Tuesday, January 2, 2018

Favorite Superhero Movie Moments of 2017

by Adam Thas
Let’s just start this out by saying this has spoilers in it.

Hopefully being a big movie fan, you’ve seen some of these already. If you haven’t, it’s pretty impossible for me to write out my favorite superhero moments without having spoilers in them.

Being a parent, it’s a bit more difficult for me to see movies, to the point that me assembling a top 10 list would be a joke. While I didn’t get a chance to see as many movies as I’d have liked to in 2017, I’m still firmly entrenched as a nerd and a complete sucker for superhero movies. All my life I’ve waited to see these characters on screen, and now being 16 years into this wave, I just want to keep riding it.

10) Thor is excited to see Hulk
Things at this point in Thor: Ragnarok were not going well. He’s been captured and forced to fight in the arena. The second the door opens and reveals Hulk, an Thor’s genuine excitement is both expected and unexpected. Kudos to Chris Hemsworth for playing it so well, but up until that point Thor had shown zero happiness. The moment where he sees what appears to be his friend is such a great moment that the scene alone was one of the trailers.

9) The truth about Yondu
Since he was introduced, Yondu had been a likeable villain, but as the plot and story begins to unfold in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, you start to realize what a good dude he is. The moment where it is revealed as to why he never gave Quill to his father is not only a great moment, but also a great twist that avid comic readers didn’t see coming. It makes the eventual fate of Yondu so much more significant because we realize he’s not such a bad guy, but also acts as his penance for what came before.

8) Superman sees The Flash
For a pretty garbage movie, there were some good spots in Justice League. Probably by favorite moment and one of my favorites of the year was the moment The Flash realizes he’s going to need to be more than fast. Yeah, big spoilers (not really, though, if you saw the end of Batman v Superman), but Superman is back, and for a few moments is confused and attacks the League. Fans of The Flash comic know that he’s got a lot of tricks up his sleeve, but the movie version of Flash up until this point is speed as his first, second, and third attack. The Flash decides to take care of things and there is a great moment where, mid-attack, Superman’s eye just slightly moves back and sees Barry Allen. Ezra Miller has the same reaction on his face as the audience: “Oh Fuck!”

7) Batman heats up dinner
If you haven’t seen The Lego Batman Movie, the first 20 minutes movies at an almost nauseating pace. It’s loud and fast and this is 100% intentional. We get caught up in how “awesome” it is to be Batman and the party that is his life. As the party comes to an end, we find Batman in his mansion, still wearing the mask but not his costume, standing in front of a microwave heating up dinner. It’s done in real time, and I took note when I went to see it with my son how none of the kids were laughing but every adult was cracking up. While this particular scene is hilarious, it also illustrates what didn’t work with the movie.

6) X-23 Goes Off
This is really the moment when what may be one of my favorite superhero movies ever starts to pick up. We don’t know much about X-23, or why everyone considers her so dangerous, and in a perfect moment of “Show-Don’t-Tell” we see first hand how awesome she is. A group of Reavers go in to get her and it doesn’t go so well as she takes them out one by one.

5) Spidey sneaks in
It’s really hard for me to pick one particular moment to point to in Spider-Man: Homecoming that stands out because there are a lot of great moments, but this one I particularly loved. Spidey comes back from fighting crime and sneaks in through his window, crawls across the ceiling, and, as he lands, reveals his best friend sitting behind him. This scene is great for so many reasons, first being that Peter sneaking into his room is so retro and displays what I and so many others love about the comic. Second, the reaction of Ned as he’s just seen his best friend fall from the ceiling, and in turn the reaction of Peter as he tries to come up with excuses. Lastly, and this is just the Lego nerd in me, is that he drops the Lego Deathstar which shatters, and all I can think about is the poor prop guy who watched hours of his work fall to the ground.

4) Guardians Vol. 2 opening titles.
It was a tall order to beat the opening sequence of the first Guardians of the Galaxy, but Guardians Vol. 2 does it. The entire opening title sequence follows a baby Groot dancing across the screen and all at once reminds us of why we love these characters and their relationships. From Drax staring down a baby Groot from dancing to Gamora yelling and then taking a brief moment and so sweetly saying “Oh! Hi Groot!", it’s so perfect and sets up the rest of the movie.

3) Korg
If you don’t know who Korg is, he’s the all rock alien from Thor: Ragnarok and the nicest living thing in the universe. He kicks all sorts of ass in battle, he’s a Gladiator, and the only guy in the Marvel Universe I’d let date my sister. Every single line he delivers is golden, and while he may only be a minor character, he’s stolen my heart!

2) No Man’s Land

Being a DC Junkie, there is nothing I loved more than seeing a DC Movie made in the past five years that didn’t suck balls, and Wonder Woman delivered. There is so much good in Wonder Woman, but the scene that really stands out is Wonder Woman entering No Man’s Land. Based in WWI, Wonder Woman has finally had enough of war and decides she’s going to go straight across No Man’s Land. Not only does she kick-ass, but she also manages to rally the troops behind her. It’s everything the character was meant to be and shows how great DC can be when they don’t mess it up.

1) Logan’s final scene
We talked about it extensively on the two podcasts we did on Logan, but there is so much that Hugh Jackman has meant to comic book movies that to see him go out the way he did hit me right in my adamantium heart. The movie that really kicked off the past 15+ years of superhero movies was the original X-Men, and here we are years later with so many of these movies and to see Jackman playing the role for the last time was sad. It could have very easily not worked, but the movie around him is so good and his ending is so earned that not only is this my favorite moment of the year, it may be my favorite superhero moment of all time in the movies.

Honorable mentions: These are a few of my favorites that didn’t quite make the final cut:
Professor X has one last perfect night (Logan).
The button in the Grandmaster’s Ship celebrates his birthday (Thor: Ragnarok)
Aquaman’s introduction (Justice League)
Vulture puts together who Peter is (Spider-Man: Homecoming)
Iron Man saves the day (Spider-Man: Homecoming)

6 comments:

  1. about #10, too bad it was spoiled in the trailer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I agree. That's one of those moments I would have liked a lot more if it weren't in every trailer I saw, unfortunately.

      Delete
  2. The end of Logan was one of few movie moments that truly made me tear up, so I wholeheartedly agree that it is one of the best moments of the year and possibly of all time in superhero movies. Kudos to Dafne Keene for being so great and selling the moment so well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great friggin post! This was a great yea for comic book movies...a little of everything, cinematically speaking.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh yeah also, agree so much with the Logan final scenes. I think it's one of the best closers of all time. I've teared up all 5 times I've watched the movie. Most recently I watched this with my mom who knew only what I told her to get her up to speed and she teared up also. It just works on every dramatic element that even "Oscar dramas" don't really deliver on all that much anymore.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My favorite is definately when Michael Keaton's Vulture puts together who Peter is. That scene just shows how great an actor he is, and why we need well casted bad guys.

    What especially loves in that movie is the working-class hero vs the ditto villain

    ReplyDelete