Overall, I liked this movie a lot. I’d give it an 8/10. ⚠️ Spoiler Warning. Here are some unorganized thoughts:

• There’s no reason this couldn’t have been released during Phase 3. It would’ve fit perfectly, and it’s absurd that it came after Nat’s death in “Endgame.”

• Scarlett Johansson was incredible, as always.

• Florence Pugh was delightful.

• David Harbour was a bit of a drag.

• I get that the Taskmaster was a victim and we’re supposed to feel bad for her, but she creeped me the fuck out. She needed to die. With fire.

• The whole plot of this movie is based around that the fact that the (offscreen) death of the bad guy wasn’t stone cold certain, and somehow he survived. So in this movie, one would think they’d go out of their way to show his death, but they don't. It’s implied, but we know he survived the last explosion, we can’t assume there’s no way he could’ve survived this one.

• Speaking of Dreykov, he gave me big creep vibes, very Weinstein-y.

• The whole mask wearing swithceroo was a useful but lazy plot device. In my opinion, if a movie is doing so much offscreen plot development that it has to go back and explain itself to viewers after the relevant on-screen action has taken place, that isn’t a great sign.

• I think it’s time for the witty, Tony Stark based humor of the MCU to evolve, and it doesn’t seem like it is. I’m not saying they shouldn't still make funny movies, but the brand of comedy they’re doing just feels a bit tired. I was hoping Phase 4 is where they might’ve chosen to refine it, but that doesn’t seem to be happening.

I wrote the following post on September 9th, the day after I saw Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and never really came back to it. I haven’t really thought about the movie at all since then, which ought to be criticism enough. ⚠️ Spoiler Warning. Anyway, here’s what I was going to say, had I not more or less forgotten about the film:

I just saw Shang-Chi last night, but I think I’ve already got most of my thoughts in order.

Overall, I’d give the movie a 5/10. I was going to say 4/10, but I don’t want to be too harsh prematurely. I didn’t care enough about the film to write a huge review, but I’ve jotted down some thoughts, some more flesh out out than others. Spoiler Warning

• Awkwafina (ridiculous name) was funny, and her character was the best, but she was also very predictable. The witty sidekick is almost a trope in Marvel films at this point. Marvel is an action franchise with a lot of comedy, but the comedy is going to have to evolve. I expected that to happen with the start of phase four, but based on Black Widow (which was great) and Shang-Chi, it hasn’t.

• The actor who plays Shang-Chi, Simu Liu, is just not that convincing of an actor. “I'm gOing to kiLL mY fAtHeR,” c’mon dude.

• Shang-Chi is called “Shaun” half the time, so I’m gonna stick with that too.

• There were several things that reminded me of Avatar: The Last Airbender. Apparently, Shaun’s mom was a dancing air bender? And that's where half of Shaun’s “power” comes from?

• The other half of his power comes from the rings, which are of unknown origin and lack and specific power other than like… flying around. And coming back. Like a boomerang. Also, the power of the rings themselves is poorly defined. Presumably, they’re very powerful, but in the scene where Shaun’s mom fights his dad, she beats him and the rings seem pretty lame. Their power varies a lot to suit the needs of the plot.

• Bringing back Trevor Slattery from Iron Man 3 was a great call, but they fumbled the opportunity. The character wasn’t the same, and the performance felt flat.

• The plot didn’t make a ton of sense. They don’t really explain why the dragon scales make their weapons so powerful, but we’ll chalk it up to magic I guess. Too many things in this film were explained by magic though.

• Shaun's costume… is lame. it looks cool in the first scene where it’s shown folded up, but after that it looks like some cheap, off-red, fake leather BDSM getup from a shady internet site.

• Inarguably, the best part of the movie was the post credits scene where we see that Captain Marvel has grown her hair back out after Avengers: Endgame.