The Film Thread

[Zatman]

Deadpool 2 coming this week. I expect some Thanos crossover jokes

[mikeyp102]

10 hours ago, Chindie said:

Oh dear.

Trying far too hard with that. Looks more like an Assassins Creed movie than Robin Hood 

[sharkyvilla]

They'd be hard pushed to make a shitter Robin Hood movie than that Russell Crowe abomination but this has potential.

[RunRickyRun]

10 hours ago, Shropshire Lad said:

We all know what the definitive Robin Hood film is -

 

[Mark Albrighton]

1 minute ago, RunRickyRun said:

Never seen the Errol Flynn one.

In fact, I don’t think I’ve seen an Errol Flynn movie full stop.

Kevin Coster, that cartoon fox and Cary Elwes in “Robin Hood : Men in tights”. They’re the main three for me.

Oh and John Cleese in “Time Bandits”.

[TheAuthority]

20 hours ago, Chindie said:

Oh dear.

There's another "blockbuster" movie I'll never watch.

I swear if Hollywood just made 3 less shit movies a year (of the seemingly thousands they churn out) they could probably solve world hunger with the money they'd save.

 

[Demitri_C]

Watched one of the worst films ive ever seen called #captive

Worst film ever it seriously is so painful. Avoid. I watched another called 10 x10 which was ok nithing special

[theboyangel]

Watched Hyena last night, very dark and gritty but failed to conclude satisfactorily.

 

[HanoiVillan]

4 hours ago, TheAuthority said:

There's another "blockbuster" movie I'll never watch.

I swear if Hollywood just made 3 less shit movies a year (of the seemingly thousands they churn out) they could probably solve world hunger with the money they'd save.

 

On the one hand, you want to give them credit for trying at least one movie that isn't just the eleventy-billionth installment of the Thingman strand of the MCU, but of course it still looks shit anyway. 

I hate summer blockbuster season. EDIT: I notice it's coming out in *November*, which is surprising. 

Edited May 5, 2018 by HanoiVillan

[Xela]

They call it a 'teaser trailer' but they have practically shown most of the film! 

[sne]

[Ingram85]

Rogue

’08 film that before you watch it you think it’s going to be a Lake Placid rip off however it’s anything but. I’d read it was by the guy who did Wolf Creek which I loved so had an inkling it would be decent. Pretty good cast too.

Really solid throughout apart from one woman who was ‘cliched panic lady put in film to annoy you and make ridiculous decisions’. Everyone else though played their part well. Some good story building and original situations created. Also, for a decade old film now the effects were surprisingly good and appropriately gory in parts. 

Just an all round decent flick. 8/10.

Edited May 5, 2018 by Ingram85

[mykeyb]

watched it on Netflix last night it's about a 6 out of 10 and some.of that was just for the Australian scenery

[Chindie]

So, Avengers Infinity War.

10 years of Marvel films has lead to this. 6 years after Thanos first grinned into screens, he gets to build on his 4 minutes of screen time and show why he is the greatest threat in Marvel's universe.

Thanos, the Mad Titan, an intergalactic warlord, sets out to collect the Infinity Stones, items of incredible power from the dawn of the universe that have haunted the Avengers across various films so far, intending to use the immense capability to save the universe... By culling half of it. The combined heroes of the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and others must team up to stop him at all costs.

Infinity War has exceptional weight of expectation to it. It's unavoidable. The culmination of 10 years of films, 18 movies, the coming together of everything that has been set up in that time, a hyped villain... It's probably one of the biggest movies of all time without even trying. But with that, there is another expectation. A negative one. That this film will be a mess. How could it not be? You have so much going on, so many characters to balance, so much to do, it's destined to be a complete ****.

But it isn't.

Directed by the Russo Brothers, who have given us amongst the best of Marvel's stable with the Winter Soldier and Civil War, they cleverly wrangle this unwieldy monster into 3 bite sized stories with immense scale, and centre it all on a single character - Thanos. Much was made ahead of release that this is his movie, and it largely is. It's his story. In many ways he is the films warped hero, out on his own quest and waylaid by our own heroes. And it's to the movies credit that this ridiculous character, a huge purple alien with a corrugated chin and big golden magic glove, is a believable figure. He isn't just a cardboard cut out, or moustache twirling villain. He has some depth. It isn't all perfect, there is a particular moment that the series hasn't in any way earnt and subsequently doesn't ring true, but otherwise he cuts an imposing figure, a genuine threat, and becomes easily one of the MCU best villains (perhaps only hamstrung by the fact that the balance of him being evil and being sympathetic, is slightly off - I don't hate Thanos like I'd like to).

Bouncing around Thanos we have our heroes on their own journeys, another careful balancing act that the film is remarkably successful at. Nearly every character is present here and almost all get a moment. Again it isn't perfect, it couldn't be, and some characters do feel short changed, whilst others get surprising amounts of screen time. But it's a remarkable achievement it's as good as it is. I'm avoiding spoilers here so it's difficult to say much about our heroes and their own adventures, but I was surprised how much focus was placed on Thor and Dr Strange, the latter of which steps up to become a true force here.

This is also a movie unafraid to make significant choices, and it hammers that home from the very beginning. We open immediately after Ragnarok, and we are thrown into exactly how big of a deal Thanos is. And that is a feeling that does not let up, to the films great benefit.

Of course this is a huge expensive blockbuster so we have the prerequisite spectacle. From the trailers we have the Wakanada battle of course, but we also have a bunch of other big budget chewing moments that are inventive and exciting (with just enough hint of completely stupid - there is a truly bizarre action moment in the finale that I don't think we've seen in anything before). You can see where the money went, and even in smaller moments the film understands how to give things gravitas and impact - a single punch from Thanos caught my breath, for instance.

It's not flawless. We bring in Thanos' Black Order, his 'children' and generals who enact his will and spend much of this movie being the threat in Thanos' stead. Unfortunately, for what should be quite cool characters (and they are in the comics) they are almost universally undercooked (they are barely even named - one is named at one point and I'm convinced most of the audience has no idea who that name relates to). They are jobbers, basic threats to keep us occupied with some action, which is a great shame. As said before, some characters are very short changed, which is probably unavoidable, but still there are characters here that may as well not be there. I'm also a little disappointed that there isn't more flesh out on Thanos' backstory. We don't get much more than a brief speech of who and why he is, and that feels like a hole for me. You can do very interesting things with Thanos and his origins, and this film simply doesn't, to it's detriment. I feel that the aim of making him sympathetic would be more significant has we been shown his background properly (even with the changes from his comic origin - a change that is itself a little bit of a shame, even though it's a completely understandable one). There's also a few really really crap CGI moments - there's a shot of Banner in the finale that is absolutely atrocious for instance. And we have a cameo appearance grim Peter Dinklage that err... Well... It doesn't quite work. There's also a problem or 2 that is significantly spoiler-y that will need to be discussed elsewhere.

But for all that... It's bloody good. It succeeds where it really shouldn't. It truly feels like something different, it's unafraid to make big decisions and plays with expectations, and it gives us a truly, truly brilliant villain (perhaps because he doesn't really believe he's a villain). Not perfect. Not the absolute pinnacle of the MCU... But very very very good.

There is a single post credit scene, and it isn't a great one. It's got story implications, so it's not a gag one, but it's really not the best they've done. Although I would have to admit part of that is because I really don't like what it's connected to. Which meant I left the screening with very much an 'ugh'.

[Chindie]

Infinity War spoiler thoughts (spoiling basically everything)

Spoiler

I had a good idea going in of what was going to happen. They couldn't spend so long hyping up Thanos only to have him be a one and done villain, which meant he was likely to win, and that meant a **** ton of characters were ****. They needed to show him as being a true threat, so he had to kill. The surprise came in how they went about that. I expected a bunch of supporting cast to go (I was absolutely certain Loki was done for for instance), and also given the contract situation, that a bunch of the old guard would die in the final stand against Thanos. So to have that flipped was a bit of a surprise. 

Of course that does mean, however, that you have to temper that shocking moment with the knowledge that those characters are not dead. There is a Spider-Man sequel, Black Panther is coming back, there is no way the Guardians are done... The intrigue then is how they get around it. Which should worry us, because time travel and alternative reality stuff really easily goes hokey. Whatever they do has to maintain stakes, and not feel cheap. That's a big ask.

Some deaths are going to be permanent though. Loki is done, for instance. Gamorra? That's more difficult.

Speaking of her, one failing of the film was her death, for me. The series hasn't done much to establish that Thanos actually loves anything, let alone Gamorra, a child he kidnapped and then tortured into being a killing machine. I simply did not buy that side to him at all, and it felt like a misstep in trying to humanise him. You can put pathos into Thanos' story easily - his background is him being a freak who was ostracised on his homeworks. That easily melds into the story they give him here and can give you some sympathy for his warped outlook.

A smaller issue is the Gauntlet itself. Thanos doesn't really do a lot with it. This is a problem of the concept of the thing itself, it's basically so powerful it's hard to comprehend and translate to screen. Which means it kinda becomes underwhelming.

Speaking of which, some characters are really underserved here. As said above its unavoidable, really, but most of the Wakanada team really were filler. Bucky gets a new arm, and has 2 scenes of shooting. T'challa it's just there doing a William Wallace impression and running, etc etc. Groot is completely wasted, Banner really doesn't do much at all... Etc etc. I feel like they could have chucked in an odd couple of more scenes just to have them do something.

I'm not a fan of the stinger. I really, really don't want Captain Marvel to appear and be the super weapon that turns the tide. The character is shit. It's Captain Generic with shitty personality. Please do something better than have her save the day. Please.

I also have an inbuilt dislike of the Iron Spider suit, but that's just me.

And there are holes in the plot that rather stupidly the film actually nods towards. They aren't inescapable holes, and the main one the film has a get out with, but they are going to need to work to get around it satisfactorily in the next film. That main one being... Why didn't they just cut Thanos' hand off on that climactic moment? We've seen it can be done. Why not do it? The get out is that Strange knows they can't do that and ultimately win, but I'm going to need convincing in the next film that the only way to win was to lose...

I also would have liked at least a bit of Thanos' comic basis. It's completely daft but I would still have liked those nods to his obsession with Death (in the comics he is literally in love with the physical embodiment of Death). You couldn't actually do that, asking audiences to accept that huge purple space monster is in love with the Grim Reaper is pushing it, but it would be nice to have a nod to it.

But overall, it's great to be able to go into this and know where it was going and still being surprised by it. I didn't see the Red Skull being in it (until I had it spoiled, but even then that still caught me off guard). I didn't expect Gamorra to die. I didn't expect the original Avengers to survive. I didn't expect a fair few of the twists and turns.

I just really hope they can sell how they get out of it. There's hints around already from set photos and so on, but still... They need to be very clever is selling the big events from the finale here being reversed

 

Edited May 6, 2018 by Chindie

[JB]

Really enjoyed Infinity War. Lots of very cool moments. That’s 3 or 4 Marvel movies on the trot that I’ve really liked, which is something I never thought I’d say!

Agree with the significant flaws identified above, though:

Spoiler

 

The ‘deaths’ at the end had zero emotional impact as there is absolutely no way in a million years that they are permanent.

Thanos made too sympathetic. The tears were overkill. 

Underused secondary baddies  

Plus:

No Hulk in the big battle. It would’ve been great fun to see him tearing around the battlefield.  Probably building up for something in the sequel, I guess. 

 

Also:

Spoiler

Is it revealing that the only ones left at the end were the original Avengers? Will there be some sort of alternate dimension or sacrifice angle? 

Admittedly, I have no idea what I’m talking about when it comes to Marvel or any comic book movies but as someone else has already said, it’s a testament to the quality of the last few films that I’m interested in them now.

[Rodders]

Spoiler

I'm pretty sure there is going to be flipping of various alive/dead status' in the next film. I expect to see more of some of characters who didn't have too much to do, and then at least Cap dying, and some use of the soul stone to save some dead people I guess.

 

Thor was my favourite character arc here I think, and yes a few more scenes would have been great but it is the ultimate challenge with such a huge cast, you have to mitigate the expectations there I guess.

 

Watched it again in superscreen, barely any bugger in this time. It is such good fun.

Edited May 8, 2018 by Rodders

[Mark Albrighton]

Just watched this. 

I’m not going to forget it in a hurry anyway.

[theboyangel]

Just watched Kodachrome, based on a newspaper article about a father/son road trip to get rolls of Kodak kodachrome developed for the last time. 

Dramatized, adding the father/son were estranged and father being terminally ill, it was a decent watch with good performances by Ed Harris, Jason Sudeikis and Elizabeth Olden and a great soundtrack. 

well worth a watch if you want something quiet, funny and emotional. 

[PieFacE]

13 hours ago, theboyangel said:

Just watched Kodachrome, based on a newspaper article about a father/son road trip to get rolls of Kodak kodachrome developed for the last time. 

Dramatized, adding the father/son were estranged and father being terminally ill, it was a decent watch with good performances by Ed Harris, Jason Sudeikis and Elizabeth Olden and a great soundtrack. 

well worth a watch if you want something quiet, funny and emotional. 

I thought it was an excellent film.