GrimFandango

I also got the JL trailer in front of SM:H, along with Black Panther.

Jeezus that's disturbing!!!

Wow, that could put a damper on the OS performance of these guys. It's been a few years since I last familiarized myself with the China market, but I seem to remember that had a habit of only paying something like 25% of the sales back to the studios or something?

Maybe this has been answered already and I missed it--will this be shown in IMAX 3D? Since Dunkirk is coming out the same weekend and is guaranteed IMAX space, I'm assuming they'll be competing for IMAX screens? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Yeah, that really is a piece of hyperbolic BS...and I still think the Hollywood Report critic was WAY over the top--reminded me of that critic from Birdman.

First one I've seen in a while that didn't have Wonder Woman on there.

I strongly disagree and can argue it, but I'll respect your desire to stay focused.

Except that same guy said this: So his critic credibility is pretty questionable, since A:C was none of those things.

Rango was a pretty good start.

Plus Luc has a....thing for young, waify model types.

Yes! People don't make the same mistake I did with Dredd 3D--some movies MUST be seen at the theater to really appreciate them to their fullest, and by all accounts this is one of them! I can't imagine if I'd missed seeing Avatar in IMAX 3D

Not to mention that it also appeals to an older demographic than most SHMs, and even to people who don't normally see CBMs. It's like a 4-quadrant-plus film. I've seen it a lot, and I'm surprised at the number of older couples (dare I say even elderly) that I've seen, and they seem to love it: lots of laughs, etc. As some reviewers have notably said, WW is very balanced--it's not too dark, not too light, not too much action, and not too wordy. Every time I see it, it feels shorter than its 2hr21min run time, and that is a rare accomplishment. It's hard to find a place for a bathroom break, for god's sake! It's going to be referred to as one of the best examples of CMBs, and particularly origin stories, ever put to film.

Geez, reading that Hollywood Reporter's review makes you think Besson stole that guy's girlfriend and fucked his cat....

Just watched the Screen Junkies review, and while they thought the story and lead actors were "meh", they say it is a must-see in 3D experience. Similar to Avatar, but a lot more interesting. This jives with my impressions without having seen it--a visual delight that must be seen on big-screen in 3D, but don't expect much from the story. If this were a just world, this should make Transformers franchise numbers (excepting TF5). I'm going to see it with low expectations for the performance and plot, but with super-juiced curiosity for the visuals and world-building.

I've had guarded hopes for this movie, and I really do hope it is a good one for the reasons you've stated. I saw the 3D trailer when I watched SM:H, and because of the awesome visuals I will see it at least once in 3D. If it under performs though, I hope that Hollywood takes away the right lessons from it, because it seems that too many times they don't. But I can't throw money at a bad film just because I want Hollywood to keep taking risks, because then they'll learn the wrong lessons and keep making the same mistakes. What Hollywood needs to know is that people will see original movies, if they are done well. This summer is a great example so far, because so many high-budget films (sequels in particular) have fallen flat, and it's not because people are tired of them--it's because the stories are bad. If you want a lot of people to keep spending a lot of money on your movies, you can't keep pushing out crap when there are so many other quality options out there. Studios seem willing to spend money and time on special fx and spectacle, but they really need to up their game on getting good writers and spending more time on the scripts. It blows me away the number of films that have come out in recent years where the script is being written during shooting, or is thrown together in a few weeks in order to get a sequel out, because they just turn out shitty. Hype can get you good OWs, but the legs will be crap. Even if you're lucky and the movie does great numbers in the short run, if your movie's legs are weak, you're sacrificing franchise longevity for short term profits. All that being said, I really hope Valerian is a good movie. I'm concerned about the leads because in the stuff I've seen so far, there's no chemistry and the performances look meh, but I'm willing to be surprised. If the visuals blow people away but the acting/story are just ok, it might turn into an Avatar lite. As for opening against Dunkirk, for me personally the Dunkirk trailers haven't convinced me that it's a must see yet so I'll wait for the reviews on that on.

Excellent point--that was bugging me too but I didn't know why. You're on point, because they really did mess up Spidey's own mythos by wedging the Avengers into it the way they did.

Agreed. I'm one of those who also had a problem with the suit among other things, and I defend my criticism of the movie which I did in my spoiler review. Here's my feeling on the situation and what my gut tells me: SM:H is a good movie, but not a great one. It's good enough that most critics recommend it, hence the high RT score; and really any good movie should get a high score on RT since it is an aggregate score site. After seeing it for myself, I find that the high, high praise that a lot of critics have heaped on it are a bit unfounded, and I'm curious to see if either I'm being over-critical, or whether other movie goers will feel the same way. If my gut is right, then the high critic praise will have inflated the opening day numbers, but as people judge it for themselves the WOM will tone down some and dampen the following days, along with fewer people going in for repeat viewings. The legs will be average for the typical Marvel film, but overseas will pump the numbers because that market tends to be less critical. If my gut is wrong, then SM:H will continue to post high numbers and have a pretty good run all around. Saturday's 37 million tells me my gut feeling might be right though. (assuming that number is accurate). Again, I'm not saying it's not a good movie or that I hope it does poorly, but for me the plot had a lot of glaring problems, most characters were not well-developed, and Spidey comes off being weaker than his CW debut.

The first few times I watched this film, it was for Clint. Ever since then, it's been for Tuco; and it really is Tuco's film. To me that's the most interesting thing about it, because it's one of the few films I can remember where the anti-hero really shines. All three men are interesting characters, but Angel Eyes really has no arc and we don't know much about him other than he is a badass. Virtually the same for Blondie, but he and Tuco do learn something from the war, but primarily Blondie learns something about Tuco...and Tuco by far is the most fascinating character. Eli Wallach hit this one way out of the park, and I'm too young to know if he did but I sure hope he got the accolades he deserved from this film. This is one movie I really wish would get a re-release in theaters because the cinematography and score just beg, beg, beg to be played on the biggest IMAX screen you can get and with an equally impressive sound system. One of my favorite sound tracks to listen to. For me, this and Once Upon A Time in the West are the apex films of the genre.

Since most everybody's covered everything else, I'll just focus on the few things that really stood out to me: For me the first issue is that by the end of the movie, Spiderman comes off as a weaker superhero than what I felt he was in Civil War. His character arc was one of some maturation, but because of all the help he got from the Stark costume, at the end I felt the costume was more powerful than Spiderman himself. It really drove home the point that if Spiderman ever has to come to the aid of the Avengers in a desert, he better charter a plane otherwise they'll be dead by the time he gets there. The second issue is that only a few characters in the film actually get fleshed out at all: The Vulture, Spidey and his buddy (I can't even remember his name). And Keaton's talent really overshadows everybody else, even against RDJ's cameos. A huge problem for me was that the plot entirely hinged on Happy repeatedly hanging up the phone a little too early....? It feels like lazy writing. One spot that I though really could have turned this movie into something special was the ferry sequence. When that laser thing was going nuts, I thought sure people had gotten killed (I mean, come on, every person on that boat should have bought lotto tickets at that point just for surviving that!). And if not then, when the boat was split in half. The fact that the ferry definitely should have sunk in a couple of seconds BUT DIDN'T broke my suspension-of-disbelief meter. What was wasted was that if Peter had actually caused the deaths of those innocents, the entire lesson of the movie would have been made right there, and in a much more impactful way. But Iron Man saves the day, welds the boat together and we are reminded that this is a Avenger's Marvel Movie attempting to be a John Hughes movie. The last thing I will harp on is something that's bugged me in a lot of Marvel films but a recent youtube video was actually able to put a label on it, and that is bathos: whenever things get serious, somebody has to crack a joke or some out of place humor gets injected into it, and it just drains away the emotional impact of the scene. The best example is when Happy brings Peter into the men's room to have a heart-to-heart talk with him, and I really want to hear what he has to say....but then we get that awkward, cringey piece where we have to wait for the kid in the bathroom to pop out of the stall and slowly wash his hands and slide out of the bathroom. I was completely taken out of the moment and thought to myself "God-dammit Marvel!" It's supposed to be humorous, but really comes off as a cheap laugh. This happened here and there and especially with some of RDJ's scenes, and there is a cost to this kind of humor; and that cost is that as a viewer, I am less invested in the movie, and in particular I care a little less about the characters. I did like the movie as a popcorn CBM and I liked Holland's performance but especially Keaton's, and I give it a B.

Spider-Man: Homecoming in IMAX 3D July 6, 7:00 PM, 75% full AMC Colorado It looked like a lot of people were there for SM:H showings. Trailers: Pitch Perfect 3 (a couple chuckles) The Dark Tower (no reaction) Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (laughs) Justice League (reaction for Wonder Woman) War For The Planet of the Apes (no reaction) Valerian 3D (no reaction-convinced me to see this in 3D though) Black Panther 3D (some clapping) Very tame crowd. A couple of chuckles here and there, but otherwise not much reaction. Lot of people coming in and out during the movie and was kind of distracting since I was right at the walk-way level. No applause or reaction at end.

Just got back from watching SM:H. Theater was about 75% full. Lots of showings for it though. WW still had one showing going on, and it was nearly sold out, but in a small theater. The audience was meh. A couple of chuckles now and again. I thought it dragged here and there, and there weren't any "F**-YEAH!!" moments or anything that memorable. Keaton was great--reminds me that I need to see Birdman still. Couple plot problems bothered me, and Spiderman's constant chatter started getting on my nerves. I kind of wished it had more gravitas; there was a scene mid-way that really piqued my interest because I thought it was going to go one way, but it played it safe and totally didn't so it really turned vanilla for me. Also it suffered from the "everything could have been resolved by some communication" trope. I listened to Stuckmann's review on the way home, and he pretty much summarized it for me. I give it a solid B. I think it's going to have a really good OW, but I wouldn't be surprised if its legs are just ok. OS I imagine will be quite good.

That 24.7% drop despite losing 529 theaters is astonishing.

I know WW was able to pull a lot of people who normally don't see CBMs, especially from the older female demographic. I think that is part of why WW has had such good legs is because it was able to appeal to a much larger audience. I was surprised at the number of senior citizens who were in the audiences the number of times that I went, and even from work I know people who hadn't been to a movie in a long time did go see WW. Of those groups, I don't think too many will carry over to Spider Man, although I hope that WW did make CBM fans out of some people who normally dismiss those kinds of films out of hand. On the other hand, I did notice a small group of CBM fans who've flat out refused to see WW (or keep saying they will, but don't), but say they will see SM:H....

Plus, they had a ton of editors working on it--having a bunch of writers and bunch of editors working on a project seems like a recipe for disaster. Elsewhere somebody posted this article, and what I gather from that is that this was the first movie these editors had worked on that had so many people editing on it, and Bay was sending "finished" sections back and forth between editors to do additional editing. I don't see how he could expect a coherent piece of work to come out of that?

I know, I mean beyond that: Valerian = Dallas Lauraline = Leeloo Bubble = Diva Plavalaguna Herbie Hancock character = Ruby Rhod The scene in the video where Valerian and Lauraline walk down the ramp in civilian clothes feels like the scene where Corbin and Leeloo pick up their tickets at the space port. The flying bus in the video reminds me of the flying cab scene. etc.