A thread in which Nonesuch watches all of the Adventure films, back to back.

[Nonesuch]

I have decided to watch these films after carefully avoiding them for seven years. This is because they have gained a level of social gravity such that my fellow man looks at me with astonishment and contempt when they make a reference to the Eternal Gauntlet or whatever and I don't understand it. So well done, Joss Whedon. You win. I'm finally going to part the veil of your anus to see what sights it has to show me, not once, but four times. In quick succession.

 

[Nonesuch]

The first film is simply called The Adventures (2012). According to Wikipedia, it's one of the 100 greatest films ever made. It's about a cube and a dweeb with a cane, who comes from the purple zone. They're both shitty looking in a 90s sci-fi tv kind of way, but Samuel L Jackson is super concerned about them both. Unfortunately there are no 'is it about my cube?' jokes.

Samuel summons a team of superheroes to get the dweeb. There's a bunch of references that fly right over my head here, which is one of the reasons I don't like these films; they constantly make me feel I should have read some comic or watched another film to understand them, which is of course the entire point of a Content Universe. Anyway I basically know almost nothing about the eponymous Adventures. I'll list their abilities as I understand them:

* Elon Musk if Elon Musk had power armour.
* a guy who can turn into Shrek but doesn't want to.
* a man with a big shield.
* a man who can shoot a bow really good.
* Scarlett Johansson.

It's an odd, lopsided combination which makes me yearn a bit for stuff like Captain Planet or Power Rangers where the heroes form a satisfying whole. Anyway, they pull the invisible hovership from XCom 2 out of the sea, it's fully operational and then they fly around in it looking for Adventures. Hence the name.

The dweeb pops up in Germany so they go there. The dweeb now wears horned armor which makes him look even more of a dweeb. I realise they did this in Germany just so they could fire off a Nazi reference and I groan out loud. They easily defeat the dweeb and throw him in hover-jail, although Thor does his best to stop this from happening. Thor is from the purple zone as well, but he's a good guy? And yet he has a big fight with the Adventures anyway? This is so tiring.

Now they have defeated the dweeb and have nothing else to do. They sit around the hovership until they're so bored they start bickering. Scarlett Johansson uses her Scarlett Johansson abilities to work out that this was the dweeb's plan all along, but it's too late. Sneak attack! I forgot to mention the bow guy was brainwashed at the start by the cane, but who honestly is going to blame me for forgetting about the bow guy. He shoots the hover ship and the dweeb escapes. They get the bow guy back somehow.

The dweeb puts on his nerd armor again, goes to New York and uses the cube to summon an army of Halo baddies. I missed where the cube was all this time or how the Adventures worked out where he went because this movie throws so much shit at you and so much exposition is locked in Joss Whedon who-said-that-you-said-that-oh-I-said-that repartee. Anyway they go to New York and have a big fight. We see some New Yorkers being awfully brave. The Halo baddies are not very good and the Adventures have Shrek, who is basically a cheat code. Shrek's drawback is that he's supposed to be uncontrollable, but as soon as the big fight starts he only murders the other side. Honestly I would throw my controller against the wall if a game pulled that shit with me.

New York is pulverised for what's probably the 15th time but Elon Musk fires a nuke into a spaceship or something so the Adventures win. Thor takes the dweeb back to the purple zone to face purple justice. I feel if you're going to use Norse myth in this way figures like Thor should be, idk, somewhat rugged. A guy who fights and drinks and fucks and that's it. The man looks like an Asterix doll.

Overall

At one point it's established a guy fancies shield man, and then he gravely tells shield man 'Maybe we need the old-fashioned, sir' and it's the funniest fucking thing. I think this same guy is the only person the dweeb ends up merking in the whole film, so I'm giving the film 4/10 for making me laugh twice. Oh, there was the 'Shakespeare in the park' line too, wasn't there? Go on then, 5/10.

Tonight: Age of Ultron

 

[ScarletteKnight]

I was very confused at first.

Anyway, bit of a fangirl, but objectively speaking most of the movies are just "okay", while some a really good. Having read the comics I view certain movies as inherently better or worse, so I hate Civil War.

I absolutely loved Endgame and thought it was the best movie ever, I won't be able to look at it objectively until it's on disc since I cannot afford to visit theaters again. I am really emotional, and cried almost from start to finish, and the action scenes were fucking awesome, and there's just so much they did well, but there were a couple questionable moments.

Wait, are you binging the whole franchise, or just Avengers? 'Cause there will be huge gaps for missing basically any movie of the 22.

 

[Tinman]

It took "A guy who can turn into Shrek but doesn't want to" for me to realize this is about The Avengers and not some obscure series called The Adventures.

And I'm glad I'm not the only one who finds the MCU, and Civil War especially, to be mostly just okay. People rave about the films so much, but Iron Man and the first Avengers are the only ones (haven't seen Endgame yet) that have stood out to me as truly great movies. Even Age of Ultron was pretty boring for most of its run despite Daniel Jackson doing his best evil Pinnochio impression.

 

[Nonesuch]

Wait, are you binging the whole franchise, or just Avengers? 'Cause there will be huge gaps for missing basically any movie of the 22.

I am not watching 22 of the bloody things. And 'ooh you won't understand what's happening if you don't watch literally 21 prequels!' is exactly why I've been avoiding these things for so long. 4 Adventures should be more than enough. My impressions will be from those and nothing else.

 

[Evil]

As much as I am a fan of the MCU, I have to say that its a little much to expect someone to sit through 48 hours and 11 minutes (or 2891 minutes) of film to catch up on the franchise. Its daunting by that prospect alone, never mind the idea that you have 22 films over 11 years coming together to tell a story. I mean, there is a reason why its now called the "Infinity Saga".

But by the same token, its always a good idea to go into watching the Avengers films not only with an open mind, but also the realisation that they are by their nature ridiculous. I mean, you have a guy who made a suit of power armour in a cave and then made another one in his basement, you have a Norse God, you have a super soldier who spent 70 years as an ice cube, another guy who saying he has anger issues is an understatement and topped with two spies, one of whom has an archery fetish. And they have to fight the god's adopted brother. All while Samuel L Jackson tells a nun and the guy from Red Dawn to shut up. I mean, its ridiculous. But it works.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

I get it, but like... the Avengers movies are better experiences than they otherwise would be without the rest, and the majority of the content and context is in the other movies.

I mean, good luck though.

 

[Nonesuch]

The second film is called The Adventures: Age of Jontron. I get the impression from the reviews that this is the least well regarded of the four Adventures films, however it still made Joss Whedon enough money on its own that he could wipe his ass on diamond fillament for the rest of his life if he chose.

It begins with the Adventures fucking annihilating some Russians, just murdering them in the scores. All movies should open like this. The only person who has any problem with them is the bow guy, once again raising the question of why is there a bow guy. The Russians work for Hydra. I thought that was GI Joe? The Russians have the cane from the last movie, and a pair of exceedingly cheeki breeki. The Adventures manage to secure the cane, and Elon Musk decides to use it to create artificial intelligence. It takes him three minutes and twenty four seconds to create a Terminator and end the human race.

Fortunately this Terminator is dumb as dogshit. He's got this awful whimsical voice that carries no menace and his motivations don't make sense and nothing he does makes sense and god I hate him so much. He recruits the cheeki breeki and then flies off to a weapons dealer in uhh, 'The Coast of Africa'. Presumably in the second half we'll visit North American City for a breather. The Adventures track Jontron down. One of the breeki is very fast and the other gives you bad trips, and they fuck the Adventures up. Shrek and Space Marine Elon Musk have a big fight in a city that probably kills like 200 people, but as they are all Africa Coastians nobody cares much.

The Adventures have been beaten by Jontron, and understandably are so embarrassed they go hang out at bow guy's house for a bit. He has a family nobody knew about literally because nobody bothered to ask him. Honestly how much bow guy sucks is a real highlight of this series. Thor goes off on a vision quest and Scarlett Johansson humps Shrek guy's leg. I'd find this sub-plot more bearable if Shrek guy didn't come off as kind of an imbecile. To every situation he turns his big plate face and goes 'buhh?' Just shag Scarlett Johansson, dude. Fiona will never know.

Meanwhile Jontron has remembered he has the cane, and uses it to mind control a Korean doctor into making a bio-synthetic body. I don't really get why he's doing this since he wants to kill all biological life, but whatever. It dawns on the cheeki breeki that they also are biological life - however sub-optimal - and they run away. The Adventures come back for another go, and there's a pretty decent action sequence on a road, the highlight of which is a lorry taking off.

The Adventures get the synth body and the breeki, but Jontron gets Scarlett Johansson. Instead of killing or ransoming her, he puts her in a room with functioning radio equipment and then leaves. I can't get over how moronic this villain is. Meanwhile Musk suggests to Shrek guy they create AI with the synth body... again. Shrek guy goes 'buhh?'' and then goes along with it anyway. Once the other Adventures find out there's a kerfuffle, but it all works out because they create their very own Dr. Manhattan. Except he's red and you can't see his nutsack, which is a letdown imo.

They all fly off for the big showdown. Jontron intends to pull a Russian town into the air and then slamdunk it into the Earth killing everything, which is pretty cool if again nonsensical. He has an army of robots who are every bit as effective as the roger roger droids from Star Wars. A huge amount of attention is paid to evacuating the civilians of the town, which is a nice idea but makes the Adventures seem myopic. They didn't do this shit with New York, or Coast Africopolis. Is it guilt? Presumably the mooks they dicked all over at the beginning of the movie had families.

Samuel L Jackson comes back with the hovership, and he has Don Cheadle with him now for some reason. There's a funny moment where Jontron goes 'Oh yeah, you know those robots you've been killing in the hundreds? Well guess what, I've got FIFTY MORE!' He completely sucks and gets his shit kicked in a dozen times. His only victory is minigunning the cheekier breeki. Squat in peace, my man. Elon Musk works out a way to save the planet with an awesome light show again.

The Adventures have won the day. Or have they? Elon Musk doesn't want to play anymore. Thor returns to the purple zone. Shrek's time is ogre. Scarlett Johansson is super pissed off she didn't get the zucchini. But never fear - at the end we see a whole new batch of cretins in spandex bound into the room with Dr Redhattan and bad trip cheeki breeki. There's a bunch of bullshit about stones coming our way, Whedon is telling us, and you better believe he's going to pump more epic quippage out of it.

Overall

This one was a slog, I won't lie. It felt way longer than the first one, and because the villain was so bad it really dragged. Halfway there. 3/10.

Tomorrow: Infinity Sequels

 

[Tinman]

the other gives you bad trips,

The most concise and accurate description of Scarlet Witch's powers ever.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

10/10 summaries.

 

[A Random Guy]

Did videogamedunkey hijack Nonesuch’s account?

 

[Nonesuch]

The third film is called The Adventures: Infinite Sequels. This seems to be the film where the franchise took on a life of its own and began impacting culture such that I felt compelled to do this retrospective empty-calory-gorging marathon. It's not by Joss Whedon, which is great because I think if I have to listen to another conversation made up entirely of quips I am going to murder the man.

An awful lot happens in this one and I don't pretend to understand 90% of it. It feels rather like reading a precocious eight year old's sugar-addled fanfic, or watching three anime episodes chosen at random from a series and rammed together. I'll do my best.

We open in Thor's spaceship. I don't realise he's Thor at first because he's ditched the Asterix look for a grizzled country singer vibe. Perhaps this is because he, the dweeb from the first film, and all his mates have just got owned by the mighty Grape Ape and his cadre of Dungeons & Dragons characters. We get a taste of how Grape the Ape is when he twats Shrek who is also here for some reason really easily.

Shrek escapes back to Earth and visits a wizard. The wizard explains the Grape Ape intends to get all the lucky charms together to become Captain Planet and solve entropy. Side note: The lucky charms look like shit you'd find in a box of cereal. Did they... consider hiding them in boxes of cereal? A glukkon and an ogre capture the wizard and do acupuncture on him. Spiderboi shoots his goo and sucks the glukkon off.

Now we go to some Star Wars characters. This is where the film really lost me. There's a raccoon and a shrub and some space babes and the film assumes I know all about them. They rescue Thor and decide they're going to get the lucky charms before the Grape Ape does. One of them is the Grape Ape's daughter. She's green and called Gonorrhea. Yeah the Ape is pretty mean, isn't he.

Some dark elves now go after Dr Redhattan's lucky charm. I do like that this baddie is not just miles more competent than either the dweeb or Jontron, but also has semi-competent mooks too. However too many heroes show up for them to win. I try and remember or work out who any of them are but the film whisks on too quickly for any faces to stick. This film is two and a half hours long and it feels like it's trying to tight-beam information into your occipital lobe in every nano-second.

The Grape Ape easily beats Luke Skywalker and contracts Gonorrhea. He's three lucky charms up and the heroes haven't lain a glove on him yet. He tortures robot Princess Leia until Gonorrhea spills the beans about another charm. Darth Maul explains he has to punt somebody he loves in order to get this one. Gonorrhea is so slow on the uptake I reckon she was still trying to work out which pet the Ape was going to chuck in the moment she became street pizza.

Thor does some shit in Moria with the raccoon and a giant dwarf. I'm beyond understanding stuff at this point, it's just sounds and lights. Meanwhile the dark elves deploy an army of genestealers against the heroes in scenes again very reminiscent of the first Star Wars prequel movie. Except now the cartoon black people are now actual black people. There's a hero who's super power is that he has a gun. Did he replace bow guy? Did bow guy finally level up?

Meanwhile Elon Musk and Spiderboi and the wizard set up an ambush for the Grape Ape. They actually do pretty well this time, until Luke Skywalker goes noooooo you're lying that's impossible and loses them the match.

The heroes and Gungans slay all of the dark elves with critical hits but it's too late, the Grape Ape is here. He beats everyone, kills Redhattan for his lucky charm, and completes the collection. He sends away for his reward, which is murdering 50% of the universe. The massive army of heroes eat a ton of shit. The End. No, really.

Overall

I did actually like this one! It's a confusing, stupid mess with far too much going on, but the baddie is miles more compelling than the ones in the first two, and the lack of Joss Whedon dialogue means that some of the goodies were likable and distinct. It makes me kind of wish those had their own movies, where they could breath a bi...

...Oh god. Oh no. This is how they get you, isn't it? No. Absolutely not. You're not Grape Apeing me. -10/10, you bastards.

Some time next week: The End

 

[Evil]

That's the thing with a franchise like the MCU and with films like Infinity War and Endgame. Its a grand finale and a tribute to the franchise thus far, its got callbacks to 20 films and dozens of characters, brick jokes and plot threads to be tied up. I can understand not wanting to watch 20 films in order to watch the latest ones, but at the same time, you're going in at a massive disadvantage.

 

[Tinman]

Wait, are you not doing Civil War? I'm not a fan of the movie myself but I was looking forward to your explanation of it.

 

[ScarletteKnight]

Wait, are you not doing Civil War? I'm not a fan of the movie myself but I was looking forward to your explanation of it.

Technically that's a Captain America movie, not an Avengers movie.

 

[Nonesuch]

Hello again, Adventure fans. Sorry for the late update: I got caught up in a bunch of bullshit last week. Then on the weekend I decided that, since this one is still in the cinema, I'd cap this little saga off the right way by finding a spare night and actually going to see it rather than find a shaky camcord stream somewhere. So I did! And let me tell you folks, pow! Zoop! Neeeoooww! Quip! Adventure films are much more fun on the big screen! And if you've had 4 pints beforehand.

The finale is called The Adventures: Gamemaster Anthony's Birthday. We kick things off at bow guy's ranch. All of his family disappear. Because I watched the previous episode I know why this is: in shield guy's timeless words, I Understood That Reference, and as I've learnt Understanding References is what the Adventures are all about. If I didn't know I'd assume bow guy's wife divorced him suddenly and ran away with the kids, because that seems like the sort of thing that would happen to bow guy.

Meanwhile Elon Musk and Robo Leia are drifting in space when female Jesus saves them. This character is ridiculously OP and it seems negligent of the Adventures not to put her on the board before now. They go back to Earth and confer with the remaining gang that, yep, they got their asses kicked. They find the Grape Ape and wallop his head off but that doesn't change anything - he got the prize for finding all the lucky charms and now they're worthless. You lose, nerds. Everyone goes off to have a five year sulk.

We open with a ruckus in an abandoned Mystery Machine. Zoinks Scoob! It's... honestly I've no idea. The film offers no explanation for who this plank is or what he can do until the last fifteen minutes or so. He seems to exist entirely for people to pick on. He kind of stumbles face first into shield guy and tells them he has a solution to the whole 50% of the universe being dead thing. It's time travel.

A cast iron rule of storytelling is that if you have to use time travel then you fucked up somewhere and should quit immediately, and the rest of the film kind of stands as testament to that. As the Adventures tie themselves in knots gallivanting around the past it all gets ludicrously convoluted even by the standards of these movies and almost impossible to follow, even if you know who all these fuckers are. Again, I'll do my best.

First, they have to get the gang back together. Elon Musk has a family now and doesn't want to go because he knows getting a family means you die at the end, but he goes anyway. Bow guy has shaven his hair and is murdering Japs in an effort to get dark n edgy but it hasn't worked, he's still bow guy and as such meekly follows when Scarlett Johanssen says. There's Shrek who's embraced his Shrekhood which is nice. Thor finally looks and acts like how I imagine Thor actually would - just an angry smelly cunt with a big beard who drinks constantly - and he comes along for the craic.

The plan is to get the lucky charms from alternative pasts and create an alternative make-a-wish which fixes everything. One of the parties goes to the first movie with the dweeb and the Halo baddies! I Understood That Reference! Bow guy and Scarlett Johanssen go and get the soul charm and we do the 'chuck someone you love' thing again. Can Bow guy and Scarlett be said to love each other? Seemed more of a professional working relationship to me. There again the 'soul' charm is very much the Ringo Starr of the six isn't it.

The film notices it doesn't have an antagonist and so gets past Grape Ape to clock what's going on by bzzrp sdnsakjd sgdskdgh. He sends his capital ship through the time portal and deck the Adventures' treehouse but it's too late, Shrek has wished all the dead people back to life! Hurray! They all come out of portals and have a BIG party with the past Grape Ape's past army. Honestly they don't have to bother because Jesus is here again and with no Pontius Pilate available she has no counter.

Elon Musk wishes all the bad guys away but dies doing it. Everyone is very sad about this. Zorping trillions of sapient beings back into existence AND finally getting rid of this twerp seems like a win-win to me. Scarlett Johanssen's bone structure is a far more tragic loss. Shield guy is sent to put all the lucky charms back to correct reality. He comes back as Clint Eastwood, which is very funny. A random fat guy promises Musk's daughter all the cheeseburgers in the world, which is also very funny.

Overall

The film automatically gets 0 out of 10 for using time travel. I am fascinated by where the series goes from here though, as it must because it made a million billion dollars at the box office. What do you do after you kill half the universe and then undo it by pulling time travel out of your arse? The way comic books do it is to just go to sleep for ten years then reset everything and pretend it never happened, but this franchise seems far too profitable for Marvel to do that at this point. You get the sense of a tank falling off a cliff and everyone just standing at the edge watching it go.

I'll give my overall thoughts of the Adventures in the morrow.

 

[null_blank]

The film automatically gets 0 out of 10 for using time travel.

I stand behind this reasoning.

Also, in the original comic they undo the deaths by actually taking the gauntlet away from him. Novel idea, I know.

 

[Evil]

I am fascinated by where the series goes from here though

Marvel have stated that they aren't going to do a decade long story arc again, instead there will be smaller threads running through some of the films.

But from what rumours I've heard about what Marvel have planned, its going to be focusing on making a clearer divide between Marvel Earth and Marvel Cosmic.

And probably no X-men or Fantastic Four films until 2024.

 

[A Random Guy]

Thanos wielded the blades from the Thanos-copter so it immediately gets a 69 out of 10 from me

 

[sumgai]

I stand behind this reasoning.

Also, in the original comic they undo the deaths by actually taking the gauntlet away from him. Novel idea, I know.

Nebula took the gauntlet and then undid his snap in the original comic. Also, his treatmeant of Nebula in the origianl comic was a hell of a lot more horrific.

Nonesuch, just curious, is Back to the Future an exception to the time travel rule? What about the Time Machine by H.G. Wells? Most fiction with time travel tend to be be duds in my perception, but sometimes you get some gems.

 

[Nonesuch]

Nonesuch, just curious, is Back to the Future an exception to the time travel rule? What about the Time Machine by H.G. Wells? Most fiction with time travel tend to be be duds in my perception, but sometimes you get some gems.

It's a flippant statement, of course there are many stories which use time travel in interesting ways. A good rule of thumb is that if time travel is the central element right from the start, that's what the characters and the narrative have been deliberately designed to explore, then it's fine. Even then though it results in stories that are convoluted, frustrating and trite if it's not used masterfully. If the bell can be unrung you are undermining maybe the most fundamental aspect of being human, so you need a jolly good reason for doing it. That's why creative writing courses basically forbid you from using it.

The way Endgame used it was to reference stuff in the vast, cinematic universe it's spent more than a decade building up. Hey, remember when that happened? And that happened? Oh, you didn't watch the Thor movies? Maybe you should! What it reminded me a lot of is asterixes. You know how in old comic books somebody would say something like 'It can't be the Dark Lord, we sealed him in a time capsule remember?*' and there'd be a footnote which ran '*See issue #87!' Of course being a kid you didn't have issue #87, and by God did you want it when you read that footnote. Maybe enough to pester your parents into getting it for you.

Having now finished the Adventures I can't decide if I admire them or abhor them. In essence they are what you used to do when you were a kid and had a motley collection of action figures to play with. You had both Spiderman and Rocky Raccoon, so they teamed up to fight the bad guys over a lego castle. Bwoosh! Grrrrr dududududud look out Spiderman, here comes a dark elf! Bwum no you don't, in comes Captain America to save the day! It's that, except given ten billion dollars to lavishly produce onto the big screen. How could any nerd possibly resist? You go into it and you're doomed, forever, to wander through almost 30 films and the comics that inspired them, hoping to understand what every character and scene was meant to signify. Almost every word and scene is an advertisement to another sleekly produced movie, comic-book, and god knows how many other product tie-ins. It's monstrous. It's brilliant.

I'm with the Grape Ape: The universe has to be destroyed, if it is to be saved.

 

[Evil]

Going to put this under a spoiler because why not..
I enjoyed Endgame. But that doesn't mean that its without it's flaws. This isn't all of them, just the ones I take issue with.

Spoiler

- When you build up a character to be central to thwarting Thanos but have her on screen for less than ten minutes and isn't even involved in the main plot - that's poor planning or lazy writing.
- Endgame is the culmination of 11 years of films and over 20 movies. It tries to have a connection to all of them, most of which you might end up missing (as an aside, it does lift Thor: the Dark Work up from being one of the worst films in the franchise, just by having that moment with Thor and Freya. But what you end up with is a 3 hour film spreading itself too thin to cover everything. Its just too much.
- To be honest, the only films to do time travel well is Back to the Future and that's because they covered what can go wrong and how even a slight change in the past can radically change the future. Also, Doc and Marty had that bitchin' DeLorean (automatic win!)! The Avengers had what felt like oversized dental mirrors.
- You had around 60+ major characters in that final fight scene and that's about 40 too many to keep track of. Literally the only ones you could see outright were Giant-Man (being 60' tall has that effect), Spider-man (because when Marvel's flagship character dies in tears and beginning not to go, you really need to show he's back) and a blatant A-Force reference (literally only one character in that lineup was actually in A-Force in the comics. Captain Marvel if anyone is interested).
- Too much was left out and too much was cut. Adam Warlock, who plays the key central role with Thanos in the original Infinity Gauntlet saga, was teased at the end of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 and we're still waiting. That's just one example, the largest, but it also shows that it felt like you were getting half a story.

Is Endgame a terrible film? I wouldn't say so. I also wouldn't say that it was one of the greatest films in the franchise. It's a film that shows the power of popular culture and how well marketing works. Its very much a film made for the big screen but damn, I can only imagine some of the scripts that got thrown away. Because they must have thrown away some real gems.