Age of Ultron is one of the worst, if not the worst, of the MCU movies. It's a truly horrible movie. The only superhero movies it's definitely better than are the likes of Catwoman, Daredevil and Elektra.
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Sam Raimi in talks to direct Doctor Strange 2 (Endorsed by Derrickson)
- Thread starter Deleted member 18025
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Yeah it's not great. Which is a shame because it started so well, up until the end of Ultron's first appearance at the party.
I don't get the utter most love here for Spider-verse, it has great style and music but the story beat is as generic as it can be.
Uhmm.. are people forgetting that Raimi has less than 3 months before shooting this thing ? How excited can you really be under these circumstances ?
Like if they had fired Derrickson after DS1 and immediately hired Raimi, giving him full control and at least 2-3 years to build the sequel, I would have been EXTREMELY HYPED. But now he barely has time, a script and vision he didn't approve.
I hope, at least, Raimi gets to do Dr Strange 2,3 and even a 4th one (If Thor gets one, so should Strange) . His style would work even better here than on Spiderman.
I really REALLY hope Feige keeps Raimi around for at least 2 more Strange films. If they part ways after the 2nd Strange film it will really damage Strange and his franchise. If Raimi gets to do DS2, 3 and end it with 4...that would make it his trilogy. I'm cautiously excited for DS2... but I will be super excited for DS3 if they keep Raimi around.
Like if they had fired Derrickson after DS1 and immediately hired Raimi, giving him full control and at least 2-3 years to build the sequel, I would have been EXTREMELY HYPED. But now he barely has time, a script and vision he didn't approve.
I hope, at least, Raimi gets to do Dr Strange 2,3 and even a 4th one (If Thor gets one, so should Strange) . His style would work even better here than on Spiderman.
I really REALLY hope Feige keeps Raimi around for at least 2 more Strange films. If they part ways after the 2nd Strange film it will really damage Strange and his franchise. If Raimi gets to do DS2, 3 and end it with 4...that would make it his trilogy. I'm cautiously excited for DS2... but I will be super excited for DS3 if they keep Raimi around.
The MCU trend is to shake things up with the third entry (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and Avengers all kinda follow this pattern). I could see him getting to really put his stamp on the third.
That said, I'm sure if he is doing this he'll get a ton of support, and even if this wouldn't have his finger print on every element from the ground up, he'll still be able to inject some of his style where it counts.
I think these are realistic expectations to have:
I'm mainly just glad he's directing again. It's been a while. But this still makes me way more interested in Strange 2.
I bet this movie will be less watered down Raimi than Oz was.
I'm mainly just glad he's directing again. It's been a while. But this still makes me way more interested in Strange 2.
I bet this movie will be less watered down Raimi than Oz was.
Yeah, Sam Raimi is only abusive if you're Bruce Campbell or Ted Raimi. lol
Huh.. James Gunn and Taika Waititi?So they're going to get a director who will have a strong personal vision and directorial style and Disney won't fuck it up?
It's a genuinely profound movie and its messiness plays a role in that. How it deconstructs the idea of Spider-Man to illuminate who Peter is (or has become?) as a person. It's the most emotional and personal movie of the trilogy for me.
lol yeah, these are the only two worth while scenes in the whole movie. AoU is fucking trash. I'd rather sit through Dark World and IM2 again
And that is your opinion, and it's a fine opinion too. Spiderverse was indeed a great movie, but that doesn't mean it has to be the absolute best ever film for everybody 100%. People are allowed to have differing opinions and that is perfectly okay.
It doesn't mean we all need to argue with each other over who is "wrong" or who is "right" about subjective things like films. People's favorite lists will be different, accept that.
BACK ON TOPIC NOW, Raimi directing Dr Strange 2 would still be awesome. :)
As much as I like Spiderverse I DESPISE how much this forum overrated it for me. I watched it late, so I went into the movie with months of "GOAT superhero movie" shoved in my face and in the ended up walking away saying "yeah, it was good, dunno if it was that great." Aside from what you've said, there were people here saying that Kingpin was a great villain, and all I got from his was the usual "wife/kid gone, I'm sad" laziness that I would expect from MCU phase 1/2 villains. It doesn't help that Daredevils version already existed for a point of comparison.
I'd still put the Raimi movies over Spiderverse. But I'd still say it's my favorite animated superhero adaptation, even if that's not a particularly high bar for me.
Tbf the CGI fight scenes in the last act don't seem very Coogler esque
While many seem to think they don't have a style, or they just don't like it, I'd argue the Russo movies also have a lot of their cornerstones and style in them as well. You notice it more if you watch a lot of the Community/Arrested Development episodes they directed.
I haven't seen Community but I would believe it.
I think an argument could be made that Alan Taylor and Peyton Reed are the only Marvel directors that don't have a distinct style.
Quite the upgrade, wasn't looking forward to it that much, but now I do!
I love Spider-Verse, but I'd still put both GotG movies over it.
And Shane Black, IM3 is very much a movie of his (despite the the villain that we got wasn't the one he intended)
You know what else is overrated? Logan.
The shit was barely on par with Winter Soldier, but Patrick Stewart says fuck a couple times and they drew in some extra CG blood, so nerdy manbabies feel like it elevates their stupid action figure movies to a higher plane of artistry.
Eh, it's more they killed everyone off. supposedly that's really the only way to have "steaks" and emotional investment in a movie.
I have an emotional investment in this steak that's for damn sure
I love Spider-Verse.
I also love a lot of MCU movies.
I also love the Raimi Spider-Man movies.
I also love several of the Fox X-Men movies.
I also love a lot of MCU movies.
I also love the Raimi Spider-Man movies.
I also love several of the Fox X-Men movies.
IM3 is such a Shane Black movie you get arguments to this day over whether it's actually the best or the worst Iron Man movie - it's tone and style is so separate from Favreau's
There are very much some heavy "Shakespeare in space" elements to Thor, you can see why they wanted Branagh. You know what, since ERA loves tiers...
Auteur tier - Director fully unleashes their style with minimal oversight
James Gunn - GotG 1 & 2
Taika Waititi - Thor Ragnarok
Jon Favreau - Iron Man
Shane Black - Iron Man 3
Joss Whedon - Avengers
Ryan Coogler - Black Panther
Joe Johnston - Captain America the First Avenger
The Russos - The Winter Soldier, Endgame
Director tier - Director has to make compromises or pull back elements to fit a larger MCU need
Jon Favreau - Iron Man 2
The Russos - Civil War, Infinity War
Kenneth Branagh - Thor
Peyton Reed - Ant Man
Scott Derickson - Dr. Strange
Jon Watts - Spiderman Homecoming, Far From Home
Hack tier - Director really doesn't have a style and / or there's massive amount of corporate hand-holding
Joss Whedon - Avengers Age of Ultron
Peyton Reed - Ant Man and the Wasp
Boden & Fleck - Captain Marvel
Alan Taylor - Thor the Dark World
Louis Leterrier - The Incredible Hulk
It's funny how they make a point Days of Future Past to change the future to a happier ending for the X-Men, where all the characters killed off in X3 are back, only to follow that up with Logan which kills off all the X-Men and most mutants in general. That's the end point for Fox's X-Men: everyone died.
I really liked Logan and Spider-Verse, and would agree that both are better than many MCU movies, but it's also pretty obvious that a certain segment of people on this forum go out of their overhype these movies because of an anti-Marvel axe to grind.
You're missing the best scene of the movie and imo one of the best Marvel scenes ever: Vision and Ultron's last conversation. It sounds corny to say this, but the line "A thing isn't beautiful because it lasts" has really stuck with me all these years later...it's a weirdly, surprisingly sobering thing to hear in a movie like this, and just in general feels like a liberating perspective to have on life.
Because it's an amazingly beautifully made film with a great message and script? Because it has got its heart firmly in the right place? Because it's a technical marvel that shows that not every mainstream animation film needs to be this same old Computer CGI mess that tries to mimick Disney?
I'm not even sure why people are criticizing the apparent 'generic' story. Not every single story needs to be the most mindblowingly original thing in the world. Hell, storywise most/all MCU movies are as generic as they come. Storywise, Avatar is pretty much as generic as they come. That doesn't stop people from really liking those movies.
It's like people complaining about 'predictability' as if it's some inherently bad thing. Yes, when a movie is tauted as one of the most original movies ever made or builds on some great mystery, it's clearly a negative when the movie turns out to be very predictable or pretty standard fare, but not everything needs to be like that. Otherwise you can just argue that it's stupid to get caught up in any big movie, because it's obvious the good guys will win at the end.
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Remarkably on point, although Thor 2 deserves it's own lower tier, and I'd say Infinity War and Endgame kind of exist outside of this list, where it's the culmination of all the movies, and Feige and the Russo's were completely on the same page from the get go (or at least that's how they feel to me).
I can get with that too. I also just loved the moment of seeing him realised and being so happy for Paul Bettany who I really like as an actor but hasn't been in many great movies.
Yeah, I remember in a interview, Whedon said that AoU was his most personal film he's made and pointed out that final scene between Vision and Ultron. It's really too bad the Marvel Creative Committee fucked him creatively on that film.
It's wild that this all started with Bettany doing like 30 minutes of ADR in a sound booth and is now this full character who was a central part of one of the biggest movies of all time and is now starring in his own streaming series.
Yeah, although there's not meant to be rankings within the tiers, I'd should have definitely put Thor 2 at the bottom rather than TIH.
I feel that Infinity War and Civil War had to check some very important boxes for the overall MCU story, so while I agree that they're more director driven than we give them credit for, they're not quite at the level of Winter Soldier (which quite often get's singled out for having a very pronounced shift in tone and style) and Endgame (which subverted everyone's expectations with how the first half of that move went).
I'm sorry, but when people are flat out saying it's the best superhero movie/Marvel movie of all time, we're gonna inevitably ask for receipts and compare its aspects to other movies. Totes agree on the animation aspect. We need more films like this to break the "animation is for kids" barrier that seems to be persistent in the west, so I get celebrating that.
You wanted to quit watching MCU movies because a nobody director got replaced?
I feel like I've made a clear enough distinction between "quitting the MCU" and "still wanting to see Spider-Man and Dr. Strange movies".
I didn't want to watch Dr. Strange 2 after Derricksons departion because the first one is one of the few MCU movies I genuinely liked + from what we've been hearing he wanted to make more of a horror movie, which would've been intriguing. I don't like the direction of having so many other MCU characters appear in the movie either. But like I said, Raimi directing is slowly bringing me back to the movie.
I mean, I do think Spider-Verse is far ahead of any film in the MCU on those aspects. Especially on the note of message and thematic coherence, the MCU can learn a lot from Spider-Verse. The only MCU movie that comes even close to attaining the same kind of thematic coherence as Spider-Verse are GotG 2 and, in lesser capacity, Thor Ragnarok. The rest usually stumbles and falls on thematic relevance in the last third of the movie. Black Panther and Winter Soldier (otherwise two of my favourite MCU movies) are especially egregious in that regard.
Spider-Verse is also way more visually striking than the MCU, which is quite boring visually. This is not necessarily taking into account the fact that Spider-Verse is animated. Spider-Verse just is so much better than the MCU in creating memorable visual scenes, while the MCU's most memorable visuals are scenes copied from comic book pages.
Then there's the "generic" argument that I was replying to. It's incredibly silly to single out Spider-Verse as being generic in comparison to the MCU, because the MCU is one of the poster children of generic Hollywood storytelling. Not that that's necessarily bad, since the MCU movies are clearly not trying to reach some high level of original storytelling, but it's not like any movie in the MCU had a particularly surprising story. Their main trick is a gimmick (endlessly connected universe), that in the end stands more in the way of the originality than it enhances it, since we have multiple stories of Marvel Studios interfering with directors and writers to make sure the story fits the wider universe.
He made the Evil Dead movies, Darkman, The Quick and the Dead, the Spider-Man trilogy, Drag Me To Hell and Oz the Great and Powerful.
He's had some lows but also some pretty high highs.