Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

I attended a Marathon leading up to the release of Infinity War.  Sadly it was only 11 of the 19 movies available at the time.  So it wasn’t as complete a marathon as I would have liked.  Worse was that the movies they cut out were all the middle bits.  It didn’t even include Thor Ragnarok, which is VITAL to the lead up to Infinity War.  But once again, I was in a theater(or two) with over a hundred people for about 36 hours.  So when we got to the ending, we had true fans just get ripped apart.  I desperately wish I was knee deep in this years Marathon that is ALL 22 Marvel movies, but sadly, I am not.  If I was, I would not be able to do these reviews, so you guys win?

This movie is just beyond good.  The Russo Brothers are just absolute masters of movie making.  I’m not sure anyone else could consistently take all these characters, give them significant screen time, and make them all have weight.  No character gets a back burner.  Well, except Drax, but no more back burner than in his own movies.  He just stays so still. . .

One of the most surprising aspects of this movie is Thanos.  Marvel has a fairly rough history when it comes to villains.  Or at least that is the common complaint.  I think a majority of the villains are fairly compelling, but they are one offs that won’t really go beyond the one movie.  We figured Thanos was going to just be a big angry threat, but not terribly compelling.

Boy were we wrong.

Thanos has great motivation, and it is almost reasonable.  For a guy who wants to wipe out half of everything.  Josh Brolin does a spectacular job bringing depth to the mad Titan.

This movie also had moment on top of moment of audience reactions.  Thor showing up in Wakanda got a huge cheer from the Audience.  We also thought he almost won.  But then the snap happened.  And the joy turned to ash in our mouths.

Oh yeah, Peter Dinklage is in this film.  He plays a giant dwarf.  Yeah, it is a thing.

As phenomenal as this film is, there are a few things that are only so-so.  Speaking of Peter Dinklage, his the effect they used to make him seem like a giant was kinda off.  Not as distracting as, say, the scene where Hellboy is fighting giants, but it seemed a little weird.  Also I was never sold on Iron Man’s armor.  It seems like it needed a few more renders to look “real.”  Also all the CGI of Thanos and his Minions looks like a really good video game render, but not believable as they really exist.

Now the part that pissed everyone off.  Star Lord screwing up the plan.  He didn’t change character.  He is the one who started shooting the crap out of his Celestial Planet Father the SECOND he admitted to killing his mother.  That is honestly one of the biggest things that this marathon reminded me of.  Star Lord will give up the power of the cosmos to strike out at those who hurt his loved ones.

So we were all shocked when the snap happened and at the end.  Characters that we just met are scattered to the dust.  We all “know” that they will be back, but it was still emotionally devastating.

This movie is not for kids, and DEFINITELY not for my mother.

We didn’t warn her.

We are still in trouble.

Hopefully she’ll let us back in the house after Endgame.

And now let it begin.

Next Time: Avengers: Endgame.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Man, Ant-man movies don’t believe in opening credits, do they?  You expect to have a title card or two of breathing time.  Just a slow ease into the movie, get that fancy new Marvel Studios logo in there.  Nope, BOOM, movie’s started, sit the f*** down!

So it seems everyone forgot that Scott Lang was hired by Pym to steal the suit.  I also wonder what happened at the end of Winter Soldier.  It is heavily hinted that Captain America broke into the Raft and broke out everyone on his team.  But in Infinity War and this movie it is pointed out that Scott Lang and Hawkeye took deals so they could return to their families under house arrest.

Anywho, Scott Lang returns home and Hank and Hope both are mad at him.  Hank has lost all his faith in Scott.  Which is understandable.  In Ant-Man, Hank had a lot of faith in Scott Lang and believed in him.  However, when Scott Lang took his tech WITHOUT him hiring him to do it, Hank gets all pissy, because now he has made them fugitives in something they didn’t even participate in.  Which is really odd.  If War Machine went against the Accords, wouldn’t Tony Stark technically be arrested for making his suit?

So when Scott has a dream about Janet Van Dyne, he gets hauled right into the plot of the movie, because suddenly he has what Hank and Hope need to save Janet.  By the way, worst kept secret that Janet Van Dyne returns, she’s on the damn poster.  Hell, she has her own character poster.

So after picking up Scott, the team needs to get a special technology thing that a restaurant owner has. . .for some reason.  So that one guy who keeps playing racist characters in Quinten Tarantino films and Justified plays a guy who owns a restaurant and does shady technology deals.  Honestly, I don’t know where this guy fits into things outside of just being a third party that wants to hunt down Pym’s tech.

When the deal goes south and Hope goes full Wasp on their bitch asses, we are then introduced to the Ghost.  She can phase in and out of reality which makes her a pain in the ass to fight against.  She wants Pym’s tech so she can steal the quantum energy from Janet Van Dyne in order to fix her phasing issue, which is slowly killing her.  She is getting help from the former Black Goliath(checks notes) okay, just Goliath.  He was Black Goliath for years, but they took it out.

Oh and because Hank, Hope, and Scott are all fugitives, the FBI is also after them and their tech.  So 4 separate groups are all after this tech.  Only two of them have motivations beyond, “I want it.”  All the groups are entertaining as hell, but it is damn near turning into wacky racers of everybody trying to get the tech.

After a game of hot potato with the incredible shrinking building, Paul Rudd does his best impression of a character we haven’t met yet, and then gets everyone back.  Janet returns to the real world, then manages to stabilize Ghost for the time being.  Then Ant-man goes deep diving in the quantum realm to get more Quantum juice. . .right when Thanos decides to snap everyone else out of existence, stranding him in the quantum realm.

I feel this is one of the better sequels.  It manages to maintain the quality of the first film pretty well.  It doesn’t go above and beyond like Winter Soldier did, but it doesn’t regress or reduce, like Dark World or Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2.

Now, one final film.  Infinity War, where it all comes together for the first time.

Black Panther (2018)

This movie, like Captain Marvel, is a minefield when it comes to reviewing it.  If you didn’t like Captain Marvel, you’re sexist and hate Brie Larson.  If you didn’t like Black Panther, you’re racist.  How can you critically review a movie if you are handcuffed only to like it and can’t bad mouth it?

I for one believe that a bad movie should be called out regardless of whether or not people will judge you for disliking it.  IF YOUR MOVIE SUCKS, I WILL TELL YOU IT SUCKS AND DAMN THE CONSEQUENC!

. . . That was a pretty dramatic build up for a movie I really liked.

The story is good, if average for a film about a King and the struggle for the throne.  It’s been done in Thor, Aquaman, Lion King, Hamlet, My Little Pony, Winnie the Pooh, Minesweeper. . .okay, I think some of those might be off the mark, but you get the gist.

Killmonger is a great villain, but in the end becomes an Evil Black Panther in the end.  However he is compelling as hell and played by the great Michael B Jordan.  One thing though, and it has nothing to do with the film.  Michael B Jordan stated he thought Killmonger would be able to defeat Thanos because Killmonger is smart dedicated enough that if he set his mind to it, he would find a way to kill Thanos.

I’m sorry, no.  Killmonger is a great villain and pulled off a full scale hostile takeover, but he would not be able to pull off the same thing with Thanos.  Killmonger spent his entire life building up to taking down Black Panther, and ultimately failed.  Thanos has several people spending their entire lives trying to kill him, 2 in fact.  Neither of them have succeeded yet.

However, the greatness of Black Panther is not in the broad strokes, but in the details.  This is a blockbuster movie made by a primarily minority cast and crew.  Most of the time these movies get ignored by the general audiences, or gets treated as an off brand.  However, this movie gets the same treatment and importance as any of the other Marvel heroes.  This is groundbreaking.  And it is really really good.  Not my favorite, because Winter Soldier and the Avengers movies, but I would hold on par with any of the Phase 1 stand alone movies, which is high praise considering they BUILT the MCU.

Now, I know Infinity War is next in release date, but I want to save that as the last movie I see before Endgame.  So next on the list is Ant Man and The Wasp.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

So when this movie came out, I was kinda dissappointed.  I thought it was funny as hell, but Thor became a joke.  I missed the Shakespearian Thor.  But you can only hang around Tony Stark for so long before getting a sense of humor.  And we are NOT doing Dark World again.

So the three acts of this movie are drastically seperate.  Act 1 has Thor battling demons on fire world, then briefly returning to Asgard to find that his brother is pretending to be Odin.  Loki takes Thor to earth to find Odin and then IMMEDIATELY gets captured by Doctor Strange.

THIS is the Doctor Strange I know and love from the comics.  Just casually tossing around gods on a whim as he moves through his house.  He drops Thor and Loki in Norway where they find Odin.

Who immediately dies, Unleashing HELL ON EARTH!

Whoops, Typo, Hela on Earth.  She breaks Thors hammer and knocks both the Odinsons out of the Bifrost and into Act 2.

Based on early trailers and set photos, there was clearly a different staging area for the death of Odin and introduction of Hela.  I kinda want to see how that one turned out, cause having it occur on a very green area of Norway is kind of . . .weird.

Anywho, Act 2 has Thor and Loki on Sakaar.  Jeff Goldblum is brilliant as the Grandmaster.  I want more of him.  Thor finds Hulk who has been very absent for a few movies.  Thor and Hulk have an awesome battle with HILARIOUS commentary by Loki.  The fight gets called early by The Grandmaster who uses a shock collar on Thor.

The God of Thunder is taken down by a fancy shock collar.  What the bleeding hell?

Meanwhile Hela is overthrowing everyone and getting Marvel Actors out of their contracts before they move over to DC. And Heimdall is hiding the masses.

After an interesting escape from Sakaar through the Devil’s Anus, everyone makes it back to Asgard for Act 3.

The Battle for Asgard is epic, long, hilarious, and awesome.  However, one thing that kind of turned me off the first time and I still find a little lame is the “One against All” fights.  The fights between Thor and Hulk and Thor and Hela are awesome.  But Hela against all the soldiers of Asgard was a cgi bleh.  The Brief battle of Thor, Hulk, Loki, Heimdall, and Valkyrie against the armies of the dead is also somewhat bleh, but is greatly helped by the rock soundtrack.

Anyway, Thor loses an eye, but figures out he is not the God of Hammers.  Even at his best though, he cannot defeat Hela.  So he sacrifices Asgard the planet, and saves Asgard the people.

Until Thanos shows up.

So I enjoy this movie a lot more after initially being dissappointed by a jokey Thor.  I like that they fixed Odin.  Made him the wise father again instead of an old man and a fool.

So we go from the death of one wise king and the power struggle that follows to another in Black Panther.

Captain Marvel (2019)

I JUST reviewed this movie!  I have to do it again?!?  Ugh, FINE!

The first time I watched this movie, I loved everything about it except for Nick Fury.

After rewatching all the other Marvel movies, I am slightly more accepting of this Nick Fury.  He’s young and not as sure of himself as the Fury that has “seen some shit.”  So the Fury that depends on a cat to save him is not the same as one that thought he was bad ass enough to take out a fighter jet with a hand gun  He thought about it at least.

There are some things that bug me about the movie.

One of the big things about this movie is the fact it takes place in the 90’s.  Thus it is chock full of 90’s nostalgia and gags.  Or. . . like 4 or 5 of them?  She crash lands in a Blockbuster, gets a Gameboy and other electronics from RadioShack(I don’t EVER remember RadioShack selling gameboys, but whatever), 2 way pagers are a thing, and low grade computers and spycraft.  Oh and the Stan Lee cameo of him reading the Mallrats script.  Hell I think Guardians of the Galaxy has more references to the 80’s than this does to the 90’s.  Not that it drags the movie down, but it is just odd that a movie that went with a Geocities theme for its website only has a few 90’s references.

Another is the mythology gags.  The name for the Avengers Initiative comes from Carol Danvers callsign.  In the comics her callsign was Cheeseburger.  I, for one, would be all for the Cheeseburger Initiative.  Marvel’s The Cheeseburgers.  Cheeseburger: Age Of Ultron.  Cheeseburger: Infinity War.  Cheeseburg-(WE GET IT!). . .endgame.  If it was from the comics, or was built in naturally, that would be one thing.  But throwing it in this late in the game, just seems disingenius and forced.

Also I still don’t care for how Fury lost his eye.  It robs some of the depth in Winter Soldier.  AND WE DON’T F**K WITH WINTER SOLDIER!

Admittedly, I guess their aren’t going to be any more stories that go into the past, so have to squeeze those answers in there SOMEWHERE.

One of the things I legitmately enjoyed was the Skrull twist.  We have been beaten over the head with how shitty the Kree are.  They Sucked in Guardians of the Galaxy.  They sucked in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  AND GUESS WHERE THEY SUCK AGAIN?  That’s right, Captain Marvel.  Except they are initially set up as the good guys when compared to the Skrulls.  And it is easy to hate the Skrulls, because they have been the villainous race all throughout Marvel’s history.  But, they have yet to show up in the MCU until now.  So why would they be a threat back in the 90’s, but not in the 20 odd some years since?  Because they are not the bad guys.  In fact, if you look into the Skrull history, the only became the militiristic villains AFTER long drawn out war with the Kree.  They originally were a mercantile race who believed in free trade and cooperation.  But the Kree being total assholes kind of turned them into total assholes.

Also we get spared the evil Captain Marvel as the villain.  Her actual villains were holding her back and when she loses the restraints, she just stomps all over them.

Overall, the story is great, the characters are great, AND THE CAT IS GODLIKE!

And now to a character that wasn’t even born until after the 90’s, Spider-man!

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017)

God these titles are getting long.

Making sequels are a deathtrap.  Hell, making good movies is a nightmare.  You can have everything going for you as far as script, cast, and willing audience goes, and still just not get that spark that makes your movie a success.  Getting everything right is miraculous.

Then you find you did your job too well and you have to go back again.  Part of what made the movie good in the first place was the growth of the character.  Well, if your character has already grown, then do you make them grow some more?  Do you try and regress so they can grow again?  Do you make them exagerations of the character they were at the end of the film?

In the original film, everyone brought their own brand of comedy to the film, but at the same time their own grief.  Well, they couldn’t quite maintain that balance this time.  Drax becomes largely a joke character.  Groot is a baby.  Rocket regressed to being absurdly arrogant.  Gamora is still the straightman.  Star Lord regresses similar to Rocket, but that is mainly due his world getting shaken up by meeting his father.

I like the story, but it is less about the team and more about Quill specifically.  They just have to deal with his problems.  Everyone had a stake in the last one.  This is Peter Quill Resolves his Daddy Issues: The Movie.

Yondu actually gets the most character development from the last movie without regressing him as a character.  Mainly because he was a side character.  Shame they killed him.

Spoilers, sorry. Damn, I’m getting bad at this.

Now this is all in the realm of “how does this compare to the original?”  I like this movie.  I really do.  But it doesn’t quite measure up to the original.  They have to make it bigger, better, and more absurd.  But this movie is hilarious.

I really like the story exploring Peter’s past.  Kurt Russell does a good job as Ego.  Ego is still just a one off villain that isn’t worth writing home about, but he’s fun for what he is.

One thing that this movie shows that people complain about in Infinity War is Peter’s actions.  When he found out Ego killed his mother, his reaction was to immediately draw and try and kill him.  So when Thanos admits to killing Gamora, he immediately tries to kill Thanos.

The climax is kind of long and drawn out and overly complicated, but when you are fighting a celestial that’s a planet, don’t expect a simple knock out punch.  At least they keep us laughing.

As far as stretching into the rest of the MCU, it really doesn’t cross over.  No stones this time.  Even though it apparently throws goo mountains on earth, no one mentions it ever again.

So a good movie over all, sadly not as good as the first one, but that is hard to do.

Oh, and I can’t WAIT for Adam Warlock! Hurry up and finish Suicide Squad 2 so we can get our freaking director back!

Next time, SPACE COMES TO US!  IN THE 90’S!  Yeah, this is a diversion from the order, but we have tickets for Captain Marvel tomorrow because the home watching option is not (legally) available.  And I probably won’t be able to cram in another movie between getting off work and getting to the movie.  But Captain Marvel really fits anywhere.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Benedict Cumberbatch is so perfect a casting for Doctor Strange that it is ridiculous.  He is so perfect a casting that I remember not believing it and that it was just people wanting it to be true rather than actually being true.

However, during my initial viewing, I felt they got the character a bit wrong.

I read very little Doctor Strange.  The only times I really read any Doctor Strange is when Spider-Man would call him for help saving the universe or forgetting his marriage or something like that.  With comparing to Spider-man, Doctor Strange is fairly humorless and out of touch.

Doctor Strange starts out basically as another Tony Stark.  Rich, Cocky, and is a charming asshole.  He shares the same pop culture humor that Tony does.  Also up to about the halfway point, he acts like another action hero.  Doctor Strange uses martial arts mixed with magic to handle most of his conflicts.

There is a clear point where Doctor Strange comes into his own and that is when he gets the Levitation Cloak(or whatever they call it).  That is the moment he goes from a combat sorcerer like Mordo and becomes the Sorcerer Supreme we know and love.

Another thing that I love that we get in almost none of the other Marvel movies is a character that doesn’t want to kill and when he does, he feels remorse for his actions.  Most of the other Marvel heroes, save Spider-man, kill as a matter of course.  Always people that definitely have it coming, but they don’t generally try for the no kill solution.  I really enjoyed seeing that played out.

Kaecillius is a bland villain.  Like I’ve said in many of the origin story movies, it’s another evil version of the hero.  The Ancient One even states that she didn’t want to teach Doctor Strange because of how he reminds her of Kaecillius.  Mads Mikkelson does a fine job, but there is really not a whole lot there as far as interest goes.

Ah speaking of the Ancient One, when the movie was coming out, there was a HUGE contraversy about the Ancient One being played by a white woman.  George Takai said this would cause the movie to fail.  It clearly didn’t.  I think she did a good job, because to me Tlda Swinton always seems to have an otherworldly quality to her.  That’s why I really enjoyed her in Constantine.

But I do kind of agree that taking a role that was an asian character in the comics and whitewashing them for the movie is taking a step backwards.  Diversifying characters in a LARGELY white male industry is taking steps in the right direction, when it makes sense.  The Fantastic 4 remake kind of highlights when it doesn’t make sense.  Or at least I guess it doesn’t make sense when the movie sucks, but it makes sense when the movie is good.

An argument could be made that the Ancient One being a wise old asian man is stereotypically racist in its own right.  But you can’t fix the mistakes of the past by getting rid of all the roles for Asians.

Ultimately the argument was that they made the Ancient One a white female because they didn’t want to lose the China audience by casting someone from Tibet.  I don’t know too much about history and political strife in other countries, but I’ve come to understand that this is an issue.

Either way, movie was made, it was a success, and not much is going to change it now.  Especially since she died.

oh, uh, spoiler.

So the best part of the movie was that the finale comes down to not some final ultimate battle where Doctor Strange wins by being the better fighter, but by a battle of wills.  Doctor Strange traps Dormamu in an endless loop and refuses to release him until he agrees to his terms.  That is the brilliance I expect from a character like Doctor Strange.

So. . .WE’RE GOING BACK TO SPACE!

Ant Man (2015)

So Ant Man was in the pipeline for a LONG time.  I remember hearing about talk about an Ant Man film back when it first became apparent the Avengers Universe was becoming a thing.  We kept hearing about this awesome test footage of Ant Man shrinking and growing to punch a guy.

This went on so long that I didn’t buy that we were getting an Ant Man film until we actually started seeing trailers.

The Marvel movies exist on sort of a spectrum.  The Avengers and Captain America movies are on the more serious end of the spectrum, and the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant Man movies exist on the more comedic end of the spectrum.  Keep in mind that all of the Marvel movies have comedy and serious elements, but Ant Man is a lot more silly and light hearted than Winter Soldier.

Ant Man is a great movie.  Paul Rudd plays a brilliant Scott Lang.  I was really glad they went with the Scott Lang version of Ant Man because he has the most interesting story in my opinion.  Hank Pym’s Ant Man is just too much of a dick to get behind.

The Villain is Yellow Jacket, which although would have been fantastic to have Lang VS Pym, is actually the Darren Cross version.  So once again we have Ant Man VS Evil Ant Man.  But honestly, the fight between Ant Man and Yellowjacket is one of the funniest fights I have seen in the MCU.

Honestly, when comedies are well done, there usually is not much to say about them.  You can repeat all the jokes that made you laugh and talk about parts you enjoyed, but outside of that, there’s only so much to say.

I am curious how the Edgar Wright version would have turned out, but you can still see some finger prints on it.

So what happens when you take a character from the comedic end of the MCU and toss him into the serious end of the pool?  We’ll find out at the beginning of Phase 3.

So looking at my published post counts, this is my 100th post on TemplarKnightsLongDamnReviews.com!  Though when I finish transfering all my reviews from Facebook over to here, this will not be the 100th post from start to finish, but hey, it’s the 100th post I have placed on the site.  Go me!

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

This movie holds a special place in my heart.  It was the first movie that my fiancé and I watched together on our first date.

The first time I watched it, I was at a Marathon seeing it with over 100 other fans who have been in that theater for over 31 hours seeing EVERY MCU movie up until that point.  That was such an awesome experience that I made it a point to do the same thing when Infinity War came out.  Sadly due to finances and work schedules, I won’t be able to do the same thing this time.  That’s why I’m playing the home game and posting reviews.  And I gave myself less than a week to do it all in.

The struggle makes me feel ALIVE!  Oh, I also received a bad ass medal.  Check it out:

So the first couple minutes actually made me very worried.  We just get dumped straight into the action.  We even get a cheesy 2 page spread of the Avengers attacking as one.  Honestly the whole thing feels like stumbling over the starting line.

But my god does it recover quick and surge all the way to the end.

It’s been a while since I sat down and watched it, and between the spectacle of Infinity War and the nostalgic awesomeness of Avengers, I mentally logged Age of Ultron as lesser film.  Only now as I’m watching it again do I remember that it is great.

Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were great introductions.  Shame Quicksilver couldn’t stick around.  Scarlet Witch has one of my favorite scenes in the movie.  After Hawkeye gives his, “You are an Avenger,” speech, she walks out and kicks ALL THE ASS!

Speaking of Hawkeye, this is the movie that totally makes up for his lack of personality in Avengers.  He becomes a compelling and interesting character outside of “The Bow guy.”  Hawkeye has a family, a background, and a personality even!  And even when Joss Whedon’s homicidal impulses seemed to line up directly for Hawkeye, Quicksilver jumped in to take that bullet.  Literally.

Thanos: Hawkeye, that’s quite a nice family you got there, would be a shame if someone. . .(Snap)

Paul Bettany as The Vision in this movie is just awesome.  Generally Paul Bettany is just awesome in everything.  And the moment where everyone lost their collective shit in the movie was when Vision picked up the hammer and handed it to Thor.

This is where I really enjoyed being in the Marathon.  Everyone flipped out when that scene happened.  However, in subsequent viewings, the people who reacted to that scene substantially dropped off.  It is so subtly done, that it forgets that audiences are stupid.  Unless you beat them over the head with something, they miss the nuance.

Another thing I love about this movie and Marvel movies in general, is that they realize that there are civilians.  When Hulk and Iron Man are battling it out in the middle of. . .some city, Iron Man spends a LOT of the fight trying to save civilians, and even tries to pull the fight out of the city.  He even checks and makes sure a building is empty before dropping the Hulk into it.  In the final climactic fight, the avengers spend a great deal of time trying to empty the city and rescue people before getting to the actual fight.

Take. F**king. Notes. DC.

One complaint people had about The Avengers was the Keystone Army at the end.  The fight is over when they blow up one thing.  Apparently Joss Whedon heard the cries of the people and decided to make the final fight require killing EVERY SINGLE LAST ONE OF THEM!  I have no complaints in either direction, but just thought it was noteworthy.

Oh and Ultron was phenomenal.  I am not really familiar with James Spader outside of this movie, but his humor and personality is great.  I think he also makes a spectacular villain.  People like to complain about Marvel having weak villains, but I do not count Ultron as one of them.

All in all, this movie is just great.  It might not have the inspiringly victorious ending of The Avengers, but it is still worthy.

By the way, we have been getting teased with Avengers Assemble for YEARS now.  If we don’t get Avengers Assemble in Endgame, I am going to hurt some people!

Also, No after credits scene?  What the hell, Joss?!?

So one small detail to get to before we leave phase 2.