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msawesomegeek · 4 years

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Avengers Infinity war/end game review

A/N: So quarantine happened, and I finally got around to watching movies again, now including giving the MCU one last chance. And spoiler alert... It didn’t truly deserve it. Also spoiler alert, and also this is two three hour reviews crammed into one, so it is gonna be a little while.

Also also, while I have seen most of the movies in the marvel cinematic universe, I have not seen Dr. strange, guardians 2, into dark world and Captain marvel.

So let’s start off with Infinity war, it had some genuinely good moments. The only plot and character arc that was outright annoying was Bruce’s. It was good it had real character developments, and a lot of relationships that were great. I thought it was funny to the right extent, and serious when it needed to be. Honestly I could have done without a lot of scenes but I understood the fact that all characters needed some screen time to be fully developed. But like, did we honestly care that much about the romance with Vision and Wanda to need the scene before them being attacked more than just a quick establishment of them kissing? I enjoyed the emotional scene genuinely, the Peter and Gamora scene was heart wrenching, and showed Thanos devotion to his goal. I had a little hard time believing he loved her enough to it being enough of a sacrifice, but it still worked.

The big scale battle was kind of annoying but I will get into that later.

The cinematography was fine, I enjoyed how colourful they allowed space to be, and that the lighting for the most part was not grey and gritty.

There were a lot of plot holes in this movie, like why did Thanos forget all the crazy powers he had in the Gamora Peter scene and not use it in the battle later? The problem with this is also that power differences is so weird, and non consistent. Like in the battle with Thanos, strange, Spidey and Tony, how do any of the three heroes have a chance against someone who can manipulate the rules of reality? Like Strange, maybe, but the two others? Not a chance!

The stones themselves raise a lot of questions. Like if he can control time and space, why not bring Gamora back the second the gets the soul stone? Or go back to a time when the rule that you have to do that does not apply. And in End Game, why not just kill baby Thanos? Why doesn't he go back in time to make sure the avengers do not get in his way in the first place?

The Loke death in the beginning felt so... Pointless? Seriously? Why has Loke been apart of anything in the MCU up until now? His arc has been pointless, and when he dies it is within the first 10 minutes, so it’s like: Oh, Loke is in this. And he is dead again. But because he has been “Dead” before, it does not resonate! And that is a general annoyance I have with these two movies, the stakes are non-existent. We know which characters have movies coming up, so we know who is going to survive in the end and who doesn't. So when they die, it doesn't have any impact!

So the movie is pretty good, it has some real emotional hits and some genuinely funny scenes, but it also leave you confused during some scenes. The thing I enjoyed the most about this movie, is the fact that Thanos won. The fact that the good guys lost, is amazing! Because after seeing them win challenge after challenge over 20 films, it was great to actually see our heroes lose, actually lose.

Onto End Game, to say that this is the worse of the two is correct. The movie for a two parter movie does hold up as movies on their own, which is great considering how all other movies split into two parts are as stand alone movies.

The colour grading in this movie is just weird, and a lot of times, it is weird looking at and clear that it was shot on a green screen, and usually an unnecessary green screen, for my taste. This combined with lack of playing with colour in this movie, everything just visually seemed gray and boring. No shots were interesting, they never played with the pacing of anything, it was all just regular film making, which is okay, but honestly bland. Even the composition of the everyone avengers assemble shot is so messy it does not evoke the amazing comic book front page style it could have been.

End game has a lot of big problems, and I might go into more of a ranting terrortory than actual reviewing, and for that I am sorry. But it has a lot of problems. The character arcs are so rushed and you never get time to absorb anything emotionally or care about anything that is going on, because then we immediately cut to another character, and we have to be completely invested in them. Thanos role in this movie was weird, while the first half of it was earned the rest of his part in the movie seemed forced. But what I think both movies got wrong about Thanos, is that they cut out death. Which is a shame, because a big part of his character and motivation is his love affair with mistress death. Hell they even put it in as an easter egg the first time we ever see Thanos! And his philosophy combined with his love and romance with death, would make sense, but they completely missed that opportunity. Which would also give more impact to him killing people more than just morals, and make him a more dimensional character.

The three biggest problems this movie has is pacing, tone and character arcs. Along the same lines of infinity war, the pacing is a little better in the first movie, but all over the place in End game. And the problem is because the pacing is so quick and everything needs to progress so quickly, everything just seems so rushed, and everything that was supposed to be an obstacle was basically solved in a super easy barely an inconvenience kind of way. The problem with the pacing is also that it rushes the characters. Meaning every time something happens to any character, any tension and character development, hell even emotional impact that could have had is cut short to cut to another characters arc. And even if it is not like that, the harsh editing in the movie ensures that any emotion any scenes hold is immediately undercut by something. Like, wow Hawkeye has lost all sense of morals and Natascha can't talk sense into him, but his surface is beginning to crack, that is interesting, let’s immediately cut from that to Thor opening a beer!

The only things that were actually given any kind of consideration to the pacing in this movie was when Scott came back, and the funeral scene, and maybe the fight scene in the end. Every thing else in this entire movie is so weirdly paced! Like, oh boy the stakes are high, I wonder if we will ever be able to figure out this time travel thing. 5 minutes later, Iron man comes out of a car and deus ex machina’s the entire thing. Like why? This should be a bigger issue? Oh no, we lost the one infinity stone, but we don’t have enough Pim particles to travel back anymore times. Simple just travel back to world war two, steal them as you conveniently get into a heavily guarded area while remembering that the love of your life exists while also without much trouble steals and have a cathartic moment with your father who dont know its you, so you can conveniently get back. That whole sequence is pretty cool, but is undermined so many times by being resolved too quickly, making you wonder what the point of it being a conflict at all was?

Which brings me to its second biggest problem, tone. This movie unlike the first one that balanced things pretty amazingly, cannot decide whether it wants to be dramatic action or a comedy, and it ends up being neither. I cannot stress enough how much I hate the jokes in this movie! The jokes are good, hell they are funny (though the Thor got fat jokes needs to leave and never come back. (although that big Labowski reference can stay, but it is on thin f*cking ice.) The other movies had fun moments, this genuinely felt like I was watching a parody movie half of the time. Yes the jokes are funny, I laughed out loud at the america’s ass jokes, but that joke felt like a meme that was somehow left in the final cut. The problem is, whereas the other movies, usually only used the comedy as a relief in certain scenes, it allowed other scenes to be genuinely emotional. It knew when it was appropriate to joke around. It did actually get it right a few times, the whole “hi peter” introduction between cap marvel and Spidey, was in character and genuinely appropriate to the situation, and funny, that scene worked. Where it did not work, was when Tony got back from space, part of that scene was amazing! It was a broken Tony confronting people he did not agree with about the fact that they lost and that he was traumatised and that he told them something like this could happen but they did not listen to him! And it just cuts in-between him being mad as hell and sad as he should be, to be cracking jokes two seconds later. And I hate that scene! Because it did not understand that it was not the time that it needed to break the tension it could have been an amazing and heartwrenching scene that eventually led to Tony giving up his super hero career and setting Tony and Steve on the path to forgiving each other. But no, it was constantly undercut by comedy. It was like they forgot that scenes were allowed to be emotional and not have any quick wit in it and still be good. The tone was just messy all the way through and seemed like I was watching two movies that had been mashed together into one.

The last problem this movie has is character arcs. Besides the undercutting of the emotions of its character in order to make jokes. This movie also seemed to forget who these characters were. It has a problem that many films like it has had, which is too many characters in one film. Every character is never given proper time, we like them because we know them, but this movie does nothing to further their relationships or own growth. The time jump, screws a lot of things up. Like I did not mind but why give Hulk the power to control Hulk then? (His arc through the entire MCU) and not right as he grabbed the stones, him through them being given the knowledge that Hulk isn’t the disease but the cure. Why not make his arc matter to the plot?! (like it did in the first avengers which was though a pretty deus ex machina, solution still a development that coincided with the plot!) The whole Natascha, Hawkeye fight was good, it meant something and it reminded me of their fight in the first Avengers that showed how good friends they were. But the quick editing ruins Nats death so much. This plays into pacing as well, but we are never given any kind of time to be sad about Nats death. Yes she was a minor character, but she was a character we cared about. If they could only have spent a few more seconds at Hawkeye realising what is happening, and being sad about Nats sacrifice in the soul world, and then picking up the stone and being like, I will finish this for you Natascha. That was all the writers needed to do, it would take two minutes more, but it would have allowed her death to mean something more. Hell Coulsons death was given more screen time in the first avengers than someone we have spent so many movies seeing and caring about!

I honestly wished that they had followed the comics version more, and in infinity wars, introduced Thanos, then wrapped up all the original avengers character arcs in that film. Let the snap happen and let Thanos also kill the original Avengers. Then let End Game be about the devastating loss, and the second squad (Black Panther, Scarlett, vision, Captain Marvel, Peter, Strange and part of Guardians & Ant-man) Struggle with their personal grief about losing their friends and mentors, finding the courage to band together and fight to go and defeat Thanos. I would have loved that so much more, mostly because it would give them a chance to lose and have these newer avengers actually mourn them all properly, while also being able to properly process it, and then decide to pick up their torch and finish what the original avengers started. But sadly we got this mess.

Also, I really need to rant about one particular thing in both movies, and honestly it has been a long time coming, but if I have to look at one more giant CGI henceman battle, I will walk out of the movie theatre! This is in both infinity war and End game! I do not care! I hate those big CGI lord of the ring type battles. Why? Because, yes it makes it all look grand, but it also make it look pointless. I don’t care about any of the people they are fighting I care about the villains and the heroes, characters I have spent time with. Why does Thanos send, wizard what's his face and other CGI dude in the first place? I do not care about his henchmen! I do not care about their meaningless fights with their meaningless goons. Why not instead of this giant battle in Wakanda and on the planet in End game ending battle, have all of our previously established villains, such as Loke, Hella, Thanos, that dude from guardians, whoever is the villain in captain marvel and doctor strange. Be the people they fight? Why not make it a few villains that we actually care about be the villains they are fighting, and instead of them punching random fools they could actually fight people who pose an actual challenge to them. Giving everything more meaning and not just, look how many CGI extras we can afford. It is not fun anymore! I have had it! Fight fewer but harder bad guys! That way the fight has some actual stakes and meaning!

If you have made it this far, wow, impressive. I also imagine that it is very clear that I thought there was a lot of problems with these two movies. I will not say I hated them. They were not flaming piles of garbage like suicide squad, but they are also not anywhere near as good as the first guardians movie. In the end, they were entertaining. Were they, I am willing to sit through these six hours ever again entertaining? Abso-f*cking-lutely not.

I have before given up on the cinematic univers and come back to it and this was me actually hoping it would be great movies that everyone said they were, so I could get back into Marvel super hero movies, but sadly, they were visually pretty stale, tonally, pacing and characterly a mess, and not the finale to 22 films I had hoped for.

I give infinity war 8/10 stars

And End game 3/10 stars.

Send me a message if you agree, disagree or just wanna talk about movies (or have any recs for what I should see next) Until then

- Geek out.

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