#not really spoiler: thanos and his team are basically apophan and his cult

[lightandwinged]

So I saw The Movie. Spoilers--good, bad (or neutral), and ugly--below. Spoiler-free: not as good as the first Avengers, but better by far than AoU. 

The Good

This film made me even more furious with Joss Whedon, solely because it proves that the problems in AoU were of his own making, namely his inability to handle too many characters and therefore incompetence when it comes to a film of this type. The Russo brothers took a very smart approach to this, in that they knew they couldn’t take the time to give all of the good guys the characterization they’d have gotten in a film with a smaller cast, so they basically made Thanos the main character, which is really what should’ve happened with Ultron but inexplicably did not happen. 

And man, what a joy Thanos is as a character. So many superhero villains are so kind of... one dimensional, tbh. Or not one dimensional, but rather, they seem to have an understanding that what they’re doing is evil or, if they don’t have that understanding, a lack of real conviction. They’re nascent Sith, in a sense, running on either the sheer joy of being cruel or on a heightened desire for vengeance. They can be a lot of fun, don’t get me wrong, but they seem, for lack of a better word, like cartoon villains. 

They’re fun, like I said, and the world is full of people who are just... evil for the sake of being evil (as we’ve found out in the last ~2+ years more than a lot of us realized, I think), but they get tired when they’re the villain of everything. Chaotic Evil, in other words, gets less compelling when it’s all you see. It becomes the same person with a different mask, 9/10 times, which I’m sure contributes a lot to superhero movie fatigue. 

Thanos, though, I enjoyed because he was 100% convinced that what he was doing was for the good of the universe. Ultron was trying to go there, I think, but Whedon handled it with about as much delicacy as a bull in a china shop (Ultron is mostly redeemed by his being played by James Spader, who is a delight at all times, but that also ends up being his downfall because you get the feeling that he’s winking at the audience the entire time... “I’m saying this with conviction, but here’s a quip to show that I know I’m evil.”). Thanos actually felt real. He felt like he believed everything he was saying, like he truly thought he was doing the universe a mercy, that he was the good guy. 

And that doesn’t redeem him by any means (incoming people screeching about how I’m downplaying genocide or stanning because dude’s evil, y’all), but it makes him infinitely more compelling, and GOD, that is refreshing. It’s the same way that Killmonger was refreshing because, even though you don’t agree with it, you see his point. I mean, who among us that’s worked retail hasn’t wanted to snap our fingers and make half of humanity vanish? It’s been more than a decade since my last retail position, and I still have those days.

On a different level, it’s that garbage that gets pushed by freshman level philosophy students who are like “people should stop having babies” because that, not a mismanagement of resources by the wealthy and powerful, is why there’s scarcity. It’s rubbish, absolute rubbish (and it doesn’t work because science tells us that the universe, that all of existence, is infinite... and fuck, the movie’s science tells us that as well--Bananabread Cabletelevision had his little moment of hunting for spoilers and only got through about 1.4 million of the unending possibilities that exist BUT I DIGRESS), but at first blush, you ask yourself, “Wait, does he have a point?” No, he does not.

A rundown of other Goods:

Look, Thor in lightning form is the sexiest creature in existence. I’m sorry, I don’t make the rules. 

Also I appreciated him getting another smushface. And then the immediately following Battle of the Chrises (all I’m saying is that if there’s not a threeway Chris standoff in Part Deux, I’ll be very sad. Also, someone please cast Chris Pine in Captain Marvel, he needs to spend the rest of eternity watching powerful women heroes in awe).

The people who were allowed gave fantastic performances. RDJ will be sorely missed as Iron Man (because if y’all think he’s living past the next film, I’m sorry for your loss), and of the good guys, I felt like he came the closest to being the main character here. Which has been true of the other Avengers films as well, so that’s nice to see. Ultimately, these first three phases of the MCU were Tony Stark’s story, and that finale will be really... well, painful. 

Other great performances: Tom Holland (darling baby child, I wept for you), Mark Ruffalo (good at constipation), Bagels Cucumbers (that hurts to admit, he’s the Worst, but damn if he isn’t a good actor), Zoe Saldana (you’d better come back), Chris Hemsworth (as always), Paul Bettany (NOOO), and Elizabeth Olsen (poor darling). 

The humor was nicely balanced, not fourth-wall breaking like you get in the Whedon Avengerses, but logical. It was kind of like exhaling: inhale the action and serious stakes, exhale the humor. It allowed breathing room in all the intensity, so that was great.

Also how can I have missed Wakanda that much if it’s only been like... not even two months since I saw Black Panther?

Look, if the next movie involves just one scene--just one!--of Okoye, Nat, and Wanda fighting together, my ticket will have been worth its price.

Related, Proxima Midnight is (a) literally the coolest name for anyone ever, and (b) my wife now.

The Neutral-Bad

Or, really, more the expected. 

In any ensemble movie, you’re going to have a lot of characters whose purpose is just to step on scene, state their name and allegiance, and then fade into the background. This ended up being the case with pretty much all of Team Cap, and it was to their detriment. They had their shining moments (”Earth just lost her greatest defender” made me ship things like FedEx), but as opposed to the group above, they didn’t really have a lot to do? Or even really much in the way of reactions? They just sort of... came and saw and fought and that was it. 

It felt a lot like nobody knew what to do with those characters, which is fair enough, but it also felt like they were wasted, and they shouldn’t have been. If I had to guess, I’d guess that the writers had to pick and choose which good guys they wanted to focus on and which new Avengers and old Avengers would get the attention. Tony because these films have been basically a huge Iron Man series. Thor because I think? the plot requires him to be Important, as per comic books. But as much as I adore Thor, I wish there had been a focus on Steve more. With Tony, you’ve got the plot of “oh my god Thanos, the thing I’ve been afraid of since 2008″ but maybe Steve could’ve had more of a reluctant plot, like he’s been heroing all this time but all he’s gotten for it is locked up and exiled and shit? I don’t know, point is that if Captain America is going to be so prominent in the MCU logo, he should get a bigger slice of the plot pie.

Also I’m annoyed with Gamora’s passing, though I wouldn’t call it a complete fridging because it wasn’t just for mangst. It was just mostly for mangst. Either way, though, I think that’s the death (besides the end ones) that bothered me the most. It didn’t feel unnecessary and was probably the most shocking, when you look at it objectively (more on that in a second), but... I don’t know, it bothered me, but I can’t 100% put my finger on why/how. I do appreciate, though, that it gave Gamora a decent arc in the film. 

Anyway, to the deaths. The presumable permadeaths (Heimdall, Loki, and Gamora) were, for the most part, unsurprising. The Thor trilogy is over, so Heimdall and Loki end up being kind of extra weight, the former because he doesn’t have a lot to do that’s not in a role filled by another character, and the latter because the only other way he could’ve worked in this film was as an eleventh hour heroic sacrifice, and that feels almost too woobie-ish, like beyond Zuko levels of woobie. 

The Great Dust Rapture at the end was also fairly unsurprising, mostly because there’s no way a good chunk of those characters aren’t coming back. At least two have sequels literally named after them coming out sometime in the next couple of years; as I also pointed out to Kyle, “Look, Gamora may be dead forever, but if the rest of the Guardians remain dust, GotG3 will just be The Adventures of Rocket Raccoon Being Very Sad.” The non-dusted bunch are the OG Avengers, plus or minus a few friends; the stakes for the next film are, therefore, a LOT higher, since all the OG Avengers have finished their trilogies and, should they survive, will probably only ever show up again in cameos. We know T’Challa and Peter Parker and the Guardians of the Galaxy and probably Dr. Strange and everyone still have Things To Do. 

But the OG Avengers do not, and they couldn’t really kill off the main characters of the franchise with one film to go, so...

(also, calling it now: the next film is going to be The Avengers: Rebirth. I will put money on it)

The Ugly

But HNNGH. Okay.

I 100% understand the choices they made with the dustinatings, but like... there’s no suspense whatsoever. If Marvel didn’t release their film titles 6000 years in advance, maybe the stakes would’ve been stakier, but as it stands, it’s like... come on people. 

You know what would’ve worked way better and made for stakier stakes? Don’t kill off the main characters from franchises that still have sequels coming out. Kill off sidekicks. T’Challa doesn’t die, but maybe M’baku or Okoye does. Spare at least three of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Leave Peter Parker’s fate uncertain (though his death scene was literally the only one that made me tear up because TOM HOLLAND IS JUST THAT GOOD, DARLING FROG-IN-MOUTH BOY). Bucky, Sam, Nick Fury, Maria Hill--they can remain dusted. But if you want to keep the stakes for the second film while actually letting us believe that there won’t be any resurrections this time, maybe don’t kill people who we know will be back in various MCU films at future dates. 

It’s like I keep thinking when I watch trailers for Solo or literally any prequel anything: the problem with 99% of prequels is that we know who lives and who doesn’t, so giving us trailer shots of Chewbacca in danger, for example, is like trying to play peek-a-boo with an adult. We have object permanence, it’s not surprising when you pull your hands away and your face is still there. It’s not surprising that Chewbacca isn’t going to get his face bashed away by a rock. It’s not surprising that somehow, in Avengers Four: You Asked For More, all the dusted people with eponymous films coming up will be back. 

Another big plot hole: why didn’t Dr. Strange go and do his future vision the second a giant green man fell into his living room? Bruce, as Bruce, tells him “Thanos is coming for the macguffins” and then he goes and spends the next 5 minutes going through possibilities and then figures out the very easy way to solve the thing. 

That easy way? Just have Wanda destroy the time stone. Now we’re not panicking about taking out Vision’s brain as fast as we can (point: that scene was unrealistic, Shuri would’ve actually had it done in about 13 seconds flat) and Thanos has lost and maybe he goes around killing people manually but at least he can’t rewind time if things don’t go his way. 

The movie didn’t do this, obviously, but it’s one of those things where it’s like “if your audience can figure out a better way of doing things before the credits even fucking roll, maybe revise your script.”

(if Carrie Fisher had been alive to script doctor this shit, we wouldn’t have this problem, universe)

Other big frustration: does every Avengers film really need Thor to go on an epic quest away from everyone else for half the film? Don’t get me wrong, it was pretty cool to see him jumpstart a sun and see Peter Dinklage being huge (all I’m saying is that if Disney ever acquires the rights to the X-Men, things are going to get very confusing) and see a new Mjolnir-like-object, but oh. my. god. Every time those scenes were happening, I felt like it was a bathroom break. Like legit, that fucking ax had better cleave Thanos in half in the next movie because otherwise, that was so much wasted time that could’ve been devoted to literally anything else. 

Final Miscellaneous Thoughts

Maybe this means that GotG3 will be about Peter Quill actually growing up and dealing with his issues. I hope it does. 

Also, Nebula/Tony Stark road trip back to earth? I’m all about it. 

Wonder Woman would’ve ended this all in about 30 seconds flat, which is why Captain Marvel can’t show up until the next film. 

The next film is literally going to be at least 90 minutes of Thanos refusing to interact with anyone trying to kill him because he’s on vacation and fuck you. 

Literally why does anyone still live in NYC in the MCU? The first movie would’ve been enough to convince me to move to a cornfield in Nebraska and just stay there for eternity. 

“Thanos will return.” Along with literally everyone else SERIOUSLY THIS IS NOT SUSPENSEFUL MARVEL AAAAAAUGH.