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Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Avengers: Endgame (2019) in Movies
Sep 28, 2021
The final curtain.
So… thanks again to work and family commitments, I’ve spent 7 days dodging social media to arrive at my showing of “Endgame” spoiler free… and was successful in doing so! It is of course impossible to write just about anything on this film without dropping spoilers. So I will keep this first part of the review short, but add some footnotes (indexed with <#> symbols) to a “spoiler section” below the trailer video. Proceed at your peril if you haven’t yet seen it!
The Plot
The MCU has delivered an impressively well-connected movie series. In the case of Thanos, this is a story-arc that started in the mid-credit “monkey” at the end of 2012’s “The Avengers” and, at the conclusion of “Avengers: Infinity War”, saw half the universe’s population drift away – Voldemort-style – into grey ash. This, of course, also wiped out half of our heroes (good trivia question for future years: who was the first we saw drift away? Answer below* ). This included Spider-Man (Tom Holland); Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); half of the remaining Guardians; The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr Pym (Michael Douglas). Oblivious to all of this is Ant Man (Paul Rudd), still stranded in the ‘quantum realm’ following the demise of his colleagues, and with no one to flick the ‘return’ switch.
After some early action, Endgame’s story revolves around a desperate attempt by the remaining Avengers, led by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a ‘retired’ Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) to undo the undoable. Can they succeed against all the odds? (With a new Spider-Man film due out in the summer, I’ll give you a guess!). Of more relevance perhaps is whether the team can stay unscathed from their encounter with the scheming and massively powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin)?
Thoughtful
The film will not be to every fan’s taste. After the virtually non-stop rip-roaring action of “Infinity War”, “Endgame” takes a far more contemplative approach to its first hour.
The film starts with a devastating prologue, and a great lesson in statistics: that you need a decent sized population to guarantee getting a 50:50 split! There is also a very surprising twist in the first 15 minutes or so that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.
But then things settle down into a far more sombre section of the film: short on action; long on character development. The world is grieving for its loss, unable to move on past the non-stop counselling sessions that everyone is getting. This first hour was, for me, by far, my favourite part of the film. Seeing how the characters we know and love have been impacted – some for better rather than for worse – was terrific. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (with a rather glib plot-point) takes on an hilarious new aspect; and Chris Hemsworth adds hugely comedic value as Thor, setting up in Scotland a “New Asgard” settlement in uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.
Cast
As an ensemble cast, everyone plays their parts extremely well. But it is just the breadth of the cast that astounds in this film: just about everyone who is anyone in the Marvel Universe – at least, those who are still alive (alive!) and not dead (dead!) – pop up for an appearance! This is great fun with, in one particular case, the opportunity to try some more rejuvenation of an old timer as previously done with Samuel L. Jackson in “Captain Marvel”.
Inevitably, some of these appearances are overly brief, and characters that I wanted to see developed more in this film (particularly Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) get very little screen time. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) barely get a single line each. So it will depend on where your loyalties lie as to whether you are satisfied with the coverage or not. (I personally find Chris Evans‘ Captain America a bit of a po-faced bore, so I wasn’t keen on the amount of screen time he had).
Stan Lee again gets another cameo in the bag before his demise: will this actually be his last live one?
Overall view
I enjoyed this movie. It could obviously NEVER live up to the over-hyped expectations of the fan base. But as a cinematic spectacle, for me, it delivered on its billing as a blockbuster finale, but one filled with a degree of nuance I was not expecting. The problem with the way that the plot have been structured (no spoilers – <#>) is that it is easy to pick holes in the storyline. Indeed, some dramatic options (that to me seemed obvious ones to ‘mine’) were left ‘unmined’ <##>; others were left inexplicably hanging <###>.
I suspect the reason for some of this is that the initial cut of this film probably ran to 5 hours rather than the – still bladder-testing – 3 hours as released. There were probably a bunch of scenes left on the cutting room floor that might allow things to make more sense in the extended BluRay release.
It’s at times slow, but for me never dull. It does suffer from one significant flaw though: the “Return of the King” disease. It doesn’t know when to quit. There was a natural MCU arc to follow and a perfect time at which to end it: but the directors (the Russo Brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) kept adding additional scenes that detracted from the natural ending <####>.
Above all, unlike I think all but one film in MCU history, there is NO “MONKEY” in the end credits: either mid-credit or end-credit! So, after the long title crawl (and some rather odd choices for end-title music by Alan Silvestri), if you are not to look bloody stupid as the lights come up, and face a storm of derision from your partner, then leave after the dramatic roll-call sequence of the film’s stars!
(*BTW, the answer to the trivia question is, I believe, Bucky.)
So… thanks again to work and family commitments, I’ve spent 7 days dodging social media to arrive at my showing of “Endgame” spoiler free… and was successful in doing so! It is of course impossible to write just about anything on this film without dropping spoilers. So I will keep this first part of the review short, but add some footnotes (indexed with <#> symbols) to a “spoiler section” below the trailer video. Proceed at your peril if you haven’t yet seen it!
The Plot
The MCU has delivered an impressively well-connected movie series. In the case of Thanos, this is a story-arc that started in the mid-credit “monkey” at the end of 2012’s “The Avengers” and, at the conclusion of “Avengers: Infinity War”, saw half the universe’s population drift away – Voldemort-style – into grey ash. This, of course, also wiped out half of our heroes (good trivia question for future years: who was the first we saw drift away? Answer below* ). This included Spider-Man (Tom Holland); Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson); half of the remaining Guardians; The Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr Pym (Michael Douglas). Oblivious to all of this is Ant Man (Paul Rudd), still stranded in the ‘quantum realm’ following the demise of his colleagues, and with no one to flick the ‘return’ switch.
After some early action, Endgame’s story revolves around a desperate attempt by the remaining Avengers, led by Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and a ‘retired’ Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) to undo the undoable. Can they succeed against all the odds? (With a new Spider-Man film due out in the summer, I’ll give you a guess!). Of more relevance perhaps is whether the team can stay unscathed from their encounter with the scheming and massively powerful Thanos (Josh Brolin)?
Thoughtful
The film will not be to every fan’s taste. After the virtually non-stop rip-roaring action of “Infinity War”, “Endgame” takes a far more contemplative approach to its first hour.
The film starts with a devastating prologue, and a great lesson in statistics: that you need a decent sized population to guarantee getting a 50:50 split! There is also a very surprising twist in the first 15 minutes or so that I didn’t see coming AT ALL.
But then things settle down into a far more sombre section of the film: short on action; long on character development. The world is grieving for its loss, unable to move on past the non-stop counselling sessions that everyone is getting. This first hour was, for me, by far, my favourite part of the film. Seeing how the characters we know and love have been impacted – some for better rather than for worse – was terrific. Mark Ruffalo’s Hulk (with a rather glib plot-point) takes on an hilarious new aspect; and Chris Hemsworth adds hugely comedic value as Thor, setting up in Scotland a “New Asgard” settlement in uncharacteristically laid-back fashion.
Cast
As an ensemble cast, everyone plays their parts extremely well. But it is just the breadth of the cast that astounds in this film: just about everyone who is anyone in the Marvel Universe – at least, those who are still alive (alive!) and not dead (dead!) – pop up for an appearance! This is great fun with, in one particular case, the opportunity to try some more rejuvenation of an old timer as previously done with Samuel L. Jackson in “Captain Marvel”.
Inevitably, some of these appearances are overly brief, and characters that I wanted to see developed more in this film (particularly Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel) get very little screen time. Drax (Dave Bautista) and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) barely get a single line each. So it will depend on where your loyalties lie as to whether you are satisfied with the coverage or not. (I personally find Chris Evans‘ Captain America a bit of a po-faced bore, so I wasn’t keen on the amount of screen time he had).
Stan Lee again gets another cameo in the bag before his demise: will this actually be his last live one?
Overall view
I enjoyed this movie. It could obviously NEVER live up to the over-hyped expectations of the fan base. But as a cinematic spectacle, for me, it delivered on its billing as a blockbuster finale, but one filled with a degree of nuance I was not expecting. The problem with the way that the plot have been structured (no spoilers – <#>) is that it is easy to pick holes in the storyline. Indeed, some dramatic options (that to me seemed obvious ones to ‘mine’) were left ‘unmined’ <##>; others were left inexplicably hanging <###>.
I suspect the reason for some of this is that the initial cut of this film probably ran to 5 hours rather than the – still bladder-testing – 3 hours as released. There were probably a bunch of scenes left on the cutting room floor that might allow things to make more sense in the extended BluRay release.
It’s at times slow, but for me never dull. It does suffer from one significant flaw though: the “Return of the King” disease. It doesn’t know when to quit. There was a natural MCU arc to follow and a perfect time at which to end it: but the directors (the Russo Brothers, Anthony Russo and Joe Russo) kept adding additional scenes that detracted from the natural ending <####>.
Above all, unlike I think all but one film in MCU history, there is NO “MONKEY” in the end credits: either mid-credit or end-credit! So, after the long title crawl (and some rather odd choices for end-title music by Alan Silvestri), if you are not to look bloody stupid as the lights come up, and face a storm of derision from your partner, then leave after the dramatic roll-call sequence of the film’s stars!
(*BTW, the answer to the trivia question is, I believe, Bucky.)
Bob Mann (459 KP) rated Gemini Man (2019) in Movies
Nov 10, 2019
Will Smith plays top US hit-man Henry Brogan who is making the world "safer" one bullet at a time! With the mirror telling him his age, Henry hands in his firearm (not withstanding the arsenal under his stairs) to spend more time going fishing and doing the crossword.
But all is not well when Henry's 'one for the road' hit turns out to not be quite what it seems.
Teaming up with marina manager Danny (Danny??) Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the pair go on the run from operatives of a government-funded black-ops organization called Gemini. Gemini is a private semi-military organization (didn't we just go here with "Angel Has Fallen"?!). These 'baddie goodies' would rather see Henry - and all who know him - fed to the fishes rather than have him catching them.
But one of these guys, under the direct command of Gemini-boss Clay Verris (Clive Owen), looks kinda familiar...
Let's focus on the positives for a minute. This is a spy movie that has all of the polish that the recent "Angel has Fallen" didn't have. Some nice photogenic locations fly in and out again (Georgia, Budapest and Colombia: the latter for no obvious reason I can remember!). It occasionally reminded me of a glossy Bond film, but without Bond.
There are also some high-class special effects (the special effects coordinator is Mark Hawker). A moonlit CGI Gulfstream with a zoom into the cockpit is particularly impressive.
Some of the action set pieces also entertain. A Will-on-Will bike chase is well done, and I've not seen a bike used as a hand-to-hand weapon in this way before!
And Will Smith is no doubt a class act, with his 'youngification' (I'm not sure what the official word is) also being effectively done. I also enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was great in "10 Cloverfield Lane". The lady has real screen presence.
But man oh man, that script. Let's name the guilty parties in this film: the scriptwriters David Benioff (Game of Thrones), Darren Lemke and Billy Ray. (I'll put Ray last in the list, since the story was by Benioff and Lemke and this has the smell to me of Ray - who has a history of some great scripts like Captain Phillips under his name - being drafted in to steady a listing ship).
Some of the dialogue in this film is not just a bit dodgy. It's head in the hands groan-worthy (and I actually did at times: fortunately the cinema was barely half full and I was on my own in the whole row). And some of it is just plain offensive. Henry meets his old pal Jack Willis (Douglas Hodge) on his yacht where he explains his wife is on a trip to Paris as a scantily clad dolly-bird wanders past. Henry comically rolls his eyes at this adulterous behaviour, with some sort of "Jack, what are you loike!" comment. Cringe-worthy.
Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong (their ally, adding some comic relief) are clearly good actors. But the script often makes them look utterly vacuous and stupid. And Lee seems to have a "good enough, move on" approach to the filming. One jaw-dropping moment has Will Smith telling the others that they are going to Budapest. "Budapest?" Winstead and Wong are supposed to say in union, but mistime it. "Can we do that again?". Nope. It's on the screen.
As for Clive Owen... sorry, he's really not in the same acting league, and the script does him even fewer favours. As he says at one point "It's like the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic". I couldn't have put it better myself.
"Uncanny Valley". You know this phrase. The Princess Leia and Moff Tarkin scenes in "Rogue One" is the classic example. Effects that don't quite work on the big screen. "But" - you say to yourself - "Dr Bob just said that the 'youngification' of Will Smith was done really well?". And I'll repeat again that it was. It's on a par with Samuel L. Jackson's 'youngification' in "Captain Marvel". Where something strange happens is in the film's overall projection. Ang Lee has tried again with his experiment of filming at a massive 120 frames per second..... five times the normal movie frame rate of 24 fps. And the quality of the picture - particularly during high-speed action scenes - becomes outstandingly good! But equally it just doesn't 'look right'.
When the human eye presumably works at an equivalent "fps" of thousands of 'frames per second' you'd think that it should all be fine. But for some reason I just found it distracting. Presumably the audiences for "The Jazz Singer" thought the same about sound; and those for "Gone with the Wind" and the "Wizard of Oz" about colour. Maybe we've seen the future, and its the new norm that we just need to get used to. We'll see.
Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" was extraordinary. His "Hulk" was one of the poorest of the Marvel canon. Unfortunately, this movie is at the "Hulk" end of the spectrum. Which is a real shame. The duo of the 51 year old Smith and the 35 year old Winstead work really well together. They have great chemistry, but, you'll be relieved to hear, avoid any icky love interest.
What a shame. With a different script, and some good production values, this could have been a very different story.
(For the full graphical review, please check out https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2019/10/18/one-manns-movies-film-review-gemini-man-2019/ )
But all is not well when Henry's 'one for the road' hit turns out to not be quite what it seems.
Teaming up with marina manager Danny (Danny??) Zakarweski (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), the pair go on the run from operatives of a government-funded black-ops organization called Gemini. Gemini is a private semi-military organization (didn't we just go here with "Angel Has Fallen"?!). These 'baddie goodies' would rather see Henry - and all who know him - fed to the fishes rather than have him catching them.
But one of these guys, under the direct command of Gemini-boss Clay Verris (Clive Owen), looks kinda familiar...
Let's focus on the positives for a minute. This is a spy movie that has all of the polish that the recent "Angel has Fallen" didn't have. Some nice photogenic locations fly in and out again (Georgia, Budapest and Colombia: the latter for no obvious reason I can remember!). It occasionally reminded me of a glossy Bond film, but without Bond.
There are also some high-class special effects (the special effects coordinator is Mark Hawker). A moonlit CGI Gulfstream with a zoom into the cockpit is particularly impressive.
Some of the action set pieces also entertain. A Will-on-Will bike chase is well done, and I've not seen a bike used as a hand-to-hand weapon in this way before!
And Will Smith is no doubt a class act, with his 'youngification' (I'm not sure what the official word is) also being effectively done. I also enjoyed Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who was great in "10 Cloverfield Lane". The lady has real screen presence.
But man oh man, that script. Let's name the guilty parties in this film: the scriptwriters David Benioff (Game of Thrones), Darren Lemke and Billy Ray. (I'll put Ray last in the list, since the story was by Benioff and Lemke and this has the smell to me of Ray - who has a history of some great scripts like Captain Phillips under his name - being drafted in to steady a listing ship).
Some of the dialogue in this film is not just a bit dodgy. It's head in the hands groan-worthy (and I actually did at times: fortunately the cinema was barely half full and I was on my own in the whole row). And some of it is just plain offensive. Henry meets his old pal Jack Willis (Douglas Hodge) on his yacht where he explains his wife is on a trip to Paris as a scantily clad dolly-bird wanders past. Henry comically rolls his eyes at this adulterous behaviour, with some sort of "Jack, what are you loike!" comment. Cringe-worthy.
Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong (their ally, adding some comic relief) are clearly good actors. But the script often makes them look utterly vacuous and stupid. And Lee seems to have a "good enough, move on" approach to the filming. One jaw-dropping moment has Will Smith telling the others that they are going to Budapest. "Budapest?" Winstead and Wong are supposed to say in union, but mistime it. "Can we do that again?". Nope. It's on the screen.
As for Clive Owen... sorry, he's really not in the same acting league, and the script does him even fewer favours. As he says at one point "It's like the Hindenburg crashing into the Titanic". I couldn't have put it better myself.
"Uncanny Valley". You know this phrase. The Princess Leia and Moff Tarkin scenes in "Rogue One" is the classic example. Effects that don't quite work on the big screen. "But" - you say to yourself - "Dr Bob just said that the 'youngification' of Will Smith was done really well?". And I'll repeat again that it was. It's on a par with Samuel L. Jackson's 'youngification' in "Captain Marvel". Where something strange happens is in the film's overall projection. Ang Lee has tried again with his experiment of filming at a massive 120 frames per second..... five times the normal movie frame rate of 24 fps. And the quality of the picture - particularly during high-speed action scenes - becomes outstandingly good! But equally it just doesn't 'look right'.
When the human eye presumably works at an equivalent "fps" of thousands of 'frames per second' you'd think that it should all be fine. But for some reason I just found it distracting. Presumably the audiences for "The Jazz Singer" thought the same about sound; and those for "Gone with the Wind" and the "Wizard of Oz" about colour. Maybe we've seen the future, and its the new norm that we just need to get used to. We'll see.
Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" was extraordinary. His "Hulk" was one of the poorest of the Marvel canon. Unfortunately, this movie is at the "Hulk" end of the spectrum. Which is a real shame. The duo of the 51 year old Smith and the 35 year old Winstead work really well together. They have great chemistry, but, you'll be relieved to hear, avoid any icky love interest.
What a shame. With a different script, and some good production values, this could have been a very different story.
(For the full graphical review, please check out https://bob-the-movie-man.com/2019/10/18/one-manns-movies-film-review-gemini-man-2019/ )
