LET'S MARVEL.

a pick six

by Hunter Jon

I think the MCU is the very definition of cinema. I personally haven’t liked a majority of the movies to come out of it, but that’s besides the point. A lot of people have. The excitement and joy this franchise has brought into the world is a wonderful thing. I suspect people suggesting they are simply giant toy commercials and/or fuelled entirely by greed and therefore dismiss them as worthless crap for kids have not seen all twenty three of these movies. And I view the fact that they and their hopeful imitators have nearly taken over every multiplex screen available as movie-going merely coming full circle. Theatre schedules used to be crowded with twenty-something chapter serials featuring the adventures of Captain Marvel, Batman and other characters ripped right from the pages of comic strips and books. So, there - that’s my unasked for two cents on that. As for my personal relationship with the MCU… well, I’ve seen every movie that it’s offered up and enjoyed just enough that I plan on continuing to do so. I haven’t really loved any of them and wouldn’t go any further than to call my favourite entries good-not-great. But I’ve liked at least six of them. And here they are…

(spoilers)

Yes. I thought “The First Avenger” was just good enough and therefore like it more than “The Winter Soldier” and “Civil War”. Maybe it’s due to the rich time period. Maybe it’s Johnston’s good-old-fashioned composition, both visually and tonally. Maybe it’s the fact that Cap’s origin story is the most essential and interesting chapter in his serial. Maybe it’s because it’s not fighting against the genre that it so obviously is and should be. Or maybe it’s Atwell as Carter… yeah, that’s probably it.

For me, this is a prime example of a movie’s incredibly enjoyable and larger than life personality totally distracting from what is actually a pretty basic genre outing. It’s also an example of the five Cs hard at work: cast complimenting character causing camaraderie. Performers are so well placed here and having so much fun with their roles and each other’s that the lacklustre plot they’re playing around in is almost entirely forgiven. Almost. But then mix in an unexpected and refreshing use of awesome songs and the whole thing gets out of jail free.

Movies like these all depend on what age you are when you first see them. I was the perfect age for Raimi’s first “Spider-Man”. It will always have a special place in my movie loving heart. So I went into this one with my arms crossed like a grumpy old man. How I felt about Webb’s two and how quickly this came after certainly didn’t help my expectations. But I was pleasantly surprised. Maybe I have those very low expectations to thank, ‘cause I walked out of the theatre with a new favourite Spider-Man movie. Anything else I could point out has already been by everyone else. Skipping his origin allowed them to hit the ground running. Maguire was a stronger Parker, Garfield a stronger Spidey, but Holland is equally strong as both. And the story itself felt essential to the MCU bigger picture rather than crammed in for the sake of showing Sony how it’s done.

And so it began. It’s hard to convey the exact energy in the theatre of that first midnight screening. This movie delivered (just enough for me) and the audience was with it every single step of the way as a result. Laughs. Gasps. Cheers. Applause. And then Fury. A moment that I think people take for granted now but was literally too good to be true at the time. And it wasn’t just a winking hint of things to come. The word “Avengers” was spoken. Holy shit. "I’ll believe it when I see it," I remember thinking. I’m one of the few people who actually doesn’t mind “Iron Man 2” (in fact it was nearly the one and only honourable mention here), but for me this not only remains the high point of Stark’s solo adventures but one of the most solid entries in the entire saga. Which is quite a compliment considering what we’ve seen since in terms of scale alone.

Like “Guardians of the Galaxy” before it, this is overflowing with personality. Which, as it turns out, not only strengthened the weakest link in the chain but allowed it to leap frog into second or third place. Unlike the first “Guardians…” though, the plot here is anything but weak sauce. Other than an overall lack of quality and the inability to put the quips away even in deadly serious circumstances, I have two major complaints about the MCU.  One - the whole killing their villains thing. Two - characters and the worlds they live in hardly ever go through significant, permanent change. They start out happy enough and in a peaceful place and by the end of the movie they’re happy enough and in a peaceful place again. Things may have gotten a little rocky in between, but they do such a great job at saving the world, and themselves, that everything goes back to the way they were… until the next movie when it happens all over again. Not only does this get repetitive real quick, it’s not very interesting storytelling. I always prefer a story where something, anything, is different at the end than it was at the beginning. So imagine my delight when in this movie Thor got his hair cut and it didn't grow back. When major characters, like Odin no less, died and stayed dead. When Thor lost an eye and didn’t get it back. When they couldn’t save Asgard and it was destroyed forever. Or, perhaps best of all, when characters who started out as strangers went through so much together over the course of one movie that by the end they were practically a family. Those are some serious changes and that's some serious storytelling.

What can I say about “… Endgame” in its favour that hasn’t already been said? Maybe this - I thought the first act was fine, the second a mess, and the third pretty close to perfect. Or maybe this - Steve Rogers and Peggy Carter needed a dance. He promised one to her, or she to him. I don’t remember. Then he died but not really. The next time they saw each other she was on her death bed, him still a young man, but they did not dance. Then she died. I was tearing my hair out as an invested fan wondering why on Earth they didn’t let them dance. So for this movie’s final moment to be what it is… (this is the sound of a teary eyed, satisfied sigh).