The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown: The Future of Superhero Movies

[Orval Wintermute]

That said, I think the story modes in the Injustice games were the closest we've ever come to a well-done DC team-up movie.  :-)

There's always the Arrowverse crossovers.

[Rinzler]

I'm guessing supervillain movies are allowed here too, right?

Cos this looks...great. Disturbing, but great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOUsysYTt5M

[Mathim]

Not really sure what to make of that one. He's definitely my favorite Batman villain but most of Batman's rogues are psychotic so there's a tragic backstory to all of them. It feels like this one goes where others don't, though, since I've always gotten the impression there was never a definitive single version of his origin. It didn't really go where I thought it would in the end with this trailer (a single glimpse of things going all Scarface finale) so hopefully the next one shows some of his deeds when he finally becomes active. We don't go to these if they're pure dramas, we want to see the action that results.

[Orval Wintermute]

SHAZAM is so much fun. The villain gets a bit of a backstory, so he's being the bad guy for a reason. The humor is pitched just right, not too childish for the adults and not too adult for the children. There was enough in it to set up possible spin-offs & sequels but it wasn't trying to part one of series. It could have used more tigers.

Best line of the movie

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Billy : "Say my name."
Everyone : "Billy!"
Billy : "No! What I say to change into this."

[Azuresun]

Yeah, Shazam was huge fun, and I'm so happy to be able to say that about a DC movie. The character was bigger then Superman in the comics for a time, and the reason was simple--the only thing a kid will find cooler than a guy who turns into a superhero is a kid who turns into a superhero, and the film perfectly captured the appeal of that fantasy while having just enough grit to make Billy and his struggles relateable.

Also, it has the hands-down best villain monologue in any superhero movie to date.  :D

[TheGlyphstone]

Yeah, Shazam was huge fun, and I'm so happy to be able to say that about a DC movie. The character was bigger then Superman in the comics for a time, and the reason was simple--the only thing a kid will find cooler than a guy who turns into a superhero is a kid who turns into a superhero, and the film perfectly captured the appeal of that fantasy while having just enough grit to make Billy and his struggles relateable.

Also, it has the hands-down best villain monologue in any superhero movie to date.  :D

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

How could you tell? We couldn't hear any of it. 😁

[Mathim]

Yeah, Shazam was huge fun, and I'm so happy to be able to say that about a DC movie. The character was bigger then Superman in the comics for a time, and the reason was simple--the only thing a kid will find cooler than a guy who turns into a superhero is a kid who turns into a superhero, and the film perfectly captured the appeal of that fantasy while having just enough grit to make Billy and his struggles relateable.

Also, it has the hands-down best villain monologue in any superhero movie to date.  :D

Aquaman was a lot of fun too so they're definitely on an upward trend. I really hope a Flashpoint movie that soft reboots the DCEU has the ability to make Batman and Superman better this time around so they can also give us the good feels that these ones did. I wasn't looking forward to it much before but now a Green Lantern Corps movie is something I'm excited about. Hopefully it'll center around the John Stewart version to get more diversity.

[Iniquitous]

Finally got to go see Captain Marvel and Shazam today. I thoroughly enjoyed both of them.  Do I think Shazam is better than Wonder Woman? Eh... on par with it is what I would say simply because there were things about both that I thought could be better.

All in all - DC is starting to do better and I didn't mind spending the money for the ticket.

[Mathim]

See, DC? Being dark and brooding only works for Batman and villains, so making a hero who's a barrel full of laughs is a GOOD thing! Shazam was totally bitchin' and I loved that last scene in the movie in the school cafeteria, did not see that coming at all so that was both a solid laugh-out-loud moment and gives me hope for the future yet. It is brilliant how much meta aware humor they use in the movie, making fun of superhero tropes while still always seeming to come through the lens of the awkward teenage hero learning how to use their gifts. Have to say, this would NOT have worked at all without the greater DCEU existing so it is good they have that foundation but it would be of course better if the ratio of good DCEU films was over 50%. But two goodies in a row and a ratio of 3/7 good ones total is cause to start looking up. Also, I didn't think Aquaman would have as much popularity within the universe for there to be so much merchandise of him but Freddy has at least 3 different Aquaman t-shirts so I'm like, WTF? I get the Avengers having action figures after the events of their movie but Justice League was so jumbled it hardly makes sense for that to be the case with them. All the youtube stuff and showing off kind of reminded me of Spider-Man: Homecoming, so I bet that inspired them at least a little bit with the antics Billy got up to while in Shazam guise. It's pretty clear if they had to hold up a mirror between DC and Marvel, Shazam's analogue would be more close to Spider-Man than, say, someone with similar powers like Captain Marvel (even though that is his original name, LOL.)

A good villain with a good motivation (really no different from any of us in that respect when you consider the circumstances) really helped, and I was very pleased indeed to see Mark Strong once again playing a DC villain (a nod to him playing Sinestro in the unconnected Green Lantern movie, however slight, would have been welcome but I don't recall that being referenced) and he did a fantastic job. John Glover's cameo in it was also a nice touch after being involved in so many other DC projects, though it was weird that from his first introduction when he's got his young sons to the time they reach adult age, he hasn't really aged much at all which is just kind of left unexplained. I mean, he already looked like he was in his golden years so being 20+ more years older down the road ought to have looked much older (but then they ignore that same kind of thing in Days of Future Past so whatever, I guess).

Being a former foster youth myself it was nice seeing an idyllic kind of family dynamic there even though that wasn't the reality for me, but Billy was a great character for someone lamenting the loss of a family and not feeling like they belong anywhere and I think not enough people really think about how many young folks go through shit like that, so it's nice to call attention to it even if the reality is that things are often less happily resolved. You kind of understand why he's such a little asshole to his foster siblings at first so it's forgivable that he's distant and dismissive and not a perfect sort of character like Superman who undergoes very little of that sort of thing most of the time. It's refreshing having a character who didn't grow up with that kind of power like Supes, Wonder Woman or Aquaman, or start undergoing becoming one very early in life like young Bruce Wayne, among the new Justice League characters, since only minor characters within the DCEU like the Flash and Cyborg have that kind of origin and they've only really been in one movie where they weren't the focus.

Oh, and Santa Claus really steals the show. He should get his own spinoff.

[TheGlyphstone]

Foul Mouth Santa Claus was indeed a hoot.

I hadn't noticed John Glover's immortality in the theatre, but after someone pointed it out in another discussion thread now I can't not remember it. That is really a weird makeup/casting goof.

[Mathim]

Foul Mouth Santa Claus was indeed a hoot.

I hadn't noticed John Glover's immortality in the theatre, but after someone pointed it out in another discussion thread now I can't not remember it. That is really a weird makeup/casting goof.

They're doing the same thing with the X-Men movies since First Class. Nobody seems to be aging at the rate of decades despite each movie being at least a handful of years apart. Especially Quicksilver's mom. So compared to John Glover's singular goof, Fox is doing a terrible job pretending how much time has actually passed with the entire cast roster, and across multiple movies.

[Mathim]

I wouldn't otherwise be going to see it (it's got about a 15% on Rottentomatoes) but I won free IMAX tickets to Hellboy so I'm going to see that tonight with a friend. I thought the original was just kind of so-so but this one, I'll admit, looks a lot more hardcore (and who doesn't love a movie with Ian McShane?) so we'll see.

[TheGlyphstone]

I've noticed a wide discrepancy between critics and reviewers on that one. The review score is in the pits because Del Toro's not directing and his artsy-pathos was super popular critic-wise. Audience reviews are all over the place, from 'worthless' to 'dumb but fun popcorn movie' to 'what Hellboy should have been'.

[Mathim]

I hear it's violent as all hell (literally) so I'm not opposed to that kind of alternate take on it from the original. I just hope the story doesn't suck.

[Mathim]

Okay, just got back from seeing it. I would have given it maybe a 30-35% rating personally, and I'm glad I didn't have to spend any money seeing it but I don't regret having sat through it. The dialogue was a bit weak (and the Hellboy actor slurring his speech on more than one occasion wasn't helpful), but the acting for the most part was pretty good from everyone apart from Hellboy himself. The action scenes, while the highlight of the film, were so full of rapid jump-cut edits and having the characters shoved so far into the forefront of the screen it was terribly jarring a lot of the time. The plot was very weak, way too reliant on the already-done 'he is destined to end the world, blah-blah-blah' deal, so nothing really groundbreaking there. The creature effects were all pretty good, so credit where credit's due. Even the general CGI stuff like landscapes and whatnot were animated nicely so it's clear that's where the majority of the developers' focus was, which is a shame because I love a lot of director Neil Marshall's films and they don't rely on that much at all so this is probably his first project of this scale and it might have gotten overwhelming for him and he compensated for it in the wrong sort of ways.

All that being said, I see lots of potential in how this version was portrayed and I wouldn't mind seeing a sequel if they put in the effort to address all the issues that concerned me about this one. I think it can be done fairly easily (I'd even be willing to give Marshall another chance) so I hope this doesn't result in a total tear-down and reboot in the future but I doubt it will make enough at the box office to justify a sequel. Shame.

[Deamonbane]

So... Endgame releases today here, so am going to watch it today. Feeling that odd mixture of excitement and dread.

[Mathim]

So... Endgame releases today here, so am going to watch it today. Feeling that odd mixture of excitement and dread.

I'm pretty confident the resolution that I predicted immediately after watching Infinity War will come to pass. But I'm going to wait about a week just so the theaters aren't packed and ruin it with side conversations and laughing too loud over the dialogue so I can't hear what's being said on screen.

[TheGlyphstone]

I'm pretty confident the resolution that I predicted immediately after watching Infinity War will come to pass. But I'm going to wait about a week just so the theaters aren't packed and ruin it with side conversations and laughing too loud over the dialogue so I can't hear what's being said on screen.

The broad strokes of the plot are pretty much without question, it's the fuzzy details that have people wondering.

[Deamonbane]

A lot of the predictions that I made were mostly correct. Got a couple of things wrong. Very satisfied with the film's ending, personally.

[Azuresun]

The thing for me about Endgame is that it's a three-hour movie that didn't feel at all like three hours. I'm actually awestruck by everything about this film. The spectacle and story of the film itself, which takes it's time to build up and has a culmination that's epic in every sense of the word. The way it builds off over a decade of plotting and character growth, and gives just about every character some time in the limelight. And the sheer feat of building up this universe and making it the biggest thing in entertainment right now. It wasn't quite perfect for me--there were a couple of bits where the humour or the subplots of certain characters didn't quite work--but they're nitpicks.

I mean, I could just gush on and on about that bit when this thing happened, or this other character did that thing, but seriously-watch this unspoiled.  :-)

[Orval Wintermute]

Three quick thoughts about Endgame:
1) Why they're calling it Spiderman: Homecoming makes so much sense.
2) I loved that the original Avengers literally sign off in the credits.
3) Plot nit-pick, after spending the entire movie defining the rules the movie then tramples over the rules.

[Azuresun]

3) Plot nit-pick, after spending the entire movie defining the rules the movie then tramples over the rules.

I think a lot of those bits fall under "rule of cool", but some of it might be intentional:

Baseless speculation

Temporal interference could be a way to integrate the X-Men or Fantastic 4 franchises into the MCU proper. And Loki getting hold of the Tesseract in one of the truncated timelines could be a way for him to cheat death, maybe going the Agent of Asgard route where he reincarnates himself.

(edit) Incidentally, someone pointed out a blink-and-you'll miss it detail near the end that shows the incredible attention to detail.

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

At Tony's funeral, there's one guy there that I couldn't place. Turns out it's the kid who helped him out in Iron Man 3 (same actor).

[persephone325]

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

At Tony's funeral, there's one guy there that I couldn't place. Turns out it's the kid who helped him out in Iron Man 3 (same actor).

Yeah! My dad, brother, and I were like "Who is that?!" and my dad looked it up. That was cool. I hate that I didn't get that until later. I guess cause he changed so much, we didn't recognize him.

[Deamonbane]

Yeah! My dad, brother, and I were like "Who is that?!" and my dad looked it up. That was cool. I hate that I didn't get that until later. I guess cause he changed so much, we didn't recognize him.

Same.

[persephone325]

I just have to geek out about this:

Spoiler: Click to Show/Hide

Can we talk about how fucking awesome it was when Steve used Mjolnir against Thanos?! Holy fuck a duck. Everyone in the theater cheered with me. It was fantastic! And Thor just going "I knew it!" was perfect. <3