TLDR: Ant Man & The Wasp was more fun than the original…..Captain Marvel however…..
Prior Threads:
Phase 1 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3278723
Phase 2 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3285463
Phase 3 Reaction (Part 1): Dr. Strange / GotG Vol 2 / Civil War
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3287952
Phase 3 Reaction (Part 2): Ragnarok / Black Panther / Homecoming
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3290581
Phase 3 Reaction (Part 3): Infinity War
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3291814
2 Movies so here we go!
Ant Man & The Wasp
While I enjoyed the first Ant Man movie, I enjoyed this one A LOT more. Starting with what I thought was surprisingly the biggest improvement over the last film: Michael Pena. To be fair I didn't dislike him in the first film but just didn't find him as funny as others seem to. This time he was a blast! I enjoyed that he was (IIRC) involved in this movie a lot more and even the whole quick story telling gag that was kinda "meh" for me in the first film was absolutely hilarious this time around! I can envision the actors wanting to do multiple takes of mouthing his lines just because they looked like they were having so much fun doing that.
Morpheus was a nice addition as the moral compass of Ghost in this one as well. And overall their interaction and the conflict created with them was pretty well done and I wish it was just them as the antagonists along with the plot of finding Michelle Phifer…random long hair bad guy was pretty forgettable and they were hinting at revealing who he was working for but they never did….course I assumed it would be Hydra since it was them in the first movie. Also didn't care for Asian secret agent man who just didn't seem to act well and I was always annoyed when he was on screen (except his, "Your daddy went to Germany and drew on the walls with Captain America" line which was pretty hilarious).
The plot centering around finding old Wasp was definitely intriguing (albeit a little confusing) but I was glad that it resulted in adding another interesting character to the group and being able to expand even more on the relationships between our heroes. My biggest pet peeve was the whole car shrinking gag. Don't get me wrong it was a cool effect but it was almost 100% pointless…when we first see it they are literally driving down the road like they normally would be anyway so why shrink the car? The entire time I'm thinking to myself, "Just one jerk takes the wrong step and yall are done. Or what if one of those pigeons came up from behind and took off with you in its mouth?" If the car somehow became super strong/indestructible then cool but you got to show us that! Honestly they should have saved that affect during the car chase scene at the end which would have been a much cooler reveal in my opinion and left it up for a surprise….kinda like this classic movie:
End credits scene: alright…I knew they had to do something with tying in the finger snap with the ending just didn't know how. In all honesty I was really hoping they'd go super dark and show Rudd's daughter being one of the ones who gets killed right in front of him (I like it when stories take big risks ok) but the ending we got was still pretty intriguing. A brand new character who had just been reunited with her daughter and husband dies….along with her daughter and husband while Ant Man is stuck in the quantum realm with no one seemingly knowing he's there….unless somehow he can still talk to the ants.
And they hinted at Ghost lady still needing their assistance with some sort of "healing" stuff they gather from the quantum realm so curious to see where that goes.
Captain Marvel
Alright….so….before we all drop a collective Heard on this movie, let me first bring up what I thought was good in this flick because let's face it….it's Captain Marvel, not Bio-dome.
The overall story was intriguing to me and the tie-in with the Kree had me pausing the movie multiple times. When the ships warped….when the Kree ships first arrive in space with the front view….immediately I paused both moments because it hit me right away, "Aren't those the bad guys???" And then we see the crew and within 20 minutes of the movie we're seeing this guy in the crew:
Didn't look up if it was the same actor (though I'm pretty sure it was or it's a REALLY strong likeness) but clearly same dude. Course it is also kind of obvious when you're told at the beginning of the movie that the "mysterious high council" never reveals their true form….yeah….that normally never works out for the better.
And a personal note that was enjoyable for me here was when Ronan showed up in a projection to the Kree. At that point I honestly wasn't surprised, but the wide-eyed, jaw drop look on my oldest sons (10 yr old) face was priceless and I'll definitely remember that cause I don't think it had really hit my kids how far in the past this movie was taking place in the timline.
And let's get the end credits scene out of the way…thought it was cool we got to see our heroes post Infiinty War and they're looking at a screen showing all the deaths across different countries. However it was interesting to me they were labeled as "missing" and not "dead" on the screen…that being said I thought there'd be some type of hint as to how our dead heroes are going to come back and unless I missed it, it seems like that's being saved as a surprise for Endgame.
Oooooooooooookay…….here we go…….
The first 1/3 of this movie was just complete crap. Just crap. And I think some congratulations is in order here because up to this point, the single worst line of dialogue ever written in the MCU takes place during this film….right up there with this level of writing from Michael Bay:
Ready for it? Here we go….
Just…wow Marvel…you somehow made Michael Bay just a tad more credible by writing something I'd expect to see in Transformers 7…
And I'm going to get on a soapbox here for a second but I know I'm not the first person to bring this up…DISNEY DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE FEMALE PROTAGONISTS ANYMORE. They used to….but now we can't have a hero's journey with a female hero because they need to be super strong right from the start. They did the same thing with Rey in Star Wars. They did the same thing with Mulan in the re-make. They did the same thing here. They think they're somehow empowering girls/women with these stories when in fact it's doing the exact opposite. "Hey girls! Hope you start off super powerful with no sense of learning anything or else you'll never better yourself."
(I'm about to rant more so feel free to skip the italics if you just want the movie stuff)
This is becoming a legit problem and Mulan is probably the best example why. The original movie was great. The sacrifice of the main character actually meant so much more! Why? Cause she didn't know how to fight. She went off to war knowing full well she was mostly doomed because she wasn't trained but knew it was the only way to save her father and that means SO MUCH MORE than the re-make. In the re-make, she's already doing flips and parkouring all over her village as a young girl with her dad encouraging it. So her "sacrifice" to go join the army in her dads place means so much less when she can already pretty much kick everyone's butt from the start and is the best fighter in the army. Where is the journey to become a warrior? Where is the training? Where it the risk? Nope, can't have that we've got to make all our women protagonists super powerful from the start because that's actually great story telling! *eye roll*
You know how you write great female protagonists? Go watch Terminator 1 or 2. Go watch Aliens 1 or 2. Hell, even go watch Season 2, Episode 8 of Mandalorian again and I'll use that as my example here. After that episode came out, a few reactions on Youtube caught me off guard because folks were making comments like "you go girls" and all that. And that's actually when it hit me that all 4 heroes (Cara, Fennec, Bo-Katan, and Koska) were women tearing up the place. And that's cause I didn't see 4 women kicking butt….I saw 4 complete and total bad-asses (language sorry) kicking butt!!! No one had to wink at the camera and make a point they just showed up and took care of business.
I could keep going so I'll stop here….
Welcome back those who skipped that
Another big complaint was Nick Fury. I was so excited to see what a young Nick Fury was like and what do we get??? NICK FURY: CAT LOVER!
That's it??? We see him get his butt kicked a few times and love on weird alien cat. Great job. Oh wait, maybe we'll at least get to see how Nick loses his eye??? (My 8 year old actually brought this up while watching). And what do we get? Cat scratches his eye out. Thanks Marvel. Thanks for pulling back the curtain on that one.
But we do get to see Agent Coulson again!!! Cool!! Great!! What are y'all going to do with him??? Oh…so you leave him at Blockbuster and afterwards let him have one line of dialogue with Fury in a stairwell letting him escape.
Here's an idea….why not replace Nick Fury with her random co-pilot friend who shows up in the last 1/3 of the movie? Just give Fury a background in flying and further the relationship between the two and GIVE HIM SOMETHING TO DO. Hell, you could even have had a scenario where to save the day Marvel has to take action that results in Fury losing his eye which would have so much more meaning and give the characters a stronger connection.
To wrap this up now, I have no idea where I'd rank Ant Man & The Wasp right now just know that I have it higher than the first one. But Captain Marvel is definitely last place.
And now……on to Endgame!
Prior Threads:
Phase 1 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3278723
Phase 2 Reaction:
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3285463
Phase 3 Reaction (Part 1): Dr. Strange / GotG Vol 2 / Civil War
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3287952
Phase 3 Reaction (Part 2): Ragnarok / Black Panther / Homecoming
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3290581
Phase 3 Reaction (Part 3): Infinity War
https://texags.com/forums/13/topics/3291814
2 Movies so here we go!
Ant Man & The Wasp
While I enjoyed the first Ant Man movie, I enjoyed this one A LOT more. Starting with what I thought was surprisingly the biggest improvement over the last film: Michael Pena. To be fair I didn't dislike him in the first film but just didn't find him as funny as others seem to. This time he was a blast! I enjoyed that he was (IIRC) involved in this movie a lot more and even the whole quick story telling gag that was kinda "meh" for me in the first film was absolutely hilarious this time around! I can envision the actors wanting to do multiple takes of mouthing his lines just because they looked like they were having so much fun doing that.
Morpheus was a nice addition as the moral compass of Ghost in this one as well. And overall their interaction and the conflict created with them was pretty well done and I wish it was just them as the antagonists along with the plot of finding Michelle Phifer…random long hair bad guy was pretty forgettable and they were hinting at revealing who he was working for but they never did….course I assumed it would be Hydra since it was them in the first movie. Also didn't care for Asian secret agent man who just didn't seem to act well and I was always annoyed when he was on screen (except his, "Your daddy went to Germany and drew on the walls with Captain America" line which was pretty hilarious).
The plot centering around finding old Wasp was definitely intriguing (albeit a little confusing) but I was glad that it resulted in adding another interesting character to the group and being able to expand even more on the relationships between our heroes. My biggest pet peeve was the whole car shrinking gag. Don't get me wrong it was a cool effect but it was almost 100% pointless…when we first see it they are literally driving down the road like they normally would be anyway so why shrink the car? The entire time I'm thinking to myself, "Just one jerk takes the wrong step and yall are done. Or what if one of those pigeons came up from behind and took off with you in its mouth?" If the car somehow became super strong/indestructible then cool but you got to show us that! Honestly they should have saved that affect during the car chase scene at the end which would have been a much cooler reveal in my opinion and left it up for a surprise….kinda like this classic movie:
End credits scene: alright…I knew they had to do something with tying in the finger snap with the ending just didn't know how. In all honesty I was really hoping they'd go super dark and show Rudd's daughter being one of the ones who gets killed right in front of him (I like it when stories take big risks ok) but the ending we got was still pretty intriguing. A brand new character who had just been reunited with her daughter and husband dies….along with her daughter and husband while Ant Man is stuck in the quantum realm with no one seemingly knowing he's there….unless somehow he can still talk to the ants.
And they hinted at Ghost lady still needing their assistance with some sort of "healing" stuff they gather from the quantum realm so curious to see where that goes.
Captain Marvel
Alright….so….before we all drop a collective Heard on this movie, let me first bring up what I thought was good in this flick because let's face it….it's Captain Marvel, not Bio-dome.
The overall story was intriguing to me and the tie-in with the Kree had me pausing the movie multiple times. When the ships warped….when the Kree ships first arrive in space with the front view….immediately I paused both moments because it hit me right away, "Aren't those the bad guys???" And then we see the crew and within 20 minutes of the movie we're seeing this guy in the crew:
Didn't look up if it was the same actor (though I'm pretty sure it was or it's a REALLY strong likeness) but clearly same dude. Course it is also kind of obvious when you're told at the beginning of the movie that the "mysterious high council" never reveals their true form….yeah….that normally never works out for the better.
And a personal note that was enjoyable for me here was when Ronan showed up in a projection to the Kree. At that point I honestly wasn't surprised, but the wide-eyed, jaw drop look on my oldest sons (10 yr old) face was priceless and I'll definitely remember that cause I don't think it had really hit my kids how far in the past this movie was taking place in the timline.
And let's get the end credits scene out of the way…thought it was cool we got to see our heroes post Infiinty War and they're looking at a screen showing all the deaths across different countries. However it was interesting to me they were labeled as "missing" and not "dead" on the screen…that being said I thought there'd be some type of hint as to how our dead heroes are going to come back and unless I missed it, it seems like that's being saved as a surprise for Endgame.
Oooooooooooookay…….here we go…….
The first 1/3 of this movie was just complete crap. Just crap. And I think some congratulations is in order here because up to this point, the single worst line of dialogue ever written in the MCU takes place during this film….right up there with this level of writing from Michael Bay:
Ready for it? Here we go….
Just…wow Marvel…you somehow made Michael Bay just a tad more credible by writing something I'd expect to see in Transformers 7…
And I'm going to get on a soapbox here for a second but I know I'm not the first person to bring this up…DISNEY DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO WRITE FEMALE PROTAGONISTS ANYMORE. They used to….but now we can't have a hero's journey with a female hero because they need to be super strong right from the start. They did the same thing with Rey in Star Wars. They did the same thing with Mulan in the re-make. They did the same thing here. They think they're somehow empowering girls/women with these stories when in fact it's doing the exact opposite. "Hey girls! Hope you start off super powerful with no sense of learning anything or else you'll never better yourself."
(I'm about to rant more so feel free to skip the italics if you just want the movie stuff)
This is becoming a legit problem and Mulan is probably the best example why. The original movie was great. The sacrifice of the main character actually meant so much more! Why? Cause she didn't know how to fight. She went off to war knowing full well she was mostly doomed because she wasn't trained but knew it was the only way to save her father and that means SO MUCH MORE than the re-make. In the re-make, she's already doing flips and parkouring all over her village as a young girl with her dad encouraging it. So her "sacrifice" to go join the army in her dads place means so much less when she can already pretty much kick everyone's butt from the start and is the best fighter in the army. Where is the journey to become a warrior? Where is the training? Where it the risk? Nope, can't have that we've got to make all our women protagonists super powerful from the start because that's actually great story telling! *eye roll*
You know how you write great female protagonists? Go watch Terminator 1 or 2. Go watch Aliens 1 or 2. Hell, even go watch Season 2, Episode 8 of Mandalorian again and I'll use that as my example here. After that episode came out, a few reactions on Youtube caught me off guard because folks were making comments like "you go girls" and all that. And that's actually when it hit me that all 4 heroes (Cara, Fennec, Bo-Katan, and Koska) were women tearing up the place. And that's cause I didn't see 4 women kicking butt….I saw 4 complete and total bad-asses (language sorry) kicking butt!!! No one had to wink at the camera and make a point they just showed up and took care of business.
I could keep going so I'll stop here….
Welcome back those who skipped that
Another big complaint was Nick Fury. I was so excited to see what a young Nick Fury was like and what do we get??? NICK FURY: CAT LOVER!
That's it??? We see him get his butt kicked a few times and love on weird alien cat. Great job. Oh wait, maybe we'll at least get to see how Nick loses his eye??? (My 8 year old actually brought this up while watching). And what do we get? Cat scratches his eye out. Thanks Marvel. Thanks for pulling back the curtain on that one.
But we do get to see Agent Coulson again!!! Cool!! Great!! What are y'all going to do with him??? Oh…so you leave him at Blockbuster and afterwards let him have one line of dialogue with Fury in a stairwell letting him escape.
Here's an idea….why not replace Nick Fury with her random co-pilot friend who shows up in the last 1/3 of the movie? Just give Fury a background in flying and further the relationship between the two and GIVE HIM SOMETHING TO DO. Hell, you could even have had a scenario where to save the day Marvel has to take action that results in Fury losing his eye which would have so much more meaning and give the characters a stronger connection.
To wrap this up now, I have no idea where I'd rank Ant Man & The Wasp right now just know that I have it higher than the first one. But Captain Marvel is definitely last place.
And now……on to Endgame!
