Meh, this reeks of dramatic over reaction. It's "changing the definition of what a movie is" while also "not the first of it's kind" but doesn't even seem to have the self awareness to reference...
Meh, this reeks of dramatic over reaction. It's "changing the definition of what a movie is" while also "not the first of it's kind" but doesn't even seem to have the self awareness to reference cinema outside the recent marvel films.
4th wall meta comedy is the point of deadpool. 4th wall meta comedy is hardly new. Airplane did it for crying out loud.
Yea, that's pretty much it. It's a joke, the entire thing is a joke. The movie knows it, the audience knows it, and everyone is 100% fine with this. I watched it over the weekend. It was exactly...
There are jokes about
Yea, that's pretty much it. It's a joke, the entire thing is a joke. The movie knows it, the audience knows it, and everyone is 100% fine with this. I watched it over the weekend. It was exactly what I expected to be, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Same. It did exactly what it set out to do. Brought a lot of laughs, surprises, and great moments. Was I expecting Casablanca? No, I was expecting Deadpool and that's exactly what I got and I'm...
Same. It did exactly what it set out to do. Brought a lot of laughs, surprises, and great moments. Was I expecting Casablanca? No, I was expecting Deadpool and that's exactly what I got and I'm very happy with that.
Yep, I went to see it, got EXACTLY what I wanted and was pleasantly surprised by the plot and the cameos multiple times. 10/10 movie in my book. Exceeded expectations.
Yep, I went to see it, got EXACTLY what I wanted and was pleasantly surprised by the plot and the cameos multiple times.
I think what we're running up against here is that this critic has no idea what Deadpool really is. The character exists to be a running meta-commentary on comics and superhero tropes, and has a...
I think what we're running up against here is that this critic has no idea what Deadpool really is. The character exists to be a running meta-commentary on comics and superhero tropes, and has a history of nihilistic response to them. The character evolved in a time when that was kinda groundbreaking for the medium, and crucially, at a time when superheroes in comics had gotten stale, unimaginative and overexposed. That should sound familiar to anyone who's paid attention to the MCU over the past 5 or so years (and the DCU since its hamfisted inception).
I won't pretend that the movie has very deep things to tell us about corporatism and cliche in entertainment, partly because I haven't seen it, and partly because that's not really DP's style. I do wonder though why critics are so offended at the baldfacedness of the character and his brand of cynical nihilism. Would they prefer it to be more subtle? More nuanced? If so, they'll be waiting for a while. Expecting subtlety and nuance from Deadpool is just begging for disappointment. Just approach it as a kind of goofy post-post-modern satire on sub-cultural touchstones and you'll be much more likely to enjoy the experience.
I think critic's beef is that from a formal perspective, the Deadpool movies are terrible movies. They have bad narratives, they lean too heavily on the tropes and gags they purport to undermine,...
I think critic's beef is that from a formal perspective, the Deadpool movies are terrible movies. They have bad narratives, they lean too heavily on the tropes and gags they purport to undermine, while falling into the tropes of parody.
Just approach it as a kind of goofy post-post-modern satire on sub-cultural touchstones and you'll be much more likely to enjoy the experience.
That is the response to fuddy-duddy formalism: Engage material on its level. There will be some absolute crap you can't do this with because it's just too bad, but there are a lot of "bad" movies that are quite enjoyable if you don't take them too seriously.
Deadpool works because we want to see a goofy meta shit-talking regenerating mercenary be goofy, talk shit, be meta, and regenerate. I don't think it's excessively dismissive or apologetic to accept presented expectations for media. You can like Deadpool and write a sixty page essay on Taxi Driver.
I imagine on a film theory level that Deadpool breaks multiple fundamental rules of theatre (I don't know what they are as I'm not a film critic), so looking through that lens can explain quite a...
I do wonder though why critics are so offended at the baldfacedness of the character and his brand of cynical nihilism. Would they prefer it to be more subtle? More nuanced?
I imagine on a film theory level that Deadpool breaks multiple fundamental rules of theatre (I don't know what they are as I'm not a film critic), so looking through that lens can explain quite a bit. That's probably why you'll also see such a vast gulf of opinion between comedy movies in professionial vs user reviews. The genre as a whole runs counter to a lot of these fundamentals (I imagine), but that lens isn't useful for a casual viewer who simply wants to have a chuckle.
Agreed. I mean, come on, guys, Groucho Marx looks off-screen at the crew when he ad-libs one-liners in films like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, and those were made in the 1930s.
4th wall meta comedy is hardly new.
Agreed. I mean, come on, guys, Groucho Marx looks off-screen at the crew when he ad-libs one-liners in films like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, and those were made in the 1930s.
Fair warning or anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet and is intending to, this article spoils a bunch of the cameos in it. I don't think the author really has a coherent point and it may just be...
Fair warning or anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet and is intending to, this article spoils a bunch of the cameos in it.
I don't think the author really has a coherent point and it may just be nerd rage bait. Like ok, you can say the overall story of the movie was not good. But saying it's not even a movie because you didn't like it is just kind of stupid.
There's definitely some nitpicky things I could say about the plot of the film, but at the end of the day, I watched the movie, I laughed a ton, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that's all that...
There's definitely some nitpicky things I could say about the plot of the film, but at the end of the day, I watched the movie, I laughed a ton, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that's all that matters. If it was trying to be Jurassic Park, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, Shawshank Redemption, or any other all time classic film, then it wouldn't have been Deadpool and it would have failed. It tried to be Deadpool and succeeded.
It seems obvious to me that this is one of those many reviewers that goes for the most-clickbaity take for the sake of attention and engagement. Like a TikTok influencer on a text-based medium.
It seems obvious to me that this is one of those many reviewers that goes for the most-clickbaity take for the sake of attention and engagement.
I haven't seen it but the idea that it's "changing the definition of what a movie is" is so absurd on its face that I have zero desire to take this author's opinion seriously on any of the movie's...
I haven't seen it but the idea that it's "changing the definition of what a movie is" is so absurd on its face that I have zero desire to take this author's opinion seriously on any of the movie's flaws or merits. There are vanishingly few movies that accomplish even a modicum of "changing the definition of what a movie is" and the ones that do are studied by film school students for decades after they're released. I sincerely doubt this movie, regardless of how good or bad it is, falls into that category.
I cannot understand what compelled this writer to come to this conclusion. Deadpool has been a very successful franchise, but why would movies become cameo fests? If anything Deadpool is...
I cannot understand what compelled this writer to come to this conclusion. Deadpool has been a very successful franchise, but why would movies become cameo fests? If anything Deadpool is satirizing the MCU and comic movies that are earnestly just a bunch of intertwined cameos. I don’t understand why the writers argues this movie had no story. It definitely had a much more compelling and coherent story than say despicable me 4. Did this writer lament the harbinger of imminent doom that movie was also??
Excuse me for butting in as I haven't seen the movie but the biggest criticism I've seen is that the story is pretty weak so it's not that surprising the writer (who's obviously positioning the...
Excuse me for butting in as I haven't seen the movie but the biggest criticism I've seen is that the story is pretty weak so it's not that surprising the writer (who's obviously positioning the piece as controversial) didn't like it. And it doesn't really make sense to compare a children's movie franchise's latest sequel to an r-rated movie (unless your argument is that their audiences are fairly similar which I probably can see). [And I don't mean that it isn't fine to criticize kids' movies but the expectations are lower.]
And satirizing a thing while riding the exact same wave doesn't really work and really doesn't excuse the criticism. And even if it would be "okay" (as if there's such a thing when it comes to taste), it doesn't mean it can't be over or misused in a movie.
The title is an exaggeration. The writer doesn't believe every movie going forward is going to be pushing towards brand synergy within and between franchises and companies. It also makes the argument that the strongest pull of the movie is the meta referential material. Which I don't think anyone can argue against, except maybe in the sense that is it the strongest or just one of the strengths. And this is a recipe that others will try to crack. I don't think it'll work as a wider blueprint. As everything else, it has its time and place.
Looking forward to seeing how I like it as I liked the first movie but during the second the joke started to wear a bit thin.
Why not? So then what is the problem with this movie being saturated with fan service? It’s one thing to say I don’t like the movie, but it’s another thing to say this movie is bad for the industry.
And it doesn't really make sense to compare a children's movie franchise's latest sequel to an r-rated movie
Why not?
The title is an exaggeration. The writer doesn't believe every movie going forward is going to be pushing towards brand synergy within and between franchises and companies.
So then what is the problem with this movie being saturated with fan service?
It’s one thing to say I don’t like the movie, but it’s another thing to say this movie is bad for the industry.
I think I answered both of your questions in my initial comment but to add, the writer just didn't like the movie and concocted this think piece because that's the job.
I think I answered both of your questions in my initial comment but to add, the writer just didn't like the movie and concocted this think piece because that's the job.
When you look around online, there's a trend that's begun to cement in a growing segment of potential movie-goers. That of "is the movie 'worth' seeing in a theater?" The definition usually...
When you look around online, there's a trend that's begun to cement in a growing segment of potential movie-goers. That of "is the movie 'worth' seeing in a theater?"
The definition usually applied to figure out a movie's worth is something along the lines of does it offer spectacle! They want big visuals, huge audio, explosions, FX, VFX, things like that. They want a film they feel is "worthy" of the big screen, one they'd watch at home and think "man, if only I was in a theater with a huge screen and seventeen kajillion speakers turned way up."
Studios have started to notice this too. The trend isn't particularly new, but the pandemic forced a lot of people to become at least momentarily aware of their viewing habits. And a not-small percentage of movie consumers figured out they were just fine watching almost any movie that fits comfortably into a "talking head" or "standard drama/comedy/thriller" kind of mold at home, on their TVs and shelf audio systems.
It's one of the reasons studios are focusing more and more on franchises. Big spectacles with familiarity. Though, that familiarity is starting to become a problem because there's another trend where an increasing number of people seem to feel they can't watch anything unless they've seen everything that might have preceded it in some way.
For example, I saw some (person) in a Star Trek thread a few weeks ago saying he had no interest in Trek since he had no interest in "catching up" on hundreds of episodes of content (along with more than a dozen films) stretching back to the sixties.
There's just these people running around today who can't fathom how a project, be it film or tv, is almost always constructed to tell the story of that project. That you don't need to know anything else except what you're being given then and there to enjoy that story. These people disagree for some unknown reason, and think they'll get nothing out of a story if they don't have full knowledge of each and every other trace piece of content that might connect to this story.
What isn't a new trend is how people who hate certain genres, certain kinds of stories, just hate them. And want them gone. They zero-sum storytelling, and (in their heads) proceed with the assumption that if the hated stories weren't being made, then stories they love would instead. They use this assumption to fuel and focus their hate, and it leads to stupid articles like this. Along with social media posts that express the same, people who crash into threads about those projects they hate to shit all over them, and so on.
Trying to influence culture, society, fellow consumers, to hate as they hate and hopefully drive off the production of further hated stories.
It's a juvenile as it sounds. It really is. Don't like it; don't watch it! Shocking concept apparently, because haters gonna hate.
Studios are run by MBAs and Wall Street entities now. They want big returns, always, period. They don't greenlight projects that don't appear to have a good chance to provide those returns. In their eyes, to their analysis, a "small" movie that is perfectly watchable on a small screen is unlikely to score at the box office. Which is where they see their payday coming from, since they've let DVD and other non-cinema revenue streams fall off markedly compared to the industry's high point of the mid 90s to early 2010s.
The thing is ... it doesn't cost a hundred million plus to crank out a movie unless you're going to literally start throwing money at the project. Want to load every minute full of effects and so on, then you have to pay for FX and VFX resources to do all that. Want to film most/all scenes on location? Gotta pay for that. Want to pull more than maybe two or three known names (in front or behind the camera) into the project, gotta pay their fees. Want to give the production leeway to run dozens, sometimes dozens and dozens, of takes per scene? Gotta pay for a full crew with full equipment to grind through all those takes because otherwise the takes don't get filmed.
We have tens of thousands, of small budget examples. Some of the most revered and respected classics of film came from very small budgets. Because money doesn't equal great story, money just gives a great story a chance to be dressed up to the nines.
Horror, for example, is a common low budget genre choice. Because, unless you splash it up to spectacle level, the only "unusual" cost you have compared to a "normal" movie is to staff the production with a solid makeup team to do "stuff" that'll be on camera. Zombies, vampires, monsters, whatever; stuff that goes bump in the night and drips or leers or stabs as actors run around screaming and huddling together behind doors talking about what they should do next. And horror fans tend to love horror, don't care if it isn't in the hundred million dollar range. When a fun horror flick turns up, fans talk and they start showing up to scream in delighted terror.
Most people who hate Marvel, Star Wars, action spectacles, usually want adult talking head content. Dramas, comedies, thrillers (D/C/T), that kind of thing. These people all hate on the spectacle because they want those funds diverted to their preference.
But the bottom line is the industry is a-changin'. Really, already has changed. Consumer tastes have shifted, and more importantly (to all those MBAs flown in from Wall Street to take over Hollywood) spending habits have as well. The heyday of the DVD years made it possible to put Harrison Ford and similar "adult A-list actors" into "adult drama" theatrical films that would turn a profit.
Those theatrical D/C/T films usually, if they didn't flop out of the gate, more or less made their money back at the theater. At least most of their money back. Then DVD would hit and often be pure cream for several years. Comedy and thrillers worked the same way.
Cinemaphiles need to open their eyes and look at the industry that exists now. Nothing says one can't be upset with how it's changing, but that doesn't alter the fact it has changed. One of those changes is the streaming services are where you're going to find adult D/C/T content now.
Because on a modest streaming budget, Netflix or DisneyPlus or Max can invest twenty or thirty million into a movie (shorter shoot schedule, less or no location shooting, few effects or other extra production needs), and then additionally toss between ten million (if it's just one or two 'famous face' actors with a solid track record) or maybe all the way up to twenty or even thirty million (to get an A-lister, maybe a second one, along with another one or two 'lesser' famous faces) and that's their movie in the can and ready to stream.
The heavy contraction of the entire industry (cinema as well as streaming) right now is because they were overspending on everything. Netflix was spending cinema level budgets on films, trying to compete directly with cinemas when that's definitely not their niche. Why should any streaming service, even Netflix, load their yearly production budget up with half a dozen $100mil+ projects when for each one of those blockbuster budgets they can make three to five adult D/C/T projects instead?
It took the overspending period of the streaming craze to reteach the industry this. They've started to realize it now, learn it, and adjust their strategies.
The only real problem with any of this is the folks who demand everything "they like" be in a theater. If you like those D/C/T films, they're not going to be in theaters very often anymore. The studios just don't like the financial math, and would rather invest in blockbusters to chase a handful of blockbuster payoffs.
But those D/C/Ts are going to keep showing up on streaming. Because they're the right fit for streaming. They can be made for an affordable budget, and nothing about them is diminished by at-home viewing. Which is a lesson the industry already managed to teach itself once only to sort of try to forget, with the rise and fall of DVD.
The only difference now is instead of getting production costs of one of those D/C/T projects paid off by ticket sales, it just comes out of subscription revenue. Rather than being made to pay back over several years of disc sales, they're being made to give subscribers a reason to subscribe.
Big movies cost big money. When you have a gold plated project that spends and spends and spends, that money isn't going to be made back off subscriptions. The industry wants it back now. They spend a year making it, and then the next year it comes out and has (hopefully) two or so months in theaters to turn that $100-$200 million budget into a billion, which is what the studios want; outsized returns. Big money, big prizes. Right now.
They're not going to make a big expensive D/C/T movie to that formula because they don't believe fans are going to pay them back now. In that six to eight week period when the film releases to theaters. Since Wall Street always wants the profit now, they're directing their owned studios to focus on projects that seem likely to pay off at theaters.
And the only consistent theatrical payoffs the industry's seen over the past decade or so are increasingly spectacle pictures. Which are not the kind of pictures fans of D/C/T likes.
Buy yourself a nice tv (which are cheap, unlike necessities; gotta keep those breads and circuses rolling), buy your neighborhood techie some beer and pizza to hook up a decent sound system for you, and keep an eye on streaming. That's where those D/C/T projects are found now. Kick back with a beer of your own on the couch and enjoy them.
I feel like you already wrote a comment of a similar length also decrying cinephiles for their snobbery while also expressing indifference to theatrical exhibition. Not that I have a problem with...
I feel like you already wrote a comment of a similar length also decrying cinephiles for their snobbery while also expressing indifference to theatrical exhibition. Not that I have a problem with it, and you're obviously free to express your opinion however and however many times you want. Just seems like we're retreading the same ground here.
And people in media, especially in social media, continue to retread their ground as well. They consistently try to rally a decrying of these big films, these franchises, and especially...
And people in media, especially in social media, continue to retread their ground as well. They consistently try to rally a decrying of these big films, these franchises, and especially superhero/franchise/action films. They treat things that aren't high profile DCTs released to the theater dismissively, and continue to push that narrative as well. Repetitiously.
It's almost a game, looking for these articles dumping on non-DCT films. Let's look at the release schedule and try to guess what'll trigger the next wave of articles and posts moaning over "stupid superhero movies, stupid action movies, stupid big budget things that aren't serious films for serious filmgoers."
Might it be Alien: Romulus on 16 Aug? The Crow on 23 Aug? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on 6 Sep? Transformers One on 20 Sep? Seems like after that things slow down a little, at least at first glance to me without specifically researching each title, but then 25 Oct I see Venom: The Last Dance and I'm certain that's going to definitely kick off its own wave of non-DCT hate and thus articles fanning those flames.
So I'm not sure what the point of your comment is? Did you only post the article seeking validation? Agreement? What "new" ground was hoped for? Comments in this thread are chiming in with how they enjoyed the latest Deadpol, and found it to be pretty much what they expected, while the article's author clearly does not share those sentiments. Seems like Disney/Marvel hit a solid one with Deadpool, that it's well received by its intended audience.
There's lots of movies I don't like. I just don't watch'em. I don't take their existence personally, and I don't sit around plotting. All things can't be everything to everyone, something these articles that get tetchy about the existence of things the author hates rarely seem to understand.
I just comment in threads where I find something I'd like to upload a comment on. Nothing more, nothing less.
I think the reason people feel the need to "catch up" is because all new versions of IPs insist upon it. Even just references and in-jokes to the previous shows, films, books, etc make the viewer...
I think the reason people feel the need to "catch up" is because all new versions of IPs insist upon it. Even just references and in-jokes to the previous shows, films, books, etc make the viewer feel out of place because they shove it in your face when oh there's a logo or an item or something related to the lore here, zoom in on it and make sure people see it.
We've been conditioned to recognize these moments and FOMO is a real and powerful thing.
So people just don't want to deal with any of that. Either catch up and watch EVERYTHING in the IP or experience FOMO. And no one wants to do the latter so either catch up or don't bother with any of it. Most people don't want to put in the effort and say screw all of it.
I have done this, you probably have too at some point. Everyone has.
You'll probably get more than nothing out of the story if you don't see the rest of the franchise, but you'll definitely get much less than if you had been caught up. I haven't seen Logan or any...
There's just these people running around today who can't fathom how a project, be it film or tv, is almost always constructed to tell the story of that project. That you don't need to know anything else except what you're being given then and there to enjoy that story. These people disagree for some unknown reason, and think they'll get nothing out of a story if they don't have full knowledge of each and every other trace piece of content that might connect to this story.
You'll probably get more than nothing out of the story if you don't see the rest of the franchise, but you'll definitely get much less than if you had been caught up. I haven't seen Logan or any of the X-Men movies since the ones with Famke Janssen, and I could definitely tell that I was missing some context during Deadpool & Wolverine. I wasn't confused or anything, but there were moments that didn't have the gravity for me that they did for the rest of the people watching.
There are other movies that I've gone to see without seeing everything leading up to them, and when I saw the previous installments later, I realized how much I was missing. Parts of the story that I didn't quite understand before suddenly clicked.
I think the biggest error many people make is to limit their view of the movie industry at Hollywood alone. There are plenty of great things happening in film outside the biggest studio...
I think the biggest error many people make is to limit their view of the movie industry at Hollywood alone. There are plenty of great things happening in film outside the biggest studio productions. It is true what you say that the biggest studio prioritizing those kind of productions now, but the rest of the world has sort of picked up on the stuff Hollywood makes less of now. Or likely it has been produced forever, but it now gets more attention. It is pretty apparent with how international films have gotten wider recognition at the Oscars in recent years. A24 has carved out their own niche market as well. People just need to pay more attention to what is happening at various film festivals around the world if they are tired of the Hollywood production output.
Ehh, it really comes down to scope, labor costs, and a lot more. Sure, I can take a camera and edit a full movie in Adobe premier for "free" (or like, $1000 + Adobe costs if you want to count my...
The thing is ... it doesn't cost a hundred million plus to crank out a movie unless you're going to literally start throwing money at the project.
Ehh, it really comes down to scope, labor costs, and a lot more. Sure, I can take a camera and edit a full movie in Adobe premier for "free" (or like, $1000 + Adobe costs if you want to count my "equipment"), but things always get expensive when you start hiring others.
say I want to pay 10 friends minimum wage (so, $16/hr in my region) for a year as their full time job to help make this film. Very rough napkin math translates 2000 hours of $16/hr to $32,000/year, $320,000 for the entire production. These 10 people aren't really comfortable financially, but the cost for production just blew well past what many view as a "small indie film".
Any
of course there's a lot of tricks and exploits and tax breaks the blockbuster budgets take advantadge of, but my main point is that it can be surprisingly easy to blow that much money if you're properly paying your talent (and if we're being real: most of these publishers do not). For an instance: Monsters Inc. from Pixar cost $110 million dollars in 2001 to make. Adjust that for inflation today and that;s $195 million dollars. Now take a more recent movie like Elemental (2022) and the budget was... $200 million dollars.
There's too many known and unknown factors to make some judgement call here (but you're free to make one), but it just illustrates that it's always been expensive making blockbuster hits. I agree that expecations (and partially the economy) have changed rather than the movies themselves. Monsters Inc. made $500m ($880m inflation adjusted) in box office and was a smashing success. Elemental also eventually made $500m in the box office, but not fast enough (noting a slow domestic opening but a very receptive overseas welcome), and it was being predicted as one of Pixar's worst performing films. I'm sure there was a non-zero chance layoffs were being planned at that moment when all that was needed was patience (there were still layoffs in 2024, but that's another story).
Sure, inflation technically means it got worse returns, but I don't think 500m is that tragic in 2022 when Frozen's (2012) box office was 1.2b and that let it become a cultural phenomenon that surpassed that even of the coveted "disney princess" branding. No one makes cultural phenomenons every year, but it feels like that's what investors expect as some norm now.
I'm rambling, but I just made all those comparisons to expand on 2 key points
labor is expensive, especially if you're being honest (companies are not), so I wouldn't necessarily say 100-200m is "throwing money at the project" without a deeper breakdown of a budget
Outside of some huge outliers, movie costs are flatter than you expect when you adjust for inflatiion across genres. But expecations have skyrocketed despite data suggesting otherwise in the last 20-30 years. movies can still be profitable, but that's clearly not enough anymore, especially if investors only look at opening weekend and impatiently react before the full box office reveals.
If Marvel movies have taught us one thing it's to watch the entire credits. There are so many people working on a major movie set. All of those people need paid. And then there are so many...
labor is expensive, especially if you're being honest (companies are not), so I wouldn't necessarily say 100-200m is "throwing money at the project" without a deeper breakdown of a budget
If Marvel movies have taught us one thing it's to watch the entire credits.
There are so many people working on a major movie set. All of those people need paid. And then there are so many post-production, animation/assets people and people that digitally light the animations. Idek how that works. But they're there. When people talk about the cost of CGI, that's labor too!
I’ve read that the effects credits don’t actually list all the people who worked on the project. Apparently there are so many digital effects artists and technicians involved that the studios only...
I’ve read that the effects credits don’t actually list all the people who worked on the project. Apparently there are so many digital effects artists and technicians involved that the studios only list a sampling, and rotate who they name from film to film.
I didnt know that, it makes some sense. Also it doesn't tell you how long they worked on it. Or how skilled they are or any of the things people know or can reasonably assume about actors and...
I didnt know that, it makes some sense. Also it doesn't tell you how long they worked on it. Or how skilled they are or any of the things people know or can reasonably assume about actors and directors and such.
Meh, this reeks of dramatic over reaction. It's "changing the definition of what a movie is" while also "not the first of it's kind" but doesn't even seem to have the self awareness to reference cinema outside the recent marvel films.
4th wall meta comedy is the point of deadpool. 4th wall meta comedy is hardly new. Airplane did it for crying out loud.
Yea, that's pretty much it. It's a joke, the entire thing is a joke. The movie knows it, the audience knows it, and everyone is 100% fine with this. I watched it over the weekend. It was exactly what I expected to be, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Same. It did exactly what it set out to do. Brought a lot of laughs, surprises, and great moments. Was I expecting Casablanca? No, I was expecting Deadpool and that's exactly what I got and I'm very happy with that.
Yep, I went to see it, got EXACTLY what I wanted and was pleasantly surprised by the plot and the cameos multiple times.
10/10 movie in my book. Exceeded expectations.
I think what we're running up against here is that this critic has no idea what Deadpool really is. The character exists to be a running meta-commentary on comics and superhero tropes, and has a history of nihilistic response to them. The character evolved in a time when that was kinda groundbreaking for the medium, and crucially, at a time when superheroes in comics had gotten stale, unimaginative and overexposed. That should sound familiar to anyone who's paid attention to the MCU over the past 5 or so years (and the DCU since its hamfisted inception).
I won't pretend that the movie has very deep things to tell us about corporatism and cliche in entertainment, partly because I haven't seen it, and partly because that's not really DP's style. I do wonder though why critics are so offended at the baldfacedness of the character and his brand of cynical nihilism. Would they prefer it to be more subtle? More nuanced? If so, they'll be waiting for a while. Expecting subtlety and nuance from Deadpool is just begging for disappointment. Just approach it as a kind of goofy post-post-modern satire on sub-cultural touchstones and you'll be much more likely to enjoy the experience.
I think critic's beef is that from a formal perspective, the Deadpool movies are terrible movies. They have bad narratives, they lean too heavily on the tropes and gags they purport to undermine, while falling into the tropes of parody.
That is the response to fuddy-duddy formalism: Engage material on its level. There will be some absolute crap you can't do this with because it's just too bad, but there are a lot of "bad" movies that are quite enjoyable if you don't take them too seriously.
Deadpool works because we want to see a goofy meta shit-talking regenerating mercenary be goofy, talk shit, be meta, and regenerate. I don't think it's excessively dismissive or apologetic to accept presented expectations for media. You can like Deadpool and write a sixty page essay on Taxi Driver.
I imagine on a film theory level that Deadpool breaks multiple fundamental rules of theatre (I don't know what they are as I'm not a film critic), so looking through that lens can explain quite a bit. That's probably why you'll also see such a vast gulf of opinion between comedy movies in professionial vs user reviews. The genre as a whole runs counter to a lot of these fundamentals (I imagine), but that lens isn't useful for a casual viewer who simply wants to have a chuckle.
Agreed. I mean, come on, guys, Groucho Marx looks off-screen at the crew when he ad-libs one-liners in films like Duck Soup and A Night at the Opera, and those were made in the 1930s.
....or Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream, from the 1590's.
Indeed, good sir!
Fair warning or anyone who hasn't seen the movie yet and is intending to, this article spoils a bunch of the cameos in it.
I don't think the author really has a coherent point and it may just be nerd rage bait. Like ok, you can say the overall story of the movie was not good. But saying it's not even a movie because you didn't like it is just kind of stupid.
There's definitely some nitpicky things I could say about the plot of the film, but at the end of the day, I watched the movie, I laughed a ton, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and that's all that matters. If it was trying to be Jurassic Park, The Godfather, Lord of the Rings, Shawshank Redemption, or any other all time classic film, then it wouldn't have been Deadpool and it would have failed. It tried to be Deadpool and succeeded.
What more do you want?
It seems obvious to me that this is one of those many reviewers that goes for the most-clickbaity take for the sake of attention and engagement.
Like a TikTok influencer on a text-based medium.
It's like that one guy who had to write a negative review for Paddington just to get the 100% RT rating to 99%
It was fun. It was fine. It's not winning the Oscar and IDGAF because I went to see it to see Deadpool. This is such a weird take.
ʕಠ_ಠʔ
I haven't seen it but the idea that it's "changing the definition of what a movie is" is so absurd on its face that I have zero desire to take this author's opinion seriously on any of the movie's flaws or merits. There are vanishingly few movies that accomplish even a modicum of "changing the definition of what a movie is" and the ones that do are studied by film school students for decades after they're released. I sincerely doubt this movie, regardless of how good or bad it is, falls into that category.
I cannot understand what compelled this writer to come to this conclusion. Deadpool has been a very successful franchise, but why would movies become cameo fests? If anything Deadpool is satirizing the MCU and comic movies that are earnestly just a bunch of intertwined cameos. I don’t understand why the writers argues this movie had no story. It definitely had a much more compelling and coherent story than say despicable me 4. Did this writer lament the harbinger of imminent doom that movie was also??
Excuse me for butting in as I haven't seen the movie but the biggest criticism I've seen is that the story is pretty weak so it's not that surprising the writer (who's obviously positioning the piece as controversial) didn't like it. And it doesn't really make sense to compare a children's movie franchise's latest sequel to an r-rated movie (unless your argument is that their audiences are fairly similar which I probably can see). [And I don't mean that it isn't fine to criticize kids' movies but the expectations are lower.]
And satirizing a thing while riding the exact same wave doesn't really work and really doesn't excuse the criticism. And even if it would be "okay" (as if there's such a thing when it comes to taste), it doesn't mean it can't be over or misused in a movie.
The title is an exaggeration. The writer doesn't believe every movie going forward is going to be pushing towards brand synergy within and between franchises and companies. It also makes the argument that the strongest pull of the movie is the meta referential material. Which I don't think anyone can argue against, except maybe in the sense that is it the strongest or just one of the strengths. And this is a recipe that others will try to crack. I don't think it'll work as a wider blueprint. As everything else, it has its time and place.
Looking forward to seeing how I like it as I liked the first movie but during the second the joke started to wear a bit thin.
Why not?
So then what is the problem with this movie being saturated with fan service?
It’s one thing to say I don’t like the movie, but it’s another thing to say this movie is bad for the industry.
I think I answered both of your questions in my initial comment but to add, the writer just didn't like the movie and concocted this think piece because that's the job.
When you look around online, there's a trend that's begun to cement in a growing segment of potential movie-goers. That of "is the movie 'worth' seeing in a theater?"
The definition usually applied to figure out a movie's worth is something along the lines of does it offer spectacle! They want big visuals, huge audio, explosions, FX, VFX, things like that. They want a film they feel is "worthy" of the big screen, one they'd watch at home and think "man, if only I was in a theater with a huge screen and seventeen kajillion speakers turned way up."
Studios have started to notice this too. The trend isn't particularly new, but the pandemic forced a lot of people to become at least momentarily aware of their viewing habits. And a not-small percentage of movie consumers figured out they were just fine watching almost any movie that fits comfortably into a "talking head" or "standard drama/comedy/thriller" kind of mold at home, on their TVs and shelf audio systems.
It's one of the reasons studios are focusing more and more on franchises. Big spectacles with familiarity. Though, that familiarity is starting to become a problem because there's another trend where an increasing number of people seem to feel they can't watch anything unless they've seen everything that might have preceded it in some way.
For example, I saw some (person) in a Star Trek thread a few weeks ago saying he had no interest in Trek since he had no interest in "catching up" on hundreds of episodes of content (along with more than a dozen films) stretching back to the sixties.
There's just these people running around today who can't fathom how a project, be it film or tv, is almost always constructed to tell the story of that project. That you don't need to know anything else except what you're being given then and there to enjoy that story. These people disagree for some unknown reason, and think they'll get nothing out of a story if they don't have full knowledge of each and every other trace piece of content that might connect to this story.
What isn't a new trend is how people who hate certain genres, certain kinds of stories, just hate them. And want them gone. They zero-sum storytelling, and (in their heads) proceed with the assumption that if the hated stories weren't being made, then stories they love would instead. They use this assumption to fuel and focus their hate, and it leads to stupid articles like this. Along with social media posts that express the same, people who crash into threads about those projects they hate to shit all over them, and so on.
Trying to influence culture, society, fellow consumers, to hate as they hate and hopefully drive off the production of further hated stories.
It's a juvenile as it sounds. It really is. Don't like it; don't watch it! Shocking concept apparently, because haters gonna hate.
Studios are run by MBAs and Wall Street entities now. They want big returns, always, period. They don't greenlight projects that don't appear to have a good chance to provide those returns. In their eyes, to their analysis, a "small" movie that is perfectly watchable on a small screen is unlikely to score at the box office. Which is where they see their payday coming from, since they've let DVD and other non-cinema revenue streams fall off markedly compared to the industry's high point of the mid 90s to early 2010s.
The thing is ... it doesn't cost a hundred million plus to crank out a movie unless you're going to literally start throwing money at the project. Want to load every minute full of effects and so on, then you have to pay for FX and VFX resources to do all that. Want to film most/all scenes on location? Gotta pay for that. Want to pull more than maybe two or three known names (in front or behind the camera) into the project, gotta pay their fees. Want to give the production leeway to run dozens, sometimes dozens and dozens, of takes per scene? Gotta pay for a full crew with full equipment to grind through all those takes because otherwise the takes don't get filmed.
We have tens of thousands, of small budget examples. Some of the most revered and respected classics of film came from very small budgets. Because money doesn't equal great story, money just gives a great story a chance to be dressed up to the nines.
Horror, for example, is a common low budget genre choice. Because, unless you splash it up to spectacle level, the only "unusual" cost you have compared to a "normal" movie is to staff the production with a solid makeup team to do "stuff" that'll be on camera. Zombies, vampires, monsters, whatever; stuff that goes bump in the night and drips or leers or stabs as actors run around screaming and huddling together behind doors talking about what they should do next. And horror fans tend to love horror, don't care if it isn't in the hundred million dollar range. When a fun horror flick turns up, fans talk and they start showing up to scream in delighted terror.
Most people who hate Marvel, Star Wars, action spectacles, usually want adult talking head content. Dramas, comedies, thrillers (D/C/T), that kind of thing. These people all hate on the spectacle because they want those funds diverted to their preference.
But the bottom line is the industry is a-changin'. Really, already has changed. Consumer tastes have shifted, and more importantly (to all those MBAs flown in from Wall Street to take over Hollywood) spending habits have as well. The heyday of the DVD years made it possible to put Harrison Ford and similar "adult A-list actors" into "adult drama" theatrical films that would turn a profit.
Those theatrical D/C/T films usually, if they didn't flop out of the gate, more or less made their money back at the theater. At least most of their money back. Then DVD would hit and often be pure cream for several years. Comedy and thrillers worked the same way.
Cinemaphiles need to open their eyes and look at the industry that exists now. Nothing says one can't be upset with how it's changing, but that doesn't alter the fact it has changed. One of those changes is the streaming services are where you're going to find adult D/C/T content now.
Because on a modest streaming budget, Netflix or DisneyPlus or Max can invest twenty or thirty million into a movie (shorter shoot schedule, less or no location shooting, few effects or other extra production needs), and then additionally toss between ten million (if it's just one or two 'famous face' actors with a solid track record) or maybe all the way up to twenty or even thirty million (to get an A-lister, maybe a second one, along with another one or two 'lesser' famous faces) and that's their movie in the can and ready to stream.
The heavy contraction of the entire industry (cinema as well as streaming) right now is because they were overspending on everything. Netflix was spending cinema level budgets on films, trying to compete directly with cinemas when that's definitely not their niche. Why should any streaming service, even Netflix, load their yearly production budget up with half a dozen $100mil+ projects when for each one of those blockbuster budgets they can make three to five adult D/C/T projects instead?
It took the overspending period of the streaming craze to reteach the industry this. They've started to realize it now, learn it, and adjust their strategies.
The only real problem with any of this is the folks who demand everything "they like" be in a theater. If you like those D/C/T films, they're not going to be in theaters very often anymore. The studios just don't like the financial math, and would rather invest in blockbusters to chase a handful of blockbuster payoffs.
But those D/C/Ts are going to keep showing up on streaming. Because they're the right fit for streaming. They can be made for an affordable budget, and nothing about them is diminished by at-home viewing. Which is a lesson the industry already managed to teach itself once only to sort of try to forget, with the rise and fall of DVD.
The only difference now is instead of getting production costs of one of those D/C/T projects paid off by ticket sales, it just comes out of subscription revenue. Rather than being made to pay back over several years of disc sales, they're being made to give subscribers a reason to subscribe.
Big movies cost big money. When you have a gold plated project that spends and spends and spends, that money isn't going to be made back off subscriptions. The industry wants it back now. They spend a year making it, and then the next year it comes out and has (hopefully) two or so months in theaters to turn that $100-$200 million budget into a billion, which is what the studios want; outsized returns. Big money, big prizes. Right now.
They're not going to make a big expensive D/C/T movie to that formula because they don't believe fans are going to pay them back now. In that six to eight week period when the film releases to theaters. Since Wall Street always wants the profit now, they're directing their owned studios to focus on projects that seem likely to pay off at theaters.
And the only consistent theatrical payoffs the industry's seen over the past decade or so are increasingly spectacle pictures. Which are not the kind of pictures fans of D/C/T likes.
Buy yourself a nice tv (which are cheap, unlike necessities; gotta keep those breads and circuses rolling), buy your neighborhood techie some beer and pizza to hook up a decent sound system for you, and keep an eye on streaming. That's where those D/C/T projects are found now. Kick back with a beer of your own on the couch and enjoy them.
I feel like you already wrote a comment of a similar length also decrying cinephiles for their snobbery while also expressing indifference to theatrical exhibition. Not that I have a problem with it, and you're obviously free to express your opinion however and however many times you want. Just seems like we're retreading the same ground here.
And people in media, especially in social media, continue to retread their ground as well. They consistently try to rally a decrying of these big films, these franchises, and especially superhero/franchise/action films. They treat things that aren't high profile DCTs released to the theater dismissively, and continue to push that narrative as well. Repetitiously.
It's almost a game, looking for these articles dumping on non-DCT films. Let's look at the release schedule and try to guess what'll trigger the next wave of articles and posts moaning over "stupid superhero movies, stupid action movies, stupid big budget things that aren't serious films for serious filmgoers."
Might it be Alien: Romulus on 16 Aug? The Crow on 23 Aug? Beetlejuice Beetlejuice on 6 Sep? Transformers One on 20 Sep? Seems like after that things slow down a little, at least at first glance to me without specifically researching each title, but then 25 Oct I see Venom: The Last Dance and I'm certain that's going to definitely kick off its own wave of non-DCT hate and thus articles fanning those flames.
So I'm not sure what the point of your comment is? Did you only post the article seeking validation? Agreement? What "new" ground was hoped for? Comments in this thread are chiming in with how they enjoyed the latest Deadpol, and found it to be pretty much what they expected, while the article's author clearly does not share those sentiments. Seems like Disney/Marvel hit a solid one with Deadpool, that it's well received by its intended audience.
There's lots of movies I don't like. I just don't watch'em. I don't take their existence personally, and I don't sit around plotting. All things can't be everything to everyone, something these articles that get tetchy about the existence of things the author hates rarely seem to understand.
I just comment in threads where I find something I'd like to upload a comment on. Nothing more, nothing less.
@cloud_loud did not post the article.
I think the reason people feel the need to "catch up" is because all new versions of IPs insist upon it. Even just references and in-jokes to the previous shows, films, books, etc make the viewer feel out of place because they shove it in your face when oh there's a logo or an item or something related to the lore here, zoom in on it and make sure people see it.
We've been conditioned to recognize these moments and FOMO is a real and powerful thing.
So people just don't want to deal with any of that. Either catch up and watch EVERYTHING in the IP or experience FOMO. And no one wants to do the latter so either catch up or don't bother with any of it. Most people don't want to put in the effort and say screw all of it.
I have done this, you probably have too at some point. Everyone has.
You'll probably get more than nothing out of the story if you don't see the rest of the franchise, but you'll definitely get much less than if you had been caught up. I haven't seen Logan or any of the X-Men movies since the ones with Famke Janssen, and I could definitely tell that I was missing some context during Deadpool & Wolverine. I wasn't confused or anything, but there were moments that didn't have the gravity for me that they did for the rest of the people watching.
There are other movies that I've gone to see without seeing everything leading up to them, and when I saw the previous installments later, I realized how much I was missing. Parts of the story that I didn't quite understand before suddenly clicked.
I think the biggest error many people make is to limit their view of the movie industry at Hollywood alone. There are plenty of great things happening in film outside the biggest studio productions. It is true what you say that the biggest studio prioritizing those kind of productions now, but the rest of the world has sort of picked up on the stuff Hollywood makes less of now. Or likely it has been produced forever, but it now gets more attention. It is pretty apparent with how international films have gotten wider recognition at the Oscars in recent years. A24 has carved out their own niche market as well. People just need to pay more attention to what is happening at various film festivals around the world if they are tired of the Hollywood production output.
Ehh, it really comes down to scope, labor costs, and a lot more. Sure, I can take a camera and edit a full movie in Adobe premier for "free" (or like, $1000 + Adobe costs if you want to count my "equipment"), but things always get expensive when you start hiring others.
say I want to pay 10 friends minimum wage (so, $16/hr in my region) for a year as their full time job to help make this film. Very rough napkin math translates 2000 hours of $16/hr to $32,000/year, $320,000 for the entire production. These 10 people aren't really comfortable financially, but the cost for production just blew well past what many view as a "small indie film".
Any
of course there's a lot of tricks and exploits and tax breaks the blockbuster budgets take advantadge of, but my main point is that it can be surprisingly easy to blow that much money if you're properly paying your talent (and if we're being real: most of these publishers do not). For an instance: Monsters Inc. from Pixar cost $110 million dollars in 2001 to make. Adjust that for inflation today and that;s $195 million dollars. Now take a more recent movie like Elemental (2022) and the budget was... $200 million dollars.
There's too many known and unknown factors to make some judgement call here (but you're free to make one), but it just illustrates that it's always been expensive making blockbuster hits. I agree that expecations (and partially the economy) have changed rather than the movies themselves. Monsters Inc. made $500m ($880m inflation adjusted) in box office and was a smashing success. Elemental also eventually made $500m in the box office, but not fast enough (noting a slow domestic opening but a very receptive overseas welcome), and it was being predicted as one of Pixar's worst performing films. I'm sure there was a non-zero chance layoffs were being planned at that moment when all that was needed was patience (there were still layoffs in 2024, but that's another story).
Sure, inflation technically means it got worse returns, but I don't think 500m is that tragic in 2022 when Frozen's (2012) box office was 1.2b and that let it become a cultural phenomenon that surpassed that even of the coveted "disney princess" branding. No one makes cultural phenomenons every year, but it feels like that's what investors expect as some norm now.
I'm rambling, but I just made all those comparisons to expand on 2 key points
labor is expensive, especially if you're being honest (companies are not), so I wouldn't necessarily say 100-200m is "throwing money at the project" without a deeper breakdown of a budget
Outside of some huge outliers, movie costs are flatter than you expect when you adjust for inflatiion across genres. But expecations have skyrocketed despite data suggesting otherwise in the last 20-30 years. movies can still be profitable, but that's clearly not enough anymore, especially if investors only look at opening weekend and impatiently react before the full box office reveals.
If Marvel movies have taught us one thing it's to watch the entire credits.
There are so many people working on a major movie set. All of those people need paid. And then there are so many post-production, animation/assets people and people that digitally light the animations. Idek how that works. But they're there. When people talk about the cost of CGI, that's labor too!
I’ve read that the effects credits don’t actually list all the people who worked on the project. Apparently there are so many digital effects artists and technicians involved that the studios only list a sampling, and rotate who they name from film to film.
I didnt know that, it makes some sense. Also it doesn't tell you how long they worked on it. Or how skilled they are or any of the things people know or can reasonably assume about actors and directors and such.