you’ve liked these films, you really need to see this, but I can’t imagine you enjoying this if you haven’t seen the others. This is not the film you watch to introduce you to the MCU, you’ll be completely lost. So, see this, but see the others first. Will be posting a second review of this later on in the week, specifically focusing on the ending. So look out for that over the weekend.

5 Things Suicide Squad Did Right (And One Thing It Did Wrong)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

1. The Look

In a world where the colour palette of superhero films can mostly be described as Fifty Shades Of Grey (only much more painful) it’s refreshing to see such bright colours in a film such as this. Pinks and Greens are all over the place, it’s like a film taking place in a neon nightmare, and it’s brilliant. It gives the film a unique look, you can take a lot of still photos from this and know that it’s this film.

2. The Performances.

suicide-squad-00.jpg

Shockingly, and I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, I’m going to have to praise Cara Delevingne, which is something I didn’t think I’d ever do for two reasons:

  1. Her performance in Paper Towns severely weakened the film.
  2. I can’t spell her name.

But her performance in the first half of this is superb. She plays the part of a woman who’s scared of her internal demons spectacularly. You really see her inner torment, and it’s just subtle enough to not be overbearing and too on the nose. She’s also involved in one of the visual highlights of the film when the thing inside her body starts to come out, and the hands wrap around each other, it’s simple but beautiful.It’s not just her though, Will Smith’s performance almost makes you forget about After Earth.

after_earth-859495433-large
Almost

3. The Characters

This is not an easy sell to casual theatre goers. The most well known characters in this film are Batman and The Joker, and they’re in it for a combined total of about 15 minutes. As such the film has to make sure the audience knows who the main characters are, which for an ensemble piece is not easy. Yet by the time the film ends you feel like you know the characters well enough that most of them have enough background that a solo film wouldn’t be out of the question. Special mention must go to El Diablo, as played by Jay Hernandez. He’s the only character I didn’t really know anything about, I knew about Harley Quinn from various Batman comics, Deadshot from video games etc. Yet his character is really smartly set up, his reluctance to fight makes complete sense  considering his back story. His character is one with real emotion and heart.

Suicide-Squad-trailer-03

4. Music

Iron Man changed the game when it came to music in superhero movies, when they used AC/DC it set a new standard for the genre; no longer could they slack off in the music department, they needed popular rock songs by established bands, and a few classic rock songs in their too. This was perfected in Guardians Of The Galaxy, which had one of the best soundtracks of 2014. This film continues in that tradition, with songs from Black Sabbath, AC/DC, The Animals, CCR littered throughout the film.

5. The Joker

Leto is completely terrifying in it. Just like the joker should be. He owns every scene he’s in and carries a genuine sense of danger and does it in a way that’s completely different to the way that Heath Ledger did it. Heath Ledger’s Joker always seemed uncertain in his own skin, like he was made by his vulnerabilities. Leto’s one is completely different, he’s confident, he’s calm, he’s in control of every situation.

The Bad

1. Yeah But….

Everything I mentioned on the plus side? They all come with caveats. The still shots look fantastic, but the way it’s edited? Holy hell do they make some of the most basic editing mistakes ever. The shots are not given enough time to leave an impact, there’s quick cuts between different things in scenes which should be slow paced. Whilst Cara Delevingne performance in the first half is awesome, the second half is awful. She seemingly forgets the meaning of “subtlety”, and she does a weird thing with her body that makes her seem like a wooden marionette. The characters bond and start talking about being like “a family” without any reason or bonding moment. Whilst El Diablo’s sacrifice (oh, spoilers), was noble, it made no sense, it would be like you sacrificing your life for your classmates on the first day. Yes there is a lot of good music, but there’s also A LOT of music. There’s so many moments where you sit there thinking “jesus, another f*cking song? We get it, you’ve got an impressive record collection. How about actually working out how to match the music to the scenes?” The Joker is good? Shame he’s only in it for about 10 minutes. Now I’ve seen people complain about people complaining about this. Saying things like “you could tell he was only going to be in it for an extended cameo”. Really? Tell the advertising campaign which was HEAVILY focused around him, or even the posters which had Jared Leto as the second billed actor. He was billed higher than almost all of the main characters. Now, if you were following press releases etc then yes, you knew he wasn’t going to be in it for long. But the majority of cinema goers aren’t people who spend all the time online looking for details about this film, they’re people who see the trailer, see the poster, and decide to see it.

And that, ultimately is the biggest problem, it’s hard to say something nice about this film without having to quantify it. And as with most modern films, the plotting is all over the place. The opening half hour is nothing but blatant character building, with someone sitting there literally telling you about the characters. There are way too many shots of Harley Quinn that are blatant fan-service (and a scene where an entire group of people manages to climb stairs quicker than a lift travels up 5 flights). That, added to the length equals a film which, despite being almost sold out when I went to see it, had nobody stay through the credits. The second the closing credits started,everyone left, and with a film like this that shouldn’t be the case, and it’s disappointing that it is

In Summary

If you go cinema a lot, go see it. If you only go to the cinema a few times a year, and going is a true event, then don’t make this one of your visits.

Why We (Already) Love Captain America: Civil War

On By troubledproductionsIn Why we loveLeave a comment

Erm, because it’s good? That’s it, blog’s over everyone, go home and play with your food, eat your wives and make love to your xbox (side note: Ex-Box is a truly vile nickname for someone’s vagina, don’t use it, you’re better than that).

But yeah, this film. It’s……amazing. Pre-hype for this was pretty intense, until Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn’t You (Forget About Me), then people started to get concerned. Was easy to see why, it seemed like Civil War was following a lot of of BvS mistakes: they released a trailer that seemed to give away the plot, then another one which introduced a character people weren’t certain if was going to be in it, and they seemed to be introducing a lot of new characters in one film. I’ll admit, I was really disappointed that they put Spider-Man in the trailer. I thought “but it would have worked better if it was a shock, stupid idiots. I hate them all! Burn them!” But here’s the thing: I was wrong. Spider-Man came in waaaaaay too early in this film for him to be a surprise character. Besides, if that happened then people would walk out talking about “Oh my God, I can’t believe Spider-Man was in that!” as opposed to how good the film is. Plus that information would have leaked in the first screenings, even if you tried to avoid it you’d see it everywhere on facebook when you woke up on release day. So in the end it made sense, so so much sense. God damn I loved this movie, probably my favourite Marvel film so far, had everything: sensible plotting, good characterisation, good action sequences, just, everything you want. Anyway, enough pointless random conversation: let’s get started on purposeful random conversation.

1. Spider-Man

He’s one of the characters I’ve never really liked in films, he’s always supposed to be a teenager but is never played as one. At least, not an actual teenager, he’s played like the leading man in a teen drama where “anxiety” and “shy geek” just means “is friends with the most popular girl in school but hasn’t dated her yet” and the only sign of their geekdom is that people with letters on their jacket shove them into lockers. This Spider-Man however is a teenager, he geeks out over superheroes, he messes up, he gets overexcited (which then leads to more mistakes). More importantly: he’s fun. He’s a funny, engaging character whom is inherently likeable.

2. Black Panther

This film is not just Spider-mans, it’s not even fully Captain America, this film belongs partly to Black Panther. This film is his origin story. Which is fantastic news, A LOT of people have seen Civil War, which means a lot of them are now familiar with the character, so now when he has his solo movie (which thanks to this serving as his origin, should be able to avoid the whole “boring first movie” syndrome that plagues so many films) a large number of people who ordinarily wouldn’t go to see the film now will. They’re invested in the character, they’re invested in the story, and they want to see what happens next.

3. The Villain

I’ve seen one or two people annoyed that the villain in this movie is just a guy. He’s not a very rich guy, he’s not a powerful or influential guy, he’s got no powers at all. He is, just, a guy. But to me that’s perfect. Who better to show the Avengers the damage they’re doing to the man on the street than a man on the street? A man who has suffered personal loss due to the actions of a few self-appointed übermensch’s. Superhero movies needed to find their humanity again, they needed a human touch (not the human torch, nobody needs that guy). The characters needed to be shown the consequences of their actions, they needed to create their own villain, not through a mistake, not through an accident in a lab somewhere, but by their very actions which make them heroic. This guy realises that he can’t beat the Avengers, he needs them to defeat themselves, and he sets it up beautifully (which is another thing I like about this film, it doesn’t really have a happy ending, everything’s not fixed, this film truly changes the dynamic of the group).

4. The Airport Scene

Possibly the best action sequence in a Marvel film so far. Every character is given a chance to shine and showcase their abilities. We see why Tony Stark wanted Spider-Man so much, we see Ant-Man do…..well, trust me it’s amazing. So much better than the action sequence which opens the film (which to me was a little too jerky and didn’t really flow properly. Why do so many directors move the camera during action sequences now? It very makes us feel like we’re really there, instead it just makes it dicking difficult to focus on the scenes they’ve spent months working on). One of my biggest problems with Age Of Ultron was that the fight scenes felt pointless, there were too many moments which felt like someone high up said “ok, we need an action scene here otherwise people will get bored” instead of “we need an action scene here to develop the story”. This doesn’t really have that, there are quite a few action scenes, but they’re well placed within the story and they all make sense. Plus there’s a certain uniqueness to them; the character’s are all slightly holding back. They’re going more for showmanship and intimidation than “I am going to kill you” (with the exception of one rather notable three way fight) which brings a different dynamic to the scenes.

5. Next time.

I’m already excited for the next one. There’s so many questions I want to ask (but not in a “this movie didn’t answer these questions and I’m unsatisfied way) and so many things I’m looking forward to seeing. I’m already excited for films that won’t be out for years to come. THAT’S how good this movie is. Basically: here’s the things I’m looking forward to seeing/finding out:

  • How will Captain America cope now he doesn’t have his shield?
  • What will happen with Martin Freemans character? He’s too big an actor for such a small part so I assume they’re doing something big.
  • How will people react to Iron Patriot? One of America’s soldiers is now paralysed due to superheroes, American’s are perfectly okay with foreign civilians dying, but when a soldier is shot at? Shit goes down.
  • What’s the villains next step? Does he even have one?
  • How will Hulk and Thor react?
  • What will the next stage of the MCU films be like? This film changed the dynamic of them completely: the heroes can no longer operate in the open, they are now forced underground. We won’t get the good guys teaming up with the military from now on, we’ll have the military shooting at the good guys.
  • Will other countries use the superheroes as an excuse to declare war? All, say, North Korea would need to do is stage a scene of massive devastation and frame someone from South Korea for it and claim they’re a superhero and it would be a pretence for war (with international approval as well as South Korea has disobeyed international law).

Oh, and spoilers btw. I, probably should have mentioned that earlier. Whoops.

Musings On Marvel: Day 11 (Avengers: Age Of Ultron)

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: Joss Whedon (writer of Toy Story and uncredited co-writer on Twister)

Budget: $250million

Box Office: $1.4billion

  • Why did you need to find the Loki Pokey stick? Wasn’t it at the top of the Avengers tower at the end of the Avengers movie? Was it stolen at some point in the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D series? And if so, f*ck that noise. Don’t make me hours of a TV show necessary viewing for a movie that’s already way too long.
  • “lasting a little long, boys” Yeah I’ve had that problem before.
  • “Fire on the weak ones” See, this is why you don’t have weak ones.
  • “send in the Iron Legion” Why not start with that? That way you don’t have to even be there.
  • Wait, didn’t he promise to destroy all the suits at the end of Iron Man 3?
  • Do the people here understand English? Surely that’s a logical flaw Tony Stark would have fixed?
  • “I want to poke it with something”. That’s exactly how I deal with almost every problem.
  • “yay” Is Tony Stark now a fifteen year old girl? I mean, what kind of self respecting person says “yay”? Note: I don’t count, I don’t respect myself.
  • See, this annoys the hell out of me. That shot of the broken shield was used in the trailer. It created intrigue. I was waiting, wondering how that happened, wondering what force could create that. And then I found out: dream sequence, didn’t happen, doesn’t matter. F*ck you film industry. It’s one of the most annoying things about film trailers and I’d love to see it stopped, that, and ruining cameos. There was no reason to showcase that Spider-Man is in Civil War. Close to that: people in the trailer who are only in a handful of scenes. Such as Hugh Grant in Man From U.N.C.L.E.
  • “no pepper? no jane?” Yeah, we couldn’t afford for them to come to this party.
  • “Jane’s better” normally I would really disagree with you, but the other person is Gwyneth Paltrow so it’s more like “please, please, they’re both terrible people”
  • Wait, you’re a celebrity funded by a multi million dollar agency. How do you not have enough money?
  • “this was not meant for mortal men” But you are mortal! Your mother died just a few movies ago, and you think your brother died. You should be aware of mortality by now.
  • “he’s also a huge dork, chicks dig that”. As someone who is almost the court jester of dorks I can confirm this is most definitely not true.
  • “on the world’s leading authority on waiting too long”, no. You slept for most of that, does not count.
  • If I was Thor I’d totally leave the hammer on the toilet seat so people couldn’t pee.
  • Tony Stark makes a joke about raping the women of Asgard. Comedy!
  • So Captain is “slightly” worthy?
  • Ultron waited until all the other party guests left before attacking.
  • An evil robot in a Marvel movie? Wow, never seen that before.
  • The film isn’t perfect, but James Spaders performance is pretty close.
  • So Ultron went on the internet and now hates the world? I see he’s seen the Daily Mail comments section then.
  • “he’s taken the Loki Pokey stick and now we have to find it, again”. Even the movie knows it’s repeating itself.
  • “it was built in the centre of the city so everyone could be equally close”. That’s not true, as in, that wouldn’t work. Unless there’s only one line of houses in a perfect circle then there’s going to be people living closer. I mean, draw a perfect circle on the floor, mark the centre, now stand two meters away, now have someone else stand one meter away from the centre. Are you both the same distance from the middle? No, you’re not. Lee: making fun of movies via math. Usually I only comfort people with mathematics, and that’s only during certain circumstances.
  • “our parents go in”, wait, your dad is Magneto. So does Magneto die really early on in this universe? Harsh.
  • “Cuttlefish: deep sea fish, they make lights” no they don’t. You’re describing an anglerfish.
  • Just realised they’re in Wakanda, shouldn’t Black Panther be there?
  • Movie spend the time providing a backstory to Black Widow when surely she should have had her own movie do that for her?
  • Wait, was that Clara Oswald? For one shot.
  • So Black Widow fantasises in cinematic low angle shots?
  • Why isn’t the hulkbuster suit the default suit?
  • I assume there was a deleted scene here which explains why Thor is just f’ing off. How do these films manage to be both too long, and have so many things missing?
  • “they have a graduation ceremony where they sterilise you” Apparently Greenwich Uni has the same procedure.
  • Wait, did they take the only strong female character in this thing and make her tragic backstory tie into childbirth? Damnit. And if you don’t see why this is problematic: imagine if Captain America’s main backstory was that the serum turned him sterile, and that was his biggest issue. See how weird that would be? But they had to make the only female character the only one who has a backstory that involves childbirth.
  • “everytime someone tries to win a war before it starts, innocent people die”. As opposed to normal wars where absolutely no innocent people die.
  • “guy’s multiplying faster than a Catholic rabbit”. I never noticed that line before.
  • Why did Ultron shoot the road, not the person?
  • “how do you want me to take it”. Obvious sex joke is obvious.
  • “without the homicidal glitch that he thinks are his winning personality” oh but without that I have nothing.
  • Why is he keeping Black Widow alive? It’s not to lure the Avengers there, as they kind of already have reason to find him and attack him.
  • Hey it’s a naked Paul Bettany, that’s never been done before.
  • Wait, where did he get the cape from?
  • Paul Bettany delivers what is essentially a shakespeare monologue in a film that doesn’t really deserve it.
  • Ok, that bit where Vision picked up the hammer was pretty awesome.
  • Quicksilver uses Adidas.
  • It’s a shame Quicksilver was done better in X-Men Days Of Future past otherwise that bit would have been awesome.
  • It’s a shame we’ve seen Magneto lift a stadium up in X-Men Days Of Past otherwise that bi….god damnit.
  • This plan doesn’t really work, that mass dropping wouldn’t have same impact as a meteor of the same size. The reason meteors cause so much damage is because they have high levels of speed because they’ve dropped such a great height. This land mass isn’t being raised high enough to gather enough speed.
  • Other point: if this city is being raised to 18,000 feet, shouldn’t that change the temperature? Should be below zero surely.
  • “you get killed” he says, as the camera focuses on the only main character to die.
  • Wait, can Captain now call his shield to him with telepathy?
  • Yeah, good job Captain America and Thor, saving those two people when you could be saving a lot more.
  • “Thor, you’re bothering me”. He bothers me too.
  • Hadouken!
  • Hawkeye wastes valuable time making stupid jokes. Funny stupid jokes that were adlibbed on set but still.
  • “Where else am I going to get a view like this?” A mountain, a plane, riding Iron Man?
  • “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” His mother’s probably been dead for like a century, not cool!
  • “show em what we’ve got” Yeah, that’s right, show that army you’ve got one guy in a suit. They’ll be shitting themselves.
  • “if you get through this, I’ll hold your own”. Well, they both survived, so I assume that scene will be in Civil War.
  • Villain tries to say a funny line and gets hit by Hulk. Just like in the first movie.
  • Finally a major hero dies.
  • Well, I say “major”, he had like 20 minutes of screen time, if that.
  • So things that aren’t worthy can’t keep the hammer aloft? There was a moment in the last Thor movie where the hammer was put on a coat hook, was the coat hook worthy?
  • Holy crap that film felt long.
  • Oh wait, it was long.
  • Thanos decides to retrieve the stones himself. You know if he did this earlier, these films would’ve been other before Thor. Ah, we live in hope.

Musings On Marvel: Day 9 (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Directors: Russo Brothers (Captain America: Civil War, Arrested Development pilot, Community pilot)

Budget: $170million

Box Office: $714million

  • Why does Captain America need to jog? Isn’t his strength and fitness derived from the serum so he doesn’t need to exercise at all. Unless he’s just bored, in which case, go fight bad guys or something.
  • Wait, he’s got “Thai food” on the list of things to research? Dude, just go eat Thai Food. Done.
  • And Sean Connery? Not a list of films he’s in, or anything like that. Just Sean Connery in general?
  • The Captain America plan to getting into a building:
    1. Stealthy stealthy stealthy
    2. Flippy flippy flippy
    3. Loud noise! Throw shield into room so everyone knows you’re there.
  • Isn’t Captain super strong etc? I mean, he went toe to toe with Iron Man in Avengers, now a regular bearded dude troubles him?
  • “last time I trusted someone I lost an eye”, I know, people always say “I’ll tap your head a second before” but they never do.
  • “agent Romanov is comfortable with everything”, so that’s why you make her wear that skintight costume.
  • Fury gives a detailed nostalgic history of himself, he’s going to get shot.
  • “greatest generation, you guys did some nasty stuff” “for freedom!”. Random fact: the Nazi party got their influence for their eugenics programme from a programme in California. U S A! U S A! U S A!
  • Why does his friend have his own exhibit at the museum? There’s nothing about Churchill’s bff at the war museum.
  • How did he find out where she lived?
  • “I thought I could throw myself back in, serve in the army again”. You barely served in the Army. You spent most of your time doing theatre.
  • “you saved the world”. I mean, yeah, it’s a shame that Captain America doesn’t exist in real life so Germany won the war and the world has been destroyed. That sucked when the world was destroyed. I hadn’t even finished paying off my sofa.
  • Why holograms? Why not just skype? This is literally just technological dick measuring. And just as messy.
  • This film continues the MCU tradition of hoping that merely mentioning the other Marvel characters will stop us wondering why they never turn up to help each other.
  • “he has to socialise”. You want Iron Man to socialise at a kids birthday party? He’ll probably try to fuck the mother and get the kid drunk.
  • Holograms on the car window now? That’s not just pointless, that’s also highly distracting and possibly illegal.
  • I would question how they think they could stage a police attack then remembered that Nick Fury is black so they’d just need to say he littered so they had to shoot him.
  • “to build a better world we need to destroy the old one”. Wow, I wonder if this guy’s evil.
  • This fight would be over in about 5 seconds if they used the paralysing technology from Iron Man 1.
  • F*ck off can he fall that far and be okay. Super soldier or not, he still has to obey the laws of physics.
  • “he refused to share information” so you kill him? Surely one of the people working there realises that’s unfair justice.
  • “two dozen assassinations in over 50 years” That’s really not many at all. That’s like one every two years. That’s nowhere near enough to have that big a file. I mean, if I get a few more I’ve beaten that record.
  • Oh please. As if Captain America knows about function overrides on computers.
  • “if you guys need anything. I’ve been Aaron” so who are you now?
  • He didn’t eject it properly! That flash drive is going to crash.
  • That just says which buttons are pressed. Not in which order.
  • Wait, he’s seen War Games but not Star Wars or any of the Rocky albums?
  • Wait, so THIS is the guy they decide to save his brain? He’s quite useless.
  • “if you try to take freedom, they resist”. Really?  No shit.
  • How did they get such high-quality footage on a green and black monitor? This would be like watching TV on an old Game Boy. Which you can’t do.
  • So the lesson is, don’t trust Swiss people?
  • So they blew that building up, and all that data, just to kill two people?
  • “seem pretty chipper for a guy who died for nothing”. Well, you know, except Nazi’s.
  • Oh, so we can’t get Iron Man or anything, but don’t worry, we’ve got the senator from Iron Man 2 in here.
  • So Falcon has never been seen in any of these films? He wasn’t called to save the president in Iron Man 3, or to save New York in Avengers?
  • Rolling out of a car at that speed would cut your skin up so you looked like a kebab.
  • For two super cool assassins, their aim sure is terrible.
  • Winter soldier destroys a strangers car. More like Winter So-D’ya Have To Be So Rude?
  • Superhero landing!
  • They keep shooting at his shield instead of his legs.
  • Surprise! Except it’s totally not a surprise. It’s really obvious so why did they leave it so long?
  • By the way, this scene should totally have an 80’s power ballad playing over it.
  • How did they decide to use this a hiding space? “We need to think of a hiding space, any idea where?” “damn” “perfect!”
  • “about damn time”. Yeah, you should have got shot earlier, damn you ScarJo.
  • Wait, I’m fairly certain Zola was on the same train that Bucky fell off, and was captured almost immediately after. So he could not have been there when he woke up. No, no, no, nothing about this makes sense at all, and horses can’t talk!.
  • Wait, first Aldrich loses his arm in a battle in Iron Man 3, then Loki chops off Thors arm in The Dark World, now Bucky last an arm too? Marvel hates arms.
  • Awesome, a scene to show a friendship we already knew existed. Great.
  • People think that Chris Evans transformation to Captain America was well done, but Sebastian Stans transformation from Bucky to the Winter Soldier is a lot better. He’s almost unrecognisable.
  • Hey it’s Abed. Hey Abed.
  • That actually makes sense, the directors for this were hired due to their work on the paintball episodes of Community. That’s the good thing about the MCU, they’ve taken risks with new directors from different genres. Doctor Strange is being directed by Scott Derrickson, who’s known mainly for horror. They’re not sticking with established directors, in fact, the most well known one they had was Kenneth Branagh. And even that was a risk.
  • “what if Pakistan invaded Mumbai and you knew they were going to drag your daughters into a soccer stadium”. Football! Not soccer. That’s probably the most evil thing he’s done.
  • They never use this disguise technology again.
  • “are you sure you’re ready for the world to see you as you really are?” with how tight her clothes are, we already know.
  • They fired like 8 missiles at one person. No wonder the US military spend so much with that kind of wastage.
  • Even Michael Bay thinks these explosions are “a bit much”
  • “it’s trending”. Wait, I pretty much used that exact line the year before in a film. Bastards!
  • “unless you want a hole in your sternum”. 1) that’s not where the sternum is. 2) couldn’t you have done that earlier when she was hitting people?
  • “order only comes through pain” kinky.
  • Does Captain America really need to attempt to sacrifice himself? HYDRA has been exposed,  and the missiles aren’t aimed at cities anymore so everyone’s safe. And we’ve already seen he can jump from great heights and be completely okay for some reason.
  • Captain drops his one of a kind shield out of the flying vehicle, yet somehow you know he’ll find it again.
  • “there’s nothing more horrifying than a miracle” I dunno, genocide?
  • Are supposed to be surprised Bucky is alive? I mean, we saw him walk away, this scene literally serves no purpose.

Musings On Marvel: Day Seven (Iron Man 3)

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Lethal Weapon 2)

Budget: $200million

Box Office: $1.215billion

  • Even in 1999 that hairstyle wasn’t good. Do film-makers not remember the 90’s? They should do, they were there. Ok, most of them were on cocaine at the time but still.
  • This song was released in January 1999 and annoyed people immensely by February 1999. So by December 31st I imagine just hearing it would be enough to make people want to go self harm.
  • Hey, it’s the guy from the cave in the first movie. Well played Mr. Director.
  • “The old days, never thought they’d come back to bite me”. Really? Wasn’t that the entire point of the second movie?
  • Tony Stark needs rockets even to dress himself, but wasn’t the thing in the Avengers movie that assembled itself in mid air as he was falling from a building  good enough?
  • Obvious CGI is obvious. Seriously hollywood, either actually knock Robert Downey Jr. with a piece of metal that makes him flip, or do the CGI well enough that we don’t notice.
  • “Some people call me a terrorist”, some call him the gangster of love.
  • “I consider myself a teacher”, wow, and I thought my teachers were strict.
  • Were these videos released on their own for promotion? They so should have.
  • That thing he mentioned about America attacking a defenceless tribe? That really happened. In response the American government set up a treaty which gave the Indians free reign of the land to the south of the Arkansas River and promised them cash and more land in the future. Less than two years later the American government ripped up this treaty and ignored it. Seriously, America, what the holy f*ck?
  • Soldiers wouldn’t really have their family with them in such a volatile area, to stop things like this happening.
  • Hey, it’s Iron Captain America.
  • “How did you get out of the wormhole?” He fell, dumbass.
  • See, this I like. The continuation of the character, he would be haunted by what happened in Avengers. Shame they didn’t take it further, this would have been a great way to introduce the characters alcoholism, which is really not been dealt with in the movies, ok, they’ve shown him drinking, but they haven’t shown him struggling with the addiction. I suppose it’s because the world doesn’t want flawed heroes, they want “flawed” heroes, which means they’re rich, sexy and smart, but they occasionally fall over.
  • No way would the photo he took be clear enough to recognise that number plate.
  • Discount Hitman gives something to Discount Ethan Hawke.
  • Shane Black sets a lot of movies at Christmas and nearly all of them are violent. He must be harbouring violent tendencies towards the season for some reason. Did he catch daddy kissing santa claus?
  • “This is just good old fashioned revenge”. Is Tony Stark basically cutting a wrestling promo here?
  • So Tony Stark, international weapons manufacturer and superhero, his entire security consists of “a front door”.
  • Iron Man eats gluten free waffles. On its own there’s nothing wrong with that, but considering he drank chlorophyll in the second movie to help cure him makes me assume he’s just doing it as a fad diet.
  • Where are the rest of the Avengers? I mean, Tony Starks house is being attacked and Nick Fury is just sitting about eating cheese by the block.
  • Wilhelm!
  • Wow, the guy at the start who was wronged turned out to be the bad guy, what a massive surprise.
  • A kid gives Tony Stark anxiety attacks, they have the same effect on me.
  • Let’s say Tony Stark is ridonkulously, like, David Beckham famous in this universe. Would putting on a baseball cap mean that nobody recognises him?
  • This woman is an idiot, unless she kills absolutely everybody, she’s going to leave witnesses so the top secret weapon will no longer be top secret.
  • So the heat thingy can melt handcuffs but doesn’t damage clothes? Clearly they get their clothes from the same place as The Hulk.
  • Wait, did Tony hand a weapon to a child? And yet I’m not trusted with a crossbow.
  • This is kid is annoying, manipulative and strange. Basically, he’s a very well written child character.
  • “we can’t allow terrorists to dictate what we do”, yeah, imagine having an open dialogue with people where you talk and work your way through to a sensible compromise, the horror!
  • “last time I went missing you came looking for me” No, you’re thinking of Terrence Howard, this is Don Cheadle.
  • Tattoo of Tony Stark’s face on his arm, because that’s not creepy. Actually that’s an odd subplot that they’ve never really gone into, the cult of celebrity and how it would get in the way of them doing their job. Basically, the superheroes would need a PR team.
  • Two female characters talking about science. Holy crapy a Marvel film beats the Bechdel test.
  • Literally all he did was enter the building. That’s not exactly “saving the day”, it makes no difference.
  • Explosive Christmas tree decoration. Why does Shane Black hate Christmas? Did he want a white Christmas when he was a kid and all he got was a black one?
  • See, a lot of people hate this twist but I like it. It would be quite hard to do this character and have it not be ever so mildly racist. Plus let’s face it, NOBODY saw this coming, but it makes sense. The idea is logical, and fits into the themes of modern vilains.
  • Did that guy need to put his hand on Tony Starks chest just then? Seemed a little lovey.
  • Wait, so they’re surprised the drug addict, to whom they’re giving drugs, isn’t behving responsibly?
  • Ben Kingsley did this well, but you know who would have done a lot better? Either Peter Cook or Dudley Moore
  • 1200cc. That’s about 1.2 litres, there’s no way there was that much in that tiny syringe.
  • “you’re ziptied to a bed”, we’ve all been there.
  • He breathes fire, does he ever do this again?
  • “honestly, I hate working here, they are so weird”. That is almost exactly what I’d be like if I was a henchman.
  • This football match actually happened in May. And yet they expect us to take this movie seriously. Honestly, what’s next? Pretending something that happened on a Thursday actually happened on a Wednesday?
  • No way would a real Englishman drink Budweiser.
  • Oh, so the evil looking guy from Hot Shots: Part Deux is actually organising it. What a surprise.
  • Wouldn’t Air Force One have bulletproof windows?
  • The president has been kidnapped, and yet still no Captain America.
  • They just descended 8,000 feet in about three seconds, surely that’s not possible?
  • “chunky monkey, let’s get her”. Great, so not only did she nearly die, she also got called fat.
  • “they’ve got him strung up over the oil tankers, they’re going to light him up”, so the plan is; tie him up, light him up, inhale, exhale?
  • I’ve figured out why these blogs get progressively worse the longer they go on. The movies are way too f*cking long so by the final third I’ve kind of stopped paying attention.
  • Wait, did Gwyneth Paltrow just save the day? F*ck this movie.
  • Tony Stark throws his chestplate into the river, I assume he no longer gives a damn about being environmentally friendly.
  • Wait, this music isn’t AC/DC
  • Post credits scene with Incredible Hulk seems like a poor excuse for having constant narration throughout it.
  • Banner fell asleep during that story. Understandable, I nearly did too.
  • Wait, since when was he a trained therapist? And shouldn’t S.H.I.E.L.D have someone who’s entire job it is to be a post-traumatic stress councillor for heroes etc? Someone like Idris Elba, his calm soothing voice will make you think everything’s okay.

Musings On Marvel Day Six: Avengers Assemble

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: Joss Whedon ((Much Ado About Nothing, two episodes of The Office (U.S))

Budget: $220million

Box Office: $1.5billion

  • Why’s the helicopter following a roadway?
  • Coulson wears sunglasses at night.
  • Nick Fury doesn’t say “That makes me Fury-us” during this whole film.
  • Cobie Smulders is actually kind of weak in this, her first lines are delivered like when an actor gives deliberately bad performance to show how bad their character is at acting.
  • “A door can be opened two ways” Science!
  • That’s not a spear, that’s a, well I’m not sure if it’s actually got a name, so I’ll just call it the Loki Pokey stick.
  • See, Loki Pokey.
  • “I am Loki, of Asgard”, ah, so not Loki from New Jersey then?
  • “I come with glad tidings”, I come with external stimuli, using a vagina or a mouth or a hand. General feelings of happiness don’t tend to do anything for me.
  • “What do we do?” *dramatic pause*. Yeah, that’s fine for the film and everything, but is pissing annoying for the other person who’s just waiting to be told what to do.
  • Wow, Edward Norton looks a lot different.
  • “what does he want me to do, swallow it?” Good people always swallow.
  • Did 9/11 happen in the MCU? It’s never referenced, not even in passing. And don’t give me that “but why would they mention it?” BS, it’s America, they always mention it, it’s been mentioned almost daily for the past week alone, so you think with all the constant attacks at least one person would say something like “this kind of damage has not been seen since 9/11”. And can you imagine Captain America being told about 9/11? Holy crap that scene would have been fantastic in terms of emotion.
  • So he’s in Germany, yet he’s delivering this speech in English?
  • “Isn’t being on your knees your natural state?” Let’s not get into my sexual proclivities right now.
  • This old guy is the most heroic character in the entire series. He is basically an average guy being the first in line to stand up to a vicious dictator with obvious superpowers. In a world with superpowers he has nothing but still stands up just because he knows it’s right. He risked his life just for his principles, and he did it on his own. That guy, is freaking awesome.
  • Obvious nazi parralels but nobody says “that makes me Führerious”
  • “there’s only one God, and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t dress like that”, true, I prefer black t-shirt and jeans.
  • Ok there’s about a minute between Thor jumping out and Captain America parachuting up and jumping out, in a moving plane. There is no way Captain America would land anywhere near them.
  • Thor throws a magical hammer at Iron Man, potentially killing him.
  • Thor can charge up Iron Man’s suit, this is never referenced again at any point.
  • Thor basically tries to smash Iron Man’s face with a hammer, even if was just a regular hammer that would have killed him if it connected.
  • Thor then launches himself at Captain America to hit him with the hammer, in a move that surely would have killed him if it connected with a normal human being, which for all he knew, the Captain was. Basically, Thor is a psychopath who attempts to kill people for no reason what so ever in this film. One of many reasons I hate the character.
  • Wow, it sure sucks we have to wait until Civil War to see these guys fighting, you know, the guys who are currently fighting right now.
  • So “flying monkeys” Thor doesn’t understand, yet he mentioned nothing when “Galaga” or “Point Break” were mentioned?
  • “It’s not just power Loki wants, he wants vengeance”, so he’s, an Avenger?
  • “your ledger is gushing red”, yeah that happens like once a month once you pass puberty.
  • This is probably the only film that’s earned over a billion which has the line “mewling quim” in it.
  • Loki could totally play SuperLee in a movie.
  • “everything special about you came out of a bottle”. Yeah, developed by some idiot named Howard Sta—yeah nevermind.
  • Wait, one arrow did that?
  • So the world knows that Thor is a God? And this has had no impact on religion in the world? Not one member of the clergy, or even the Pope has mentioned the definitive existence of a God that walked among us? There’s been no resurgence in people believing in the Norse Gods? A God walked among the world and it changed absolutely nothing. I’m not buying it.
  • This should be much better shot. If this was done well then this moment of Black Widow silently walking around to avoid The Hulk could have been like Alien: Isolation. It could have been a huge dramatic set piece. As it is it’s just a scene that almost everyone will forget about.
  • Captain America there talking on the device in his ear. Which if you were paying attention to the previous scene you’ll know is either invisible or doesn’t exist. Is he going through a mental breakdown? What if the Captain America movie was just the insane thoughts of a madman who grew up reading Captain America comics and then had a nervous breakdown?
  • “so that’s what it does”, yup, pretty much the same as every other weapon, fires and knocks people backwards.
  • It’s well known that you can stop brainwashing by hitting somebody in the head really hard. Can’t imagine that defence standing up in court.
  • Does Stark not have any security cameras that picked up the strangers building something on his balcony?
  • Loki’s so nice. He waits for Tony Stark to land, take his armour off, and monologue before attempting to attack them.
  • “and you’ve got the glow stick of destiny”. It’s name is the Loki Pokey stick!
  • “what have I got to fear?” “The Avengers”, hey, that’s the title of the movie! (In America anyway)
  • I think we’re getting into the final battle now, and there’s 40 minutes left. Don’t worry, I’m sure every single moment of the following action sequence is necessary and none of it could be cut all.
  • The fact they also put “Avengers Assemble” (the UK title) into this film makes me wonder if this film was called “Mewling Quims” in Indonesia and that’s why that line was in there.
  • Ok this is a beautiful tracking shot.
  • “I put in a failsafe, the sceptre”, you couldn’t just put an on/off switch in?
  • “Detonation in two minutes thirty seconds, Mark”. Wait, no, this is Lee. Mark’s the other guy.
  • See, even the news doesn’t mention 9/11. It’s an attack, in New York, the news would definitely make a 9/11 reference.
  • So Tony Stark falls straight down, in zero gravity.
  • “and then there was like pew pew”, still more intelligent than how Daily Mail would report it.
  • Wait, can Captain America legally drive? Wouldn’t his license have expired?
  • And that’s phase one complete. Comment, like, share, bitch about how we’re wrong, whatever 🙂
  • Wait, what the f*ck is this song? It’s like “generic rock song #16”

Musings On Marvel: Day 3 (Iron Man 2)

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: Jon Favreau (Chef, The Jungle Book)

Budget: $200 million

Box Office: $623.9 million

  • Ok let’s see what exciting new property Marvel use for their third movie. Wait, a sequel? Lazy.
  • Surely you’d have realised that if you read the title of this article?
  • Shut up.
  • This press conference is different from how it was in the first film.
  • Wait, the news cuts away to reaction shots during a live press conference? Bit of a stupid move.
  • Mickey Rourke (not Tim Robbins as I first thought when I first saw this film), looks older than his dad.
  • Yeah, it’s impressive that Iron Man is jumping from a plane to launch himself into the conference, but you know what’s better? The queen parachuting with James Bond.
  • To quote Deadpool: “Woo! Superhero landing! You know that’s really hard on your knees. Totally impractical, they all do it.”
  • “Nobody can go toe to toe with me on my best day”. On average days, I can be bested by a sloth, but on my best days…..
  • “It’s not about us, it’s about legacy”. Oh crap, that’s not another really obscure superhero that’s going to appear is it?
  • Oh, it’s not?
  • Shame.
  • Shame!
  • Tony Stark arguing with the government. Makes the superhero registration act a bit difficult to figure out.
  • Seriously? The weapons expert is called “Hammer”? Subtle.
  • Anthony? His name is Anthony?
  • Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd.
  • Hey Rhodes, you look different.
  • A lot of people taking photos. They’re probably surprised a black guys got a speaking role too.
  • Apparently Al Pacino was going to play the role of Justin Hammer. As much as I like Rockwell, f*cking Pacino!
  • The news network misspelt “Capitol” in title of their video. Yay journalism
  • And now we have the most annoying thing about this film: Tony Stark drinking a chlorophyll based drink to counteract heavy-metal poisoning. That wouldn’t work. At all. I know some of these films are lacking scientific accuracy but that’s normally because they contain future technology. This is just pure bullshit. It would be like saying that cling film can stop HIV or dipping your cock into boiling water stops genital warts.
  • I’m fairly certain he can’t just walk into a Formula 1 circuit and decide to drive in a race on the day. If that is possible, Donald Trump would have done it by now, and he’d had died in a flaming wreck of hot justice.
  • Note to self: a film about two cops who go under cover as strippers: Hot Justice.
  • Random fact: Tony Stark was meant to be driving a car that was yellow and red in this scene, you know, the Iron Man colours. Robert Downey Jr. changed it.
  • “Hey, there’s a crazy guy chopping up cars in the middle of this race, think we should stop?” Do you see the chequered flag? No, then the race is still going. Continue!
  • So he just stood there whilst Tony was suiting up? That’s polite of him. See, he ay be a Russian bastard, but he’s got manners.
  • Random fact: everytime the word “Russian” was said in this film it was muted in the Chinese version.
  • This film was much better in cinema. Mainly because I got cake during it.
  • “There will be blood in the water, and the sharks will come”. Sharks have the weirdest sexual fetishes.
  • “i was at a hearing where he insisted those suits can’t be made by anyone else, yet here we are”. Not all suits are the same. That’s like saying “I was told that nobody else had this machine gun, and yet there’s a guy with a pistol”
  • Do you not think it would have been a good idea for them to tell this EXTREMELY DANGEROUS person what the plan was instead of surprising him and putting a hood over his head?
  • “His continual erratic behaviour”. Yeah, like getting attacked, what a bastard, how dare he.
  • That’s actually a picture of Mickey Rourke getting arrested.
  • And thus begins a long tradition in Marvel films of “friends fighting friends in an action scene that has no narrative purpose and is all but forgotten about later and is just an excuse for a poorly designed action scene”. See also: the Thor/Captain America/Iron Man threeway in Avengers, Hulk going grrr in Age In Ultron. So the idea of Civil War being “OMG, these guys are going to fight” is like “and? Big f*cking whoop, they’ve already done that”.
  • “I’m going to have to ask you to exit the donut”. I get told that like every day.
  • Samuel L Jackson there expertly playing the role of Samuel L Jackson.
  • “why are drones better?” You call yourself a weapons manufacturer? You f*cking idiot, drones are cheaper as you don’t need to pay people to be in them so there’s a lower staff turnover as less of them die. It also means you can go to warzones without risking troops. And it’s harder to deliver a plane full of people in place than send drones over so the enemy has less time to prepare. For a weapons manufacturer, he knows next to nothing about his own industry.
  • “then you can solve the riddle of your heart”. That sounds like a line from an 80’s power ballad.
  • Turn around, bright eyes.
  • Every now and then I fall apart.
  • And you need you more tonight.
  • And I need you more than ever.
  • And if you only hold me tight.
  • We’ll be holding on forever.
  • I’ll stop now.
  • “this is my Eiffel Tower” so something that most people will hate and won’t appreciate until decades later?
  • “what is, and will always be my greatest creation is you”. Awwww so nice, shame you put it on a video that he may never see. This is like telling somebody you love them by putting a note in a random book in a library.
  • How on earth did that not cut through the wires holding the thing up as well? It cut through almost everything else but not the wire. That shouldn’t create a new element, it should create an electrical fire that blows the building up.
  • This song was in a GTA game. Always reminds me of walking around shooting people and stealing cars. Not because of GTA though, just because it’s what I listen to whilst doing it on weekends.
  • “that’s a hell of a lot better than cheerleaders”, yeah but not as sexy. Unless you’re into robots of course.
  • Again with the superhero three point landing.
  • An entire glass ceiling gets shot down and lands on people, yet nobody dies. Bullshit.
  • “I’m locked on, I have target lock” “on what” “on you”. You know you could have just said “the targets locked on you”, would have saved time.
  • “tell me everything you know: go” Knuckle indentations coincide with the amount of days in every month, bananas are an excellent source of potassium, rainbows are pretty. Oh, you mean about this specific situation?
  • Movie teases kid getting shot. But kid doesn’t get shot.
  • A spin kick? That’s needlessly showy and is worse than a normal kick. Do screenwriters not read Artemis Fowl before doing stuff like this?
  • Is it just me who doesn’t think Gwyneth Paltrow can act? She’s probably the most well known actress in this film and gives the least convincing performance. For evidence of this watch her “you’re really dying” and see if you find it believable.
  • Tony and Rhodes are lucky those suits decided to stand there for dramatic effect for a few seconds before doing anything.
  • These drones have the worst attack plan: walk slowly towards them.
  • So the first film ended with Iron Man vs someone who made his own Iron Man-like suit. And the second film ends with Iron Man battling someone who made his own Iron Man-like suit. See, this is why people like Loki so much, because he’s different.
  • Whip it. Whip it good.
  • So he set up not only a really obvious red light telling them they’re going to explode, but also a like 30 second timer? This is what is known as “bond villainy”, as in; works in film but is really really stupid.
  • Avengers reference. Subtle.
  • Post credits scene sets up Thor. Random note: this was actually directed by Kenneth Branagh.

Musings On Marvel: Day 2 (The Incredible Hulk)

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: Louis Leterrier (Now You See Me, Grimsby)

Budget: $150million

Box Office: $263million

  • Damn, this isn’t the Ang Lee one. Which is a shame as then I could have made the “Don’t make me Ang Lee, you wouldn’t like me when I’m Ang Lee” joke. Now I can’t 😦 I hate life and everybody in it.
  • Random fact, the director wanted Mark Ruffalo as the lead but was declined. As such we will now never ever know what Mark Ruffalo would look like as The Hulk. Never, ever, ever.
  • Entire origin story takes place during the opening credits. Thank god for that otherwise it would have added like an extra two hours onto the run time.
  • “The best way to control your anger is to control your body”. It’s taken him years to be told this? I’d have thought that would be the first lesson.
  • One slap round the face gets him that annoyed? If I got that annoyed everytime I got slapped in the face it would just distract me from the prostitute I paid for.
  • Edward Norton is being smart and scientific, you can tell this because he’s wearing glasses.
  • How did he miss that REALLY obvious blood on the bottle?
  • Everyone’s looking at him like he’s crazy, as if we’re supposed to think that everyone doesn’t know why he’s worried about his blood getting in the drink. Even without it being Hulk blood, that’s still not something a business wants in their drink. And I know “but they’re a Brazilian company, they don’t have health codes like we do”, maybe, but even Coca Cola wouldn’t want blood in their drink, and they’re practically Satan.
  • “get lost, gringo” That’s racist, I think.
  • “You wouldn’t like me when I’m hungry”. Ok, let’s get this clarified: “Angry” in Portuguese is either: Irritado, com raiva, zangado, furioso, colerico, or amarrado, whilst “Hungry” is: com fome, faminto, esfomeado, avido, ansioso, desejoso, pobre, esteril, arido, or pouco productivo. There’s no way you can mistake the two in that language, it really only works in English. You’d think Edward “Everything Must Be Perfect Or Else I Will Stab Everyone” Norton would have picked that up. Cute joke though.
  • “another failure” The exact same language was used by my family when they announced my birth.
  • “living with gamma poisoning not safe”. Thank god for scientists, I never would have known that.
  • Hey Tim Roth’s in this movie.
  • Oh god, Tim Roth’s in this movie. Poor Tim Roth.
  • Still, better than United Passions.
  • Sure, just shut down your laptop. Don’t wait for him to answer or anything. Dick.
  • These guys didn’t even check the exits? They’re awful planners.
  • Tim Roth shoots a dog.
  • Yeah, that’s good, hide your identity and then stare straight at the the guy hunting you. You’re an idiot.
  • “Do not lose him” oh really? Well I was going to just let him escape but now you said that.
  • I’ve never had to run across rooftops to escape people, yet it seems to happen in almost every film.
  • All those coke bottles behind him, Holy product placement Batman!
  • “Not so tough now are you?” Yeah, you show what a strong guy you are by hitting him when two other people holding him down. You big man, you very very strong man.
  • We’ve already established this factory is not doing that great financially, repairing all this damage could bankrupt it. People talk about the damage done to New York in the Avengers movie, but they’re able to pay it off. This company is ruined.
  • “who’s this woman in this newspaper clipping?”. Wait, so you didn’t even take a look at the newspaper clipping and see that this woman has the same name as the guy giving you orders? You suck, Tim Roth (please note the punctuation there, there’s an important difference between “You suck, Tim Roth”, and “You suck Tim Roth”).
  • “He threw a forklift truck like it was a softball”. No Russian person who was raised in England would ever use the word “softball”. At all.
  • “Days without incident: 1”. No, it’s zero, he had an incident just before, it doesn’t count as one if it’s on the same day. You wouldn’t say “I haven’t had chocolate for a whole day” just because you’re not eating chocolate right at that moment.
  • Distance between Brazil and Guatemala: 3,000 miles. How on earth did he go that far without people noticing?
  • Music from the original Incredible Hulk series reminds us that this is in fact, a movie. Maybe that’s the problem with this film, everyone is really familiar with the character, a lot more than they are any other of the characters from the MCU. So everyone goes in with preconceptions about the character which makes it hard to bring something new to the table.
  • “In WW2” Don’t be that guy, just say “world war 2”. Don’t say “WW2”, you sound like a prick and it takes longer to say, it’s like double the syllables.
  • “he thought he was working on radiation resistance. I would never have told him what the project really was”. That’s the perfect way to get accurate scientific data, have them attempt something else.
  • “that mans whole body is the property of the US army”. Sounds a bit rapey.
  • Edward Norton is using Norton antivirus. Hah!
  • Yeah, that’s it Liv Tyler, walk out on your date without saying a word. Rude!
  • Rain powered entirely by emotion.
  • “he wants to make it a weapon” A weapon he can’t control or order around. Having an army of Hulks would cause a lot of damage, yes, but a lot of it would be to your own army. It would be like having an army of bears.
  • Note to self: find army costumes for bears.
  • Ok, this is a visually impressive set-up, the whole “Hulk in the glass covered room which is full of smoke”, but it’s not really done effectively. They showed the transformation and the view from inside the room. What they should have done is the last we see is him as Banner, then silence, and then Hulk bursts out of the smoke.
  • Why does everyone keep shooting him? Surely after the first shots have absolutely no effect you’d think of a different tactic?
  • So this takes place on a University campus in middle of the day, and there’s only two bystanders? There were more bystanders at college when a car crashed into a lamp-post.
  • Do they ever use these sonic cannons again? Does every Marvel film feature a fantastic weapon which for some reason is never used again?
  • This movie is pretty much responsible for keeping rain machines in business.
  • Jesus how much did Coke pay to be in this film so much?
  • So he can swallow a usb stick and it still works? Yet I have one in my pocket for a twenty minute walk to uni and it stops.
  • Wait, so he can’t have sex without hulking out? What about masturbation? So he hasn’t jacked off for years? That might be why he’s so angry, I stopped for two weeks once and committed a small genocide in Rwanda.
  • Can The Hulk get high? Serious question, couldn’t he just get really really stoned? Or maybe he tried and that’s why he’s so green.
  • “I had to make more” Wait, you can just make more blood? Then why the fuck do the NHS keep asking for mine?
  • “I will never forgive what you’ve done to him” for some reason I hate that sentence. It just sounds really clunky, like it’s been translated into english from a foreign language.
  • “The mixture could be……….an Abomination”. Hmmm, I wonder which Marvel character Tim Roth will turn into.
  • I’ve realised where I know that guy from: he was in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmdit.
  • Unbreakable. They alive, damnit. It’s a miracle.
  • I love that show.
  • Ooooo season 2 came out a few days ago. Yay.
  • Bruce’s blood landed on his head wound, what are the odds of that?
  • “That’s impossible”, oh so now you start to question things.
  • So the lead character has to fight someone with the same superpowers as him? Just like Iron Man then? Or Thor. Or Ant-Man
  • “You think a rifle’s going to hurt that?” Most logical sentence in this film.
  • So his plan involves jumping out of a plane with no parachute? I tried that once, I didn’t save anybodies life and now I’m banned from British Airways
  • Hulk and Abomination just holding onto each other. Now kiss!
  • Did Hulk just stop the fire by clapping? I’m going to try that next time I see a fire heading towards me. If it doesn’t work and I die, someone sue Marvel.
  • Look, we know you’re in the Army but “reload” instead of “another drink”? Just makes you sound like a twat.
  • This is the only Marvel film without a post-credits scene. Instead it puts it just before the ending credits, like a normal film does.