Interesting to see the general negative impressions contrasted with the other column here saying how great it is.
I’m still deciding whether to see it in theaters - I’m a huge fan of the Marvel universe and still want more superhero movies. Iman Vellani does a great job with an excellent character, and I loved how the story connected with her culture. Fantastic. However Captain Marvel was pretty much a non-entity and we had no idea who Monica Rambeau will be yet - I hope the movie gave some much needed character development
What I don't really like is people telling me I shouldn't let myself be swayed by critics and should watch it and make up my own mind.
That's stupid. I'm reading the reviews to decide if I wanna watch it or not. I don't wanna spend my money and a couple hours of my life to decide if it was worth it if some people whose judgement I've trusted in the past tell me it's gonna be trash.
Don't get swayed specifically by critics. I swear most critics in the film and video game industry have the weirdest takes ever, while they should represent an average joe. There have been many movies which have been obliterated by critics, which have been quite popular and fun, as well as many awful movies, which have been praised by critics.
The gap between critics and audiences has never been wider. The Last Jedi had an audience score of 42% on Rotten Tomatoes, while critics scored it 91%. It raises the question: what exactly is the purpose of critics? They used to exist to tell regular people if they’d like movies. That’s clearly no longer their goal. I’ve given up on critic scores entirely. I use IMDB ratings, even though Amazon has been caught deleting negative ratings about The Rings of Power.
Rotten Tomatoes scores are highly suspect now and especially can't be trusted with Disney properties. The guy who runs it literally used to be a Disney Digital exec.
I am also a huge Marvel fan and I saw it Thursday night in a packed theater. My opinion is that all the pieces of one of the best Marvel movies are there, and just weren't put together properly. The leads have great chemistry, Iman Vellani is brilliant as always, the main plot point makes for unique and interesting fight scenes, and they let it get goofy in just the right ways (princesses and kittens, that's all I'm saying.)
But the overall pacing of the entire movie is SO bad. It feels so rushed. None of the fun or poignant things that are legitimately good are allowed to hang around on screen long enough to sink in. There are important plot points that move so fast they leave you wondering what just happened. Which is so disappointing. I was really excited that this might be the one that finally got Marvel out of their pandemic-induced production problems. Instead it's just another Marvel movie that I'll only see once.
I felt the same same way. It felt like all of these important parts of the plotline were skipped or got 1 line explanations. A lot of the emotional parts got about 5 to 10 seconds of screen time before moving on to the next part.
Spoiler
Can someone explain how a giant intelligence kept the air and water on a planet from floating away and made sure the sun kept burning?
Yeah that whole thing was glossed over. I don't think it's much of a spoiler, but it was the civil war that happened after the Supreme Intelligence was destroyed that decimated the environment. But no explanation how or why that led to the star being too dim. And the thing that was set up as the next big battle at the end of CM1 (destroying the Supreme Intelligence) happened off screen between the movies. It was just so frustrating
Until I can spend many thousands of dollars on a home theater room it will be an inferior experience to going out. I don't need to pause to make snacks, or put captions on, or whatever. I'm happy to pay fifteen dollars for the occasional ticket and then fifteen more for eight cents worth of soda and popcorn loaded with salt and butter-flavored-oil because I know theaters don't see a pock of the ticket money.
I want a comfy recliner, a giant screen, outrageous sound volume, and two hours of uninterrupted movie. The places I usually go to are clean, I've never had a problem with rude patrons (the occasional restless child at family movies, sure), and I feel like I get good entertainment for the money. It's not a weekly thing, maybe monthly.
My local theater is packed almost every night of the week. There were flocks of entire families with kids dressed up in costumes to see both Mario and Barbie. I traveled an hour to see Oppenheimer in proper IMAX and there wasn't an empty seat in the house. Theaters definitely are not dead.
I have to agree, I hated Avatar 2 (liked the first one) and the theater experience made it 100 times worse. I went with an old friend that I havent seen in years, and a young guy in line behind us kept asking us if we were gay.. like literally 20 times, he was completely obsessed with it to the point of harassment. I will NEVER go to a theater again, ever.
If you are a big marvel fan then go see it. It is not a great MCU film but it is also not bad. You will get some good laughs and fight scenes and get some mild emotional moments. I enjoyed it in theaters, but recognize that it is not as good as say GOTG3 or Spiderman NWH.
It can be very well executed, but that doesn't change that it's a movie nobody really asked for. Unless there is demand to see it then it doesn't matter how well done it is. And endorcements of "it's actually good despite expectations" doesn't really generate a lot of excitement either.