{"id":160248,"date":"2023-11-11T00:29:32","date_gmt":"2023-11-11T07:29:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=160248"},"modified":"2023-11-11T00:30:52","modified_gmt":"2023-11-11T07:30:52","slug":"movie-review-the-marvels-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2023\/11\/11\/movie-review-the-marvels-2023.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review: “The Marvels” (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seen in the theater this evening in 2-D. Not much SPOILERy, beyond what you can see in the TV ads.<\/p>\n

<\/meter> 3.5 Acting
\n<\/meter> 3.0 Production
\n<\/meter> 2.5 Story
\n<\/meter>\u00a03.0\u00a0OVERALL<\/strong> with a \u2665<\/span><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>This movie was always going to be fighting an up-hill battle. Between constant media reports about “super-hero fatigue” from movie-goers, MCU and\/or comics fans who have their very strong opinions about who should be allowed in the super-hero club, and people who disdain Marvel (and Disney) on some sort of principle, any MCU film that is less than perfection is going to take a very loud drubbing.<\/p>\n

And, yes, this film is definitely less than perfection.<\/p>\n

(To be fair, there are a lot of critics, and sites, that have good things to say about the movie. That there is still a very vocal contingent touting this as yet another sign that the MCU is inexorably spiraling into the toilet speaks to me more about the folk saying that than the movie itself.)<\/p>\n

You will probably hear, somewhere, the line that “The Marvels<\/em> is less than the sum of its parts,” and there’s something to be said for that. This is a movie that went through a major restructuring (from a Captain Marvel<\/em> sequel to this three-fer) and never quite got put back together correctly.\u00a0 It feels like it needed about three more runs through the writers room, honing and focusing a scattergun storyline and smoothing the oddly frantic jerkiness of its pace, while giving decent attention and story and opportunity for its three protagonists.<\/p>\n

Its also the shortest MCU film yet, which seems odd for a movie focused on a trio of heroes, and that dichotomy shows in missed (or edited-out) moments that could have made a big difference in the feel of the piece.<\/p>\n

At the same time, and I’m going to bold this:\u00a0 The Marvels<\/em>\u00a0is a lot of fun<\/strong>, and there were enough positive moments to outweigh the negative ones for both me and my wife (who is far less a Marvel enthusiast than I am). It is at its best when being relatively light-hearted, even a bit silly (net-net, I think the controversial “musical” scene works), but falls flat when giving us overly-melodramatic emotional conflicts or trying to build stakes for the overall villainous plot.<\/p>\n

The original film trailer actually captures some of the better tonal moments.<\/p>\n