I was not a fan of Shang-Chi at all. I thought it suffered from the opposite issues Marvel movies usually have (interesting set ups/premise with mediocre finales).
I thought the finale of Shang-Chi was one of the most original in the MCU, but the first 3/4 of the movie just weren't done in an interesting way. Lots of people telling stories, when they could have just showed us those scenes.
Truly the opposite of my reaction. I enjoyed the setup and real world characters but totally lost interest in another over the top CGI heavy third act. Seems like Marvel made neither of us happy with this one.
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Truly the opposite of my reaction. I enjoyed the setup and real world characters but totally lost interest in another over the top CGI heavy third act. Seems like Marvel made neither of us happy with this one.
Yeah interesting. A heavy CGI ending doesn't bother me all that much. I found the "Kaiju" battle and the use of the rings to be relatively unique given were used to seeing faceless horde armies and skybeams.
I thought the set up had great potential but was sanitized down. Awkwafina I didn't find funny at all, she seemed held back. I would have liked to see more of the fighting tournament. And I felt Tony Leung fell flat as The Mandarin for the most part. Overall maybe it was just the performances I wasn't a huge fan of.
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Watched Shang-Chi and really enjoyed it. I liked the wire work and choreography, the pacing was good and I love Awkwafina's voice, the Fu dogs were amazing, Ben Kingsley was funny. Razorfist was Razorfist and just a henchman as he should be. The Abomination had a cool updated look that was more accurate.
I also enjoyed some of the little things like Ben Kingsley playing dead, at first it's just comedy but it was the best move his character could make. He has no powers or fighting skills, and getting his soul ripped out would make things worse by empowering the Dweller.
I'm behind the MCU films, I only just saw Black Widow:
I was really invested in the first act, which added to Natasha's back story and set up an interesting spy thriller touching on dark themes of human trafficking, female autonomy, and if the ends justify the means, but it's downhill from there as the requirements of the MCU take over. The 2nd act, with the family reunion, was boring with rushed character development, and the third act had some nice twists but felt overshadowed by the big CGI ending. The fun quippy MCU writing didn't mesh well with the dark subject matter. For example there is line about the Widows being sterilized but it's treated as a joke instead of something that seriously traumatized the female leads. The action was also all over the place with some good fight scenes but others that were over the top where the writers seemingly forgot Natasha has no super powers. Also, this movie needed to happen before Infinity War so we actually got some tension without knowing everything is back to normal at the end. Overall is this is an average entry into the MCU that is a lot of fun at times but also feels like a big missed opportunity. 6/10
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I just finished Shang-Chi and I have to say....I enjoyed that a hell of a lot more than I thought I would.
Solid film.
Its probably a 7/10 for Marvel movies. It was just really good. Light when it needed to be, serious when it mattered and overall just really well done. It hit the right notes at the right times and overall was a lot of fun.
I think Shang-Chi is going to be an excellent stepping stone for the continuance of the Marvel trajectory.
I was going into it with tempered expectations based on some reviews, but I thought it was really good. Its not haute-cinema or anything and certainly could have used more Wong.
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Whole movie turned a corner for the worse when the Trevor / Ben Kingsley character was wedged in. So that’s the second time that’s happened to a MCU movie now.
Whole movie turned a corner for the worse when the Trevor / Ben Kingsley character was wedged in. So that’s the second time that’s happened to a MCU movie now.
Agreed. I liked it overall, but the last 1/3 of it is all over the place and mostly bad. The whole monster fight was dumb and it felt like that last part just dropped conflicts they were building through the movie and replaced them with big set pieces you were supposed to be wowed by.
They gave us enough to up the hype meter but are holding back enough to make it an epic experience. Well done trailer. Looking forward to it.
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Yep, looks awesome. I never thought I’d see Dafoe or Molina back as their characters, some of my favorite villain performances, so I’m particularly excited for that. Glad they held off on showing if there are any other Spider-Men in it, that will remain the big surprise if it happens.
No disrespect to Dafoe, his character is just kind of...uninteresting.
I have a feeling Molina might steal this one.
He was perfectly cast in this role. The Green Goblin is such a potentially stupid character. Dafoe managed to pull off the zaniness of the character and keep things somewhat menacing....plus the memes. The beautiful memes.
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