Zoe Saldana – Are You Not Entertained?

Marvel raises the bar once again for the Superhero genre. Creating their greatest achievement yet. It’s perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

I laughed, I cried, I cheered. And that was all just in the first 10 minutes. I had to wait until Sunday night to finally see the much anticipated Avengers: Infinity War. Do you know how difficult it is to stay spoiler free from the biggest movie of the last decade? It’s extremely hard, I did my best to stay off social media, so when Sunday night rolled around I was ecstatic I was walking in spoiler free. So after a decade and 18 movies later, did Marvel hit a grand slam? Yes, yes they did. I’m not really sure where to start, this will be a spoiler free review, I’m going to write another piece about the future of the MCU and how I really thought about EVERYTHING that happens in Infinity War, but for now, here’s my review! Also just congratulations on this becoming the highest grossing movie ever domestically in a single weekend. It deserves it, this is bar none the best MCU movie ever made.

Boy did Marvel not hold back, from the very opening moments of the film, this felt like something epic. This review might be all over the place, because it will be extremely hard to write something spoiler free, which this will be! We are immediately introduced to Thanos (Josh Brolin) and his trusty side kicks – The Black Order. For sidekicks, the Black Order were pretty goddamn awesome I thought. Hats off to Tom Vaughn-Lawlor who played Ebony Maw, because if you tossed him into any other MCU movie, we could be talking about one of the best MCU villains here. Just so happens he was standing next to Thanos for the entire movie so it’s hard to really consider him truly great, because well Thanos climbed to the top of Mount Rushmore of comic book movie villains after this performance. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, it’s not like we have been waiting since 2012, when he first reared his big ugly purple head. Since then they have been building the MCU for this very moment. When everything finally comes together, crossovers you didn’t know you wanted, team ups we could have never imagined and more importantly the Avengers coming face to face with the Mad Titan Thanos. For the last 6 years all we have heard about is the 6 infinity stones and the unimaginable power they all contain. Put them all together and that person has the power to accomplish anything. Well Thanos is looking to round up all these stones and it’s up to our heroes to stop him. That’s almost the strongest part of the entire movie. It’s not an overly complicated plot, it’s simple. Thanos wants the stones, our heroes are trying to do everything and anything they can to stop him.

Thanos was such a terrific villain, we are coming off such a strong one with Killmonger in Black Panther, but Marvel stepped their game up even more with Thanos. What makes a truly memorable and great villain performance, is well, they need to have layers, and the character kind of needs to be flushed out throughout the movie. We get a ton of background and history about Thanos, we get to see inside his mind, what makes him tick and everything he truly loves. For being the most evil person in the entire universe, there are parts of the movie where you almost are rooting for him to get all the stones. Like if someone asks me, “Was Thanos a good villain?” Well, he’s unstoppable, terrifying, sadistic, at times polite and like i mentioned, in a few brief moments, sympathetic. He’s just not a power hungry mad man who has no sense or sense awareness to everything around him. He’s so much more complex than that, and you almost see where he’s coming from. He’s the most badass villain to ever show up in a comic book movie, and with that comes the fact he’s almost the most sympathetic villain to ever grace the big screen. So if you haven’t figured out by now, I really enjoyed Thanos, he makes the movie and I was glad that he got the most screen time out of any character in the entire movie. Frankly, us fans that have been waiting all this time for him to show up deserved it.

As for the rest of the team they all work so well together. Yes they all don’t have the most screen time, but if you love these characters and watching them, then you won’t care. The interactions between characters, like Rocket and Thor, Tony and Dr. Strange are all things I didn’t know I needed so badly in my life. The Russo Brothers picked the perfect little teams to divide into, and I think that was really important. If that doesn’t work, the whole movie doesn’t work. I thought Dr. Strange, Thor and Gamora were the MVP’s of our heroes. Thor has evolved into the best MCU character in my opinion and I can’t wait to see how he will keep evolving. The whole movie really flies by, they don’t really pussyfoot around at all. You’re in waist deep before you know it, and instantly the stakes are at an all time high. I saw a lot of people saying this was just another “funny MCU movie” and yes of course it’s funny. I’m happy this movie is funny, but when it wants to get down to the nitty gritty and be serious, it’s actually bone chilling serious. There are moments in this movie that I never saw coming, things that maybe I saw coming. Things I thought might happened, happened. Things that could happen, happened. A ton of available evidence and suspicion confirmed that, in the end that thing would happen. I WAS NOT PREPARED AT ALL TO WATCH THAT THING HAPPEN. This movie tugs on your heart strings and when the screen fades to black, you are gut punched. You are looking around searching for answers, you want to know what the hell just happened. I think that’s my favourite part about this whole thing. I have no idea where Marvel is going to take this thing. Well I have some thoughts and wild ideas, but I actually don’t really know the future direction of the MCU and for the first time in a long time, I am so intrigued about this whole thing.

Like I can’t even say much more, because all I want to do is talk about everything that happens within the movie. But I can’t, not here at least. What more do you want me to say? This is the movie of 2018, no other comic book movie will come close to making me feel what I felt during Infinity War. It’s damn near perfect, I can’t wait to watch it again. I saw it back to back nights, because I needed that in order to really process everything. Go see this movie, don’t be that weirdo that sits this one out. I will say this – It’s perfectly balanced as all things should be.

Check ya later

Nate’s Movie Tour Reviews – Avengers: Infinity War = 98/100

I really have no idea how I feel about this movie.

Seriously, I just don’t know how I feel about Marvel’s latest outing. Considering how excited I was for this movie, and when early reviews started pouring in, and it was being met with mixed reactions, I thought to myself “how can these people not love this movie”. But after seeing it, I myself have fixed feelings about it…..Don’t get me wrong – Guardians was great, it just ended up being a completely different movie from what I was expecting. One of my most anticipated movies of 2017, I felt underwhelmed when I left the theatre. I’ll say this, for all the flack Man of Steel got, was I the only one who thought the ending of Guardians was similar to that. Yeah, they weren’t fighting in a populated city, but my god it felt like the exact same movie. Peter Quill literally turned into Superman. Or maybe that’s just opinion, but all of that stuff at the end just felt so out of place and not the movie I thought I was going to be watching. The whole movie was going so well and I was just so thrown off by the ending that it completely changed my outlook. When the movie opens up, from the very get go I knew this movie was going to be hilarious. Some people might not like all he jokes, but when they keep hitting, I don’t understand why people get upset with the amount of comedy.

You know the crew right? Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Groot (Vin Diesel), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Nebula (Karen Gillian). Okay now you know if you didn’t before. Oh and who can forget the ugly new comer Mantis (Pom Klementieff). As usual the cast is great, it’s by far the best part of the entire movie. They all love these roles so much and give so much to them, that it just makes the whole thing work. Honestly, who knew Dave Bautista could be so funny and deliver so many quality one-liners. Bradley Cooper kills it at Rocket, it’s perfect voice casting. And of course, the star of the show Star Lord himself, Chris Pratt was born to play this role. And he says he wants to continue for 20 more years! That won’t happen but that’s commitment baby! And Zoe and Karen almost feel like real sisters at this point.

The whole movie is about family. Peter has his daddy issues; Gamora has her problems with her sister Neubla. Drax is still getting over the loss of his family, while welcoming a new member to the team Mantis. Rocket is trying to learn that it’s okay to love, and to want to be part of a family and Baby Groot is well kind of just doing his thing. Yondu is also trying to learn that he loves Peter Quill and trying to find his purpose and spot in life. Guardians is full of so many messages and trying to be more than just another superhero movie. I’m all for the messages, and during parts of this movie it can get emotional, James Gunn does a great job in making this movie pull on your heartstrings, but sometimes that gets drowned out by words, rather than just letting me feel what they are trying to make us feel. So his whole life, Peter has wanted to know who his father is and we get introduced to Ego (Kurt Russell) who has been searching for Peter for a long time. Ego is essentially a god, who has created an entire planet for himself. He isn’t all that he appears to be; he’s kind of a shady Dad. Knocked up Peter’s Mom while on Earth, and then left her for a strange reason. I’m going to go pretty light on any spoilers because I wouldn’t want anything being ruined for this movie. As usual Kurt Russell is dynamite and the chemistry between him and Pratt was fantastic. They meshed so well together, and it just made the whole father-son relationship seem a little more real. Another father-son relationship going on was between Yondu and Quill, as from birth, he has raised Peter and believes that he is his real father. Michael Rooker who plays the blue man himself, for me was the highlight of the movie. He was incredible, and he’s always been a fantastic actor, but in the first Guardians there simply just wasn’t enough Yondu. Now he’s part of the team, and him and Rocket had some of the best scenes together in the whole movie. Yondu understands Rocket, who feels isolated and alone and pushes away anyone who gets to close. Yondu feels that and they form a great friendship and actually a Yondu-Rocket spinoff would have been amazing!

Another reason why I have such mixed feelings about this movie, was the soundtrack. Remember how awesome the mix tape was in Guardians Vol 1. This time around, I can maybe remember one song from Vol 2. Great song, The Chain by Fleetwood Mac, but I wanted more from the soundtrack. Music was such a big part of the first one, in terms of making certain scenes click and feel more emotional and I just never got that this time around. Which was kind of a letdown, that was one thing I was really looking forward to.

I thought the story was great, James Gunn is an extremely gifted writer, and one of the strongest components of the film is its solid writing. But towards the end, once again, the galaxy is about to end, but why do I feel like nothing is at stake? Literally the galaxy is going to shit, and Rocket is asking for a piece of tape, yes I know that bit was hilarious but sometimes that’s the problem with the MCU. I just never feel like anything is at stake or anything truly awful will happen. And when it gets mixed in with humor at the wrong time, sometimes I just shake my head. It was just a massive CGI-fest towards the end, like I said, it felt very Man of Steel like, I couldn’t handle Peter and his Dad flying through the air punching one another. And once again, we need to be reminded a handful of times throughout the movie, that this is part of the MCU, so don’t forget that. It’s almost forced at this point; it’s been almost 10 years now, WE KNOW! I was angry that we didn’t see Thanos; they should have had him show up, because I feel like when he finally show up, it will be Whiplash all over again. I just wish sometimes they would hold back on the larger picture references and just let us enjoy the story for what it is, but maybe that’s just me.

At the end of the day, I went into this movie thinking I was going to love it. That didn’t end up happening, I certainly had a great time, because first of all I love Chris Pratt, and I was laughing my ass off the majority of the movie. I guess it just wasn’t the movie I thought it was going to be. I went in expecting one thing and was completely thrown off guard by the ending. It didn’t derail the movie for me, but it just felt so out of place. I guess that’s the best way to describe it. It looks beautiful, it’s funny, but it’s just not what I wanted from Guardians of The Galaxy Vol 2. I wonder if people are now going to send Dave Bautista pictures of their turds. Maybe I’ll tweet him and ask….

Check ya later.

Nate’s Movie Tour Reviews – Guardians of The Galaxy Vol 2 = 77/100

Tag: Zoe Saldana

‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Review

‘Guardians of The Galaxy: Vol 2’ Review.