I saw GOTG vol 3 today, i really enjoyed it especially Rocket’s backstory. Without too many spoilers be prepared to feel very sad and possibly cry at some parts.
If i had to give it a score i would score it 9/10.
I saw Guardians Vol. 3 today and thought it was absolutely fantastic! It's wonderfully dark, funny, and equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking. Rocket Raccoon's story is something that's been hinted at in the background for years, and it's hard not to say that the wait was worth it. This is some of the most emotional storytelling in the MCU and arguably the darkest movie in the franchise so far. I was struggling to hold back tears at a hand full of points throughout the movie, and if I wasn't in a crowded theatre I would definitely be bawling my eyes out.
Bradley Cooper is an absolutely phenomenal voice actor and though the rest of the cast do an amazing job, his performance as Rocket is a standout. Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoey Saldana, Karen Gillian, and Pom Klementieff are all great as their respective characters, with each of them having their own time in the spotlight. Everyone gets a moment and they're all great. I also have to give high praise to Chukwudi Iwuji as the High Evolutionary. In my opinion he belongs in the hall of great MCU villains. He's scary, legitimately intimidating, and absolutely evil and I loved him.
I have a couple criticisms. Though Groot has his moments, he really isn't in it all that much surprisingly, and considering the relationship between him and Rocket you'd think he'd have a bigger part in the overall story. Also while I enjoyed Adam Warlock, he is pretty under developed.
Overall, the movie is not only a fitting finale to the current lineup of the Guardians, but James Gunn's own personal swansong to his tenure at the MCU. It's full to the brim with love and care, and I have little to no doubt that he'll manage to pull off his DC cinematic universe.
This movie makes the Guardians series a fantastic trilogy (with a little extra viewing material between 2+3)
If you go in expecting the same frantic comedy as Volume 2, you'll be wrong. Each movie does something different, this one is no exception.
1st was a slightly gritty, slightly campy, space-superhero-movie. 2nd was a madcap comedy with a heavy emotional core for the main character. This 3rd is a melancholic swan song for the group, clinging to comedy to not become too dark.
Bradley Cooper with the voice, Sean Gunn with the Mo-Cap and the VFX team with the CGI's animals create a hugely moving animal performance, heightened significantly with the terrifying backdrop of animal cruelty (don't watch this film if you're really averse to that sort of thing)
Chukwudi Iwuji brings some serious, powerful acting chops to the role of the High Evolutionary, a man playing god with less-sentient beings. They do a lot in this film to show off his terrifying fury, his horrifyingly cruel master plan, and his surprising jealousy.
He gave me a strong air of a Shakespearean actor, in a role of madness, status, and rage. Really good stuff.
The rest of the Guardians crew have some great performances too, but the two up top are definitely stand-out. Chris Pratt does a surprising emotionally distant performance for some of the film (it makes sense in context) that we haven't really seen from Peter Quill. Dave Bautista has less of a comedically obnoxious script, and more of a "foolishly dumb/literal/headstrong" performance, especially when it comes to his comedy.
Will Poulter as Adam has a great, small role in this, as a very-slow-on-the-uptake Space Superman. On that note, his action scenes are brutal and powerful, can't wait to see what Gunn brings to his Superman reboot with this.
The cinematography and set design is especially cool in this film. Lots of great camera flips, action scenes where the camera is basically attached to a character being thrown across a room, and some really nice framing. It felt very new compared to previous Guardians films.
The music is used differently here. It's used in a more atmospheric setup for scenes, rather than straight action backing-tracks or background music for a scene. It's pretty interesting, but I enjoyed its use.
If you're at all a fan of GOTG or curious about James Gunn's last outing in this series, it's wel worth a watch.
It is probably near the very top, if not the top of my Marvel movie list. It pulls out all the emotional stops, uses surprising restraint on comedy where it needs to (and sometimes doesn't need to) and is very pleasing to watch.
SPOILERS HERE
This movie took me through the emotional wringer.
From the opening shot, the opening song 'Creep', I had tears welling in my eyes.
Rocket's backstory in the previous movies made him a bit of a mysterious tragic character. This movie dives deep into that backstory with his animal experiment friends. They are rendered amazingly, with great expressions, detail, and fun performances from their actors.
You can easily pick up their final fates given where Rocket ends up in the present, but it didn't make the emotional impact any less sad.
Every time they had a flashback, tears started welling in my eyes again. Both because of my fear of what might happen, and the cruelty they keep getting heaped on them, physically, verbally and mentally given they're locked up nearly all their life.
And then it stabs you in the gut, probably halfway through the film, with their expected deaths... Jeeeesus, I was hit with major tears, then slight joy as Rocket retaliated against the HE, but oough wow that was quite the combination of emotions.
Drax had a scary near-death moment too, and even in the end Quill did as well! I was not having a good emotional time I swear.
However in the end things actually turn out pretty alright, and I left the theatre with tears down my cheeks and a smile on my face (in a good way). I did not expect that result at all and I am very pleased.
And don't get me started on how they got Rocket in love with music in this film!! They teased it in previous entries as he started warming up to Quill's tunes, and it came full circle here, I love it!
Had a debate with my mom last night about Voice Acting not being considered a "full role" compared to a physical, visible performance (when talking about Linda Cardellini having "two different roles" in the MCU)
Well guess what, all the animal actors did the voice AND full motion-capture!!
'Member that Legends show on D+, recapping the MCU before major films come out? It's still a thing.
There can be a bit too many episodes sometimes (GOTG3 got six, for characters who mostly share plenty of scenes already)
However, the Peter Quill, Gamora, and Rocket episodes are the most comprehensive and it looks like the editors had the most fun with.
Marvel's (Hulu show) Runaways is no longer on Disney Plus internationally.
It's really wild to me that companies who own this content for their own streaming services would just... remove it completely to not have to pay anymore royalties to the Actors within.
And as far as I know it was a streaming-only show, so no official release out there to fall back on...
I turned on Into the SpiderVerse today just to watch the first 10-minutes or so, the intro and where Miles gets his powers is so fun.
Then 2 hours went by and I ended up just watching the whole thing. I love this movie
The sequel's trailers seem to be focusing a lot on a "you can't save everyone you love" arc, but the first movie also had this, and showed Miles overcoming this and the expectations people have of him that he couldn't.
He saved all of New York, and all the spider-people to go to their home universes. He did that!
Trailers are vague, it's probably some different context required, but it's a strange sounding re-tread given what little we know so far.
I turned on Into the SpiderVerse today just to watch the first 10-minutes or so, the intro and where Miles gets his powers is so fun.
The… moren 2 hours went by and I ended up just watching the whole thing. I love this movie
The sequel's trailers seem to be focusing a lot on a "you can't save everyone you love" arc, but the first movie also had this, and showed Miles overcoming this and the expectations people have of him that he couldn't.
He saved all of New York, and all the spider-people to go to their home universes. He did that!
Trailers are vague, it's probably some different context required, but it's a strange sounding re-tread given what little we know so far.
I watched Across the Spider-Verse today. Unfortunately I didn't like the movie. Awkward writing and character interactions, no chemistry between the new cast, full of plot holes, and the animation was terrible... is what I might have said in an alternate universe but thank fuckin' God I'm in this one cause this film is a goddamn masterpiece. I absolutely love this movie!
I'll try not to spend too much time gushing about the movie. It's pretty much everything I loved about the first movie and then some. I love the new characters like Spider-Woman, Spider-Man India, and Spider-Punk. They're extremely fun, charming, and in general they just look so cool. Gotta mention Spider-Man 2099, a very different take to the Spider-Men we're used to seeing. Very serious, and incredibly intimidating. He's a great mirror to the usual snarky, quippy Spider-Men we're used to. Also really enjoyed The Spot, who despite being such a goofy character, has the capability to be an extremely threatening and sometimes scary antagonist.
The intro to the movie is unexpected, but absolutely brilliant. It felt like a mini movie, to the point I wish that it actually was it's own thing. Every inch of this movie is filled with so much love, care, and hidden details to the point where I wish I didn't need to blink because every time I did so I felt like I might have missed something. Across the Spider-Verse is a love letter to EVERYTHING Spider-Man no matter the medium, and since Spider-Man is my favourite superhero of all time, it's hard not to fall in love with the movie.
I have like one nitpick, and two criticisms. The nitpick being that there isn't a What's Up Danger moment with the soundtrack. There's still some really great music, but in my opinion nothing quite like THAT moment from the first movie. The criticism I have is that sometimes the action scenes feel a little busy and overstuffed, to the point it's a bit hard to make out what's going on, though thankfully it doesn't happen too often. The other was with the sound mixing. Sometimes the dialogue would get drowned out by the music, making it hard to hear certain things, but again it's something that didn't happen too often.
Overall, Across the Spider-Verse is as good, if not better than it's predecessor. It's in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero movies, as well as one of the greatest animated movies of all time. As soon as I walked out of the theatre, I immediately wanted to watch it again. I cannot wait for Beyond the Spider-Verse.
LOTS OF BEEEG SPOILERINOS
Fuckin' loved the extended version of Gwen's backstory as the intro. I would have loved to see this as a movie on its own!
Speaking of Gwen, there are some pretty strong implications that she's a transgirl which is pretty neat! There's the flag in her room, and her dad wears a pin on his uniform. Not to mention part of her story is pretty much her coming out to her dad about her identity and him initially rejecting her, before finally accepting her for who she is by the end of the movie.
Lol at Bagel guy becoming the big villain of this movie and the next.
I loved Miles parents even more so in this. Rio was pretty much window dressing in the first movie, so it's good to see her get a substantially much larger role.
I can't fuckin' believe this movie had live action segments and cameos lmao. Very jarring, but very fun!
Wasn't expecting to see Mrs. Chen from Venom in this who looks done with all the superhero bullshit, and I definitely wasn't expecting to see Donald Glover as a live action Prowler! I wonder if it actually is the MCU version of him, or if it's just a variant. Either way, very cool.
Loved Lego Spidey, I hope we see more of him in the future!
Lots of nods to the live action side of things which is great! Nice to see Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire as small cameos (even if it's old footage). Supposedly Tom Holland's in one of the webs alongside Tobey but I didn't catch him.
A couple nods to the MCU with Miguel mentioning the events of No Way Home, and the Sacred Timeline before it turns into the Web of Life.
Also lots of appearances by various animated versions of Spider-Man!
Insomniac's Spidey gets a cameo and even has a quick voiceline!
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN GETS THE SPOTLIGHT FOR LIKE FIVE SECONDS WOOOOOOOOOO!!!
It's weird how short he looks in comparison to everyone else though lol.
Hobie is great! I love that he's an anarchist that actually walks the talk. Also, "It's a metaphor for capitalism!" was fuckin' hilarious.
It's really cool to see how The Spot connects everything together with the spider that bit Miles.
Miles being told that he wasn't supposed to exist was super fucked up.
When Miles gets transported to Earth 42, I noticed the sky had a green tinged to it but made nothing of it. However when the twist was revealed it all made sense! Absolutely brilliant!
Jesus, Prowler Miles is fuckin' evil, goddamn! Also nice touch to hear him have a thicker Puerto Rican accent since it was just him and his mom growing up.
We got the gang back together! Interested to see how the old and new group meld together in Beyond.
Just came back from theater after watching Across The Spider-Verse. This is everything I needed for a Spider-Verse sequel. They went extremely hardcore with the animation. So many different animations for different characters and universes. How they managed to pull it off flawlessly is beyond me. I think my favorite part of the film was The Spot. He is one of, if not, the funniest Spider-Man villain I have ever witnessed and has such a justifiable motive.
Across the Spider-Verse: Best Animated Feature 2023 Hands Down No Contest!!!
Oh my gosh this movie was better than I could have dreamed. 🌟
The animation and art goes to crazy levels of fun to showcase the different spider people of different universes.
Its a celebration of art and animation for so much of its runtime. The artists are gods. I hope they were treated well and no crunch occured.
They bring in plenty of comic-book flair that kinda trumps the original’s use of it, its so dang fun
The story is a fantastic high-stakes adventure that celebrates and takes great cues from iconic moments in the mythos of Spider-Man.
The references are plentiful, but not proudly showcased for every single Spider that appears on screen. But some do get that treatment, both from some fan-favourites over the years and wacky, obscure Spiders from the comics.
The movie also has some great surprising connections to the first film, in its story, characters, even in the score – I recognized a few tracks from it.
If they’ve got this fantastic follow-up (that actually can stand on its own well, as it recaps and grows off of the OG’s themes in conscise ways) I can’t wait to see what they’ll pull off to end this trilogy in the 3rd film – out Next March!! 10 months!! It might be the best comic book trilogy ever.
Someone please geek out about this movie with me pleeeeease I NEED to talk more about this without putting everything under a spoiler OMG
I'm a bit worried for the Secret Invasion show coming later this month, for a couple reasons...
I don't know the original comics story, but from what little I know, does it have to do with "major characters are revealed to have been aliens in disguise all along"? I might be wrong, but that'd be kind of a weird whiplash to learn if X character was actually Y character with a secret agenda (either good or bad) this whole time
They seem to be hyping up the thriller aspect of the show with it being "ooh spooky aliens are amogus, what if a human was actually an ALIEN"... but the MCU has had plenty of alien/non-human characters that are actually really great people, so it feels pretty weird for them to lean so far into this "alarmist" themed promotion.
The cast seems fairly small and self-contained. If this is supposed to connect to a marvel film it feels like it might not have that big of an impact. But it could also be a great standalone spy thriller show, I'm interested to find out!
I don't know the original comics story, but from what little I know, does it have to do with "major characters are revealed to have been aliens in disguise all along"? I might be wrong, but that'd be kind of a weird whiplash to learn if X character was actually Y character with a secret agenda (either good or bad) this whole time
It's less they were an alien the whole time and more, somewhere along the line they were replaced by an alien. Pretty much Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I'm a bit worried for the Secret Invasion show coming later this month, for a couple reasons...
* I don't know the original comics stor… morey, but from what little I know, does it have to do with "major characters are revealed to have been aliens in disguise all along"? I might be wrong, but that'd be kind of a weird whiplash to learn if X character was actually Y character with a secret agenda (either good or bad) this whole time
* They seem to be hyping up the thriller aspect of the show with it being "ooh spooky aliens are amogus, what if a human was actually an ALIEN"... but the MCU has had plenty of alien/non-human characters that are actually really great people, so it feels pretty weird for them to lean so far into this "alarmist" themed promotion.
* The cast seems fairly small and self-contained. If this is supposed to connect to a marvel film it feels like it might not have that big of an impact. But it could also be a great standalone spy thriller show, I'm interested to find out!
Ohh!! Okay I've had the wrong assumption about this "major event" I keep hearing about, for a long time
Well I hope what reveals there are (probably only related to the spy-shield-characters given who we know is appearing), they find a way to make it make sense.
(But like... that'd mean the original people are dead right? Hmmm)
I don't know the original comics story, but from what little I know, does it have to do with "major characters are revealed to have been ali… moreens in disguise all along"? I might be wrong, but that'd be kind of a weird whiplash to learn if X character was actually Y character with a secret agenda (either good or bad) this whole time
It's less they were an alien the whole time and more, somewhere along the line they were replaced by an alien. Pretty much Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Ohh!! Okay I've had the wrong assumption about this "major event" I keep hearing about, for a long time
Well I hope what reveals there a… morere (probably only related to the spy-shield-characters given who we know is appearing), they find a way to make it make sense.
(But like... that'd mean the original people are dead right? Hmmm)
On another note, I love how the movie's far-reaching, yet still incomplete explanation of the entire spider-verse, combined with the central theme of "anyone can wear the mask", means that even some alternate YOU, or any original spider-person you create, is now part of that film. Just off-camera somewhere in Scene 37.
ATSV is the best timeline I wanna go to right now.
But aaaaalso the WGA strike isn't even over, they really gonna go through with this comedy sooner without having a writer on board for rewrites of jokes? It better be one freakin perfect script...
I'm hoping that Beyond the Spider-Verse doesn't get delayed because OMG it is so cool to have a movie and then its cliffhanger sequel release less than a year apart, but honestly the signs are starting to point to a longer wait... Basically all the MCU movies right now just got delayed.
This gonna be rated R?
I will say, Sony did one tiny good choice in giving one of their "violent villain" an actual chance to look all "violent"
However looks like another "Villains aren't Born, they're Made" -- but does vaguely heroic things anyway -- kind of movie. Also with wacky traits like "gains Apex Predator Powers from Lion blood"
This gonna be rated R?
I will say, Sony did one tiny good choice in giving one of their "violent villain" an actual chance to look all "vi… moreolent"
However looks like another "Villains aren't Born, they're Made" -- but does vaguely heroic things anyway -- kind of movie. Also with wacky traits like "gains Apex Predator Powers from Lion blood"
The first episode of Secret Invasion is out. It's by far the slowest and most serious MCU project in a long while and I'm here for it! I really enjoyed the episode! They do a great job of expanding more on Fury as a character post-Blip, especially with him feeling completely out of touch with everything that's going on. He isn't the guy who's always in the know anymore and it's messing with him badly. The Skrulls so far are a pretty interesting antagonist. They remind me a lot of the Flag Smashers from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, though I hope they stick the landing with this lol. Love Ben Mendelson in this, though I did find it a bit hard to understand him at certain moments cause of his slur.
The episode is also pretty darn violent. People who get shot don't just flop over bloodlessly like some other MCU projects. There's a good amount of blood in this and not everyone goes out quickly. The ending of the episode is particularly grim with some pretty uncomfortable imagery, which has me excited for what comes next.
I do have some criticism. For one thing the intro of the show looks like fucking ass. It's very clearly made with an AI and it looks horrendous. Like someone drank a pint of green paint, puked it onto a canvas, then microwaved it. Extremely disappointing to see. Marvel Studios is a multi-billion dollar company and they can't afford to pay someone to make an intro? The other thing is that while I enjoy the slowness of the episode, it's a little too slow. Not enough information is being told to really justify its pacing at times.
Aside from that, very enjoyable episode. It's a more mature story than we've been shown in a while, and if they play their cards right this could end up being the MCU's Andor.
Spoilers
Seeing Ross eat shit like that at the start had me cringe super hard. Thank fuck he was a Skrull.
Love the shot of Fury's silhouette looking like an alien when leaving his space ship.
Interesting that Fury has been off world for years at this point.
Fury's pretty haggard by this point in time. He's got a limp (though I feel like he's faking that), he's no longer in the know, he's not leading anything anymore, and everyone kinda just wants him to stay out of things. The Blip totally fucked him over.
Pretty much expected Emilia Clarke to be Talos's daughter but it's still cool to see!
They did a great job making the Skrull attack look terrifying! Seeing people being engulfed by the explosions and being blown away was super dark.
Definitely wasn't expecting Maria Hill to get shot and drown in her own blood. She's been in the MCU for over a decade so it's sad to see her go.
I watched Across The Spider-Verse again two days ago. This is my very first time watching a film twice in theaters and the movie itself is still amazing.
As much as I want to see Beyond The Spider-Verse, it has been said that the animators suffered a crunch for their work on this film. Waiting sucks but there is no reason for them to suffer for us.
I also just saw Across a second time just last night.
Gwen's theme is super freakin cool and her world is just a feast for the eyes!!
Still holds up really well, loved noticing a bunch of new details in the film.
(Like, how there are a lot of parallel shots in the movie. Gwen getting caught by Miles' web in Mumbhattan and it snapping, and Miles getting caught by Gwen's web in 2099's world, with Miles snapping it.
OR... Miles entering the roof party early in the film, and him entering that same roof area on Earth 42 near the end of the film.)
Unfortunately some idiot thought he was really funny when just after Miles does his emotional “I’m Spider-Man” speech to ***-42 he yelled out “Spider-Man is black??!!”. Totally ruined the moment.
Wow. Some people chuckled but I thought it was lame and horribly timed (not to mention a bit racist?)
I'm expecting the film to get delayed given what testimonials we've heard from animators so far.
Barely any work started on the next film yet, and given how this movie has taken super long to make, even with all the animators overworked, I don't see how or even why Sony put the dates of these films so close together.
Unless they have some completely different team of animators secretly working on the next one, March 2024 feels too good to be true (and way too hasty). Let the animators breathe.
The second episode of Secret Invasion is great! Very dark, surprisingly violent, a lot of really good dialogue between the characters. Samuel L. Jackson is fantastic in this. He does a wonderful job playing a Fury that is totally and utterly beaten down while still having great chemistry with the rest of the cast, and all my favourite bits of conversations center around him. Don Cheadle and Olivia Colman are really good as well! Also a lot of very timely events and commentary with the show which is always great to see. Not gonna lie, the tone of the show and violence displayed so far gives me a lot more hope for the Daredevil series lol.
Looking forward to next weeks episode!
Spoilers
I was expecting maybe a few thousand Skrulls on Earth, but over a million? Hot damn, Fury has got a lot of work to do.
Jesus, two thousand people died in the Moscow attack. That's 10 times more than than the Battle of New York. They even pointed out that a children were among the casualties.
Skrulls managed to make their way into high ranking political positions which is wild.
Looks like Gravik and his scientists are working on creating Super Skrulls with some neat replacements for the Fantastic Four. Groot for Mr. Fantastic, Frost Beast for Invisible Woman, Cull Obsidian for The Thing, and an Extremis person for The Human Torch.
Loved the dialogue between Fury and Rhodes, especially the mediocre men line!
I really like that despite his appearance of confidence and bluster, we get small moments of Fury just being tired and barely holding it together.
Definitely wasn't expecting to see a dude get his finger cut off onscreen but I'll take it.
The torture scene was a lot more than I was expecting from a D+ show.
Also definitely wasn't expecting to see a dude get put onto a meat hook.
The big twist of the episode is that Fury is married to a Skrull! Which probably means that Gravik is probably his adopted son.
If they are gonna delay it a significant amount to work on it, then... who's idea was it to set that original March '24 date?
That surely meant the original plan was to make them both at the same time or back-to-back, but clearly it ended up being all-hands-on-deck for the one film.
Huh.
Secret Invasion continues to be good! It's keeping on with the tone set by the previous episodes which is great, very little humour and what's there is really enjoyable, lots of great acting by Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelson, who is the big standout this episode, more violence, and twists and turns galore! Very much enjoying the series so far. Only three more episodes to go!
Spoilers
Super Skrulls baybeeeeeeeeeeeee
Fury got that Skrussy
Love the conversation between Talos and Gravik. The scene with the other Skrulls making themselves known is just as good as it was in the trailers!
Gravik pulling his hand out of the knife was fuckin' nasty. I can't believe they showed that, but I guess the fact that he heals pretty much immediately helps tone it down.
Loved seeing Fury forcing himself to beg Talos to help him. I know I said that it's rough seeing him kicked when he's down but in this case he kind of deserved it lol.
Olivia Colman is great in this show! Super charismatic and helps lighten things up.
I wonder if Gaia is actually dead. She got shot in the chest and she dead transform back into a Skrull but who knows. Could be a fake out.
Oof. Seems like Varra has been working with Gravik. Fury keeps on taking the L's.
Sounds like Rhodey has been replaced by a Skrull! That was definitely his voice at the end there. I wonder where in the timeline that happened. Probably sometime after Falcon and The Winter Soldier.
I like spectacular spiderman, and it was cool to see him in ATSV, but man, I think they really did him dirty with his stature in the film.
Both times I've seen it there's been a weird vibe seeing some random 4-feet tall Spider-Man randomly appear on screen, alongside all the other normally-sized/proportioned spider people.
Comments
I saw GOTG vol 3 today, i really enjoyed it especially Rocket’s backstory. Without too many spoilers be prepared to feel very sad and possibly cry at some parts.
If i had to give it a score i would score it 9/10.
I saw Guardians Vol. 3 today and thought it was absolutely fantastic! It's wonderfully dark, funny, and equal parts heartwarming and heartbreaking. Rocket Raccoon's story is something that's been hinted at in the background for years, and it's hard not to say that the wait was worth it. This is some of the most emotional storytelling in the MCU and arguably the darkest movie in the franchise so far. I was struggling to hold back tears at a hand full of points throughout the movie, and if I wasn't in a crowded theatre I would definitely be bawling my eyes out.
Bradley Cooper is an absolutely phenomenal voice actor and though the rest of the cast do an amazing job, his performance as Rocket is a standout. Chris Pratt, Dave Bautista, Zoey Saldana, Karen Gillian, and Pom Klementieff are all great as their respective characters, with each of them having their own time in the spotlight. Everyone gets a moment and they're all great. I also have to give high praise to Chukwudi Iwuji as the High Evolutionary. In my opinion he belongs in the hall of great MCU villains. He's scary, legitimately intimidating, and absolutely evil and I loved him.
I have a couple criticisms. Though Groot has his moments, he really isn't in it all that much surprisingly, and considering the relationship between him and Rocket you'd think he'd have a bigger part in the overall story. Also while I enjoyed Adam Warlock, he is pretty under developed.
Overall, the movie is not only a fitting finale to the current lineup of the Guardians, but James Gunn's own personal swansong to his tenure at the MCU. It's full to the brim with love and care, and I have little to no doubt that he'll manage to pull off his DC cinematic universe.
Best Girl Otter test footage has arrived!! (also what did they do with her arms nooo
I can't take it already waahhhh)
Alright people, let's do this one last time.
My reaction to Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3:
This movie makes the Guardians series a fantastic trilogy (with a little extra viewing material between 2+3)
If you go in expecting the same frantic comedy as Volume 2, you'll be wrong. Each movie does something different, this one is no exception.
1st was a slightly gritty, slightly campy, space-superhero-movie. 2nd was a madcap comedy with a heavy emotional core for the main character. This 3rd is a melancholic swan song for the group, clinging to comedy to not become too dark.
Bradley Cooper with the voice, Sean Gunn with the Mo-Cap and the VFX team with the CGI's animals create a hugely moving animal performance, heightened significantly with the terrifying backdrop of animal cruelty (don't watch this film if you're really averse to that sort of thing)
Chukwudi Iwuji brings some serious, powerful acting chops to the role of the High Evolutionary, a man playing god with less-sentient beings. They do a lot in this film to show off his terrifying fury, his horrifyingly cruel master plan, and his surprising jealousy.
He gave me a strong air of a Shakespearean actor, in a role of madness, status, and rage. Really good stuff.
The rest of the Guardians crew have some great performances too, but the two up top are definitely stand-out. Chris Pratt does a surprising emotionally distant performance for some of the film (it makes sense in context) that we haven't really seen from Peter Quill. Dave Bautista has less of a comedically obnoxious script, and more of a "foolishly dumb/literal/headstrong" performance, especially when it comes to his comedy.
Will Poulter as Adam has a great, small role in this, as a very-slow-on-the-uptake Space Superman. On that note, his action scenes are brutal and powerful, can't wait to see what Gunn brings to his Superman reboot with this.
The cinematography and set design is especially cool in this film. Lots of great camera flips, action scenes where the camera is basically attached to a character being thrown across a room, and some really nice framing. It felt very new compared to previous Guardians films.
The music is used differently here. It's used in a more atmospheric setup for scenes, rather than straight action backing-tracks or background music for a scene. It's pretty interesting, but I enjoyed its use.
If you're at all a fan of GOTG or curious about James Gunn's last outing in this series, it's wel worth a watch.
It is probably near the very top, if not the top of my Marvel movie list. It pulls out all the emotional stops, uses surprising restraint on comedy where it needs to (and sometimes doesn't need to) and is very pleasing to watch.
SPOILERS HERE
This movie took me through the emotional wringer.
From the opening shot, the opening song 'Creep', I had tears welling in my eyes.
Rocket's backstory in the previous movies made him a bit of a mysterious tragic character. This movie dives deep into that backstory with his animal experiment friends. They are rendered amazingly, with great expressions, detail, and fun performances from their actors.
You can easily pick up their final fates given where Rocket ends up in the present, but it didn't make the emotional impact any less sad.
Every time they had a flashback, tears started welling in my eyes again. Both because of my fear of what might happen, and the cruelty they keep getting heaped on them, physically, verbally and mentally given they're locked up nearly all their life.
And then it stabs you in the gut, probably halfway through the film, with their expected deaths... Jeeeesus, I was hit with major tears, then slight joy as Rocket retaliated against the HE, but oough wow that was quite the combination of emotions.
Drax had a scary near-death moment too, and even in the end Quill did as well! I was not having a good emotional time I swear.
However in the end things actually turn out pretty alright, and I left the theatre with tears down my cheeks and a smile on my face (in a good way). I did not expect that result at all and I am very pleased.
And don't get me started on how they got Rocket in love with music in this film!! They teased it in previous entries as he started warming up to Quill's tunes, and it came full circle here, I love it!
I can't believe James Gunn put Hatsune Miku in the movie lmao
Had a debate with my mom last night about Voice Acting not being considered a "full role" compared to a physical, visible performance (when talking about Linda Cardellini having "two different roles" in the MCU)
Well guess what, all the animal actors did the voice AND full motion-capture!!
...I'll wait till after mother's day to destroy her argument with this haha 🤭 (kidding!!)
Brianna Hildebrand and Shioli Kutsuna (NS Teenage Warhead and Yukio) are set to return for Deadpool 3!!
Deadline Article
That's now every major player confirmed to return except Zazie Beetz and Josh Brolin
'Member that Legends show on D+, recapping the MCU before major films come out? It's still a thing.
There can be a bit too many episodes sometimes (GOTG3 got six, for characters who mostly share plenty of scenes already)
However, the Peter Quill, Gamora, and Rocket episodes are the most comprehensive and it looks like the editors had the most fun with.
Figured I'd share since they're great, they're putting them on YT now too
Peter Quill (Star-Lord) Recap
Gamora Recap
Rocket Recap
Across the Spider-Verse releases in less than a week, I can almost taste it.
Marvel's (Hulu show) Runaways is no longer on Disney Plus internationally.
It's really wild to me that companies who own this content for their own streaming services would just... remove it completely to not have to pay anymore royalties to the Actors within.
And as far as I know it was a streaming-only show, so no official release out there to fall back on...
Amy Pascal has revealed that an animated Spider-Woman movie is in the works, as well as a live action Miles Morales movie.
For the love of all that is holy please be under the MCU and not in the SSU. I don't want to see Miles tethered to fuckin' Morbius.
I turned on Into the SpiderVerse today just to watch the first 10-minutes or so, the intro and where Miles gets his powers is so fun.
Then 2 hours went by and I ended up just watching the whole thing. I love this movie
The sequel's trailers seem to be focusing a lot on a "you can't save everyone you love" arc, but the first movie also had this, and showed Miles overcoming this and the expectations people have of him that he couldn't.
He saved all of New York, and all the spider-people to go to their home universes. He did that!
Trailers are vague, it's probably some different context required, but it's a strange sounding re-tread given what little we know so far.
Saw the film yesterday, the context is definitely different
I watched Across the Spider-Verse today. Unfortunately I didn't like the movie. Awkward writing and character interactions, no chemistry between the new cast, full of plot holes, and the animation was terrible... is what I might have said in an alternate universe but thank fuckin' God I'm in this one cause this film is a goddamn masterpiece. I absolutely love this movie!
I'll try not to spend too much time gushing about the movie. It's pretty much everything I loved about the first movie and then some. I love the new characters like Spider-Woman, Spider-Man India, and Spider-Punk. They're extremely fun, charming, and in general they just look so cool. Gotta mention Spider-Man 2099, a very different take to the Spider-Men we're used to seeing. Very serious, and incredibly intimidating. He's a great mirror to the usual snarky, quippy Spider-Men we're used to. Also really enjoyed The Spot, who despite being such a goofy character, has the capability to be an extremely threatening and sometimes scary antagonist.
The intro to the movie is unexpected, but absolutely brilliant. It felt like a mini movie, to the point I wish that it actually was it's own thing. Every inch of this movie is filled with so much love, care, and hidden details to the point where I wish I didn't need to blink because every time I did so I felt like I might have missed something. Across the Spider-Verse is a love letter to EVERYTHING Spider-Man no matter the medium, and since Spider-Man is my favourite superhero of all time, it's hard not to fall in love with the movie.
I have like one nitpick, and two criticisms. The nitpick being that there isn't a What's Up Danger moment with the soundtrack. There's still some really great music, but in my opinion nothing quite like THAT moment from the first movie. The criticism I have is that sometimes the action scenes feel a little busy and overstuffed, to the point it's a bit hard to make out what's going on, though thankfully it doesn't happen too often. The other was with the sound mixing. Sometimes the dialogue would get drowned out by the music, making it hard to hear certain things, but again it's something that didn't happen too often.
Overall, Across the Spider-Verse is as good, if not better than it's predecessor. It's in my opinion, one of the greatest superhero movies, as well as one of the greatest animated movies of all time. As soon as I walked out of the theatre, I immediately wanted to watch it again. I cannot wait for Beyond the Spider-Verse.
LOTS OF BEEEG SPOILERINOS
This was a lie.
Just came back from theater after watching Across The Spider-Verse. This is everything I needed for a Spider-Verse sequel. They went extremely hardcore with the animation. So many different animations for different characters and universes. How they managed to pull it off flawlessly is beyond me. I think my favorite part of the film was The Spot. He is one of, if not, the funniest Spider-Man villain I have ever witnessed and has such a justifiable motive.
Across the Spider-Verse: Best Animated Feature 2023 Hands Down No Contest!!!
Oh my gosh this movie was better than I could have dreamed. 🌟
The animation and art goes to crazy levels of fun to showcase the different spider people of different universes.
Its a celebration of art and animation for so much of its runtime. The artists are gods. I hope they were treated well and no crunch occured.
They bring in plenty of comic-book flair that kinda trumps the original’s use of it, its so dang fun
The story is a fantastic high-stakes adventure that celebrates and takes great cues from iconic moments in the mythos of Spider-Man.
The references are plentiful, but not proudly showcased for every single Spider that appears on screen. But some do get that treatment, both from some fan-favourites over the years and wacky, obscure Spiders from the comics.
The movie also has some great surprising connections to the first film, in its story, characters, even in the score – I recognized a few tracks from it.
If they’ve got this fantastic follow-up (that actually can stand on its own well, as it recaps and grows off of the OG’s themes in conscise ways) I can’t wait to see what they’ll pull off to end this trilogy in the 3rd film – out Next March!! 10 months!! It might be the best comic book trilogy ever.
Someone please geek out about this movie with me pleeeeease I NEED to talk more about this without putting everything under a spoiler OMG
I'm a bit worried for the Secret Invasion show coming later this month, for a couple reasons...
It's less they were an alien the whole time and more, somewhere along the line they were replaced by an alien. Pretty much Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
Ohh!! Okay I've had the wrong assumption about this "major event" I keep hearing about, for a long time
Well I hope what reveals there are (probably only related to the spy-shield-characters given who we know is appearing), they find a way to make it make sense.
(But like... that'd mean the original people are dead right? Hmmm)
🤐
Major ATSV spoilers
Daniel Pemberton really is a freakin wizard. Dude is a master of leitmotifs.
On another note, I love how the movie's far-reaching, yet still incomplete explanation of the entire spider-verse, combined with the central theme of "anyone can wear the mask", means that even some alternate YOU, or any original spider-person you create, is now part of that film. Just off-camera somewhere in Scene 37.
ATSV is the best timeline I wanna go to right now.
Deadpool 3 is no longer on my birthday 😭😭
It's sooner so that's actually good but also dang
But aaaaalso the WGA strike isn't even over, they really gonna go through with this comedy sooner without having a writer on board for rewrites of jokes? It better be one freakin perfect script...
I'm hoping that Beyond the Spider-Verse doesn't get delayed because OMG it is so cool to have a movie and then its cliffhanger sequel release less than a year apart, but honestly the signs are starting to point to a longer wait... Basically all the MCU movies right now just got delayed.
Into the Spider-Verse Concert accompaniment is coming to the USA! (hopefully out of it as well!)
I'm cravin' for Kraven
This gonna be rated R?
I will say, Sony did one tiny good choice in giving one of their "violent villain" an actual chance to look all "violent"
However looks like another "Villains aren't Born, they're Made" -- but does vaguely heroic things anyway -- kind of movie. Also with wacky traits like "gains Apex Predator Powers from Lion blood"
It's really weird that a Kraven movie has more blood than a movie about Morbius the Living Vampire.
The first episode of Secret Invasion is out. It's by far the slowest and most serious MCU project in a long while and I'm here for it! I really enjoyed the episode! They do a great job of expanding more on Fury as a character post-Blip, especially with him feeling completely out of touch with everything that's going on. He isn't the guy who's always in the know anymore and it's messing with him badly. The Skrulls so far are a pretty interesting antagonist. They remind me a lot of the Flag Smashers from Falcon and the Winter Soldier, though I hope they stick the landing with this lol. Love Ben Mendelson in this, though I did find it a bit hard to understand him at certain moments cause of his slur.
The episode is also pretty darn violent. People who get shot don't just flop over bloodlessly like some other MCU projects. There's a good amount of blood in this and not everyone goes out quickly. The ending of the episode is particularly grim with some pretty uncomfortable imagery, which has me excited for what comes next.
I do have some criticism. For one thing the intro of the show looks like fucking ass. It's very clearly made with an AI and it looks horrendous. Like someone drank a pint of green paint, puked it onto a canvas, then microwaved it. Extremely disappointing to see. Marvel Studios is a multi-billion dollar company and they can't afford to pay someone to make an intro? The other thing is that while I enjoy the slowness of the episode, it's a little too slow. Not enough information is being told to really justify its pacing at times.
Aside from that, very enjoyable episode. It's a more mature story than we've been shown in a while, and if they play their cards right this could end up being the MCU's Andor.
Spoilers
Seeing Ross eat shit like that at the start had me cringe super hard. Thank fuck he was a Skrull.
Love the shot of Fury's silhouette looking like an alien when leaving his space ship.
Interesting that Fury has been off world for years at this point.
Fury's pretty haggard by this point in time. He's got a limp (though I feel like he's faking that), he's no longer in the know, he's not leading anything anymore, and everyone kinda just wants him to stay out of things. The Blip totally fucked him over.
Pretty much expected Emilia Clarke to be Talos's daughter but it's still cool to see!
They did a great job making the Skrull attack look terrifying! Seeing people being engulfed by the explosions and being blown away was super dark.
Definitely wasn't expecting Maria Hill to get shot and drown in her own blood. She's been in the MCU for over a decade so it's sad to see her go.
I wonder if in Peter Porker's world The Spot is a dalmatian, or if I'm just stereotyping anthropomorphic cartoon animals.
I watched Across The Spider-Verse again two days ago. This is my very first time watching a film twice in theaters and the movie itself is still amazing.
As much as I want to see Beyond The Spider-Verse, it has been said that the animators suffered a crunch for their work on this film. Waiting sucks but there is no reason for them to suffer for us.
I also just saw Across a second time just last night.
Gwen's theme is super freakin cool and her world is just a feast for the eyes!!
Still holds up really well, loved noticing a bunch of new details in the film.
(Like, how there are a lot of parallel shots in the movie. Gwen getting caught by Miles' web in Mumbhattan and it snapping, and Miles getting caught by Gwen's web in 2099's world, with Miles snapping it.
OR... Miles entering the roof party early in the film, and him entering that same roof area on Earth 42 near the end of the film.)
Unfortunately some idiot thought he was really funny when just after Miles does his emotional “I’m Spider-Man” speech to ***-42 he yelled out “Spider-Man is black??!!”. Totally ruined the moment.
Wow. Some people chuckled but I thought it was lame and horribly timed (not to mention a bit racist?)
I'm expecting the film to get delayed given what testimonials we've heard from animators so far.
Barely any work started on the next film yet, and given how this movie has taken super long to make, even with all the animators overworked, I don't see how or even why Sony put the dates of these films so close together.
Unless they have some completely different team of animators secretly working on the next one, March 2024 feels too good to be true (and way too hasty). Let the animators breathe.
They know about creepy smiling kid... They know...
The second episode of Secret Invasion is great! Very dark, surprisingly violent, a lot of really good dialogue between the characters. Samuel L. Jackson is fantastic in this. He does a wonderful job playing a Fury that is totally and utterly beaten down while still having great chemistry with the rest of the cast, and all my favourite bits of conversations center around him. Don Cheadle and Olivia Colman are really good as well! Also a lot of very timely events and commentary with the show which is always great to see. Not gonna lie, the tone of the show and violence displayed so far gives me a lot more hope for the Daredevil series lol.
Looking forward to next weeks episode!
Spoilers
Delay for BTSV is looking very likely now. Who knows how long, but could very well be another 4 years given how long this latest one took...
If they are gonna delay it a significant amount to work on it, then... who's idea was it to set that original March '24 date?
That surely meant the original plan was to make them both at the same time or back-to-back, but clearly it ended up being all-hands-on-deck for the one film.
Huh.
Secret Invasion continues to be good! It's keeping on with the tone set by the previous episodes which is great, very little humour and what's there is really enjoyable, lots of great acting by Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelson, who is the big standout this episode, more violence, and twists and turns galore! Very much enjoying the series so far. Only three more episodes to go!
Spoilers
I like spectacular spiderman, and it was cool to see him in ATSV, but man, I think they really did him dirty with his stature in the film.
Both times I've seen it there's been a weird vibe seeing some random 4-feet tall Spider-Man randomly appear on screen, alongside all the other normally-sized/proportioned spider people.
Ooh -- we need a What If episode on what would happen if all of Rocket, Lylla, Teefs and Floor escaped the High Evolutionary.
Yes I know that betrays the emotion of their loss but damnit I need more of those adorable things...
Deadpool 3 set photos have been coming out recently... Mostly of Wolvie and Mr. Pool.
But there's also this...
We about to get Meta META in this film. Fox Dies.
There's also behind the scenes footage of a fight between Wolverine and Deadpool right on this set!