it came out here yesterday but for some reason i decided to wait until tomorrow and not be all opening day

have fun! I have already been accidentally spoiled, so I will read all your reviews ^^

SAM RAIMI IS BACK BAYBEE

remember how he hsaid like a year ago that MoM was going to be the MCU's first horror movie and then Disney very obviously made him publicly retract?

yeah, this was the MCU's first horror movie

i frankly can't believe they got away with some of what they did in a PG-13 film

there was some seriously creepy and startlingly gory shit, y'all

a dude made his own brain rupture and dent his skull! Captain Carter got basically bisected by her own shield, which we don't actually see but we do see her face as it happen with a very distinct squishing noise! Wanda sneaks up on Prof X in the mindscape and BREAKS HIS FUCKING NECK and we cut back to that killing him IRL!

STRANGE POSSESSES HIS OWN DEAD AND ROTTING CORPSE

there was a kid in the theater who was like six btw

i started feeling real sorry for the nightmares she's gonna have

and of course it's Raimi, so there's lots of generally unsettling imagery enhanced by his own very special bran of horror humor

in terms of actual like character and story shit

Christine got to actually do some stuff, which I loved; i rewatched the first Doctor Strange to prep and hated how useless she is in it

Stephen is basically a flawless mentor to America Chavez (who is played by the actress who played Dawn in the Babysitters Club and happened to be my favorite of the cast, so I was pumped to see her), which made me plenty angry on Peter's behalf, but also I have to think -

some part of him on some level must remember that there was another kid, and that Stephen screwed him over and let him down

the urgency of his need to help America isn't something we've really seen from the character before

like when he wants to help or to fix something, he gets snarky and arrogant, or very very quiet about what he's doing (like with giving the Time Stone to Thanos). but here he is very vocal and determined and focused on helping this girl, and in the end he gives her what she needs to save herself

and it's a great story and a great relationship and i'm really looking forward to seeing more of MCU America

but at this point the only person in the MCU who's been fucked over with even more malicious glee than Peter Parker is Wanda Maximoff

Peter's story still has hope, but Wanda. Every time Wanda thinks she lost everything the universe finds something else to take

the climax of the movie makes it look like she's sacrificed herself to destroy every single universe's version of the dark magic book that corrupted her here and like

on a meta level i don't think they just went and killed her off in someone else's movie

but on a story level she wasn't exactly trying to survive the magic she had to do to pull that off

i really need something good to happen for Wanda, and to stay have happened, and to not go anywhere

in other news, i am dying to see what fandom does with the idea that dreams are a window into alternate realities! like. how cool is that??? you could create an event with that, with fics that stand alone and also intertwine

and to conclude, here's a fun little joke that i doubt many people caught: we see a brief argument between Wanda's kids that is apparently sports related, with one of them declaring "the 2003 Tigers" to be the best

WELL

the 2003 Detroit Tigers were in fact one of the WORST teams in the history of baseball. they lost, i think, very nearly or perhaps just over a hundred games in a season that was about 160

i laughed

Bucky's still pretty up there, but most of his trauma is in the past now. but yeah I knew Wanda was going to bite it

though somebody said something about a post-credit scene suggesting she's not really dead?

hmm. i didn't get that out of either of them, but kind of a lot happened in a very short scene in the mid-credits

and the second one is just the natural conclusion to the delightful and inevitable Bruce Campbell cameo

I mean White Vision is out there somewhere, I can't imagine they'd bring him back and leave Wanda dead forever

/nodnod

but you enjoyed it?

i did! god, i had so much fun. there were some parts that dragged (i simply do not care about Stephen Strange and they cannot make me), but when it got good it absolutely nailed it

and the music! was so! good!

there's a scene where Stephen battles his inevitable evil alt self with MUSIC and it's AMAZING

I'm seeing it next weekend, so

the soundtrack is frequently very heavyhanded in a way that is super deliberate and signed to help the events onscreen throw themselves in your face

I hear there's jumpscares and shit

i mean. i guess? they're pretty clearly telegraphed and the tension comes not from the startle reaction, but from just knowing what's coming. not once did i jump in that way that is so unpleasant with a bad and lazy jump scare

okay good. I am not a horror movie person so... XD

heh, i know. you'll be okay. Raimi puts some seriously creepy shit on the screen, and it is absolutely a horror movie, but it's also a horror movie that had to be able to be marketed as part of the MCU

i can't read most of this because i haven't seen it yet, but i gotta wonder why this movie keeps being labeled "the first" when new mutants came out already

New Mutants wasn't in the MCU universe I believe?