I watched 3 movies recently. All three received favorable reviews. All 3 disappointed me.
Thor
Well, to be fair, Thor didn’t disappoint me as much. My expectations were pretty much non-existent, it couldn’t disappoint me. It was ok. It wasn’t an epic failure in any particular aspect. But it didn’t actually succeed either. There was one thing about it that irked me personally. It’s one of those things I noticed once and pick up in every movie ever since. Many Sci-Fi movies have this problem I call “Idiots in Space”. Whenever people from the future or from a highly evolved alien race are shown, for some reason they often out to be really dumb. Having more simple-minded characters is not always a problem. But it is if they are supposed to be from an advanced culture. How is a meathead like Thor from an advanced space-faring race. He is quite lowbrow even for earth standards. The entire fiction falls apart for me in this regard. That and the fact that they are riding horses in space.
X-Men: First Class
It’s a watchable movie except for a couple of serious problems. The most serious one has a name: Kevin Bacon. What idiot decided it would be a good idea to have Kevin Bacon play a Nazi villain? The moment he opened his mouth and started speaking his broken pseudo-German, the entire movie was over for me. Too bad that’s the very fist scene.
Super 8
I was was looking forward to Super 8. JJ Abrams is a competent director with some good ideas. They are often hit and miss. But at least he experiments. In usual JJ Abrams fashion, they made a huge mystery about what the movie was about. I remember statements that it wasn’t about aliens or monsters. I was intrigued. Perhaps JJ would come up with something original. He didn’t. Spoiler: it’s an alien after all. But still, the movie makes such a big fucking deal about it as if this tired trope was something special. As a result, it bored me to death. It broke what is otherwise a solid, well-made movie.
Yeah, Thor was mediocre but I didn’t expect much. However, I reaaaaally enjoyed First Class. Personally, I am fond of Kevic Bacon and I was happy to see him in a major movie after such a long time.
after i wanted to watch thor so much, because the trailers seemed like a nice mix of trash, action, characters, nice cast and interestint storyline – i didn’t know anything about the comics – i was endlessly disappointed by the movie.
the cast is acting so crap, its impossible to watch.
the action scenes are really fugly, wether it be the stupid fight against the “minimum wage guards” or the fire-out-of-its-eyes robot-alike, and especially versus the ice giants in the beginning is just unwatchable crap.
the characters are so shallow, there is really no focus on one of the few main characters, especially not on thor himself nor portman. its just some bla-bla sentences, more or less comic quality – but no real intention to do something with the characters shows through.
and even the designed worlds could have looked better. not quality wise, but style wise. if it is intended to look so unbelievable great and perfect and all, why must it be stupid shiny golden? everything looks really like a cheap plastic set-decoration to me, especially the armor etc.
is it post processing that makes it look this way?
after thought: i’m always very puzled when something like thor happens: perfect trailer(s), all really teasing to me, totally stupid movie – in all regards fails for me.
is it probably just because the trailers are just such short condensed views? like the movie wouldve bored me, but the condesed trailer is good? actually no, atleast not with this kind of action-cramped movie.
so its probably more that when one sees all details of the movie, they are shit. but if you only get a glimpse of the ideas in a trailer, trying to show all aspects of a movie i might just expect that all ideas are executed well in the movie.
but i love to read short fiction, which typically is only glimpse about everything.
so probably it could be a good idea trying to write own fiction, trying to write own games that are less going into details (with chances to fail) but stays more at a glimps-ing level and allows for the viewers fantasy to fill in the gaps?
(american movie trailer are so special. they are like 3 to 4 times the length of euopean trailers, also european trailers show SO much less of the story – most holywood trailers even offer the end-solution of the movie in the trailer. especially romance, light hearted pop-corn-fun-movies and flat drama / thriller / action things really leave NOTHING at all to the viewers imagination.)
I for one really enjoyed Super 8, but only the material that felt more crafted by Spielberg’s hands than Abrams’. The alien, the incessant lens flares, the needless dialogue between adults about mystery/scifi/etc, were tedious. In fact, the entire movie could have used significant less adults and more children being awesome. When the film was at its best it was reminiscent of the Goonies and ET, and for that alone, I was enthralled. They don’t make movies like that anymore, but part of this one was.