This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.
Garfield is Wong’s review published on Letterboxd:
This review may contain spoilers.
Things I liked about the movie:
•Wong beating Abomination
•The "do a flip" guy from 'Spider-Man: Homecoming' being on the bus, he was funny.
•Razor Fists car is a funny detail. I'm not sure when he'd use it though considering The Ten Rings seem to operate in a base far from civilization ?
•Awkwafina was ok comedic relief, not great but not painfully unfunny as I thought she'd be. However the superior comedic relief, Trevor Slattery, stole the show in every scene he was in.
•The dragon was cool
•Wong turns up at the end, proving that stuck-up woman wrong
•Wong does karaoke
•Wong is in the post-credit scene
•Wong teases theirs more to the rings
•The ten rings are still around for Shang-Chi to use, which is going to be nice for future action scenes
•Wong teases that Shang-Chi is a part of something bigger because there's more to the rings themselves
Things I didn't like about this movie:
•Shang-Chi doesn't do anything! Things just seem to occur and he is there for the ride
•EXCESSIVE use of flashbacks and I mean EXCESSIVE. People complained flashbacks messed with the pacing of Suicide Squad, but this is another level of FLASHBACK
•We didn't actually see much of The Ten Rings (organisation) past and their influence, we were shown one cool battle at the start but that's about it. Also the origins of the rings themselves seem to be "a story for another time" but considering this is the movie that introduces them, surely that story should be in this movie? It really depends on what that "beacon in the rings" ends up being.
•Wong vs Abomination wasn't long enough, the entire scene was in the trailers.
•Shang-Chi didn't try hard enough to stop Katy (Awkwafina) coming with him.
•Wouldn't The Mandarin have buried his wife (or disposed of the body in whichever way he sees fit) meaning he should know she isn't being held prisoner in her village?
•Them breaking out of the dungeon because his sister happens to know some tunnels is just nicely convenient, as is Morris (the weird animal with no face) being in the dungeon with Trevor and knowing just how to get to the village
•Awkwafina becomes Hawkeye in a day
•The final fight between the two big creatures was kind of a big CGI mess. I found it hard to understand fully what was going on as Shang-Chi puts the big ring ball in his stomach.
•The end-credit scene was a bit unnecessary. Instead of shutting down operations his sister has become evil and is leading an all-female organisation, like an Asian version of the Black Widow program we saw just two months ago. I downloaded an ironic image saying "just a girlboss building her empire" and this is the MCU bringing that to life.
•Am I excited for Girlboss Ten Rings to return? No.
•Why does Awkwafina need to be there when Wong is teasing that there is more to the ten rings than we know? Like tf she gonna do?
•Captain Marvel is in the post-credit scene
•Hulk is suddenly no longer Professor Hulk? It's back to Banner and the Hulk being seperate beings? I guess this will be explained but it's somewhat annoying how every bit of Hulk development is seemingly done off-screen.
•Not one Kung Fu Panda joke? Disappointing