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.

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.

Doc 360 Review

Here is a new experiment where I try to limit myself to talking about small subjects for no longer than 60 seconds. This one was 74 seconds. There is room for improvement.

Grimstone

Another video for powet.tv
Power Core Combiners have been a wholly unintersting sub line of Transformers since they first popped up last year. They include absolutely 0% of classic characters, 0% comic characters, 0% movie characters, 0% cartoon characters. That adds up to 100% of nobody in this line of nobodies.
But I gave one set a chance anyway, since they were Dinobots. Not the real Dinobots, but some Dinobots.

I spent a long time actively searching for them. Some stores would have 3 dozen PCC sets on the shelf, and I would dig through every one to try and find Grimstone. Several times local fans tipped me to the set being on various shelves in certain stores, but I got no luck. By April of this year I had all but given up, but then found them at the same time I picked up Perceptor (a mere week after changing of the guard). This video was kind of a rush, not something I planned much ahead of time. I decided that since I had built up this set for so long and was finally opening it, I’d either capture excitement or disappointment. Its a shame it was more the latter.