Could Wonder Woman slay Universal's Monster-verse?

[choptop]

I'm probably the only person in the planet that enjoyed The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. I was shocked at the negative response it got. It pretty much had what I wanted in an action movie.
Lots of action, fun interaction between the characters, nice sets, an amazing looking Hulk. (Having only seen the Lou Ferrigno Hulk prior to that.)

thers at least two of us i love LXG.

[choptop]

You know, they could have made it a much better movie if they'd just left out the Venice sequence. The relentless stupidity of that segment made me want to remove my own brain.

whats so bad about it? iv seen way more stupid segments in MCU movies.

[Carabas]

The creature from the Black lagoon should just be a shot for shot remake of lake placid but replace the crock with the creature and Bridget Monahan with Brooke Shields.

Sort of a Black Lagoon/Blue Lagoon crossover thing then?

[protege]

thers at least two of us i love LXG.

Make that three.

[AndrewCrossett]

whats so bad about it? iv seen way more stupid segments in MCU movies.

Driving the Nautilus... a huge submarine... up a canal in Venice. (Those canals are about 20 feet deep). Having a car chase in the streets of Venice... in 1899.

It hurts to think about.

Bad movie. I normally hate the idea of reboots, but this should get a reboot. And maybe for once a movie studio should trust that Alan Moore told a decent enough story the first time that they don't need to "improve" it through their corporate genius.

[Scott Taylor]

The trailer for Mummy was giving me Age of Apocalypse flashbacks. Is this worth seeing for a fan of the Universal monster stuff? I enjoyed Dracula Untold, somewhat, though it was a bit pointless in terms of franchise-building.

[trooper_thorn]

Given reports that the film may have cost $190M to produce instead of the originally reported $125M I may need to change my previous position slightly because there is no way in hell this is making both the production budget and marketing budget back, even if it is better received overseas.

http://variety.com/2017/film/news/th...se-1202465742/

[AdamFTF]

I guess this is where we're talking about The Mummy.

I went to see it, with the mindset that if it was a trainwreck it was a trainwreck I wanted to see with my own two eyes. Besides, I'm a sucker for the Universal Monsters.

The movie is decent as a basic action movie. Not a great one. There are some problems with it, though. It definitely has a problem with setting a consistent tone. It switches from action-comedy to action-horror seemingly at the drop of a hat. The story also jumps through hoops in order to make sure the inciting incident happens in a completely different country than Egypt (that's right, folks. Ahmanet was carried all the way to Mesopotamia to be buried). The movie also tries to muse on the nature of evil but doesn't really come up with anything interesting or novel to say about it. Trying to put Cruise's character who is just a selfish thief into that paradigm really makes him seem like he's way out of scale (being a jerk and being an evil monster are very different ends of a spectrum). Introducing Jekyll and Hyde here I'm kind of divided on. While it wasn't completely necessary, the scene where Hyde beats on Cruise's character is one of the most fun scenes in the film. Also, while it may have been necessary, the stakes at play kind of took some pathos points away from the Mummy herself. They kept the fact that the Mummy is fixated on one person which is consistent with the original B&W Mummy movies. But "undead mummy still searching for his lost love" is a bit more tragic and understandable than "undead mummy still searching for a vessel for the god Set". The monsters, both Ahmanet and Hyde, were probably the best things about the whole movie.

Definitely a rocky start.

And it's too bad. Action-horror is a combination that works. We've seen it many times before. And the idea of an action-horror franchise based around the classic Universal Monsters sounds like a fantastic idea. But they can't seem to make it work even when it's good. The old Mummy movies with Brendan Fraser were okay, but they downplayed the horror in favor of old-school heroics. Van Helsing wasn't good and didn't work out. But there was also a cartoon and accompanying toy line called Monster Force (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gwrWWHHclA) that only got one season despite the fact that it was a pretty solid cartoon. Heck, I even liked that short-lived MOBA they had (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqWeMw0PqIY). I wonder if something like it would work better with more of a niche audience, because it would probably make for one hell of a comic book. I wonder who has the license currently.

[Nate Grey]

I'm probably the only person in the planet that enjoyed The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

thers at least two of us i love LXG.

Make that three.

No...make that four.

[AdamFTF]

Driving the Nautilus... a huge submarine... up a canal in Venice. (Those canals are about 20 feet deep). Having a car chase in the streets of Venice... in 1899.

It hurts to think about.

Bad movie. I normally hate the idea of reboots, but this should get a reboot. And maybe for once a movie studio should trust that Alan Moore told a decent enough story the first time that they don't need to "improve" it through their corporate genius.

It's okay as a "dumb action movie". In general it's outclassed by the graphic novel it's supposed to be based on. The movie is in this strange situation of not being sure who they thought their audience would be. They based a dumb action movie on some very smart, literate source material with no expectation that their audience would be particularly well-read. On top of that, it starred Sean Connery as the cast's most obscure character. That's probably why they added in Tom Sawyer as a secondary lead. Also, the literary references beyond the main cast were kind of "softballs" (dressing the villain like the Phantom of the Opera. Connery dropping a reference to Phileas Fogg, etc). It's a paradox. Most potential audiences wouldn't get the appeal unless they're bibliophiles. And if they are bibliophiles, they'll be disappointed in the minimum amount of effort the movie put in.

[choptop]

No...make that four.

and they shall call us The League of Extraordinary FANS!.

Team Members
choptop
Nate Grey
protege
Osiris-Rex

[AndrewCrossett]

That's probably why they added in Tom Sawyer as a secondary lead.

I thought it was because they thought Americans wouldn't go see a movie with no American characters. Which of course was proven right when the Harry Potter movies flopped so badly here.

[Osiris-Rex]

I thought it was because they thought Americans wouldn't go see a movie with no American characters. Which of course was proven right when the Harry Potter movies flopped so badly here.

Must be why they added Steve Trevor and Chief to the Wonder Woman movie.

[Jim Kelly]

There's a long standing trend in big budget movies set in places like Asia or Africa where there will always be an English-speaking white character in the movie, even if there's no good reason for that in the movie. And that character is usually played by some well-known American or British actor. It's as if the producers don't trust that anglos in the western world will be able to relate to other cultures without someone there to stsnd in for them.

Not that WONDER WOMAN is anything like that. I think her rag-tag band of character types sets up Diana to join another band of archetypes fighting for justice in a sort of society or league of their own.

[protege]

I thought it was because they thought Americans wouldn't go see a movie with no American characters. Which of course was proven right when the Harry Potter movies flopped so badly here.

Did they? I never read the books and couldn't get into the first movie, so i never bothered with the rest.