Marvel Cinematic Universe Part II

[Ascended]

For ME, it looks like Hemsworth is actually laughing when he's crying. I dunno why I feel this way, but I that's my impression of his acting. He's a naturally funny dude. I just vaguely remember Garfield crying and I was like dude, WHY?!

I don't recall Garfield crying much. Just when Gwen died. I'm sure I'm forgetting other examples though, I didn't watch those films often. Tobey definitely seemed to cry a fair amount, and didn't make it look very appealing on screen, but I haven't seen any of those movies in years so it might just be my memory highlighting things that weren't actually as prevalent as I remember.

I only recall Thor crying in...two...scenes? There's the talk with Rocket in Infinity War, where he sheds a single tear while talking about everyone who died, and then in Endgame when he has a breakdown (shortly before talking to his mother). In both cases it worked for me. Given what he had been through, a couple tears is totally justified and I think Hemsworth sold the emotion. And I say this as a guy who doesn't cry.

Eh, a lot of these 'sympathetic villains' aren't really done well. I don't need to cry for these villains to enjoy them or believe them. I think the older version of Zemo would've worked fine, because at least it's not 'superheroes should be accountable' as a villain motif. Villainizing good ideals doesn't really make me sympathize

I don't think Zemo's issue is "accountability" so much as "power corrupts." He doesn't want anyone having enhanced powers (or maybe I'm taking the plane conversation in F&tWS too far?). His appearances have focused on super soldiers but I'm assuming he feels the same way about any genetically enhanced individual regardless of where their power comes from. So he wouldn't want mages, people powered by Infinity Stones, mutants, etc.

And in the case of the super soldier serum Zemo's not wrong; that hasn't worked out well for anyone but Steve (and Zemo admits as much; Steve is the exception that proves the rule).

Oh, speaking of which what's Bucky's status? He's treated like a super soldier but I didn't think he had any enhancements beyond the cybernetic arm?

In any case, I don't need all my villains to be sympathetic either (and I wish Zemo hadn't been treated as such). Sometimes that's great, but I want variety and bad guys who aren't likeable, who don't have vaguely positive goals or ideals....sometimes I want a piece of sh*t villain who just likes doing terrible things. That's what makes Joker and nazi's such good villains; you can root for them to be beat to hell and not feel bad about it.

And of course there's a difference between "sympathetic" and "understandable." Thanos is understandable; his motives are clear and we can understand how he came to his conclusions. But he's not sympathetic; we don't feel sorry for him, we just get why he's a bastard. Same with Killmonger; he's not sympathetic at all, he wants a return of Old World colonization, which puts him on roughly the same level as a nazi. But we can understand why he feels the way he does and the very honest, real anger that drove these opinions, and while he's got a nugget of truth in his motivations his goals are f*cking disgusting.

I honestly think with Killmonger, the raw charisma of Michael B Jordan worked against the character. Dude is such a good actor and so fun to watch it's easy to forget that 'Monger's plan was to overthrow the world and reinstate slavery/racism as official policy.