The good;
- The actress looks super hot in her Scarlet Witch outfit. I tend not to watch something just because it has hot people in it but in this case, I'll note that her on screen was one of the highlights of an otherwise mediocre movie.
- The movie isn't entirely predictable. Thematically it pretty much is but you don't necessarily know you're going to see Mr. Fantastic and I didn't see Chekov's dead body coming whilst I was wondering how Strange was going to pull off the dream-walking. So that was nice.
- Bruce Campbell is in it. Always a plus. Would be nice if he was Ash, though.
- Not afflicted with as much bathos as most of the movies which is a blessing. If you don't know what bathos is, you probably call it "Josh Whedon humour", but that's the literary name for it.
- Black Bolt's death is somewhat horrifying and I don't think it's suitable for younger audiences. But it is grimly hilarious.
The bad. I'm going to have to keep this short but here are some standouts:
- I didn't think it was well-directed. "Bullet time" effects for action scenes, mostly felt very rushed. I was slightly devastated when the director's name came up and saw it was Sam Raimi. I had forgotten he was directing this. Honestly, though I lay a lot of the blame at the script this is a let down. I've liked him ever since Crime Wave (his very early stuff). This didn't really feel like him. I wonder if other people meddled.
- The script was bad. Just bad. Laboured exposition, very superficial characters. Chavez especially. Exposition like Wong suddenly saying: "the Scarlet Witch? She is prophecied to rule all worlds or destroy them". She is? Where the Hell did this come from? Wanda destroyed the Dark Home (sp?) in every universe at once? How? Why are they all connected like that? Just a LOT of stuff like that.
- Chavez. Pretty much full stop. I'm hesitant to out and out condemn an actress because when a script is bad and directing is bad, even a good actor can come across bad. It took people like Liam Neeson and Natalie Portman to make George Lucas' dialogue palatable. Lesser actors have no hope. So it's possible she's actually fine. But she's bad in this - you can see the acting. It's very much "now react like this" sort of acting. That said, I'm leaning towards the fault of the director. The actress is sixteen so a seasoned actor like Cumberbatch will do a good job by themself but someone that young is very much dependent on the director being good at directing people, talented or not. So I'm going to hold off on blaming the actress herself but the performance is bad. The character herself is also very superficial, very bland and a bit smug. For example, where she's laughing at Stephen Strange for not being able to speak Spanish. I mean - is there a reason he should? And is there a reason you suddenly started throwing in Spanish sentences randomly all of a sudden this one time? I mean, I guess it's supposed to be a joke based on the opening but it just seems weird to me. I'm wondering if we'd get a similar scene in a Marvel movie where a character is in Mexico and laughs at someone there for not speaking English and the movie is on their side. Anyway, if the character is superficial, condescending and has unearned power that's at least consistent with the comics.
- Special effects. Not atrocious by any means but compared to the gorgeous visuals in the first Doctor Strange movie with the mirror universes, the corridor fight, the initial psychedelic trip, the Dark Dimension, etc. nothing in this really compares.
- Powers. Lets discuss two:
- Wanda's. She seems to spend most of the movie throwing energy blasts about. Occasionally she shows she can do more interesting things like appearing behind people or transforming wastelands into apple orchards. But basically she's just walking around sending balls of red energy at people. You kind of feel she might as well just have had a gun. In any case, her powers are both dull AND over the top powerful. When did she become an extinction level event all of a sudden? I know she's powerful but slaughtering dozens of sorcerers like that and out of the blue prophecies of her godhood and ancient temples built to her. I thought she was created by an experiment along with her brother by some Hydra scientist messing with the Tesseract.
- The sorcerors. I know not everyone is Stephen Strange but seeing a whole punch of these sorcerors line up with bows and arrows and make their little shields just seems so prosaic. Might as well have body armour and rifles. The mages in the first movie felt much more like individuals and skilled people who had really studied these mystic arts with the way they twisted corridors or fought the Ancient One up buildings, etc. The magic in this is just... I don't know - different skins on the same thing. Energy bolt or shotgun blast, what's the difference in this movie?
- Gruesomeness. I'm not of the opinion that a superhero movie or show has to be for kids. But I am of the opinion that the Marvel movies are meant to be family movies. Not for very young kids but certainly not gory or excessively violent. The deaths of Mr. Fantastic and Black Bolt were a little too much on the horrifying side. Black Bolt's death and the way his head kind of bulges and liquifies - too much. Reed Richards is pretty up there, too. If it were a horror movie, sure - it would be gross but fairly tame. But it's not - it's for the same audience as Thor 3 and Spiderman: Homecoming. I actually quite liked the idea of doing an actual light horror movie in the Marvel universe. Branching out the genres would be good. I guess this is a 12A though so I suppose it's alright.
- The Illuminati. I liked seeing Reed Richards (though I think Ioan Gruffield's (sp?) version is a more natural fit. But he was fine. The rest though:
- Is Captain Marvel ever not an entitled, smug and condescending asshole? This one is significantly more so than even the Brie Larson version. Like seriously - she is insufferable.
- Captain Britain. Also, pretty condescending. Not as bad as Captain Marvel.
- Black Bolt - he's hilarious just to look at. This little guy in a literal gimp suit who does nothing but give people constipated looks. I'm sorry but the concept was dumb in the comics and it's even worse on screen. His death is horrific, though.
- Patrick Stewart. He did nothing and died - the kindest review I can give of this character.
- Mordo - actually he was okay. I enjoyed seeing he and Strange deprived of magic beating each other to death with their bare hands like civilised people. He's a good actor. Brought some charm to a limited role. Good for him.
- Group comment - the battle between the Illuminati and Scarlet Witch. I don't want to make too much of a point of it but did anyone notice that the guys died instantly and the women - including Captain Britain who is essentially just a roid machine with a shield - lasted far longer? Also, what the FUCK was Captain Marvel's reaction to Black Bolt and Reed's deaths? Like you have to see it to believe it. She's basically: "hey look, they're dead, LOL!".
- Various weirdness that just didn't seem to connect. Like Strange off-handedly remarking that Mordo turned evil and tried to kill him. I mean - sure, it's shown he turns evil at the end of the first movie but I was expecting it to form the basis of a movie, not just be a between movie comment.
- What the fuck does Strange's fiancee from the first movie want? He's literally saved the world, a tall handsome, intelligent guy who's a little arrogant but basically you got one of the most desirable men on the planet. And he can LITERALLY do magic. Breakfast in Tibet followed by petting a dragon? That's a date with your fiancee. So what the Hell is all this "you always have to be the one to hold the knife" stuff. That's because he's better than 99.99% of people on the planet - including you. He's actually putting people at risk by NOT taking charge. Or did you forgot what happened when he let Spiderman make the decisions? Oh that's right - you did. But seriously - what is with the impossible standards of the women in these movies?
Well, I've written more than I thought I would. I'll conclude by simply saying that if Wanda wants kids
that badly, I'll give her some.
