marvel

Avengers Endgame

I cannot be objective about this movie. At all. You get laughs, tears, the whole gamut of emotions. The screenwriters and directors manage to pay off every movie from the MCU. Every Movie. Even Thor: Dark World.

I cannot go into the opening scene. It is emotionally devastating. It is a gut punch to remind you people missing and what the remaining people are going through.

Spoilers – no Spoliers. The Avengers track down Thanos after the Snap. It does not go as well as they plan. Then we get a significant time jump. We see how the world has progressed in 5 years with half the population gone.

Ant-Man plays pretty heavily into the plot of Endgame. The Avengers prepare a Heist of epic proportions to gather the stones to undo the Snap. But like all plans, it does not survive contact with the enemy.

Along the way we get to revisit moments from all the previous MCU movies. So much character development. Every character gets their moment to shine in one way or another.

Phase 4 and Beyond are setup. But this could easily be the last MCU movie and tie everything up nicely.

I do not have just one favorite or stand out moment from the movie. But several. A lot from the final reel.

Two quotes to highlight a couple:

Thor -> “…I Knew It!”

Spider-Man -> “…Instant-Kill…”

Starring: Anyone and Everyone from previous MCU movies.

Captain Marvel

I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. The origin story is sprinkled throughout until we get the payoff near the final act.

It opens with a nice tribute to Stan Lee. His cameo, while brief, was perfect.

This movie has easter eggs galore. We get a young character who may become Photon in present day MCU. We get young Fury and Colson. We get Ronan the Accuser as well as one of his henchman introduced in Guardians of the Galaxy. The movie also plays with Fury losing his eye.

Captain Marvel has many light and funny moments.

The theater I was in was filled with adults and children. Barring one child getting upset when the skrulls were on screen, most had a blast and were cheering Carol Danvers on .

Just like GotG, the souindtrack for this movie is an amazing throwback. This time to the 90s.

Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Lashana Lynch, Clark Gregg, Rune Temte, Gemma Chan, Algenis Perez Soto, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Chuku Modu, Akira Akbar, Azari Akbar

Synopsis: The story follows Carol Danvers as she becomes one of the universe’s most powerful heroes when Earth is caught in the middle of a galactic war between two alien races. Set in the 1990s, Captain Marvel is an all-new adventure from a previously unseen period in the history of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Sony did it. They made an amazing Spider-Man film!!!

We get the origin of Miles Morales. We get Spider-Gwen. We get Spider-Man Noir. We get Spider-Ham. Let me repeat that. We get Spider-frickin-Ham. Sounds crazy, right?

Get this. It works. The story weaves all these crazy characters together and hits some real emotional moments.

Starring: Shameik Moore, Jake Johnson, Hailee Steinfeld, Mahershala Ali, Brian Tyree Henry, Lily Tomlin, Luna Lauren Velez, Zoe Kravitz, John Mulaney, Kimiko Glenn, Nicholas Cage, Kathryn Hahn, Liev Schreiber, Chris Pine

Synopsis (from Google): Bitten by a radioactive spider in the subway, Brooklyn teenager Miles Morales suddenly develops mysterious powers that transform him into the one and only Spider-Man. When he meets Peter Parker, he soon realizes that there are many others who share his special, high-flying talents. Miles must now use his newfound skills to battle the evil Kingpin, a hulking madman who can open portals to other universes and pull different versions of Spider-Man into our world.

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Venom



Venom is an ok movie. I loved the interactions between the symbiote and Eddie Brock. Whether it was the conversations Eddie would appear to be having by himself as he walked down the street or to the symbiote’s input when Eddie is talking to another person.

The symbiote scenes are CGI. But not terrible CGI. Passable.

Thankfully, they did not try to force a spider symbol on his chest since this version of Venom has no real connection to Spider-Man. Sure Eddie is a West Coast transplant from New York. A former reporter for the Daily Globe (not the Bugle). And one of the astronauts from the beginning is named Jameson, but that is it. At least that I can remember.

The main villain, Carlton Drake, is your typical God-Complex, super rich, megalomaniac.

The plot is nothing to write home about. It gets the job done. It sets up Venom as an anti-hero. I like where the movie ends up. I think a sequel can focus more on the antics of Venom. And needs to not be symbiote-heavy.

Starring: Tom Hardy, Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, Reid Scott, Jenny Slate

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Ant-Man and the Wasp

I loved Ant-Man and the Wasp. I think it is better than the original – especially villain-wise. Ghost turns out to be a somewhat sympathetic villain. I like sympathetic villains. Villains that have more depth than a cookie-cutter villain.

Like Ant-Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp brings some laughs and fun back into the MCU.

We see Scott Lang almost finished with his house arrest he has been under for 2 years since Cap: Civil War. (This movie does take place right before the end of Avengers 3.) He’s playing with his daughter, doing work with his friends from the first movie. They have built a security company named X-Cons. Then he gets a weird dream/vision of Janet van Dyne playing hide and seek with a young Hope. He gives them a call and it becomes a race to rescue Janet.

This is where Ghost comes in. She needs the tech the Pyms are using for the Quantum Realm for her own ends. We also have a shady tech/arms dealer in the mix as well.

You do need the mid credits sequence. But the after credits sequence has no narrative impact – and it is in the trailers.

Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Hannah John-Kamen, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Abby Ryder Fortson, Tip TI Harris, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Douglas, David Dastmalchian

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