***SPOILERS***
I'm 2 weeks late on this because it's a lot harder to make it to the cinema after having a baby. But the wife's sister agreed to watch the baby for one afternoon so we could watch this.
I do genuinely enjoy these movies, but they've also begun to feel a bit like an obligation. It feels like you absolutely HAVE to make a trip to the theater to see this, or you're missing out on an important cultural milestone.
I do also wonder at what age I'm going to become too old for dumb superhero movies. I mean, here I am, 41 years old, and still planning my day around seeing a superhero movie. Should I have stopped watching these 10 years ago, or has the culture shifted so that these are now acceptable for adults?
At any rate, after some 20 movies watched, I feel like it's too late to back out now. At this point I have to watch this one to see how it all ties together.
Actually to give credit where credit is due, whatever else you want to say about these movies, they are not "dumb superhero" movies. The plotting and continuity off these movies has become complex enough that at this point, I have to admit the people making these movies are a lot smarter than I am. They're juggling a lot of characters, and a lot of story-arcs here, but they manage to do justice to them all. And they throw in a some interesting plot twists and subverted expectations.
We've also reached a point where the convoluted continuity of comic book characters (which used to be something only geeks cared about), has now become mainstream. Pity the poor person who tries to watch this movie without a detailed understanding of the previous 20 movies before it. This movie is chalked full of Easter eggs and references to previous movies. (My sister-in-law got dragged to this movie by her boyfriend, and didn't understand anything that was going on.)
Me? I've always been a geek, so I eat this kind of stuff up. I loved all the call-backs, references, and continuity nods to previous movies.
There were a few plot twists in this movie that I thought were very clever and some of which took me off guard. Kudos to the writers--there's some really clever plotting and set-up and pay-off things going on here--which is difficult considering how many characters they're juggling.
I also really enjoyed the humor in this movie. (I thought that whole fat Thor thing was the funniest thing ever.)
The action scenes were decent--I liked the battle between Thanos and Thor/Captain America/ Iron Man.
The big battle at the end was well-done also. Although this is (by my count) the 4th Avengers movie that has ended with a big battle against an invading horde. I guess if you're going to bring all the Avengers together into one movie, then you need to have something big for them to fight. But too much of this could get tiring quickly. (I'm happy to wait a few years before the next movie that has the Avengers battling a huge space army).
Rating:
8 out of 10 Stars.
Marvel Cinematic Universe Reviews Links
1. Iron Man
2. The Incredible Hulk
3. Iron Man 2
4. Thor
5. Captain America: The First Avenger
6. The Avengers
7. Iron Man 3
8. Thor 2: Dark World
9. Captain America 2: Winter Soldier
10. Guardians of the Galaxy
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron
12. Ant-Man
13. Captain America 3: Civil War
14. Doctor Strange--Haven't seen yet
15. Guardians of the Galaxy 2
16. Spider-Man: Homecoming
17. Thor: Ragnarok
18: Black Panther
19. Avengers: Infinity War
20. Ant-Man and the Wasp ,
21. Captain Marvel--Haven't seen yet
Video Review HERE and embedded below
Link of the Day
Glad you and the wife were able to skip out and have some fun at the movies, Joel. It remains to be seen if I devote any time to this movie -- I haven't seen the two earlier installments yet, and I can't say I'm much motivated to devoting, what?, 12 hours of my life to the job of catching up? I piss away that time on other matters, but there you go.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I thought Chris Pratt's clandestine on-set video was VERY charming. It's almost enough to nudge me to catch up.
I agree that keeping up with these Marvel movies has almost become a chore. (And assuming that there must be thousands of people like you who dropped out along the way, it's amazing the series is still as marketable as it is. But it must be in danger of collapsing now, right? Surely?)
ReplyDeleteAlthough to be fair, catching up on the last 6 movies aren't entirely without its pleasures. Spiderman Homecoming managed to capture a lot of the high school drama of the original 1960s Spiderman. Thor Ragnarok managed to make a really funny movie out of the unlikely pairing of Thor and the Hulk. And totally re-invented Thor. Avengers Infinity War was masterfully plotted--both internally within the movie, and externally as the culmination of several other movies (it became apparent at the beginning of Infinity War just what a great job the writers had done of putting all their pieces in exactly the right position over the previous several movies).
The problem, though, is that all of these movies always end with a big fight scene. Which makes them a bit repetitive after a while.