The Film Thread

[Chindie]

13 minutes ago, hogso said:

So er, uneducated non-comic fan question here - is he literally the human manifestation of a Black Panther or...what? Or something akin to the African version of Captain America? What's the source of his strength?

He's the king and protector of Wakanda, a secretive African nation who have incredible technology. He has enhanced human abilities, caused by (depending on the comic, and era...) consuming a sacred plant and having connection to a Panther God. He has increased strength, agility, speed, healing, stamina and senses from this. He also, in the comics at least, is incredibly smart. He forms part of the secret Illuminati group with some of the other intelligent heroes like Dr Strange and Iron Man.

He also has a costume made from vibranium, the stuff Cap's shield is made of, including claws that will cut basically anything. Wakanda is the only source of vibranium, and pretty much is the foundation of their society.

He largely is Cap with African basis as far as power goes. But very different personality. Cap is... a truly Good And Righteous Man. Panther isn't. He's regal and vengeful. In the comics he often is solely concerned with Wakanda, doesn't care about anything else, and many of his early stories revolve around him having to fight for Wakanda against usurpers and people that wish to exploit it. He sits out Civil War in the comics because of this.

Very good character. He's a good guy but in some ways flawed. He's not someone that will fight anything, usually, it has to threaten his people. And he can be an arsehole. Should mean we get a different type of setting as the story should be fairly heavily based in Africa.

[Ingram85]

Is that Wallace from The Wire in that teaser?

[villa4europe]

Looks good but it also looks like it'll need to pull the fight choreography out the bag, throw some parkour and martial arts at it to make it different from the rest, basically what iron fist failed to do

more of the jump in the air 3 spinning kicks "what the **** did he just do" moments from civil war

[villa4europe]

6 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Is that Wallace from The Wire in that teaser?

Yep

for all his roles he's always be Wallace! Watch fruitville station that's probably my favourite film of his

hes the main villain, Angela Bassett is BPs mom, forest Whittaker is in there somewhere and Louisa nyongoo 

Big year for serkis too, actually on screen in this one, playing snoke in Star Wars and in planet of the apes, his motion capture studio has been bought out after big losses

[hogso]

41 minutes ago, Chindie said:

He's the king and protector of Wakanda, a secretive African nation who have incredible technology. He has enhanced human abilities, caused by (depending on the comic, and era...) consuming a sacred plant and having connection to a Panther God. He has increased strength, agility, speed, healing, stamina and senses from this. He also, in the comics at least, is incredibly smart. He forms part of the secret Illuminati group with some of the other intelligent heroes like Dr Strange and Iron Man.

He also has a costume made from vibranium, the stuff Cap's shield is made of, including claws that will cut basically anything. Wakanda is the only source of vibranium, and pretty much is the foundation of their society.

He largely is Cap with African basis as far as power goes. But very different personality. Cap is... a truly Good And Righteous Man. Panther isn't. He's regal and vengeful. In the comics he often is solely concerned with Wakanda, doesn't care about anything else, and many of his early stories revolve around him having to fight for Wakanda against usurpers and people that wish to exploit it. He sits out Civil War in the comics because of this.

Very good character. He's a good guy but in some ways flawed. He's not someone that will fight anything, usually, it has to threaten his people. And he can be an arsehole. Should mean we get a different type of setting as the story should be fairly heavily based in Africa.

And plus, kinda looks like Batman without a cape.

[Chindie]

9 minutes ago, hogso said:

And plus, kinda looks like Batman without a cape.

He has the same silhouette as Batman's shorter eared versions . Honestly a coincidence

He's also often worn a cape...

[Chindie]

On 2017-6-10 at 04:53, Chindie said:

Tell me... What do you know about Wakanda?

I've watched this about 8 times since yesterday.

That's a **** good trailer.

Most anticipated Marvel movie for me after Ragnarok now. It's so good to see Marvel keep expanding their universe and mining the less well known names. A black character with an African setting, seemingly done with real swagger, looking completely different to everything else they've done... Excellent.

Edited June 11, 2017 by Chindie

[Chindie]

So, Wonder Woman.

I struggle a little with Wonder Woman. I'm not a fan of the character. She's one of DC's Trinity, their tent pole characters, along with Batman and Superman. She's got an enormous history, having been around for 70 years, but I struggle to find much about the character I care about. It's one of those bizarre situations where the creation of the character is probably more interesting than anything about the character herself. She was created in the 1940s by William Moulton Marston, a psychologist and inventor (he invented a blood pressure monitor that became incorporated into the traditional polygraph machine) who was fascinated by feminism and, in his more private life, bondage, which brings a more... sinister.. angle to Wonder Woman's Lasso of Truth. He also had a bizarre love life, living openly with 2 women, his wife and his research assistant, who he met as her teacher... All of this is more interesting than Wonder Woman. Hence why they're making a movie about him and his weird life.

Still, she is an important character in the world of comics, the archetype for female heroes much like Superman is sort of the origin for all superheroes. She has remained popular for decades, she's in every major DC event story, she had the camp 70s show, they've tried to adapt Wonder Woman loads of times (including a new live action series a decade ago and loads of animated versions). With Warner Bros wanting in on that cinematic universe dollar with DC, Wonder Woman was always coming. And potentially she could be an important character. With the growth of super hero movies, leading female characters have been thin on the ground. Previous attempts have been disastrous, Catwoman being infamous and Elektra being so awful everyone forgot about it. But with so many female characters, and so much money in superhero films, it was inevitable Wonder Woman would be one of the vanguard to do it properly. 

Of course being Warner and DC, they've **** up at first. Marvel did it right, build slowly, get people on board, tease what you fancy doing. Warner? They want those dollars now, and so we got Batman v Superman, which introduced a new Batman and chucked in Wonder Woman as well because why not? Casting Gal Gadot, an Israeli former model with a fairly short filmography (minor roles in a  couple of Fast and Furious movies and er...), many would tell you she stole the movie. I’m not quite so sure on that…

But it was inevitable she would get her own solo adventure…

Diana, Princess of Themyscira, in the modern day is working at the Louvre. She receives a package from Wayne Enterprises. A note from Bruce Wayne says ‘I found the original. Maybe one day you will tell me your story…’. Diana reminisces of her childhood, on Themyscira, home of the Amazons, warrior women created by Zeus to protect Man from the influence of Ares, learning of the gods and how to fight. One day a man, the first man she has ever seen, crashes near the island. She rescues him, and begins a journey that lead her to the War to End All Wars…

It feels strange to be back in a period of origin stories. We started this new period of superhero films with them and then they largely went away, the odd one aside. Now we’ve had 2 in 6 months. And Wonder Woman is definitely an origin story. It bears a resemblance to Kenneth Branaghs Thor in many ways. Like Thor, Wonder Woman didn’t get her powers from radioactive goo or gamma rays or building a suit, she just is that power. And like Thor this origin reflects that, being more an origin of how the hero became a hero rather than how a hero came to have their powers. Thor learnt to be humble, less reckless. Diana learns about the world wider than the one she has always known, and that few things are straightforward.

The connection with Thor extends to it’s humour. Thor plays like a fish out of water comedy, Wonder Woman follows suit, for half it’s run time anyway. The film raises gags from Diana struggling to adapt to the world of Men, her lack of concept of anything to do with Man, and the way the world works. It even goes in for a few bawdy jokes, including an entire scene that is basically an extended dick joke. Saying that the humour stays very gentle and never particularly pushes much beyond some double entendre.

It’s odd then, that the other film this recalls, is Captain America: The First Avenger. That film dealt with the Second World War, this one the first. And theres something about the ‘Great War’ that sit’s oddly with this gentle humour somehow. Blackadder made it work, but that comedy was biting, satire… Her it’s family friendly broad gags about how Diana doesn’t understand dresses moments before we see the horror of the trenches. It’s slightly jarring. I’m not entirely sure what it is about World War One. I have no issue with dozens of movies that use the Second World War as a canvas for light hearted stuff – Indiana Jones can mock the Nazis and Cap can run through the battlefield dressed like a star spangled clown and I’m fine with it. But the First World War… I don’t know. Perhaps as a British person, we’re taught of the outright waste of that war, the horror of it, the death of innocence it was for a generation, and it sits strangely with a supermodel running through a devasted town wearing Agent Provocateur’s Sultry Armoured range. It feels too silly at times. Of course World War Two had the same horrors, worse in many ways, but because that war so obviously had a good and bad side, it feels more open to the dafter stuff in the right hands. The First World War doesn’t have that. The whole film is tinged with sadness, I feel, humming in the background, seeping into scene after scene, and occasionally the film can’t balance against it. It helps that there is almost a feeling of a shut off switch, where their appears to be a choice made to cut back the humour, right around the time the War takes centre stage, but even that makes the lack of gel between the tones more stark.

Saying that, it does make that sadness work for it, and I hope it was intentional. For all the scenes of Wonder Woman chunking tanks and slamming Germans around with a glowing whip, there are moments where the weight of almost grief about the setting works. The moment that the trailers all highlighted, where Wonder Woman slowly climbs out of the trench, the film pointedly drawing attention to that being ‘No-Man’s Land’ (and nearly ruining the moment by hanging a lampshade on the reference) is fantastic. Its shot in such a way that, as Diana is pummelled by the full fury of the trench ahead of her, and struggles against the gun  fire, you note the heroism of it, but also a deeper thought, a woman besieged. Given the film is almost aimed as a feminist piece (a female hero, directed by a woman, as tent pole part of a billion dollar franchise) the scene carries extra weight. And it’s shot perfectly, not so subtle you miss it but not so headbashingly clunky it reduces it’s impact. It’s a fantastic moment and that undercurrent of sorrow really propels it as a moment. It’s genuinely beautiful.

Theres more to it than solely that though. Diana’s journey sees her understand the world is grey. Her aim throughout the film is simple, straightforward and ‘good’. The world she meets does not work like that. The world shows that good is rarely solely good, that chasing good will taint you, and can overcome you. It also shows that evil is rarely evil. Grey is everything to the film. The only real evil comes from it’s villains, and even they have something more than evil behind them – Dr Poison is the genius blind to the effect of her work, Ludendorff the ruthless leader who knows no conscience, only means to victory. This extends to the sides of the war. Ludendorff aside the Germans are just soldiers. The British are presented as pragmatists whose leaders focus solely on the big picture, even if that means more die now to save more later. Diana’s naïve good is confronted with this and it ultimately helps formulate her origin. It feels a little odd to have a blockbuster have something deeper going on. Admittedly this isn’t earthshattering stuff and it’s not going to draw plaudits or even say anything meaningful, but it’s nice to have some themes in play.

The nuts and bolts are all fine. Gal Gadot isn’t a good actress but she makes her stilted, bewildered style work to good effect her. And she looks good (although for me Wonder Woman isn’t a supermodel… she’s a bit more masculine. Still beautiful but looks like she’d rip your bollocks off. Very nit picky though and nobody will complain about her in costume...). Pine is great. Supporting cast is fine, with Huston chewing scenery like a madman. It wastes some of the supporting players however. Pine’s merry band of men are all well done but it looks like they might have lost something in a rewrite, as it looks like they were going to use them as ‘facets of humanity’, only to ditch the idea and leave only a few lines as any evidence of it.

It looks alright, although it suffers with Snyder style desaturisation. It starts well, with shots of Themyscira luscious, straight out of a holiday brochure. Then as move on the colour seeps away, leaving a familiar grey blue monotone. It works for the scenes on the front, but it’s overpowering and needed to be scaled back a fair bit imo. It also features some ropey CGI. There are a number of scenes where the CGI is like a sore thumb, genuinely weak and distracting. Particularly a problem is her movement. Diana takes leaps our bounds forwards and they have no weight at all. A couple of jumps make it look she’s on the moon, and just look bizarre. Man of Steel got away with this with the Kryptonians, who as alien who can move exceptionally quickly look ok when the CGI has odd weight to it. Wonder Woman? Not so much.

Saying that, the action is generally fairly good. Theres not a lot of it and theres a fair whack of slowmo going on, but it does interesting things with it’s action and there are lots of good moments, particularly a fight in a room just after the trench scene which has been in the trailers. Patty Jenkins, the director, wanted to make sure the movie had explicit nods to femininity and that extends to the action, a lot of it is shot for you to admire the way Wonder Woman fights, hence the slow mo, and lots of what she does is balletic and based in gymnastics. The camera also often will focus on ‘symbols’ of her feminism, so we get shots that focus on her legs when fighting, or on her outfit. Thankfully this fairly subtle.

The soundtrack is decent, but forgettable, and the new Wonder Woman theme fits in this movie the same way a heron fits in a jam jar. It’s clear the film doesn’t know what to do with the new theme and essentially relegates it to an appearance during an action scene midway through the film. Impacts lack thump as well, which doesn’t help the weird weightlessness thing a lot of the action has going on. It’s like someone forgot to add bass to anything. Strange.

The real failing though? The final moments of the final act. It’s awful. They make a choice, and it’s the right one. You can feel everyone involved in the film knew they had to take the story in a particular direction, and that was the correct call, to the extent everyone in the audience will sit there going ‘I can see where this is going…’. Except you can then feel the writers realising they’ve written themselves into a corner they can’t satisfyingly get out of. And they fall back on a trope. You can feel the writers going ‘Bollocks, it’s a summer blockbuster… how do I finish this satisfyingly? Er… er… er… Dave, what do we reckon will be left in the CGI budget after the glowing rope and the weird rubber Gal Gadot that they can’t make move properly? Ok, cool… how about everyone’s schedules…?’. And it doesn’t work. It sits so badly with the rest of the film. It’s like someone built this well made and architecturally interesting building, and some badly hammered a huge cuddly toy on top. It’s so incongruous with what went before. I can’t believe they couldn’t have sat down and thought of something else. They were absolutely right to make the choice they made to get there, it’s a smart move and lets them extend further some themes, but then they resolve it terribly. And it’s a huge shame.

Wonder Woman is good watch. It’s both daft and a little moving, sad but uplifting, tinged with sorrow but highlighted with humour. It channels a little of Donner’s Superman films. And it takes the ending from a really shit action movie. It’s film in a sharp, classy suit, but wearing a pink Stetson. Worth your time.

[AVFCDAN]

I feel like such indepth reviews like the above deserve a better home than the film thread on villa talk, I assume you are posting these reviews elsewhere?

[hogso]

13 hours ago, AVFCDAN said:

I feel like such indepth reviews like the above deserve a better home than the film thread on villa talk, I assume you are posting these reviews elsewhere?

Actually @Chindierecently signed a highly lucrative exclusivity deal with VT, worth literally tens of thousands of likes.

[PieFacE]

Watched "Life" last night. Not bad for a take your brain out type film, enjoyed it! 

[BOF]

Excellent.  Enjoyed that @Chindie

[Brumerican]

Just have to wait for Pooligan's Wonder Woman review for balance.

[Rodders]

I really enjoyed Wonder Woman. Good fun, if cheesy. What bit about the ending are you talking about @chindie? Didn't seem so different from any other comic film finale?

[AVFCDAN]

50 minutes ago, Brumerican said:

Just have to wait for Pooligan's Wonder Woman review for balance.

Should be due around 2037, stick it in your calendars now folks.

[AVFCDAN]

2 hours ago, PieFacE said:

Watched "Life" last night. Not bad for a take your brain out type film, enjoyed it! 

My one word review of that film is "meh"

Too derivative of lots of better films unfortunately.

[AVFC_Hitz]

I watched Con Air on Saturday night. They don't make 'em like they used to.

[omariqy]

Sorry Chindie. I saw the length of that post and totally skipped past it. Looks good though.

[PieFacE]

3 hours ago, AVFCDAN said:

My one word review of that film is "meh"

Too derivative of lots of better films unfortunately.

Yeah, it's not a quality film or anything, just suited my mood at the time. The type of film where I can browse the web for a bit and not feel like i've missed anything  

[villakram]

Watched "Get Out" last night. Great little film even though you can see what's coming early enough.

"Ghost in the Shell" was ok, SJ can't act worth a damn but looks good, so there's that.