Officially released 24th April in China.

AndyDursin wrote: Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:46 pm I LOVED IT...IT WAS MUCH BETTER THAN "CATS"...I AM GOING TO SEE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN

I probably won't be seeing it once!

Another Variety critic (not Owen Glieberman this time) just can't stop loving the #diversity train of the Marvel Universe!

It works because the creative team has taken note of what audiences want (Black Panther! Captain Marvel!) and what the culture at large is asking for (more diverse representation all around), crafting brief but impactful moments along the way. If these Avengers movies are like massive symphonies, then the conductors have taken care to give nearly everyone a standout solo, however short — or, in the minute that played best at the film’s premiere, a group shot that gathers all the female Avengers, and proves that had Thanos’ snap wiped out just the dudes, the remaining women would’ve been awfully formidable on their own.

https://variety.com/2019/film/reviews/a ... 203196048/

10/10

Spoiler-free review:

This review speaks so much to how I feel about these films as well as where the cinema has gone over the last 15 years. The point on DC is well taken also (I didn't extract the full review for spoilers though theres not a lot of it). I wouldn't agree Snyder's films were that successful but they did have more on their mind thematically.

Adults no longer outgrow comic books. Hollywood prefers that they hang on to the adolescent illusion of carefree, escapist pleasure by pretending that the form’s juvenile cynicism is a sign of sophistication — replacing the traditional sources of imaginative thinking. The cultural monopoly represented by the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its latest release, Avengers: Endgame, depends on geeked-up viewers telling themselves that they are having a major cultural experience.

By now the various MCU franchises have expanded so unmanageably that this overcrowded, supposedly final convocation offers no storyline in which distinctive conflicts are resolved. Instead, we get just a laughably familiar (but lucrative) pretext: Endgame’s several surviving Avenger superheroes huddle in a scrum and devise a time-travel do-over.

Last year’s Infinity Wars had worked itself into a narrative corner: killing off most of the major characters for a cliffhanger. The morbidity suggested apocalypse — a comic-book parallel to the Rapture. But nothing so profoundly Christian happens in this anti-mythological jamboree. Infinity Wars triggered faux-tragic fascination. Less urgent than Han Solo’s carbon freeze in The Empire Strikes Back, it was more like the “Who Killed J. R.?” narrative cheat on the TV series Dallas. However, been-there-done-that doesn’t matter to the Star Wars–Lord of the Rings generation still caught up in toddler enthusiasm: “Do it again, Daddy!”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/ ... ssion=true

I saw it on Thursday. I am still processing how bothered I was about the consequences and logical linear progression of the time travel plot device. They even pine over established beliefs about that in the movie (in a comical scene of references to other time travel movies), but without giving away anything, let's just say that I can't accept several premises of outcome with respect to certain characters.

Without revealing too much, but for those who saw it, what about Thor's hammer? That's an example that sticks out in my head. I think they broke certain rules that go beyond suspension of disbelief. Banner explained it in a kind of half-assed way regarding past and future for people. Certainly, what he said partially rings true, but. Let's say, hypothetically, if I go into the past 20 years and change an event in my life (winning a 200 million dollar lottery), then I MOST CERTAINLY alter my future because I never meet my wife and do not live in my current mode (The conditions present at that time would alter the decision making process and outcomes of my future.) The movie breaks that one rule multiple times without consideration of outcome or explanation.

I'd have too see it again, but it's hard to get emotional about certain characters knowing that the underlying logic is flawed in the assumptions and execution of said plot device. Of all of the aspects of this film, this is the one that bothers me to the core. It was entertaining, reflective, more character-driven. I almost forgot in parts that I was watching a fantasy-action-adventure movie.

Edmund Kattak wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:16 amWithout revealing too much, but for those who saw it, what about Thor's hammer?

A certain character going back to replace the Infinity Stones in their "correct" spots in the space/time continuum put it where it was supposed to be.

The movie breaks that one rule multiple times without consideration of outcome or explanation.

So they go back in time and it doesn't affect their "present"? What the hell?

A lot of truth in this article too...

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment ... larson/?dg

Monterey Jack wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:52 am

Edmund Kattak wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 11:16 amWithout revealing too much, but for those who saw it, what about Thor's hammer?

A certain character going back to replace the Infinity Stones in their "correct" spots in the space/time continuum put it where it was supposed to be.

So, I guess Banner's discussion later on with another character about the "time continuum" is the explanation for why things did not alter the present. Okay, I guess I can buy that. Again, I'd have to see it again.

AndyDursin wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 8:22 am This review speaks so much to how I feel about these films as well as where the cinema has gone over the last 15 years. The point on DC is well taken also (I didn't extract the full review for spoilers though theres not a lot of it). I wouldn't agree Snyder's films were that successful but they did have more on their mind thematically.

Adults no longer outgrow comic books. Hollywood prefers that they hang on to the adolescent illusion of carefree, escapist pleasure by pretending that the form’s juvenile cynicism is a sign of sophistication — replacing the traditional sources of imaginative thinking. The cultural monopoly represented by the Marvel Cinematic Universe in its latest release, Avengers: Endgame, depends on geeked-up viewers telling themselves that they are having a major cultural experience.

By now the various MCU franchises have expanded so unmanageably that this overcrowded, supposedly final convocation offers no storyline in which distinctive conflicts are resolved. Instead, we get just a laughably familiar (but lucrative) pretext: Endgame’s several surviving Avenger superheroes huddle in a scrum and devise a time-travel do-over.

Last year’s Infinity Wars had worked itself into a narrative corner: killing off most of the major characters for a cliffhanger. The morbidity suggested apocalypse — a comic-book parallel to the Rapture. But nothing so profoundly Christian happens in this anti-mythological jamboree. Infinity Wars triggered faux-tragic fascination. Less urgent than Han Solo’s carbon freeze in The Empire Strikes Back, it was more like the “Who Killed J. R.?” narrative cheat on the TV series Dallas. However, been-there-done-that doesn’t matter to the Star Wars–Lord of the Rings generation still caught up in toddler enthusiasm: “Do it again, Daddy!”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/ ... ssion=true

I agree with the first paragraph of the article but some of the other statements seem a bit odd. I can't say much about Snyder's films because the only one I've seen is Watchmen, which was terrible. Nihilism isn't the word I'd use to describe Nolan's Batman films. Whether you like them or not, he's clearly after something more. There's the nature of good and evil, questions of morality and quite a bit of the classic Hero's Journey.

The MCU movies were fine for a while when they had more humor. They lacked the visual flair of Raimi's Spider-Man films and the gravitas of Nolan's but had good acting and decent, if unremarkable, storytelling. Now the MCU is becoming increasingly pretentious and self-important. You wonder if a decade from now people will look back and ask why they got so excited about Endgame. (I haven't seen it yet. Taking my kids tomorrow.)

"Pretentious" is the last word I'd use to describe the MCU. If anything, the biggest problem they have is playing to the audience by inserting "tension-breaking" jokes EVERYWHERE.

The movies may or may not be pretentious -- but the people making them certainly are. Read the Brie Larson column, she actually is convinced she has "broken the glass ceiling". Forgetting, of course, the likes of Sigourney Weaver, or Jennifer Lawrence, or gosh, Gal Godot, before her!

Marvel isn't really like the cinematic equivalent of Rosa Parks. But reading some of their filmmakers, some of their fans and their press, you'd think they are social-engineering the modern world and doing things nobody has ever done before -- even though they have. It's actually disrespectful to the real "trail blazers," who Larson apparently believes herself to be.

AndyDursin wrote: Sat Apr 27, 2019 4:53 pm The movies may or may not be pretentious -- but the people making them certainly are. Read the Brie Larson column, she actually is convinced she has "broken the glass ceiling". Forgetting, of course, the likes of Sigourney Weaver, or Jennifer Lawrence, or gosh, Gal Godot, before her!

That point I will agree with you on. You'd think there had never been a single female action hero prior to Wonder Woman two summers ago. Granted, a lot of prior action movies headlined by women (particularly in the superhero genre) were bad, but they still existed.