Date: Saturday April 28 2018
Location: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall
Time: 1:40pm
Party: 3 (my mom, sister and I)
Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo
Cast... oh boy... I might just copy & paste this whole thing
Tony Stark/Iron-Man: Robert Downey Jr.
Steve Rodgers/Captain America- Chris Evans
Thor- Chris Hemsworth
Bruce Banner/The Hulk- Mark Ruffalo
Black Widow- Scarlet Johannson
Peter Parker/Spider-Man- Tom Holland
The Vision- Paul Bettany
Black Panther- Chadwick Boseman
Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch- Elizabeth Olsen
Loki- Tom Hiddlestone
Heimdell- Idris Elba
Star-Lord- Chris Pratt
Gamora- Zoe Saldana
Rocket- Bradley Cooper
Drax- Dave Baustisa
Groot- Vin Diesel
Mantis- Pom Klementieff
Doctor Strange- Benedict Cumberbatch
Sam Wilson/Falcon- Anthony Mackie
Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier- Sebastian Stan
Okoye- Danai Gurira
Thanos- Josh Brolin
Unless there are more people that come up in the movie, that's going to be the majority of them...
Duration: 160 minutes (+ 7 trailers... trailers started on time, but the actual movie didn't start until 2:02pm)
Write-up:
Introduction
Man, I've been really bad at keeping this blog updated, but I really haven't been to the movies since 50 Shades back in February. Ever since our local theater burned down, I've felt less need to go to the movies and there've been a few I've wanted to see. Isle of Dogs for starters. And with all the success it had, I kinda regret not going to see Black Panther. There'll be another chance, I'm sure... when it comes on DVD and my dad sees it in-flight.
I also have yet to see the new Spider-Man movie. Having RDJ in it wasn't even enough incentive to get me to go. I guess I'm just sick of them trying to remake Spider-Man when Tobey Maguire did it right the first time.
With this movie, I don't have a whole lot of expectations. I've been disconnected from the Marvel universe for some time. It's been a while since the last time I saw an Avengers movie and I gave up Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after that Ada story arc and the alternate universe. It just drove me too nuts that much of the series was about the team being split apart and fighting all season to get back together. Almost as frustrating as Once Upon a Time always starting a new season with a new memory-wiping curse... I really did love that show and I miss watching it, but it broke my heart one too many times.
And now I'm rambling...
I'd purposely avoiding spoilers, but it's getting rave reviews and on Twitter, I get the impression it's very dark ("and they call DC dark" I think was the quote). There's also talk of a lot of characters being killed off... I mean, losing Tony Stark would be emotional for me, but I'm dying for RDJ to do something other than Marvel. It does sound, though, he is working on a new Dr. Dolittle movie. It has an all-star cast, but of course, he's the only human among them, lol.
Getting into the movie...
This was a first for me. If our local theater hadn't burned down, I'm not entirely sure this would have been avoided. BUT we get there close to 12 for the 12:20 show... they have an electronic sign behind the ticket counter with all the movie times. I noticed within minutes the 12:20 flashing saying "sold out"... I'm like "whoa..." so we immediately get tickets for the next showing and are promptly told to get in line an hour beforehand so we'll get a good seat. An hour beforehand was half an hour of free time... but the line actually wasn't bad and we got really good seats.
Gotta say this for the Avengers crowd at the first weekend of a movie... you'll never find a better movie crowd. They care about everything so much that they will laugh at all the appropriate times in unison and will collectively stay silent when something serious is going down. Hell, I got shushed once during this movie when I was complaining how Spider-Man calls these movies he's referencing "old"... I did not appreciate that. It's not like I was like those little kids at the Beauty & The Beast movie last year that were chatting much of the movie and were promptly shushed when the big song came on. But I guess it's been a while since I'd been in a crowd like this and I'd gotten way too comfortable with interacting with movies. It's not like I do it ALL THE TIME in theaters. (Although I couldn't help but do so when I saw "Let's be cops" and "Ghostbusters" cuz I was the only one in the theater... best time ever)...
Again, I'm rambling...
Then there was the ending where everyone just fell completely silent and whether we said it aloud or not, we had all a sense of "that was it?!"
Trailers
I was able to ID these movies within 10 seconds so I was able to type them into my phone and lock so I could enjoy the rest.
The trailers have been around, but I finally saw Deadpool 2. And it seems like he's trying to put a league together of superheroes. Gee, I wonder where he got that idea... X-Men (which Colossus has been recruiting him for) or Avengers (cuz, you know, it worked so well)... Anyway, it looks like this movie has more of a budget than the last one and I hope they don't try to overachieve too much just cuz they know they have a good thing going.
Crimes of Grindewald- the newest installment of the Harry Potter "Fantastic Beasts" franchise. And it appears Jude Law is Dumbledore... I love Jude, but I don't know if I completely buy it. Cuz Harry Potter is born in 1980 and goes to Hogwarts in the 90's. This franchise takes place in the 20's and maybe 30's... Dumbledore looks A LOT younger here than he does in the Harry Potter franchise. Unless his inevitable duel with Grindewald ages him A LOT, I don't quite see that making sense. But it sounds like Dumbledore is asking Newt Scamander to kill Grindewald because he can't do it. J.K. Rowling said after the books were done that Dumbledore was gay and hinted that he and Grindewald might have been a thing... so I interpret his plea to Newt as "it's not that I can't do it, I just don't want to"...
but it's very exciting for this next movie to come out... too bad it isn't for months.
Mission Impossible: Fallout... WHY?! We don't need anymore of these movies. I'd rather see Jeremy Renner's next Bourne film (that's not a jest, I really do want to see another of those movies from him...)... I didn't know about this movie until ET trailers talking to Tom Cruise about his MI injury and I'm like "another injury?"... this trailer just made me want to see the new Jack Reacher movie that should be on HBO soon.
Venom with Tom Hardy playing the title role... I didn't know about this until I saw the movie posters and we promptly saw a trailer. This looks DARK and terrifying. Something I really have no interest in seeing. Supposedly there is this Indian guy running a company that's experimenting with something called Symbiants, which is some dark substance that takes refuge in the human body and is the next step towards evolution. Tom Hardy gets infected and this substance actually talks back to him in this deep threatening voice and sometimes black fluid comes out of him to attack people around him. Supposedly Venom will become an anti-hero. I know that people are disappointed with how Venom was treated in Spider-Man 3 (among other things...) but completely darkening it up is too far for me. I don't know or care enough about this character (or Tom Hardy for that matter) to proceed.
Solo- we saw this trailer on my dad's iPad ,but this had far better lighting. Woody Harrelson is in it as Han's boss, saying something like "if you expect everyone you know to betray you, you won't be disappointed"... which tells me someone betraying him is why Jabba the Hutt puts such a huge price on his head. And there's a scene with Lando and a card game and supposedly that's how Han gets the Millennium Falcon. My mom of course is excited cuz she loves Han Solo and Harrison Ford and she kinda likes this guy as well, but we'll see when we see the actual movie.
Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom... going back to dark and terrifying... OH MY GOD... this movie goes way beyond all the previous Jurassic movies. Not only is the island full of dinosaurs being threatened by a volcano, but Blue, the last of Owen's trained raptors gets captured and experimented on and of course, B.D. Wong has to create a new dinosaur (because Indominus Rex worked SO WELL in the last movie). There's a scene where the new dinosaur is in a girl's bedroom... so yeah, this is scary. And is this girl supposed to be Owen and Claire's kid? Why not bring back her nephews from the last movie? (I guess after the last movie, their parents don't want them anywhere near the island or dinosaurs again)...
anyway... it looks terrifying and like nightmare fuel (I'd been saying that a lot lately, although I don't really have nightmares all that much), but cuz I'd seen every Jurassic movie in theaters, I have to see this one. It's tradition.
Incredibles 2... I didn't like the last one that much, so I'm not really looking to see this one either... but the theme is that some organization wants to change the perception of superheroes and they want to use Elastic Girl to do it. Meaning Mr. Incredible is emasculated and has to be a stay-at-home dad. Meanwhile his daughter is going through, what the Quickster called "adolescence" (this franchise I think was closer to PG13 than other Pixar movies, so that's as family friendly as they can put it... although I think "Inside Out" did mention puberty towards the end) and Jack-Jack has a lot of different powers firing off at the same time.
Yikes... now I get the feeling I'm going to be saying more about the trailers than the actual movie. Sorry if that's disappointing...
The Actual Movie
Here's the tricky part... so much happens in this movie, good and bad... that I really don't want to go into every detail. It's one of those movies you just have to see. Especially if you love these movies.
I admit I'd been experiencing "Marvel fatigue" lately with all the movies that had been out... I think mostly because RDJ is stuck doing these movies when he could be off trying to win Oscars... for me, the latest Thor and Guardians installment were kinda disappointing because they either stepped way too far from what made the franchise great or just too dark a turn that I kinda lost faith. "Civil War" was really good and one of the better ones, but it's not the greatest feeling that not like Tony Stark and siding with Captain America when I'd always leaned one way more than the other.
This movie or less took all that fatigue away and now I'm dying for the next volume to come out... because this ending needs to be salvaged and reconciled.
I don't really want to give away which characters run into who because that's part of the fun. And also where they end up going.
Tony Stark and Pepper seem to be planning their wedding... which is amazing to me because in "Civil War," I thought they'd broken up so I have no idea how they reconciled. But needless to say, the events of this movie will put a further damper on things.
And he also winds up confronting a lot of his fears that have been with him since his moment of sacrifice in the original "Avengers" movie... so that's really good closure for his character. Meanwhile, the tech in this movie is RIDICULOUS... how advanced Tony's suit is and all of the extra features his suit for Spider-Man is... it was blowing my mind.
Gotta hand it to this franchise, they step up their technology every time and it's incredible how far we've come in the last 10 years.
Yeah, Iron-Man was released 10 years ago and I don't think any of us could have predicted all this.
Of course one thing people have been clamored for and RDJ had hinted about it on his Facebook page... the two Sherlocks (Downey from the Guy Ritchie franchise- where is Sherlock 3?!! and Benedict Cumberbatch from the PBS series) getting to have actual screen time together. It's pretty awesome. And it reminded me how I really should get Doctor Strange on disc at some point cuz I hadn't seen it since the movies.
On the other side of the galaxy, we have the Guardians. And in true-Guardians fashion, their arrival is announced by a change in music :P and they interact with a couple of different Avengers throughout their screen time. And of course they go how you expect them to... which includes another melee (that was a highlight of the first Avengers movie, so why not?... too bad the timing of it isn't exactly preferable).
If you view this movie in the canon of the whole franchise, seeing it right after the latest Thor movie... let's just say things get very dark, very fast.
Thor is in need of a new weapon to replace his beloved hammer and he gets to visit the forge inside a dying star that Mjolnir came from. I won't give away who he meets there, but let's just say Game of Thrones fans will be VERY happy. And his new weapon is extremely bad-ass.
Then there is Thanos... who had been hyped up since the end credits scene as the ultimate villain of this franchise... you'd think his motivation was just galactic/universal domination. But he has a very interesting motivation that falls almost in line with Dan Brown's Robert Langdon book "Inferno"... his concern is overpopulation, so he wants to obtain all of the infinity stones to rectify that. As far as motivations go, it's actually not too bad. It's well-thought out, actually. In the Pokémon video game franchise, the theme of Black & White was about separating Pokémon from people because certain characters truly believed that they did not benefit from their captivity. That fell in line with the critics of the series that said it was akin to dog fighting. When you really think about it, the antagonists might have a point and if you were in their circumstances, you might believe the same way. However, you have to resist and hold onto your ideals because it will get in way of your happiness and way of life.
I think my overall point to this is that you can side with Thanos and agree with where he's going... but you really don't want to because the price needed to be paid is way too high. Losing people you love and care about.
It was established in the first Guardians movie that Gamora was adopted by Thanos and left him to join the Guardians. Like with Tony Stark, everything kinda goes full circle for her as well and we see how she came into the care of Thanos.
As far as action goes... it's nearly relentless. We get some lulls where there are some good laughs and pop culture references and so on. But the fact the Stan Lee cameo is very early in the movie suggests that things will get pretty dark later on. (and yes, I know I used that word 9 times already... I'll try to stop).
It's incredible to watch, though. It keeps you on your toes. I audibly screamed once or twice because something came out of nowhere. (But in my defense, that has happened a couple of times recently, including one episode of Shadowhunters). The technology is insane and so cool to watch. Just when things look bad for the heroes, others show up to join the fight. We have a scene where all of the female characters get to fight against a common enemy. That was a pretty awesome moment, but I can't help but feel that was planted to pander to a certain demographic. Kinda like this latest trend of having diversity just for the sake of it. Whitewashing in a historical movie where it involves a certain culture or demographic is one thing, that's bad... but feeling the need to include non-white actors and actresses into movies so you can claim "hey, we're diverse, we're good"... to me, it comes off a little forced.
What we need is more good roles written by and for non-white characters. Like Randall in "This is Us" and the movie "Girls Trip" where the writers, director and main cast is black... that's a step in the right direction for sure. "The Good Doctor" also had an interesting episode where one character threatens to sue for unlawful discharge, proclaiming racism and the head of surgery (as black) berates him for an improper use of "the race card" (he was fired because he assaulted another doctor cuz another student said he was inappropriate with her)... he went into a little more detail than that, but I thought that was an interesting moment.
So the fact I am doing a lot of sidetracking kinda suggests I don't really want to talk about certain things in the movie.
As a general rule, I REALLY don't like it when villains are unbeatable. All of them have to have one weakness that gives the good guys a chance to overcome him. Certain parts of this movie were like that, but the camaraderie between heroes and the last minute saves helps with that. But ultimately, that emotional rollercoaster was just toying with our emotions.
The body count (if you can call it that) is substantial. But considering how many of these characters have upcoming franchise installments, it's hard to be completely devastated. Not to mention they did bring a couple S.H.I.E.L.D. agents back from the dead, so it's impossible to kill anyone off, really...
And the fact I'm not a complete wreck but merely just felt numb in all my extremities after the movie ended... that's kinda telling of one of the survivors...
And for those curious, there is a post-credits scene, but it's after ALL of the credits. (Made me wonder how much of the lengthy run time was for credits alone). And it's more fallout from the end of the movie. But there is hope because back-up does get called, but all they give us is a symbol and I have no idea what it is. Who else is there left? Unless they actually bring the cast from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into the movie as well... that'd be something.
Grade: A (if not for the somber ending, it'd be an A+ easily... probably the best of the whole franchise)
...oh and another thing... why the heck is Black Widow blonde in this movie? Were the movie runner afraid we'd confuse her with Wanda? I'm sorry, that aesthetic change just doesn't work for me.
And the dynamic with Bruce Banner and The Hulk gets even more interesting in this movie-- somewhat of a reverse of how things went down in the latest Thor film. Some of its kinda frustrating, but it also has its entertaining moments.
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