Movie Reaction: Avengers: Endgame

[Duh. Spoilers ahead]

Formula: Avengers: Infinity War * (The Avengers + Thor: The Dark World + Guardians of the Galaxy) ^ Back to the Future: Part II

On May 23, 2010, before airing the 2 hour finale of LOST, ABC aired a 2 hour retrospective program, looking back on the popular series. They did stuff like this a lot. There was the nascent days of binging. ABC wasn’t convinced that audiences would find a way to catch up on their own, so they would air 1 hour recaps occasionally to help new viewers be able to jump right in. This one was different though. It was completely for the fans. More like a victory lap to remind the fans of the journey they’d all been on. Highlighting favorite moments and characters along with the story behind the show. The finale itself was imperfect. There were just too many loose ends to tie off; too many characters to give a proper send-off to. Nothing would be big enough or satisfying enough for the six years of investment and build. When you factor out the commercials, that night of programming was about 3 hours long and it did exactly what it needed to. It reminded me of all the moments and characters that kept me interested for so many years, and it gave me a conclusion to the story that, while problematic, had plenty of great moments.

I hope you see where I’m going with this. I know more people are looking to something like The Lord of the Rings as a comparison for going into Endgame. I’m seen people compare this to a season of TV by pointing out how the number of movies (22) is the same as the number of episodes of a network TV season. I’ve even seen comparisons to Boyhood to - I guess - point out how much time has gone into this. Personally, I keep coming back to that last night of LOST, because even more than trying to have a perfect story, Endgame wanted to thank the fans for sticking around so long.

With these movie reactions, I trend toward writing reviews that don’t give away too much. That won’t be the case with this post, because with Endgame, either everything is a spoiler or nothing is. I’ll assume if you are reading this, then you’ve already seen the movie or you don’t care.

I should probably start with the spoilers. When it’s all said and done, there are only 3 real spoilers in the movie: 1) Black Widow sacrifices herself. 2) Iron Man dies. 3) Captain America goes back to Peggy. Everything else about the movie is a matter of how, now if. Any half-attentive movie fan already knows of all the movies Marvel has in production. No one believed the Snap was final. The only question going into Endgame was how they would bring everyone back. It turns out the answer was quantum time travel stuff. Everyone knew there would be a big battle and we mostly knew which characters were still around at the beginning. Those three spoilers are the only thing anyone has a right to be angry about finding out beforehand.

The story of Endgame is an absolute mess. It is convoluted and confusing. I worry that resorting to time travel has opened a can of worms that Marvel may regret down the line. The mechanics of it are clunky and I’m not sure any of it really makes sense. For example, how the hell does alt-world Thanos get his entire army to earth for the big battle? There was a big fuss earlier in the movie about only having a finite number of those doohickies to get home for time travel, but then Nebula is somehow able to sneak an army through. Or there’s the fact that Tony Stark was able to solve time travel seemingly in one night in his cabin after Cap, Ant-Man, and Black Widow mention the right vocab words to him. Really, the story is a mess. There's no other way to describe it. They wrote themselves into such a corner with Infinity War that they had to go to some wacky places to get out of it.

Endgame has an Infinity War problem. The Snap is the inflection point of the MCU so far. It’s the big moment. I can’t call it the climax, but it’s where all the stories converged. That movie had its own problems, but Infinity War made sense. All stories built to that. All the heroes were brought together by it. Comparing them to Lord of the Rings, Infinity War was the giant battle in front of Minas Tirith in Return of the King. Endgame was the desperation fight in front of the gates of Mordor later on*. No matter what Endgame came up with, Infinity War had “the moment”. I watched Infinity War thinking “what’s going to happen next?” I watched Endgame thinking “How are they going to fix it?” Endgame had all the burdens of a finale (the challenge of closing the story) without the excitement of seeing how they bring everything together.

*Hours after writing this, Game of Thrones put it more succinctly. To paraphrase, in Infinity War, they fight the great battle. In Endgame they fight the last battle.

However, here’s the dirty little secret about Endgame: It’s not about the story. The story for the first era of Marvel is done. Infinity War wrapped that up. This is the studio that perfected the end-credits scene though. The most exciting part of any MCU movie is seeing what they give fans at the end. Endgame is a fan service movie, and I love it for that. The whole time travel adventures really are just an excuse to remind audiences of all the great moments of the series leading up to this movie. Few things tickled me more than seeing what amounted to “deleted scenes” from The Avengers, Thor: Dark World, and Guardians of the Galaxy. I loved seeing the famous team formation shot from The Avengers. I giggled with delight as they paid homage to the Winter Soldier elevator scene. Watching this movie was a constant reminder of the hours and hours of entertainment I got from these movies in the last decade. As a fan, I’m not sure what else I could’ve asked for.

Sure, I don’t know how any of the final battle was possible. The logistics of the battlefield rarely made much sense. I never had a grasp of the geography of the location. That’s not the point though. I’m only going to remember moments from that section of the film anyways. Cap revealing that he’s worthy to hold Thor’s hammer: Awesome. The “Avengers assemble” moment overwhelmed me. Honestly, that choked me up. Even the “girl power” moment, as ham-fisted as it was, made me swell with happiness. Anything that movie could do to remind me of how many great characters they’ve introduced over the years, I ate right up.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I refuse to be cynical about the MCU or other such franchises. Yes, I love a lot of small critical darling movies. I also bemoan the death of the mid-budget adult drama. I am worried about how a few studios are sucking up all the box office and pop culture oxygen. But, I fell in love with movies because of movies like Endgame. For me, it was the spectacle of seeing The Phantom Menace in theaters. Seeing The Fellowship of the Ring on the big screen rewired my brain in a way that nothing else has. I’m amazed by what the MCU has done. If they want to take a victory lap with Endgame, that’s fine with me.

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Some Other Thoughts

-This cast is too big. Several people were going to be short-changed. That was inevitable. They did pretty well though. There was way more Nebula (Karen Gillan) than I would’ve expected. The story necessitated that, but it was still a bit much at the expense of characters I personally like more.

-My big complaint is that there wasn’t enough Carol Danvers (Brie Larson). I forgave a lot of issues I had with the Captain Marvel movie last month, because I figured I’d get to see her cut it up with the other Avengers in Endgame. Brie Larson is an A+ banterer. I get that Captain Marvel’s powers overwhelm a lot of situations, but it’s unforgiveable that they couldn’t find more ways to use her for non-action sequences.

-I think Chris Hemsworth’s development as a comedic presence is the most remarkable thing to come out of the last decade from the MCU.  Even as recently as The Avengers, would you have believed that he’d be driving most of the comedy in this movie? I’ll admit, they maybe went a little too far with it. Turning him into The Dude was a bit much. I wouldn’t trade that for 2011 Thor though.

-I have no idea what the MCU’s plan is moving forward. There’s going to be a Loki series on Disney+. Loki is still dead. There’s going to be a Disney+ series with Scarlett Witch and Vision. Vision is still dead and the Infinity Stone that gave him life is still destroyed. Black Widow died even though there’s a Black Widow movie in the works. Are all these projects really going to be prequels? That sounds like a bad idea. And is Gamora gone for good too? I suppose swapping her out with Nebula is fine, but that really sucks for Gamora. When she died in Infinity War, everyone kind of assumed she’d be brought back in Endgame, so she was never properly eulogized at the time**. I’m surprised that the Hulk wasn’t written out. I kind of assumed Mark Ruffalo was getting tired of these. I’d like to have him back, but I’m not crazy about this perma-Hulk thing he’s got going on. The Jekyl/Hyde dynamic is the most interesting thing about that character. Captain America’s farewell is the only one that made 100% sense to me. Evans has made no secret of wanting out*. Robert Downey Jr. leaving makes sense. It’s just a real kick in the balls to give him a daughter before killing him off.

*Not that he hates the role. He’s just ready to move on.

**Wait, or is alt-timeline Gamora still around at the end? I didn't see her. 

-I’m sure they’ll address this later, but how does this 5-year difference thing work? So, they undo the Snap and bring everyone back. They are all the same age as before though. Tony Stark makes it very clear that they weren’t supposed to undo anything that happened in the last 5 years though (i.e. He didn’t want to lose his daughter). So, is half the world just five years different in age now? Will Peter be going back to school with half of his same classmates? What about all the people who remarried? I am incredibly confused by this. It sounds very poorly thought out.

-Am I the only one who thought the Snap was figurative? Like, Thanos only snapped to make half the population of the universe disappear as a symbolic gesture. I just assumed if you have a gauntlet on, you automatically had the power. In this movie, they really ran with the idea of snapping though. No one could do anything with that glove until they snapped.

Delayed Reaction: Jane

The Pitch: Here's the story of the female primate researcher with a happy ending.

A documentary about the work and life of Jane Goodall, using archival footage that was previously believed to be lost.

There isn't a lot to say about this one. It's a really well-made documentary. Jane Goodall's story isn't tragic like Diane Fossey's. She came out of her days researching pretty unscathed. All this footage they found is great. They could really tell a narrative with the footage. That's something a lot of documentaries can't do. I like the way it mixed the chapters of Jane's life with different narratives with the chimpanzees. The tone was a little weird sometimes. Goodall is so used to scientific observation, that she would speak of her own life in the same way. It sounded a little cold, like she was reading about her life rather than remembering it. That's not an accident. It's the effect that to documentary wanted, I'm pretty sure. It just threw me off.

I didn't love this enough to be upset over the nomination fiasco which left this snubbed for the Oscar last year. It really should've been nominated though. I've seen most of the movies that were nominated. I liked this better than all of them.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: The Curse of La Llorona

Formula: The Conjuring - Annabelle - The Nun

As much as I want to believe in the year-round movie calendar, there are some dead spots. Late January, after I've caught up on all the Oscar movies is one. September still has plenty of unclaimed real estate. There's that week in December right after Thanksgiving that studios leave alone because they assume people people aren't impatient fools who see all the holiday releases during Thanksgiving break. Despite March turning into a viable month for blockbusters and the traditional "Summer" movie season start of the first week of May slowly getting pushed earlier, there's still inevitably a lull in April. Some years, I can spin that into gold by seeing by seeing an unassuming movie that I end up loving, like Eye in the Sky. Most years though, my compulsion to keep my streak alive (at least 1 movie a week since August 2012) means I end up seeing some disappointing movies around this time of year.

And with that ebullient introduction, let me get to The Curse of La Llorona. That's the latest PG-13 horror movie from the Conjuring universe (more on that in a bit). Before I start getting all "movie grump" about this, I should note that the movie is exactly what it promises. It's been sold as a movie about and single mother (widowed) played by Linda Cardellini and her two kids being haunted by an evil spirit (La Llorona) who wants to kills the children, and that's what the movie is. It promises a bunch of jump scares where it goes really quiet and still, right before the music gets loud and a lot starts happening at once. It promises a lot of lightning and creepy Catholic mysticism. There isn't a thing about this movie that is deceptive in its advertising, so really, it's on me for seeing it and not liking it much. I knew what I was getting into.

I'd also like to specifically point out how nice it was to see Linda Cardellini in a leading role. I'm a big fan of Cardellini's. I liked seeing her in this so much that I went and started another Freaks and Geeks rewatch afterward. There isn't anything special about her performance in La Llorona. It mostly just requires her to be occasionally scared. But if it's a choice between her and any number of actresses of a similar age and stature, I'm glad they went with Cardellini. Who knows. Maybe between this and a good supporting role in Green Book, we're looking at the beginning of a Linda Cardellini Renaissance: A "Cardellissance". The rest of the cast is less interesting. The two kids (Roman Christou, Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) are perfectly fine child actors in a horror movie. Raymond Cruz shows up at one point and gets to be a bit of a scene-stealer. Tony Amendola's Father Perez from Annabelle shows up in a small role. That's about it.

There's no reason for this to be part of the Conjuring world. Its connection is tenuous. I suppose you could call it a spoiler to bring up the Conjuring at all, because they've hidden that from all the trailers. It's of no significance to know it though. There are some similar stylistic choices in the scares, but otherwise, it's a very stand-alone story. I'm not sure I understand the decision to tie it into that universe but not advertise the fact. More than any genre, horror movies historically have been sold on brand recognition. Just look at how many Friday the 13ths or Nightmare on Elm Streets there have been. In the long run, I am more of a fan of the Conjuring method of continuing the story. They cover a similar timeline (1960s and 1970s, mainly), have the same basic "dark spirits" explanation for all the evil beings, but offer a variety of story types. The Curse of La Lorna has a mix of haunted house, home invader, and slasher elements. It uses the Conjuring template without the burden of being a direct sequel.

I'm not a fan of major studio horror very often. It's all very safe. The PG-13 rating means it's fighting with one arm tied behind its back. I don't need or particularly want blood and gore, but it's nice to know a movie has it as an option if it needs it. The characters never really felt in danger. I don't like jump-scares. Too often, they are a cheat. Any half-competent filmmaking crew can edit the sound and shots to get a rise out of an audience. It's telegraphed ahead of time throughout this movie. The music or the way it holds on a shots always clues the audience in that something is about to happen. I much prefer a sense of dread, which this doesn't have. Nothing about it sticks with me after seeing it.

Here's were I suck all the fun out of it. The story barely makes sense. I never understood the rules of La Lorna. Why does she spend so long terrorizing the house? She gets in the house pretty early, then just messes with the lights and slams some doors for a couple days. Why not just kill the kids right away? I'm not saying it all needs to be explained. I just need to know the rules. Freddy Kruger kills people when they go to sleep. The "it" that follows in It Follows slowly pursues the cursed person who most recently had sex. The mirror in Oculus drives people to madness by messing with their minds. Samara waits a week to kill people in The Ring. I understand what the threat is in all these cases; what activities to avoid or how much time is left. I don't know what La Llorona is about. She wants to kill kids. I don't know how or how quickly, if there's a ritual to her actions, or how she targets. Her every action is chosen for what gets the best jump scare or creepy image. It's thrill-driven storytelling, not character driven, and that's a problem, even in horror. The characters are actually quite stupid. No one just says "Hey, this is crazy, but I saw a really scary ghost lady, so that's why I've been randomly screaming the last couple nights". I appreciate when someone in a horror movie doubts that he or she is in a horror movie.

The Curse of La Llorona isn't a very good movie. It's isn't unwatchable either. It's a lazy effort without the kind of thrills or payoff that would make me forget my other issues with it. The performances rise to the level of the material. The characters are fairly bland. The "monster" is scary enough albeit forgettable. Nothing about the photography or production design is particularly inspired. I can't find a way to saying anything more than it set a low bar and barely cleared it.

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend