Thor

Avengers: Endgame

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Avengers: Endgame
  • IMDb: link

Avengers: Endgame movie review

More than the culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that began back in 2008 with Iron Man, Avengers: Endgame is the coda to the series that climaxed in the last chapter and now offers an opportunity for one last hurrah, for heroes to take their final bow, and for Marvel to usher out one set of lead characters and set the stage anew.

For my money, the most successful films of the past 11 years have been The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Excluding Winter Soldier, a great standalone film which cares nothing at all about larger continuity (it basically wrecked Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after all), both Avengers and Infinity War faced enormous obstacles in pulling together various threads of the MCU into a single story. And both succeeded brilliantly. Avengers: Endgame comes off like their less-successful younger brother. I’m not going to call Endgame the Frank Stallone of the Avengers franchise as it may outshine Avengers: The Age of Ultron, but it’s a messy final chapter that offers plenty of memorable moments while failing to live up to what has come before.

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Avengers #1

/ / Comics

Avengers #1 comic reviewAvengers Reboot! With the release of Avengers: Infinity War, Marvel Comics decides to reboot the Avengers. Again. For like the 19th time. I maybe be exaggerating. The new comics starts off with a flashback to the elder Avengers featuring Odin and characters I don’t care enough to look up in a comic concept I hate with a fiery passion (hey, you know the hero/team/villain you really like, well, let’s strip away everything unique about them ’cause somebody else did it first).

From there we jump to modern times with Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man all sitting around a bar thinking how great it would be to get the old band together. And then Celestials start falling from the sky. Wow, good thing they didn’t wait until next week to get drunk and nostalgic. We also get appearances by Black Panther and Doctor Strange, She-Hulk, Carol Danvers, and… Ghost Rider? WTF is Ghost Rider doing in an Avengers comic?

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Avengers: Infinity War

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Avengers: Infinity War
  • IMDb: link

Avengers: Infinity War movie review2012’s The Avengers brought together all the elements from the planned Phase One of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was a payoff movie, and one that was executed brilliantly by Joss Whedon. It also gave us the first on-screen appearance of Thanos (now played by Josh Brolin) whose foreshadowed war on the universe would be put on hold for several years. Until now. Since The Avengers, too many of the Marvel movies have been forced into world building while telling their story. For the first time in years, there is no horizon which frees sreenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely and directors the Russo Brothers to simply tie the elements together as Whedon did six years ago and tell one hell of a story. And you know what? They do a damn good job.

With some notable exceptions (Natalie Portman, Jeremy Renner, Paul Rudd, and Marvel is still completely ignoring their television properties) everyone is on hand to deal with the threat of Thanos who finally gets around to collecting the Infinity Stones which will allow him to complete his life-long quest of killing off half the lives across the universe with the snap of his fingers.

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Thor: Ragnarok

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Thor: Ragnarok
  • IMDb: link

Thor: Ragnarok movie reviewMarvel has struggled with creating a consistent and fully-realized film for either Thor or the Hulk. Sure Thor is okay. And The Incredible Hulk is fine, but neither is likely your favorite Marvel movie. The solution to throw the two together with a Ragnarok (end of Asgard)/Planet Hulk mash-up proves to be just what the doctor ordered. Oh, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is here, too. Thor: Ragnarok marks the first time in four films that Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has actually been more interesting than Loki (Tom Hiddleston). Don’t get me wrong, Hiddleston is still charming as hell, but taking Thor away from Earth and (mostly) Asgard frees the character up considerably for one hell of a fun ride that rivals Guardians of the Galaxy for Marvel Studios’ best space adventure.

After defeating the creature prophesied to bring about Ragnarok, Thor returns home only to find Loki (disguised as their father) ruling Asgard. Without giving too much away, the pair head out to find Odin (Anthony Hopkins) only to run into the sister (Cate Blanchett) they never knew existed and get banished to the far end of the universe on a gladiator-style planet run by a smarmy Jeff Goldblum.

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