Hello. I'm the cinephile in the group and well, I love movies. I love them. I love them a lot. I even make them or work on them occasionally. I’m not here to discuss that today. Today is my riff on the whole Marvel Cinematic Universe. While, I’m not a hater by any definition, I am getting tired of people telling me that whatever current Marvel film is out is “the best Marvel movie ever,” including the recent Avengers film “Infinity War.” I’m looking forward to seeing it. Don’t get me wrong. It looks fun, exciting and action packed but, without any of these other Marvel movies to back it up, would it still be considered the “best Marvel movie ever?” Without the previous MCU films, would it even be considered a good movie? I am concerned that we are dealing with another interstellar baddie, with world domination/destruction on the brain, forcing his army of baddies to kill/destroy our band of reluctant heroes and the world/universe... which sounds just like the first two Avengers films. Now, I know, it’s formulaic and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” but, I truly hope it delivers on some OTHER level than just eye candy in Ultra-Super-Mega-Dolby Surround sound. In this day and age, the reason these Marvel films are doing as well as they do is that they up the bar for each film released. Though, there was some disappointment with the Avengers follow up, “Age of Ultron.” The film’s script didn’t do much more than replace Loki and the inter-dimensional alien race of bad guys he led, with Tony Stark’s rogue A.I., Ultron and his various Iron Man-like robot cousin’s. Yes, the stakes were a little closer to home being that Tony Stark was responsible with creating these sentient machines but it wasn’t much more than that. Look, let’s be honest, would “Infinity War” even be considered a movie without all the other films culmination up to this film? Could “Infinity Wars” stand on its own without those films? I’d have to say, probably not. We wouldn’t know these characters the way we do now. The audience would most likely be thrown into a crazy action film with no real depth of character... just a spectacle of sight and sound. Everything critics love to hate.
I look very forward to these movies. Disney and Marvel have created characters and made us care for them... root for them. We laugh with them and want them to prevail as heroes and as people (no matter what race they are). I am hoping this isn’t another “Avengers film” that doesn’t give us much more than a bunch of sight and sound with little substance as some of these super hero films are beginning to feel like they are doing to me. Again, it’s not that I’m not a fan but they are starting to feel a bit underwhelming. PLEASE, don’t give us a debacle that was The Justice League. DC has yet to live up to the Marvel standard as we all know but it’s very easy to fall into that cookie cutter mentality, especially in Hollywood.
Personally, I’ve enjoyed all of the Marvel films, especially Ant-Man, which focused more on being a really well made heist film with superhero overtones and “Captain America: Winter Solider” (where I thought The Russo Brothers really shined, even more so than “Civil War”) which had some of the best political intrigue since “Seven Days of the Condor (PS, that’s an amazing, classic film from the 70’s, also featuring Robert Redford in his heyday, for you youngsters).” I also have to mention the amazing work of James Gunn and his Guardian’s of the Galaxy films, which really had a different feel than the previous Marvel superhero fare and gave the Marvel Universe a kick n the right direction with something that felt different.
But, let’s be honest, the best superhero movie is The Lego Batman Movie.
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