Endgame review and observations

(Note: this post assumes you have seen all the Marvel movies, or at least do not care about spoilers)

There is this amazing moment in Avengers: Infinity War when Wakanda is being overrun and the heroes are truly being threatened despite their powers. Thor was presumed dead by the Earthbound forces, but then suddenly teleports in with Rocket Raccoon and Groot. The musical score swells and he utters this howl “BRING ME THANOS!” as he slices through the monsters on the field.

And it feels really good the first time you see it. It is because the tide of battle is turning, even though our heroes are divided on Earth and Titan. However, after you know what is coming, you can’t help but read it as false hope. Thanos will get the time stone from Doctor Strange. He will arrive on Earth, take the mind stone, and complete his mission. Thor and the rest fail.

That in a nutshell is why I wasn’t a big fan of Infinity War. I knew I would probably come around and enjoy it more when I saw the second half of the story, the one where we don’t see Spider-Man beg for his life before crumbling into nothing.

Avengers: Endgame wastes no time in delivering another gut punch. Before the title or even studio logo, we see Clint Barton at his farm with his family he kept away from the world. He is giving his daughter an archery lesson, and turns his back long enough to miss seeing her completely disappear. Another turn to the rest of his family and they’re gone too. I want to start crying right here but its only been one minute. The “snap” while purportedly only removing 50% of all life seems to have affected a some of our heroes a lot more than others. I imagine there are probably a lot of completely intact families out there if there are so many where 4 out of 5 disappear.

Nebula and Tony hang out on the Guardians ship, having run out of fuel and running out air and food. The scene is really helpless for a few minutes until Captain Marvel shows up. She truly comes out of fucking nowhere. The teaser during the credits for her movie seemed to be a scene from Endgame, but now it seems it was more of an event that happened while Tony was in space. Rocket and Thor knew the Guardians were headed to Titan. So when Carol shows up and can fly through space with ease, they sent her out to see who survived. This is why we don’t have a “who the fuck is this?” scene when she brings them back.

They waste no time at all putting all the survivors together and tracking Thanos. Now the title comes in. This is a fair amount of movie before the title. Reminds me of episodes of Alias when the cold open would go so long we’d see the intro 12 minutes into the 41 minute show. What doesn’t last long is their next encounter with Thanos. The team rushes in, slice off his hand and find the stones are gone. Thanos used the stones to destroy the stones so his act would be irreversible. Thor takes his advice and goes for the head.

And that is it. End of movie. They couldn’t protect the Earth but they made damn sure to avenge it. What a saga!

Anyway, five years pass and it isn’t clear how everyone is getting on. We never really ‘check in’ with the bulk of humanity or anywhere else. Steve is running a group therapy session. Nat is the one running missions and we see Okoye, Rocket, Carol, and Rhodey all dispatched to different areas. Carol has an approximation of her shorter hair from the comics, but its kinda big and a little goofy looking and I am glad Rocket made fun of it immediately so I don’t have to pretend I like it.

The dire situation has been normalized. But its about the pick up. Scott Lang makes it out of his quantum realm of solace. For him is been only 5 hours. He takes a little time to figure out whats happened and then hauls ass to New York to rally the Avengers. But like I said, its been normalized. To Scott this shit JUST HAPPENED. To the rest it is old news and they moved on. They accepted fate.

There is a bit of table setting here like showing how Hulk got smart and Thor got fat and Tony went home and became a family man. Clint becomes a murdering psycho after his family is gone. Nat and Steve are the only ones who kinda hold it together.

I don’t really have snarky observations about this second hour of the movie. It isn’t like you could cut this out but its hardly the most exciting part. They figure out time travel and argue about the rules of time travel and branching realities to the point where you forget what the actual rules might be so whatever happens in the FINAL moments of the film are OK because whatever. Vulture has a nice write up about how Time Travel works here.

When Nebula gets to 2014 her brain automatically updates her iCloud and gives 2014 Nebula and hence Thanos a picture of whats to come. Yes, the plot twist on Endgame is basically Nebula SPOILS Thanos on his own death with bootleg cam footage. If Nebula hadn’t spoiled the movie this all could have been avoided.

Thor has a good cry with his mom, Steve fights himself, Tony talks to his dad, and Hulk reasons with the Ancient One. Thats 4 of the stones. Nebula and Rhodes get the 5th from Star Lord before he can finish his chorus of “Come and Get Your Love” in 2014.

Clint and Natasha have it the worst. As the audience we know what going to Vormir means. Red Skull is waiting, though neither of them identifies him as such. There is some argument about it, but we know for sure what needs to happen. It had to be Natasha. Can’t being Clint’s family back without Clint. I don’t think I got teary eyed here. I love ScarJo and love this character and have a chaotic history with defending her in Age of Ultron’s toyline that went viral a few years back. But this felt RIGHT. I was with her. She was being brave and I supported her decision.

Upon returning to the future, Nebula is revealed to be her 2014 self and then teleports in also from 2014 Thanos and his full undefeated army. This happens just as the stones are assembled into a new gauntlet for Hulk to snap and reverse Thanos’ act from before. It isn’t spoken, but that undoubtedly increased the number of allies Thanos brings into the fight as well as he regains all the monsters and grubs that disappeared when he snapped.

There is a tense battle as Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America try to hold Thanos after he basically nukes Avengers headquarters from orbit. Cap gets to swing Thor’s hammer as a combo weapon with his own shield. This is where the fight gets BIG.

Portals start opening up and out steps Black Panther. Then the Guardians, Strange, and Spider-Man. And the then assembled forces from across all the movies. Its too many to list. The ensuing fight makes Helm’s Deep look like a game of dodgeball. There is no word for what happens here. It is the most comic book thing ever put on screen. Captain Marvel finally gets back in the fight and there is an awesome shot of all the powerful women coming together running with the gauntlet to keep it away from Thanos.

Its obvious from the moment this starts who is going to end it. And it plays out beautifully. And the epilogue showing what happens next is emotional and appropriate for all involved.

But where do you go from here? Every single Marvel movie seems to set up the next until now. Spider-Man is coming back in July. There are more movies coming 2 or 3 a year every year from now on. But this is the biggest franchise film making is ever going to get. It will be impossible to top this. They’ll try. And they will copy. But they won’t top this. Now every studio who is planning on trying for a “cinematic universe” realizes what the fuck they are up against. Transformers won’t top this. Nor will Fast and Furious. Nor will James Bond. And probably not DC either.

Hang it all up. We’re fucking DONE. Avengers have assembled. And there will never be another movie like Endgame.

Captain Marvel


I’ve been a pretty devout supporter of Marvel Studios so far. I think the only movie in the ‘MCU’ I didn’t see in theaters was Doctor Strange. And the majority of the movies in this series I’ve seen on opening weekend. Seeing them near release is for 2 reasons: firstly I am legitimately excited about the experience, and secondly the sooner I see them the quicker I can join in the conversation about them.

So, Captain Marvel. I picked up the first issue back in 2012 because I heard good things. I am a super casual comic fan. My behavior is typically to buy an issue to “try out” a series or arc and then wait a year and buy the paperback. I am perpetually 2-3 years behind on any comic series. Liked this one enough to do that. I read through Kelly Sue Deconnick’s entire run that way. I am not ashamed to say one of the things that kept me coming back was the fandom around it. Seeing the “#CarolCorps online sharing panels from the comics, fan art, cosplay, etc. It was really cool. And this was at a time when the Marvel movies were really starving for gender equality. Fans were pretty quick to call for a Black Widow movie and I really think a big reason behind that was she was the ONLY woman in the Avengers. Back in 2002, Mary Jane just screamed in every single scene of Spider-Man, so things got better, but they still were not great. My most popular tweet made a mockery of Marvel ignoring the character that was in front of their face.

Now I had this character that I could be kinda cool and ‘inside’ with. ‘Oh you like Iron Man? Yeah, My favorite is Captain Marvel, she doesn’t have a movie yet.’ And “yet” was really the operative word there. We had no reason to believe Marvel as a movie company was suddenly going to give a shit, but Carol was bold and didn’t respond well to being told she couldn’t do something so we just followed her lead.

Captain Marvel movie spoilers will follow so reader beware.

Now after years of anticipation, we are here. And the movie starts off kinda weird? The Kree have been in Guardians of the Galaxy but it was never quite clear what their deal was because we mostly spent time with Ronan who had his own agenda. I am not trying to recap the whole movie here but I legitimately don’t remember what the first 5 minutes or so are. Vers is a person in Starforce. And so is Yon Rogg, Korath, and the Warriors three Kree. They go to planet dust because Skrulls. These guys are shapeshifters and that is scary.

It probably wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world if there had been a voice over explaining that she’s a space cop with the Kree and that all these other people are Kree and the entire society is run by a super computer that looks like Annette Benning. It also might have helped smooth over that some Kree, like Yon Rogg or Korath can pass for a human with pale or dark skin, but others have very obviously alien blue skin. Maybe thats why Kree hate Skrulls: a race where everyone looks completely different is probably suspicious of one where everyone can look exactly the same.

There is a problem in mystery story telling when the audience has more information than the character. We know just by coming in Vers is Captain Marvel and her amnesia is an obstacle to character development rather than a method of presenting it. There is a scene early on where, captured by Skrulls, she relives a few pivotal moments but they are flashbacks with an emphasis on flash. Her personality is there, but we’re not sure whats informed it until well into the movie when the fragments of her life start to fall into place.

One big fight later, she escapes and falls to Earth directly into 1995. Full disclosure: I worked for a time at Blockbuster Video and at Radioshack, so the nostalgia hit me harder than most when she begins tearing apart a strip mall so she can phone home.

For reasons that are not apparent, Nick Fury and Phil Coulson arrive at the scene. Does SHIELD have so little to do after the cold war that they investigate a break in at a Radioshack? This is made doubly sad when Fury rattles off his resume later in the movie and you try to think about how he got to be part of this? I’m going to be a good fan and assume they came on because Carol’s entry in the atmosphere was picked up on radar off-screen and they just happened to come at the same time as local cops.

This is about the time the needle drops start and they do not ever end. Elastica, Garbage, TLC, Nirvana, No Doubt, Hole… It is radio from 1995 boiled all the way down. Its cool when its played in a scene where it makes sense. But there are at least two spots in the movie where all I could think was that she’s been off world 6 years so even if she suddenly gets all her memory back, she has zero connection to this song.


Fury finally catches up with Vers as she’s trying to place the memories that the Skrulls triggered. A short debate on how neither of them is the bad guy later and they’re off to find a secret military base. This is where after digging through files Vers realizes shes really named Carol and that the reason the super computer looks like Annette Benning is because it took the form of her mentor here. Also she had a cat, who has been living on this military base without a proper caretaker for 6 years.

Now they track down the one person who would have known her from before, Mario Rambeau. This is the part where my wife asked whether or not Carol is gay, because it is abnormal for one of these movies to be lacking a love interest and here we are halfway through and not only has Carol not shown interest in any of the men so far, she’s actually had a fight with every man she’s met. I’m happy to report that this is the first time a Marvel movie doesn’t have a love interest. Carol does not save a screaming man or woman at any point.

Now this is where the script gets flipped and if you haven’t seen the movie I’ll add another SPOILER warning. Skrulls are not the bad guys? This is an alien race that traces all the way back to Fantastic Four #2, created by Lee and Kirby, and usually represented as bad guys. It hasn’t even been that long in comic book time since The Skrulls actually tried to take over Earth, so it seemed like a obvious untapped villain resource here. However if you look at the animal kingdom there are certainly hunters that camouflage in order to catch prey, but there are probably just as many that disguise in order to avoid becoming prey. And Skrulls in the MCU are officially the latter. So Ben Mendelsohn breaks that streak of playing complete pricks he started in Rogue One and continues in Ready Player One.

Now the shit hits the fan, Carol gets the black box from the plane crash that gave her powers and knocked out her memory, and we set in motion taking her, Fury, Maria, the Skrulls, and the lovable cat into space.

As third acts go, this one isn’t too bad. By not having her memory and being chained by the Kree, her powers have been very limited up until this point. When she literally breaks free of the Supreme Intelligence, it opens up a virtually limitless bank of power. Carol beats the crap out of her former team and halts the Kree’s bombing of Earth. Maria gets a nice hero moment too, dog fighting with a space ship through a canyon that evokes Will Smith’s air battle in Independence Day.

When the smoke clears though, Carol comes back down to Earth to fight Yon Rogg one on one. He does a bit of patriarchal grandstanding, all but saying “DEBATE ME!” like some alt right troll on twitter.

And I think that is where the power of this movie lies. It would be a very middle of the road Marvel movie, which is to say still quite good. But my primary criticism of Marvel productions has been they rarely have any message or allegory to give the movie deeper meaning. They’re fun character stories and that is it. But this has a very relatable brand of feminism for the modern viewer.

Take Wonder Woman. In that film, Diana is raised by powerful women. When she joins the outside world, she is bewildered by the lack of respect women have. She is compelled to show her value and be an example to others. In Captain Marvel, Carol has been pushed down by men her entire life. Consistently told she can’t or shouldn’t do what she wants. This is what happens when she is tired of that shit. Even her relationship with Fury is dependent on her having a more dominant personality than he does. She has to dominate Samuel L Jackson in a movie and it works.

So that is why maybe reviews on this will be a little divisive. Because on its own merits it is merely a good movie. But, like Black Panther only a year ago, for the people who see and hear the message, it will be unmatched and inspiring.

Higher, Further, Faster. How high, far, and fast will depend on you.

I assembled the complete soundtrack for the movie. All available score and songs. Michael Giacchino’s studio fanfare has never been commercially released, so I’ve included a cover version.

Movie Diary – December 2018

Some people like to belittle the world of franchise films and wonder why movies are constantly expanding universes and sequels and I’m here to tell you it is because of ME because I saw 4 movies this month and they all ruled and all were part of massive franchises. So, in the order I saw them…

Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse
I’ll save you from scrolling too far south on this post: This was the best movie I saw this month. I took my kids, knowing this was going to be a better Spider-Man adventure than Infinity War. My big gripe with IW is of course that (spoilers!) Spider-Man dies. I figured this would be a better outing for my 7 year old son who loves Spider-Man. Imagine my shock when (spoilers again!) Spider-Man dies in this movie too, in the first act.
But while that was bad, it set up for all these other Spiders to replace him. And it is FUNNY. It is a PG family movie that has action and adventure and is really funny. I adored The Incredibles and its sequel and I am so happy that a very different family super hero movie can join those ranks as a go-to movie for Saturday nights on the couch.
Into the Spider-Verse is visually unlike any other movie I’ve seen. It emulates not just a hand drawn style, but the coloring mimics comic book publishing specifically, even if that kind of coloring wasn’t in use when Miles Morales was first introduced to the world.
When it was over, my son was asking about Miles and my daughter was asking about Gwen, and it seems like there is a Spidey for everyone. Of course a day later all they talked about was Spider-Ham, but they are kids.

Once Upon a Deadpool
I missed Deadpool 2 the first time around so I jumped at the chance to see it in a way that would differ from a home viewing. The bit with Fred Savage added is a clever framing device for the PG13 edit, but I have to tell you, this still behaves like a very R rated movie. A few *bleeped* F-words and probably some sexual situations subtracted doesn’t make this “family friendly” at all. I’m open to seeing the original cut of the movie now, but kinda hope they double dip for this version on home video too since it was so funny.
Added bonus: added tributes to Stan Lee. The grafitti wall art of Lee was in the original cut, but the new version has an “R.I.P.” added next to his smiling face. Post credits also includes outtakes from Lee’s cameo in the Deadpool 2 teaser trailer.

Bumblebee
I swore I wouldn’t pay to see another Transformers movie. Each of the live action entries has been worse than the one before it. I wanted the movies to end either go away or be rebooted. Then Bumblebee. New director, new cast, new style. There is so much going for it. And it worked. I loved it. The opening scene is a high budget CG animation of something we would have seen in the 1986 movie. Decepticons corner the Autbots on Cybertron, forcing them to escape. While this is cool to watch, it also directly contradicts stuff from the previous movies. And as the movie continues, it is a course correction. Bee loses his voice, becomes the VW beetle, and so on, but every time they could lose a convention from the Michael Bay movies, they did. The movie plays like a remake of The Iron Giant, but given how that shapes the tone of the movie and forces it away from Bay’s perversions, I’m fine with that.
Judging by how much has changed in the last six months or so with the movie, it would not shock me if this is the reboot I was hoping for. I liked the 2007 movie, it is imperfect but has some heart and does things we never saw before. If this was the movie we got in 2007, we’d be a lot better off. It now looks like Bumblebee is the “First Class” of this franchise, setting up a new series without the last few lousy entries.

Aquaman

MY MAN.
Its true. We go a PG-13 Deadpool movie. We got the BEST Spider-Man movie from a Sony animation studio. We got a great Transformers movie with no weird sexual stuff. It is a month of miracles.
The biggest miracle of them all is Aquaman. This movie had no business being this fun. Three years ago we saw Jason Momoa holding his breath under water in cell phone footage in Batman V Superman, and I never would have guess that a spin off would spin this far off.
As you know, I liked Justice League, but even I wouldn’t have cited Aquaman as a highlight. He has become kind of a joke with the “My Man!” stuff and the weird lens Snyder and DC cast him through, as a kind of drunk and surly bruiser. By the time Justice League finally came out and under-performed, they were knee deep in making Aquaman a movie and I have no idea what happened. It is as if no one told anyone here that something cost too much or was too big or too wet or needed to be more like whatever other movie in the DC Murderverse. James Wan guided Furious 7 into massive success despite losing the star during filming. It would seem this made him the perfect choice for Aquaman.
This movie is HUGE. Everything is big. At times it is like Star Wars underwater. Then it becomes James Bond. Yeah, theres a little Thor and Wonder Woman in there too. But none of those movies achieve the scale Aquaman moves comfortably in. The movie is constantly establishing rules and customs and devices and to my mind no thread is ever dropped. While the plot is no more or less simple than the average hero movie, it is so dense with activity. And on screen there is what you expect with some big fights and vehicle chases, but I was shocked how much appeared to be practical. Infinity War put Spider-Man and Iron Man and others in all CG suits, and it is kinda off putting watching their unmasked head float above the costumes in some scenes. This movie’s underwater storm troopers have real suits and you can see the difference on screen when they fight or run through a wall or even just walk into a room. Mo-cap an actor wearing nothing but a skin tight suit and they movie different from an actor wearing a suit or armor.
This is the DC Universe with their Iron Man moment. A movie no one expected to be good and a hero with no real big fan base. With Superman and Batman kind of off the table for WB at the moment, they’re forced to try to make the very best movies they can with who they have. Please, a Mera movie next. Then Aquaman 2. Then a Brine King movie. Do not stop.

Doctor Strange

Warning: light spoilers for Doctor Strange

I’ve seen every single Marvel studios movie in theaters up until this point. Usually opening day! 18 years ago when this hero movie boom started I felt like it was really important to see them all as soon as possible so they’d keep making more. There was no guarantee that X-Men would be a hit. Also not playing favorites as I’ve seen all the DC movies that have come out during that same time.

Doctor Strange broke the trend. I wasn’t super excited in the first place and frankly I knew they’d bring him in to Avengers or Thor or whatever no matter what. So I skipped it. I got the Blu Ray on mail order on release day and still didn’t watch it right away (I made my next movie night X-Men Apocalypse, which warrants its own tear down honestly). I finally popped it in last night and decided Doctor Strange couldn’t be that bad, even if it wasn’t exciting me like an Iron Man or whatever.

doctor-strange-1The Marvel studios formula is in full effect here. Benedict Cumberbatch isn’t a bad actor (I’m not a huge fan) but making him deliver wisecracks like he’s Downey or Paul Rudd just did not work. There is a scene about half way in where his one liners fall completely flat when he’s talking to a character who refuses to laugh. At last I found a character I relate to! Really I wish that Strange was played more straight and maybe giving more of those comedy lines to other characters around him.

Also Doctor Strange has a black best friend! Maybe they can put him in a movie with Falcon and War Machine.

Rachel McAdams is wasted, but thats what you get with a woman in a Marvel movie. She does seem to be drinking from the same fountain of youth Elizabeth Banks found because she looks exactly the same as she did 15 years ago.

The score in most Marvel studios flicks is usually OK but nothing that jumps our like the Batman theme did back in 89. Michael Giacchino has done pretty great work in the past, I’m a fan going back to his days on ALIAS. The Doctor Strange theme is similar enough to his Enterprise theme from the Star Trek reboot it would be worthy of lawsuit if they hadn’t been the same composer. Theres lots of controversy about temp score and this seemed like a pretty clear indication that they used Trek’s score in editing.

But all that shit is window dressing. What really disappointed me was way back in 2011, they established there is no such thing as magic in the Marvel Universe. Thor presented technology from Asgard as being so advanced it is mistaken for magic, but it is all the same. Doctor Strange, a character who is steeped in magic, was always going to answer for this. And I thought they were going to! As The Ancient One describes the healing of spinal cord patient as being a re-writing of the cells’s ability to heal, it was a far fetched but consistent answer to the question that Jane Foster got from Thor. Even the travel through time and space was already established in Thor as being possible. I felt like this was a sensible way to obey the rules of their established universe. Then about a half hour later is “lol nope j/k, magic is real” when we find out the guy with a broken back still has a broken back, he’s just moving because he’s casting a spell on himself to be able to play basketball.

The fights have fun Matrix/Inception energy to them with the world tumbling around them constantly, so that was cool. Also not being familiar with the lore meant I was genuinely surprised with the heel turn in the post credits scene. But I think the end result is the least essential Marvel film yet.

Toy Shelves

I had a party (you weren’t invited) last week and it gave me a good reason to clean up my toy displays and make some adjustments.
IMG_5004
Thanks to the decline in Disney Infinity, I went whole hog and bought about as many of these figures as I possibly could find. I’m still missing a few I’d like to get, but the two shelves I have now sport a complete Marvel and complete Star Wars collection. My toy vice has never been either of those properties, so this was a fun itch to scratch and while it is disappointing we won’t get any more of these figures (especially considering the leaks of near complete but unproduced figures) It is calming and comforting to know this collection is done and I’ll never have to buy another one. Plus if I ever decide to sell it a few years from now I’ll actually be able to get a few bucks for it. Maybe. Probably not. One of the reasons this line died is over production.

The risers were an inspired choice. This dark wood bookshelf I’ve had for a decade and was a cheapo pickup at Walmart. Since I’ve got so many figures under 6 inches it doesn’t make sense any more. I’ll replace it sooner or later, but these little shelves are supposed to be for kitchen cabinets for spices. I bought 2 sets of 2 and still have one of them in (which I’ll probably put in the spice cabinet). They’re cheap, about $17 for a set but allow the toys to sit a little higher. This is more pronounced in the Transformers shelf where I’ve got some figures that are 3-5 inches tall and others that 9-12.

IMG_5003Trying to find a theme for Transformers has been hard. About a year ago I decided I wanted to just try for (modern) figures of character from the 1986 animated movie. Additions like Devastator and the recent Galvatron help fill that out along with Bumblebee and Prime I’ve had for a decade.
So the lower shelf is a lot of characters from that movie. I tossed the 2000 DVD release on the back shelf between Prime and Galvatron to emphasize. Top shelf is a lot of bigger figures and some lineups from the comics. Clearly the combiners won’t fit on the lower shelf and Devastator, Menasor, and Superion were a big part of the Combiner Wars comic so they’re all up there. Bruticus isn’t a movie character OR a comics character but he’s the best of the combiner toys so he gets to stay. That white “Battle Core” Optimus Prime I’ll eventually get stickers to convert to a Nova Prime. Starscream is positioned center with Rattrap and Scoop, honoring what is perhaps the most bizarre re-writes of characters I’ve ever read.

Playlist

I tossed together a play list and hit shuffle for this party. We made it one song before someone turned it off and put cartoons on for the kids. Oh well. I get excited for stupid shit like this and it kind of crushed me to not listen to music. I’ve got no where else to put this so, enjoy. I just did a quickie itunes -> spotify conversion so theres probably 30 tracks that won’t work, skip around.