What are you watching?

[Roger]

First Steps was a bread sandwich of a movie.  They had a cool Jetsons world but spend a huge chunk of the movie in space so we don't get to see it.  They skipped the origin story, but also skipped early heroism so that already reformed villains can help.  Johnny deciphers an entire alien language from a small sentence - even for a comic book movie, I cannot suspend my disbelief that much.  Everybody - everybody - was miscast or mischaracterized.  I like Pedro Pascal, but that just isn't Reed Richards to me.  The Thing isn't a lovable grouch?  Why even adapt the character?!  The 2000s movies weren't very good, but Chiklis's Ben Grimm was just about perfect.  And that third act - I just kept predicting the two big story beats, and then they happened as I expected.

Some good, some bad, but mostly empty calories.  It's an aggressively C grade movie.  

As far as recent MCU film output (as in, post-Endgame), I'd put it above... Eternals, Doctor Strange 2, Thor 4, Ant-Man 3, Guardians 3, The Marvels, Captain America 4

But also it's substantially less enjoyable than... Spider-Man Far From Home, Black Widow, Shang-Chi, Spider-Man No Way Home, Black Panther 2, Deadpool and Wolverine, Thunderbolts

I don't go to theaters anymore, so no opinion on the newest Spidey.  But it has action choreography by Jackie Chan, and The Punisher is in it.  If I walk away giving that anything less than a C, something is truly wrong with the multiverse.

I feel like the major issues with Marvel films, is that they aren't being made to be good films. They're following a formula that "ideally" feeds the current audience with what they release. But what they release to people who actually know the source material, or enjoy films. It just comes across very mediocre. If they could take the time and actually make something with some level of care/interest we probably would have better MCU movies. Unfortunately, they're trying to catch whatever buzz the original MCU movies created. But I think we have come close to, or have already hit Super Hero movies fatigue.

Finally got to my second viewing of Spider-Man: BND today and was a little bit worried I'd start to nitpick and find things I disliked in it but no, just cemented it as a top-tier superhero movie. That ending sequence just hits me in the feels so much. Been a long time since a superhero movie has made me feel the way this does.

I really enjoyed this movie a lot too. Especially the Hulk Hallway sequence, so well choreograph. It finally feels like Spider-man is Spider-man. I thoroughly enjoyed the "office" scene with Yelena. With how out of nowhere it came for me.