Their are so few comic book legends out their ad even fewer that have made a huge impact on popular culture like the person who is the focus of the film that i'm about to review for you all today. It was only a matter of time before this person got their very documentary all about them and well to celebrate what would have been his one hundredth birthday Disney+ have released a documentary all about the most famous man in Marvel history and so then join me as I review the film that is most likely the most boring documentary released in 2023 with the film in question being called simply just "Stan Lee" enjoy.
As this film is a documentary film it doesn't really have a plot to speak of with the main focus of this film being about the life and times of Stan Lee. I have to admit that I really liked the idea of this man getting his life's story finally told in some form my only issue is that it's just one person telling the story and so the film is filtered through this person with that person also being the main focus of the film I really do feel that if they got more people to help to tell this films story in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
The only person really starring in this is Stan Lee himself and this is a huge issue for me and it's part of what makes this film boring. As all your doing is just listening to the same man talk over and over again and while yes the likes of Jack Kirby and Joan Lee do appear through the use of archive audio and archive footage Stan Lee is the only person appears in newly filmed footage and in newly recorded audio all of which just make the film feel boring as there's only so long that you can listen to the same person talking which in turn makes this film feel alot more like a badly done up audio book then an actual documentary film.
I will always love the fact that there isn't any repeating being done interms of what the people being interviewed are saying. However as there's only one person talking in this whole entire movie that's never going to be an issue and I do like the fact that Stan talked quite alot about his life his home and how he was when he wasn't writing as those are things that a documentary should be about as it gives you something new about whoever the main focus of the documentary is and the fact that it was included in this film does tell me that Stan was a bit of a workaholic but he also knew when to leave his work behind him and be with his family.
I was really shocked to see find out that they don't mention the history of the X-Men and much of an impact those characters still have on popular culture tot his very day. They give alot of attention to The Fantastic Four ans Spider-Man and rightfully so as they are important to how marvel became the success that it is today but so are teams like X-Men and The Avengers with the The Avengers only getting a passing mention in the film which is weird because with out all of these heroes the comic book industry wouldn't be the same that it is today.
What I really loved about this film is the fact that it showed just how bad the Comics Code Authority was. As in this film we come to find out that when a government company asked Marvel to do anti drug story it was the Comics Code Authority that was saying no even tho the story says that drugs are bad an actively tells it's readers not to do drugs in the first place and so Marvel published all three ant drug stories with out their approval which just goes to show that Stan Lee really wasn't afraid to stand up for what is right.
This film really does skip over alot of big moments at Marvel with none of the stuff from the nineties with the company almost going bankrupt not even getting mentioned. Which is a shame because those would have made for some really interesting parts of this movie and given just how involved Stan Lee still was with Marvel at the time it would have made sense for them to cover that topic as it's something that no doubt would effected both his professional life and his personal life as well and to skip over that part of Marvel history to me makes now sense whatsoever.
To me this film feels like a movie adaptation of his Wikipedia page as this film adds very little actually new information about Stan Lee. Which shouldn't be the case as the film covers some of the time that he spent in the military granted he didn't see any action as he was based in New York but still the makers of the film could have gone into more detail about that aspect of his life just like how they could have covered why they chose to discontinue the Captain America comics once World War 2 ended bottom line there's so much that could have been added to this film that would have made it better but sadly isn't included in this film.
Now then this film has / had an exact grand total running time of exactly one hour and twenty six minuets and thirteen seconds. Which granted is alot better of a running time then Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story but given this films lack of content it also felt oddly far to long with alot of this film just dragging on and on to the point where I was seriously considering turning the film off and none of that is helped by the films fairly dreadful pacing either all of which make the film feel alot longer then what it actually is.
So now then as this film does feature some comedy in it that means that I have to actually talk about the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film well then in all honesty I in all honesty personally thought / felt that the actual comedy that's actually featured / presented to us in this very film was in all honesty not that bad. With this film doing a very good job of highlighting of just how funny of a man Stan Lee was especially when he was going around promoting Marvel as the man really did know how to work a room in my freaking opinions anyways / at least.
Overall this isn't a bad documentary but it's just one that felt very underwhelming and because of the stuff that they didn't cover in this film all of which would have involved Stan Lee the film really does come off as feeling incomplete in my freaking opinions anyways / at least. Now then i've talked about all of the good and as well as all of the bad things that are in this very film in this very review and as such that means that this very film really does earn itself a grand old score of exactly a 5 out of 10 from me.
Now then as for where I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review well then boys and girls and as well as ladies and gentlemen I personally got all of the images that I personally got all of the images that I personally used in this very review from the official Disney fandom wiki page , IMP Awards . Com and Google Images. With my personally preferred website that I personally preferred to use to get the images that I personally used in this very review being the wonderful Google Images since all of the images that are currently up and and featured / presented to us on Google Images are all really fairly high in quality and as well as being really fairly freaking high in definition.