"Watchmen" was an attempt to deconstruct superhero comics, and was innovative on a number of levels. Many many subsequent projects have a stench of "Watchmen" envy about them.

I'm not sure that can be said of the "Civil War" story a decade ago, though. The deal there was, Marvel wanted to capitalize on how politically divided our country was, so they contrived some very stupid shit to make the superheroes divide into two teams and fight. The issue was how superheroing should be handled in society; one side (Cap's) held that superheroes should be allowed to do what they do with no oversight as has been done for decades in the Marvel Universe, and the other wide (Iron Man's) held that superheroes must work for the government or be locked away in an extradimensional gulag. The question for you, the reader, is: which of these two perfectly valid sides is right? Now while I agree that superheroes would never be tolerated in the real world, within the world of Marvel Comics, Cap's side was clearly in the right, seeing as superheroes save the world literally on a monthly basis. It is the conceit that the entire superhero genre is based on. But Marvel had to act like both sides had equally strong arguments to them, so they had to come up with really stupid anti-Cap arguments, like he doesn't go to NASCAR therefore he shouldn't be fighting the Red Skull's sleeper robots. Seriously.

It looks like the movie wants to apply the structure of "Civil War" but they need a less stupid argument, and it looks like they're stupiding up Cap to do so. Cap has never been one to tell his friends they could subvert the law at will, to say nothing of murder. Cap would be much more likely to broker a deal to make sure Winter Soldier gets his day in court with good legal representation and a certain super soldier testifying as positively as he could on his behalf.

Still, if this movie goes out of its way to humiliate Sally Floyd, I will forgive all.

The original comic had very little in common with Watchmen, though it was certainly pretentious enough to think it did.

It's really not a bad premise for any ageing franchise; Dark Knight Returns did the same thing too around the same time as Watchmen with its two archetypes, and so did X-Men in its own way, I believe before either Watchmen or DKR, but in the years that have passed, even since Civil War, this is sort of the path that every superhero movie, Marvel or DC, is going down, with the exception of Guardians and (hopefully plz plz plz) Deadpool.

The "Captain America" movies so far, or at least winter soldier, have a slower pace than many of the other marvel movies. I've heard there is a reason for this but I forgot it.

The reason is because the Russo Brothers based the movie on 70's espionage films, with a more deliberate pace and less frantic action.

I watch these many months after release when a good quality rip turns up on tpb. Usually as hangover films.

Do you also steal cars?

I'm a pirate so that means I engage in acts of robbery or criminal violence at sea.
I guess that makes us mortal enemies coast guard man!

You wouldn't download the ocean.

Oh, you bet I'd download the ocean.

"Download The Ocean" sounds like the name of a song.

*Rather than a movie

Forgot stars too.

Yeah Dredd was a big surprise for me. 2000 AD comics and Judge Dredd were always my favorites but I figured they'd fuck it up again so I didn't bother seeing it in theatres, which I really regret. As far as Captain goes, I know about Civil War but never bothered with the comics, so I'm sure there's more that goes into it than the Watchmen comparison I made above, but I did think it was cool that they went that direction especially so quickly after the 9/11 attacks.

But also w/r/t my above comment, I saw part of Avengers 1 on TV somewhere, didn't really care, never saw the second one, never saw New Hulk Iron Man etc.. do the Captain movies work on their own or do I have a bunch of torrenting to do?

I think the Captain America ones hold up on their own, but get all of them anyway as they're enjoyable far beyond what I expected.

I was anti-comic adaptation for years, from Stallone's Dredd until the last Avengers actually I had successfully avoided them.

Bingewatched them all this year, expectations were very low and I was entirely surprised by how -decent- they are. I mean yes, they're big, dumb action-sci-fantasy but as chewing gum for the brain goes, they'd be top of the selection.

As for the reboot of 'Dredd' that it felt like an episode and heavily copied 'The Raid' in concept were my only criticisms. Otherwise a pretty good rendering of the Dredd I grew up reading.

I liked the 'chopper' graffiti too, gives me hope they'll pick that up for a movie. (ABC warriors or Slainé would be readily accepted too)

I was also glad they chose not to go with the Angel gang or one of the more established villains (a lot of the fanboys want a judge death outing but i'm skeptical that will translate well to the screen).

Yeah I'd love more of them. I think about a year ago Alex Garland said there wouldn't be a second one, or at least he wouldn't be writing it.. which sucks because I think that's Garland at his best. Ex Machina was pretty interesting, District 9 though was pretty preachy and Sunshine and The Beach..

I was about to say that maybe he changed his mind because Ex Machina seemed to have tanked while everybody loved Dredd, but I decided to look it up and Dredd actually had box office loss while EM nearly doubled its budget, so maybe that's why.

NM Garland had nothing to do with District 9. I was thinking of the Halo movie he's writing that will never be made, since D9 is sort of an unofficial Halo prequel. And this is true, as far as I know - D9 was basically a guinea pig of a movie to see if audiences would like what they saw, to avoid Halo The Movie just being another video game movie doomed before it was seen.. something like that.

I liked D9 despite the heavy-handed apartheid theme. It reminded me a lot of watching 'Alien Nation' way back when and I have a fondness for that totally OTT show.

Ex Machina was ok and I did like the fact there wasn't the standard hollywood denouement but felt that it was trying too hard to do what Kubrick's 2001 did so well with Hal and the crew (ie. humanise Hal while dehumanising the crew) and as a result came off a little cackhanded. The tech dudebro could have been played better and the main guy was poorly cast imho.

I think Dredd definitely has more of a cult following whereas EM will be a good movie for people who've never really considered the arguments pro and con of strong AI which are a tad old hat to anyone who grew up reading Asimov, Clarke et al.

Sunshine had potential but he seems to have a hard time writing characters with depth so it felt sort of flat despite a good concept and framework.

The Beach I've avoided because it looked horrible and the people who recommended it to me are generally people whose tastes don't line up with my own at all.

I'm not sure who I'd like to see do another Dredd movie but I think they should go outside the usual suspects in scifi/action and get someone who can write what is basically a 'hard boiled/fistful of dollars' hybrid in the 2000AD universe.

Josh Olson & Cronenberg could do it I reckon, I'd be interested to see that.

The Beach is actually one of my favorite novels. It's my go-to book when I don't have anything else to read. This worked especially well when I was living in Wisconsin in a tiny one bedroom with free heat, which for some reason was always 90 degrees so I had to leave the window open all winter. Negative temperatures felt like a nice tropical breeze.

But yeah, avoid the movie. Come to think about it, Boyle/Garland films have never really worked well, with the exception of 28 Days Later, which was pretty great and genre-bending at the time, but I doubt if I'd say the same thing if I watched it for the first time in 2015 after all the films and shows that have taken from the "zombies aren't dumb and can run fast etc." book of zombies. You know who I'd like to see direct Dredd 2 or anything in the 2000AD universe (Hollywood I know you're listening) is Nicolas Winding Refn. Unlike most people I didn't like Drive very much (I liked the style and the music of course, but not the movie and that's not because I'm jealous thinking my girlfriend wants to fuck Ryan Gosling more than me) but Valhalla Rising and especially the criminally underrated Only God Forgives are two perfect examples of why he's one of the best writer/directors out there right now.

I really -did- like Valhalla rising, hmm that would actually be amazing.

You really think they're going to waste that cherry on a teaser? I'm sure once it gets closer to release, we'll see him. This is supposed to be his first MCU appearance.

I'm thinking he might show up only in a mid-or-post credits scene. We'll see.

Ant-Man was in every scene.

Stars for Xenocide! I never saw Ant Man because of the whole Edgar Wright thing, but that's just my bias and has nothing to do with the finished product.

The entire history of superhero comics is bad and if you like it you are a bad person.


Top that!

I agree with half of that sentiment.

Eh.. I'm holding out for Deadpool. But I'm also a pretty horrible person so that makes sense.