Avengers: Endgame (a movie review post)

 

MCU #22

My original Endgame review, in which I mostly don't talk about the movie but still manage to get in a dig at Edward Norton.

I'm just going to say it: Endgame is the greatest achievement in cinematic history. This is not an opinion on the quality of the movie. Even if it had been a terrible movie, it would still be the greatest achievement ever in movies: the culmination of one storyline carried through more than 20 movies over the span of more than a decade. It's rather mind-blowing when you think about it like that. It also happens to be a great movie.

Here is what I'm going to say about that: It is not a movie you can legitimately watch or appreciate unless you've seen, minimally, all of the Avengers movies, but you really need to have seen everything MCU to... feel the full gravity of it. Not all pieces of entertainment are designed to stand on their own, and that's okay. In fact, it's good. It allows for more complex and interesting stories. You can all thank Tolkien for this. Prior to the release of The Lord of the Rings, it was thought by publishers that "the audience" wouldn't be interested by anything long and complex. Even once the concept that some people really enjoyed long, complex stories was introduced into books, it took a long time for movies and television to catch up. And you can probably thank Lucas for that because, without Star Wars, who knows when that idea would have worked its way into movies.

I am not one to cry at movies, not much or often, but I had tears during Endgame. The scene where Happy is sitting with Morgan before Tony's funeral is so touching. Not to mention the moment Peter has with Tony as he dies. It's hard stuff to watch. And it's part of what has made the MCU great. Real moments that can't be taken back or undone. Actions with consequences that the heroes have to live and deal with. We've learned over the years that you can't depend on that in comic books; comic books revert, always, to status quo, no matter who dies or what happens. The MCU is not like that and, I think, it elevates the MCU above the comics. Tony Stark died. Deal with it.

Not that he was the only one; he's just the example.

Endgame hits hard from the opening scene. It's also terribly difficult to watch Clint lose his entire family. This movie is, more than anything, about loss and how we deal with it. How to deal with it. Steve Rogers runs a support group. Barton murders survivors whom he has decided didn't deserve to survive. Both extremes are understandable. Everyone is dealing with their loss in the best way they can.

But you know that the heroes somehow have to win...
I do like that when they "fixed" "the snap" that they didn't just put everything back to the way it was. This, again, is living and dealing with the consequences, stuff we're getting to see play out in the various Disney+ series. It's a much different way than in The Infinity Gauntlet, which returned things exactly to how they were.

Anyway...
Favorite moment, and this is my favorite moment from the entire MCU:
When Captain America, after having his shield broken to pieces by Thanos, picks up Mjolnir. It's powerful.
And Thor's reaction is pretty priceless as well.

Endgame may not be the MCU movie I would pull out to watch for fun on any given night -- it's not that kind of movie -- but I do think it's the best of the MCU. Every character has a moment. The heroes win but not without cost. It's powerful and heartbreaking. It's great.

[One thing to point out: It's great in a way that, say, Return of the Jedi is not but possibly could have been. Lucas originally planned for Calrissian to die in the Falcon in the destruction of the Death Star but, in the end, Lucas couldn't go through with it. He didn't want the movie to end on a bummer. Endgame doesn't shy away from it.]

The new rankings:

1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Captain America: Civil War

3. The Avengers
4. Captain America: The First Avenger

5. Avengers: Infinity War

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
8. Iron Man

9. Captain Marvel

10. Black Panther

11. Doctor Strange

12. Ant-Man

13. Thor: Ragnarok
14. Thor: The Dark World
15. Thor

16. Guardians of the Galaxy

17. Ant-Man and the Wasp

18. Avengers: Age of Ultron

19. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
20. Iron Man 3
21. Iron Man 2
22. Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton's ego is so strong that it actually survived the snap despite being part of the 50% chosen.)

Avengers: Infinity War (a movie review post)

 MCU #19

I think it's fair to say that Avengers has been the most ambitious movie franchise of all time. The Avengers, itself, was possibly the most ambitious movie ever made but, then, Infinity War goes way beyond that. The culmination of 18 other movies, with clues about it going back to... what? the first Captain America movie? I don't remember if there was any hint about the infinity stones before that or not. That's a lot of movies to build one story on, and Marvel pulled it off. Magnificently.

And, then, killed half their characters.
That's a bold move.
Seriously bold.
I was reading back through my previous reviews for this movie (yes, reviews; it was so big, I had to do two) and was reminded at the furor it caused and how upset people were. It's amazing to me in retrospect. Actually, it was amazing to me in "spect." I mean, the first time.

Not even to get to how the movie ends, but it opens with Thanos slaughtering refugees. How much more harsh can you get? These people just had their homeland destroyed and in walks Thanos killing them wholesale. Along with Loki! Possibly the most popular of all of the MCU characters, and Thanos mostly casually snaps his neck and tosses his body aside.

The only drawback to Infinity War is that it is really the first of the Marvel movies that you really can't watch unless you've seen a good number of the other MCU movies. Probably not all of them, but I can't see Infinity War as making much sense to anyone who hasn't been following the story at least somewhat. However, it's also unfair to call that "requirement" a "drawback" since that, really, is the point of the film. No one would expect that you should be able to sit down and watch (or read) Return of the King without consuming the first two parts of Lord of the Rings.

Here's the thing: I've been immersed in Marvel since I was... four? three? Since I first discovered Spider-Man. I read Infinity Gauntlet when it first came out. I know how comics work, and I knew, generally, how this pair of movies was going to end. Knowing all of that, when it got to the part where Peter is "dusted," it still brought me to the brink of tears. And that was watching it this time. I don't remember crying when I saw this the first time, but I know I teared up. That scene was heartbreaking.

And that is saying a lot.

I don't know... Thinking about all this... This movie has a lot of characters in it. A lot. And, yet, Marvel manages to pull that off. It did take them 18 movies to form the foundation for it, but they did it. And, then, I think about -- look, it's not that I want to think about DC, but I can't help making the comparison -- DC and how they seem to think that throwing in more and more characters is how you make a great movie. Or, maybe, they're just using their characters like spaghetti and throwing them at the audience to see what sticks. The characters and the actors. How many different Batmans and Supermans have we had? What I'm saying is that the movie could have gotten bogged down with so many characters, but it didn't. It's a long movie, but you don't feel it. It moves along without having to deal with a bunch of exposition to keep people from getting confused. It's... masterful.

Look, as a writer, I'm telling you this is some good storytelling. That's my expert opinion.

Oh, also, Doctor Strange works out the plan by using the the Time Stone totally knowing he's going to get dusted and goes through with it anyway. That takes some real... I don't know... Courage doesn't cover it. Look at Quill. He knew the stakes and, yet, when they have almost gotten the glove from Thanos, Quill gives into his rage and hands Thanos the victory. Strange stared it all down and hands Thanos the Time Stone, anyway. Man...

And, if you want (almost) all of your favorite MCU characters in one movie, this is the place to see it.

The real test? I just watched this but would not protest watching it again right now. It's that good. Which is true of most of the MCU. Not all, but most. There are a few I feel like I don't need to ever see again, one in  particular (you hear that Norton? (yeah, this is my Norton dig for this post)) but, for most of them, even after just watching them, I would happily watch them again.
So let's get this one ranked!

The infinite ranking:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger

4. Avengers: Infinity War

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming
6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
7. Iron Man

8. Black Panther

9. Doctor Strange

10. Ant-Man

11. Thor: Ragnarok
12. Thor: The Dark World
13. Thor

14. Guardians of the Galaxy

15. Avengers: Age of Ultron

16. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
17. Iron Man 3
18. Iron Man 2
19. Incredible Hulk

(I discussed with my family what they thought about the placement of A:IW on the list, and I have gone against popular opinion. Well, their popular opinion, anyway, although it seems that a lot of popular opinion has A:IW in the top two of MCU movies. I have my reasons, though, for the placement, most of which have to do with tightness of story. But, man, it was difficult for me for it to fall between Cap and Spidey after the two of those were tied for a while.)

Avengers: Endgame (a movie review post)

Pre-movie thoughts:
We're going to be seeing Endgame in just about two hours from now. This is almost the most anticipation I've ever had for a movie. Other highly anticipated movies of note: The Phantom Menace, Spider-Man (maybe my most highly anticipated movie ever), Fellowship of the Ring. People who know me (or who have followed along here for any length of time) will know that Star Wars is my "true love," but it wasn't my first love. No, my first love, through Spider-Man, was Marvel. And, well, what has happened with Star Wars since Disney let Kathleen Kennedy have control of it has somewhat tarnished my love for Star Wars. Sorry, Star Wars, it's not you... oh, no, wait... it is you.

At any rate, this, this waiting to go see Endgame, feels a little like a return to my first love. Even if Spider-Man turned to dust in the last movie. What Marvel has done here over the last decade or so and 20+ movies is... astounding. It's what Star Wars should have been, because it was Star Wars that proved that people would come back to "to be continued" movies in the first place. So... here I am, sitting here, actually, more than a little like my 13-year-old self waiting to go see Return of the Jedi, which, yes, I left off that above list because the anticipation you feel for something as a kid is rarely the same as it is when you're an adult.

Anyway... It's time to go. I'll let you know what I think.

Post-movie thoughts:
That was a very fast three hours. There was nothing to mark the passing of it beyond the fact that my butt started to hurt at some point. The theater we usually go to recently went through this big renovation thing and put in these overly large reclining chairs, and they're still not comfortable! Is there some rule about not having chairs that are comfortable? Or maybe it's because my butt is already worn out from sitting on bleacher seats all week at the four softball games my daughter had this past week. Whatever, my butt hurts.

Yeah, I'm just avoiding talking about the movie, because, really, what am I supposed to say about it? You can't talk about this movie without it being some kind of spoiler. Can't talk about the opening scene because... See? Can't even talk about the Stan Lee cameo, the last one of him EVER, because even that's spoilery. And I certainly can't tell you my favorite scene because Mark Ruffalo would probably show up at my house and yell "NO SPOILERS!" in my face, which would be fine if he just showed up as himself, but I'm not sure he wouldn't HULK out on me and smash some thing.
No, none of that has anything to do with the movie.

Now, I'm not going to say it was the best movie I ever saw, though it did make me cry a bit and make my wife cry a lot. It wasn't life-changing or anything like that. I guess I'm too old for that kind of shit these days. It was pretty perfect, though. A perfect ending, a perfect wrap up, a perfect whatever you want to call it. I mean, look, here's the thing: As I've mentioned before, I've read The Infinity Gauntlet, the source material for all of this... stuff, and I was at a loss for how they were going to wrap it up without just copying the story, and they managed to pull that off gloriously. It was a great job on the part of the writers.

Even my younger son, who has the capacity to be even more critical of things than I am (he's young; I'm sure he'll mellow out with age; I did) said after the movie something along the lines of, "I'm trying to think if there were any faults in [Endgame], and I can't think of any, not even with the <spoilery content removed>." So... there you go. There are no faults with this movie. Unless you just don't like super heroes but, then, that's a fault in you, not the movie.

I suppose, in the end, my recommendation doesn't matter one way or the other anyway. Either you're already planning to see it (if you haven't already) and nothing I say is going to keep you from it, or you've already foolishly gone against the Marvel movies and are living a piss poor life because of it. Justice League doesn't even rise to the level of a bad joke in comparison.

I guess what I can say is that the actors deliver the kind of performances we've come to expect from them. With the exception of Edward Norton as the Hulk 11 years ago, they have been spot on with their casting, and the fixed that error with Ruffalo. It's difficult to imagine anyone doing that role better at this point. Well, I can't imagine it, anyway.

So, yeah, great movie. You should see it. I mean, if you do, then I can actually talk about stuff from the movie in a few weeks... like <censored> and <censored> and wasn't it AWESOME when <censored> and who the <censored> at <censored>?!?!

This Means (Infinity) War!

Discussion ahead. I'm not going to avoid spoilers.
You've been warned.

Other than Lord of the Rings (which is arguably one 10-hour+ movie rather than the three movies released in theaters), this is probably the "biggest" movie ever made. It, too, was too big to be one movie, not to mention that Marvel Studios spent a decade building up to this. That has never been done before (and is a good illustration of why, despite making decent money at the box office, DC movies continue to fail (you can't set up for an "epic" Justice League battle by having Batman say "something's coming" and allowing that to be your entire setup)).

Now, let's just get it out of the way that I thought the movie was Incredible, Amazing, Spectacular, Fantastic (even though they're not in it), Invincible, Mighty... um... there's probably more of those superlatives that I'm forgetting, but those are the one's off the top of my head. Oh, it's also Uncanny.

But I also understand why some people are freaking out, though I do find the number of people responding to it with, "The ending sucked! I'm never seeing another Marvel movie ever again!" more than a little amusing. To go with the most prevalent comparison, I don't remember anyone saying that about Star Wars after Empire came out.

Maybe this is one of those movies where it really does help if you've read the source material. One of the things that Marvel has excelled at is making their movies accessible to people who have never read comic books. They've taken these outlandish (sometimes literally (Thor/Guardians)) ideas and characters and made them believable in a modern world and taken away the need to have a comic book background to be able to understand and appreciate what's going on (again, as opposed to DC and Warner Brothers who continue to take shortcuts by assuming their audience knows the background for their characters and dispenses with giving anything any amount of credibility). And you don't need the comic books for this one, either, but maybe people wouldn't be freaking out so much if they'd read The Infinity Gauntlet. Not that I believe everything's going to be "okay" at then end of this. The MCU, after all, is not the same as the Marvel Universe in the comic books. In comic books, you can depend on characters not really ever dying and things mostly going back to the way they were. Consequences in the MCU tend to be a lot more permanent. That said, having read Infinity Gauntlet, I know how everything's supposed to shake out at the end, so I'm not freaking out about all the deaths. I expected it. Some of them still almost brought me to tears.

The only weakness of the movie, if you can call it that, is the motivation of Thanos. Maybe it's only a weakness because that is the one thing they really provided no background for. That and you can't really make a case that killing half of the souls in the universe brings any kind of balance. However, Thanos is called "the mad Titan" (in the comic books) for a reason. There doesn't have to be any kind of logic involved. Especially since he seems to think that people will come to love and worship him for his actions.

To be clear, bringing balance to the universe is not his motivation in the comic series. No, in the comics, he does it all for love, which, still, is a thought that amuses me. It amuses me because it's so true. See, in the comics, Thanos is in love with Death (not death, Death), she who embodies the ideal of death. He's in love with her, but she won't give him the time of day. He decides that if he can bring her an offering of half the souls in the universe that that ought to make her love him. heh
I'm not going to tell you how that works out.

Which brings us to Adam Warlock...
Except not, since he's not in the MCU, at least not at this point. It's Adam Warlock who puts things right again at the end of Gauntlet, not that someone else can't serve that function, and I was hoping he would show up. Maybe he can't though, since he may be a part of the Fantastic Four branch of the Marvel Universe (like the Silver Surfer) and currently under the control of Fox. Yes, I'm sure I could look that up; I'm just not going to. But I digress...

What I'm sure of, absolutely sure of, is that the next Avengers movie, the one that is the sequel to Infinity War, will be a permanent restructuring of the MCU. While some of what happened will be fixed, there will be some things that are permanent in a way they never are in comic books. Chris Evans is not renewing his contract as Captain America. Chris Hemsworth is almost certainly not renewing his contract as Thor. Robert Downey, Jr., though he's stated that he's willing to continue being Tony Stark, has also stated that he no longer wants to play Iron Man, and his contract is also about to be up. None of which is to mention that if the deal goes through with Disney buying Fox, whole new areas -- X-Men and the Fantastic Four -- will suddenly be open to the MCU. Will I be sad to see the permanent departure of some of these specific characters from the MCU? Sure. But I'm also looking forward to the idea that characters may die permanently. For good. Forever. It makes these kinds of stories much more... satisfying, if that's a word that can be used for this. It makes the stakes real, and, thus, it makes the victory, even if it's Pyrrhic, real, too.
Even if it is fiction.

Oh! And all of the performances are as awesome as can be expected.

We're Not Worthy (a pop culture post)

Okay, so, probably, we are. Worthy, that is. After all, no one's gonna turn you away from a movie you're paying money to see, right? Well, at least not very often. Unless the theater is full. Anyway...

I don't know how I get off on these things. Okay, that's not true, but... Look, quit interrupting and let me get on with the review, okay?
Good.

As I alluded in my review of Iron Man 3, I've suffered a bit of a paradigm shift in my approach to the Marvel Studio movies. See, they did such a great job of adapting the comics, initially, I expected them to keep doing that. Iron Man And Captain America are excellent adaptations of the source material, almost perfectly capturing the tone and feel of the comic characters. Thor is also very good at that, although not quite as good as Cap and Iron Man. So, for a while, I expected the Marvel movies to continue to "adapt" the comics, staying true to the source material across the board.

But it's more like that was just the opening they used to create the Marvel Movie Universe, which is not quite the same as the Marvel Universe of the comics. So, in Iron Man 3, we get a Mandarin who is the front man for a terrorist group rather than a super villain, and, in Thor: The Dark World, we get Malekith after the Aether rather than the Casket of Ancient Winters. And, after some amount of consideration, that's okay. More than okay, actually.

It's more than okay, because Marvel is re-creating what they did to create The Avengers, right now, with their Infinity Stones sub-plot. It's just introducing a piece at a time as they build up to something bigger. In The Avengers, we got our first view of Thanos and his attempt to take control of the Tesseract, which, in The Dark World, is revealed to be one of the six Infinity Stones, artifacts predating the origins of the universe. And, also on The Dark World, Malekith is after the Aether which is another of these "stones" although it actually takes on a fluid form.

This all sounds like it's leading up to an Infinity Gauntlet kind of scenario,

which would be pretty darn cool and pretty darn cosmic. The fact that Guardians of the Galaxy is coming out next year only strengthens the case for all of this. I would expect another of the Infinity Stones to show up in that one.

Of course, none of that actually relates to whether Thor: The Dark World is any good in and of itself.

Actually, Thor 2 is better than Thor. This one just seemed more "Thor" than the first one, although I don't have a good reason for feeling that way because there was an awful lot of Thor-ness about the first one, too. Maybe, it was just that this one flowed more smoothly whereas the first one definitely seemed to have its "Earth" parts and its "Asgard" parts as separate things. If you're doing Thor as Thor (not Thor trapped in the body of a mortal), he definitely needs to have the full range of being Thor.

And there were a lot of cool moves with Mjolnir in this one, things like Thor leaping off of balconies as the hammer came whizzing over the building and into his hand. They definitely did their best to show the connection between Thor and the hammer.

The acting was great, even Christopher Eccleston, whom I'm not particularly fond of as an actor (Doctor or not). His range seems to be quite small, but his role as Malekith was a good fit as it didn't require a lot of emotion and even less facial expression. Zachary Levi also did a pretty good job as Fandral, although, as partial as I am to Chuck, I think he didn't quite fill out Josh Dallas' shoes. There was just some ineffable quality about Dallas that made him more Fandral. Portman, also, seemed to wear the role of Jane Foster much more easily in this one, so that was nice.

The thing that really made the movie work, though, was the chemistry between Hemsworth and Hiddleston. Even when not onscreen together, they pulled off the roles of warring brothers perfectly. The sibling rivalry was perfect. There's this one moment where Thor is about to hit Loki (hey, it's not really a spoiler, okay (well, kind of, but, well, deal with it)) and Thor pulls away saying, "Mother wouldn't want us to fight," and Loki smiles and says, "But she wouldn't be shocked." The relationship is perfect.

The movie also has a bit more humor in it than the last Thor, and it's not all at the expense of Darcy this time, though she does have her moments. The only real negative I'd say the movie has is that the humor breaks the tension a little too much every so often. But those are only minor bumps on the road and barely memorable once past them. It does pull you right back in.

Overall, the movie has an epic feel to it that seems appropriate to a story about gods, and it does it while keeping the movie personal. That all by itself is quite an accomplishment. So, yeah, I think Thor 2 is a step above the first one, something that's not all  that common with a sequel. It doesn't make it up to the level of the first Iron Man or Captain America movies, but it does surpass both of the Iron Man sequels. If you've been following the Marvel movies at all, you certainly don't want to miss this one.