Five movies up for discussion.

[The Curmudgeon]

So I've been doing some catching up with my movie watching recently, and so there are five big recent movies that we've probably seen most, if not all, at least some. So let's begin.

Iron Man 3: Patchy as hell, pretty disappointing.. and fuck me, the Mandarin. What did they DO to the Mandarin??

Battleship: Not as bad as I thought it'd be. Moronic, USA! USA! flag waving bullshit, but not a total bust.

Thor 2: Great fun, Loki stole the show as usual. Intriguing post credits scene.

Pacific Rim: A major disappointment. No brains, no heart, and the monsters were generic slobbering beasts, with nowhere near the character of the big monster flicks that inspired the film.

Man of Steel: Not bad, but nowhere near as good as I thought it'd be. Superman had literally no character other than "it's Superman. Therefore he's the good guy." It seemed like three hours of him being thrown through, or throwing other people through, buildings. I get that Superman himself can be a pretty limited character but Jesus, he deserved more than that.


My opinions, of course. What did you think of any of the above?

[trashcanman]

I agree on all counts except I loved Pacific Rim. Not exactly an amazing achievement of cinema, but damn entertaining. Seeing that most of the character in classic kaiju battle flicks came from goofy pro-wrestling and kiddie movie tropes, I liked the more serious approach for a change. My biggest complaint was that the climax was more like an anti-climax after the humongous battle that preceded it and I am really sick of heroes falling on atomic bombs and surviving at the end. It's been done three times in major releases the last couple years. It's fucking old and only The Avengers did it somewhat well.

[The Curmudgeon]

Yeah it seems to be the big Go To ending now. I dunno man, I didn't care for it at all. I actually felt stupider after watching it. That British guy doing the stereotypical "I say!" Mad scientist bit was just embarrassing. He actually said "by Jove!" For fucks sake. The monsters had zero personality or character. Can you remember what any of them looked like? I sure can't.

[trashcanman]

My complaint was that the kaiju all kind of looked alike. Could have done better on that front, but I think they wanted to hint that they were being "grown" from the same source.

[Ben]

Iron Man 3 was pretty average, but I liked it. I've been intentionally avoiding Battleship and Man of Steel (I hate Superman), and Pacific Rim never really intrigued me. I blew it off the other night because I've seen The Curmudgeon put it down so much in here. Thor 2 is on my short list, and I've heard great things. I may be seeing it this weekend.

This thread also just made me realize how out of it I am when it comes to mainstream film. Jeesh.

[trashcanman]

That's a good place to be, Ben. Underground, foreign, classic, and indie films have way more juice right now than Hollywood does. I see maybe 6-7 films a year in theaters, and most of them are comic book movies.