Tag Archives: Avengers

Avengers: Endgame – Closing The Circle

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Talk about a cliffhanger. I posted a spoilers and speculation blog about Avengers: Infinity War way back in 2018, shortly before I took an unplanned three year break from blogging, and never followed it up. That’s like a Star Wars Original & Prequel Trilogy style gap.

But I still didn’t want to leave anyone, including myself, hanging. So, I’m writing this piece to close my own circle with some general thoughts about Avengers: Endgame, and what’s come in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since then. I made some predictions in that blog, and I’m happy to say that I was more right than wrong in my predictions.

Loki and Heimdall definitely died “for real” even though Loki is getting his own time travel-ly series out of it. All victim of The Snap returned, though that wasn’t exactly a long shot. I was right to assume Hawkeye wasn’t snapped, and that the original Avengers squad all survived for a reason – I was also right about the reason being to give them a proper curtain call. Doctor Strange’s apology to Tony Stark did end up being because Tony had to sacrifice his life to save the universe.

Steve Rogers bowed out with a happier ending than I’d suspected. Bucky Barnes likely isn’t the one carrying the Captain America shield forward, so I was wrong about that part. But he, and Sam Wilson, are working together to fill the void, so I was right about the group effort part. Black Widow died, but still has a solo movie coming out (some day) so I was about 50/50 on that projection. Thor is getting a fourth movie, as expected, and they’re keeping Hulk in their back pocket, likely to drop by on the She Hulk series.

As for the movie itself: I loved Avengers: Endgame, and I think the last hour or so of it is the most rewatchable MCU movie out there. The time travel trip down memory lane worked way better than it had any right to. Just the fact that they introduced time travel out of nowhere, and made it work, is a small miracle. Though my faith never really waivered in Kevin Feige and the MCU brain trust.

The Star Wars crew couldn’t even properly wrap up a trilogy with the disastrous Rise Of Skywalker. Meanwhile, Marvel capped out a 20+ movie arc in the most entertaining and satisfying manner possible. Both of these are under Disney’s banner now, but you can see a stark difference in the way they’ve been handled.

I think Marvel has had a looser leash, which worked out for them Meanwhile, they course-corrected Star Wars on-the-fly, likely with a Bible full of studio notes, which ended up being a problem. But, if The Mandalorian is a sign of things to come, and it appears that it is, then Star Wars may soon be rising to Marvel’s standards. Imagine saying THAT twenty years ago.

Now, for how things are looking in a Post Infinity Saga universe.

Spider-Man: Far From Home was the only post-Endgame MCU release so far, even though Black Widow was scheduled to drop a year ago, before the pandemic effed up everyone’s lives for most of the past twelve months. Far From Home was a lot of fun, and a good demonstration of how well Marvel Studios can get themselves back into the flow of smaller, non-universe destroying crossover films. It was very encouraging.

No one has seen Black Widow yet, as I noted above. But I’ll definitely check it out when – and where – I can.

WandaVision is really interesting. I’ll probably post a review of it once the season concludes, since I don’t want to fully judge it without having seen the entire run. It’s pulled the rug out from under the viewers several times already, so I’ll gather up my thoughts about it when standing on more solid ground.

The Falcon & The Winter Solider is coming later this month, and I’m very much looking forward to more of the love-hate-buddy-cop action that those two characters have only been able to hint at up to this point. I’ll probably write that review up after the season (series?) concludes as well.

Loki is up after that in May. Lots of timey-wimey stuff going on there, starting with Loki being not-dead in the first place. But the character is always fun, and time travel worked out nicely in Endgame, so let it ride!

She-Hulk, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, Ironheart, and Secret Invasion have all been announced as Disney+ series, and some interesting casting news has come out already. But, it’s also far too early for me to have any real insights.

I’ll judge The Eternals when I know more about it, but I’m not familiar with the title at all, so I won’t make any assumptions yet. But I did watch Nomadland, which was also directed by recent Golden Globe Winner Chloe Zhao. I didn’t exactly know how to feel about the point-of-view in Nomadland, which I think was the point. It was a beautiful-looking film though, that’s for certain, so that’s hooked my interest in Eternals.

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness is next up. It’s being directed by Sam Raimi, which sounds incredible. All we know so far is the title and director. But I’m loving the title and the director. It’s still in the early stages of shooting, but I’m fully on-board already. I can’t wait to further examine the mystical corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (Or, Marvel Cinematic Multiverse, I suppose). I really enjoyed the back-half of Doctor Strange’s solo movie, and loved his few scenes in Thor: Ragnarok. Picking up where those left off seems pretty awesome to me.

Spider-Man: No Way Home appears set to tackle the multiverse as well, which should be fun. Into The Spider-Verse may have already done this about as well as you possibly can. But the MCU has the bonus draw of bringing in actors and characters from the previous iterations of the Spider-Man film franchise. If nothing else, that should be good to pop the crowd a few times.

Thor: Love & Thunder is deep into shooting, with Taika Waititi again at the helm. Much like Doctor Strange’s new movie, the title and director are more-than-enough to get me into a theater. Plus, Thor: Ragnarok was probably the most fun MCU movie to date, so I’m all-in for more of that vibe.

Captain Marvel 2 and Black Panther 2 are also on-deck. But the former has just started casting, and the latter is trying to figure out how best to address the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman. Either way, it’s far too early to make any assumptions about either.

I’m happy to finally put a bow on my Infinity War cliffhanger, and can’t wait to share my thoughts about all the interesting stuff that’s coming up in the future.

The Marvelous Misdirections Of Avengers: Infinity War

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I’m going to put this right at the top here:  Every word in this post contains spoilers about Avengers: Infinity War.

I’m not doing a standard review, since there have been a million of those already, and most of them are probably better than what I could do.

So, instead, this will be a spoilers & speculation post.

I’ll be directly addressing the fates of all the major character in the film, and what I believe that will and/or should mean for their future.

You have been sufficiently warned, so anything you see below this line is your own fault.

 

 

The misdirection that I reference is in the way that Infinity War was advertised. “Where Will You Be When It All Ends” is a super ironic tag line since nothing – including the movie itsel – really ends here. And, as long as we’re mentioning fake-out advertising, the dramatic struggle between Captain America and Thanos is little more than a footnote in this movie. There isn’t even any audio besides the dramatic “We’re All F*cked” music playing over the scene. Lastly, all those shots of the Hulk in Wakanda were easily plucked out by the CGI crew.

None of those little marketing fibs made me angry, though, when all was said and done. I very much enjoyed Infinity War, but I’ll abstain from giving my full thoughts on it as a film until it’s actually finished next year. This was not really a full movie; it was the first two acts of the three act film.

With that said, I thought it was done as well as you could possibly do something of this magnitude, with this many primary characters – most of whom are already carrying their own film franchises.

Some reviewers thought Thanos himself was a problem, but I thought that Josh Brolin imbued the character with enough humanity (for lack of a better term) to make even Motion Capture God Andy Serkis proud.

Every character got  a chance to get their stuff in, albeit in smaller doses than usual. But I didn’t feel like anyone got cheated out of screen time, since there was only so much to go around – even at two hours and forty minutes – and everyone got a pretty equal share.

Now let’s take a tally.

I’ll be listed cause of death (or “death”) next to each character’s name. Everyone who got dusted by Thanos’ Finger Snap Of Doom (he was right, Thor should have gone for the head) will be tagged as “Oh Snap!”

Dead:

Heimdall – Stabbed in the chest by member of Thanos’ Black Order.

Loki – Choked to death by Thanos himself.

Gamora – Dropped off a cliff as a sacrifice to attain the Soul Stone (which was protected by the Red Skull, who made a legit surprise cameo!).

Vision – Mind Stone yanked out of his head by Thanos.

Winter Soldier / Bucky Barnes – Oh Snap!

Black Panther / King T’Challa – Oh Snap!

Spider-Man / Peter Parker – Oh Snap!

Doctor Stephen Strange – Oh Snap!

Falcon / Sam Wilson – Oh Snap!

Scarlet Witch / Wanda Maximoff – Oh Snap!

Star-Lord / Peter Quill – Oh Snap!

Drax – Oh Snap!

Mantis – Oh Snap!

Groot – Oh Snap!

Nick Fury – Oh Snap!

Maria Hill – Oh Snap!

Unknown:

Princess Shuri

Hawkeye / Clint Barton (not in the film)

Ant-Man / Scott Lang (not in the film)

The Wasp / Hope Van Dyne (not in the film)

Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers (teased in the stinger, so presumably alive)

Alive:

Captain America / Steve Rogers

Iron Man / Tony Stark

Hulk / Bruce Banner

Thor

Black Widow / Natasha Romanov

War Machine / James Rhodes

Rocket Raccoon

Nebula

Mbaka

Okoye

 

Now, as far as who’s dead “for real” I’m going to say that only Heimdall, and Loki fit that bill.

Fact is that Idris Elba was too good for that role when they cast him, and has better things to do with his time.

Loki, meanwhile, has been great in all the movies he’s appeared, but he’s essentially a villain who already appeared in five movies. That being said, Loki’s been presumed dead a few times before, so you never know.

We’ve already seen an incarnation of Gamora in the Soul Stone’s pocket dimension immediately after the Finger Snap Of Doom. I don’t believe it’s going out on a limb to suggest that she’ll find her way out of the Soul Stone just in time to give Big Daddy T a stab or two.

Everyone who disintegrated after the Finger Snap Of Doom are, ironically, the safest characters. For various reason – financial and otherwise – it would be a bad idea to keep any of them dead past Avengers 4. I expect we’ll see all of them either immediately after Thanos is vanquished, or just in the nick of time to help with the vanquishing.

As for the unknowns – I expect we’ll find out Ant-Man and The Wasp’s status by the time their movie in July comes along. Because of that, and because they weren’t actually in Infinity War, I won’t speculate too much on their fates.

Here’s the funny thing I noticed about all the survivors: All of the original Avengers squad is still alive (I’m assuming Hawkeye is amongst the living as well, so we can get a full reunion in Avengers 4).

This makes way more sense than to kill any of them off in a movie as crowded ad Infinity War was. They’ll have at least the first half of Avengers 4 to do their victory lap. I do believe, however, that victory will come at a great cost.

“Who do you believe will actually die fighting the good fight against the Mad Titan” you may ask?

I can’t get a read on Hawkeye, but he’s been absent enough since Age Of Ultron that I think he may be traveling to that great archery range in the sky.

Tony Stark has cycled through a complete character arc at least twice in the last ten years. Also, Robert Downey, Jr still has a back-end deal that pays him based on box office grosses that I believe Marvel probably wants to get out of.

From a storyline perspective, the tandem of T’Challa and Shuri have the awesome armor / billion (trillion?) dollar bank account to fill in Iron Man’s spot. Also, Doctor Strange telling him “I’m sorry, Tony. There was no other way.” tells me that 1 out-of-14,000,000 chance at victory he foresaw will come at the cost of Tony’s life.

Steve Rogers has really been the backbone of the whole MCU in many ways. His character has also had one vast, and fantastic character arc that tells me his story ends while saving the universe from Thanos. Chris Evan also seems like he’s interested in doing some different things.

I think that Bucky will take up the mantle of Captain America, much as he did in the comics for a few years. He won’t be going at it alone, though, since I think he’ll need help from Falcon to fill Steve’s shoes. This also hopefully gives us a chance at more of their delightful “I hate you / I hate you more” dynamic in future films.

I believe that Black Widow will stick around to be the third leg that help carry the weight of Steve Rogers’ legacy. She, as a character, still has a lot of untapped potential. Also, Scarlett Johansson has a movie star presence that’s tough to replace.

Thor should be safe, especially since they only just figured out how to make a great Thor movie with Thor: Ragnarok. Chris Hemsworth also seems like he’s having a great time in Ragnarok, and Infinity War. Besides, he only just got that badass Storm Breaker. It’d be  a shame not to see that bad boy in action some more.

Hulk is, as he always has been, a lot of fun. Also, it’s nice to “Have a Hulk” in your back pocket whenever the need may arise. I think the Green Giant will be sticking around longer.

Rhodey has been around since the very first MCU movie, and Don Cheadle has been playing him since way back in Iron Man 2. War Machine would certainly help fill in that expected Iron Man-shaped hole, but his survival is a true wildcard in Avengers 4.

I expect Captain Marvel, Rocket, Nebula, and the Wakanda Trio (Shuri, Mbaka, Okoye) will help fill our the margins of Avengers 4. I think the only real death risk out of that group is Nebula.

At any rate, that’s where I stand on the present – and future – of the Avengers, and the MCU in-general. Where I also stand is happily in-line to see Avengers 4 as soon as I’m possibly able to.