Marvels

Who would have thought that Marvel will go against the trends and serve us a movie under two hours for the fourth time in 2 years. The question is if it's not just out of necessity, as Marvels has only the main three heroines, which I didn't mind by themselves, but otherwise a completely mediocre plot with a completely lackluster and absolutely uninteresting antagonist (I don't want to remember the actress's name and I hope I never see her again) and unfortunately, the usual humor for kids, which annoyed me from the beginning to the end, and I never laughed once. Especially Kamalina's family annoyed me extremely and it's absurd how Disney tries to give minorities space and in the series turns them into silly national caricatures. Well, not even Fury saved it. Surprisingly, I quite liked the first installment despite the hate back then; I was in the cinema several times, but here the third star was saved only and exclusively by the end credits scene. (09.11.2023)

Better than Quantumania and I do believe Nia DaCosta is a talented director. The problem is that she said she wanted to make a film that her young daughter would enjoy watching. And that's it. The target audience for this mess is somewhere between the ages of five and early adolescence, and the rest of us are probably going to have a hard time digesting this over-the-top girl-power manifesto, and with a female villain who is the biggest casting blunder in the entire Marvel franchise. Yes, it's got one funny idea (the scene to the music of A.L. Webber), but watching the rest of it is only entertaining in its reassurance of how Marvel is in a downhill and doesn't know which way to go. (18.01.2024)

A below-average and obviously mismanaged Marvel film, which impresses with unexpectedly decent action scenes and some chemistry between the central trio. Apart from that, it can only offer a not very interesting story, boring visuals and really very poor attempts to work with the characters and their psychology. And some really really idiotic ideas. It's not a complete blunder like, say, the latest Thor, but it's not a good movie either. (09.11.2023)

I am terribly sorry that genre viewer fatigue, fandom toxicity (who says there isn't any here, let them browse any discussion forum), and unfortunate timing collided here of all places. Of course, I can respect the fact that many people get lost in the universe and that this is the intersection that demonstrates most clearly that escaping from such a labyrinth is not easy. It's not just about connecting two film series; here you have to immediately check out multiple TV series, where Ms. Marvel and WandaVision are an absolute must if the experience is going to make any sense. Also refresh your memory/rewatch Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame, arrange an approximate timeline, remember all the features that this shuffled universe includes, will include, or could include. It's an endless task; and just because I enjoy it, it doesn't mean everyone else does too, and honestly, going to the cinema to unwind yet not being able to relax completely is a completely understandable objection. Unfortunately, I feel that the audience here has refused even to meet the film halfway, and of course that will inevitably harm the result. And when they're down, why not kick them again. Marvels shines with unparalleled light for me. I don't know exactly how they did it, because the script is a bit messy in terms of genre, connecting the main Marvels with Monica could have ended up as a forced digression, but just the opposite. The power of friendship, that ordinary driving force of many adventure blockbusters, is in first place here, with a classic smaller team in second, and fighting an understandable villain in strange new worlds in third. It recalls classic adventure movies, where there is humor, likable actors, beautiful actresses, and super heroes the viewer wants to see over and over again. All of that is here, on a silver platter. Don't let this feast disgust you, one day we will miss it. (22.12.2023)

On paper, it meets the quota. A girly Marvel movie with an unlikeable and downright repulsive villain packed with visual effects. There's no shortage of environmental overtones, even saving the sun at the end. The script connects series characters, but simply to somehow link them to what's happening on the silver screen. The biggest WTF is the Planet of the Songs, which is probably the thing my four-year-old daughter will like best. The secret invasion doesn't make sense after that (I guess it took place in another reality), and the cats save the day. Somehow. Pretty pointless episode defying physics, logic, but it goes by pretty quickly. Zawe Ashton is disgusting. Brie Larson is awfully nice, especially in a sports bra. Too bad she's not getting better scripts. (08.11.2023)

From the first trailer, this light-hearted-looking film with three heroines is very much about the heroines, and it's light-hearted to boot. Oh, yeah. I really liked The Marvels, perhaps because I wasn't expecting a second Civil War, perhaps because I don't mind switching and looking at different movies through different eyes. So I enjoyed not only the interplay of the central trio, but also looking for that interplay, with the most important role played by the perfect Iman Vellani as Kamala. It's hard to imagine a better guide through the Marvels story than an enthusiastic teenage girl who finally made it from a show to a movie and from dreams to their realization. The film is light, fun, colorful, has an understandably driven female villain, an absolutely great score (Laura Karpman, do some Star Wars, please), including a musical passage where Disney kind of pokes fun at itself, imaginative action passages with character flipping, effective humor in scenes like "Nick Fury and Kamala's family", as if cut from an Emmerich flick,... And there are cats and Cats! The most likeable Marvel movie in a long time. (16.11.2023)

The Marvels relies on an all-female (super)heroic cast, but this can have its pitfalls. I'll start by saying that I was expecting a more feminist-tinged charge, but The Marvels keeps a pretty low profile in this regard. What couldn't be overlooked, however, was the very blatant targeting of the girl audience in places: we haven't had this many girls (and babes, for which I give a thumbs up though). The BFF-line was too forced, and the post-credit scene only sealed this "blatant targeting". But whatever! Fortunately, The Marvels has an optimal running time and offers clear and brisk action, but it also has a reprehensibly bland villain and a couple of WTF-moments (the Bollywood-tinged visit to Aladna was, ahem, weird). All in all, marginally better than Ant-Man 3. (12.11.2023)

Just another (boring) Marvel. I expected The Marvels to be the weakest addition mainly because of the boring characters, but in the end that's actually the only thing keeping the film afloat. Which isn't outright praise, as they're definitely not "good", it’s just that the rest of them are sadly worse. Cpt Marvel is uninteresting because she can literally do anything, Ms Marvel on the other hand is tragic because she can actually do almost nothing and the only thing that saves her is her character because as a young, natural and funny girl she's actually a pretty cool addition to the superhero family. Anyway, the rest of it is just classic generic sh*t that I'm tired of watching over and over again, and I'm really hoping that because of The Marvels’ ridiculous almost garbage rating, the studio will finally wake up and break out of this tragic loop of spinning boring repeats without any innovation. The story is boring, the villain is horribly uninteresting, the action has no juice and the whole thing is actually a completely pointless mess. The only good thing is that it's finally time for the X-Men and their connection to the universe, finally!!! (14.11.2023)

I disagree with Scorsese's take on the MCU not being cinema but rather a theme park. Even in a theme park, you have to put in some effort to make it look presentable in order to make profit. Marvel has become a product that seems to have forgotten about logic, storytelling, and most importantly, the audience. And well, the audience has spoken with their wallets and made it pretty clear to Disney that they're not digging this direction. It feels like Marvel is catering to a specific target audience, but definitely not the one that made the MCU the phenomenon it once was. Now, don't get me wrong. It's not as much of a trainwreck as Eternals, and some of the action scenes are actually pretty well shot. But the overwhelming sense of boredom and helplessness? That's hard to shake off. If I had to pinpoint just one of the many annoying aspects, it'd be Samuel L. Jackson's lackluster performance. It feels like he showed up, recited a few lines, collected his paycheck, and couldn't care less about anything else. It's probably one of the most half-hearted performances of his career. MCU Phase 4 was a misstep, and Phase 5 seems to be following down this downward spiral. (22.02.2024)