Another year, another batch of great, good, meh and/or bad films in one of my favorite genres (I think its pretty much a genre of movie at this point). So, why not have an end of year thread ranking them and voting for your favorite? Here's a list of the ones that came out this year (in mainstream films, at least) DC: Wonder Woman Justice League MCU: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.2 Spider-Man: Homecoming Thor Ragnarok FOX: Logan Etc: Power Rangers I personally rank them like this: Amazing: Wonder Woman Great: GotG v2, Thor Ragnarok Good: Justice League, Power Rangers Meh: Spider-Man: Homecoming Bad: Logan and my overall vote goes to Wonder Woman (with Gotg Vol 2 being a close second)
Amazing: Spider-Man Homecoming Wonder Woman Logan Good: Guardians 2 Thor Ragnarok I haven't seeen JL or PR. Wasn't Lego Batman this year, as well? I'd rate that one as great. My overall vote easily goes to Homecoming - 2nd place is a tie between WW and Logan.
I still haven't seen Logan, Power Rangers or both of the DC movies. I'm still curious about Wonder Woman, but a good friend of mine who was psyched to see it, and has a very similar taste in movies, saw it and she was quite underwhelmed. So not looking forward to forking out 20 bucks for a bluray for that one. Justice League..... Non of the trailers or clips had me going. To me, it all looked cheap and silly. I dunno, maybe one day. Power Rangers...... If and when it's on Netflix. Logan is one I really should see though!! So yeah, only saw the three Marvel. Just rewatched GotG2 the other day, and it's quite a more emotional movie than I remember, with more hearth than Thor3. So I think my vote would go there. But both were totally awesome. Spiderman was a fantastic movie aswell, but the characters of GotG and Thor are more meaningfull to me.
I've seen all of them, but which is my favourite would very much depend on my mood at the time. I'd lean towards either Spidey or Wonder Woman though.
Thor for me, because of its sheer enjoyability. I had a big dumb grin on my face all the way through it. Logan was great, very much in the opposite vein, not without flaws, but anchored by the power of Jackman’s performance, which itself was given gravitas by his 17 years in that role. Also enjoyed Spider-Man: Homecoming & GOTG2 a lot, though the latter wasn’t as good as its predecessor. I enjoyed Justice League but it wasn’t as good as e.g. Avengers and was a bit of a mess in some ways. I didn’t care for Wonder a woman at all and will never understand why it’s gotten such critical and fan acclaim.
Wonder Woman was my favorite in what was really a weak year for super hero movies. Logan was good, Justice League about average and the rest pretty meh.
I might have been compelled to watch JL if BvS actually was a movie instead of a collection of CGI battles scenes and bad dialogue.
IMHO, Logan and Wonder Woman were leagues above everything else. Justice League was a good enjoyable comic book movie. It’s certainly not as bad as critics claim it to be. GotG 2 and Thor 3 were the usual Marvel fanfare. If you like Disney’s CBM films then you’ll like those as well. Thor Ragnarok went way overboard with the humor for me though. Haven’t watched Power Rangers and Spider-Man yet. So for me it’s... 1. Logan 2. Wonder Woman 3. Justice League 4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 5. Thor: Ragnarok
Spider-Man: Homecoming is the Spider-Man film I've been waiting for my whole life and finally removed the sour, bitter taste of the Raimi films. The film finally captured the spirit of Spider-Man that I grew up on, both Peter and Spidey, while creating one of the rare three-dimensional villains in not just the MCU, but also most superhero films. I wasn't initially keen on the idea of Tony in the plot prior to seeing the film, but considering the means of Spider-Man's introduction in the MCU, I found his role enjoyable upon watching it. Logan is a close second as a dark denouement for both Wolverine and Professor X. 1. Spider-Man: Homecoming 2. Logan 3. Guardians of the Galaxy 2 4. Thor: Ragnarok 5. The Lego Batman Movie (why wasn't it included?) 6. Wonder Woman I loved parts of Wonder Woman, particularly Gal Gadot, No Man's Land, the Belgian village, and Lucy Davis, but the rest of the film is merely enjoyable and the third act, especially the climax, is awful. I have no interest in Power Rangers and I haven't bothered with Justice League. I'll watch it eventually.
People are probably most influenced by, as you say, the versions of these characters they discovered and followed in the comics as children. My ideal version of Spider-Man is closer to Raimi's, but I notice that he's only a few years younger than I am. Makes sense, right? I thought the conclusion of Wonder Woman was offbeat for these kinds of movies and far more emotionally affecting than most superhero fare even reaches for. There were actual surprising moments in that movie. Huh.
Raimi's Spider-Man is the Spider-Man I’ve wanted to see on screen since I was a kid and thankfully I saw him in not one but two amazing movies. Other than Raimi’s the only other Spider-Man I would be interested to see would have been James Cameron’s Spider-Man but that’s in another universe/dimension. To each his own of course.
Well, suffice it to say you are about as far opposite from me when it comes to that movie as its possible to be. I love the Raimi movies, and really captured what I enjoy about Spider-Man. Homecoming is literally everything I hate about modern Spider-Man (#1 being that he's a teen in the movie, when outside of Bendis's terrible Ultimate SM run Peter Parker hasn't been a teenager since my mother was in diapers). But, at the bare minimum, its certainly better then those Amazing Spider-Man films and its not a bad film, just a very average film with some terrible moments. In my opinion, at least. I'll still enjoy seeing Holland in Infinity War, I just will never spend money to see a Spider-Man movie he's in ever again, I'll just wait until the public library gets the DVD. Wonder Woman I found to be amazing, outside of the action being mostly mediocre. Snyder's style of action is shit, and I wish Jenkins hadn't copied it. It looks like they spent 5 bucks on that fight on the beach but then used slow mo to make it look more "impressive", but in the end it just looks really fake. Luckily the other stuff fairs better, and the No Man's Land scene was really cool. The story and characters (outside of ares) also make up for weaknesses in the action, for me at least. As for Lego Batman, its not on here because I was obviously talking about live action films only, and not because I forgot it came out this year even though I loved it
I'll grant you the teenager Peter Parker. I would've much preferred an adult version, but within the context of the MCU, it makes sense. To maintain the youthful origin, he had to be a teen at the point of introduction because otherwise Tony or someone else would've noticed him sooner if he had been webslinging all these years. What I did love about Homecoming is how it handled Peter when he was a teenager, even if that wasn't the Spider-Man I grew up on, because I believe the film captured the spirit of the character As a point of reference: I loathe all things Ultimate, especially Spider-Man. I grew up on late 80s/early 90s Spider-Man but bailed after the Clone Saga and the inexplicable return of Norman Osborn. I didn't like the Raimi films largely because of Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst are as far from Peter and Mary-Jane than I could imagine and they're the main reasons why I don't go back and give the films another go. I always liked the villains (particularly Alfred Molina's Doc Ock) but those two leads and other issues weigh the films down too far for me. I do need to see the film again now that it's out on DVD, so I'm judging from what I saw at the cinema this summer, but it's the Snyder-style and the third act that really drag the film down for me. I see great potential in the series and I hope the next film has a better script and less influence from Snyder so it can fulfill the greatness I see in it. Ah, fair enough. I was just curious is all. It stands out for me not just because of the LEGOness of it, but also because how Batman-y the film is. Not just the Batman continuity but also how it actually told a great Batman story about the nature of his character.
That's fair. I liked Toby Maguire as Peter, he's easily the definitive version for me, but I won't defend Dunst or the "chemistry" between her and TM as anything great. When it comes down to it I like Holland well enough, but I've always been annoyed at the kind of teen heroes that have to go to school, hide their activities from parents/guardians, etc. I enjoy stuff like the Teen Titans but they basically never had to go to school and their guardians were generally either dead or superheroes so there was never stuff like curfews or being grounded to deal with. I really dislike current popular stuff like the current Ms. Marvel and Miles Morales Spider-Man comics for these kind of reasons. It had problems, I won't deny it. But I like the general story a lot and gal Gadot is basically in the same league as Christopher Reeves and Chris Evans when it comes to actors who just are perfect as the characters they play. Ares isn't the strongest villain and the final fight is a CGI mess, and I can see how that holds it back for some people, but for me personally the really great stuff in the movie compensates for the weaknesses. Yeah, I loved LEGO Batman. I consider it the second greatest theatrical Batman film after Mask of the Phantasm. In case you couldn't tell, I honestly forgot it was a 2017 film or it would have been on the poll. So, I basically just retconned this thread to only be about live action superhero movies