Is the over reliance on humour a problem in the MCU

[NotNickFury]

Generally speaking, no more than other superhero films that have humor. Hell, even the Nolan films had their fair share. I do think Whedon put in a bit more snark than necessary for Age of Ultron compared to The Avengers and it feels like I'm watching an episode of Firefly compared to Age of Ultron, but nothing that distracting.

 

[CaptainWagner]

I would say yes. Forcing humor into situations has ruined numerous important scenes and, in the case of Ultron, damaged a whole character.

 

[BH/HHH]

I would say yes. Forcing humor into situations has ruined numerous important scenes and, in the case of Ultron, damaged a whole character.

Agreed there, I often feel like its forced in the Marvel films. Almost like someone says oh we have to have a joke in there etc. Age of Ultron massively suffer from it and as you said ruined Ultron.

 

[MbJ]

Its not like every moment of a comedy works though. Are we saying we can't say anything about misplaced or jokes that didn't work cause it was a comedy? Come on

There are jokes that fail in comedies, sure, it just seems silly that so many fans get angry about Guardians, a movie that was again, an action-comedy from the ground up (unlike most Marvel movies, which are straight up action films that just happen to have jokes) having a comedic climax.

They're basically complaining about a movie that was 60-70 percent jokes at that point making a joke.

 

[Patchwork Man]

Agreed there, I often feel like its forced in the Marvel films. Almost like someone says oh we have to have a joke in there etc. Age of Ultron massively suffer from it and as you said ruined Ultron.

Ultron's dialogue was strange, at times. He was so different from what I had expected of him. He was really watered down and evoked a localized threat rather than a global one. The actual threat seemed to be the number of his clones (and even then, their numbers seemed masked until the very end, which made one wonder if they were all enjoying a tune-up session and getting their squeaky joints oiled like the Tin Man did).

 

[harryoscop]

Yeah and he got owned by Hulk and was struggling with Cap which made it worse. He wasn't threatening at all imo. The only time he actually creeped me out was his first appearance in his zombie form. I wish he could've acted more like that throughout the whole movie.

 

[Slade W]

At times, it is for me. It has killed the tension for me during certain moments. There are also some scenes and moments that I think could have been better if they were played more seriously (that is not to say that all of them were bad the way they are).

 

[Set]

I think Agent Coulson was really annoying and I'm glad he's being left out of the movies now. Not a fan of Kat Denning's Darcy either.

Ditto. Coulson came across as very smarmy in his Thor, Iron Man and Avengers appearances, and it detracted from the Avengers that he was chosen as the one to 'avenge,' since half the team didn't seem to like him very much (Natasha openly disrespected him, Cap looked like he wanted to squirm away from him, Stark quipped that it was a shock that he had a first name and wasn't just 'Agent').

While I didn't mind Darcy, since, to me, she should have served the role the General (played by Tommy Lee Jones) served in the First Avenger, the guy who says the funny things that straight-lace Cap wouldn't say, being the humor-gal to a more serious Thor. Unfortunately, we got Darcy *and* a quippy gleepy-eyed Thor, which I did not like at all. Thor, like Cap, should have been played straight. On Earth, Darcy and / or Solvieg can lift the funny lines (or someone funnier could have played Jane...), in Asgard, that's pretty much what the Warriors Three are for (particularly Volstagg and Fandral, since Hogun's known for being pretty grim).

Thor's quippiness, and Thor being the butt of humorous scenes (getting side-punched by the Hulk, for instance), dragged down the Avengers, a movie I otherwise *loved.*

The entire 'bilge-snipe' conversation between Coulson and Thor was probably my least favorite scene, since it had both 'sucks all the super out of the room' Coulson, and quippy funny Thor. Cinematic Stark is a quip-machine, as is cinematic Peter Quill. That's established, and it doesn't bother me. But I want my Captain America and my Thor to be quiet, serious badasses, not 'funny guys.' (That said, MCU Stark being 'the funny guy' means that MCU Hawkeye is *not* the same quippy character he has been for decades in the comic books, and, combined with some lackluster writing, and an actor who has all the charisma of a box of noodles, MCU Hawkeye is just deadly dull, and I would have breathed a sigh of relief if Quicksilver had saved the child, but not Clint, in Age of Ultron, since it would mean we wouldn't have to see any more dull Hawkeye scenes.)

It's not at all the comedy I disapprove of, and even Coulson didn't ruin my favorite funny bit, the banter between Stark and Pepper at the beginning of the movie, which was awesome and appropriate in it's place. In it's place, the humor even in otherwise serious movies like Winter Soldier (Nat flirting with Cap, or bantering about setting him up with various women), helps to both characterize folk and lighten / humanize the movie. Deadpool was practically a joke-vehicle, and I loved it. I'm all for it, as long as it fits both the character and the tone.

 

[The_Manhunter]

To an extent. My problem, as I posted the other day (it was in the wrong forum by mistake so a mod deleted it) is that they put humor at bad times in their movies IMO. For instance, the airport battle should have been joke free - you are fighting to the death with your friends, this is not a game.

Similarly, the Darcy stuff in the Thor 2 final battle was too over the top for me.

For a time when they got the humor balance right - look at Civil War again, the whole sequence with IM, Cap, WS, and Zemo was so well done.

 

[Abudefduf]

The airport battle wasn't to the death, though... that's why War Machine's almost fatal accident basically ended the fight. The only one who was actively trying to kill someone was Black Panther, who in fact stayed appropriately serious through the whole sequence.

I would say yes. Forcing humor into situations has ruined numerous important scenes and, in the case of Ultron, damaged a whole character.

I'm personally of the opinion that what MS have done to Ultron is far worse than what they've done to the Mandarin. Ultron shouldn't have been an humorous character... at least, not to that extent.

 

[harryoscop]

Also the Quicksilver death scene where Hawkeye literally makes a one-liner while he's staring at Pietro's bullet-ridden body.

So glad Whedon's out of the picture. Russos know how to balance humor with drama.

 

[The_Manhunter]

Also the Quicksilver death scene where Hawkeye literally makes a one-liner while he's staring at Pietro's bullet-ridden body.

So glad Whedon's out of the picture. Russos know how to balance humor with drama.

The Hawkeye thing didn't bother me too much - since it seemed to fit the character. Humor is how he deals with stressful situations.

 

[The_Manhunter]

I would say yes. Forcing humor into situations has ruined numerous important scenes and, in the case of Ultron, damaged a whole character.

Ultron made sense to me at least - since in this iteration he's based off of Tony Stark and not Hank Pym.

 

[John Locke]

I never understood how Ultron got Stark's personality.

 

[Rorschach2012]

Now that Coulson and hopefully Darcy are gone, I think we're good

 

[SuperAl]

The airport battle wasn't to the death, though... that's why War Machine's almost fatal accident basically ended the fight. The only one who was actively trying to kill someone was Black Panther, who in fact stayed appropriately serious through the whole sequence.

of course its not to the death, they were there to apprehend them or stop them from leaving but it was supposed to be a serious exchange that just turned into a bunch of banter between characters.

It was a bit excessive that when the scene got serious with war machine people were still laughing. There was a point where stark is holding war machine on the ground and he shoots falcon in the chest and the theater i was in started laughing. the scene was supposed to be serious but the tone of that entire fight was one of comedy that everyone assumed it was supposed to be funny.

 

[TheVileOne]

Did Winter Soldier have too much humor?

 

[The Endless]

It's not a problem going by the reception and box office.

For me it's only bothered me a few times. Mainly in Thor The Dark World.

Using levity to counter balance tension or drama has been around since "blockbusters" started. Doing it well is actually incredibly difficult.

I saw The First Avenger for the first time in a while. It kinda finds the perfect balance. For example the scene where Dr Erskine is talking to Steve just before the procedure. It nearly creeps into corny melodrama, but the film makers are savvy to this so they relieve that drama with the gag about Steve not being able to drink the schnapps... Erskine then downs it.

 

[CaptainWagner]

Ultron made sense to me at least - since in this iteration he's based off of Tony Stark and not Hank Pym.

I get why it happened "in universe", but it was an incredibly poor creative decision.

 

[BH/HHH]

Did Winter Soldier have too much humor?

Nobody said it was all the films but a high percentage of them are filled with joke after joke.

 

[TheVileOne]

Nobody said it was all the films but a high percentage of them are filled with joke after joke.

What about Civil War? Avengers?

 

[DOBSON10]

Only bothered me in Iron Man 3, Age of Ultron and Thor The Dark World. The Iron Man twist is easily the worst part of any Marvel movie IMO. Ultron was kind of pathetic and almost every single line of comedy in Thor 2 failed for me.

But otherwise, eh, I think they do OK with it. The Russo's definitely have a great handle on it I would say, they set a perfect tone for the Marvel movies.

 

[chamber-music]

For some reason the other thread was deleted instead of moved to the correct place but I thought it was a good subject.

Now obviously the MCU is very successful and most of the films are a lot of fun. But I know myself and others have a problem with the over abundance of humour sometimes. I think mostly it was bad in AOU when it seemed like the characters were fighting one another with one liners, almost like they were trying to one up each other.

I think it was at one of its worst in Iron Man 3 as well when Tony Stark is cracking jokes even though he thinks Pepper is dead.

I think the film that balanced it best was Ant Man, the humour never felt out of place and when it was serious it was serious.

I thought the first two IM movie balanced the humor and performances pretty well but I think they went a bit overboard in IM3. Almost every other line RDJ's Tony has was doing was a witty one liner. Maya Hansen is murdered in front him and then he is cracking one liners at A.I.M goons in the next scene during his escape.

Generally I think Marvel gets things right for the most part. They have the odd slip up (Selvig going crazy and running around Stonehenge naked in Thor The Dark World).

 

[BH/HHH]

What about Civil War? Avengers?

Can you not read?

 

[Spider-Aziz]

Over reliance?

I would say yes. Forcing humor into situations has ruined numerous important scenes and, in the case of Ultron, damaged a whole character.

"I'm glad you asked, I wanted to share my evil plan with you" moment is one of my favorite knocks on that cliches.
But that movie did go a little overboard with levity.