What I don't get is how Hollywood has apparently ignored the lesson of Spiderman 3 where they simply tried to do WAY too much in one movie and unsuccessfully tried to pull off 3 villain plots.

Iron Man 3 was just all over the place, The extremis plot, the Mandarin plot, Tony's little mental breakdown thing, the kid sidekick thing. It was so unfocused. Instead of doing one story well, they tried to pull of 3-4 stories poorly.

Maya Hansen was pretty crucial to the comic book Extremis story, but in the movie she was completely useless and was nothing but another woman for Tony to flirt with.

Couple of things that stood out most:
Michael Shannon (general Zod) apparently took voice-coaching lessons from Jeff Bridges
Superman was considerably less gay this time, and Lois Lane was soft and smooth and girly (plus Amy Adams has the natural reddish-brown hair of the comic book Lois Lane)

Otherwise the damn thing was preposterous....OH, and the CGI of the attack on the city?? Wholly unbelievable (i.e. the segment when Metropolis is under attack and all the central characters at ground zero miraculously survive).

I entered this scene through rejection and honesty
Nerds weren't mean, they were weird and that worked for me
After 10 years of teasing when social skills failed me
Dungeons & Dragons cured all that ailed me

We read books, we played games, we made art, we watched Lost
We said things like "D20", "shipping" and "Mana cost"
It felt good to be myself, not being mocked
Still self-conscious, though, we whispered things about jocks

But one day, you grow up, come into your own
Now geek's not rejection - it's a label I own
Then ignorant haters come to prove me wrong
Tell me I'm not nerdy enough to belong

I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to prove

Fake Geek Girl test - that's a funny one, go ahead
How many comic books are there I haven't read?
I know it feels good to have a contest you win
It would feel even better if I wanted in

So women aren't geeks, so is that your conclusion?
That this is some secret club based on exclusion?
12-year-old dorks would say you're being selfish
And then they'd go write in their journals in Elvish

I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to prove

I've got cred but honestly, I shouldn't need it
This world needs all kinds of folks to complete it
You've got gamers, and artists and comic subscribers
Cosplayers, crafters and fan-fiction writers

You can stop - never say "fake geek" again
Our club needs no bouncers - all who want in get in
But go ahead, if you want, to own that role fully
I ain't got nothing to prove to a bully!

I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to prove
I've got nothing to prove

Haters are gonna hate

Oh, well then you'll love the original 300!

The first one is based, nearly shot for shot, on a graphic novel by Frank Miller. Hence the comic book styling and super-natural element.

Yeah!

The original 300 is way more visceral though. It's basically war-porn. It is pretty historically inaccurate, sometimes historically offensive, just like the comic book it's based on.

Also, it has about as much story as a boxing match.

If people watched it with the idea that its a comic book done in live action they would think its a great movie. The story is weak and cliche and the visuals are over the top,,, just like our favorite comics

Isn't that the Negative Zone? I'm fairly certain it works like however Marvel wants it to work. Sort of like the Power Cosmic. Stupid review judging it as a movie outside the bounds of comic book conventions.

Comics are silly, convoluted, and prefer form over function:

1. Thor and Iron Man are required to have pissing contests.
2. Sunglasses and eye patches make people without super powers look badass.
3. Banner on a motorcycle is a good juxtaposition against his Hulky-jump-through-the-air travel form.
4. Loki is a conceited god so the Iron Man delay works -- didn't this reviewer. already assess that Loki was there to convert and not kill?
5. Of course CAPTAIN AMERICA just jumped from a plane. Idiot.
6. Did he just judge the movie according the Captain America's silly costume? Idiot.
7. No lap dance? He wants to watch the Russian dude give Black Widow a lap dance? I'm confused.
8. Bad guys running laps happens in... most action films with bad guys that need to fill in some time and guide direction visually. Reeeaaaally dumb criticism.
9. Plasma screens? You'd prefer to see a cell phone and then a split screen with 4 other people on cell phones? WTF
10. Loki's scepter is also a space phone??? My phone is also a camera, GPS, medical adviser, blogging tool, gaming device, and if I could download an app that performed mind control, I would. Loki is a god so he can.
11. The hellicarrier was created by Jack Kirby. Fuck you, this is an Avengers movie.
12. Sweeping cameras may sound silly, but comic book logic dictates that this is fine. Why not?
13. His criticism of little girls being able to find Bruce Banner is a criticism of our emotional attachment to the Gavroche, not the Avengers. Is the mystique of a street smart urchin gone from our collective unconscious?
14. Hawkeye's virus arrow is perfectly executed and makes sense according to his abilities.
15. Thor being easily tricked by Loki using low brow tactics is true even in Norse mythology. What exactly are we critiquing here?
16. Loki's objective in being captured is partly him being an overly confidant asshole god. He's just sort of going around half cocked because he can and likes to do so. The gods aren't smarter than us, just more powerful and with magical abilities that trump technology. In fact, this means they don't need to try as hard and would definitely be candidates in the personality disorder department. Hell, for all we know they could suffer from intellectual disorders that would never have become an issue (aside from making them stupidly violent) considering their power.
17. Hawkeye versus Black Widow is not cool? Damn.
18. Fury also gave an intimidating death stare in Jurassic Park when Nedry's "Ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word" security screen pops up. HOLD ONTO YOUR BUTTS. I liked the half reference.
19. If you have trouble understanding the powers of Mjölnir, why do you also complain about the plodding exposition?! These things require exposition and it's so arbitrary that it becomes plodding. Comics are FILLED with plodding exposition because of this and there's a point where you just have to know the characters. Do they explain superman's laser eyes in the movies? Actually... do they?
20. Black Widow is a weapons expert, including theoretical weaponry.
21. In the comics Hulk learns to control his powers and can even be intellectual in said form.
22. The alien invasion would do more damage than a nuclear bomb. These villains enslave entire worlds.
23. The ending requires homework??? THE ENTIRE SERIES OF MOVIES REQUIRES HOMEWORK.


That being said, I agree with a good number of the points:

1. The tesseract was a rebranding of the Cosmic Cube which has a long history in the Marvel universe. (So I guess this movie was made for comic book fans?)
2. Well lit facility. There should have been some sort of cloaking shield around it, which is perfectly acceptable in a comic book world, if not the real.
3. Cap's bet. I don't believe Cap would have done that because it isn't just.
4. Speaking in English to Germans. It would have been cool to hear him speak in German. Damn!
5. Hawkeye's arrow fucking up the hellicarrier. However, I could see this happening in a comic book, I just don't like it.
6. Captain America's ear piece and bad aim.
7. Tesseract mind control wearing off after blunt trauma.
8. Cap's super powers are kinda lame in these movies, but I'm sure if they weren't, then this review would contain criticism about how his human fists can smash through metal.
9. The aliens are a pretty shitty replacement for the Skrulls. This is what makes me the saddest.
10. Imiatating transformers... this bugged the crap out of me when I first saw the trailer. UGH!
11. Thor's lightning must have a long cooldown.
12. Yeah, it was pretty lame when the aliens died after they were cut off from the mother ship. Inferior to the Skrulls fo sho.

Fun, but incredibly picky.
It's a comic-book movie!!!!!

What an insightful nitpick of a comment.

Do you enjoy comic books?

WTF is with the internet and nit picking every little detail about movies these days? Does this make them think they're being really insightful? Just makes them Comic Book Guy level nerds/douchebags

Ugh. Another "with great power, comes great responsibility", preachy, overly oppressive, dark but "cool" superhero movie trailer. If it's indicative of what the full movie will bring, I'll pass. When did comic book movies lose their sense of fun? Why SO serious? (pun intended)

Want to know why Iron Man (1) was such a hit? Because it was fun. Same with Superman (1978). Or The Avengers. Emulate those movies and not the heaviness of Batman all the time.

Oh, and don't swing the other way too far either. The world only needs one Superman III.

You know what, I grew up reading comic books and they're all so stupidly filled with stupid shit, does it really matter? Batman standing atop a skyscrapper is one of the prime examples of why he is so AWESOME. FUCK. Show me any Batman media that isn't silly and full of made up nonsense and I'll be a Superman fan instead. Go watch Ghost World, it's about as realistic as comic book movie adaptations go. A dude that dresses up like a bat is not just something that villains laugh about -- IT'S SILLY.

I'm not expecting anything good out of this one. I mean, I didn't care for Star Trek (2009) either, but at least that one had some of the elements of what Star Trek was about. This looks like a run of the mill comic-book action movie.
I remember when Star Trek was about exploration, philosophy, politics, and discovery. Now it's become something much more mundane, and that's kind of sad, not just on the part of Hollywood, but also on the part of the general public, who can't seem to appreciate the deeper things nowadays.

Also, just because it's a movie doesn't mean you need to focus on some villain on a quest for vengeance all the time. Anyone remember Star Trek VI? I actually consider that to be the best of the Star Trek movies, with its deconstruction of the collapse of communism and how it affected those who lived in that era. Sure it wasn't as tight as Star Trek II, but it had a much greater impact.

Besides, whenever they try to do an amazing, new villain to rival Khan, they always forget to make the villain compelling and interesting. Khan had this advantage because of his background in Space Seed, whereas villains like Shinzon and Nero are bland and undeveloped. (Well, at least effort was made with Shinzon, but they failed to make him a compelling, sympathetic villain. Nero wasn't supposed to upstage the origin story of the crew, but in that case, was he really needed?)

Anyway, I've been kind of ranting about this with friends lately, and I guess that's spilled over to VS now. But that's my position, and I stand by it.

I'll field this. Dark Knight rises came on the tails of the two best comic book movies for one of the best comic book characters ever made. Batman Begins was amazing when you compare it to Batman movies of old and then Dark Knight was probably the greatest action movie ever made, it was incredible.

The bar was raised super high, and people had a problem with the last movie. I think it honestly wasn't tight enough...Dark Knight is tight as a drum, Rises simply isn't. It meanders, it's just unbelievable at times, it doesn't handle some of it's new characters well at all. Although there's moments in that movie that are great, I feel it's second half really failed.

What I can see is there was simply too much they wanted to do...so guess what cut it into two movies. One is Dark Knight Falls and then Dark Knight Rises. I would've loved it, hell Hobbit is suddenly 3 movies so don't tell me Nolan couldn't make this stuff into two, it would've ROCKED.

!SPOILERS!

The ending wasn't handled well either but the argument to change it is weird too. Some people say Alfred should see Batman and Catwoman and just smile, and we never see them. To me if Nolan did that it would've been hacky and exactly the same as the ending to Inception.

As a whole, this trilogy is better than the original Star Wars Trilogy, based on story and characters alone. It's MUCH better you don't know anything if you disagree. Also just like Return of the Jedi is a disappointment (More Ewoks MUST DIE!) so is Rises, yet I'll still watch it.

Oh ok nice to know as I can't say I'm a massive comic book fan. That said surely bringing Osbourne is asking for trouble (re Sony owning Spidey).

And still iron patriot? never heard of him - trailer looks on first view to be making Tony even less alcoholic and more American.

>> ^CheshireSmile:


he's called the Iron Patriot and is a regular suit in the comics, where it's piloted by norman osbourne. interested in seeing who's in it here.