Movie Critics Thread

[Trent]

So when Interstellar first came out, it was probably the highest on my must watch list.

I finally got to watch it last night

Great movie. Nolan at his best.

TARS is awesome.

[M-bot]

So when Interstellar first came out, it was probably the highest on my must watch list.

I finally got to watch it last night

Great movie. Nolan at his best.

TARS is awesome.

Nolan is often criticised (as he was with Interstellar) as being cold and emotionless. I didn’t get that at all from Interstellar. I agree, great movie.

Despite being a Nolan fan, I still haven’t seen Dunkirk. I suspect for similar reasons that you’ve only just caught Interstellar.

[GoktimusPrime]

The really interesting thing about Dunkirk is that it has a 'counter intuitive appeal' because it's not a character-driven story but it still happens to be really interesting. That's not to say that character development doesn't happen, it does -- but it's sparse and certainly isn't the engine that drives the story. What happens instead is that the events themselves drives the story. The narrative itself is what the audience becomes emotionally invested in.

I say it's counter-intuitive because typically a good story is one that's character driven and usually character-less plots that are just driven by a series of events are dull. Just look at Bayformers -- bugger all characters and the films are just driven by a series of events. Stuff happens. In Nolan's Batman Trilogy and Interstellar, Nolan takes the more classical approach of driving the stories with good characters. Solid protagonists that you can care about. But we don't really get this with Dunkirk per se. You can watch through this entire film and not even remember half of the character's names, that's how much the film plays them down. The characters are more avatars for the audience to experience these events.

But it's such a brilliant film. It defies the conventions of story telling, which is what Michael Bay does, only that Nolan does it well. And on top of all that, it's also a pretty historical accurate movie. There are a few inaccuracies here and there, but it gets a lot more right than it gets wrong, and most of the inaccuracies are done for story-telling purposes (because this is a movie, not a documentary).

[GoktimusPrime]

From the Avengers ∞ Spoiler thread...

RE: MCU vs DCU

I think that DC could compete with Marvel at the box office if there films were good enough. Wonder Woman demonstrated this last year, being released just a month before Spider-Dude: School Disco and still managing to become the 10th highest grossing film of that year, just behind Thur: Battle Royale.

And in 2008 Dark Knight was the #1 highest grossing film, totally outperforming Marvel's Iron Man and Universal/Marvel's Incredible Hulk. And although the first Avengers movie was #1 in 2012, The Dark Knight rises came in at a respectable 3rd place in box office sales. In 2013 Man of Steel still came in 9th place, one spot above Thor The Dark World (Iron Man 3 was #2).

BvS still came in #7 in 2016's sales, although much of that was just from the opening weekend and the film experienced a massive slump after that. Justice League didn't even make it to the Top 10 and the studio is estimated to have made a loss of up to US$100M. But that's not to say that DC's movies are unsalvageable. Universal's Hulk in 2003 only made a modest earning but they still persisted to make Incredible Hulk in 2008 (albeit in collaboration with Marvel Studios) which then became the launching pad for the current MCU.

There are 2 things that DC can do:
1/ Make stand-alone super hero/heroine movies that focus on singular character development of the main protagonist. This worked for the Nolan Batman Trilogy and Wonder Woman, and even Man of Steel to a lesser extent.
2/ Make another Justice League movie but make it fun and exciting. Ensemble cast movies will never be as character-driven as stand alone movies due to the nature of the beast, but you can still just make them fun and entertaining films.

And there's no reason why they can't do both. This is what Marvel's been doing for the past 10 years. Stand alone movies like Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, Ant-Man etc. as well as team-up movies like the Avengers. And they need to look at what makes Marvel's movies more interesting than their own. Basically DCU's failings comes from not understanding one of the key principles of the Art of War -- know your enemy^business rival.

P.S.: Another option may be if you can't beat them join them. Contact Disney/Marvel and see if they can work out a deal for a joint Avengers/Justice League team up movie. Let the MCU guys take the wheel and just sit back and watch the money flow in.

[Autocon]

Deadpool 2. If you loved the first you will love the second. A lot of CGI to replace the bike scene. The ending is an easy out moving forward. Wont say more than that, a lot of references and funny moments.

[shockNwave]

P.S.: Another option may be if you can't beat them join them. Contact Disney/Marvel and see if they can work out a deal for a joint Avengers/Justice League team up movie. Let the MCU guys take the wheel and just sit back and watch the money flow in.

Or Daredevil/Batman or Deadpool/Lobo team up movies.