The Marvel Cinematic Universe Thread

[Gladders]

Complete opposite to you, I thought it was an excellent film and probably the best so far

Age of Ultron
Guardians of the Galaxy
Winter Soldier
Avengers
Iron Man

would be my top 5

 

[Ginola14]

I'd put it 3rd behind GotG and TWS.

 

[Megaclyde]

I'd probably agree with that, GotG was by far my fave.
Also, I mentioned it in the other thread, but the banter in this one really seemed forced compared to the other films.
And the 'I adore you' bit with Hulk and Widow made me cringe a bit.
Thanos at the end made it all ok though.

 

[hodge]

Being honest I don't really rank them till I've watched them a few times, the ability to be able to rewatch a film is a big thing for me.

Before AoU

Winter Soldier
The Avengers
Guardians of the Galaxy
Iron Man

And AoU will more than likely take place within my top 5 which is why I didn't rank further, atm I would say it would be around the level of the first film for me, but like I said how well I can watch it over and over will affect it in the end.

 

[hodge]

Also separate subject, anyone watching the tv series, where do people reckon they're going with Ward?

 

[Oaf]

I've actually started reading the Infinity Gauntlet storyline in the comics. Fuck me is Thanos powerful with that gauntlet.

Guess I'll put this in spoilers just in case... but the movies usually tend to be quite different to the books so it probably won't ruin the movies as I highly doubt it'll be in there... it's more a show of the mans power...

Spoiler

He fucking killed half of the entire population of the galaxy by clicking his fingers. Literally, he clicked his fingers, poof, they're gone. I always sort of understood that the infinity gauntlet gives "god like powers", but for some reason I never assumed that it actually gave powers absolutely on par with God. Will be interesting to see if they make him quite this OP in the comics... I mean, in the Age of Ultron comics, Ultron fucking annihilates/rules the planet for real where as he doesn't come close int he films... plus Hulk is somehow brought down by Iron Man (no fucking way that could happen)... they underpowered Ultron and Hulk, will they actually give Thanos the power he deserves?

 

[hodge]

I've actually started reading the Infinity Gauntlet storyline in the comics. Fuck me is Thanos powerful with that gauntlet.

Guess I'll put this in spoilers just in case... but the movies usually tend to be quite different to the books so it probably won't ruin the movies as I highly doubt it'll be in there... it's more a show of the mans power...

Spoiler

He fucking killed half of the entire population of the galaxy by clicking his fingers. Literally, he clicked his fingers, poof, they're gone. I always sort of understood that the infinity gauntlet gives "god like powers", but for some reason I never assumed that it actually gave powers absolutely on par with God. Will be interesting to see if they make him quite this OP in the comics... I mean, in the Age of Ultron comics, Ultron fucking annihilates/rules the planet for real where as he doesn't come close int he films... plus Hulk is somehow brought down by Iron Man (no fucking way that could happen)... they underpowered Ultron and Hulk, will they actually give Thanos the power he deserves?

Spoiler: AoU stuff

With Ultron though there's nothing to say that he won't return some point down the line in the MCU even more powerful, I noticed in this one, could control electronically what he wanted practically but not the Iron Man/War Machine suits.

Also Martin Freeman is going to be in Civil War in a role yet to be revealed

 

[Ginola14]

Which Infinity Gauntlet are you reading? The Perez and Lim one? From the early 90's? If so, that's one of the best limited series out there and certainly the best that deals with the gauntlet. One of the best images from that run that always stayed with me is Thanos smashing Cap's shield and Adam telling SS to "wait....wait....NOW"!

EDIT: Infinity, that was published a couple of years back, isn't too bad. Has a big role to play in the Terrigen Mists. Worth checking out.

 

[JJ1532]

In response to Oaf, no, of course not. See, I can understand why people felt AOU was just as good, if not better, than the first film, but for me, its a clear step backwards. Not massively, but still backwards. Ultron was underwritten as the villain, very underwhelmed by how he was portrayed. Felt the Maximoff twins were a bit naff, Johnsons Quicksilver was not as good as the X-Mens version. And don't even get me started on the accents, urgh. Thor's little episode where he goes to that pool, da fuq? I found Romanoff and Banner's love story totally implausible. Stark, Cap, Thor, all showed little character development I thought. Not sold on the Vision, don't think Bettany makes a good superhero. He works in the philosophical sense, with all the monologging etc, but in the action superhero role? Not for me, found the look with the cape a bit out of place with the rest of the Avengers too.

Good humour, good script, generally a solid plot in a general sense, good action sequences. I loved how self aware the movie is, really helps things. I loved Hawkeyes role, but when the weakest and least interesting avenger becomes the central character, you know its not an amazing movie. I like the movie, but I wouldn't rave about it.

All that being said, I think this movie being worse than the first is a must for the franchise. We saw with the recent Batman trilogy the dangers of peaking too early. The first Avengers film was amazing. Had AOU been better than that, how could they possibly go anywhere with Civil War and the Infinity War films? I think it was necessary to basically make this a stop gap film, to have Ultron ultimately be an underwritten villain, to have some of the characters basically not develop much. Means they now have room to improve with the 2 aforementioned films, especially Civil War. Now, they can set up Thanos as being the most powerful villain in the universe and can have him assuming power at the end of Infinity Wars Part 1(similar to Voldemort at the end of the first deathly hallows film).

As a side note, christ are they juggling a lot of characters in Civil War, may as well be another Avengers movie. Cap, Stark, Romanoff, Barton, Bucky Barnes, Falcon, Crossbones, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch, Helmut Zemo. I know a number of them(like Black Panther) will have small roles, but I'm really intrigued to see how this is all going to pan out.

 

[Ginola14]

Still on AoU, did anyone see that Whedon quit Twitter after the amount of abuse he got?

https://twitter.com/atlasnodded/status/595349915880038400/photo/1

Crazy, crazy people out there. They are obviously oblivious to comics or have been only reading for the past 5 years or so. My two favourites were "FUCK YOU JOSS. YOU CAN'T JUST COME INTO THE AVENGERS FRANCHISE AND START KILLING OFF MAJOR CHARACTERS" and "you sexist son of a bitch". Class. Have these people never read a comic?? 99.9% of superheroes have died and come back including: Hawkeye, Captain America, Ant Man, Batman, Damian Wayne, Alfred, Jean Grey, Wolverine (x2), Superman, Green Arrow, Doomsday, Barry Allen, Colossus...the list goes on. And as for sexist...I hope these people abused Rocafort when he drew Starfire recently. And Manara's Spider-Woman cover. And the recent Batgirl cover by Abuquerque. And many many MANY others. But no. They just want to jump onto the bandwagon and haven't a fucking clue about anything.

 

[JJ1532]

See, what I find most amusing about all this is ITS A FUCKING COMIC BOOK AND A MOVIE!!! Jesus, how do these people live their lives when they get so hung up on fantasy fiction? I understand people get emotionally involved in movies and comics etc, but to this extent? Dear me.

 

[Ginola14]

Then you particularly wouldn't have liked "Your movie just ruined my life"!!!

 

[Smally]

Joss Whedon being sexist. Heard it all now.

I think they're getting to the stage now where there is possibly too many characters to give them all development in the same film. Since the first Avengers film, we've not seen Hawkeye, barely seen Banner & had Black Widow feature in Cap 2. To me it makes perfect sense to develop those three characters in AOU, more than the likes of Iron Man & Thor who had solo movies released since AA.

Ant Man coming up next, it looks good from the trailer I saw before Avengers. And I love the tiny adverts promoting the film in America

 

[Megaclyde]

Regarding the eventual Thanos and his gauntlet, are they likely to get F4 and Silver Surfer rights by then?
Surfer's one of my faves and I'd love to see him and Doom in MCU

 

[Ginola14]

Well, as Marvel have thrown their toys out the pram and cancelled the 1FF because of Fox and the new film coming out, I'd say probably not! But who knows.

 

[hodge]

Not likely Fox have put FF2 in pre production already I think and want a shared universe with xmen

 

[NiallQuinnDiscoPants]

I'm not a huge Captain America fan, so I wasn't really looking forward to watching Winter Soldier, but damn that is a fantastic film. For me the best film of this genre.

 

[Ginola14]

I think they're getting to the stage now where there is possibly too many characters to give them all development in the same film. Since the first Avengers film, we've not seen Hawkeye, barely seen Banner & had Black Widow feature in Cap 2. To me it makes perfect sense to develop those three characters in AOU, more than the likes of Iron Man & Thor who had solo movies released since AA.

Ant Man coming up next, it looks good from the trailer I saw before Avengers. And I love the tiny adverts promoting the film in America

Well, in house, they are calling it Avengers 2.5! Ant-Man to appear in Civil War which makes sense. Here's the low-down for Captain America: Civil War -
“Captain America: Civil War” picks up where “Avengers: Age of Ultron” left off, as Steve Rogers leads the new team of Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity. After another international incident involving the Avengers results in collateral damage, political pressure mounts to install a system of accountability and a governing body to determine when to enlist the services of the team. The new status quo fractures the Avengers while they try to protect the world from a new and nefarious villain.

 

[Smally]

Martin Freeman has been added to the cast too. And General Ross will be making a return too

 

[JJ1532]

Bump this thread.

Saw Ant-Man tonight. I'm struggling to know how good this film was or wasn't. Saw that on Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 6.8 rating. Feel that is spot on to be honest. When I first saw the concept, I think like everyone else I didn't see it working at all. But then I saw the trailers and I thought "yes, another home run for Marvel". But this kinda isn't. I'm guilty of expecting too much from this film based on the trailers(silly schoolboy error I know).

In most of the Marvel films, I feel like the humour adds to a solid enough plot and decent acting. In this instance, I think it was at times the only thing that kept the film from falling apart. I just felt the movie wasn't exactly what they planned in the end when Michael Pena has the best dialogue and is the most memorable character. The plot felt clunky and samey. Rudd, Lilly and Douglas are all fine as their characters, but it did feel at times like it was the product of a messy production. If someone saw this film without knowing anything about it's development, then you told them that the main director left and it had production issues, delays etc, I don't think they would be surprised. The action sequences happen way too fast for even someone like me to really take stock of what is happening.

The villain was generic and I felt they really didn't do Corey Stoll justice. He(easier in a series I know) showed some amazing acting in House of Cards, but his character was badly underwritten and just underwhelming. Not his fault, just felt they didn't give him any decent material to work with.

HOWEVER, before Oaf or one of the other Marvel/Comic book nerds(meant in a nice way) on here has a go, I will now list the positives. Considering this is a film about a guy that shrinks and runs around with a bunch of Ants, the fact that they have a good (but not great) movie is an amazing testament to the directors and producers. Then you factor in Wright's departure, all the production issues they had, big creative differences that affected things and you are even more amazed at the end result. It is a perfectly good film. Not quite the knockout Guardians esq impact I'd hoped for, but good enough for sure. They'll need to step their game up and iron out the flaws for the character to create it's own franchise. Probably will need to dial down on the supporting cast and just make it about Ant-Man and Wasp(which is clearly going to happen in the sequel). I'm also interested to see how they fit Ant-Man into the MCU, given the small scale nature of the character.

Odd that this now brings down the curtain on Phase 2 of the MCU. Next up is Civil War, a whole year away. Quiet year next year for the MCU, only Civil War and Doctor Strange coming out. Does it give DC a window to make a name for themselves, what with them releasing Suicide Squad and Batman v Superman?

 

[Ginola14]

Well, tbf, they usually release 2 or 3 films a year so this isn't anything major. I haven't seen Ant-Man yet but I expect to probably think the same as you - it to be decent but nothing more, nothing less. Until they introduce his "juicy" side, I think they'll struggle to make him a prominent part of the MCU universe.

 

[allouso]

Fantastic Four is out in a couple of weeks...anyone excited for that?

 

[hodge]

Will watch it at some point, whether online or dvd I don't know but probably won't go to the cinema for it.

 

[Ginola14]

Looking forward to seeing that more than Ant-Man.

 

[way 4 england]

I found the first half of ant man very boring. I'm the sort of sadist that doesn't mind an origin story but I found this one slow and clunky. Once he went out in the suit I was fine and enjoyed the last 40 mins or so.

 

[Oaf]

Saw Ant Man last night, thought it was good enough. Not quite up to the standard of some of the more recent movies like GotG and The Winter Soldier, but certainly around about as good as the average Marvel movie.
About my only issue...

Spoiler

Was how blatantly obvious some things were. That little scene shoehorned in to explain about going sub atomic... ok, so he's obviously going to need to "sacrifice himself" (because that's always the trial by fire way to show people that, hey look, this guy is a real hero after all!) right at the end. And it was also blatantly obvious that Kate was going to become a new Wasp as well. Though this being said, how fucking cool is it that a Lost actor is going to get a turn at being a superhero? Fuck yeah.

Instead of shrinking though, I was hoping that he'd go the other way at some point... can't have an Ant Man without him being Giant Man as well Maybe they're saving that for a sequel.

 

[Ginola14]

And Goliath. And Yellowjacket. Man, just pick someone to be.

 

[JJ1532]

Peyton Reed was talking to Scree Junkies and he pretty much confirmed that Giant Man would feature at some point in the MCU.

Scroll ahead to 8:40 in.

 

[hodge]

Thinking giant man will appear in a cross over film with Hulk featuring, no one knowing he can grow big, hulk on the rampage then bam giant man

 

[mase]

Cannot wait to see it.