Saw it last night. Overall, I liked it. No surprise there, I went in wanting to like it, and for the most part it delivered. Lots of sad moments throughout, some good nods to the fans. The whole fat Thor arc I could have missed, and if you need to pee at some point, I highly recommend doing so whenever Thor is on screen. It was just lame. I was disappointed that Captain Marvel wasn’t in the film more…it was kind of weird when she shows up then rolls back out, going off to save other planets because they don’t have a few dysfunctional and obviously PTSD Avengers about.
My suspension of disbelief was nearly shattered (and mind, this is after the whole time travel thingy) when they brought everyone back after 5 years of everyone being gone (I presume they brought all the plants and animals back too) and the world just worked. I mean…huh?
But, it was still a really good movie. I laughed. I cried. I was drawn in. There were lame parts, and it was freaking long, but overall…I give it an 8 out of 10 and it’s a good ending of this arc of the franchise. Hope they have some good plans for the future movies.
Saw it, loved it. It’s an incredible achievement of storytelling over 22 movies.
Things I loved:
Thanos dying in the first 15 minutes
The team structure of trying to secure all of the stones
The character send offs all felt earned
In general characters didn’t seem superfluous
Cap and Mjolnor
Characters getting closure in the past
Obligatory gripes:
Rules about who’s powerful enough to wield a stone are flexible
Thanos is as tough as he needs to be for the scene, whatever that may be
Tertiary characters showing up for the main battle. At some point people without superpowers should just be replaced with army infantry, right?
This time travel is far too easy. All future movies will just be like, let’s get some Pym juice and fix this
Capt Marvel wasn’t necessary and can fly through all the ships but can’t punch Thanos. They went too far with her powers too soon and clearly didn’t know what to do with them
Still, I felt very satisfied walking out of the theater. Well done, Marvel
Yeah, so that was absolutely amazing and is the first time in a long time that I thought, “Wow, this is a classic movie,” right while I’m seeing it. Great movie.
Pairing this with Infinity War makes for an absolutely amazing superhero saga.
10/10
They actually delivered. Studios can make great movies sometimes.
Yeah, the Infinity War timeline Gamora is dead. The Gamora that is alive today is one from the first Avenger movie timeline, so before the original Guardian’s movie. That was an interesting choice. They didn’t really mention Loki, so I suppose it’s vaguely possible he’s still alive, though all those theories about him being the Hulk are obviously busted.
They have pym particles. So prime age Rogers can be recalled if and when needed.
Tony is gone.
Vision was a product of the stone, gone
Nat is alien microbe food.
Gamora is gone too, for all intents and purposes.
Quite a small body count in retrospect.
Things I liked:
-Time travel heist
-Elegaic beginning
-Acting and humor (as usual)
-Satisfying overall arcs, many of them years in the making
-Clint-and-Nat having the most backwards-motivated cliff edge fight ever. Hilarious yet also super touching.
Things I didn’t like:
-Women-team-up scene. Granted, as a man, I risk coming off like one of those guys who hated the new Ghostbusters remake. And I don’t think it’s that at all. I just didn’t make any sense at all. How did all those women gather in the middle of an enormous battle at the same moment? Why wouldn’t any male heroes help? I’m very curious to hear what women viewers an fans thought of the scene.
-Comically variable power level for various characters, particularly Thanos and Captain Marvel. So she can fly all the way through a spaceship, but still loses to him in a punching match? And Thanos is always just strong enough to barely beat whoever he’s fighting, no matter who it is?
-Big battle scene at the end was fun, but even more of an overstuffed mess than normal. Particularly lots of the stuff with Cap and Thor and hammer and axe and shield, I just couldn’t keep track of what was happening. Also it took me forever to realize that the female Iron Man was Pepper. Also, literally no important character was injured in the massive war? Seems like a few of the c-listers (bucky or valkyrie or wasp or something) could have died to make it all feel more real and add stakes.
-How did Tony steal all 6 stones, and how did he use them? I would have loved to find out that Dr. Strange had told him “hey, when you build an infinity gauntlet, make sure to add in a little nanotech back door that lets you steal all the functionality onto your glove” or something. But without that, it just seems a bit out of nowhere that he was able to first pull of some insane pickpocketing and then use them without any prep.
-Related, I felt like there wasn’t much payoff for the whole business with Stark and Strange and one chance in 14 million from the previous movie. So… what would have happened if Strange hadn’t given up the time stone. Still no snap, right?
Random questions:
-Does anyone remember what happened to Cap’s original vibranium shield? Is it either the one that got shredded while fighting Thanos or the one he gives to Sam at the end?
-I’m skeptical of Sam as the new Cap. The character is fine, but has never struck me as sufficiently compelling to really anchor a franchise. But, Marvel has surprised me before, so…
-Interesting that two of the characters who we thought were DEFINITELY dead after Infinity War (Loki and Gamora) are, in some sense, “back”.
-So I guess a Black Widow standalone movie will have to be a prequel now?
-Not sure how I feel about lack of a post-credits scene. On the one hand, I like the symbolism of “this is the end of a story, we have nothing left to tease”. On the other hand, they had to know that everyone is hanging around, bladders full, waiting, and will feel a bit let down. They easily could have had something simple and sweet and epilogue-ish. Maybe Cap and Peggy dancing could have been post-credits?
-At Tony’s funeral, as the camera panned over everyone, near the back of the crowd was a young (teenage?) man with puffy white hair. Who was that? Someone I should have recognized?
-I’ll have to watch on Netflix or the equivalent at some point with subtitles on, I felt like there were a fair number of jokes that I missed due to crowd noise and muffled dialog.
I liked it, but less than Infinity War. Whereas that one felt very well plotted and paced, this one a bit less so. But it definitely had a lot of great moments - even if some were arguably a bit too fan-wanky, it’s also the culmination of 20+ movies so I think it gets some extra leeway in that regard. I admittedly teared up during Tony’s funeral. Really the end of an era.
Killing off Thanos and doing a ‘time heist’ (we knew time travel would be involved, but didn’t expect this way!) were surprises. But I also think it undermined things a wee bit… I didn’t feel like 2014 Thanos had the same emotional heft to him, and he just felt like a generic big bad in this one. Part of me wonders what it would’ve been to see a movie where Thanos was left alive at the beginning, maybe focus on the repercussions more, maybe even have people wondered if Thanos was right or not. Heck you could even have Thanos himself change his mind at the end. I dunno. As awesome as the ‘everyone comes back’ scene was, I think I’ve seen enough giant army battles in superhero movies to tide me over for a long while.
I was definitely surprised by how little Captain Marvel was involved in the movie. It almost felt to me like the script was done before and then the higher-ups said “hey we’re gonna do a Captain Marvel movie before Endgame, fit her in.”
Yeah, I’m always hesitant to comment on stuff like this because I fear coming off as a misogynist (or invite the inevitable “it’s not for you!”, but I thought that scene was eye-rolling. As you said, it didn’t make sense in terms of the battle (as they’d likely all be off with their own groups). Felt like pandering to me.
Kinda saw it coming because it happened in the comics, but Falcon is much more an established character and it worked quite well. Here, I agree, MCU Falcon is kinda forgettable. I think they really needed one more Avengers movie after Age of Ultron and before Civil War to give Falcon, Scarlet Witch and Vision time to shine.
Assuming we’re thinking of the same person, it’s the kid from Iron Man 3.
How did they get the tesseract back from escaped Loki? He poofed off and I didn’t see how they got the stone once that happened.
I think we’ll see Vision and Loki again. Heck - I think we’ll see them all. We get Gamora back through shenanigans. No reason more shenanigans can’t come into play.
I read some of the criticisms of this moment before I saw the movie and took it as whining. Once I saw it though, I have to agree. It felt forced. Having strong women in the fight was enough of a statement.
That’s when they decided to use their remaining ‘return’ particle to go even farther back, this time to the 70’s. They got the tesseract and more Pym particles all at once.
Just got back from a late showing. Still processing and I definitely have some mixed feelings on it. My one impression that I formed during act two…this was basically the Seinfeld Finale in capes and tights.
Broadly speaking I think Marvel is doing a little too much fan service and they are overdoing it with the silly jokiness of these movies. But that said, I still had fun and there were some terrific moments. I don’t think this will be in my top 5 of MCU films, maybe not top 10. IW was certainly a better movie in most regards.
Will probably be back with more specific thoughts after I get a nights sleep.
+1
Absense of brooding Cap. It worked well in Winter Soldier. Not elsewhere.
Hating the new Ghostbusters film is what normal well adjusted people do. It sucked and despite having a steller cast. An accomplishment on it own
It was gratuitious. And clearly pandering. Don’t get me wrong, I like most of the characters, but that was telegraphed and forced wokeness.
I think the issue was that the first punch, Danvers was expecting and braced herself. She did not see the second punch, and how more power there was.
Agreed about being difficult to follow. But the three main Avengers fights with Thanos were quite clear. Wish some second line characters had bought it though.
Tony made the second guantlet, the one Bruce used for the unsnappening. Stands to reason he made a second one and or transferred some of its tech to his standard glove. He was seen trying to remove the gauntlet from Thanos. We saw the stones are just set in it, nothingelse is holding them in, besides gravity and friction. No doubt Tony’s version had the slots come in with their own magnetism, which he triggered.
From what I understood, Sherlock no 1 did not see just one senario where they “won”, he saw millions until they won one. Guessing he realised that keeping the stones away from Thanos would be irrelevant. Remember during the battle, he is hokding back a tidal wave and suddenly a look of realization comes into his head, and he signals to Sherlock No 2 that this is the timeline he was talking about.
Neither. That shield was damaged in his defeat of Tony in Civil War.
He is getting the shield and the responsibillity. Not the actual title. They had the pym particles, the quantum generator. If they really need Cap back, they can just go and get him from 1948.
Yup.
Or cancelled, hopefully.
No problem. Most films, as the credit rolls, sees people typing* “does xyz have a post credits scene”*into their smartphones anyway.
Kid from IronMan3 was there. The only one with puffy white hair were Dr and Mrs Pym. Cannot recall any young man with that description.
No more than a hundred other moments in the rest of the MCU movies. I liked it, I didn’t care if it was forced or over-the-top. It’s a comic book film, it’s what they do.
I couldn’t disagree more with those poo-poo-ing the all women fighting force coming together bit.
Pandering? I don’t go that far. Giving the audience what it wants is more like it; call that pandering if you must. Listen, in this day and age its a well put thoughtful message, not just for young women, but for everyone and when it occurred in the movie, I recognized it immediately for what it was and smiled broadly. I loved it. As for why would they all happen to come together in the middle of a gigantic, epic battle? Comic books, that’s why. This movie featured Quantum zones, time travel, aliens, Norse gods, talking raccoons and trees, and about a million other impossible things so I can look past a little logistical issue as it relates to unit cohesion.
My headcanon — which I admit I can’t back up, except to say that AFAICT it fits, and that I can’t readily come up with anything else — is, well, remember Doc’s best trick from his own movie? You know, the bit where he said he’d come to bargain, and Dormammu killed him, and time looped back to Doc saying he’d come to bargain, and then an iffy Dormammu killed him again, and then time looped back around, and then a genuinely-freaked-out Dormammu asked for exposition before killing Doc over and over and over before giving up his plans to conquer Earth? Since it’s better to rule over his own realm than keep doing this until Doc’s willpower gives out, Dormammu’s willpower gave out first?
But suppose that Thanos is never going to give up; that, in every scanned future, his willpower is unrelenting. So suppose, too, that Doc had the ‘looping’ defense up in INFINITY WAR (because, well, why wouldn’t he?), which would explain why Doc is so breezily confident that Ebony Maw won’t get the Stone off him (since Doc says Maw flatly can’t break the spell on it, and Maw says he can always just take the Stone off Doc’s dead body, and then that just sort of — doesn’t happen). But while Doc’s will maybe dwarfs Maw’s, there’s ultimately no chance of outlasting Thanos.
That’s a lot of supposing, but plug it all in and see if it works.
…yep. No more forced than this scene. Look! Nearly all men! Pandering!
Its taken this long for there even to be enough women heroes to be able to have that many heroes onscreen a the same time. If you are asking the question “why are all the female heroes in one place at one time” did you happen to notice in how many Marvel movies the team-ups were almost exclusively men? That scene got a big “hell yeah!” out of me.
