The
structure for me was very tiring. Thanos goes from place to place, has a fight
and wins a stone. The action becomes draining fairly early on and I don’t
think any of the action scenes were as good as the airport fight in Civil
War. And another climactic fight in Wakunda so soon (though to be fair I
know this was more due to the scheduling but man!)!? There has been
some chatter about cross-cutting making this movie more exciting had it been
utilized. I say some because it does seem like most people are very
pleased with it. I agree this would definitely help, especially in
the last half where it does just feel like one loooong fight followed by
another with a looong break of Thor building an axe. I get that with
the structure of him finding one stone at a time it almost has to unfold this
way but the scenes just feel splayed out and sometimes endless. But,
again, this problem likely stems from my foundational issue.
Regarding the cast and our band of heroes I now see that every major
character with time is going to be made to be another Iron Man. With
Stark, Dr. Strange, Star Lord, War Machine (when she shows up), and now Thor
and even Bruce Banner we now have a team of middle aged men all trying to outdo
one another with the jokes. Every male character now must be modeled
after Robert Downey Jr’s portrayal. I’m sure with time (probably not much
time) Black Panther will just be another yuckster and the ever bland Winter
Soldier will be cracking wise left and right. This is especially
disappointing to me with Hulk as this is a character that can and does often
carry with him a lot of pathos but now he is just YET ANOTHER punchline.
I get it. Iron Man is popular. He has to appear in nearly every movie but
does every character have to turn into him?! I see this as yet
another unsatisfying adherence to formula. I also think Downey Jr.
and a couple others appear increasingly bored with each film and despite his
paychecks getting larger he is lending out ever smaller chunks of charisma with
each new film. I’m ready for him to be gone and part of that is
because there is nothing left in his story at all to keep me interested (I
would ask again what his or anyone’s story even means in this movie, like a
continued cast member on a show who has nothing left to do but they have a
contract so...) but I know that if/when he leaves there are now several Stark
clones waiting to take his spot.
I guess in the end I ultimately found this movie to be very…hollow.
It’s a difficult thing to review. It comes and goes the team loses until
the next movie and that’s it. It would
be almost impossible for this to stand on it’s own unless all someone wanted
was a lot of whiz-bang action. There were some things I like so I
will go into this now before returning to another issue.
I liked Dr. Strange more here than I did in his solo movie so maybe I can
appreciate him better when he’s part of a team rather than having to carry the
whole story. I still don’t like his cape and it always makes me think of
Aladdin’s Carpet or one of those talking inanimate objects from Beauty and the
Beast. Maybe that’s the point?
The Red
Skull cameo was neat and I liked that whole scene. Gamora does look
a tad foolish when she’s rubbing in Thanos’ face that he doesn’t love anything
only to realize the truth a second before being pitched off the cliff.
BUT it’s still a strong scene. And there is a nice little artistic
flourish at the end after he snaps his fingers and sees her as a little girl
and she asks what his victory cost him. That actually might be my
favorite moment in the movie.
CGI is not something I really care too much about unless its Sci-Fi
Channel level bad. All superhero movies have a combination of good and
bad CGI (including this one) but there are certain scenes where Thanos looks
fantastic and the detail on his face is often very impressive. I love his
color too. He is overall a great visual.
And overall
I do like Thanos and he is easily one of the best villains in the Marvel
cinematic universe (not a tall hurdle to clear but I am genuine in this
compliment). I still think Killmonger is quite a bit better and I
probably like Vulture more too (could be the Keats factor but I think his
motivation and character are clearer) so I’d probably put Thanos
third. His motivation is...interesting but I would again return to
asking what any of it means thematically and wish they could spend more than 5
minutes on that sort of thing and take out some of the fighting. An
argument could be made that his plot is reflected in and fleshed out by the
loss the Avengers are experiencing but that is badly undermined by the
knowledge that they’ll all be coming back. BUT as a big threat to
this team he works and Josh Brolin is able to do a surprising amount of acting
(probably the most of any actor in this movie) under all that CGI. I
think I’ve seen enough him though so I hope that he is more fleshed out if he’s
going to take up equal screen time next year. I also did like his
story/history with Gamora. Similar to Black Panther, I kept seeing
glimpses of how great that story could be if it were it allowed the time to
shine and explored but (for me) those things are undermined by the necessity of
adhering to the house style.
Captain America continues to be BY FAR my favorite character in the Marvel
movies. A huge chunk of that is likely because he is one of the remaining
few male main characters who hasn’t been turned into another jokey Stark
clone. He has his humorous moments but they come from a different sort of
angle which I appreciate. I also just love how forthright and genuine he
is (I think DC needs to take a cue from him on how to more properly write
Superman in their movies). And I did love how he was momentarily able to
hold off Thanos through his sheer will and heroism at the end there! Cap
is given almost nothing to do in this movie (and I do think Chris Evans – like
Robert Downey Jr. – looks increasing bored with each successive film) but that
moment was probably my second favorite.
Tom Holland did do well in Spider-Man’s death scene. I think
part of the reason it stood out is it was one of the few times any actor in
this movie had to do something other than look stern. He continues
to be a very likable presence. I don’t
like his Iron Man Spider suit. I didn’t
like it in the comics either where it was introduced in Civil War. Why doesn’t Tony just give everyone an Iron
suit?!
There was some nice subtle displays of each of the stone’s individual
powers.
I’m not a big Guardians fan and I never saw part 2 but Drax is funny
here. And Rubberband Man by the Spinners is a great song.
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