This post is nothing but atomic spoilers for Avengers: Endgame.
Tag: mcu
Surprising no one, I fucking loved Captain Marvel. I’m tentatively saying it’s my third favorite MCU movie after Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther, but I’ll need to see it a few times to be sure. It’s kind of arm wrestling with Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Which it honestly has a lot in common with, in the sense that it has an incredibly strong emotional arc for the main character, and in Captain Marvel’s case, it’s not your typical someone struggling with becoming a hero and the responsibilities of their newfound power thing that happens in most first movies for a superhero character.
This is because when we first see her, Carol Danvers is already a hero. She’s already powerful. And she knows it. It’s not about her trying to slot newfound power into an identity she already has, but rather her fighting bare-fisted to establish her own identity around what everyone else wants her to be.
I’m not here to talk about the cinematography of the film or the fight scenes or the rest of it. If you’ve seen an MCU film before, you already know what you’re getting in that regard. What I want to talk about is how feminist the movie is. And I mean REALLY feminist, and not in the superficial way we’re used to seeing “feminism” and female “strength” depicted in action properties that more often than not involves a male director and a male writer deciding that the best way for a woman to be strong is to put on leather pants and commit a lot of violence, unsubtly rejecting femininity as a whole.
This is not to say that Carol Danvers is particularly girly as a character. In fact, she’s depicted as being quite a tomboy. But the point in Captain Marvel is that her being a tomboy who grew up with dirt in her hair isn’t what makes her powerful. It’s just part of who she is, and there’s no judgment on it either way, from the character or through the lens of the film. Her ability to commit violence and the raw power she has access to, while useful, is also very much not the point.
But what I really want to dig into means SPOILERS. So continue at your own risk. Or go see the movie and come back, I’ll still be here.
I’ll admit, I was having a hard time getting hyped up about Infinity War as we approached it. First I thought that Black Panther had stolen all my excitement, but once the movie was past, still didn’t feel that enthused. I just kept looking at Infinity War and thinking oh god this is going to be a train wreck. Just too many characters in something movie-length.
Well, having seen it, I can now tell you that past me was wrong. The movie actually did a really good job of fitting in all the characters and giving most of them at least a moment or two. This was accomplished by splitting them up into several groups, and then interweaving the individual plots of those groups to build up to the Epic Battle(TM). That worked way better than I could have imagined; it was fun, the right people got put together for neat interactions, and I never found it confusing.
No, I’ve got completely different reasons that I’m not happy with this movie.
The plot, by the way, is that Thanos is a dick and wants the Infinity Stones so he can make half the people in the universe, determined by RNG, instantly die. Because scarce resources, something something no one ever bothers really arguing with his philosophy. The good guys think this is a bad idea, and thus there is conflict and a lot of punching.
There were things I really liked, which are the standard things you get out of any MCU film: some damn fun dialog from characters I like and good fight scenes. I did genuinely enjoy myself at places.
If you want to know what I didn’t like, well. That’s spoiler territory. Read at your own risk if you haven’t seen the film yet. And also let’s keep in mind that I’m totally allowed to have my opinion and you’re totally allowed to disagree because different people relate to pieces of art differently! *throws confetti*
ATOMIC SPOILERS INCOMING, TURN BACK NOW TO SAVE YOURSELF.
Honestly, I wasn’t going to bother with this movie. I’m really, really tired of Spider-Man movies. This is the third reboot of the character, and the second reboot left me so incredibly underwhelmed that the only pit deeper in my soul was already occupied by Tobey Maguire’s goth hair in Spider-Man 3. Which is sad, because Spider-Man 2 has pretty much been my favorite superhero movie ever – thanks to Dr. Otto Octavian. The only thing that got me to the theater for this one was that it had RDJ in it, and I’m still not tired of Iron Man.
Which is why, going into the theater, I jokingly called this movie Iron Man 4.
Readers, I was wrong on so many levels. God help me, I finally like a Spider-Man movie again. And I think I might like this one more than Spider-Man 2. We’ll have to see if it has the staying power in my brain.
I think part of what helps is that Spider-Man: Homecoming is not an origin story. It dives straight in with Peter already knowing all about his powers and how to use them, and is more about him trying to find the balance in his life between superhero and teenager, figuring out how he relates to the wider world. So in that sense, it’s more of a coming of age story. He’s got the same trouble juggling responsibilities that we saw in Spider-Man 2, but this go around, Peter’s still in high school. And the crazy thing here is that the movie is populated by actors that really do seem believable as high schoolers. And since it’s basically a current year story, Peter’s in a science/engineering magnet school, which is a great twist on the social dynamic. He’s not bullied for being a nerd because they’re all nerds. Which means the focus gets to be more on Peter and the responsibilities of relationships versus the responsibilities of power, rather than beating the incredibly dead horse of the jock/nerd divide,
I think it’s probably also the most racially diverse MCU movie we’ve seen to date. There’s a great interview with Tony Revelori (Flash in Spider-Man Homecoming) about how Peter Parker’s school nemesis has been reworked here, and if you scroll down there’s a picture of Peter’s peer group. Which looks like an actual group of kids you might see in a big city high school. I also really adored Peter’s best friend Ned. Zendaya as MJ was delightful.
Between Homecoming and Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2, the MCU is really hitting it out of the park this year. Hoping they’ll keep it going with Thor: Ragnorak, because the scripting on these last two movies has been a cut above the previous few offerings. (Civil War, I’m looking at you. I love you, but you’ve got some problems.)
So, definitely worth seeing. It’s a movie that’s really having some fun, and it far exceeds what the trailer tells you it’s going to be.
And now I want to talk about spoiler-y things! Because that’s the only way to fully explain why I loved this movie as much as I did.
I liked Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 better than the first GotG movie, which I already liked a heck of a lot. It’s fun, it’s weird, it’s unabashedly space opera. It’s also got a lot of payoff for some emotional stuff that got set up in the first movie, particularly the relationship with Peter Quill and Yondu. And while in GotG 1, I never really felt like we got a firm grounding on why the team of misfits came together, this at least showed us why the stay together.
Spoilers within, so read cautiously.
Well, holy shit. I went in expecting a hot mess that I’d love anyway (hello, Age of Ultron) and instead got a movie that I feel like I need to make dying seagull noises about and then place it on a shelf next to Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
I’m not going to write a more standard-ish review. I fucking loved this movie, end of story. If you liked CA:TWS, you’ll probably love it too. Instead, I want to scream about some very particular things, so this is going to be nothing but SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT.