I said lately. Most Marvel movies have been terrible since Endgame. The Spiderman ones were good, and the Dr Strange ones were decent.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Agree that the new ones are not off to a good start. I thought the Dr Strange movie was pretty bad.

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The Dr. Strange one that was basically the end of Wandavision was good as long as you don't think about anything that didn't make sense as most of the movie didn't make sense. Then again, that's bad guy women. They aren't rationale like bad guy men.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Agreed, but my son made me watch a lot of them.
Just a bunch of CGI shit blowing up for the sake of just having shit blow up.

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There was an article in New York Times a couple of weeks ago about why Hollywood can't make anything good anymore. The producers and agents they talked to said it was due to Me Too. Over 200 producers and writers lost their jobs and they were replaced by people they felt weren't competent. They mention complaints to Disney HR department number around 30 per week now where 10 years ago it was one. There were some name people signed on to do their movies and shows but they backed out after a few weeks because they didn't like how Disney was run. They seem to be doing something differently.

My brother saw it today. He said first 10 minutes and last 5 minutes good and the rest was a mess. Lady Iron Man and The Boy Who Can't Love were terrible. The one character that got a positive response was the 2nd in command guy I think his name is Mbaku. A big dude throwing fish people around and pounding his chest is going to get a good response. He wasn't in it enough. Nobody wants to see a retarded looking girl boss Iron Man Lady or a Bernstein sized fish man.

it would be funny if there was a parody called Wakanda Whatever.

i'm not too keen on the backstory and history of namor (aka "the submariner") so i didn't have any prejudices coming into this. kind of just came in only seeing the one theatrical trailer.

i thought it was decent enough entertainment. i liked the "moment of silence" for chadwick in the beginning, and all of the homages to him. it was necessary to establish that t'challa was so important that it would take basically emergency services to "call up" another black panther.

in this case, it's an atlantis underwater world that also has vibranium. namor believes all of the nations of the surface world will come for them as long as it belongs somewhere on the surface. he tries to have an alliance with shuri but that backfires because of this american college student who apparently is going to work on a project involving vibranium. he wants her dead, shuri befriends her, and things get all complicated as they normally do.

the storytelling is fine, it builds up as expected. but i have to once again harp on marvel's penchant for bloated run-times and this is no exception. this movie could've cut about 20-30 minutes and it would have benefited from a tighter pace. it really gets fidgety in the last 10 minutes or so, which are supposed to be emotional. but you're pretty much checked out by that time.

also, the similarities to aquaman and even avatar are hard to ignore. they build a decent story about the mayans and that gives it a little more breadth. but it still can't get out of its way of cliches.

there are some unintentional laughs that came from the audience (mostly of the kids) during the council scenes. you'll know it when you see it. although the best moviegoing moment came when shuri's mother gets all pissed off and there's this moment of complete silence. some kid in the audience goes "she's mad at her" and half the place erupted.

this is a marginal recommendation...i didn't dislike it but it could've been more of a spectacle. wakanda, surprisingly, is somewhat missing here. too much time is spent on the underwater kingdom, which is underwhelming. wakanda has a lot more visual appeal, and it's kind of relegated to just outside shots here and there.

finally, i'm grateful there wasn't an end-credits scene. only a mid-credits scene (that almost feels more like a deleted scene thrown in). i'd say if you liked the first "black panther" this will not live up but it's not terrible. if you're not a fan, you'll really hate this one because of its length.

i'm marvel-fatigued overall but i haven't seen a marvel movie since "no way home". i don't watch any of the shows on disney+.

out of