I knew very little about the character, and this was a weirder movie than I expected going into it. The early part reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy without the wisecracks (the Kree connection might have something to do with this), and I found it disorienting and hard to connect with. I couldn't tell how much I was liking or disliking the movie for most of its runtime, although it was keeping my attention
This is one of those cases where I developed a stronger appreciation after the fact. We watched it last night. I've landed on the conclusion that I quite enjoyed it after all, while not quite meeting the level of my favourites
A fair amount of this was familiar, but it worked for me. The Skrulls were effective villains while they were still the villains, and more on that in a moment. I liked what was done with shape-shifting
I'm not usually one to spend too much time anticipating what a movie's going to throw at me. Most people could have anticipated the twist a mile away, if for no other reason than the fact that we've seen the Kree before and they were not nice. But I liked the twist, and I liked how the movie changed our view of these characters
Fun cast, good chemistry. They do love their de-aging technology, don't they
Holy Moses, does Captain Marvel get super-powered. Not surprising that Fury hit up that pager at the end of Infinity War
This might be surprising to hear, but I liked the climax. The fact that it basically consisted of Carol absolutely DESTROYING set it apart from the same old climax beats we've seen 20 times already
Girl power without hitting you over the head with it. This movie fits into the Marvel formula, and it's been said many times that it shouldn't have taken this long for a female-centric Marvel movie, but looking at the team behind this is heartening. Also the subtle touches like the soundtrack, which is not only kick-ass, but also features some terrific contributions from ladies of rock
Liked it. It was a fun, light movie with a funny script and charming performances
Lost some of the ingenuity of the way the first Ant-Man played with scale. Best action scene was Hope fighting bad guys early in the movie, shrinking in size and using kitchen implements to her advantage
As per usual, villains were meh
For such a big name, definitely expected more Pfeiffer than what we got
Really liked Randall Park. He was a delight
Michael Peña was still fun but he didn't have as much to do. I was happy to see the return of the Luis story
I liked the climax. It was wacky, and multi-faceted, and it kept my attention
THAT MID-CREDITS SCENE, THOUGH. That got me. Possibly the most effective mid-credits scene yet, which is saying something considering this is one of the lower-stakes movies
Oh. And one last thing. The scenes of Paul Rudd on house arrest singing karaoke and playing drums reminded me of this video. Damn does our boy look good playing the drums
I cannot even fathom how anyone could watch this movie without having seen everything that came before it. I saw everything that came before it in the last 6 months and I was still lost at points. Where are all the Infinity Stones? Who's going where? Who's teamed up with whom? It was a lot to keep track of
Related to that, and due to the nature of the movie, some subplots were better than others
I generally liked the new team-ups we had here, especially when there were some heads being butted. The prickliness of Tony and Doctor Strange was a lot of fun, as was Peter Quill being so put off by Thor. I also liked the team of Thor, Rocket and Groot, although that whole subplot was pretty bland
The Guardians-styled segments were my favourites; in some ways I liked them even better than the actual Guardians movies. Quill and Drax had some good bits, and while Teenage Groot was really just one joke, they stuck with that one joke and it was a good running gag throughout the movie. Rubberband Man was also a fantastic choice for the Guardians' entrance
I also liked the aforementioned team of Tony and Strange, as well as Spider-Man. Strange's powers are still pretty cool and unique, though I wish they had leaned a little more heavily into them, perhaps more inspired by the visuals of the Doctor Strange movie. Spidey's new suit was also pretty neat
Everyone else got pretty under-served. Captain American has a beard and Black Widow is blonde now, and those were my main takeaways from the screen time given to those two. Oh, and Bruce Banner has performance anxiety
Thanos. Complex motivation for a villain, certainly the most powerful foe our heroes have ever fought, and I don't really care about him as a character. Considering how deep we are into the franchise, not to mention how the movie ends (which we'll get to in a minute), the most important thing about Thanos was that he had to feel like an actual threat to this multitude of incredibly powerful superheroes; the good news is he does, right from the start. But he doesn't have the charisma of the best MCU villains - Killmonger, Loki, and so on. Perhaps this was by design to make him all the more intimidating. Perhaps this was due to there not being much humanity behind his performance, by Josh Brolin, an actor I like. But even the parts intended to give him depth, like his relationship with Gamora, did nothing for me. His henchmen will have left my memory within the week if they haven't already. Parting word about Thanos for now: he has a surprisingly cute lil button nose compared to the lump of flesh that is his face
One has to respect a movie in which the bad guy wins. The subversion of our expectations is honestly shocking. However, the risk they ran was that it ended up making the first two hours of the movie feel somewhat hollow. Nothing the Avengers did before fighting Thanos actually made any difference. Thor's axe didn't save them. The battle in Wakanda didn't save them. Even sacrificing Vision didn't save them. This does add to the bleakness of the conclusion, but at the same time it diminished my appreciation for the movie as a whole story
It feels incredibly stupid and very 2019 to say this, but I knew a lot of details about this movie's ending thanks to memes. I tried to avoid spoilers, but it was to no avail. Spider-Man not feeling so good, people turning to dust, even the knowledge that Thanos was wiping out half the population of the universe. These were all things I knew. And with that said, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the ending to this movie still hit me hard. It was extremely well done. The emotions, the characters we've gotten to know, the ramifications, those are all going to stick with me. But if only I'd been a Marvel moviegoer when this movie came out, I'm sure seeing this ending in a theatre would have been next-level feels-hitting
