Avengers: Endgame

It's (Marvel) Clobbering Time
or
"Get Back What We Lost—Keep What I Got (Would Be Nice)—And Not Die Trying"

Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) said (in Avengers: Infinity War) that he had gone forward in time to see the outcome of the Avengers' battle with Thanos and that he saw 14,000,605 outcomes in which they lost and only one in which they survived.

When Marvel announced that their Avengers: Endgame would be just over 3 hours long, I thought, "Geez, do they have to show us ALL of them? Can't we just see the one?"

It turns out the one is enough to fill those 3 hours, but along with the idea of solving the problem of Thanos' grand scheme of culling 50% of the Universe's population—which takes relatively little time—it also has to reward movie-goers who have stayed through every frame of past Marvel Studios' films (starting with Iron Man in 2008) to give them what they want. 

Fan service takes a lot of time, it turns out.

There's a lot of that. "Fan service," I mean. There's a lot of call-backs, reflections, echoes, and cameo's—lots of cameo's—from past Marvel movies that they re-visit to give you that warm feeling that you're being rewarded for your recognition and thanked for your support throughout the whole, slow dissemination of the Thanos/"Infinity Stones" storyline.

And it has been a slow dissemination. My sister needed to know what movies to see in order to follow Endgame and I replied that she needed to see the Avengers series and the Captain America movies as essential (in this order: Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and finally The Avengers: Infinity War), but if she wanted "electives," then the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie and Dr. Strange (maybe Captain Marvel, but not really). And that is as close to spoilers as I'm going to vault. This movie, in particular, needs a bit of background to fully appreciate it.

But, I can say the movie picks up at a singular moment for one of the Avengers after the "Finger-snap Heard 'Round the Universe." The one Avenger we didn't see in Infinity War—Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has his little dust-up, and it sets him on a path of retribution and vengeance that attracts the attention of the remaining Avengers, although they stay out of it and away from him for the time being. There are other issues to take care of. Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) are marooned in space after leaving Titan following their disastrous encounter with Thanos, who is still out there...somewhere. And—lest we forget—Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) is still trapped in "the quantum realm."

And that...is all I will say about that.

I will, however say, that it goes in a completely different direction than I thought it would, thinking that Captain Marvel would play more of a role—she doesn't, but manages to be efficiently useful when the Deus' are Machina'd. Core Avengers are utilized with special emphasis on The Big Three: Downey's Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth's Thor and Chris Evans' Captain America. They are given considerably more screen-time to complete their character arcs.

And there actually are character arcs (which is why the movie ballooned to such a length). I'd groused that Infinity War was all desperate action, with little emotional resonance to it, save for the actual culling of the Universe at Thanos' left hand. Here, the emphasis is on that resonance and it gives all the actors a chance to strut their stuff rather than just furrowing their brows and assuming the position. It also separates itself from the Marvel Comic Universe by taking those characters places they just wouldn't and couldn't in the comics. I liked that.

And as good as all these performances are, I thought the acting kudo's should go to Jeremy Renner, who must serve as the audience's emotional touchstone, starting with the very first scene and to almost the very end. He is quite amazing in this.

If the movie suffers, it is from too many endings, all in the service of character, which is a worthy thing to do, especially in a superhero movie.

"Okay, how many of you have never been in space? Raise your hand."

Also, Endgame is a different Marvel movie as it is more reflective and nostalgic, looking back, rather than facing forward ("true believers") and serving as a launching point for the next one, it is a completion. For that reason, you have no need to sit through the entire end credits. There is no teaser, no preview, no dangling thread. I only wish I knew that before I sat through the entire thing.

I have quibbles—I always do. There's the "too many endings" issue, a large continuity problem, the disparate fire-power issue, a few cute lines that land with a thud (and are repeated), and Thor's hammer. I have an issue with Thor's hammer. But, that's probably just me.

"Hey, Cap, do you read me?...Cap, it's Sam, can you hear me?...On your left."

It's well-done with a lot of fine grace-notes, and a climax that is, frankly, thrilling to behold. It's quite an experience...and very, very satisfying.

Avengers: Infinity War

Getting the Stones
or
Playing the Marvel "Whose Contracts Are Up?" Game
or
"You're So Daaaark. Are You Sure You're Not from the DC Universe?"

Avengers: Infinity War is a bit brilliant in concept and a rather neat wrap-up to the first ten years of Marvel Universe movies. Directed by the Russo brothers who did the last two Captain America movies, it's a mash-up of characters and tropes from the various franchises, mixing and matching and trying to make combinations work, so much so that the directors are rather at a disadvantage in that they have to keep all the balls in the air rather than doing anything stylistically interesting. It has all the "by-the-numbers" feel of the first couple of Thor movies and the latter Iron Man films. From a directing standpoint, it's a big green-screen movie where folks have to do things fast and things don't linger much. There's very little "down" time to contemplate events. That's a big disservice if you're trying to create any sort of emotional resonance.

And, if you're a "tru-fan" of certain characters, don't expect to come away too happy walking out of the movie (but, then, a sequel will be coming out next year, so don't buy too many black clothes). But then, the DCMU killed off Superman and brought him back in the space of two movies (didn't do much for his career, though).

So, if you've been watching ANY of the Marvel Universe movies since...oh...Captain America: The First Avenger, when "the Tesseract" was introduced, you might be familiar with what Avengers: Infinity War is all about—you certainly are more "in-the-know" if you've stuck around, patiently (or obsessively) for all the post-movie previews jammed into the credits. That "Tesseract" contains one of six sacred stones of power—in this case, the "space" stone—and it's been curated in the "Thor" world of Asgard. There are five others, most of which have been tossed into the Marvel Movie Universe: the "mind" stone—formerly in Loki's scepter—merged with the super-android Vision (in Avengers: Age of Ultron); the green "time" stone (also known as "The Eye of Agamotto") provides Dr. Strange his time-warping powers; the "reality" stone (also known as "The Aether") showed up in Thor: The Dark World and has since been possessed by Benicio Del Toro's "Collector";  and the "power" stone was what Thanos was trying to get in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. There's a sixth stone—the "soul" stone (which might actually be the "Sly and the Family" stone) which we haven't seen yet, but it has been searched for by The Guardians' Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who also happens to be the daughter of Thanos (now played by Josh Brolin).

So...okay. More recently Asgard was destroyed (in Thor: Ragnarok) and all the Asgardians were being ferried to a new home on the Asgardian Ark (along with The Hulk—Mark Ruffalo, again—and Valkyrie)* By the time we've suffered through the brand new ultra-long Marvel Studios 10th Anniversary logo, we are aware that the ship is in distress.

Boy, howdy. Thanos has attacked the ship and torn it to shreds, looking for "the Tesseract" and after several confrontations with principal Asgardians and The Hulk (who all have their heads handed to them), he gets it and pops it into his little "Infinity Gauntlet," the most prominent one-gloved fashion statement since Michael Jackson left the planet. A couple of key Thor-mates are dispatched, but not before Hulk is sent spinning back to Earth.

Where he lands...smack-dab in New York (all things in the Marvel Universe lead to New York) in the middle of the Sanctum Santorum of Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), where he warns that Thanos is bad (real bad) and probably headed for Earth. Better get Tony Stark, Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) because...well, Robert Downey Jr.'s in all of these movies. Besides, what is Nick Fury (Samuel Jackson) going to do?** Glare at it? Only a few minutes behind Hulk—just enough time for Stark and Strange to eye each other and be mutually snarky (they're both the same guy, frankly, just in different fields), Thanos' bagel-ship arrives in New York creating havoc, and attracting the attention of Spider-man (Tom Holland)—his "Spidey-sense" is portrayed by the hairs on his arms standing on end—to escape a field-trip and join the fray.

"I don't know what it is, but it sure is bi...well, wait, it looks like a piston ring"

Thanos' troops kidnap Dr. Strange (he has one of the stones) and Spidey and iron-Man go to the rescue, and decidedly un-hulky Banner contacts Captain America (Chris Evans)...because Stark and Rogers had their falling-out in Civil War. Cap, Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) go to Scotland to help ward off attacks on the other stone-wilder, Vision (Paul Bettany) who is keeping a low profile with the Scarlet Witch (Elisabeth Olson).

Meanwhile, in space, the Guardians of the Galaxy (aw c'mon-you know all of them, do I have to put them ALL in here?***) hear a distress signal from the Asgardian Ark, and when they get there, run smack-dab into Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who has seen what Thanos can do and is determined to stop him from stealing the reality stone from "The Collector," in his "Knowhere"-land, but is determined to get a Thanos-sword to kill him. He recruits Rocket and Groot to take him to the planet Nidavellir, where his own hammer was once created. The other Guardians decide to travel to Knowhere to scout out what's happening to the stone (the answer: nothing good).

Back on Earth...in the States...Cap, Widow, Falcon, Banner, Vision, Witch, and Rhodey (Don Cheadle) join forces in dissing Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) and travel to Wakanda, the kingdom of Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) where they hope the advanced technology there can be used to remove the "mind" stone from Vision without killing him. Then, they can destroy the stone to prevent Thanos from achieving the ultimate power he craves...in order to "balance" the Universe.

Okay, so the entire Marvel Universe (with the exception of Ant-Man and Hawkeye) is spaced out around the movie, in little cluster-groups, trying to prevent Thanos' plan, which, so far doesn't look too promising for half the Universe. Thanos, it seems, is a bit of an environmental extremist as well as a sociopath. He believes that the Universe is limited in resources and can only support half the life that exists—he never sights any charts or field-studies, he just believes it. And so, his ultimate goal is to eliminate half of all life...with the snap of his fingers, and with all six sacred stones providing the bling in his "Infinity Gauntlet" he is capable of doing just such a thing.

Bad Thanos. VERY bad Thanos.

Which is where Avengers: Infinity War gets very interesting.

In these super-hero movies, there is the interesting dynamic between antagonists. You have heroes and villains splitting the attention of the viewer. It used to be that there would be an even match in the combatants, but that has changed as the number of these films have exploded.

The villain here, Thanos, is obsessed with balance, and the writers (here, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote the Captain America films and the lackluster Thor: The Dark World) of the superhero genre surely must sympathize, trying to create a challenge without overshadowing the challenged. It always seems the Joker gains more attention in the Batman movies—whether it's Jack Nicholson or Heath Ledger— When the villain is well-known, there's always that danger.  But, of late, especially as franchises get deeper in digits that the villains become more anonymous—Iron Man 3 tossed away a major villain, The Mandarin, as a joke, and one is hard-pressed to remember the villains of Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World or Captain America: Civil War, who came across as arrogant tall poppies in need of being cut down as quickly as possible.

But, in Infinity War, you can say that the heroes are given short-shrift, while the emphasis is on its hulking, committed villain, indeed of all the many characters in the film, he is the one filling the most screen-time. And, given that, he is the only one—so far—who has much of a story-arc. A villain in the mold of Richard III or MacBeth (with just a touch of Lear), his is the journey with the most interest and the most surprises. Rather than a mega-god of great power and not much else (see Justice League's Steppenwolf), his titan seeks his ultimate goal of culling the Universe, and triumphs—a lot—but also suffers—quite a bit. To win, he must lose, and his tragedy is that he chooses to throw away all that he cares about in seeking the power he craves and  the burden that he, alone, sees the need to take on.

He also seems to get some of the best lines in the film, which is tough to do in an Avengers movie. He's complex, smart, and maybe right, but wholly devoid of second-thought and emboldened by hubris. He's quite recognizable, and as portrayed by Josh Brolin, commands screen-attention, no matter how many stars in spandex vie for center-stage. It's the first time I can recall in a Marvel movie where the villain has upstaged the heroes.

Upstaging them is the least of his crimes. By the end, one wonders what one can do to solve the puzzle and undo the damage—if the intent is to undo it at all. Only the surety that money talks in Hollywood tells me that once the second still untitled movie comes along, things will be set right in their proper proportions. And there are certainly hints of what will happen, with unfulfilled story-promise and character relations featured prominently amidst the maelstrom. There are a couple well-used formulas (instead of "fourteen million six hundred and five") that might reverse things if I recall my comics past, and a gauntlet-ful of key characters that seem underutilized this go-'round that will probably come to the fore.

But, it's a very good, very enjoyable, if unsettling little entry, where one actually feels the stakes are high. 

And one hasn't felt that in the presence of the Marvel Universe in a very long time.

* First asterisk: And by now, your "Spidey-sense" should be tingling that this is a complicated movie. It is.

** I'll tell ya (SPOILER ALERT): He doesn't show up until the movie's credit tag.

*** Okay Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, David Bautista, Pom Klementioff, and the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel.

Countdown to Avengers: Age of Ultron—Captain America

The latest "Avengers" movie comes out on May first.  

For this month of Fridays before the premiere, we'll be re-running reviews of the movies that formed the stepping stones for this latest one, including this very integral part of the team—even though the Marvel Comics Group chose him to be put him into a feature film last. Maybe itt's because the character has had  a long jingoistic streak about him. Maybe it's because a character that is so star-spangled and patriotic might not "play" well in foreign countries (I mean "play" with foreign audiences, that's not a political statement—although it certainly could be one). 

He's the one Marvel character that dates back to the "Golden Age of Comics" in the 1940's and, so, had to be handled "just so" for him to be accepted by modern audiences. He is the nation's super-soldier: Captain America.

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"When Captain America Throws His Mighty Shiiiield..."  (KLANG!)
or
"Yeah, I've Knocked Adolf Hitler Out Over 200 Times."

This is the one that needed to work.

It all hinges on this one and it would be a tough fight.  Captain America is the one Marvel A-lister who has seemed to defy the switch to other media. There were the '60's cartoons—basically limited-animation panels from the comics—a bad '90's film, a serial film, a couple of lousy TV movies. Next year's The Avengers extravaganza depends on the character, so this is the one to be nervous about.

"Cap" is Marvel's version of Superman, a Big Blue Boy Scout, but like DC's Big Guy, it's tough to write for him—the fight always has to come to him and a lot of the time he plays defense, he has no motivation other than an altruistic manner, and he's seemingly unstoppable, meaning the villains have to be more elaborate and more interesting than he is. Like Superman, the character is often changed—costume, identity, or even, when all else fails...killed. Up until this time, the few live-action CA interpretations have seemed like shielded "Six Million Dollar Man" episodes, cheap and stunted. It's tough to replicate the dramatic moves the character pulls in the comics (he's usually shown in mid-move, suspended, too) as opposed to Spider-man.  Captain America: The First Avenger has to work.

It does.  Like gangbusters.

Director Joe Johnston has been down this road before—he directed The Rocketeer, another WWII-era superhero flick, after all—but he's never made a film as good as this one (he made The Wolfman last year). CA:TFA takes the story back to its comic-book origin roots when it was created by street-wise kids Joe Simon* and Jack Kirby—fighting Nazi's and flying colors. At the same time, it pays affectionate tribute to past Cap incarnations, while delivering the action goods in a neat retro-futuristic environment, a bit like what Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow should have been.** 

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is a 98 pound Brooklynite weakling (such things do exist, I've heard), who wants to join the Army and is constantly turned down for any number of good reasons and envious of his pal James "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan) who's off to fight in the European Theater with the 107th. In a note that ties in with locations from the Iron Man movies, Rogers goes to the New York World's Fair on a double-date with Bucky, and his G.I. "jones" is noticed by Dr. Erskine (Stanley Tucci), who gets the kid a hitch, and as a washout in training, signs him up for a "super-soldier" program that Hitler was very interested in before Erskine fled Germany. Meanwhile, half a world away, one of Erskine's test-subjects Johann Schmidt (Hugo Weaving) is blitz-krieging around the world looking for ancient artifacts, ostensibly to help with Germany's war-effort, but secretly to gain ultimate power to form his own Reich, with his science group, Hydra.  Erskine's experiments on Schmidt have drastically disfigured him, but for Rogers, the attempts are a stunning success. 

Rogers wants to fight, but the government instead presses him into service as a war-bonds spokesman, as "Captain America," which goes over well at home, but is a joke to the soldiers on the line. Under the auspices of Colonel Chester Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones, who laconically nearly walks away with the movie) and Major Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell, plucky—she doesn't blink when she fires a gun), Rogers goes against orders and inserts himself into the fight, rescuing a squad of Hydra prisoners, including his pal Bucky and a motley crew of dog-faces familiar to anyone who's read the comics.

She doesn't blink...

The sight of The Howling Commandos brought a big smile to my face, but even without them, Johnston makes a fun, goofy film, with some nice war action mixed in with well-done super-hero antics, and shot along the lines of a film Johnston story-boarded early in his career, Raiders of the Lost Ark (with the occasional nod to Leni Riefenstahl). Johnston does some nice movie cross-referencing by making the character of Howard Stark, very Howard Hughes-like after his own The Rocketeer, and casting Dominic Cooper in the part, often resembling Leonardo DiCaprio from The Aviator. Chris Evans, who plays Steve Rogers, is a good funny actor, but he's tamped down here, playing everything completely straight and without irony, very much the Boy Scout. This is one of the better Marvel movies, and one of the better superhero movies to come out, as well.

Cap shields the Howling Commando's

As with the other Marvel films, stick around until after the credits for a big surprise, that will whet your appetite for next year. "Some assembly required."  Heh.

Wilhelm Alert @ 01:33

Cap finds he's entered a brave new world

*  As Stan Lee has his customary cameo in this film (he's good, too) it would have been nice—really nice—if Cap's REAL creator was included in the film. The legendary Jack Kirby died in 1994. Joe Simon died in 2011, long enough to see his co-creation hit the big screen and become a hit.

** It's a combination of Kirby-esque pod-forms, more suited for the 1960's, and lo-tech '40's dials and toggles (which spit sparks in duress), and my favorite joke in the film is the non-LED (not invented yet) countdown indicators used in the Red Skull's lab—as any timed pyro-technician will tell you, the only reason to have such a device is to build suspense in movie audiences.

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Fighting the Past By S.H.I.E.L.D.ing the Present
or
By the Banks of the Ol' Watergate

The new "Captain America" movie out of Marvel Studios and Disney, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the first post-Avengers sequel that amounts to anything, or even attempts to do something of any significance beyond marking time, or being a tentpole-placeholder until the next group assemblage movie comes along.* But, instead of paying lip-service to The Avengers, or pinging off it, the new Cap movie largely ignores it and sets out on its own path, with a story that is very much associated with the first film, while not being dependent on it, for those who are just now joining the story. It's a neat little bit of story-gymnastics that would rival any of the stunt sequences of this movie, of which there are many and varied (some of which work and some of which are visual noise).

What makes Captain America (as jingoistic a character as there's been) unique, and, surprisingly, the most interesting of the Marvel film characters is his "other-ness." More so than the hipster Tony Stark, or the bland bulk of Thor, Captain America is a product of his time, which was World War II, when ideals were different.  Back then, there was a palpable belief in country, in government, in sacrifice, and in "doing the right thing." Steve "Captain America" Rogers has missed a lot of history while he was frozen in time and arctic ice. The first movie (The First Avenger) ended with his first glimpse of the brave new world he'd thawed into. The Avengers made use of his post-WWII ignorance, contrasting him with Stark's cynicism and making laughs out of his pop-culture ignorance ("Flying monkeys? I understand that reference," he says at one point). He's still a stranger in a strange land, but he's learning; in this movie, he carries a notebook for jotting down things he's missed and wants to investigate (see below).

Rogers (Chris Evans) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson)
peer at something they don't like.

He needs to fill in a lot of gaps or else he'd wonder why the Triskelion—the headquarters of the National Security Agency S.H.I.E.L.D.—is located so close to the Watergate Hotel. After a brief jaunt around Washington D.C., Rogers (Chris Evans) and a clutch of SHIELD operatives (including The Black Widow—Natasha Romanoff, played by Scarlett Johansson) are called on a rescue mission for a hijacked ship. It becomes apparent after the pirates are taken down, that there's more to the mission than meets the one eye of SHIELD head Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson, given a lot to do here). This leads to a tense stand-off between Fury and Rogers over a SHIELD project called "Insight," utilizing those flying battleships from The Avengers for some very high-level surveillance and attack capabilities. Rogers is aghast at the ships' annihilative first-strike capabilities, and reminds Fury that back in his day, he fought for freedom. "This isn't freedom," he says with no fashionable mock irony."This is fear."

"And this is a big ol' plane chasing you..."

The man behind the initiative is Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford, relaxed and as low-key as he's been in years), and when Fury is taken out of action by a coordinated attack, he goes on the offensive, suspecting that Rogers, who appears to be tight-lipped about it, may be behind it and has gone rogue. He starts his own ironic "war on America" to stop Rogers, Romanoff, and a new ally, vet Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), aka "The Falcon," who go their own way to get to the bottom of the attack on Fury, and find the answers go back to old enemies...and old friends.

There's something unnerving...and vaguely thrilling..about seeing
Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Redford playing scenes together.

Of course, they do. It's bold to see the second chapter of the Captain America trilogy go so far as to re-shape so much bedrock in the Marvel movie Universe, and move so quickly to make Cap so much culturally removed from our times, but morally apart, as well. It simultaneously makes the character more of a rebel (the way we like our superheroes in movies, it seems) and more exemplary of a hero in the traditional role of a "big blue boy-scout."

That's a big leap to make. Also, a big leap is that the movie seems to revolve around the trope that "Nobody dies in comic books...ever"...and fairly consistently. One expects a cameo from Tommy Lee Jones at any moment (which doesn't happen).

"Woopsy." Shield-throwing works not so much...

The title refers to another rogue agent—The Winter Soldier—who crops up and is seemingly indestructible in a fight. He's this movie's "player on the other side" sharing more with the Captain than separates them—both are super-fast, are physically enhanced and have an indestructible metal component (Cap, his shield; the soldier his left arm) that are their "go-to" secret weapons when things get dicey—the type that, if they weren't on opposing sides and trying to kill each other, in another reality they might have been friends.

Clang!  Metal shield against metal arm.
These guys have a lot in common.

But, they're not friends now and the frequent clashes pose a challenge to the new directors Anthony and Joe Russo (they're mostly known for working on the TV show "Community" and the comedy You, Me and Dupree). So far, the heroics of Captain America have been visually limited—Joe Johnston and Joss Whedon had him running over vehicles a lot—but the gymnastics are more convoluted, both in action and in the way they're portrayed. The Russo's use every trick in the book (the occasional long shot, but mostly tight compositions, sometimes with every move having its own shot and angle, and edited in different ways, sometimes employing frame-skipping). Sometimes it works, but often there's a lack of perspective, so you have no idea how the war is going, so focused as they are on individual hit-points. One wishes that Johnston, who brought a sure directorial hand to the first film, could have been coaxed back for this one.

Stay to the end of the credits and you'll see not one, but two Easter egg sequences: the first, setting up two new members of "The Avengers," the other foreshadowing the confrontation for the third Captain America movie, which will be playing "super-chicken" in a couple years time with the Superman/Batman (and Wonder Woman) movie.

Two of the little jokes in CA: TWS—Nick Fury's tombstone has a familiar Bible quote in its pulp; Steve Rogers keeps a notebook of stuff he needs to catch up on.

* As opposed to Iron Man 3, which probably shouldn't have happened, and Thor: The Dark World, which was only a bit better than its first movie.

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