As was talking while filming this video, I remembered that I had in fact read one previous volume featuring Kang the Conqueror. In fact, after consulting my old reviews, it looks like I had read two:
***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).
* Wow, these Marvel movies, huh? Every time they keep upping the ante. And every time I keep thinking they can't possibly pull it off. And yet they keep pulling it off.
* Related to the above point:
When I first heard that Marvel was doing a movie about all the heroes fighting Thanos, I thought, "Well, okay, but you can't possibly build an interesting story around that."
And then they went ahead and built an interesting story around it.
Not only that, but it's clear now that they've been setting up a lot of the pieces for this movie over their last several movies, in order to get all the characters to exactly the spots they needed to be for this movie to work.
It's quite clever really.
Often when I get out of a Hollywood movie, I think to myself, "Well, geez, I could have written that."
In this case, looking at all the clever set-ups and pay-offs that have cumulated in this movie, I'm thinking to myself, "I definitely couldn't have written this."
* The movie is almost all fight scenes, but to give credit where credit is due, the fight scenes are really awesome.
* Lots of fun seeing all these characters from different movies meet each other for the first time, and finally interact.
And as a comic book geek, one problem that I often noticed is that the more bizarrely powerful the heroes got, the more bizarrely powerful the villains had to get in order to make it interesting.
Particularly with team-up comics (like Teen Titans or Justice League) the combined power of the heroes is so powerful that they usually have to invent some sort of god-like villain in order to create any kind of stakes.
But the problem with an omnipotent villain is that :
1) the story quickly becomes pretty ridiculous, and
2) it creates all sorts of plot holes--mostly along the lines of "Well if he had the power to do that in one scene, why didn't he have the power to do it again in another scene."
Thanos is a classic example of this problem. A practically omnipotent villain, who acquires the power to alter reality, and travel through time.
I'm pretty sure that if you went through and analyzed this story carefully, it would be full of plot holes. Thanos's powers did not seem consistent from one scene to the next.
Mixed Bag
* So, no Hawkeye or Ant-Man in this movie, huh? Given all the other superheroes this movie was juggling, I hardly missed them. But still, I wonder why they didn't work in some sort of brief cameo for them? What do you suppose was the behind the scenes reason?
* So, we all know Spider-Man and Black Panther aren't really dead. Of course they're not dead, we all know that more Spider-Man and Black Panther movies are in production. So they can't be dead.
So that attempt to make us think they were dead is really kind of pathetic, isn't it?
I was tempted to put this in the negative column, but then eventually I decided that this wasn't really Marvel's fault. They can't really do anything about the fact that the big budget Hollywood movie machine is too much of a behemoth to keep anything secret.
It's a losing game trying to build tension about characters who we know have more franchise films coming out, but I guess I don't blame them for trying.
* Since this film ended on a cliff-hanger, full judgement on the success of this story will have to wait until part 2 comes out next year.
Obviously we know most of the superheros will be resurrected somehow (see the above point). But how? Will it be in a cheap cop-out way, or will it be in a way that feels authentic to the story?
And how far reaching will this resurrection be? Will characters that were killed earlier in the movie (like Loki or Gamora) also be resurrected?
Since it was already established in this movie that the infinity stones control the movement through time, I'm a bit worried the resolution will involve some sort of going back in time.
Generally I really hate the idea of going back in time to resolve plot points. (Exceptions can be made for movies where the whole premise is about going back in time to fix something--like Back to the Future. Then it's fair enough, because that's the premise. But if going back in time is just an addendum at the end of the movie, then I don't like it.)
9 out of 10 Stars--Quite possibly the best super hero movie ever. Certainly the most ambitious super hero movie ever. Close to 10 out of 10 stars, but it loses one star for 2 reasons--the godlike villain problem, and the cliffhanger ending.
...or, I suppose, the more relevant question is probably: "Why am I only seeing this movie now?"
I never made it to the theaters for this one. 2 years ago, when it came out, I was new in my city, and didn't have friends to go to the cinema with.
And if you don't see these big epics on the big screen, you've kind of missed your chance. I mean, what's the point of watching all these action scenes on the small screen?
This is more true now than it was in my childhood. The simple fight choreography of an Indiana Jones movie was perfectly watchable on the small screen. But nowadays CGI packs so many moving elements into an action sequence, it's almost impossible to appreciate on the small screen.
...That, plus the fact that this movie didn't get great reviews also kept me from running out and grabbing a copy.
But, since all these Marvel movies fight together, I knew I had to see it sooner or later.
Watching Civil War, it was apparent that I had missed out on several plot points from Age of Ultron. Also, I wanted to see where Thor and the Hulk had ended up before the new Thor movie hits theaters.
Like a lot of people, before this movie came out I was pessimistic about how well it would manage to successfully juggle all the balls that it needed to keep in the air. And, like a lot of people, I was pleasantly surprised to see that the movie pulled it off.
The first Avengers movie was juggling several characters and franchise continuity, but it still managed to actually be an entertaining movie on its own terms.
I suppose, in retrospect, it was too much to expect that lightening would strike twice. Because, oh boy oh boy, does The Age of Ultron ever NOT pull this off.
There are two many characters and plot points, and as a result, nothing gets developed the way it should.
The movie slogs from plot point to plot point, but gives the audience very little reason to care about anything.
Ultron himself is barely introduced, and then goes evil almost immediately for no really good reason.
The Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver also barely get developed.
And Vision! What is going on with Vision? Another character that gets created out of nowhere, has no time to get developed at all, and is just thrown right into the action sequences.
And then the movie tries to milk pathos out of Quicksilver's death, when we've barely been introduced to this character.
The pity is that the movie didn't need to introduce so many new characters. We didn't need Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch and Vision. We would have been happy just to spend more time seeing Iron-man, Thor, and Captain America interacting. (The movie does give us some good moments with the old characters, but not nearly enough).
The action scenes are decent. (Marvel has always excelled at its action). But this movie suffers by being the second outing of the Avengers. We already saw the Avengers fight an invading horde of faceless badguys in the first movie. It was kind of cool to see more fighting in the second movie, but it also got old much quicker. (And for my money, I thought the movie dragged on too long).
On the plus side:
* Admittedly that fight between Iron-Man and the Hulk was really cool.
Like a lot
of people, before this movie came out I was pessimistic about how well it would
manage to successfully juggle all the balls that it needed to keep in the
air. And, like a lot of people, I was pleasantly
surprised to see that the movie pulled it off.
Other than
that, I don’t have a lot to say. It
worked well as a streamlined story, and worked well as an action flick.
I do,
however, have a few notes:
Notes
* I’m about 18 months late in writing up this review, but I
originally saw this movie in the theaters, in the 3D release. The theatrical release of this film loses one
point for being in unnecessary 3D.
(Since 3D
has historically always come in fades—being popular for a few years, and then
disappearing again for a couple decades—I’ll be very glad when this current
fade ends. I’m getting sick of paying
inflated ticket prices for 3D glasses that have someone else’s fingerprints all
over them, and that keep sliding down my nose, and that give me a
headache. If the movie has some sort of
reason for being in 3D, like specific shots designed to take advantage of the
3D technology, I’ll forgive it. But if
it’s just blatantly in 3D for no reason at all other than to charge higher
ticket prices at the theater, then I’m not happy.)
* I originally saw this movie in the theater with a group of
friends. One of them, a girl, wasn’t a
big fan of extended action sequences, but before the movie started she said
hopefully: “I’ve heard this movie is alright actually. People say it’s really more of a comedy movie
than anything else, with just some action thrown in.”
After the
movie finished, I said to her, “Well, that movie was actually the reverse of
what you predicted, wasn’t it? It was
just one long action sequence, with occasionally a joke thrown in.”
She nodded,
with a tired look on her face.
As for me,
I like action movies. So if a movie is
just non-stop action (as this one pretty much was) it’s no problem for me. But let the viewer be warned ahead of time.
(I couldn’t
logically explain to anyone why I like action movies. I can’t even logically explain it to
myself. There must just be something
embedded in the male psyche that loves watching other people fight. So I’ll save the pseudo-psychology for
another blog post. All I can say for now
is that whatever the attraction is, it’s not unique to me, or even to my
generation. The history of world
literature is based off of a fascination with violence.)
*All that being said—boy, that huge fight at the end was
really cool!
* Mark Ruffalo did an excellent job as the Hulk,
but I’m disappointed Edward Norton wasn’t brought back for the role. Partly because of continuity reasons—it would
have tied The Hulk much tightly into
the Marvel cinematic universe if they would have used the same actor for the
role.
And, partly
I’m disappointed just because I’m a huge Ed Norton fan. For my money, he’s one of the best actors
around. Think how cool it would have
been to have Ed Norton playing against Robert Downey Jr. and the rest of the
cast in those airship scenes.
Of course,
I understand that in real life, when you’re juggling a huge franchise like
this, actors are going to drop out or become unavailable for some reason or another,
so to a certain extent replacing actors will become inevitable.
But that’s
not what happened here. Edward Norton
wanted to come back for this role, but the studio rejected him because
apparently he was difficult to work with.
In my
opinion, that was a big mistake.
* As a long time comic book fan, I think its
really cool that they’re finally trying to transpose the inter-connected world
of comic books into the medium of film.
It will be interesting to see how the franchise develops in the future.
