Continuing my MCU rewatch

[Ru1977]

Kind of awkwardly sat after the Snap, but with no reference to it until the post-credit scene. I don't know that there's a better place for it, because you want to fill the time between Infinity War and Endgame, but still kind of noticeable.

Ehhhhhh.... most of the movie is before the Snap. The only part that is set after is the credit scene with the ant. The snap occurs in the middle of the other credit scene.

 

[Fletch]

Ehhhhhh.... most of the movie is before the Snap. The only part that is set after is the credit scene with the ant. The snap occurs in the middle of the other credit scene.

No, I mean in release schedule.

It's fine, it's just a hard jump going immediately from the Snap to a movie where it's not a thing.

 

[Ru1977]

Ah, I see.

I dunno, for me it was needed. Infinity War is an emotional kick in the pants, and fun, superfluous, caper romp was perfect.

 

[fac]

Ant-Man & the Wasp

Reading that made me realize I barely recall this film and probably haven't watched it since it was in theaters. Kind of feel the same about all the Ant-Man films really, not much "there" there...

 

[Schizm]

That's a bummer - Quantumania trashed all the good things of the first two films, but the first two are just fun movies.

I think this A&W was perfectly positioned to reinforce Infinity War and Endgame - the audience was aware something terrible was probably going to happen in the end to some of the characters and then we lose three of the four! That hurt. And Scott is lost, potentially forever! That's an amazing bridge between two bigger movies and an integral plot point.

If anything, having to adapt the character dynamics to what happened in Civil War was more damaging. All the major relationship fractures occurred offscreen.

Agree on Sonny. Felt like a Justin Hammer retread minus the zing (no offense to Goggins) and a VFX-lite time filler. He also kinda felt like a joke the whole time, so I don't remember ever feeling a threat from him. I don't think I've ever seen this character on a ML want list.

I'll always love this Cassie, and Luis.

I liked the ideas behind Bill and Ava, but the execution I don't think quite got there, like maybe another draft was needed. If we're going to play her as a little girl in constant, molecule-wrenching pain, she was written too caustic and not caring about others? She's very selfish, which makes sense, but cold-blooded murderer to just trying to survive didn't thread right - felt like she shifted halfway through this film.

Agree on the ending - Janet somehow fixing her was really weird. I kinda wish it was a team effort super-powered by Janet or something - or maybe Janet won't be able to exist in our plane anymore because her body has absorbed 30 years of quantum energy and it has to go somewhere or it will kill her at full-size. I'm glad Janet aged - she was having a different experience down there than Scott did, and her not being the same age as Hank wouldn't have been the fun reunion.

I like Hope. Evangeline is always a very interesting performer. I think perhaps the shift in her in this one is that the first movie let her do nothing super and here she's doing everything like she's been doing it all along - but I feel that was actually a good course-correction.

I'm really sad Hope isn't a part of the MCU anymore - I strongly feel she and Scott should have been running whatever the next iteration of Avengers would have been post-Endgame. Separating them again after the lessons learned in this film, and that smile in Endgame, makes me sad. They work so well.

 

[joshsquash729]

I clearly need to rewatch A&W because I did not remember Walton Goggins being in the MCU.

 

[Ru1977]

I clearly need to rewatch A&W because I did not remember Walton Goggins being in the MCU.

Ah man... his delivery after the truth serum is one of the best parts of the movie.

 

[Fletch]

the audience was aware something terrible was probably going to happen in the end to some of the characters and then we lose three of the four

I remember seeing that scene for the first time and thinking A) "time vortex" eh? I think I got the next movie solved, and 2) this 'half the universe' thing doesn't seem to be spread out very evenly.

her not being the same age as Hank wouldn't have been the fun reunion

I mean...

No, I get it. In hindsight, it set up the mystery of the quantum realm/microverse and set the stage for the next movie. I'm just saying that, at the time, her aging was counter to what Hank had said previously about the quantum realm, but nobody questioned it.

 

[Fletch]

Captain Marvel

It still feels rude that they skipped a solo Black Widow movie, but Captain Marvel at least *should* be the predominant female Marvel hero. I wasn't reading comics at the time, and I think this is how I learned Danvers had taken the name Captain Marvel. It's a move that made so much sense in the comics that you almost don't notice that she's never called, and nobody ever says, "Captain Marvel" in the movie.

1. Aww, a Stan Lee Marvel logo intro. That's nice. While I'm at it, I want to point out his cameo in here is one of my favorites. I thought him reading the Mallrats script was a deep cut just for people like me, but it also means that this is the one Stan Lee cameo where he's actually Stan Lee.
   
   
2. I really like Brie Larson as an actor, but why is she so terrible in this movie? Like, she's actually worse than I remember. Yon-Rogg keeps telling her she needs to control her emotions and I'm not convinced she has any. She's never surprised by anything, sad about anything, or worried about anything. She's just decided she's going to be coolly stoic and the director said "sure, whatever." There's a scene where Lashana Lynch is absolutely crushing it as the woman who lost her best friend only to have her return six years later, and sitting opposite of her at the table is this woman who literally could not care less.
   
   
3. We knew going in that this took place as a flashback in the 90s just from the trailers, but I would've expected more build up to Djimon Hounsou appearing here as Korath. Since we'd last seen him killed by Drax a few movies ago, him being on the team was the first indication that this was a flashback. But there was no attention drawn to it at all. He's just in the room with everyone else. Alternately, they could have cut him entirely and made the crash into Blockbuster the reveal of the time frame.
   
   
4. I really like Ben Mendelsohn, but my mind balks at a space-Australian accent. I do recognize that he covered his accent pretty good when he was playing Fury's SHIELD boss, but it was wasted effort because we already knew he was a Skrull from the autopsy scene. Imagine if we learned it at the same time Fury did. Wasted opportunity. Speaking of Fury, Sam Jackson saves every scene he's in. No matter how wooden Larson is, he has enough charisma for both of them. His Young Fury has a perfect blend of charm, badassery, and whatthefuckness, and the de-aging effect is flawless throughout the movie (even if it's clear that it's an old man when he's running). And I'm glad he got to demonstrate on a few occasions that he really is a good spy, even when wildly out of his element.
   
   
5. Thanks for mentioning the universal translator, Vers. That answers a lot of questions I have before I even ask them. And it was a very natural delivery.
   
   
6. The Skrull makeup is really good. And the transformations really do look like a biological ability.
   
   
7. These 90s female vocalist needle drops are getting obnoxious.
   
   
8. Jude Law as Yon-Rogg was pretty good. He did everything he was supposed to do. He never actually came across as a villain, despite the movie's effort to make him one. His subtlety sold him as just a loyal son of Hala, and a sincere mentor of Vers. I think that was the right choice. The other Kree soldiers are fine. Mostly just background, but I like that they were individuals.
   
   
9. This movie does a good balancing act of using characters and places from the comics while just telling their own stories about them. Yon-Rogg, Mar-Vell, Atlas, Minerva, they're all Kree characters from the history of Captain Marvel Comics. Even Project Pegasus was a fun grab, even if I didn't recognize the significance of "Pegasus" until the title card popped up.
   
   
10. I really enjoyed the plot twist of the Skrulls being the victims and the Kree the oppressors. Sure it's counter to comic accuracy, but I'm willing to give that up for the sake of a better story. I don't think I ever thought Vers was a Kree and not a human, but that might be in part because the trailer showed all the flashbacks of her as a young girl on Earth. That plot twist was never going to land, but the reversal at the end was unpredicted.
    
    
11. Speaking of those flashbacks, the "stand back up" again montage toward the end was a really powerful coda to all the memories we'd seen earlier about her getting knocked down. I quite liked it as a character building moment. On the other hand, I can't point to a single point in modern times that those flashbacks tied into. Like, she never showed any self-doubt that came from years of being told she couldn't do something. She was always just charging in and thinking she could handle things herself while occasionally remember times she fell over as a kid.
    
    
12. Okay, I'm not as mad at Fury losing his eye to the cat as I was when I first saw it. At the time, I was like "that's it? That's his 'I trusted someone once' moment?" On rewatch, I found myself really enjoying how into cats Nick Fury was, and it kind of felt earned. It does seem a little out of nowhere when it happens, though. I can't figure out why this time, of all times, the flerken took a swipe at him. However, it earned us a solid Sam Jackson "mother-flerken!" which is priceless.
    
    
13. They're playing a little fast and loose with the tesseract here. Remember when it needed special containment cases and melted through the decks of a bomber? Now it's being carried in a tin lunchbox and ends the day just sitting on Fury's desk.

I think there was a real kernel of a message here based on the idea of a woman wanting to be a fighter pilot in the 80s. She would've been told "no" her whole life and ridiculed every step of the way. Yon-Rogg could've been the first person to let her reach her goals, even if it was only a subconscious realization. And if he kept phrasing it as "I picked you up" and "I pushed you when you needed it," it's still him taking credit for her accomplishments. Then the realization that, every time she fell, *she's* the one who got back up would've been a more valid motivator.

But what I'm really here to talk about is Infinity Stones. I'd sort of forgotten that the tesseract wasn't in the test plane itself, but this is the movie when I formed my theory on how people get powers from them.

My theory is that each Infinity Stone has a secondary purpose to create other Infinity Stones. Sort of fill a void when there's too much of one aspect of creation, if that makes sense. You'd think that a Space Stone would give Space powers and a Mind Stone would give Mind powers, but that's never what happens. Instead, we have the Space Stone here giving Carol Power powers. And Hydra used the Mind Stone to give Wanda Reality powers. I'm even prepared to argue that Pietro got Space power from the Mind Stone but died before he could really develop them. Even the colors of their powers match the Stones they're mimicking.

I mention this because WandaVision isn't too far away, and her ability to reshape Reality in that is presented as a "the Mind Stone unlocked an ability you had inside you," when the obvious answer was right there all along.

 

[fac]

1. I really like Brie Larson as an actor, but why is she so terrible in this movie? Like, she's actually worse than I remember. Yon-Rogg keeps telling her she needs to control her emotions and I'm not convinced she has any. She's never surprised by anything, sad about anything, or worried about anything. She's just decided she's going to be coolly stoic and the director said "sure, whatever." There's a scene where Lashana Lynch is absolutely crushing it as the woman who lost her best friend only to have her return six years later, and sitting opposite of her at the table is this woman who literally could not care less.

I need to rewatch, but I felt they were going for the idea she was cool and fun before the Kree more or less trained that out of her/blocked her memories which also then blocked her personality, so she is low key stoic/arrogant all the time because that is the Kree way. But the flashback scenes didn't really get at her being more "fun" or "cocky" quite enough to show that contrast, that she was missing something more than just being naturally flat. Unfortunately though, they didn't really then let he let personality loose in the later appearances, so who knows.

The problem is that Jude Law didn't get the "be stoic" memo as much, so she comes across as dull as compared to him - too repressed and too under control. We don't get enough of a glimpse of the internal conflict/power that the other Kree are scared of, at least not quite enough.

But I mostly enjoyed this one myself.

I like the idea the Infinity Stones are trying to do something, maybe trying to find a outlet/vessel to be used...

 

[Fletch]

I felt they were going for the idea she was cool and fun before the Kree more or less trained that out of her

That's actually a premise I hadn't noticed but there is some evidence to back up. They do show a lot of memories of her singing karaoke with Maria, fer instance. Like you said, there's no change or acknowledgment, so it's really some sub-subtext.

 

[Fletch]

Alright, we've finally made it:

Avengers: Endgame

I don't even remember what I thought this movie was going to be about. I'm sure rumors, leaks and spoilers had already warned me about the "time heist" element of it, but if anything, I don't think I was prepared for what a great finale that concept would be. A 10-year film saga capped off by a time travel story revisiting some of the top elements from the founding of the story was brilliant and very well handled.

1. The supposedly 50% Snap is very unevenly spread around. In Ant-Man, it took 75% of Team Ant, and here it takes 80% of Clint's family.
   
   
2. I really like the "who here hasn't been to space before" part. It provides some groundedness to our bigger-than-life heroes, while reminding us that Banner, of all people, has seen some shit.
   
   
3. Another checkbox for why Thanos' plan was stupid. There's a whole, unoccupied, farmable planet here. How close was the universe really to a tipping point?
   
   
4. Wow, they really draw out that "Five Years Later" text. The more the MCU continues, the more I think jumping forward five years was a storytelling mistake. And it all starts here with how annoyingly long it took them to get through even announcing it.
   
   
5. I don't think I give Paul Rudd enough credit as an actor. Like, I love the guy, but was not expecting that rollercoaster of dialog-free facial acting when he's hugging teenage Cassie. Speaking of which, I had to do the math to figure out her age here since she seemed really old even with a five year jump. But yeah, it works out to about a 16-year-old Cassie here. Crazy.
   
   
6. I think by now I've said almost everything I have to say about skipping the birth of Professor Hulk. For the most part, I'm very satisfied with the story endings they gave to the six original Avengers, except that that Banner got his satisfying conclusion before this movie even started. Lame.
   
   
7. I know it's important to make Tony the best at everything, but I'm having trouble seeing his mechanic as more an expert on quantum physics than the particle physicist.
   
   
8. Rocket tells Tony "you're only a genius on Earth." You tell him, Rocket! He's such a well-realized character. I'm not sure how he became the standout character from Guardians, but he gels really well with the rest of the Avengers and brings an entirely new attitude to the mix.
   
   
9. When I say the time heist is the best way to pay respect to everything that got us here, that includes all the supporting cast too. Being able to bring back dead characters like the Ancient One, Frigga, Loki, and Alexander Pierce is great. If Coulson's in it, though, I missed him, which is a real shame since he was the glue that held it all together at the start.
   
   
10. On the one hand, I'm still shocked that they couldn't get Natalie Portman back for this movie and had to resort to left over footage from Dark World. On the other hand, her absence is probably how we got such a great scene with Frigga. I'd long been skeptical that this Thor was still worthy to wield Mjolnir, but after that talk with his mom, maybe his worthiness returned.
    
    
11. Heh. Hawkeye has exactly 3 arrows on his back.
    
    
12. My wife hates what they did to Black Widow here, but I think it was a really good ending for the character. The two competing to be the one to sacrifice themself was an exciting scene and, in the end, Natasha finally got her ledger in the black.
    
    
13. I don't remember at all the grief scene after Natasha's death. It had always felt lacking that Tony gets a funeral at the end but she doesn't, but this scene fills a lot of that void.
    
    
14. Clint kept his wife's phone service going for five years?
    
    
15. I've a lot to say about my dissatisfaction of just doing Thanos and a gauntlet again, especially since this version of Thanos doesn't even know who most of these people are, but this is a really good dust-up between him and the Big 3. I can't think of an alternate finale that would match it.*
    
    
16. I applauded in Civil War how the writers were able to give everybody something cool to do during the airport fight, and that was just 12 people. Here, it's like 500 people, and they all get at least one moment.
    
    
17. This all-ladies battle line scene feels so forced in a way that the similar but smaller scale one in Infinity War didn't. It seems like we almost had a path there, with Spider-Man being caught by Rescue and passed to Valkyrie before Captain Marvel arrives. But then for some reason Mantis, Okoye and Wanda wander over too? And Wasp takes a break from helping Scott in the van to show up? I see what they were trying for, but there was certainly a way to get here that didn't feel so manufactured.
    
    
18. Hold up, Okoye just spears Corvus Glaive? The guy who fought Captain America and Vision? Why are these people even here. Just a few minutes ago, Cull Obsidian just got stepped on.
    
    
19. I'm not buying all these tearful reunions. For half these people, they didn't even know they were gone. Like, what does Ned have to hug about?
    
    
20. On the whole, this movie does a great job of remembering the ties characters have developed during the past 21 movies. Beyond just the basic character descriptions like Rhodey being Tony's friend, I mean. I'm talking about how mad Banner was at Natasha's death, the bond between Clint and Wanda, and how protective Thor is of Rocket.
    
    
21. We all agree the Bucky knew Steve's plan to stay in the past, right? Even if Steve didn't tell him, Bucky would've just known. He wasn't surprised when he failed to return and knew exactly where to look for him afterward. It's the only way I buy them trying to convince us that Sam is somehow Steve's best friend now instead of Bucky. He and Steve must've had this conversation before.

Like I said, I'm really happy with how they concluded the stories for the original Avengers. Even if the ending wasn't happy in itself, I think they're still what the characters would've wanted. Tony and Nat got to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of all mankind, Cap and Clint got to retire to their families, Thor was freed from his noble obligation by his mother, and Banner had a very interesting development happen between films

The only one I'm a little dissatisfied with his Thor's story, partially because I prefer Thor as a noble warrior defending the less powerful, but mostly because they didn't actually let his story end. Not only did he keep going into his own 4th movie, but they ended this movie with him as part of the cast of characters of a movie series written and directed by a guy who didn't even want him in the group.
I'm not exactly done with the Infinity Saga, though, because there's still "Far from Home" which acts as a kind of epilogue to the Saga itself. But in general I can say this was an unprecedented effort by Marvel and was executed way better than anybody could've predicted. It hit that perfect centerline of being properly respectful of the source material without being slavishly devoted to it. They (mostly) stayed true to the characters and let them take us on new(-ish) adventures.

Even the bad movies in the series weren't bad. The least popular have their fans (fer instance, I love Dark World) and the most popular have their detractors (I was kind of bored by Black Panther). It introduced some epic characters and gave them a 10-year story arc, all while introducing new characters to carry forward and bridge the gap to the next saga. On its own, Infinity Sage was an unmatched success. I don't think I really started bitching about Marvel movies until they got into the Multiverse Saga...



* Wait, what if they just they left him alive on Farm Planet, walking away in defeat without executing him. Then when evil Past-Nebula arrives in the present (and they have NOT been able to recreate Pym particles to summon the whole fleet from the past) she contacts farmer Thanos and tells them what the Avengers are doing. So he comes out of retirement, recalls his space army, and heads to Earth to stop them once and for all. At least make the final boss *our* Thanos. We don't have to recycle the Black Order, Wanda gets to confront the actual person who killed Vision, and everybody's happy. I mean, we don't get modern-Nebula back because she's still trapped in the past, but I didn't like her character that much anyways. And Gamora stays dead, so that's a thing. Okay, it's not a perfect solution.

 

[AceofKnaves]

At least make the final boss *our* Thanos.

THIS THIS THIS

Full disclaimer: I dislike Endgame on a number of levels and am not charmed by the “time heist” nor the revisiting of past “hits”. That said: one of the biggest things that upsets me is that they aren’t even fighting the same villain: depending on whether you listen to the writer or the directors, this Thanos is either from a past before he met these Avengers or else from a different dimension entirely. And that . . . super-sucks to me, and also hammers home the “big generic bad army fight in the dark” finale in even more alienating ways for me.

I think a lot of Endgame rests on one’s enthusiasm for the series as a whole, and as just a bunch of parts it doesn’t work, at least not for me. Honestly it’s one of my least favorite films in the entire series, most especially because I can’t enjoy it on its own merits; I realize that is a feature rather than a bug for some, but for me it just feels forced and flat.

 

[fac]

I think by now I've said almost everything I have to say about skipping the birth of Professor Hulk. For the most part, I'm very satisfied with the story endings they gave to the six original Avengers, except that that Banner got his satisfying conclusion before this movie even started. Lame.

I think a Book of Bruce Banner like show, maybe from the perspective of The End Hulk, would be interesting to backfill Banner leaving Earth and ending up a Gladiator, Banner/Hulk becoming Smart Hulk, etc., got into the future as Banner realizes he is going to outlive everyone, etc...

My wife hates what they did to Black Widow here, but I think it was a really good ending for the character. The two competing to be the one to sacrifice themself was an exciting scene and, in the end, Natasha finally got her ledger in the black.

It is the culmination for her, she knew that Clint needed to be with his family and deserved that.

This all-ladies battle line scene feels so forced in a way that the similar but smaller scale one in Infinity War didn't.

It did feel forced unfortunately, or at least wasn't too subtle.

I'm not buying all these tearful reunions. For half these people, they didn't even know they were gone. Like, what does Ned have to hug about?

Yeah, that was a little odd...

We all agree the Bucky knew Steve's plan to stay in the past, right? Even if Steve didn't tell him, Bucky would've just known. He wasn't surprised when he failed to return and knew exactly where to look for him afterward. It's the only way I buy them trying to convince us that Sam is somehow Steve's best friend now instead of Bucky. He and Steve must've had this conversation before.

Maybe? I felt like Bucky may have guessed. Or, in another story option, Bucky and Steve crossed paths in the past when he was the Winter Soldier, and Bucky kept quiet about it...

The only one I'm a little dissatisfied with his Thor's story, partially because I prefer Thor as a noble warrior defending the less powerful, but mostly because they didn't actually let his story end.

I agree, I would have liked his story arc to conclude with Thor retaking the throne and becoming a trusted leader and rebuild Asgard.

I'm not exactly done with the Infinity Saga, though, because there's still "Far from Home" which acts as a kind of epilogue to the Saga itself.

The Black Widow film fits into this time period.

On its own, Infinity Sage was an unmatched success.

I agree, despite nitpicks here and there, it really held together pretty well, and its worst films were still solid - maybe just not that memorable.

 

[Fletch]

I think a lot of Endgame rests on one’s enthusiasm for the series as a whole, and as just a bunch of parts it doesn’t work

This movie, of all movies, gets a pass from me in the category of "how well does it stand on its own." It's the second part of the finale of a 22 movie epic famous for how it overlaps. It shouldn't be anyone's first MCU movie.

I actually noticed a lot of little moments that catch you up with a character's backstory to set up their conclusion (like Steve talking to his little support group about how he went into the ice and left his girl behind), but if you don't know the significance of Wasp calling Steve Cap, or T'Challa knowing Clint's name, that's fine.

I think a Book of Bruce Banner like show, maybe from the perspective of The End Hulk, would be interesting

The moment has passed, I'm sure. Which is kind of my point. Seeing the results of a life-changing event before the life-changing event itself feels hollow.

Still, Mark Ruffalo still seems to be active in MCU productions, so it's still conceivable. I'm not at all familiar with the End Hulk (or the Maestro, if that's different) and don't have much to add.

I would have liked his story arc to conclude with Thor retaking the throne and becoming a trusted leader and rebuild Asgard.

I wouldn't go that far. I think he has a good character moment at the end of Dark World where he realized he didn't want the throne, which prologues him being forced to take the throne to keep it from his sister. I'm okay with a Thor who gives up his throne (especially with his mother's blessing and a replacement king standing by). I'm just unsatisfied that his new roll is space bum mercenary. Maybe something as simple as a line like "Danvers was right. There are a lot of worlds out there, and they don't have you." Then he flies off to be an adventuring hero space god.