My friends are often frustrated at my resistance to their suggestions of books or movies they think I’d like. “This is just up your alley! You’ll love it! You liked X so you’re going to love Y! I think this is really your sort of thing!” When I don’t want to deal, I’ll point out that I have an enormous to-be-read list already and mumble something about adding it to the list, or I’ll leave my movie-going up to the chance of which movies my friends are getting a group up to see when I happen to be available. But sometimes I’ll push back and point out that my friends’ recommendations—not just of things they like, but of things they actively think I’ll like—have a success rate that isn’t much better than random. So bringing something to my attention is fine, but when I say it doesn’t grab me, just accept that it doesn’t grab me.
Comic book movies are one of my weak spots in this process. And just like Lucy and the football, I have a weakness for believing that maybe, just maybe, this time the movie that all my friends are saying is the best Marvel movie ever will actually recapture the things that I enjoy about graphic novels, and will spark that sense of wonder I felt back at the beginning of the long chain of big SFX budget features that gobsmacked me by putting my comic book fantasies up on the big screen.
Yeah…no.
The thing is, what the movie makers are taking away from the success of comic book movies is exactly what makes me swear every single time that I’ll never again let myself be fooled into giving them one more chance. Explosions and long lovingly-drawn-out sequences of extreme meaningless violence. Not merely not my thing, but something that a movie needs to actively overcome by being extremely (and I mean extremely) good at everything else.
Thor: Ragnarok did not overcome.
Honestly, except for that one heartbreaking flashback scene with Valkyrie where we are allowed to pretend that the companion she sees fall in battle was her girlfriend (and we aren’t actually told that, we’re just tossed the crumb of not having it outright contradicted), all I came out of Thor:Ragnarok with is the memory of constant non-stop fight and chase scenes. Boring. Unutterably and mind-numbingly boring. And if you edited out all the scenes of violence from the movie, you might possibly have ten minutes left of pratfalls and embarrassment humor.
And yet, everywhere I look, people are calling it the best Marvel movie ever. People whose taste and opinions I ordinarily find trustworthy. So if you’re ever in a position of raving to me about how wonderful something is and how I absolutely must read/watch/play/try it and I get this pained and evasive look on my face and mumble something about there only being so many hours in a day, just…take no for an answer. Ok?
Comments4
Agreed 100%, especially about
Agreed 100%, especially about comic-book movies. For me, this was confirmed with Wonder Woman -- I adore the story & the actual comics. I even enjoyed the '70s TV show. But the movie this year? Too much of the same boring, CGI battle scenes, & not enough of her fascinating backstory & plot & *why* she does what she does & *who* she is. I loved 30 minutes of that movie, & the rest gave me a headache (I find that extended fight scenes actually make me tense up, so even if I don't see them in the theater [which is an automatic migraine trigger], I'm prone to getting a tension headache).
I figure there must be some
I figure there must be some sort of brain wiring that genuinely enjoys the non-stop action/violence scenes, but I haven't got it. At best, they bore me. At worst, they overwhelm me. I think it's the same thing that hits my noise+crowds buttons, except at least at the movies I'm not trying to socialize at the same time.
aha moment
noise-crowd button enlightens me greatly. That explains so much about the movies I've fast forwarded through.
indeed
I haven't even bothered to see these recent comic book movies, despite being kinda curious due to so many friends gushing about them, but, like you, the fight and chase scenes aren't my thing. At least in a book it is easy to just kinda quickly skim over such drivel with half an eye till one gets back to the story, but in a movie theater one has to just sit and wait, but can't even work on a sewing project to pass the time, since it is too dark.