LTTP: Captain Marvel (CM Spoilers, but please no Endgame spoilers)

[Veelk]

This bullshit right here is just as antithetical to the meaningful evaluation of an artistic work as the nonsense coming from the red-pilled hate brigade. She just gave a bland, robotic, unremarkable performance. It's ok to say so. Hemsworth turned in four of them before they found an interesting take on his character. She'll have plenty more opportunities to leave a mark without stans gaslighting people into celebrating mediocrity.

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Not really. The problem with these claims is that your not really framing them in a discussion-based framework. You claim she gave a bland, robotic, unremarkable performance. I think she did just fine. She was snarky when the situation called for it, she was sad when bad stuff happened, etc, and that's all I really need to be satisfied with an actors performance. And for that matter, I actually would praise Helmsworth performance in the first movie, that has a distinct theatrical tinge that others did not.

I'm not saying that you can't think she's bland and bad, but no one who ever makes the 'it's bland' comments your making ever actually goes into even that much detail to back up their claims. They just say it and act as if it's a given fact that every should just accept. And that is why the Red Pill brigade finds it so easy to disguise their hate as legitimate criticism. Because there's an anti-intellectualist bend to all this shit. You say that she was bland and I'm supposed to just accept and believe it without you having to do any of the leg work of you validating it. If you really feel it's such a detriment to the film, then why don't you provide examples? And why not explain why the parts where she does emote aren't effective enough? And why did acting that way harmed the story in a holistic, material way?

Which is the actual reason that the redpill hate brigade is able to hide behind legit criticism. It's often thoughtless, imprecise, poorly explained, and just expected to be taken on it's own merits. Furthermore, even while Chris Helmsworth didn't get praised for his acting in the first few thor movies, that still doesn't change the claim that I've never once seen anyone say that he wasn't emotional enough. Which is the thing I was actually making note of: THat even the performances of male actors that aren't praised do not get criticized in the way that Brie and WW were. That's not stanning for Brie, it's just making the nuetral observation that there seems to be a greater quantity of attention paid to whether women emote vs men.

 

[RochHoch]

Low tier MCU movie

It's not nearly as bad as Thor 2 or Iron Man 2, but it's still not great. I did not think Carol was all that interesting, so I hope they improve on that going forward.

 

[V_Arnold]

Stanning for Brie? I have never seen any one of her previous films. This was a first. She acted better than Hemsworth. Also, she was supposed to be a detached, smirky persona, and that got through properly. And indeed, as Veelk pointed out, Hemsworth never got one tenth of the criticism she did.

 

[captive]

I thought it was really good, fun, lighter hearted movie.
There's not some super corny over the top big bad the hero(s) has to kill.

The flerkin stuff was fucking hilarious.

I'm not surprised many super serious™ Era people don't like it.

 

[Terminus]

Not really. The problem with these claims is that your not really framing them in a discussion-based framework. You claim she gave a bland, robotic, unremarkable performance. I think she did just fine. She was snarky when the situation called for it, she was sad when bad stuff happened, etc, and that's all I really need to be satisfied with an actors performance. And for that matter, I actually would praise Helmsworth performance in the first movie, that has a distinct theatrical tinge that others did not.

I'm not saying that you can't think she's bland and bad, but no one who ever makes the 'it's bland' comments your making ever actually goes into even that much detail to back up their claims. They just say it and act as if it's a given fact that every should just accept. And that is why the Red Pill brigade finds it so easy to disguise their hate as legitimate criticism. Because there's an anti-intellectualist bend to all this shit. You say that she was bland and I'm supposed to just accept and believe it without you having to do any of the leg work of you validating it. If you really feel it's such a detriment to the film, then why don't you provide examples? And why not explain why the parts where she does emote aren't effective enough? And why did acting that way harmed the story in a holistic, material way?

Which is the actual reason that the redpill hate brigade is able to hide behind legit criticism. It's often thoughtless, imprecise, poorly explained, and just expected to be taken on it's own merits. Furthermore, even while Chris Helmsworth didn't get praised for his acting in the first few thor movies, that still doesn't change the claim that I've never once seen anyone say that he wasn't emotional enough. Which is the thing I was actually making note of: THat even the performances of male actors that aren't praised do not get criticized in the way that Brie and WW were. That's not stanning for Brie, it's just making the nuetral observation that there seems to be a greater quantity of attention paid to whether women emote vs men.

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I'm not saying that you need to agree, I'm saying that you need to leave space for people to legitimately disagree. It sounds like you theoretically accept that notion, but this idea that a perfectly reasonable opinion about a movie needs to come packaged with an exhaustively sourced, comprehensively formulated supporting treatise in every instance it's mentioned, lest it be labeled sexist and dismissed out of hand as misogynistic bad faith action, is ridiculous. If someone puts a meal in front of you that tastes like cardboard, what is there to really say about it? It's bland and tastes like cardboard.

And to be perfectly honest, I think her performance in CM is actually worse than Hemsworth at his lowest, and is probably tied with Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange as the most lackluster turn from a solo lead in the MCU. I think the character has tremendous narrative potential and I want to see a great movie about her someday. I will not, however, be rewatching this one to compile a laundry list of hypergranular changes I think she should have made in each of her scenes to produce a more engaging performance. She can go talk to Scarlett if she really wants the perspective of someone who somehow manages to make interesting acting choices every time she inhabits a clinical, emotionally repressed character.

And it's crazy that I have to say this, but as a disclaimer I think Brie Larson is a delightful human being who has done phenomenal work in the past.

 

[RDreamer]

I honestly thought the more 'robotic' performance was a bit of a choice. She's a memoryless kree weapon. Personality usually comes from memory. She opened up as the movie went on and got more personal and light. I thought it worked in context.

 

[Veelk]

I'm not saying that you need to agree, I'm saying that you need to leave space for people to legitimately disagree. It sounds like you theoretically accept that notion, but this idea that a perfectly reasonable opinion about a movie needs to come packaged with an exhaustively sourced, comprehensively formulated supporting treatise in every instance it's mentioned, lest it be labeled sexist and dismissed out of hand as misogynistic bad faith action, is ridiculous. If someone puts a meal in front of you that tastes like cardboard, what is there to really say about it? It's bland and tastes like cardboard.

And to be perfectly honest, I think her performance in CM is actually worse than Hemsworth at his lowest, and is probably tied with Cumberbatch in Doctor Strange as the most lackluster turn from a solo lead in the MCU. I think the character has tremendous narrative potential and I want to see a great movie about her someday. I will not, however, be rewatching this one to compile a laundry list of hypergranular changes I think she should have made in each of her scenes to produce a more engaging performance. She can go talk to Scarlett if she really wants the perspective of someone who somehow manages to make interesting acting choices every time she inhabits a clinical, emotionally repressed character.

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First, while I agree with you that this isn't fair, this is the situation that alt-right discourse has put people in. Hatred of women is disguised as legitimate critique, which makes people hyper defensive when it comes to bland, empty critiques like 'she bad actor'. It isn't that If you don't write me an essay on why you think Brie is so much worse that must mean you are a misogynist: It's that if you don't give me concrete reasons that explain why you think what you think but still insist on making this a massive talking point, then I have no way of knowing whether this comes from a genuine place of critique or sexist bias. If you don't want to be put in that light, then you have to support your opinion with actual substance, or else I have no way of actually knowing what your motivations are.

And more to the point, neither do you. That might sound unintuitive, but even if you think your being fair to Brie in your judgement, you might not actually be. That's how bias works, you don't know that your brain is actually putting it's finger on the scale. That's why employers who believe they are fairly evaluating a person are surprised when they learn that they grade women and people of color on different standards once they are actually tested for it. This happens to EVERYONE, not just MRA fucks. Hell, I would probably be shown to have some kind of bias if I was tested on this ground.

So whats the best way to keep that bias in check? Scrutinize yourself. Make double sure that you have substantial reasons for having whatever opinion you have. Ask, examine, verify, etc. So, for the third time, if Brie Larson has a substantially significantly worse performance, then I expect you to be able to back up why that is. This isn't me dismissing you as having a bad faith opinion out of hand, this is me telling you to have better formed opinions.


And besides all that, even once you take out the gender discussion, this isn't a bad thing. Do you have any idea how banal and uninteresting discussion is the way it is now. "I like thing!" "Yeah, thing is awesome, loved it when Person did the awesome thing" "You're all crazy, thing sucks!" It's relatively harmless when discussing non-social issues I guess, but it's not good discussion. You say Brie had a terrible performance, I thought she was fine. Whose right, who has better points? As of now, neither of us. There's nothing to discuss, it's just opinion a vs opinion b, with nothing to differentiate if one is more valid than the other, because neither of us have substantiated our reasons for thinking this.

There is nothing valuable in a discussion where we just blurt out contrasting opinions at each other if they aren't supported by anything. So substantiate your opinions. It's good for us, it's good for you, and it's good for discussion all around. And if you can't or don't want to do that, then I don't see why I shouldn't be dismissive of you. Not just because you might have trash motivation for that opinion, but that it's a trash opinion as a whole.

 

[DeltaRed]

It's a pretty bland movie, on the same level as Dr Strange I guess but without the crazy visuals. Young Fury is probably the best thing about it.

 

[Turin]

*shrug*

I liked it more than a lot of these MCU movies.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

My biggest problem is she's just too OP. I don't know where they can take her next.

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Same. Far to powerful. She shows up every other character who's had 3 movies.

Goes toe to toe with Thanos. Jobs Ronan the Accuser.

Loved the film, she just should have been a thing until after End Game.

 

[Terminus]

First, while I agree with you that this isn't fair, this is the situation that alt-right discourse has put people in. Hatred of women is disguised as legitimate critique, which makes people hyper defensive when it comes to bland, empty critiques like 'she bad actor'. It isn't that If you don't write me an essay on why you think Brie is so much worse that must mean you are a misogynist: It's that if you don't give me concrete reasons that explain why you think what you think but still insist on making this a massive talking point, then I have no way of knowing whether this comes from a genuine place of critique or sexist bias. If you don't want to be put in that light, then you have to support your opinion with actual substance, or else I have no way of actually knowing what your motivations are.

And more to the point, neither do you. That might sound unintuitive, but even if you think your being fair to Brie in your judgement, you might not actually be. That's how bias works, you don't know that your brain is actually putting it's finger on the scale. That's why employers who believe they are fairly evaluating a person are surprised when they learn that they grade women and people of color on different standards once they are actually tested for it. This happens to EVERYONE, not just MRA fucks. Hell, I would probably be shown to have some kind of bias if I was tested on this ground.

So whats the best way to keep that bias in check? Scrutinize yourself. Make double sure that you have substantial reasons for having whatever opinion you have. Ask, examine, verify, etc. So, for the third time, if Brie Larson has a substantially significantly worse performance, then I expect you to be able to back up why that is. This isn't me dismissing you as having a bad faith opinion out of hand, this is me telling you to have better formed opinions.


And besides all that, even once you take out the gender discussion, this isn't a bad thing. Do you have any idea how banal and uninteresting discussion is the way it is now. "I like thing!" "Yeah, thing is awesome, loved it when Person did the awesome thing" "You're all crazy, thing sucks!" It's relatively harmless when discussing non-social issues I guess, but it's not good discussion. You say Brie had a terrible performance, I thought she was fine. Whose right, who has better points? As of now, neither of us. There's nothing to discuss, it's just opinion a vs opinion b, with nothing to differentiate if one is more valid than the other, because neither of us have substantiated our reasons for thinking this.

There is nothing valuable in a discussion where we just blurt out contrasting opinions at each other if they aren't supported by anything. So substantiate your opinions. It's good for us, it's good for you, and it's good for discussion all around. And if you can't or don't want to do that, then I don't see why I shouldn't be dismissive of you. Not just because you might have trash motivation for that opinion, but that it's a trash opinion as a whole.

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You can save the meandering soapbox sermon about sexist bias for someone else. I think Saldana & Gillen are two of the best players in the MCU and they, like Johansson, are inhabiting abused, emotionally repressed, hypercompetent women, yet they all run circles around Larson. She is the sole female hero across this entire saga whom I've felt wasn't really selling the part.

Yeah, this is all opinion vs. opinion. That's all it will ever be. We're not going to arrive at some universal, incontestable truth if we talk about a movie for long enough. I, like many others, felt that her performance was flat and lifeless, and that the film as a whole was rendered less engaging as a result. How can I quantify that subjective emotional response for you? Should I measure the variability of her vocal pitch, cadence, and intonation across all of her scenes and compare that with RDJ's in Iron Man? Should I calculate the exact percentage of shot coverage in which she's rooted stiffly in place on a single mark versus dynamically moving throughout a scene? Should I poll a thousand people and ask them "do you believe a human being would respond with this facial expression when presented with this earth-shattering revelation"?

You can write off whomever you like, but calling the widely-shared and perfectly reasonable sentiment "lead actor gave a lackluster performance" an inherently trash opinion smacks of overly-invested fanboyism.

 

[Veelk]

You can save the meandering soapbox sermon about sexist bias for someone else. I think Saldana & Gillen are two of the best players in the MCU and they, like Johansson, are inhabiting abused, emotionally repressed, hypercompetent women, yet they all run circles around Larson.

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That doesn't actually prove anything. A lot of sexist people like women, based on selective criteria. You may as well be arguing "how can men from the 1950's have been sexist of so many of them married women"

Yeah, this is all opinion vs. opinion. That's all it will ever be. We're not going to arrive at some universal, incontestable truth if we talk about a movie for long enough. I, like many others, felt that her performance was flat and lifeless, and that the film as a whole was rendered less engaging as a result. How can I quantify that subjective emotional response for you? Should I measure the variability of her vocal pitch, cadence, and intonation across all of her scenes and compare that with RDJ's in Iron Man? Should I calculate the exact percentage of shot coverage in which she's rooted stiffly in place on a single mark versus dynamically moving throughout a scene? Should I poll a thousand people and ask them "do you believe a human being would respond with this facial expression when presented with this earth-shattering revelation"?

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See, this is the kind of shit that sets people's bullshit detectors off. What kind of metric should you use? That's up to you. I'm on my phone, but earlier on I decided to just skip through captain marvel and see check various scenes to see how well she emotes. I even took a few screenshots of an exchange she had with fury that demonstrated her comedic pacing, where she went from confused, to making a wry face as she snarked at him, to mildly annoyed when he came back at her with a better snark.

At this point, your arguing simply explaining why a character performance was good is some herculean task of ridiculous and impossible proportions and its really not. Hell, Honest trailers did it when they made their video on cap marvel. I didn't fully agree with the selection, but its literally that easy to just find and example and go "see how deadpan she is". It's not that hard.

You can write off whomever you like, but calling the widely-shared sentiment "lead actor gave a lackluster performance" an inherently trash opinion smacks of overly-invested fanboyism.

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Because your not listening to what I'm saying. The reason I'm saying it's trash is because it's unsubstantiated. If our positions were reversed and you were trying to say that you opinion that brie put out the best performance in the mcu but didn't want to give any examples or rationale for why that is, that would also be a trash opinion. And I said that brie was alright, but haven't given an in depth examination why she wasnt bad but not overly good either, so my opinion right now is trash as well. And it will remain trash until I do that in depth analysis, which I might not do because I don't really care enough to do so.

All your basically saying through these posts is that you want your opinion to be recognized as worth while and valid as someone who would put effort into explaining themselves, and it just isn't nor should it be. If you want me take you more seriously, then substantiate yourself. If not, that's okay as well, but then why should I or anyone else give you credence on anything?

 

[BDS]

widely-shared and perfectly reasonable sentiment "lead actor gave a lackluster performance" an inherently trash opinion smacks of overly-invested fanboyism.

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A lot of people eat paste or vote for Trump, the fact that it's widely-done doesn't mean it isn't batshit stupid.

 

[Edgar]

That doesn't actually prove anything. A lot of sexist people like women, based on selective criteria. You may as well be arguing "how can men from the 1950's have been sexist of so many of them married women"



See, this is the kind of shit that sets people's bullshit detectors off. What kind of metric should you use? That's up to you. I'm on my phone, but earlier on I decided to just skip through captain marvel and see check various scenes to see how well she emotes. I even took a few screenshots of an exchange she had with fury that demonstrated her comedic pacing, where she went from confused, to making a wry face as she snarked at him, to mildly annoyed when he came back at her with a better snark.

At this point, your arguing simply explaining why a character performance was good is some herculean task of ridiculous and impossible proportions and its really not. Hell, Honest trailers did it when they made their video on cap marvel. I didn't fully agree with the selection, but its literally that easy to just find and example and go "see how deadpan she is". It's not that hard.


Because your not listening to what I'm saying. The reason I'm saying it's trash is because it's unsubstantiated. If our positions were reversed and you were trying to say that you opinion that brie put out the best performance in the mcu but didn't want to give any examples or rationale for why that is, that would also be a trash opinion. And I said that brie was alright, but haven't given an in depth examination why she wasnt bad but not overly good either, so my opinion right now is trash as well. And it will remain trash until I do that in depth analysis, which I might not do because I don't really care enough to do so.

All your basically saying through these posts is that you want your opinion to be recognized as worth while and valid as someone who would put effort into explaining themselves, and it just isn't nor should it be. If you want me take you more seriously, then substantiate yourself. If not, that's okay as well, but then why should I or anyone else give you credence on anything?

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I'm sorry, but how you go about simple basic discussions gets tiring real fast. I'm far more inclined to take the other posters opinion more seriously than yours because, it's far far more digestive and it's how majority of people go about in forums and day to day life. And that's okay, because right now in the context of this thread it's about an Mcu movie.

 

[Veelk]

I'm sorry, but how you go about simple basic discussions gets tiring real fast. I'm far more inclined to take the other posters opinion more seriously than yours because, it's far far more digestive and it's how majority of people go about in forums and day to day life. And that's okay, because right now in the context of this thread it's about an Mcu movie.

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Well, let me clarify something: there is nothing wrong with having a casual opinion on stuff. Like you correctly point out, It would be fucking exhausting to have to give 100% of your energy into developing every opinion you have. There's nothing wrong with just seeing something and having nothing more to say than "well, that sucks" or whatever.

However, let me remind you how this conversation started.

I made a note that saying that the criticism or not giving emotive acting performances seems to be a common one among female led action movies. Brie, ww, Rey all have been hit with it, but few who made the complaint actually go on to explain what they thought justified that complaint. Hence me saying that if people want to not be given the side eye for that, they should have a supporting argument ready.

Terminus took umbridge with that, and the conversation kind of evolved to how we qualify some opinions to be better than others, with terminus apparent disagreeing and seemingly arguing from the position that all opinions are equal and it's ridiculous to expect anyone to make arguments for their positions...

But regardless, I'm not saying essays should be the default. Only that if you really, really believe in your position, you should be able to support it. Otherwise, don't get mad when people cast it aside. Why shouldn't they if you made no effort to support it?

And in the case of social justice issues, the wells been somewhat poisoned, so substantive reasoning is doubly important here. Because alt right fuckers deliberately take advantage of those that don't provide it.

 

[Edgar]

Well, let me clarify something: there is nothing wrong with having a casual opinion on stuff. Like you correctly point out, It would be fucking exhausting to have to give 100% of your energy into developing every opinion you have. There's nothing wrong with just seeing something and having nothing more to say than "well, that sucks" or whatever.

However, let me remind you how this conversation started.

I made a note that saying that the criticism or not giving emotive acting performances seems to be a common one among female led action movies. Brie, ww, Rey all have been hit with it, but few who made the complaint actually go on to explain what they thought justified that complaint. Hence me saying that if people want to not be given the side eye for that, they should have a supporting argument ready.

Terminus took umbridge with that, and the conversation kind of evolved to how we qualify some opinions to be better than others, with terminus apparent disagreeing and seemingly arguing from the position that all opinions are equal and it's ridiculous to expect anyone to make arguments for their positions...

But regardless, I'm not saying essays should be the default. Only that if you really, really believe in your position, you should be able to support it. Otherwise, don't get mad when people cast it aside. Why shouldn't they if you made no effort to support it?

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Let me ask you this. What percentage of people on forum gonna give a side eye to a poster who's saying particular actress performance was bland? And do you think these people should care?

 

[Veelk]

Let me ask you this. What percentage of people on forum gonna give a side eye to a poster who's saying particular actress performance was bland? And do you think these people should care?

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How am I supposed to know the percentage? And why is that important?

What I am saying is that, at this point in time, trolls hiding their hatred behind seeming legitimate criticism is a common tactic they pull. This happened a lot with Kelly Trans character from TLJ. You can criticize that character and her story, but people did it with such frequency and hostility that became clear eventually that it was just smokescreen for something far nastier. Eventually, Era started issuing bans to people who made it too obvious, like trying to make threads about the actresses harassment about her poor performance instead.

Idk about how many people consider it important, but clearly Terminus considers it important that his opinion of bries bad acting be taken both Very Srsly and that we are under no impression that it's anything but genuine. And that's cool. If he wants that, all he has to do is substantiate his reasoning. That is literally all I'm saying.

 

[Terminus]

Because your not listening to what I'm saying. The reason I'm saying it's trash is because it's unsubstantiated. If our positions were reversed and you were trying to say that you opinion that brie put out the best performance in the mcu but didn't want to give any examples or rationale for why that is, that would also be a trash opinion. And I said that brie was alright, but haven't given an in depth examination why she wasnt bad but not overly good either, so my opinion right now is trash as well. And it will remain trash until I do that in depth analysis, which I might not do because I don't really care enough to do so.

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I suspect this is the root of our disagreement, because I find this sentiment fundamentally incompatible with good discourse. If your default evaluation of someone else's opinion is "trash" unless and until they exhaustively delineate every contour of that position, you will never lack for anger and frustration.

I'm probably going to bow out of this thread now because continuing the conversation seems pointless, but the last thing I'll say is that yes, I do think that an individual's holistic response to an actor's performance is a uniquely personal moment of human connection (or lack thereof), and that no amount of data or debate in the world will ever change anyone's opinion on that particular aspect of filmmaking. It grabs you or it doesn't. It's one thing to point out "hey, this sequence of events makes no logical sense, maybe this script has some problems", but I don't think I've ever once thought to myself "man, that performance had really resonated with me, but this stranger on the internet pointed out seven ways they could have played the part better and now I'm convinced that my original emotional response was incorrect." So why would I try to convince you to feel differently, even if I had any desire to?

A lot of people eat paste or vote for Trump, the fact that it's widely-done doesn't mean it isn't batshit stupid.

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Is there a Godwin's Law but for Trump yet

 

[Veelk]

So why would I try to convince you to feel differently, even if I had any desire to?

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Imo, you are wrong in the assessment you made here on multiple levels, but I'm about to leave for work, so I can only address this part. This has nothing to do with me convincing you to change your opinion on bries performance or you convincingnme or whoever.

I remind you again that this whole conversation started is because, essentially, you want to be given the benefit of the doubt that your motivations are 100% pure when using the same tired criticism that seems to be a common tactic among people who don't have pure motivations.

If you want that benefit of the doubt, then you need give me a reason to give it. If you don't care, then fine, but don't expect me to arbitrarily give you the most charitable possible interpretation of you statements.

It's as simple as that to me. You get what you give. If your not going to put in the effort of justifying your opinion, I'm not gonna put in the effort of taking it seriously. It has nothing to do with you convincing me of anything other than that you put effort into your opinion.

 

[HellforLeather]

1. I dont hate women (or Brie Larson)

2. Her performance was bad in Captain Marvel.

You can spend all your effort in trying to psychoanalyze the opinion of a random person on the internet (me) or just accept that I didn't care for her performance. Yes, Chris Hemsworth is also bad in the Thor movies (all 3 of them. That's right, Ragnarok was pretty meh) but I'm not sure why I would mention that in my opinion about Captain Marvel other than to preemptively qualify my opinion to you or others like you(other random internet person/persons) who I, frankly, couldn't care less about.

I dont need your approval to dislike a movie or performance. Your judgement as to whether or not I'm a sexist/misogynist/whatever because I didn't like her in this one film doesn't begin to move the dial on whatever debate was going on about this movie months ago when it was released and means precisely jack shit to me.

So yeah....is she better in Endgame or what?

 

[hom3land]

It's amazing you made it this long without being spoiled about Endgame.

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Watched IW the other night, girlfriend is finally caught up. Going to see endgame in theaters tomorrow. She somehow has no idea. Though she's confused how there's a Spiderman movie after the events of infinity wars.. I just said maybe it's a prequel..

 

[Khezu]

1. I dont hate women (or Brie Larson)

2. Her performance was bad in Captain Marvel.

You can spend all your effort in trying to psychoanalyze the opinion of a random person on the internet (me) or just accept that I didn't care for her performance. Yes, Chris Hemsworth is also bad in the Thor movies (all 3 of them. That's right, Ragnarok was pretty meh) but I'm not sure why I would mention that in my opinion about Captain Marvel other than to preemptively qualify my opinion to you or others like you(other random internet person/persons) who I, frankly, couldn't care less about.

I dont need your approval to dislike a movie or performance. Your judgement as to whether or not I'm a sexist/misogynist/whatever because I didn't like her in this one film doesn't begin to move the dial on whatever debate was going on about this movie months ago when it was released and means precisely jack shit to me.

So yeah....is she better in Endgame or what?

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Not really, no.

 

[Jombie]

-Brie Larson is pretty terrible in this. Maybe thats why I couldn't get invested because she has the same bemused look on her face in 90% of the movie, even when there is plot relevant stuff happening. Some of her line deliveries are just bad. She looks bored.

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You'll find some camaraderie on youtube with this one.

 

[Spehornoob]

The writing of Captain Marvel let the movie down more than Brie Larson. The movie had no idea what arc to give her, so they threw fifteen arcs at the wall to see if anything would stick. One minute she's an amnesiac hero trying to reclaim her identity, the next she's a soldier contemplating the costs and moral greyness of war, the next she's a girl power icon sticking it to sexists, the next she's learning that her mentor was keeping her down by telling her to control her emotions. Then the movie plays up the "she always gets back up" angle in the final sequence, which was cool moment visually, but isn't really a theme at all for the rest of the movie. It's all very muddled. Of course, a character can be more than one thing, but no arc they took her on really seemed to resonate or stick, IMO.

The fact that Brie Larson was able to coalesce all this into a consistent and decent, if not exactly amazing, performance is a testament to her skill as an actor.

 

[Turin]

I dug her general attitude in the movie. Reminded me of a friend of mine.

 

[Bjomesphat]

Thought CM was awful. I've liked everything I've seen Brie in, but she was terrible in this.

I feel like CM is the epitome of Marvel assembly line formula. Every MCU trope from the past 10 years is what comprises CM.

I was especially excited for it because it's one of the few action movies my wife wanted to watch with me. She was asleep 45 minutes in. Counter that with Wonder Woman and we were both engaged the entire time. Say what you want about the DCEU, but there's still not an MCU film as good as WW.

 

[Veelk]

You can spend all your effort in trying to psychoanalyze the opinion of a random person on the internet (me) or just accept that I didn't care for her performance. Yes, Chris Hemsworth is also bad in the Thor movies (all 3 of them. That's right, Ragnarok was pretty meh) but I'm not sure why I would mention that in my opinion about Captain Marvel other than to preemptively qualify my opinion to you or others like you(other random internet person/persons) who I, frankly, couldn't care less about.

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Like, you have to pretty obstensively misunderstand what is going on here if you think that you saying another actor is bad therefore it's okay for you to say Captain Marvel is bad or that there is any psycho-analysis going on here. It's a very simple exercise of skepticism:

If you are using ideas and language that the alt-right hides it's nastiness behind, and you actively refuse to elaborate on your rationale when asked to do so, then it's within my right not take you at your word if I'm not inclined to.

And the most bizarre thing about this is your sheer determination to refuse to explain the basis for your opinion. That's really whats setting my alarm bells off more than anything. It's so easy to just give some reasons and rationale for why you think something is or isn't good. I could talk all day about what makes Bryan Cranston's acting and WHY it's so so good. I can name you specific scenes and tell you what he does that makes his acting exceptional.

I don't consider this a high bar to clear, and if you don't want to meet it, fine, but don't expect me to respect you as a critic then. And if you don't care about that either, also fine. But it does beg the question of what the purpose of stating an opinion on an internet forum if you are then uninterested in how it will be responded to. What is the point of this thread supposed to be if the responses are supposed to be so inconsequential to you?

 

[VideogameVices]

It was a B/C tier MCU movie.

I can't even remember much of it outside of the horrible scenes with annette benning that are clearly greenscreened AF (I guess that's the point - them being in a digital world but it was so bad)

The way jude law was dispatched was also terribad.

 

[Deleted member 29660]

I thought it was one of the better MCU movies as of late.

As for her powers....she's basically Super Saiyan Superman.

 

[Miracle Ache]

It's pretty bad. All the character interactions felt so stilted, like none of the actors were in the same room.

 

[Shadow-Link]

I like every female super hero in the MCU, they all bring something unique, but I didn't like CM at all. I think she is a good actress but her portrayal feels too flat and boring. Maybe the direction is more to blame than her.

 

[Poimandres]

This is how I feel.

People get so focused on how she is so cocky and delivers one liners with a smirk that they don't realize that they don't like something a lot of the other characters do. I think it's because when Tony Stark does it, they feel like they are being badass and funny, but when Carol does it they feel like they're on the receiving end.

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There are some absurd hot takes out there and people who unfortunately hate specifically because they are sexist tools, but not everyone can pull off a "charismatic cocky" persona. RDJ specifically got a lot of praise for being well cast in his role, but even he has a decent number of haters.

 

[astro]

Brie is great as CM.
Young NF looked crazy.
Not sure about the story, honestly. It was decent.
Action pales next to top tier MCU.
Cosmic parts felt too video game.

Overall: Middle tier MCU.

 

[VideogameVices]

There are some absurd hot takes out there and people who unfortunately hate specifically because they are sexist tools, but not everyone can pull off a "charismatic cocky" persona. RDJ specifically got a lot of praise for being well cast in his role, but even he has a decent number of haters.

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thing is RDJ, is sauve, is snarky, is serious, does gravitas well if he needs to be. His tony stark was pretty great.

brie larson's CM is pretty one note and the most emotional scene in the movie wasn't even hers. Its was the actress who played her best friend on the farm.

 

[HellforLeather]

but don't expect me to respect you as a critic then

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I'm sure I will find a way to carry on.

 

[Deleted member 2226]

It was enjoyable for me, but to me there were two big issues: one, Fury and Carol instantly lapses into a pretty chummy rapport that didn't feel earned,l (especially with Carol alternating between stony stoicism and wisecracking) and Carol' powers and abilities were never framed. At the end she's destroying everything without a problem and it kind of removes any sense of danger. She basically doesn't face any obstacles at that point, and while she gets a nice comeuppance on the Kree the threat to herself and Earth felt minimal at that point.

 

[HellforLeather]

It was enjoyable for me, but to me there were two big issues: one, Fury and Carol instantly lapses into a pretty chummy rapport that didn't feel earned,l (especially with Carol alternating between stony stoicism and wisecracking) and Carol' powers and abilities were never framed. At the end she's destroying everything without a problem and it kind of removes any sense of danger. She basically doesn't face any obstacles at that point, and while she gets a nice comeuppance on the Kree the threat to herself and Earth felt minimal at that point.

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I totally agree with you. I wish they spelled out some kind of weakness that she might have to add at least some element of risk to the ending. She takes ship blaster fire right to the chest and shrugs it off like nothing.

 

[8byte]

I totally agree with you. I wish they spelled out some kind of weakness that she might have to add at least some element of risk to the ending. She takes ship blaster fire right to the chest and shrugs it off like nothing.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Danvers#Powers_and_abilities

It's all spelled out here. She really doesn't have many weaknesses.

 

[Deleted member 21339]

Difference between RDJ snark and Brie's is that RDJ has fucking insane charisma and charm that comes so naturally to him. He pulls that shit off in his sleep. There's no comparison between the two of them when it comes to that. Has nothing to do with sexism or unconscious bias. RDJ is one of the highest paid actors in the world for a reason. Dude kills it

 

[Pandora012]

1. I dont hate women (or Brie Larson)

2. Her performance was bad in Captain Marvel.

You can spend all your effort in trying to psychoanalyze the opinion of a random person on the internet (me) or just accept that I didn't care for her performance. Yes, Chris Hemsworth is also bad in the Thor movies (all 3 of them. That's right, Ragnarok was pretty meh) but I'm not sure why I would mention that in my opinion about Captain Marvel other than to preemptively qualify my opinion to you or others like you(other random internet person/persons) who I, frankly, couldn't care less about.

I dont need your approval to dislike a movie or performance. Your judgement as to whether or not I'm a sexist/misogynist/whatever because I didn't like her in this one film doesn't begin to move the dial on whatever debate was going on about this movie months ago when it was released and means precisely jack shit to me.

So yeah....is she better in Endgame or what?

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She's a non entity in Endgame

 

[Plutone]

Lots of people ducking Veelk's callouts.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

Give me CM over Winter Soldier any fucking day of the week.

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t h i s

 

[CloudWolf]

Thought it was very boring with some absolutely baffling narrative choices.

Like 50% of the movie is about Carol discovering her past, but as a viewer I already knew everything thanks to the film showing me her entire past in chronoligical sequence when she's captured by the Skrull. Except for of course the twist everything was totally predictable because of that scene and that's not great when at least half the movie is about discovering the past. The twist was also barely effective, because I (and I assume many people) already know the Kree are the baddies thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, yeah, this is X years later, but the movie never really made a good argument why these Kree are good.

Then there's the fact that the movie just drops the viewer directly into some sort of conflict without any further explanation or whatever. I guess fans of the comic books understand the Skrull-Kree war, but I was completely lost. It was as if I had missed some sort of tie-in story that was supposed to clue me in on what the fuck was going on and why these people were fighting each other. I couldn't care less about the first half hour of the movie because I had no idea who these characters are, what they are fighting for, why they are fighting or why I should care.

Then there's also the hamfisted 90's stuff and yes, the female empowerment too. First, the 90's stuff: The movie completely fails to do anything compelling with its setting. It's set in the 90's, so what are you gonna do with it? Well, make lots of 90's references and play a lot of 90's music of course! With the music especially it felt like they were going for some sort of Guardians of the Galaxy thing, but without understanding anything about those movies' use of music. The 90's music in here said nothing about the characters, nothing about the story, it was literally just as if someone found a NOW! That's What I Call 90's Music cd and picked all the female-fronted songs (and Nirvana).

And now the controversial part, the female empowerment focus. Listen, I love 'strong female characters' in film and in essence I'm 150% for an MCU movie about strong women because tbh the MCU has a real issue with female characters, however this isn't the way to do it IMO. A bunch of forced montages about how strong she is and how independent she is, constantly flashing back to that stupid montage of her falling and getting up It's all such basic, bottom of the barrel stuff. And then of course, the cherry on top: Just a Girl playing when she finally breaks free of the Kree control. I rolled my eyes so hard.

You can make such a statement without constantly looking for validation through that kind of stuff, just let her be the cleverest or strongest, don't try to make it this big of a thing. Look at the recent Toy Story 4 or further back, Wonder Woman. Bo Peep and Diana are amazing characters who are the strongest, cleverest and/or best at what they do in a natural way. Those movies don't constantly hold you by the hand and go 'See, she's really cool, isn't she? She did this all by herself!'. I have high hopes for Black Widow in that regard, considering that has a director who is very good with female characters, while Captain Marvel felt like it was written by a committee.

Not that I completely hated the movie. I though Brie was fine, the script was an issue, but she herself was fine. It's no Short Term 12 or Room, but she wasn't phoning it in. Samuel L. Jackson was also good, but it was a bit creepy to see him in that uncanny valley CG-mode for the entire film. But yeah, I just felt this could've and probably should've been a lot better.

 

[Dr. Monkey]

All your basically saying through these posts is that you want your opinion to be recognized as worth while and valid as someone who would put effort into explaining themselves, and it just isn't nor should it be. If you want me take you more seriously, then substantiate yourself. If not, that's okay as well, but then why should I or anyone else give you credence on anything?

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Terminus is in fact substantiating the opinion here, with examples and comparisons. I think it's unfair to say that's not happening. However:

You can save the meandering soapbox sermon about sexist bias for someone else. I think Saldana & Gillen are two of the best players in the MCU and they, like Johansson, are inhabiting abused, emotionally repressed, hypercompetent women, yet they all run circles around Larson. She is the sole female hero across this entire saga whom I've felt wasn't really selling the part.

Yeah, this is all opinion vs. opinion. That's all it will ever be. We're not going to arrive at some universal, incontestable truth if we talk about a movie for long enough. I, like many others, felt that her performance was flat and lifeless, and that the film as a whole was rendered less engaging as a result. How can I quantify that subjective emotional response for you? Should I measure the variability of her vocal pitch, cadence, and intonation across all of her scenes and compare that with RDJ's in Iron Man? Should I calculate the exact percentage of shot coverage in which she's rooted stiffly in place on a single mark versus dynamically moving throughout a scene? Should I poll a thousand people and ask them "do you believe a human being would respond with this facial expression when presented with this earth-shattering revelation"?

You can write off whomever you like, but calling the widely-shared and perfectly reasonable sentiment "lead actor gave a lackluster performance" an inherently trash opinion smacks of overly-invested fanboyism.

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I equally think ignoring the context Veelk is bringing up is somewhat antagonistic. There is wider context here, and women actors, particularly in films like this, are much more highly scrutinized than the men, particularly with regard to their faces and expressions. So while you may be able to substantiate and explain, you are an outlier and you should recognize that within this context, don't you think?

I mean, we live in a world in which fanboys are out there recutting films to remove all the powerful women and review bombing films like this, you know? We can't leave that context behind, no matter how much we'd like to.

 

[SugarNoodles]

Thought it was very boring with some absolutely baffling narrative choices.

Like 50% of the movie is about Carol discovering her past, but as a viewer I already knew everything thanks to the film showing me her entire past in chronoligical sequence when she's captured by the Skrull. Except for of course the twist everything was totally predictable because of that scene and that's not great when at least half the movie is about discovering the past. The twist was also barely effective, because I (and I assume many people) already know the Kree are the baddies thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, yeah, this is X years later, but the movie never really made a good argument why these Kree are good.

Then there's the fact that the movie just drops the viewer directly into some sort of conflict without any further explanation or whatever. I guess fans of the comic books understand the Skrull-Kree war, but I was completely lost. It was as if I had missed some sort of tie-in story that was supposed to clue me in on what the fuck was going on and why these people were fighting each other. I couldn't care less about the first half hour of the movie because I had no idea who these characters are, what they are fighting for, why they are fighting or why I should care.

Then there's also the hamfisted 90's stuff and yes, the female empowerment too. First, the 90's stuff: The movie completely fails to do anything compelling with its setting. It's set in the 90's, so what are you gonna do with it? Well, make lots of 90's references and play a lot of 90's music of course! With the music especially it felt like they were going for some sort of Guardians of the Galaxy thing, but without understanding anything about those movies' use of music. The 90's music in here said nothing about the characters, nothing about the story, it was literally just as if someone found a NOW! That's What I Call 90's Music cd and picked all the female-fronted songs (and Nirvana).

And now the controversial part, the female empowerment focus. Listen, I love 'strong female characters' in film and in essence I'm 150% for an MCU movie about strong women because tbh the MCU has a real issue with female characters, however this isn't the way to do it IMO. A bunch of forced montages about how strong she is and how independent she is, constantly flashing back to that stupid montage of her falling and getting up It's all such basic, bottom of the barrel stuff. And then of course, the cherry on top: Just a Girl playing when she finally breaks free of the Kree control. I rolled my eyes so hard.

You can make such a statement without constantly looking for validation through that kind of stuff, just let her be the cleverest or strongest, don't try to make it this big of a thing. Look at the recent Toy Story 4 or further back, Wonder Woman. Bo Peep and Diana are amazing characters who are the strongest, cleverest and/or best at what they do in a natural way. Those movies don't constantly hold you by the hand and go 'See, she's really cool, isn't she? She did this all by herself!'. I have high hopes for Black Widow in that regard, considering that has a director who is very good with female characters, while Captain Marvel felt like it was written by a committee.

Not that I completely hated the movie. I though Brie was fine, the script was an issue, but she herself was fine. It's no Short Term 12 or Room, but she wasn't phoning it in. Samuel L. Jackson was also good, but it was a bit creepy to see him in that uncanny valley CG-mode for the entire film. But yeah, I just felt this could've and probably should've been a lot better.

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What CM needed was more men explaining how to properly make a movie about a female superhero.

 

[CloudWolf]

What CM needed was more men explaining how to properly make a movie about a female superhero.

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I was never saying that, just stating that in my opinion the movie felt too much like it was trying to legitimise itself by constantly stating the obvious themes of the film. Maybe that works for other people, but I find it highly annoying when a piece of media does that.

It's in stark contrast with for instance Black Panther handled it's status as a black diversity film, where that fact was hardly ever mentioned. It was just a cool movie about black heroes.

I'm not in the business of telling people how they should do their movies, but I think I'm allowed to say what works for me and what doesn't.

 

[SugarNoodles]

I was never saying that, just stating that in my opinion the movie felt too much like it was trying to legitimise itself by constantly stating the obvious themes of the film. Maybe that works for other people, but I find it highly annoying when a piece of media does that.

It's in stark contrast with for instance Black Panther handled it's status as a black diversity film, where that fact was hardly ever mentioned. It was just a cool movie about black heroes.

I'm not in the business of telling people how they should do their movies, but I think I'm allowed to say what works for me and what doesn't.

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I don't think you get it. If the film simply "didn't work" for you, you wouldn't be viewing it through the lens of a "female superhero film" (lol@ Black Panther's "status as a black diversity film")

CM is doing what all Marvel Movies do, it just stands out to you because it's not what you're used to seeing.

 

[LL_Decitrig]

My massively intelligent but cripplingly autistic kid (in their thirties) watched a DVD of Captain Marvel this evening. Utterly uninterested. Then eventually they figure out what's going on. Brain lights up. Then the first few bars of "I'm Just A Girl" start and suddenly this is their favourite film ever. "I must watch this film again now I know what it's really about." My kid has a role model, and it's Carol.