Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 review

The first Guardians of the Galaxy came out after the successful experiment that was the Avengers, when the MCU had earned itself a lot of good will and I was watching to see how they continued this shared universe they were creating. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I had no reason to doubt that it would be a good movie.

The second Guardians film came out while the MCU was in it's prime. Marvel movies were a known quanity, with even the worst still providing solid entertainment. And of course it was following up a successful first installment, so expectations were high.

Volume 3 came out when the MCU was in rapid decline, not just in general but for me specifically. The last couple of movies I had seen were not working for me. Important in-universe events were happening in TV shows on channels that I didn't have, leaving me feeling out-of-the-loop. The movies and shows were heavily abusing the "multiverse"; a concept I have long thought needs to be used sparingly, and have grown quite weary of.

Of course I wasn't alone. Film after film was getting raked over the coals by reviewers, box office numbers were down. What's more, James Gunn had been quite publicly fired by Disney. But even though they eventually hired him back to finish off the trilogy, he had already been given the reins to the the rival DCU, being entrusted with rebooting their entire cinematic universe.

Would James Gunn be able to create a fitting final instalment to the beloved series, or would behind-the-scenes forces sink this sequel? I must admit I had a lot of doubts walking into this one. But almost in spite of myself, I still wanted this one to be good.

And it was. Volume 3 continued the trend set by Volume 2 of ratcheting up the emotional impact; seriously, I found this one to be a real tear-jerker. Not just at the end like the second film, but almost right from the start. In lesser hands the story might have come off as emotionally-manipulative, but I just couldn't see it that way. Even when I could see what the movie was doing from a mile away, I still felt every damned gut-punch it threw at me. If you like movies that evoke an emotional reaction, I think you will want to see this one.

The film brings the same kind of irreverant humor as the previous entries, though I didn't think it was as funny overall. That's not a criticism, just an observation: I felt there was less focus on jokes this time around, and they don't really intrude on the more emotional scenes. Considering that a lot of people complain about the jokes taking away from the drama in Marvel movies (at least in the later films), some people might be happy to hear that Volume 3 is far less prone to trying to squeeze humor into every scene. It's still funny, just in a more compartmentalised way.

Endgame left the Guardians in a bit of a strange position, especially when it came to Peter and Gamorra. So it was interesting seeing how this movie handled that, how the characters interacted and moved forwards. And it wasn't just the core cast: once again the movie introduces and fleshes out new characters without neglecting the old, expanding and enriching the world as a whole while telling a story that is deeply personal to the main cast.

As expected there were stylish action scenes, great performances, good music, and fun cameos. The VFX were great, and I personally enjoyed the sci-fi environments a bit more than I did in Volume 2, coming closer to the vibe I enjoyed in the first film.

It's worth mentioning that Volume 3 did a good job of capping off the trilogy, without closing the door on the possibility of more stories in the future. Endings can be hard to do right, this one gave me a satisfying sense of closure that I think is becoming rare in these days of never-ending franchises.


I think I'm going to have to give this one a 9/10. I think I still prefer Volume 2, which is much easier watching, but this one just hits harder.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
In Volume 3, there is a sense of... moving on. Of accepting that things aren't going to be the same forwever, that sometimes you just can't go back to the way things were and you need to find a new way to move forwards. But also of new beginnings, of passing on the torch, leaving behind a legacy. I think that's a very fitting way to end the series.


In the first movie it was just Rocket who understood Groot, then at the start of the second everyone seemed to be able to understand him. This time Gamorra, being a younger version from before she met the Guardians, could not understand Groot at first. After some time however, she was surprised to realise that she was finally able to understand him.

Then, at the very end of the film, there's a brief moment when Groot finally says something other than his trademark line. Just like Gamora, I did a double-take as I realised what I had just heard. It felt like, just as Gamora had learned to understand Groot over time, so had we, the audience. It was as if HE hadn't changed, WE had. It's a powerful moment, and a great payoff to three movies of what originally seemed to be a simple running gag.

Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 2 review

After enjoying the original so much, I had high expectations for the sequel. While there were some bits that didn't quite click for me, overall I felt Volume 2 surpassed its predecessor.

The central plot is a bit strange, and is perhaps a bit slow to develop. The main cast, the Guardians themselves, get split up and pulled in different directions. New characters are introduced, and existing characters receive more screen-time and development. Some returning characters who I had previously dismissed as being, well, "minor", become central to the emotional core of the movie this time around.

This genuinely surprised me, and in a way made the emotional scenes that much more memorable. To be clear it's not done at the expense of previous "main" characters; rather it actually helps flesh them out as the relationships between them are the heart of the whole matter. Likewise the new characters don't take away from the old, as their interactions reveal more to us about both. Overall I walked out of the movie even more emotionally invested in the Guardians than I was before.

As well as hitting harder in the feels, I found the movie to be even funnier than the first. I would say it's arguably more stylish too, with more memorable action scenes that weave musical and visual elements together incredibly well. The cast is great, and there's a lot of fun cameos this time around. I think the best way I can describe it is to say that: Volume 2's highs reached greater heights than before. If that makes sense.

I do have a couple of criticisms, though minor ones. The plot lacked a bit of direction, with some major characters really just kind of "hanging out" for most of the film. Personally I also missed the feeling of exploring distant worlds that I enjoyed so much in the first movie, although Volume 2 still delivers very cool sci-fi visuals.

Overall I think I have to give this a 9/10. It's one of my personal favourite Marvel films, and one of the most memorable movies I've seen in the last few years.




#####SPOILER WARNING#####
The toe scene? Probably the funniest thing I had seen in years! Just thinking about it would crack me up for ages afterwards. And the scene with Yondu striding through the ship, after regaining control of his arrow was amazing.

I still marvel at how Yondu somehow managed to become the emotional heart of the movie. It's impressive how a comedic interaction where Yondu and Peter talk about Mary Poppins manages to have so much emotional weight; the GotG series really does interweave comedy and emotion in a way that no-one else has managed. At least that's how it feels to me.

Guardians of the Galaxy review

I had heard the name, and the names of some of the characters, but I didn't actually know anything about the Guardians of the Galaxy when the movie was announced. But Marvel was on a roll, and while I wasn't instantly invested the way I am for a movie about characters I already love, I appreciated the willingness to take a risk on lesser-known characters, so I was interested in the movie and hoped it would be good.

I found the film to be very funny, and at times quite touching. It was also very stylish, weaving action and music together into creative spectacles. It had good character work, with a motley crew of rogues who might seem antagonistic at first, but who I liked and cared about by the end.

One thing that I personally really appreciated was, well, the originality of the worlds we were shown. We've had so many superhero movies featuring extraordinary characters in ordinary environments, that watching our protagonists travel across these wonderfully alien worlds was very cool. It was a different type of sci-fi, one I don't see much of these days, and I loved it.

The cast nailed it of course. I think this is the first movie that I enjoyed Chris Pratt in. This was also the first time I saw Bautista showing off his comedic chops. Zoe Saldana and Bradley Cooper were great, and Vin Diesel's performance was surprisingly impactful for how little dialogue he had. Of course there were a lot of other seasoned actors putting in great performances in smaller roles, but I want to specifically call out Peter Serafinowicz as leaving a lasting impression on me.

I give it a solid 8/10. It's a great sci-fi adventure movie that delivers both laughs and feels, and there's nothing wrong with the action either.


This was the film that first brought James Gunn to my attention, he's earned himself a lot of faith in recent years. I also recently discovered that Dan Abnett is one of the credited writers, which is interesting to me because I quite enjoyed some of his novels and comics in the past.

Avengers: Endgame review

I guess I haven't yet finished processing Endgame, but I wanted to get my feelings down anyway. I enjoyed it, but it made me feel sad. I was pleasantly surprised in some ways, but couldn't help but feel disappointed in others.

This is definitely an emotional movie, yet many times the characters felt less developed to me than they did in Infinity War - while I was expecting many characters who had a lot of screen-time in Infinity War to get much less here, I was still surprised by just how little time some of them got (some didn't even get a single speaking line), while at the same time a few characters got a lot of screen time in both (coughtonycough). Of course some characters who we barely even saw in Infinity War got much more development here as expected, I just feel like I was hoping for a better balance.

Speaking of balance, I feel that Infinity War trumped this film in both action and comedy as well. Somehow, despite being a film with so much loss and death, it feels brighter and more colourful in my mind. As much as I had issues with that movie, and as much as it ended on a downer, it just feels like the better of the two to me.

To be fair though, Infinity War didn't exactly grab me right away. It impressed me, but I had issues. I guess it grew on me more over time. Perhaps Endgame will be the same. It did have some great emotional beats, visual spectacle, and triumphs after all.

At the end of the day, Endgame was an impressive capstone for an impressive cinematic storytelling accomplishment. As Shakespeare once wrote, "Parting is such sweet sorrow"; that's pretty much how I feel right now. I have enjoyed the Marvel cinematic universe, and I am sad that this chapter is over, yet I like a story with an end; better a clean fulfilling ending with closure than to just drag things on forever. Of course Marvel isn't exactly done making these things; I can only wonder what the future holds. How much lore can they build before the universe becomes too unwieldy, the way the comics usually are? Will they decide on a reboot at some point, will they deliberately but softly move away from the "everything is a consistent shared universe" idea, or will they just try to keep it going but create more and more plot holes until the cinematic universe is as inconsistent as the comics? We'll see I guess.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

I mentioned that I felt like there was less character development here. Specifically I felt like there were character arcs that were set up yet didn't get the payoff.

First of all there's the Hulk. In Infinity War there's a subplot where Bruce Banner can't get the Hulk to come out anymore. This was very interesting; why was it happening and what did it mean? How would he fix it? Remember that the Hulk is a facet of Banner's personality, a manifestation of his repressed anger issues, so this kind of thing is a great opportunity to explore human issues. Instead there's a couple of lines of casual dialogue about how he's all great now. You can't just have that kind of thing happen off-screen! You're telling me that Bruce solved his anger issues and integrated his split personality, learning to control a previously uncontrollable power? Off-screen? At a time when everyone on the planet is at an all time low, when Hawkeye is running around chopping people up and Thor is so down in the dumps that he can't even be bothered to step out of his front door, that Bruce Banner has solved all his emotional issues? To me it made little sense and felt like a big let-down and a hugely wasted opportunity. Also I found it weird that his personality seemed to be different. In all the previous films he was always a little on edge, a little uncomfortable. Here he's just really relaxed and chill the whole time, just sort of passive about everything, even when everyone else is always down. I guess it makes sense if we accept that his whole personality has changed as a result of integrating his two personas, but... it felt weird.

Then there's Quill. There's a lot to be said about how his life has been so strange and unstable that he's only now starting to mature as an adult. In Infinity War he made a terrible and stupid mistake that allowed Thanos to succeed. We needed to see... something. To see him talk about how it happened, to see him tortured by regret, to see him find an opportunity to atone for it. What we got was... nothing. Nothing at all. He just appears, throws some punches, and gets kicked in the crotch.

And then there's Thor. Thor is... strange. In the early films (everything before Ragnarok), he was more of a straight character. Well, he was funny, but that humor mainly came from his constantly being in environments that he didn't understand. Things like the way he went to a pet shop to buy a horse to ride, or how he threw his coffee mug to the ground as a complement, or how he hung Mjolnir on a coat rack. In Ragnarok, he became... a bit of a buffoon. Things like the way he was screaming on the chair, or pleading not to have his hair cut; it was more about him being a clown than being a fish out of water. But in the middle of this his character was growing and changing, and still he was always the noble warrior; he never gave up, always kept trying to do what was right, what needed to be done. Overall the film was so funny and entertaining that it just worked despite being a departure from how the character had previously been portrayed.

Infinity War dialed it back a little bit. He was no longer a buffoon. He had some comedically stupid lines, but there was depth to them. It worked really well. This may have been the best Thor we've seen yet.

In Endgame, he is beyond being a buffoon. He is just... sad. This was the first time Thor ever gave up, the first time he was ever called upon to fight the good fight and he ignored the call. It was painful to watch, but at least I had hope that he would pull himself out of this funk. That... did not exactly happen. They kind of went through the motions, but it just didn't really work, at least not for me. But let's back up a bit.

In his first film, Thor grew up from a spoiled child to a responsible adult. In Ragnarok, he learned to stop crutching on Mjolnir and believe in his own strength. He becomes king of Asgard, and sets off determined to lead his people. In Infinity War he loses everything and everyone he had left (or so it appeared at the time), but bounces right back to his feet; not for a second does he entertain the idea of giving up despite the pain. Yes, he's being motivated by revenge, but that doesn't change the fact that in that situation there would be a strong temptation to surrender to despair, but he never succumbed. In End Game, he starts off by regressing to a useless drunkard who is not fulfilling his responsibilities as king. By the end of it he... has decided to be himself, whatever that means, and completely abandons his people and his responsibilities, running off to have adventures in the stars alongside his friends. Well, some of them; he seems to have left Korg and Miek behind for some reason. Not sure why, I kinda feel like they wouldn't have minded tagging along. Maybe the ship's not big enough?

Initially we are led to believe that he feels guilty for failing to stop Thanos. There's a scene where his mother gives him some speech about not being who we are supposed to be, but being ourselves. Which kind of just feels like a cop-out to me; "just be yourself" is good advice for acting around new people, but never struck me as a good guiding life principle. Anyway, that's pretty much the end of his character arc; it even ends with him feeling overjoyed because Mjolnir responds to his call, proving to him that he is still worthy. But in Ragnarok he outgrew the need for Mjolnir, the need for a weapon to validate his worth. So the scene with Mjolnir here further regresses and undermines his character! It just doesn't work for me, it never felt like his arc had been concluded. I spent the whole movie waiting for the payoff, and I never felt it was there. He failed again, repeatedly, to stop Thanos, and then after the battle is over just runs off and leaves the hard work to Valkyrie.

To be honest I was expecting the payoff to be him actually defeating Thanos this time. It might not have been a very deep arc, but it would have been more satisfying. And I do believe he should have been able to do it; when he lost the first time Thanos had already acquired some of the Infinity stones, and the second time when Thor had Stormbreaker he actually defeated Thanos. So now, with both Stormbreaker and Mjolnir, against a Thanos with no Infinity Stones, it felt like he should have been able to win. Especially alongside Iron Man - who once singlehandedly drew Thanos' blood for the first time himself - and Captain America wielding Mjolnir and therefore power equal to Thor's own.

Actually, I am a bit bitter about the fact that it was Iron Man who actually ended things. I don't really like Iron Man, and the MCU's version is an annoying jerk (entertaining though he may be). He didn't deserve to have that victory. I'm actually even annoyed that he got to be a martyr. Simply coming home to his family would have been enough payoff for his arc, instead he stole the payoff from Thor's arc. Well, that's how it felt to me anyway. He got the most screen-time of anyone in this movie, as well as doing the most move the plot (got the big monologue at the start, invented time travel, dealt the final blow, had the big ending funeral wrap-up), all this despite getting a great deal of screen-time in the last movie as well. Meanwhile Captain America seems to just... be there for most of the movie, despite doing very little in the last one too. Yeah, he gets a couple of good fights, and a nice little story wrap-up at the end, but very little of what he does is actually all that important or something that only he could have done, and overall it was all very much overshadowed by how focused the film was on Stark.

Even Thanos himself is less interesting this time. It could be argued that his character arc was concluded in the first film I suppose, but that doesn't feel satisfying to me because his arc needs to end with him, well, losing. Yes, he loses at the end here and it's a powerful moment. But the thing is, the Thanos who loses here is not the Thanos that we know, it's an earlier version, one who didn't do all the things we saw him do, one with different goals. He feels like a different person.

Perhaps the issue I have is that our heroes' victory is... physical, but I never exactly get the sense that they won the argument? I'm not sure why I feel this way here but not in other films; perhaps this was the first film where the villain's character and motivations were so fleshed out? Maybe I feel this way because the topic of societies surviving and flourishing despite limited resources is never actually discussed in Endgame? In most (good?) comic books, when the protagonists and antagonists are battling due to a philosophical disagreement, the two points of view are usually explored to some extent and the heroes either have their position validated or they have to admit that their position is not perfect, but it's still better than the alternative. That did not happen here; Thanos established his position in Infinity War, but then our heroes never really presented a contrary perspective: they just punched Thanos until they won.

Maybe we are supposed to feel a "moral victory" from how people were really sad for a few years, like that somehow proves that Thanos was wrong? That's not really a compelling argument in my mind. By the way, I don't understand why Thanos changed his goals. He's been running around wiping out half of each planet's population for a very, very long time; you're telling me he was surprised to find that people were sad for a while afterwards? I just feel like this shouldn't be a revelation for him is all.

Several other characters get less to do than I had been expecting - I guess that's because they are still going to be around for a while so they didn't feel the need to squeeze in some screen time for them, but still I felt their absences. Fury doesn't get a single line of dialogue (having Samuel L. Jackson in your movie and not giving him anything to do should be an actual punishable crime imho). Danvers feels shoe-horned in; she never really does anything that contributes to the actual plot, and could be cut out of the movie without changing anything. Strange pops up and then just stands there spinning some water around. I'm very disappointed that they brought in Tom Hiddleston yet couldn't be bothered to give Loki more a than a couple of seconds of "new" material. The dance at the end with Peggy was super sweet and emotional (and made me feel happy), yet I really wish that had given her some actual dialogue or something - Howard Stark got to walk around and talk for several minutes after all, and Peggy was always a far cooler character! Despite technically being there in the action scene at the end, Potts felt like nothing more than background to me - I don't think she had a single scene with her own daughter (which is made far more egregious by Hogan somehow getting a long emotional scene with young Morgan Stark).

It might not be fair of me to complain about some of the side characters getting too little screen time in a film that's already very long, but it's partly because I enjoyed seeing some characters that we hadn't seen for a while - such as Frigg, that was great - so much, that it felt somewhat unfair that some of my other favourites didn't get the same treatment. Oh well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles I suppose.


So let's talk about the "reverse-snap". They brought back everyone who was killed by the Snap. Hulk mentions that he tried to bring back Widow as well, but couldn't. Fine, but does the fact that he tried to bring someone back who wasn't killed by the Snap mean that he tried to bring back other people who were killed by Thanos before the Snap? People that he SAW die? I'm talking about the Asgardians: Loki, Heimdall, and all the refugees that Thanos killed at the start of Infinity War? How about Eitri and the dwarves? Hell, why not bring back Odin and Frigga while he was at it; he may not have been there for their deaths but he did spend some time with Thor. Hell, Thor was standing right there when Hulk had the gauntlet, and he had spoken to his Mother again (and had to deal with the knowledge of her death again) only a few moments ago so it should have been pretty fresh in his mind, maybe he could have mentioned something? I mean, since you're bringing people back from the dead ANYWAY? What about FREAKING VISION (remember that according to Infinity War he didn't necessarily need the mind stone to survive)? How about Agent Coulson - as far as they know he's still dead, and it was his death that got the Avengers together in the first place right? I could go on: Cap was there and he had just seen Peggy again, why not try to bring her back too (at the correct age of course)?


Endgame just felt less entertaining to me than Infinity War. I felt that there was less humor, and generally less interesting action - some of it was very cool, but not as interesting or creative as some of the battles in Infinity War. I feel like a lot of the environments were just darker and less interesting; the big final battle for example was dark, felt de-saturated, and took place in... well, in a big pile of mud. Just... the drab colour palette was a bit of a let-down. It was very emotional to be sure; more so to me than Infinity War - but that might because I never for a moment bought into the "deaths" from the Snap, so I never felt the emotions that a lot of people seemed to when they watched all those characters fade away. For those who did buy into that moment, perhaps Infinity War is the more emotional of the two as well?


Time travel is a real Pandora's Box. I do admit the film made good use of it, allowing us to revisit times and characters in an emotional walk down memory lane. And to a certain extent they limited the potential future damage by establishing that you can't change the past. However... they still opened Pandora's Box. How many problems do you think they will face in the future where the solution could just be "go back in time, borrow some Infinity Stones, save the day, go put them back"? Or even "go to alternate timelines, borrow a few dozen Thors and Hulks, save the day, go put them back"?

What's more, the use of time-travel has created alternate timelines. Now it's a common trope that alternate timelines exist (usually portrayed as an infinite number), but the way they were introduced here suggests that they were only created by traveling back to the past and changing things. In other words the Avengers have created, what, four entirely new universes? That's pretty insane, and the implications are hard to process.

What's more, in all but one of these universes, the Snappening is likely still going to happen! All that pain and suffering will be experienced all over again by multiple universes worth of sentient beings. And in each of them, won't the Avengers pull the same time travel stunt? Leading to yet more alternate timelines being spun off? It's essentially an infinite loop! The more you think about it the stranger it gets. What's more, somehow the creation of all these alternate timelines feels like it lessens the importance of "our" timeline to me. What makes "our" timeline more important than the others after all? I don't know, it's... the idea of actually creating alternate timelines feels too big and messy to me to have been handled as casually as I feel it was.

Speaking of which, how was Captain America able to "target" alternate timelines to travel to at the end? It seems like they didn't need the big time travel machine as their little wrist gadgets allowed them to jump around (as we saw Cap and Stark jumping back further after their first attempt failed). If those tiny little wristbands were self-contained time machines, why did they need the big fancy one? Why did they even need the big time machine if the van worked as a time machine, and if the van didn't work as a time machine then why were they trying to get the gauntlet to it? And even if it did work as a time machine, weren't they out of Pym Particles? If they weren't out of Pym Particles, why did they need the van (if you can use the time machine before it was even created, why can't you use it after it was destroyed)? Perhaps they only needed the Pym Particles for the trip back because they didn't have the big time machine for that? Although they were shrinking stuff (doesn't that use up Pym Particles), so why not shrink a full sized time machine? Also, how did Thanos shrink his whole battleship (it feels like Nebula should not have had that many Pym Particles on her)? Why waste Pym Particles shrinking a spaceship when they could have just sent the two teams directly to the correct planets, instead of sending them together to one place then having them fly off somewhere else? Am I over-thinking this?

While we're on the topic, why the hell was the new time machine set up outside, instead of, I don't know, INSIDE A LAB OR SOMETHING? In the film it feels as if Captain America was waiting for them the whole time, suggesting that he had gone back in the past and lived there. Except that was impossible according to the rules they established. It was explained in an interview that he had lived in an alternate timeline, and used the time machine to come back to that point in order to speak to them. But then why go sit on the bench in the distance? It felt as if he had been there for at least a few minutes, which would have meant that he was there from before he left, which of course was impossible, so I guess he was only sitting there for a few seconds? Are we sure he didn't create any new timelines while he was jumping about? Feels like he must have.

By the way, where did he get the shield? His shield was broken, so I guess he stole another Captain America's shield? Meaning he left another timeline without the iconic shield? Seems like a crappy thing to do; what is that timelines' Falcon going to do? How is that timeline's shield not broken anyway, didn't they have to deal with the whole Thanos thing the same way? I guess it must have been the one timeline where Thanos left for the "main" one? Ugh, this is why I wish they hadn't pulled this time-travel stunt; too many paradoxes!

Of course the Time Stone creates all sorts of questions now that we have established some rules for how time-travel works in the MCU. For example, in Infinity War we saw Strange doing... something with the Time Stone to see the future. But if you're seeing the future, that means the Future already exists? OR it means you're going forwards into the future, then coming back to the past? Does the time stone allow actual time travel, or is Tony's time machine that he put together in one day more powerful than the Time Stone? Was Strange splitting off alternate timelines when he was examining the future?


How did Nebula know where the soul-stone was? I don't specifically remember it ever being mentioned in front of her? I guess I need to watch Infinity War again to be sure.


In all that chaos at the end, Thanos somehow gets his hands on the gauntlet? OK then.


So the infinity gems - or at least the gem of time - protects Earth. That is what the Ancient One said. So now that it's been destroyed in the main timeline... what? Is Earth doomed? The gems will be destroyed in all but one of the created timelines too; does that mean that the only timeline where Earth won't be destroyed is the one where Thanos left to enter another timeline?

Oh, and another thing: in some of these other timelines our Avengers stole the Infinity gems, then replaced them with - hopefully - minimal interference. So in these timelines, when their own Avengers go back in time to steal the Infinity gems, they will logically go to the same moments in time, right? And in doing so, they will bump into "our" Avengers (or rather a new spinoff version of our Avengers... ugh, this is complicated) trying to steal those same stones, right? So now there's THREE instances of the Avengers at that point in time! Oh... I actually want to see that! Imagine the "Cap vs Cap" scene with a third Captain America thrown in! Man, imagine the stories you could tell about the butterfly effects rippling outwards from all these time loops.


How are there any Asgardians still alive? In Infinity War Thanos destroyed their ship and seemingly killed all of them. Even if some of them took escape pods (which I don't think we ever saw), how did they end up on Earth? How is Valkyrie and Korg just casually sitting there - even if escape pods were used, wouldn't Valkyrie have stayed behind to try to fight off Thanos? I'm not saying it's a plot hole or anything, only that there was no mention of them in Infinity War, then they show up here without any real explanation; I would have appreciated at least a couple of lines of dialogue or something. Sigh. I guess it's just my nature to like things to be clear.

Oh, and where the hell did Valkyrie get a pegasus from?


Yeah, so, I was disappointed we didn't see Loki return. I mean, he of all people just keeps coming back right? Either he could have faked his death to Thanos again, or he could have been brought back by the stones; either way I would have been happy.


So the Gamorra we have now is from nine years ago, right? Of course Quill has only aged four years since he's been gone for the last five years. I guess that's fine.


How does Tony Stark know enough about quantum mechanics to figure out time-travel in, like, one day? Isn't his area of speciality... I dunno, things to do with machines and computers? He built missiles, robot suits, and a new power source in the first film, and since then we've seen him build more suits and advanced A.I.s; none of that has very much to do with quantum mechanics and cutting-edge physics does it? In the comics Ant-Man built Ultron, in the films they changed it to Iron-Man. And I was OK with that, because it makes sense: Ant-Man does stuff with... I dunno, quantum everything, Iron-Man does robotics. But by that same token it should have been Ant-Man (I'm talking Hank Pym of course) who figured out time-travel, as that area (quantum physics) been very much established to be his wheelhouse in the cinematic universe. So why did they feel the need to hand it over to Stark? Seriously, Stark gets EVERYTHING in this movie. Is RDJ blackmailing the Russos or something?


When we see Hulk here he seems to be a beloved celebrity. But here's the thing: the whole Earth has suffered the biggest tragedy EVER. People are in pain, even five years later. Normally when this sort of thing happens, people look for someone to blame. I feel like a lot of people would resent the Avengers for failing to stop it; it might not be logical, but we aren't always very logical when we're emotional. Loss leads to resentment. Even if people didn't blame the Avengers, they might not enjoy seeing them as it would just serve as a reminder. And even before the Snappening feelings things were strange; Civil War and all that.

So I feel like Hulk walking around in public might not attract the sort of adoration that we're seeing here. Yes, the kids we see asking for his photo are perhaps too young to carry all that emotional baggage, but still; he just seems to be very happy and comfortable walking around in public as the Hulk. Which felt especially out of place to me considering how down all the other Avengers are. Again, the Hulk was just so weirdly handled here. I mean, the part where he tells the Ancient One that "he's not asking" - while smiling no less - and tries to just take the stone by force rather than trying to actually explain to her why he needs it... it just felt out of character to me.


There's a scene with all the female heroes coming together. It was a cool scene, but it didn't exactly make sense: why in that chaotic maelstrom did all the participants of one gender suddenly congregate? Co-incidence? Unlikely. Weren't they busy with other stuff? If they were, then why did they suddenly all simultaneously think it was OK to leave the guys they had been fighting alongside on their own in the middle of this pitched battle? And if they weren't busy, then why was not a single male free enough to join them? Yes, I know, I'm overthinking this. I dunno why, but this movie really has me picking at the seams; not every movie does this to me you know.


Infinity War dealt with themes of sacrifice. Thanos was prepared to sacrifice anything any anyone to achieve his goals, and in the end he did. Several times the Avengers or Guardians were called upon to make sacrifices, but they weren't prepared to do so; even when they did - such as Wanda destroying the Mind Stone - it proved to be too late. Now, in Endgame, the subject of sacrifice appeared again, but this time the Avengers won through self-sacrifice. Widow, Hulk, Thor, Stark: all were ready to sacrifice themselves. And in the end their sacrifices saved everyone. Is the message here "only self-sacrifice is OK"? I dunno, but it's interesting.

Avengers: Infinity War impressions

I just saw Avengers: Infinity War. I'm not writing a full review as the film seems to be a "part 1" kind of deal (something that I didn't know because I avoided ALL information going in: I went in about as blind as it's possible to, for something that they've been building up to for ten years). Instead here's some general impressions. BTW: there will be spoilers, this isn't for someone who hasn't seen the movie and intends to or is thinking about doing so.


I loved Thor 3, so I was turned off by Infinity War starting off by ripping apart the "pre-credits" ending of that movie. As the film went on it continued to undo everything that was done in Ragnarok. In Ragnarok, Thor made new friends, lost an eye, lost his legendary hammer but learned that he didn't need it, and saved the last of his people, leading them into space in the search for a new home. Infinity War starts with the last of his people being slaughtered and his new friends being killed or disappearing, then as the film goes on he gets a new eye and a new legendary weapon. Plus we never once see a single spark (or him flying) until he gets his new axe. Also we saw him defeat Hulk without Mjiolnir before, but now Hulk puts up far more of a fight than he does against Thanos pre-Stormbreaker (I get that he had already been defeated and was weakened, but still, his attacks had zero effect). Also, why did Heimdall send Hulk to Earth without/instead of Thor or Loki?

I was expecting Doctor Strange to display more magical skill by this point. He pretty much does nothing but the two main "beginner spells" we'd seen him learn first for most of the film. Later, when he's solo-ing Thanos we get a few seconds of him being awesome, but until that point he was really underperforming, even earlier in the same fight when the others were still up and they actually had a chance to win. Now, he mentions that "this was the only way", I have to assume he's playing a long game and knew that they were going to lose, so maybe he was throwing the fight on purpose. But that raises another question: if he saw only one way to win out of some fourteen million (I think) different possibilities, then what was different about all the other ways? I mean, they fought him, lost, and he got the stone and walked away. How would things have been different in the millions of other fights they could have had with him? Did they win all those others, or at least not give him the stone, and that was a loss in the long game? And exactly how much of what happened in that fight did he direct/have planned? I have a strange feeling that this issue will not be addressed to my satisfaction, but perhaps that's not fair as Marvel often surprises me by being better than I expected. On a related note, the scenes with Strange then Ironman going against Thanos solo were brief but enjoyable, especially Ironman; the ways he shifted tech around and generated weapons on the fly were creating and visually interesting.

I haven't seen Spiderman Homecoming, so this was the most of Marvel's cinematic Spiderman I'd seen in a while. He's not what I expected of him; he's very awkward and seems to lack self-confidence, even when he's web-slinging. Perhaps it's early days for him and he'll change, but... well, I haven't warmed to him yet.

Vision didn't do very much. I get that it's because he was injured right off the bat, and I don't care for Vision very much in the comics, but I love Paul Bettany so I would have been happy for him to be a bit more active here. He actually got more screen time than many others such as Rogers, but he less of an active participant and more of a McGuffin in many of those scenes. And now he's dead. They might bring him back as a different Vision (it's happened in the comics, more than once I think). I'm not sure if they'd bring back Paul Bettany for that and if the character would be interesting or not, but I'm always up for more Paul Bettany as long as he's doing something interesting.

The film was somehow more chaotic than I expected, but it did a great job of having so many characters without feeling messy. I'm actually very impressed by how well it weaved them them all in (well most of them: a few faces are missing in action, but that's totally understandable). Seriously, VERY impressed. They didn't all have very big roles, but that's understandable too. Thor, Ultron, and the Guardians of the Galaxy probably had the most screen time, which made a lot of sense narratively since they've been the most involved with the Inifinity Stones overall (and since this film picks up right off the tail of Ragnarok).

Another thing that impressed me was how much depth and humanity Thanos himself displayed. It was a pleasant surprise, and ended up being vital I would say due to how much of the screen time he dominates - especially seeing as he's a CG character. Heh, Marvel probably has the best track record in the world of making us forget that characters are CG and just accepting them as part of the story. Great work from Josh Brolin and of course the entire crew that animated Thanos.

One small thing that I'm still wondering about Thanos mentioning "a grateful galaxy" (iirc) after he has achieved his goal. This makes me question his motives, and his grasp of reality: when has anyone ever displayed gratitude to him for killing off half their planet? Does he somehow think things will be different this time, or did he slip and reveal what he really desires? There may be more depth to the character that I haven't grasped yet... or maybe the line was poorly written, but I doubt that considering how most of the rest of the dialogue was such a perfect representation of each character.

While they did a fantastic job of establishing Thanos as a tremendously powerful threat, I felt this was undermined slightly by there being just too many times that he was almost defeated, only to succeed thanks to our heroes making bad decisions. If the Guardians hadn't split up, he wouldn't have gotten his hands on the Soul Stone. If Starlord hadn't screwed up, they would have gotten the gauntlet off. If Strange hadn't allowed himself to be taken and handed over the stone, or Ironman had taken (or found a way to take) them back to Earth they would have fought alongside the Avengers and probably defeated Thanos. Even if they hadn't, without the time stone they would have been able to destroy the mind stone and he wouldn't have been able to bring it back. Plus at that point he would have been fighting them three stones down and they would have had far more to bring against him. If Thor had aimed for the head, or followed up his initial strike rather than stand around talking, Thanos wouldn't have had the chance to snap his fingers. Look, the point is that their decisions worked in his favour many times, and that bothered me. It probably shouldn't because, well, real life works that way sometimes, but it did. Now, at the same time this did have the significant benefit of leading to several battles where the stakes felt real: where it felt as if the heroes had a genuine chance of stopping him. Without that, the film would not have worked nearly as well, so I certainly can't fault them, it's just something that turned me off personally.

That was a gutsy way to end the film. I didn't realise that this was "part 1" until afterwards, but still, I didn't personally buy into the end actually sticking, so it didn't really have an impact on me. I understand that other people did not have this problem.

It was just fun watching characters that we've known forever meeting  up for the first time and forming connections. Thor and the Defenders was very notable here.

So where were Wakanda's attack rhinos and fighter aircraft? Considering the level of tech they'd displayed in the past I was surprised that the fight ended up being a bunch of infantry hitting each other in melee over an open plain. Oh, and if there was a Hulkbuster suit for Banner, then wasn't there any other Ironman tech lying around for the Avengers to use? Like, where was Cap's shield, that they gave him those Wakanda spike-things?

Who exactly set up the test for the soul stone? It couldn't be the stone itself could it? There's no mention of any kind of authority or entity in charge of the stones - if that was the case I would have expected tests in place for the other stones as well. What exactly was it testing? In my opinion it was no test of morality, but it was a test of the depth of conviction... or desire. Who was it who thought that was the attribute that should allow access to the soul stone?

It was bit strange how every single place our heroes went, Thanos was either there, had just left, or was about to arrive, especially considering how many of them there were running around. He was one hell of a busy bee, eh?

There were less moments where the character's personalities shined through, but they were appreciated; Thor ribbing Cap about his beard, Starlord reacting to Thor, Drax being Drax... I think it was Thor and the Defenders who got the most screen time, but also they are the funniest characters (who most often communicate their personalities traits and current states through humor), which I think meant it was easiest to slip a bit of personality in to their scenes.

There was a bit too much "oh fine, I'll give you the stone to save one life even though I know that half the universe will die if I give it to you, very probably including myself and the very person I wish to save". Also, there was a whole lot of Thanos leaving people alive. Now that's fine on it's own: we can accept that he's basically merciful or honourable or too focused on his goal to stop to crush bugs or something, but then we find out that he killed all the dwarves even after they gave him what he wanted, so suddenly it just doesn't work as well.

I felt like Thanos was all over the place power-wise. One minute he's controlling reality itself, the next minute he's trading punches, then he's waving people away with telekinesis, then he's trading punches again... I don't know, it just felt like his power-level/fighting style fluctuated randomly. Makes for more visually interesting fights, but also makes it hard to get a handle on what the stakes are/what the chances are of achieving them... I dunno, I didn't feel grounded? Like, movies have to establish "rules" then stick to them for us to be able to follow, you know?

We talked it over and our conclusion is that the Gauntlet is damaged, but the gems are still fine, meaning that Thanos can't snap his fingers again and possibly can't use the gems together but he can still use them individually? I guess we'll see. But still, if he can't snap his fingers again and he killed the dwarves so they can't make a new gauntlet... then how is he going to bring populations under control when they grow too large again? Or does he somehow think that only happens once? Nevermind; while his motivations did raise some interesting questions about morality, his actual methodology (or at least what we know of it), and especially his big plan for using the infinity gems, was far too simplistic to stand up to real scrutiny and discussion, so I'm not going to bother.

This is actually a fairly dark movie; it starts with genocide and ends with the biggest mass murder ever. The tone doesn't entirely dwell in darkness as there's plenty of lighter moments, but overall the darkness is there for most of the runtime. I find this slightly interesting: there's been a suggestion that DC has been sticking to "dark and broody" partly because Marvel was generally being bright and colourful, either to differentiate their product or because Marvel had already cornered that market. But now Marvel is showing that they can do dark too if they want to; it could be interpreted as a shot across the bow towards DC? That's probably reading too much into it, but still: DC doesn't have the monopoly on dark superhero movies anymore. Maybe just the monopoly on bad ones? Heh, I jest: plenty of people have made bad dark superhero films, including Marvel.


Basically, the film is very strong, there isn't really anything I can think of that I think they did "wrong", however some elements didn't work for me personally. So yeah, it's a good movie (especially considering what it is: the first part of a story that has been built up in a way that has never been done before in the history of cinema). In fact, given how often Hollywood has screwed up big films about properties that people were invested in and cared about, it's kind of a miracle that this ended up half as good as it actually did. But despite that, I didn't enjoy it that much. Of course this is only half the story; I withhold final judgment until it's over.



EDIT 07/05/2018:
The more I think about the film and discuss it with others the more I appreciate the small touches of character work. For example, Thor using the wrong names for everyone. I feel like ever since Thor first came to Earth he's been perpetually surrounded with things he doesn't understand. By this point he's just gotten used to it and he rolls with it the best he can; calling Rocket "rabbit" and the others "morons" just because that's what Rocket called them. In Dark World we see him imitating people, hanging Mjolnir on a coat rack and later grabbing the handrail on a train just because everyone else is. The thing is, it makes sense not only because he's been spending a lot of time in vastly different worlds, but also because we know that he cares about Earth and wants (or at least wanted back when things were simpler) to stay there and fight alongside the Avengers. He's basically a tourist who's fascinated with the local habits and culture.

Groot spends the entire film playing on a (surprisingly crappy) video game, ignoring everything that's happening. But then when he sees Thor literally dying to achieve his goals, Groot is actually inspired. We don't see the videogame again, instead we see him throwing himself into battle, yelling his heart out. It's actually quite a nice bit of character development, especially considering how little time was spent on the character and how much else was going on.

Starlord and Gamora are having a really dark conversation about needing to kill each other to save the galaxy, only for the film to transition into a gag where a grown man is convinced that he's invisible because he's moving so slowly. I feel like that kind of sudden tonal shift into something completely ridiculous should fall flat on it's face, and yet here it works brilliantly. That's not something that just anyone can pull off.

I mentioned earlier that Thanos' plan doesn't make any sense. To be clear, I don't see that as a flaw of the film: he's the Mad Titan. His plan is insane, but it sounds just good enough on the surface for a someone with issues to devote themselves to; it might not stand up to scrutiny, but he doesn't WANT to scrutinize it. He WANTS to believe that it will work, that it will allow him to become the saviour of the galaxy. I feel like that's far more realistic than we might want to believe. I still hope we'll get to see what's really going on with him; as I mentioned before his "grateful galaxy" comment makes me think there's more there.

I asked where Cap's shield was before. I was since reminded that Tony took it at the end of Civil War. Some people have suggested online that there will be a scene in the next one with Tony returning it to Cap, and that this scene could be very powerful as it displays their reconciliation. That sounds good to me! I wonder if they planned this when they wrote Civil War?

I've been thinking: Thanos had the mind gem originally, and I think he knew of the location of some of the others? So why is he moving now? The way I see it, the trigger was the capture of Nebula and discovering that Gamora knew where the final stone was. It's not exactly clear how he knows where all the others are, but he does have a lot of resources and Infinity Gems aren't exactly subtle when they're activated. So now that he knows where they all are or who can lead him to them, he finally makes his move. Another possible factor is the destruction of Asgard? We were told in previous films that Asgard keeps the peace amongst "the nine realms"; regardless of what that means we can take it that they are very powerful. Perhaps too powerful for Thanos to try to take the Tesseract from them?

Marvel films have not been very consistent when it comes to space travel. In the first Avengers film Thanos' armies rely on the Tesseract to reach Earth, but here they just fly over quite easily? The ship with Tony on it reaches Thanos' home planet quite quickly even without anyone piloting it. Rocket and Yondu went through some "jumps" to get to Ego, and ended up going through too many, but we never see any mention of "jumps" here? Overall the plot of the first Avengers doesn't hold up with how things worked here; I don't hold it against the first one because it worked there, I just feel like they made space travel too easy here (and perhaps in Guardians 2?), which retroactively makes the older movies not quite work as well.

Speaking of, if it's so easy why doesn't Starlord ever go back to Earth? I always assumed it was because it was really hard for some reason; like Earth isn't really far away and hard to get to, or maybe it's really hard to find because, well, maybe there isn't a really easy to use map with "Earth" written on it? Like, every spacefaring race has their own star map (of various levels of details and completeness) with stars and planets marked differently, and Earth is so unimportant that no-one actually has it named "Earth" (at best it would be "star387503planet0003" or something, assuming it's even on the map at all). But now, seeing how trivial star travel was portrayed here, I'm not sure anymore. Maybe he was too scared? Like, he doesn't know anyone, he doesn't know how the planet has changed, he doesn't know what they would do if he returned, all he knows is that Earth doesn't know about aliens and have tons of movies about fighting them, so showing up in a spaceship might not evoke a warm reaction. Maybe he wants to preserve his memories of it as they are? Maybe it's just too painful to be reminded of his mother? I dunno, point is there may be more there than I originally thought.

Did Thor's new axe have a two-piece head? That sounds like a terrible design! I've never seen an axe with two separate pieces that bolt onto the handle. Also, the new axe just doesn't look as cool as Mjolnir. Which is fine, I'm just saying: I don't think the inevitable toy will sell as well. Hmm, I wonder if they'll ever introduce Captain Britain wielding Excalibur?