Marvel Comics on Film

[ntnon]

Here's the RT rundown. It's.. interesting. Largely as expected, but with a few oddities.

Ragnarok is 4th, but to each their own, but Captain America is 20th, only one place ahead of Cap Marvel at 21, and Thor languishing at 24/32. But then a lot of people seem to dislike Thor.

Joining Ragnarok in the top half of the list is No Way Home at #5 and Shang Chi at #9 (another surprise, but not wrong). Everything else in the top half is from the first three phases.

At the bottom of the table:
28 - Incredible Hulk
29 - Dark World (how does Hulk beat DW? Barely, though)
30 - Love and Thunder
31 - Quantumania
32 - Eternals.

And those last two are rated at 47%; L&T is 63%, so that drop for the bottom two is extreme.
27/32 are 70%+ and 20/32 are 80%+. Twelve MCU films are tomatoed at 90%+ - let me repeat that: more than a third of the MCU films are above 90%.

Also, the first Hulk is at 62%, so it would chart below L&T. Spider-man 3 is also at 63%, equal to L&T; both earlier Maguires and all Hollands are above 90%. (Reactions to Garfield are terrible.)

So two of the nine post-Endgame/FFH films are in positions 5 & 9, everything else in the lower half at places 17, 19, 22, 26, 30, 31 and 32. So all of the bottom 3 are post-Endgame films.

[tenia]

If you never found any of them better than mediocre (and... really? That's interesting, and mildly surprising), then necessarily you are unlikely to notice any shifts in quality either way, because your baseline and - critically - likely enjoyment is different from most others in the (potential] audience pool.

As I wrote, it seems like there is a North American positive halo around most of these movies that we definitely don't have in France. Thor 2 for instance has a 6.2/10 average on RT, which is surprisingly high considering it’s been frequently negatively criticized (I scored it somewhere around 2.5/10 : it’s a boring chore of a movie, which doesn’t even managed to keep the interesting theatrical-shakespearian characters-writing the first movie had).

I compared the US and French critical scores : our scores are pretty much aligned with the Metacritic ones, though the MC scores are the higher ones (by 2.5%). RT ? Yeah, about those… : the RT% are higher by 15pts than the MC scores. But then, even the RT averages are above the MC scores. And then, the RT averages are noticeably higher than the French ones. MCU averages on MC ? 67. On RT%, it’s 82%. On RT averages, it’s 7.1. And in France, it’s 6.4 (with the caveat that the worst movies ever are scoring usually 1.5, skewing the average – a movie scoring below 3-3.2 is already mediocre)
In France, Thor 2 has a 5.6/10 average. Ant Man 3 is 4.6, Thor 4 is 5.2, Black Widow is 5.8. The Eternals is 5.8… exactly like Ultron. Far From Home is 6.4. So is Endgame, but The Incredible Hulk is 6.8 and Ant Man 6.6. The average for all MCU movies is… 6.42. The highest score is Avengers at 8, followed by GoG 1 at 7.6 and GoG 3 at 7.2; everything else is below 7.

While I understand your point, which I guess is close to a question of being or not the target audience, it could be argued that while I might be a bit too harsh with those movies to be able to notice a drop in quality (to which I’d say : if I can notice when some movies feel better than others, I should be able to notice when others are even worse – I don’t think my ranking of the movies would be that different from many others’, just the scores), maybe some people might also be too lenient with them and overlook their flaws, especially in North America.

I for instance don’t think a second most of these movies are equal (even less so superior) to, say, Raimi’s Spider Mans or Burton’s Batmans (I’m not particularly fond of Nolan’s Batmans : I find the 1st one more and more tedious at each new viewing, I think the 2nd one is very good but has a muddled subtext, and I think the 3rd one is a huge step below and falls into the Overly Bloated Conclusion kind of movie) (or even the 1st 2 X-Men or First Class). But then again : it doesn’t seem to be a particularly exceptional point of view here, especially at a times where movies like Batman Returns have been positively reappraised.

I have, however, indeed watched most of the MCU movies (pretty much everyone until Endgame) because I kept thinking “well, maybe this one will be better”. I think Ant Man was a nice though anodine movie, but part of its nice aspect was that it didn’t feel like a EverythingIsRelated movie, something more independent and possibly less ambitious in its world-building and more focused on, well, being A movie on its own. Ant Man 2 moved away from this, and the result felt like a big stepdown for me.

the question should be "Is Ant-man 3 worse than Ant-man?"

But that’s not what I’m interested in : the question isn’t if Ant Man 3 is worse than Ant-Man, ie sequels within a given character main movies, but whether the MCU really was that good 10 years ago and is now that bad. I find (eg above about why there is structurally something to question there) that some people might either be idealizing the quality of the earlier MCU movies (forgetting all their shortcomings because that’s how human mind is working) or are only now seeing flaws in the most recent movies that were already there in the past but were overlooked for some reason.
Hence such a question : looking at the averages per phase, Phase 1 has a French average of 6.8, Phase 2 6.4, Phase 3 6.6 and Phase 4 6.0. This isn’t a massive shift in quality. Actually, even when looking at the US scores show a relatively small change : Phase 1 had a 65 score on MC, Phase 2 65, Phase 3 73 and Phase 4 64. Actually, only RT% are showing a non-negligible shift, with Phase 4 being at 76% vs Phase 1 at 80%, Phase 2 at 81% and Phase 3 at a whopping 89%.

Comparing less than a dozen films (MoS, BvS, WW, JL, WW84, A, and I suppose Shazam and Adam make 8) to more than thirty (not including the integrated-well TV shows) is a mildly unfair comparison, but however you slice it the MCU is miles better than the DCEU. It's not even close. One is a coherent extended universe with many, many good-great films; the other is a barely-coherent mess with maybe... three? four? tolerable-to-good outings.

Except I’m comparing a corpus of movies with another corpus of movies. I don’t care (or at least I shouldn’t) care about the integrated TV shows : that’s not what I’m watching, and not what I’m comparing, when watching a (singular) MCU movie.

And then, taking into account all that written above, is BvS that bad vs other MCU movies that are supposedly that good ? Is, say, Man of Steel that bad compared to, say, Iron Man ?
French scores for Man of Steel is 6.6, for instance, so is on par with roughly 26 of the 32 MCU movies.

I would urge you to re-watch BvS to cross-compare with the others you list, but I try not to recommend rewatching anything I found so painfully awful.

BvS scored 5.2 in France (which, interestingly, is exactly what Aquaman scored – on RT, they’re respectively at 5.0/29% and 6.0/65%), which is slightly below what I thought of it (6), and would thus be in line with most of what I thought of the MCU movies I watched. When scoring Ultron 2.5, Civil War 3.5, Infinity War 4.5 and Endgame 2.5, it’s again not that different.

So two of the nine post-Endgame/FFH films are in positions 5 & 9, everything else in the lower half at places 17, 19, 22, 26, 30, 31 and 32. So all of the bottom 3 are post-Endgame films.

They are ranking those by their %, which is a very flawed meter.
Rank them by MC score, you'll get (from worst to third worst) Ant Man 3, The Eternals and Thor 2 (with Iron Man 2, Thor and Thor 4 just 3% away). Rank them by RT average and you'll get Ant Man 3, The Eternals and a tie-in between Thor 2 and Hulk. In France, you'll get (again) Ant Man 3, The Eternals and Thor 2 (and then a tie-in with Ultron, Black Widow and The Eternals) (with Thor, Iron Man , Dr Strange and Black Panther just 0.2 away).

So again, it's also a question of meter and point of view, and while there is indeed a tendancy for Phase 4 and 5 movies to be scored slightly lower, it's not that clear-cut. In France, out of the 10 post-Endgame movies, 5 are ranking 6.4 or above, ie same or above the overall average of Phases 1-3 (and same or above Endgame's score itself !).

[ntnon]

As I wrote, it seems like there is a North American positive halo around most of these movies that we definitely don't have in France. Thor 2 for instance has a 6.2/10 average on RT, which is surprisingly high considering it’s been frequently negatively criticized (I scored it somewhere around 2.5/10 : it’s a boring chore of a movie, which doesn’t even managed to keep the interesting theatrical-shakespearian characters-writing the first movie had).

My suspicion is that America considers 'average' to be a disappointment, and typically starts ratings at 5/10 - things have to be truly dire to dip below that point. I'm curious, and gratified, if that's not the case elsewhere - Tim Minchin's satirical barb in Matilda: The Musical says it well " 'Above Average' is average... go figure."

I compared the US and French critical scores : our scores are pretty much aligned with the Metacritic ones, though the MC scores are the higher ones (by 2.5%). RT ? Yeah, about those… : the RT% are higher by 15pts than the MC scores. But then, even the RT averages are above the MC scores. And then, the RT averages are noticeably higher than the French ones. MCU averages on MC ? 67. On RT%, it’s 82%. On RT averages, it’s 7.1. And in France, it’s 6.4 (with the caveat that the worst movies ever are scoring usually 1.5, skewing the average – a movie scoring below 3-3.2 is already mediocre)

Thanks for that. I had difficulty finding a good resource for non-American reviews. And as you elide at the end there, that's why I dislike "averages" in this instance - the outliers skew everything.

In France, Thor 2 has a 5.6/10 average. Ant Man 3 is 4.6, Thor 4 is 5.2, Black Widow is 5.8. The Eternals is 5.8… exactly like Ultron. Far From Home is 6.4. So is Endgame, but The Incredible Hulk is 6.8 and Ant Man 6.6. The average for all MCU movies is… 6.42. The highest score is Avengers at 8, followed by GoG 1 at 7.6 and GoG 3 at 7.2; everything else is below 7.

Fascinating. So the consensus there is that Ultron is as bad as Eternals; Far from Home is as good as Endgame, but both only in the 'good' range, while GotG v3 is better than... Cap, Winter Soldier, No Way Home and Infinity War? Weird... maybe I should seek out some of those reviews and try to work out WHY.

While I understand your point, which I guess is close to a question of being or not the target audience..

A clarifying question is fine, but it seemed like that was essentially what you'd written.

..it could be argued that while I might be a bit too harsh with those movies to be able to notice a drop in quality (to which I’d say : if I can notice when some movies feel better than others, I should be able to notice when others are even worse – I don’t think my ranking of the movies would be that different from many others’, just the scores), maybe some people might also be too lenient with them and overlook their flaws, especially in North America.

That may be true - on all fronts. I do suspect that the higher start point may be partly a factor of wanting to enjoy things, but also could be bumped by being able to find some enjoyment even in relative mediocrity - i.e. A Film That Gets Made must be at least 2/10 for simply existing, and then quality boosts that..?

Teachers sometimes start from 100/100 and remove marks for mistakes; I know some people who try and objectively judge films while others compare them to previous ones ('better than' or 'worse than') and guess at ratings accordingly. It's a perennially impossible game, because you either reserve 8/10 and up for the absolute pinnacles of cinematic acchievement, meaning excellent films can top out at 7odd, or you wind up thinking that Ant-man is (say) 'as good as' North by Northwest because of differences in intention and scope. (This is why I try to shy away from some forms of comparison and rating myself. "I enjoyed this" and "It was well made" matter more. But are equally arbitrary.)

I for instance don’t think a second most of these movies are equal (even less so superior) to, say, Raimi’s Spider Mans or Burton’s Batmans (I’m not particularly fond of Nolan’s Batmans : I find the 1st one more and more tedious at each new viewing, I think the 2nd one is very good but has a muddled subtext, and I think the 3rd one is a huge step below and falls into the Overly Bloated Conclusion kind of movie) (or even the 1st 2 X-Men or First Class). But then again : it doesn’t seem to be a particularly exceptional point of view here, especially at a times where movies like Batman Returns have been positively reappraised.

Following on from the difficulties in comparing like to notlike, it can be difficult enough to compare Nolan and Burton's takes on the same character because the sensibility is different and the source comics differ wildly - Batman: The Movie is fantastic for what it was trying to be, while both Burton and Nolan horribly mangle Joe Chill's faceless nobody status and foul up the origin story. Nicholson and Ledger are both great Jokers, but their purpose and style is so different that neither could be transposed without distorting their films.

I definitely think Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and GoTG are in the highest echelons of the top tier origin stories with Superman and Spider-man. X-Men and the Batmen place admirably, to me, but again - it's comparing apples to oranges. Both are fruit, but a perfect orange could be better or worse than a decent apple if one has more fondness for apples, to bastardise an analogy.

I have, however, indeed watched most of the MCU movies (pretty much everyone until Endgame) because I kept thinking “well, maybe this one will be better”. I think Ant Man was a nice though anodine movie, but part of its nice aspect was that it didn’t feel like a EverythingIsRelated movie, something more independent and possibly less ambitious in its world-building and more focused on, well, being A movie on its own. Ant Man 2 moved away from this, and the result felt like a big stepdown for me.

Agree on Ant-man, though the action in Wasp was admirable the whole plot was inconsequential and muddled.

the question should be "Is Ant-man 3 worse than Ant-man?"

But that’s not what I’m interested in : the question isn’t if Ant Man 3 is worse than Ant-Man, ie sequels within a given character main movies, but whether the MCU really was that good 10 years ago and is now that bad. I find (eg above about why there is structurally something to question there) that some people might either be idealizing the quality of the earlier MCU movies (forgetting all their shortcomings because that’s how human mind is working) or are only now seeing flaws in the most recent movies that were already there in the past but were overlooked for some reason.

Fair enough. But I would again suggest that the clear consensus answer to that is that, Yes, it was that good. The shortcomings early on were few and far-between (and not agreed on); more recently they are rife and obvious. I don't think this can be a case of rose-tinted memories or even overly-effusive praise to the earlier films because of their novelty - I think it's fairly demonstratively accurate (inasmuch as anything subjective can be).

Hence such a question : looking at the averages per phase, Phase 1 has a French average of 6.8, Phase 2 6.4, Phase 3 6.6 and Phase 4 6.0. This isn’t a massive shift in quality. Actually, even when looking at the US scores show a relatively small change : Phase 1 had a 65 score on MC, Phase 2 65, Phase 3 73 and Phase 4 64. Actually, only RT% are showing a non-negligible shift, with Phase 4 being at 76% vs Phase 1 at 80%, Phase 2 at 81% and Phase 3 at a whopping 89%.

Interesting. But I think that, given the clustering and lack of high-scores in your cited French reviews, that 6.0 is a significant comedown. (Perhaps even moreso given that Phase 4 is potentially skewed by GotG3 being curiously high.)

I need to look at Metacritic scores.

I’m comparing a corpus of movies with another corpus of movies. I don’t care (or at least I shouldn’t) care about the integrated TV shows : that’s not what I’m watching, and not what I’m comparing, when watching a (singular) MCU movie.

Except that we're talking about a GROUP of films, not just individual tales taken separately. Part of why the MCU is so praised is because it cross-polinates and fits coherently together - Endgame may or may not be enjoyable of 'good' by itself, but it ISN'T by itself: it is the culmination of many diverse elements, and pays off multiple plot points across dozens of films.

Interestingly on the TV front, it's only really Strange 2 and Ant 3 that rely on (excellent) TV shows, and those were... middling films. Irony?

And then, taking into account all that written above, is BvS that bad vs other MCU movies that are supposedly that good ? Is, say, Man of Steel that bad compared to, say, Iron Man ?
French scores for Man of Steel is 6.6, for instance, so is on par with roughly 26 of the 32 MCU movies.

Yes. Man of Steel is a terrible Superman film, Iron Man is a great Iron Man film. Now, I haven't revisited it in years because of my memories, so I need to reappraise and see whether (I think) it holds up as a Film - it is possible that it isn't a bad film, just a bad Superman film. Maybe their status as American artifacts is the differential factor between US and non-US reviewers..?

I would urge you to re-watch BvS to cross-compare with the others you list, but I try not to recommend rewatching anything I found so painfully awful.

BvS scored 5.2 in France (which, interestingly, is exactly what Aquaman scored – on RT, they’re respectively at 5.0/29% and 6.0/65%), which is slightly below what I thought of it (6), and would thus be in line with most of what I thought of the MCU movies I watched.

Ha. I was incredibly underwhelmed by Aquaman too, but assumed I was an outlier..

When scoring Ultron 2.5, Civil War 3.5, Infinity War 4.5 and Endgame 2.5, it’s again not that different.

I just can't fathom rating Endgame the same as Ultron, and all those four below BvS. That's.... wildly different.

So two of the nine post-Endgame/FFH films are in positions 5 & 9, everything else in the lower half at places 17, 19, 22, 26, 30, 31 and 32. So all of the bottom 3 are post-Endgame films.

They are ranking those by their %, which is a very flawed meter.
Rank them by MC score, you'll get (from worst to third worst) Ant Man 3, The Eternals and Thor 2 (with Iron Man 2, Thor and Thor 4 just 3% away). Rank them by RT average and you'll get Ant Man 3, The Eternals and a tie-in between Thor 2 and Hulk. In France, you'll get (again) Ant Man 3, The Eternals and Thor 2 (and then a tie-in with Ultron, Black Widow and The Eternals) (with Thor, Iron Man , Dr Strange and Black Panther just 0.2 away).

Like to like comparisons are always flawed, but the takeaway there should be that whichever system is used, Quantumania and Eternals are bottom, which is a quarter of Phase 4 being rated below EVERYTHING else. That's surely damning - doubly so given the otherwise wildly divergent opinions on Black Panther and Iron Man (especially).

So again, it's also a question of meter and point of view, and while there is indeed a tendancy for Phase 4 and 5 movies to be scored slightly lower, it's not that clear-cut. In France, out of the 10 post-Endgame movies, 5 are ranking 6.4 or above, ie same or above the overall average of Phases 1-3 (and same or above Endgame's score itself !).

That's definitely fascinating, insightful and interesting, raising as it does a lot of cultural questions and differences in how films are rated, but it still seems fairly clear cut: the earlier twenty-odd films were good-great (with outliers), the recent eight-odd films have been middling-bad (with outliers).

[ntnon]

Metacritic is, as you say, similar to Tomatoes (as it should be), but the ease of arranging tables is interesting.

The audience responses for all Marvel films is very telling. Iron Man out front and largely the usual suspects, but the low end...

..elevates Eternals for some reason, slates Black Panther (7th and 8th from the bottom, respectively, for MCU entries) leaving the bottom six as:

68 Black Widow (.8 below critics)
60 Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (.1 below critics)
48 Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (.9 above)
67 Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (1.5 below)
57 Thor: Love and Thunder (.9 below) and

64 Captain Marvel (3.4 below)

Adjusting for reality, the part-sexist, part-stupid, part-mildly-objective review-bombing of Captain Marvel makes that an obviously dismissable oddity, leaving the bottom eight MCU films being CM, BP and six of eight Phase 4 films. The likely bigotry and politically-charged daftness threaded through some of that may eclipse objectivity (possibly rendering the metric moot), but... 6/8 of the bottom films along with the film famously attacked by sexist twerps and the one notable for featuring an all black cast..? That's curious.

[tenia]

Going back to the stats from critics : as I suspected, the Phase 4 and 5 movies aren’t so much “worse” than the ones before, but rather the gaps between the different scores outlets are getting smaller than they used to, and RT% are now closer to the lower scores from MC or France than for Phases 1-3 (Phase 3 in particular). Phases 1-3 had an average RT% of 85% but a 68 MC average and a 66 French average (that’s a 16pts gap between RT% and MC, and a 19pts gap between the RT% and the French scores). Phase 3 in particular had the bigger gaps : 16.5pts between RT% and MC, 23pts between RT% and France. But now, Phase 4 has a 13pts gap between RT% and MC and 16pts between RT% and France, and Phase 5 has a 7pts gap between RT% and MC and 4pts between RT% and France.

So from my perspective, it’s thus indeed not so much that the movies are getting worse, but that the overly enthusiast receptions are going away.

As for user scores, I don't use them since they're mostly useless now because pretty much every big franchise is prone to get review bombed one way or another, so only older scores are likely to be reliable.
However, as they stand on MC, yes, the lower scores are mostly the newer movies. Which probably deserve these scores, that's not what I’m challenging.

[ntnon]

Going back to the stats from critics : as I suspected, the Phase 4 and 5 movies aren’t so much “worse” than the ones before, but rather the gaps between the different scores outlets are getting smaller than they used to...
So from my perspective, it’s thus indeed not so much that the movies are getting worse, but that the overly enthusiast receptions are going away.

I think I understand your logic and point about why that's a different thing, but to me it's splitting hairs because I think the 'enthusiasm bump' is in fact tied to (subjective) "quality," albeit maybe of the interconnected cohesion kind - and I'll argue that that would still be indicative. Especially when compared to other universe-building attempts, but not merely then.

If the latest films feel 'off' and disconnected from the MCU - for whatever reason (even if it is just the loss of cast, and I do not think that is all) - then their "quality" has dropped.

As for user scores, I don't use them since they're mostly useless now because pretty much every big franchise is prone to get review bombed one way or another, so only older scores are likely to be reliable.

Agreed. Though to some degree, even 'proper' critic ratings depend on hidden and overt biases - there remain people who will cut a blockbuster's score or boost a non-big studio offering just 'cos. It is, however, depressing to realise that in a world where we have ever-greater access to statistics and analytic tools, their value is undercut by bad actors (figuratively!) rendering that added tool questionably inaccurate.

However, as they stand on MC, yes, the lower scores are mostly the newer movies. Which probably deserve these scores, that's not what I’m challenging.

I understand; I just still think that the earlier higher scores are indeed more accurate and deserved.

[tenia]

I think I understand your logic and point about why that's a different thing, but to me it's splitting hairs because I think the 'enthusiasm bump' is in fact tied to (subjective) "quality," albeit maybe of the interconnected cohesion kind - and I'll argue that that would still be indicative. Especially when compared to other universe-building attempts, but not merely then.

It might be hair splitting, but considering how much the industry is relying on Marvel movies making huge numbers and how "super hero fatigue" might be the biggest industrial risk for cinema nowadays, it is, I think, important to try and see if the newer movies really are worse than the older ones, or if the older ones were, whatever the reasons, benefitting from some kind of undeserved positive halo (which is a thing).

As I wrote above and as the figures show, there definitely is already a gap between North American/UK critical reception and the French one, for instance.
So did the quality really dropped, or did the viewers finally opened their eyes to flaws that were already there before ?

If the latest films feel 'off' and disconnected from the MCU - for whatever reason (even if it is just the loss of cast, and I do not think that is all) - then their "quality" has dropped.

It is, however, depressing to realise that in a world where we have ever-greater access to statistics and analytic tools, their value is undercut by bad actors (figuratively!) rendering that added tool questionably inaccurate.

I do believe this is one of the saddest thing around movies scores (etc), because this is rendering useless so many tools. As a viewer, I just want to get a feel of whether a movie might be fine or not : nowadays, there just are so many stuff for which I can't get this, because it's hidden behind layers of review bombings. I'm very happy French Sens Critique still is relatively immune to this, just like Letterboxd is in the US, but it might just be a matter of time before they also get screwed.

I just still think that the earlier higher scores are indeed more accurate and deserved.

I think that's our main diverging point : I don't think so. I think several of these movies are closer to these 6/10 scores but got 7.5-8 instead. And actually, just changing the metric gets these movies scores closer to 6/10 : in France it's 6.4, on MC it's 6.8. Only the RT% of 85% for Phases 1-3 is way apart and above.

If I was cheeky, I'd say that's probably the whole point of this %.

[Mr Sausage]

So did the quality really dropped, or did the viewers finally opened their eyes to flaws that were already there before ?

What's odd about Argento movies like Trauma and Sleepless is that they're almost universally taken as examples of his artistic decline, and yet, watching them, there's nothing obviously different from Opera or Tenebre. It's the same style, same subject matter, same themes, same basic feel. There's just something that falls flat, some animating spark that's missing. It's impossible to say exactly what it is, but the movies don't hit you the same way. And, funnily, without that spark, all the flaws in Argento's movies--the sometimes indifferent structure, the weak grasp on storytelling fundamentals, the wooden acting, the inconsistent pacing--become really apparent. It evens starts to affect your enjoyment of the great movies a bit, because in them you see what bothered you so much in the weak movies. Was Argento ever really that great?

It's odd how that works, how movies with nothing objectively worse, with the exact flaws as other movies by the same filmmaker, can just fail to come to life. It'd be impossible to convince someone who hated that filmmaker; it'd all seem like the same mush under different names. Why wouldn't it? Same flaws, same techniques, same style--no Argento hater is going to look at Trauma and Deep Red and see any difference. "Did Argento's films really decline? Or did people finally wake up to their flaws?", they'll probably ask.

Yet, once the weak movies fade in your memory a bit and you go back to the favourites, the old Argento madness takes over. You still love them--maybe not with the same giddiness as when you were 20 and couldn't believe people could ever make something so ghastly and baroque, and maybe not with the same forgiveness of the flaws, but your warm feelings persist. There was something there, some intangible thing that was lost over time, and you weren't simply confused or blinded when you noticed it slip away.

But I digress. What were we talking about again?

[tenia]

I understand what you mean, but regarding Argento's movies, I discovered quite early Deep Red, Suspiria and Tenebrae, and felt Tenebrae to be a noticeable step-down. I saw it at a theatrical double bill following Bay of Blood, and we spent most of Tenebrae laughing at the movie because of how over the top and ridiculous it is in a too-often cheap way (like the villain reveal at the climax

SpoilerShow

where you can see his ears beneath the character in the foreground

). It's also often way too showy, like the famous Louma tracking shot which always felt to me like a cocky shot for the point of a cocky shot. I much preferred Opera, which I saw later but felt quite OK though possibly a tad slow.
I discovered Trauma recently and it's just a bore, nothing like the sensorial barrage that Suspiria is, but also nothing like the much briskest Bird with the Crystal Plumage.
So I'd argue there ARE things objectively worse in those later Argento movies (though they're probably not all godawful), and things objectively better in several earlier ones.

[Mr Sausage]

Argento being a cocky show off, and not always knowing where the line between effective and goofy lies, is kinda the appeal.

[tenia]

Oh I agree, but I tend to think some movies are more hits than misses, and I prefer these ones !

[ntnon]

It might be hair splitting, but considering how much the industry is relying on Marvel movies making huge numbers and how "super hero fatigue" might be the biggest industrial risk for cinema nowadays, it is, I think, important to try and see if the newer movies really are worse than the older ones, or if the older ones were, whatever the reasons, benefitting from some kind of undeserved positive halo (which is a thing).

Despite our collective doubts over the current usefulness of reviews and percentages, I am still clinging to the belief (because it aligns with my own!) that the earlier reviews were not deliberately skewed or inflated - just reflective of the breath of fresh air the MCU was to the then-available partly stagnant superhero film offerings. (Let's never forget Catwoman and Jonah Hex exist.. but let's continue to try..)

Indeed, given that the undertext of your comment there - the 'need' for these films to do well - it is, I suggest, MORE evident that the quality has gone down. If reviews must boost the perceived quality to counter fatigue, how then are the most recent (and most prone to fatigue) getting the abysmal reviews that place them at the bottom of the heap..?

As I wrote above and as the figures show, there definitely is already a gap between North American/UK critical reception and the French one, for instance.
So did the quality really dropped, or did the viewers finally opened their eyes to flaws that were already there before ?

Despite the gap, given that the figures you quote are averages (and especially since France seems keen on GotG3, artificially inflating P4's average), that Phase 4 still has a noticably lower average, I say even the numbers bear out the drop in quality. Especially if they could be being massaged to counteract fatigue..

It is, however, depressing to realise that in a world where we have ever-greater access to statistics and analytic tools, their value is undercut by bad actors (figuratively!) rendering that added tool questionably inaccurate.

I do believe this is one of the saddest thing around movies scores (etc), because this is rendering useless so many tools. As a viewer, I just want to get a feel of whether a movie might be fine or not : nowadays, there just are so many stuff for which I can't get this, because it's hidden behind layers of review bombings. I'm very happy French Sens Critique still is relatively immune to this, just like Letterboxd is in the US, but it might just be a matter of time before they also get screwed.

It is always educational to revisit 1984 and Brave New World (and other prognosticators) and see how the predictions were close and far from reality. Idiocracy is more accurate than the works of the past, because few predictors foresaw just how venal, untruthful and ignorant people could become when left to their own devices. When confronted with the knowledge of the world, we ignore half, doubt a further quarter, mangle another two-tenths and wallow in the reality than all opinions are now equal; and many opinions are now passable as fact..

I just still think that the earlier higher scores are indeed more accurate and deserved.

I think that's our main diverging point : I don't think so. I think several of these movies are closer to these 6/10 scores but got 7.5-8 instead. And actually, just changing the metric gets these movies scores closer to 6/10 : in France it's 6.4, on MC it's 6.8. Only the RT% of 85% for Phases 1-3 is way apart and above.

If I was cheeky, I'd say that's probably the whole point of this %.

Definitely! That's where we differ, but I still say even the numbers, hazy as they are, demonstrate adequately that Iron Man, Captain America and Thor are masterpieces, and half the most recent tales have been abominable.

[ntnon]

So did the quality really dropped, or did the viewers finally opened their eyes to flaws that were already there before ?

Also, on this point, I think this is where it's important to try to conpare like-with-like. It isn't possible, of course, because the weight of the connected universe is different and the Terrible Phase shares fewer characters with the Good ones (...), but:

Ant-man to Ant-man 3 - similar characters, albeit with dramatically different stakes
GotG to vol 2 to vol 3 - ditto, albeit similarer dynamics and stakes
Maybe Avengers to Eternals, for team dynamics? With the massive caveat that not having to introduce the individuals helped Avengers dramatically.
Strange to Strange Madness - though it's a solo to team film, so again, not an entirely fair comparison.
Thor to Thor 4. Or Thor 3 to Thor 4.

My point being that if it were just an accrual of flaws making the recent films look bad, and those flaws being present elsewhere, then it would be a close call - with the benefit of hindsight - as to which films were qualitatively 'better'. And (to me, but also I suspect to most), it is not close. The earlier films are better in every way, and the flaws of pacing, plot, effects, scope, motive, etc. evident in Eternals/Thunder/Quantumania et al. just aren't there in the earlier films.

[ntnon]

What's odd about Argento movies like Trauma and Sleepless is that they're almost universally taken as examples of his artistic decline, and yet, watching them, there's nothing obviously different from Opera or Tenebre. It's the same style, same subject matter, same themes, same basic feel. There's just something that falls flat, some animating spark that's missing. It's impossible to say exactly what it is, but the movies don't hit you the same way. And, funnily, without that spark, all the flaws in Argento's movies--the sometimes indifferent structure, the weak grasp on storytelling fundamentals, the wooden acting, the inconsistent pacing--become really apparent. It evens starts to affect your enjoyment of the great movies a bit, because in them you see what bothered you so much in the weak movies. Was Argento ever really that great?

It's odd how that works, how movies with nothing objectively worse, with the exact flaws as other movies by the same filmmaker, can just fail to come to life...

Yet, once the weak movies fade in your memory a bit and you go back to the favourites, the old Argento madness takes over. You still love them..

That's an excellent example.

And I would add that there are cases (though I've found it more evident in episodic TV rather than in films) whether recognising later flaws does taint and colour the earlier episodes upon rewatching. Just like learning information about filmmakers (or artists generally) can reframe their works in troubling ways in retrospect, and destroy some level of enjoyment.

That said, I don't think that's (all of) what's happening in the MCU. I think there are many and various factors (largely listed above) that have compounded and hurt the universe, not just a lost spark. Though Gunn does seem to have lost whatever spark he had (Perlman?).

[Matt]

RE: Argento

I remember Trauma being pretty boring but with a couple of very rousing and original moments. I missed the more saturated color of the earlier films, exchanged for more darkness and…wetness?

I think I feel that most of Argento’s films are some part excruciatingly dull and some part magnificently brilliant, it’s just a different ratio with each film. Suspiria, by miles, is the best. One of the best horror movies, period, but it still drags in a couple of scenes.

For me, the best parts of Bird with the Crystal Plumage and Four Flies on Grey Velvet are the beginning scenes and then it’s all downhill from there. With Deep Red and Tenebrae it’s the endings, and it’s an uphill slog to them. Though Tenebrae has one of my favorite movie endings of all time with the extended shot of A Certain Acting Person just endlessly screaming in the rain.

Inferno is fun because it makes no sense at all and has some incredible scenes. Opera is similar for me. And I had a little crush on William McNamara at the time (Doing Time on Maple Drive, the awful Liz Taylor biopic where Sherilyn Fenn plays Liz (obviously only cast because of her superficial resemblance) and he plays Monty Clift (and doesn’t resemble him at all), and Copycat a fun, trashy thriller that is completely forgotten today.

Otherwise, I haven’t watched anything of his since Stendhal Syndrome, don’t really have any inclination to do so, and don’t recall any of his other previous films making much of an impression. I absolutely cannot stand Cat o’ Nine Tails for some reason.

I think once I discovered Mario Bava, it was all over for Argento. Almost any Bava is better than any Argento, save Suspiria.

[ntnon]

RE: Argento

I remember Trauma being pretty boring but with a couple of very rousing and original moments. I missed the more saturated color of the earlier films, exchanged for more darkness and…wetness?

I think I feel that most of Argento’s films are some part excruciatingly dull and some part magnificently brilliant, it’s just a different ratio with each film. Suspiria, by miles, is the best. One of the best horror movies, period, but it still drags in a couple of scenes.

This is why, for me, reviews (and especially stars or numbers) can be so awkward and arbitrary - I suspect I'm not alone, but I acknowledge that I'm probably more/less troubled by it.

There are themes, lines, moments, scenes, actors, (etc.) that are better - or worse - in a given film, and while the whole is often more (or less) than the sum of its parts, that's why comparisons and stark rankings are so awkward. I can think of very few films that are Practically Perfect - there's always something that drags, or doesn't hit or whatever. And even in the best total films, there are more minor films that have better discrete parts. So you wind up with films that may, for example, be 7/10 on a dozen different parts mathematically being 'as good as' films that could be 8-10/10 on many parts, but dip lower on others.. You wind up saying Vertigo is the same level of enjoyable as Troll 2 and the same level of excellent as Guardians of the Galaxy, which is.. odd.

You also get a more personal mental wrangling over whether a couple of sublime moments elevate an otherwise pedestrian film, or whether a glaring plothole or miscast actor can hamstring something otherwise exceptional.

[hearthesilence]

I think I posted this before, but I remember Mike Nichols sort of defended franchise (and by extension Marvel) films because he mentioned so many talented actors he worked with lived paycheck-to-paycheck, which can be especially stressful when age impacts their livelihood more than others. As he put, it's not until they do their "spaceship" or "rocket ship" movie that they can finally relax and be comfortable. I bring this up because Tom Hollander was on Late Night with Seth Meyers and he mentioned that he and Tom Holland briefly shared the same agency where even the accounts department got them mixed up. He found this out when he went to see a friend perform in a Chekhov play:

I sat smugly in the audience, having just done a BBC show for 30 grand or something, which was going to get me through the next year or so...[during an intermission] I got an email from the agency saying, "Payment advice slip: your first box-office bonus for The Avengers." And I thought, "I don't think I'm in The Avengers." It was an astonishing amount of money. It was not his salary, it was his first box-office bonus. Not the whole box office, the first one. It was more money than I've ever… It was a 7-figure sum. He was 20 or something. So my feeling of smugness disappeared very quickly. But that's showbiz.

[jbeall]

Marvel World

In truth, of course, safety—in the sense of a guaranteed return on investment for shareholders—has been Marvel’s principle accomplishment, reviving a flailing blockbuster system by eliminating the risk associated with novelty. To do so, Feige merely supercharged what had already been working for Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter: constituting a “paracosm” out of existing IP, an endlessly iterative fantasy world, with a locked-in, nostalgic audience. South Park satirized this enterprise, and the essentially conservative impulse underlying it, in its twentieth season, in which the adult townsfolk become addicted to “Member Berries”: little grape-like, sentient fruit who squeak IP-centric slogans like, “’member Chewbacca?” and “’member Ghostbusters?” before tossing off increasingly reactionary ones: “’member feeling safe?” “’member Reagan?” “’member when marriage was just between a man and a woman?”

[Mr Sausage]

That article just repeats every tired commonplace about Marvel we've heard for years, and worse, repeats them in the pompous and self-conscious prose of someone who feels they have important insights to deliver. But it does make one interesting point:

And in at least one respect, Marvel movies are highly sophisticated texts. As the films accumulate, a creeping self-awareness—of the sort that brings chaos and, eventually, liberation to Gerwig’s Barbies—starts to bedevil the denizens of Marvel World as well. Watch enough of these movies (and God knows I have), and what they seem to be about is Marvel Studios itself.

Other critics have noted this self-reflexivity. “MCU movies are often metaphors for themselves,” writes the New Yorker’s Michael Schulman, “In ‘The Avengers,’ the tense collaboration among superheroes with complementary powers and sizable egos resembles nothing so much as Hollywood filmmaking, with writers, directors, and producers wrangling for control.” Similarly, frequent handwringing within the movies about which heroes should comprise, or lead, this or that version of the Avengers stands in for the casting process. As Schulman notes, in Captain America: Civil War, the imposition of government oversight on the Avengers is “a handy analogy for creativity under corporate supervision.”

Too bad it bungles it. Does anyone outside the author find those examples convincing? The Avengers resemble Hollywood in that they show powerful, ego-driven people "wrangling for control"? That's any organization. Hell, that's 50% of the group projects I was assigned in school. Deciding who should comprise and or lead the Avengers is like the casting process? Sounds like the hiring process in general. Or, again, any group project I was involved with...or picking sports teams, for that matter. As for government oversight being a "handy analogy" for corporate oversight--it's not an analogy when the two things are literally the same. It's like calling the Roman inquisition a good analogy for the Spanish inquisition. Utterly unrevealing.

All the evidence in that paragraph boils down to noticing the Avengers is, broadly speaking, an organization, and so is Hollywood, and then furiously building a castle in the sand. The article does that a couple other times, make an interesting point about reflexivity and then fail to back it up with any compelling evidence. Like when it says "It’s notable, then, how frequently villains and heroes in the MCU are motivated by a desire to defend, hoard, or steal intellectual property.", but then the "notable frequency" turns out to be the first two Iron Man movies. So 2/3 of the series about a guy who invents cool shit is about other people also wanting his cool shit. Exceptional arguing. That's the article: a whole lot of nothing said in the most bloviating and self-satisfied manner.

[flyonthewall2983]

Really enjoyed Across The Spider-Verse. A little too heavy on the emotional beats but that’s just the 90’s kid talking.