What are you watching?

[Turo602]

I was not prepared for how terrible Superman was going to be. Captain America: Brave New World was genuinely a better film than whatever this mess of a movie was. This was like Ant-Man: Quantumania levels of bad. So overly produced yet undercooked and cheap looking.

I have no idea why there were so many unnecessary characters shoe-horned into this story. It's very clear James Gunn likes to do movies in one very specific way, and that still hasn't changed with Superman, which was my biggest fear since he was announced for this project.

You don't really get a sense of who Superman is in this movie. He just is, as is everything else in it. Everything and everyone already exists and you're just meant to go with it. It's hard to get invested in any of these characters or their performances because the film doesn't ever really let you connect with them. You're just told things about them amidst the chaos of this film's overly stuffed and convoluted plot.

I've seen the film likened to an episode of Superman: The Animated Series as a positive and it's only half true and definitely not a positive. This movie is very much like a cartoon, if you tuned in on a random filler episode, a couple seasons in, and had absolutely no idea what anything was. But even cartoons, especially one such as Superman: The Animated Series carries much more emotional weight and takes itself far more seriously.

While I certainly appreciate James Gunn's enthusiasm to embrace and showcase the more out there and obscure characters and aspects of comic books, this movie just wasn't it for me. There's a way to make these things work for a character like Superman, which we've seen time and again in various animated projects to much better results than whatever this movie was.

 

[Shroudednightmare]

 

[KManX89]

Well, it took 4 tries, but we finally have a good Fantastic Four movie. I saw First Steps last night, and I can proudly say the 4th time was the charm for Marvel’s first family (we don’t talk about those dreadful Fox Fantastic Four movies, especially Fant4sh!t). It was refreshing to finally see some chemistry between the F4 members, Johnny and Sue had some interesting familial bond moments even though Pedro was forced to dial back his insane range by playing this stoic character and we were treated to some fun scenes between Johnny and Ben.

It was also a breath of fresh air just jumping right to the chase and ignoring that space origin story that we’ve already seen numerous times and know about. Like Superman, the F4 have been in this universe’s earth for some time and the movie was better off for it. They tied both it and Vanessa Kirby (who was perfectly cast as Sue Storm)’s real life pregnancy to the meat of the film and it made for a captivating story with a lot of stakes. Johnny and Sue are forced to choose between their overpowered newborn baby and the fate of their world with its inhabitants publicly breathing down their neck. It gave me shades of early Raimi Spider-Man, having the weight of the world on their shoulders.

To address the giant elephant in the room, Galactus looked amazing. We finally get to see him in all his flesh and blood glory on the big screen and boy did he not disappoint, but the main highlight of the movie was Julia Garner’s Silver Surfer. She actually has the biggest villain presence in the movie, Galactus was basically to this movie what Darkseid was to ZSJL. She does the bulk of the villainy work and was great doing it. I normally don’t like changing established characters for the sake of scoring social brownie points (and it usually feels like they are at least initially when they race/genderbend characters), but Surfer being a chick actually felt organic to the story and worked surprisingly well.

Speaking of Silver Surfer, there’s also a big scene between her and Johnny that really packs an emotional punch and sets the stage for the big showdown against Galactus, which was great BTW. I jokingly was like “looks like you might be getting some metallic p*ssy all”, playing off an earlier gag from Ben that they just might have a “thing”. Of course they made that joke (since Johnny’s traditionally a womanizer, not so much here, though) and of course it was from his bro. They didn’t overplay the humor, though like Superman, it was a serious, self-contained story that didn’t rely on having seen the previous movies in this universe to understand it and they largely let the emotional scenes sink in with small bits of humor sprinkled in, another change of pace from the usual Marvel fare.

Is it peak Marvel? Not really, but still a solid time and one of their better movies since 2019. I’ll gladly take that considering what they’ve been putting out since Endgame and what we’ve been getting from this franchise from Fox. I can finally cleanse my brain of those abominations.

 

[Frag Maniac]

^Been wanting to watch the new Fantastic 4, but every time I see a trailer for it I worry I won't like it.

Saw Clown in a Cornfield last night and The Surfer. Neither were as good as I hoped, and I really didn't care for the surprise relationship at the end of CiaC. That said, I plan to watch M3GAN 2.0 tonight, which I'm expecting to be quite a step up from what I've seen lately. Even if it isn't as good as the first one, it will still be a nice break from badly done movies I think. BTW, my personally most anticipated movie of the year is Tron Ares.