That was for the Simonson run fanboys. Stormbreaker was the name of Beta Ray Bill’s hammer.
Okay, I haven’t sat and caught up on this whole thread. Sorry if I walk any well-trodden ground here. Just saw the movie yesterday.
Guys… It wasn’t great.
I think the drama of the finale kind of overshadows and reshapes your feelings about the preceding 2.5 hours of kinda boring, somewhat messy action sequences. If it weren’t for the audacity of the end I think looking back on everything that happens in this film, it would be obviously pretty empty.
Highlights:
- I say it’s “messy,” but I do think that at a macro level the way they wove the several teams’ threads together was well done. It is the interior of each scene that is sloppy.
- The Titan battle featured some very imaginative use of characters’ powers and made for an exciting battle.
- Thor and Rocket was a good team-up, even if what they did together was dumb.
- Thanos was a lot less dumb than I expected him to be, and the focus on him as a character was unique (though I don’t think it ultimately worked). The specificity of his plan worked in the film’s favor to keep things dramatic and obviously made for a powerful ending.
- Nebula’s introduction was dramatic.
- I liked giant Peter Dinklage.
- A few good jokes. (Invisible Drax, embarrassment in front of wizards…)
Lowlights:
- Most heroes had nothing interesting to do but fight. Practically nothing in the film captures the special interplay between characters that you see in Avengers 1 (Thor/Rocket and maybe Quill/Stark are the exceptions)–and that’s the whole reason to see these ensemble movies. Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Drax, Falcon, even for the most part Dr. Strange… all of these did really nothing interesting in the movie.
- Gamora’s death was shallow and unearned.
- So was Loki’s. Also, was that the cleverest thing Loki could attempt to pull on Thanos? A secret knife??
- The moment where Peter’s named an Avenger could have been way more affecting.
- Thanos’ goal makes no sense. Why half? Does he not realize that living things reproduce, and it’s only a temporary solution? Seems like some civilizations are probably more wasteful than others and he could exterminate all of them?
- Mishandled Hulk. To be fair, I think every movie has done something totally different with Hulk and only Avengers 1 really works. Watching Banner just occasionally squinch up his face and try to go green does not equal drama.
- Vision continues to be sooooooo boring, and adding a weak-ass love story didn’t help.
- Thor gets blasted by a sun for awhile? Because the handles to open it up were where the fusion blast goes through? But he’s fine later? Is it because of the axe? They could have had a lot stronger “replacing Thor’s hammer” sequence, one where he has to face how the hammer is equated with his identity.
- I ultimately think the movie wasn’t very funny, compared to most MCU fare. Several jokes were weak of fell flat and the density of characterful banter was low.
- Thanos’ minions were non-descript and unimpressive, with the possible exception of the talky telekinetic guy.
- Why did they give Thor his eye back? (I can almost tolerate this because they seem to have created a theme of Rocket indiscriminately stealing body parts… was that reinforced in Guardians 2? I haven’t seen it.)
Making this movie has to have been an enormous and complex undertaking. But I don’t think that excuses the kind of lazy handling of most characters and scenes in the film. And, again, I think that the bleak ending has more to do with people’s reactions to the movie than anything else.
Interesting difference in interpretation. What you describe as “pretty empty”, I saw as taking advantage of all the history built up over the last 10 years of movies. Many of the characters don’t do much other than toss a few quips and do CGI gymnastics, true. And what little else there is goes by fast and isn’t all that deep. (Except maybe Thanos, but we didn’t go to a Thanos movie, we went to an Avengers movie.) Which in my mind made sense because this wasn’t ever meant as a stand-alone movie; to understand characters and meaning, you have to take it in context with all the other MCU stuff. But I can certainly see your viewpoint that it’s just a couple of hours of fluff with a cheap thrill at the end, particularly if you haven’t seen all the other movies (or it’s been too long to remember very well).
I think I just inevitably compare it to Avengers, where we had set-up movies for each character, but the magic was in the chemistry that occurred when they got together. The scope is way larger here–probably impossibly large–but it was moments like that that I felt like I only got the barest drop of.
Man, Ioved the character interactions. I think they were the highlight of the movie. Josh Brolin got to chew so much scenery with so many actors in this and I don’t think any fell flat. I wad constantly going: “Damn, this guy is such a good villian.”. He had so many good moments. From his “I like you” throwaway to Starlord to his conversation with Tony, from his grief over Gamora to his smashing of Hulk. Just a great character, I thought. He had 100 times the personality of whoever Justice League fought.
I couldn’t stop laughing every time giant Dinklage was on the screen. I didn’t know he was in this and though his lines were kinda dull it was so funny to see him towering over Thor.
It’s better to view this movie as a show about Thanos rather than the titular Avengers. That said, I really enjoyed it especially with all the references to the earlier movies.
How Thanos got the Soul Stone (courtesy of Reddit).
I thought it wasn’t a good fit for 4DX, especially when compared to Tomb Raider where it was brilliant. But at least this gave me some idea of what kind of movies to consider seeing in 4DX in the future :)
They managed to use the environmental effects well maybe 2-3 times in all of Infinity War. (IIRC they synchronized the stabbing of Heimdall with a water spray, which was appropriately icky. And there was a good use of the strobe lights somewhere in the last third).
Instead it was pretty much just the shaky chairs for 2.5 hours. Partly that was because the movie didn’t give them a lot of opportunity for other things. And in the few cases where the opportunity for a more interesting mapping existed, they for some reason chose not to use it. (IIRC they didn’t even use the wind generators for the New York scene).
And then in addition to using a really limited effect repertoire, the action sequences in Infinity War weren’t suited for getting the viewers immersed. Way too many quick cuts back and forth between different characters for that.
I liked this movie a lot. For me it felt a lot like Empire and for those that said Empire wasn’t a dark ending, i remember it differently. It also reminds me a bit of wrath of khan, which while (arguably) the best star trek movie, did end with spock dying.
Some random thoughts/observations:
Obviously, all(or most of) the death is going to be undone. I’m hoping that they solve this dimensionally (like by fleeing into another dimension), but i think the points about Strange at the time stone are very astute and feel that is mostly likely how they’ll do it. Maybe strange pulled the time stone he gave Thanos out of another dimension and its return to its own dimension restores time to that point (allowing someone to tell thor where to aim)
I loved many of the hero interactions, and I really liked that Thanos’ lieutenants were pretty competent and could hold their own (for the most part).
Probably my biggest gripes lie with the tech/magic borders. Stark’s new suits that do just about everything (hey, good thing he had one made for spiderchild eh?) and a forge that pumps out legendary loot just about as fast as you can think of it (ya, fuck toiling for generations to craft a singular item, we’ve got a thanos killing hammer mold - wait, maybe we should make several of these and pass them around). Bucky’s assault rifle must be something pretty damn special indeed to compare with everyone else’s weaponry (Hawkeye also suffers from this, but at least he’s conscious of it). But still, these are minor gripes…
I dunno, he really hit home with me. Someone else mentioned Thanos the administrator, and i think that’s a pretty apt description. Someone else mentioned culling, and that too fits. If the success of your herd threatens its very survival, you don’t think twice about culling it. In the light of pure logic, i think you could even argue this decision isn’t evil. Or maybe it’s the worst evil - those actions that follow out of impassive logic, unhindered by emotion or empathy. Maybe INTJs do make the best villains. For some reason, i kept thinking of Bane’s line “I’m necessary evil” when i was thinking about this situation afterwards. And when you’re talking about life in the scale of the universe (well past trillions here), it makes sense to me that he wouldn’t care about picking who lives and dies - the law of large numbers will prevail to ensure enough talented individuals remain to perpetuate the herds.
Ya, i agree. Even though i’d be more disappointed with a time travel solution (hey, it’s better than this is all just a dream right!?) I still feel confident they’ll do a good job with it.
That just made me think and lol a bit. I think everyone should rank their favorite solution from most preferable to least (insert new generic solutions where you think of them)…for me, i think it would be (some examples in parentheses):
Dimensional (retreat to a dimension that didnt get kilt)
None (yup, they’re all dead, suck it up)
Time travel (let’s just go back and change the time line)
dream (man, thor should really have not eaten the tacos last night)
superman going really fast around the universe (cause he’s better than batman)
What?! How about KitH?
Oh sure, I’d take them too. But I guess I feel like they’re mostly all doing stuff, that they didn’t really go anywhere, even if they aren’t together anymore. And I guess I feel a little more urgency with the SCTV gang, gauche as it may be to say, due to their advancing ages.
What if Thanos is trapped in one of the stones and everything after he snaps his fingers is his private reality? Or it created a pocket dimension for him. Back in the real world no one post snap is dead, that’s just his mind.
The Snap can go all sorts of ways.
I still think Strange fucked with him somehow.
Thanks for the post on 4DX, @jsnell. As I mentioned, I hadn’t gone to one before and didn’t have a basis of comparison. But good to know it can be even better in movies like Tomb Raider.
One thing I did enjoy was the way the chair would lean to match camera movement. Sometimes very subtle and cool.
So true.
Something in the upcoming Ant-man will explain why Fury is only able to use the pager to call Captain Marvel now.
And explain what a pager is, for all those youngsters.
There were a few mutterings in the screening I was in when he pulled it out. I assumed it was the millennial’s not recognising the captain marvel logo, but you may be right, it might have been the pager itself.
Wait, why does he have the pager? Wouldn’t Brie have the pager? It’s been a while since I used one but despite the name I remember those things getting messages and not the other way around. There’s no way they could have tech that advanced.
This movie is ruined.
I’m guessing that Ms. Marvel movie (or some upcoming movie) takes place in the 80s or 90s or whenever pagers were high tech. At the end of the movie she gives Fury what looks like a pager but is actually some intergalactic distress signal type thing, before flying off into space to do Ms Marvel things.
I was given a pager for work around 5 years ago. On personal use it might have died out but there are surprising number of them still out there on the professional side.