Two Marvel-related things
I posted a ficlet yesterday: I Like The Way You Move, MCU, Thor/Jane you suck at dancing but you’re doing it in the middle of a bookstore to the crappy music on the radio and I think it’s pretty damn cute au.
I started drafting a fill (the prompt is the summary) last autumn when I saw it, and it sat there for months. I really went at it this month and came up with a title and a way of ending it. This was done entirely on the laptop. I’m not happy about the probable lack of Thor/Jane in Thor: Ragnarok, hence the fluff - inasmuch as I need an excuse to write fluff. Some feelings about bookshops may have crept in also.
Marvel thing no. 2 is Spider-Man Homecoming. Look, I wasn’t excited about this film; I was planning on going and seeing it, yes, but not in any desperate hurry to do so, because I was around for the two previous cinematic iterations, and while I intellectually get why Marvel were so excited to get their biggest superhero into the MCU (which the title encompasses. although it’s not an aggressively meta film by a comic book superhero movie in 2017 standards), I am getting older and more grumpily distant from Peter Parker and the preteen boys who probably love Spidey the most.
But, this weekend, the other option was Dunkirk, which I do want to see, but it’s an intense war movie. So I chose the lighter fare, aware that this has had decent reviews. And as it also has MCU developments and I wanted to give it a thumbs up, here’s my review.
It’s very entertaining. At the beginning, when we first join Peter, filming his adventures in Civil War and babbling excitedly, all my prejudices about this Not Being For Me arose, but it’s very funny (especially considering six screenwriters were credited). It feels like a real teenage movie - many of the laughs were at Ned, Peter’s best friend and, ultimately, 'chair guy'. Even though these are mostly all super smart teenagers, they are also as dumb as teenagers are. I mean, Peter lives a charmed life given that he keeps facing off alien weaponry.
Tom Holland puts in a star-making charm offensive as Peter/Spidey (and the film makes the most of the fact that he and the other kids are much closer to being teenagers than in previous films). He’s funny and sympathetic. You could see why Peter liked Liz, who was nice, although Michelle was, to me, much more interesting as the angry loner (nursing a crush - and she must surely have worked out from what she witnessed at Washington who Spider-man is). I internally cheered that she turned out to be MJ.
I had half-wondered, if not even that, about Tombs’ family, but thought it couldn’t be Liz because of the misdirects around the time of her party, but for the love interest to be the bad guy’s daughter was a neat twist (and this was handled better than by The Amazing Spider-Man?) Keaton BRUNG IT, even among henchmen busy trying to steal scenes. Vulture’s escalation after getting rid of the threat of his thug and his general intensity were great, as was the balance of loving father/family guy and dangerous psychopath, making for a more successful, nuanced villain than many Marvel have produced (when Spider-Man returns, there is literally no need for the Green Goblin to return with him - Peter has one dangerous billionaire in his life already). Peter saved his life and he recognised that.
The running gag about attractive Aunt May (in glasses) was offset by how naturalistic Tomei and Holland’s relationship came across, and it was refreshing for her to be closer in age to Peter. It was a good call that there was little heavy tragic backstory to sit through again, just references to her having cause to worry about Peter, and a suggestiveness to Peter trying to get Happy and Tony’s attention as father figures of some sort. They also gave us the low-down about the powers deftly with Ned’s questions once he’d found out.
Another good choice was having Peter’s final encounter with Vulture be without the fancy upgraded suit, but in the home-made one (though I was glad that he got his suit back in the end), It fit in with how they’d played him as rooted in his neighbourhood - he was basically facing down a thief. Well, a thief turned arms dealer, or rather alien arms dealer and killer, but it was greed that did for Vulture. Vulture's stake to being a working class guy got a bit of an eye-roll for me, I mean he seemed to be subsidising a certain lifestyle and he took the idea of provider so far as for it to be toxic. Having the film be about a kid who’d had a taste of the major league finding his balance was relatable. I also liked how the film explored the consequences of the Avengers and aliens on the world.
As for those Avengers, I may have called Steve a steaming hypocrite during his video for the rule-breaking kids at detention (why were they still playing these vids after Civil War?).
I liked the role Tony played more than I was expecting, ditto Happy and how packing up the Avengers tower fed into the plot. I was GLEEFUL that Tony and Pepper have patched (offscreen) things up (offscreen), even if we all know this was about not being able to afford Paltrow in Civil War and giving Tony another reason for being in a bad mood then. (The logistics of Infinity War make my head spin in advance.)
After all the fuss about Donald Glover being in this, he had TWO SCENES. His Community alum, Martin Starr, playing a similar educator role as he did at Greendale, had more and could return. But I cannot be too harsh on a film with those Community links.
Some of the action scenes lost me, and the fact that I’ve been on this journey twice before still told, but on the whole I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to.
As for the end credits scene - if Cap is your favourite Avenger, you should stay. Otherwise, as one cinemagoer said ‘we just got trolled by Captain America’, which after the cornucopia of delights offered by Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a bit stingy.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/288440.html.
I started drafting a fill (the prompt is the summary) last autumn when I saw it, and it sat there for months. I really went at it this month and came up with a title and a way of ending it. This was done entirely on the laptop. I’m not happy about the probable lack of Thor/Jane in Thor: Ragnarok, hence the fluff - inasmuch as I need an excuse to write fluff. Some feelings about bookshops may have crept in also.
Marvel thing no. 2 is Spider-Man Homecoming. Look, I wasn’t excited about this film; I was planning on going and seeing it, yes, but not in any desperate hurry to do so, because I was around for the two previous cinematic iterations, and while I intellectually get why Marvel were so excited to get their biggest superhero into the MCU (which the title encompasses. although it’s not an aggressively meta film by a comic book superhero movie in 2017 standards), I am getting older and more grumpily distant from Peter Parker and the preteen boys who probably love Spidey the most.
But, this weekend, the other option was Dunkirk, which I do want to see, but it’s an intense war movie. So I chose the lighter fare, aware that this has had decent reviews. And as it also has MCU developments and I wanted to give it a thumbs up, here’s my review.
It’s very entertaining. At the beginning, when we first join Peter, filming his adventures in Civil War and babbling excitedly, all my prejudices about this Not Being For Me arose, but it’s very funny (especially considering six screenwriters were credited). It feels like a real teenage movie - many of the laughs were at Ned, Peter’s best friend and, ultimately, 'chair guy'. Even though these are mostly all super smart teenagers, they are also as dumb as teenagers are. I mean, Peter lives a charmed life given that he keeps facing off alien weaponry.
Tom Holland puts in a star-making charm offensive as Peter/Spidey (and the film makes the most of the fact that he and the other kids are much closer to being teenagers than in previous films). He’s funny and sympathetic. You could see why Peter liked Liz, who was nice, although Michelle was, to me, much more interesting as the angry loner (nursing a crush - and she must surely have worked out from what she witnessed at Washington who Spider-man is). I internally cheered that she turned out to be MJ.
I had half-wondered, if not even that, about Tombs’ family, but thought it couldn’t be Liz because of the misdirects around the time of her party, but for the love interest to be the bad guy’s daughter was a neat twist (and this was handled better than by The Amazing Spider-Man?) Keaton BRUNG IT, even among henchmen busy trying to steal scenes. Vulture’s escalation after getting rid of the threat of his thug and his general intensity were great, as was the balance of loving father/family guy and dangerous psychopath, making for a more successful, nuanced villain than many Marvel have produced (when Spider-Man returns, there is literally no need for the Green Goblin to return with him - Peter has one dangerous billionaire in his life already). Peter saved his life and he recognised that.
The running gag about attractive Aunt May (in glasses) was offset by how naturalistic Tomei and Holland’s relationship came across, and it was refreshing for her to be closer in age to Peter. It was a good call that there was little heavy tragic backstory to sit through again, just references to her having cause to worry about Peter, and a suggestiveness to Peter trying to get Happy and Tony’s attention as father figures of some sort. They also gave us the low-down about the powers deftly with Ned’s questions once he’d found out.
Another good choice was having Peter’s final encounter with Vulture be without the fancy upgraded suit, but in the home-made one (though I was glad that he got his suit back in the end), It fit in with how they’d played him as rooted in his neighbourhood - he was basically facing down a thief. Well, a thief turned arms dealer, or rather alien arms dealer and killer, but it was greed that did for Vulture. Vulture's stake to being a working class guy got a bit of an eye-roll for me, I mean he seemed to be subsidising a certain lifestyle and he took the idea of provider so far as for it to be toxic. Having the film be about a kid who’d had a taste of the major league finding his balance was relatable. I also liked how the film explored the consequences of the Avengers and aliens on the world.
As for those Avengers, I may have called Steve a steaming hypocrite during his video for the rule-breaking kids at detention (why were they still playing these vids after Civil War?).
I liked the role Tony played more than I was expecting, ditto Happy and how packing up the Avengers tower fed into the plot. I was GLEEFUL that Tony and Pepper have patched (offscreen) things up (offscreen), even if we all know this was about not being able to afford Paltrow in Civil War and giving Tony another reason for being in a bad mood then. (The logistics of Infinity War make my head spin in advance.)
After all the fuss about Donald Glover being in this, he had TWO SCENES. His Community alum, Martin Starr, playing a similar educator role as he did at Greendale, had more and could return. But I cannot be too harsh on a film with those Community links.
Some of the action scenes lost me, and the fact that I’ve been on this journey twice before still told, but on the whole I enjoyed this more than I was expecting to.
As for the end credits scene - if Cap is your favourite Avenger, you should stay. Otherwise, as one cinemagoer said ‘we just got trolled by Captain America’, which after the cornucopia of delights offered by Guardians of the Galaxy 2 is a bit stingy.
This entry was originally posted at http://shallowness.dreamwidth.org/288440.html.