Hard to take a cancer subplot seriously when 80% of the movie is nonstop bits. Endless montages and voiceovers, way too much of Waititi’s character (and the non stop talking to the hammer/axe bit, which I personally felt fell flat as a pancake). The Bale intro carries actual weight and emotional impact… and then the second the opening credits start, the movie immediately bails from investing in its characters in any serious, meaningful way.

Some of the visuals are cool, but then they’re cancelled out by soooo much incomprehensible CGI and the flattest green screen work imaginable. Some of this looks beautiful, some of it looks like a cheap TV show. I don’t know how much of this was a rushed deadline, or how much of this is Marvel spreading themselves incredibly thin. Whatever the case may be, these movies increasingly feel like morsels of creativity stuck in 2 hours of green screen cotton candy.

I’ve liked some of the origin tales lately (Shang Chi and Moon Knight chief among them), but these last few sequels are all just instantly forgettable for me. The jokes are fine, but they give me no reason to care. Even the death fakeouts (there are multiple) have zero impact because we know they won’t actually kill these characters for good— or even for a couple movies (and they don’t).

MVP is eeeeeasily Russell Crowe. By far the best joke-to-laugh ratio.

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