Welcome back to Rhode
Island Movie Corner’s annual End-of-the-Year list in which I’m counting down my
Top 12 Favorite Films of 2019. And today, folks, we’ve finally reached the peak
as I’m about to name my Top 3 favorite films from this past year. However, I
won’t lie, we will also be delving into some controversial territory here, so
please bear with me because… well, I’ve got quite a few things to say about
certain responses to some of these films. And because of this, today’s post may
just be the lengthiest that has ever been posted on this site. Anyway, for
those who’ve missed the last three parts of this list, just head to the links provided
below to check out my Honorable Mentions and Films #12-4. Let’s do this!
And with that, folks,
we start things off with what will easily be the most controversial film on this
list. The last time that a film of this nature was covered on these lists was
with my #3 favorite of 2017… which just so happens to be the immediate
predecessor of this year’s #3. Yes, I’m sure many of you know exactly what
film I’m talking about… and to some of you, I’m going to sound like a complete
madman for even remotely implying that I liked it. Hopefully, this gives you an
idea of the chaos that I’m about to step into…
I have a legitimate question for you all… when was the last
time that it was honestly fun to like
Star Wars? The way I see it, that
was back in 1997 before the release of the Special Editions because, as I’m
sure most of you know, that was when the overall discourse behind
Star Wars was
forever changed. Luckily for me, I was able to avoid all that growing up since
I didn’t really start exploring the internet until the mid-2000s. At that
point, I had watched each installment of the original trilogy several times, which
included at least one instance where I was able to watch them in their unaltered
state thanks to the VHS set that I owned. My family would later get these films
on DVD, and while this was at a point where the controversial updates from
George Lucas were now fully in play, it honestly wasn’t something that I
thought about all too often. That said, though, nowadays I do occasionally
yearn for the days when
this was all that the internet complained about
when it came to
Star Wars.
As for the prequels, I never saw any
of them in theaters during their initial run, and no, it wasn’t because someone
advised me not to. I was only about four when
The Phantom Menace came
out, so I was a bit too young to see it. I was at a more reasonable age when
Attack
of the Clones came out and I still recall seeing ads for it everywhere… but
I never got around to seeing it. Finally, for
Revenge of the Sith, it
was the first PG-13 rated entry in the series, and while it should be noted
that I did see the PG-13 rated
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire that exact
same year, that was only because
Harry Potter was my favorite franchise
at the time and my folks felt that I was mature enough to see it. Thus, I didn’t
see
Sith in theaters even though, once again, I do still remember all
the marketing for it.
I would end up watching the prequels for the first time when my family bought
The Phantom Menace and
Attack of the Clones on DVD around 2004 or 2005. Specifically, it was a time before the release of
Revenge of the Sith, which I ultimately saw for the first time when
it made its official debut on cable in 2008. A few years later, I
officially started my journey as an online film critic, and as you might have
guessed, this is when I finally learned how the internet
truly felt
about the prequels. Thus, for the next few years, I was relentlessly inundated
with various videos and articles that argued why the prequels were some of the
worst things in the history of pop culture. This continued to be the case in
2012 when
The Phantom Menace was re-released in theaters as part of George
Lucas’ plan to have both trilogies re-released in 3-D. And while this plan was
ultimately canned when Lucasfilm was bought by Disney that same year, I did go
see
Phantom Menace in 3-D, which effectively makes it the first
Star
Wars film that I saw in theaters. No matter how much the internet tried to
sway me (and I will admit that there were a few times where they nearly
succeeded), I was part of the crowd that did like these films. But alas, the
internet’s views on them were unwavering, especially once it was announced that
plans were in motion for a new trilogy of films, with the first of these,
Star
Wars: The Force Awakens, set for a December 2015 release.
The Force
Awakens was easily one of the most anticipated films in recent memory, but at
the same time, I can safely say that this was mostly because many were just
hoping that it’d be better than the prequels. That was the pressure that
writer/director J.J. Abrams was under, and thankfully, it didn’t completely
overwhelm him. Upon its release,
The Force Awakens was a massive
critical/commercial hit and regarded as a full-blown success.
And yet, there was one nagging criticism about it that has
endured to this day, and while a lot of people like to say that the current chaotic
nature of the
Star Wars fandom was initiated by the next film in the
trilogy, I’d argue that
this was where our story began. While the general
hope for
Force Awakens was that it’d be more in line with the original
trilogy in terms of its story and atmosphere, some felt that it was a bit ‘too
much’ like the original trilogy. Some even accused it of being a ‘remake’ of
Episode
IV: A New Hope even though, if I may be perfectly blunt here, I’m pretty
sure that mirroring certain aspects of that film was kind of the point. Nevertheless,
that arguably became the one thing that people talked about the most when it
came to
The Force Awakens. This, in turn, strongly influenced the
narrative behind the hype for the next installment of the trilogy,
The Last
Jedi, which was being written and directed by Rian Johnson. One of the most
prominent aspects of the film’s marketing campaign was about how everyone was
excited over the fact that Johnson was delivering a fresh, new spin on the
franchise. And folks, I seriously can’t stress enough how people were genuinely
excited to see this film
because of that reason. But then
The Last
Jedi came out… and we all know what happened there. While it was legitimately
a massive hit with critics and secured some of the best reviews that a
Star
Wars film has ever gotten, audiences were far more mixed about it. While many
loved it for how Johnson managed to subvert expectations on where the story would
go, others felt that he went a bit too far with all that. Now, if you’re one of
those people who found it to be rather disappointing, then that’s perfectly
fine. As I’ve said plenty of times over the years, film is a subjective medium
and nothing will ever be a perfect masterpiece. However, the reaction to this
film ended up creating a massively obnoxious problem that has since left a permanent
stain on the film fan community.
You see, there are some out there who looked at
The Last
Jedi and found it utterly offensive. How dare it not conform to their incredibly
specific set of expectations? And how dare it try to give prominent roles to female
characters and characters of different ethnicities instead of white, heterosexual
males? Thus, in the wake of its release, those racist/sexist morons used their
anger to start an all-out war against Rian Johnson, Lucasfilm president
Kathleen Kennedy, and Disney for ‘ruining’ their beloved franchise. Their
efforts to do so have included everything from bullying
Last Jedi star
Kelly Marie Tran off social media to producing an edit of the film that removed
all women… yes, seriously. And unfortunately, this toxic behavior has spread
far beyond
Star Wars.
Captain Marvel’s Brie Larson suggested that
there should be greater diversity amongst film critics and reporters? Well
then, she must be a total b**** who’s hated by all her co-stars.
Birds of
Prey is placing a lot of emphasis on how it’s a female-led superhero film
that takes a sledgehammer to toxic masculinity? Pfft, looks like someone’s
trying to be super woke. Even Rian Johnson’s next film,
Knives Out,
attracted this kind of BS simply because he was the one directing it. This, folks,
is the kind of crap that I’ve been dealing with for the past few years and I’m
utterly sick of it. I’m sick of going onto YouTube and seeing countless videos
that spew out all this hateful propaganda from these clowns, and to make
matters worse, the current YouTube algorithm directly pairs them with the
actual videos related to these films. Seriously, just go onto YouTube and type ‘Rise
of Skywalker’ in the search engine and I guarantee you that some of the first videos
you’ll see apart from trailers and interviews will be some alt-right nonsense. The
same applies to any other film or celebrity that this crowd views as ‘dangerous’.
And so, with all that in mind, I fully sympathize with J.J.
Abrams when it comes to all the crap that he must’ve had to endure while making
Rise of Skywalker. I mean, at least with The Force Awakens, arguably
the worst thing that he had to deal with was simply the pressure of delivering
a good Star Wars film. But as for Rise of Skywalker, he went into
it having to deal with what is quite possibly the most aggressive expectations
that any film in recent memory has had to endure. For starters, there was the
fact that every single aspect of the production was going to be unfairly judged
by the crowd that hated Last Jedi who, believe me, are practically impossible
to convince otherwise. But then you must also factor in the crowd that did love
Last Jedi, specifically because of how Rian Johnson approached the
material. As such, when J.J. was announced as this film’s director, the primary
response from this part of the crowd wasn’t “Awesome! The guy who directed Force
Awakens is coming back!”. Instead, it was “Really? The guy who remade A
New Hope is coming back?” because, like I said before, that whole ‘it’s
just a rehash of A New Hope’ argument is one that refuses to go away. With
all this in mind, part of me is honestly not surprised that the reception
towards the film was the way that it was because of all the immense pressure that
was cracking down on it from both sides, and in this instance, it was sadly too
much for it to handle this time around. Sure, Rise of Skywalker may have
done $1 billion worldwide, but when it comes to critical reception, it was
arguably even more polarizing than The Last Jedi. Granted, it wasn’t an
outright dud with critics, but it was also widely considered to be an utter
disappointment as the finale to the Skywalker Saga.
So why is it at the Number 3 spot on this list, then? Well, as
you can probably guess, I’m part of the crowd that did love it. Personally, I
thought that it was a generally satisfying finale to what is now known as the
Skywalker Saga. Even though he decided to take a break and not do the middle
chapter of this trilogy, J.J. Abrams once again proves why he’s one of the best
in the business when it comes to directing
Star Wars. This film boasts everything
that you’d expect in a great
Star Wars film, whether it’s the exciting action
sequences or strong dynamic between its characters that often results in
hilarious banter. The same applies to the film’s visuals, which I mainly bring
up since it can very well be argued that
The Last Jedi sported some of the
most gorgeous visuals that have ever come from a
Star Wars film. And yet,
both
Force Awakens and
Rise of Skywalker show that J.J., his
go-to cinematographer Dan Mindel, and his visual effects team led by Roger
Guyett are certainly no slouches when it comes to producing visuals that I’d
argue are on par with those from
The Last Jedi. But most of all, J.J.
fully succeeds in making
Rise of Skywalker one of the most emotionally
poignant installments of the entire franchise. I’ve always cited that as one of
J.J.’s greatest strengths as a director, and sure enough, this film is yet
another prime example of this. I mean, to be fair, this is the grand finale to
the Skywalker Saga so it goes without saying that this film runs the full
emotional gamut when it comes to how it concludes the adventures of our heroes
(which I’ll be delving into properly in just a bit…).
But what is it that got critics and audiences so worked up
about this film? Well, aside from the returning argument of ‘it’s basically a
remake of a previous film’ that has influenced much of the discussion, there
have quite a few major aspects of Rise of Skywalker that have been its
biggest sources of controversy. And it all begins with the unexpected return of
the man who once infamously referred to himself as ‘the Senate’, Emperor Palpatine.
From a canonical standpoint, the notorious Sith Lord had seemingly met his end at
the end of Return of the Jedi when Darth Vader threw him down the Death
Star II’s reactor. However, as the opening crawl to this film reveals, he has
somehow managed to return from the dead and has now assembled a fleet of
powerful Star Destroyers that can destroy planets a la the Death Star and
Starkiller Base. And while not directly established in the film itself, author Rae
Carson’s novelization reveals that Palpatine had managed to transfer his
essence into a clone body. Despite all this, Palpatine’s return has attracted a
mixed response that, as you might have guessed, is entirely because of the
debate over how much these new films should rely on elements from the previous
trilogies. Folks who are against it especially like to reference The Last
Jedi and how much it didn’t rely on previous films to the point where Kylo
Ren repeatedly emphasized the importance of “letting the past die”. However, I
didn’t mind Palpatine’s return too much because I was fine with the decision to
have him be the overarching villain of the Skywalker Saga as evident from him
revealing to Kylo Ren that he masterminded the rise of the First Order and Kylo’s
old mentor, Snoke. Plus, Ian McDiarmid is once again excellent in the role and
I do like that he opted for the more reserved Palpatine of the original trilogy
rather than the over-the-top Palpatine from the prequels. Granted, that’s not
to say that there was anything wrong with Palpatine’s portrayal in the prequels
since it was arguably the best aspect of those films, but I do think that McDiarmid
manages to find a good mix of those two versions of the character for his
appearance here.
But then this paves the way for the film’s biggest reveal
that Palpatine fathered a son (disclaimer: the novelization reveals this ‘son’
was a failed clone of him) who had a daughter, and her name… was Rey. Yes,
after the previous two films gradually built up the mystery surrounding Rey’s
potential heritage,
Rise of Skywalker finally reveals that she is the
granddaughter of the most dangerous Sith Lord in the history of the galaxy. Once
again, this hasn’t exactly gone over well with everybody, especially those who
feel that it would’ve been cooler if Rey didn’t have to be connected to another
character from the
Star Wars universe. And yet, even if this does
admittedly mirror the classic reveal from the original trilogy that Darth Vader
is Luke Skywalker’s father Anakin, it’s not like it’s a direct copy of that
connection. In the original trilogy, this reveal then led to Luke attempting to
save his father from the Dark Side, which Anakin ultimately managed to do by
the end of the trilogy even if it resulted in his death. In the case of
Rise
of Skywalker, however, it’s quite clear that there’s no way that old Grandpa
Palpatine is going to be swayed to the Light Side. Thus, the reveal that he’s
Rey’s grandfather instead sets up the idea of Rey having to grapple with the
fear of how the notoriety of her heritage could potentially end up leading her to
the Dark Side. More importantly, it also sheds light on something that Rey had
been led to believe as to why her parents left her on Jakku all those years
ago. In
The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren claimed that her parents were nothing more
than “filthy junk traders who sold [her] off for drinking money”, thus adding
to her belief that she truly was a ‘nobody’. But in
Rise of Skywalker,
she realizes that her parents left her on Jakku to save her from Palpatine,
albeit at the cost of their own lives, proving that they did love her.
And as for that fear of her heritage turning her to the Dark
Side, this ultimately comes to a head when she returns to Ahch-To fully intent
on staying there just like Luke did at the beginning of the trilogy… that is,
until she’s approached by Luke, who’s now become one with the Force after his
heroic stand at the end of
Last Jedi. When she reveals her plan to him,
he tells her that he now recognizes that it was wrong for him to go into his
self-imposed exile because he let his fears cloud his judgment and that Rey
shouldn’t make that same mistake. He also happens to reveal that he knew Rey
was Palpatine’s granddaughter… and so did Leia. Rey then asks why Leia never
told her and, more importantly, was still willing to train her in the ways of
the Jedi despite all this, to which Luke responds by saying that Leia could sense
Rey’s spirit and heart, two things that her grandfather never had. And if you
ask me, that says a lot about the integrity of both Luke and Leia who, let’s
not forget, were the offspring of the man who ended up becoming Darth Vader. Luke
then proceeds to give Rey the lightsaber that Leia had possessed during her own
Jedi training but then relinquished when she sensed the death of her son, thus
allowing her newest protégé to finish what she started. All of this then
culminates in the film’s powerful final scene in which Rey visits the Lars
family’s moisture farm where we first met Luke back in
Episode IV and
promptly buries both Luke and Leia’s lightsabers before igniting her new
lightsaber with a yellow blade. She’s then approached by a local who asks for her
name, to which she responds “Rey Skywalker” as the spirits of both Luke and Leia look on approvingly
from afar. And while I’m well aware that some people found this questionable given
that she isn’t directly linked to the Skywalker lineage, I instead view it as
her proudly showing that she isn’t just ‘the granddaughter of Palpatine’ by nobly
maintaining the legacy of her greatest teachers.
But now let’s go back and address the new Force-based power
that’s featured prominently in this film, Force Healing. Before the film’s
release, the filmmakers noted that there was a good chance that fans weren’t
going to respond too well to this, and wouldn’t you know… they were totally
right. This new ability that both Rey and Kylo Ren end up demonstrating throughout
the film received quite a bit of flak because it was one of those
cases of something that hadn’t been used in previous films but would’ve been
totally useful if it had… and yet, it’s not like this hasn’t been built up in previous
films. Remember the scene in
Revenge of the Sith when Palpatine tells
Anakin
the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise AKA what many have often cited as
one of the best sequences from the prequels, including
Rise of Skywalker’s
writer/director J.J. Abrams? Well then, that’s basically the answer to your
question right there. Plus, it also helps to explain how Palpatine managed to
come back since it’s been established that Darth Plagueis was his master and it
would make sense that he’d know some of his master’s secrets. Thus, it’s only
natural, then, that someone from his lineage like Rey could potentially possess
those same powers, and while Kylo Ren isn’t connected to the Palpatine family, it
is quite satisfying to see him use those powers to save Rey even if it does
come at the cost of his own life. Also, if you’ll allow me to call out some
potentially hypocritical fandom arguments for a moment, around the time that
Rise
of Skywalker came out, the franchise’s first live-action TV series
The
Mandalorian debuted the penultimate episode of its first season. In that episode,
the character known as ‘The Child’ (AKA Baby Yoda for those internet folks who
haven’t seen the show yet) uses the Force to heal another character’s wounds…
and yet no one made a big deal about it being used there.
Anyway, now let’s delve into the fate of the sequel trilogy’s
most prominent antagonist, Kylo Ren AKA Ben Solo. As alluded to earlier, this
film sees the newly appointed Supreme Leader of the First Order finally redeem
himself to help Rey defeat Palpatine. His road to redemption primarily comes to
fruition during the scene where he and Rey clash on the planet Kef Bir, surrounded
by the wreckage of the second Death Star. During this fight, Rey manages to
gain the upper hand when Kylo’s momentarily distracted by Leia reaching out to
him with the Force and impales him, but instead of just leaving him there to
die, she heals him with the Force. Heck, she even heals the scars on his face
that came from their fight on Starkiller Base in
The Force Awakens. And
in response to him offering her his hand back in
The Last Jedi so that
they can rule the galaxy together, she tells him that she was willing to take
his hand… Ben’s hand. After she leaves, Kylo is then confronted by a memory of
his father, Han Solo, and the conversation that they have directly parallels
the scene between them in
The Force Awakens where Kylo ultimately killed
Han. This time, however, the result is Kylo finally rejecting his current
moniker to become Ben Solo once more, tossing his lightsaber away and, for the
first time in the trilogy, calling his father “Dad”, to which Han naturally replies
“I know…” In other words, this is easily one of the best moments in the entire
film, especially thanks to the crucial uncredited cameo by Harrison Ford. And
as for Ben’s final sacrifice, I believe that it was an appropriate conclusion for
his character. Because despite everything that he did as the sinister Kylo
Ren, he managed to overcome his fate of being swayed to the Dark Side (a
process that was completely out of his control) and successfully utilize the
abilities of Darth Plagueis to bring someone that he cared about back to life. In
other words, Ben may have died, but at least he died a hero.
However, this now forces me to address an unfortunate
development in the Star Wars fandom, and that is the toxic behavior that
has spawned from a part of the faction of the fandom known as ‘Reylos’. Given
the fact that the connection between Rey and Ben has been one of the most
prominent aspects of the sequel trilogy, this has naturally led to some fans shipping
them as a couple. Now, this wasn’t really an issue when The Force Awakens and
The Last Jedi came out, but then we cut to Rise of Skywalker which,
of course, ends with Ben’s death and now Reylos are suddenly quite furious
about all this. And before I continue, let me be clear; if you were sad about
Ben’s fate, then that’s totally fine. However, some Reylos responded to this in
a way that utterly confuses me and began to lobby intensely vitriolic personal
attacks against J.J. Abrams and co-writer Chris Terrio for this decision. I can’t
even begin to describe some of the lengths that these people have gone to when
it comes to the things that they’ve said about two guys who were just doing
their jobs as filmmakers. They also got incredibly mad at John Boyega when he called
out the toxic nature of a potential romance between Ben and Rey which, to be
perfectly blunt here, he’s not entirely wrong about. I mean, sure, Ben’s
redemption is nice and all… but he did still kill a lot of people when he was
Kylo Ren. And again, let me be clear, I recognize that not all Reylos are like
the ones that I’ve been talking about here. However, that still doesn’t excuse all
that awful behavior from those who’ve been acting out just because Rise of Skywalker
killed off half of their ideal pairing. I’m not joking when I say that I
feel that this is on par with the crap that we’ve seen from the Last Jedi haters
albeit without the actual racism/sexism.
(And sadly, folks, I’m
not done talking about stuff like this since this has also had a major impact
on my #1 pick… more on that later…)
I’m also rather disturbed about how this has also led to
some people trying to spin a false narrative against J.J. Abrams just because of
certain story decisions that he made, and a lot of this has to do with the
unfortunately reduced role of Kelly Marie Tran’s Rose Tico. Yes, despite making
a promising debut in The Last Jedi despite what certain parts of the
internet may tell you, Rose doesn’t factor too much into the plot of Rise of
Skywalker. She spends most of her screen-time at the Resistance’s hidden
base, and while she does partake in the final battle on Exegol, it’s still a very
limited bit of involvement. And so, with all that in mind… yes, it’s genuinely
disappointing that Rose doesn’t have a larger role in this film, especially in
the wake of all the horrible crap that Kelly Marie Tran had to endure from
racist idiots online following the release of The Last Jedi. At the same
time, though, I refuse to subscribe to the notion that J.J. Abrams, a man who
once gave Jessica Henwick the supporting role of X-Wing pilot Jess Pava in The
Force Awakens when she was passed over for the role of Rey, and Chris
Terrio intentionally did this to appease those racist morons. If that really was
the case, then I bet that Rose wouldn’t have been in the film at all. But this
also brings us to the last major thing that people have been endlessly debating
when it comes to this film; was J.J. trying to reverse some of the controversial
story decisions that Rian Johnson had made in The Last Jedi? However, as
popular as it may be to say that he did, I personally don’t think that this is the
case…at least, not entirely, anyway…
The whole thing with Rose? Yeah, it’s unfortunate that it
turned out the way that it did, but if you ask me, it could’ve been a lot
worse. Then there’s the reveal of Rey being connected to Palpatine despite the
previous film implicating that she wasn’t going to be tied to a pre-existing
family in the
Star Wars universe. And while, again, I recognize how that
probably would’ve been a stronger route to go with the character, I also think
that it still fits nicely with the idea of Rey overcoming her initial belief
that she’s a nobody. One could also look at the scene where Luke’s Force Ghost
first appears to catch his old lightsaber and proclaim that “A Jedi’s weapon
deserves more respect” and describe it as a dig against the scene near the
beginning of
The Last Jedi where Rey hands him that lightsaber… and he promptly
tosses it away. However, at the same time, Luke’s appearance in this film
serves as a fitting conclusion to his arc from the previous film (you know, the
one that the
Last Jedi haters were super mad about even though it was totally
appropriate for the character?) where he overcame his guilt of failing Ben.
Honestly, the only major plot-thread that I can think of from
The Last Jedi that
wasn’t properly addressed was that little coda before the end credits where a
young stable boy from Canto Bight is shown to be one with the Force. I’m sure I’m
not the only one who figured that this would probably factor into
Rise of
Skywalker somehow, but alas, it did not. Still, it does continue to
reinforce the idea of how the Resistance has managed to inspire others across
the galaxy to fight the First Order. And as for the growing argument that this
trilogy lacked any sort of cohesive narrative plan, you could argue the same
thing for some of the other
Star Wars films. After all, I think it’s
safe to say that the decision to make Luke and Leia siblings came
after their
kissing scene in
Empire.
But now this brings us to another point that’s being brought
up now that the sequel trilogy is over… what the heck was it even about? Well,
a few years ago when I listed The Last Jedi as my #3 favorite of 2017, I
noted that a lot of that film’s plot was about how making mistakes are a
natural part of life and how people can learn from them, which naturally
applied to the trilogy’s lead trio of Rey, Finn, and Poe. And while that idea
still stands when it comes to The Last Jedi, Rise of Skywalker promptly
confirms what the sequel trilogy is mainly about, and that is the idea of
finding one’s place in the world and discovering that, no matter who you are,
you are not alone…and yes, this does apply to all three of the sequel trilogy’s
leads. When we first meet Rey, she’s a nobody from a desolate desert planet who’s
desperately awaiting the return of her parents. But throughout the next
three films, she discovers her full potential as the next great Jedi and uses
them to thoroughly reject her familial connection to the notorious Emperor Palpatine.
When we first meet Finn, he’s simply one of many who was taken away from a
family “he’ll never know” and drafted by the First Order before he makes the
bold decision to abandon them. And while Rise of Skywalker admittedly
sees Finn get the short end of the stick in terms of additional character development
(apart from an implication that he’s Force-sensitive that isn’t addressed beyond
that), it still ends with the guy who was initially just intent on running away
becoming one of the Resistance’s top generals. Finally, Poe Dameron is initially
established as the Resistance’s best pilot, but as the films have gone on, Poe
has had to learn how to become a better leader, especially in the face of seemingly
insurmountable odds. It’s like Leia said in The Last Jedi; there’s more
to it than just getting into an X-Wing and blowing something up.
Speaking of Leia, one of the most impressive aspects of this
film is how it managed to keep her involved in the story despite the circumstances.
Originally, the plan was to give Leia a prominent role in the same vein of Han’s
role in
The Force Awakens and Luke’s role in
The Last Jedi. Sadly,
though, that all changed when Carrie Fisher tragically passed away in 2016. Thankfully,
she had already finished her work on
The Last Jedi, but of course, this
then meant that she wouldn’t be around to film
Rise of Skywalker, and
after all the controversy surrounding the use of digital likenesses for both
her and Peter Cushing in
Rogue One, Lucasfilm made it clear that they
weren’t going to do that again. And yet, instead of just giving Leia a truly
unceremonious off-screen death, J.J. Abrams and his team managed to find a
unique way to work around this. Thus, Leia’s role in
The Rise of Skywalker is
almost entirely made up of unused footage from
The Force Awakens, and I
seriously can’t stress enough how truly impressive it was that they were able
to effectively repurpose all this footage. Looking through some of the behind-the-scenes
footage for this film, it’s clear that there was a lot that went into this,
from changing the people that she interacted with in those original scenes to digitally
changing both her hair and costuming. And as for the flashback where we see a
younger Luke and Leia training together, Fisher’s own daughter Billie Lourd
(who, of course, also reprises her role as the Resistance’s Lt. Connix) stood
in for her mother for this pivotal scene. Because of all this, Leia’s allowed
to have a proper role in this story even if it wasn’t the kind of role that was
originally intended for her, and while this still ends in Leia’s death,
the moment when it happens is treated with the utmost respect that it fully
deserves.
The Last Jedi may still hold the distinction of featuring what
is arguably Carrie Fisher’s best performance as Leia, but
The Rise of
Skywalker fully succeeds in being a heartfelt tribute to both her and the
most iconic heroine in the
Star Wars universe.
On that note, Leia’s death is one of the many moments that
make
Rise of Skywalker one of the most emotional installments of the
franchise (don’t even get me started on what happens when
Chewbacca learns about it). Aside from that, there’s also the previously mentioned
moment where Ben talks to a vision of his father and calls him ‘
Dad’ for the
first time, effectively kickstarting his redemption story. But then there are
also some great emotional moments that aren’t of the ‘tearjerker’ variety.
Going back to Chewie for a second, how does this film end? With Chewie getting
his damn medal! Sure, it’s implied to be the one that Han got at the end of
A
New Hope, but the point still stands that Chewie finally got the medal that
he didn’t get in that film. Then there’s the moment during the final battle on
Exegol where, at a time where all seems lost for the Resistance, Lando chimes
in over the comms to assure Poe that “
there are more of us” as we then see a
massive collection of ships led by Lando and Chewie in the Falcon ready to take
on the First Order. And if you want to talk about one of the most cathartic moments
in the entire franchise, just look at the scene where
Luke lifts his X-Wing for
Rey out of the Ahch-To ocean in a perfect mirroring of the scene from
The
Empire Strikes Back when Yoda lifts it out of the Dagobah swamp. The same
goes for the scene where Rey is finally able to connect with the
voices of the Jedi who have come before her (resulting in a whole bunch of vocal cameos from
the likes of Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, etc.) as they unite to boost her
spirits in the fight against Palpatine. In other words, while I’ve been
spending the past several paragraphs going over practically every controversial
aspect of this film, moments like the ones that I’ve just listed shows that
there’s much more to this film than its current reputation suggests.
Ultimately, though, the real tragedy of
Rise of Skywalker
is that it was royally screwed over by the atmosphere in which it was released.
For starters, while the ‘it’s too much like
A New Hope’ argument didn’t
impact
Force Awakens’ reception too hard, the same couldn’t be said for
Rise
of Skywalker when it got accused of being a remake of
Return of the Jedi
in a time where sequels, reboots, and remakes have faced far more scrutiny than
ever before. Need I remind you of the ‘it’s not as fresh as the original’ argument
that has been driving me crazy these past few years? But most importantly, it
came out during a time where the
Star Wars fandom was at its most
unstable. It’s basically well-known at this point that the
Star Wars
fandom has never been able to decide what it truly wants from a
Star Wars film,
hence why I’ve found that these films tend to get nitpicked more than any other
film. When
The Force Awakens was coming out, the fandom hoped that it
would be more like the original trilogy than the prequel trilogy. And when
The
Force Awakens did just that… it got criticized for being ‘too much’ like
the original trilogy. So then comes
The Last Jedi, which made a big deal
about how it wasn’t just going to be a rehash of what came before (even though,
if I may be controversial here, it too can potentially be seen as a ‘remake’ of
its original trilogy counterpart,
The Empire Strikes Back). But when it
came out, some rejected it for going too far from the norm, and even worse, many
of those that did were of the racist/sexist variety. Thus, to reference the
other sci-fi franchise that starts with
Star that J.J. Abrams has been
involved with, he ultimately found himself in a Kobayashi Maru with
Rise of
Skywalker. Either he continues to maintain the subversive style of Rian Johnson
and piss off the
Last Jedi haters even further or revert back to how he
handled
The Force Awakens and get ragged on for being too formulaic and even
accused of attempting to appeal to the racist morons.
But to me, the worst part about this whole
Rise of
Skywalker fallout has to do with those who have grown up with the sequel
trilogy. There’s going to be a whole generation of kids who were raised on these
films that will now be forced to spend the foreseeable future being mercilessly
bullied by older people online who’ll tell them that they’re morons for even
remotely liking these films. And if that wasn’t enough, this isn’t even the first
time that this has happened with
Star Wars films. Just look back at all
the years that the internet endlessly mocked the prequel trilogy and the generation
that grew up with it (which I can legitimately attest to seeing how I am indeed
part of the generation that grew up with
Episodes I-III). It has truly
been an endless cycle with this franchise. But in conclusion (and yes, folks, we’re
finally at the end of what is basically my damn thesis on this film), the one
thing about
Rise of Skywalker’s overall reception that baffles me the
most is the notion that it
is a ‘terrible’ film. Folks, I’ve been doing
this for at least a decade now, and believe me, I’ve seen my fair share of
horrible films. I’ve sat through the likes of multiple Seltzerberg ‘parodies’,
Sucker
Punch,
Mother,
Fan4stic,
you name it, and I can assure
you that
Rise of Skywalker isn’t even close to being on the same level
of quality as those films. Does that mean that I think the film is perfect? No,
not at all. Is it my favorite installment of the trilogy? No, that honor would
go to
The Force Awakens, partially because it makes me nostalgic for a
time when the
Star Wars fandom wasn’t engaged in a literal war. But at
the end of the day, I still stand by my belief that all this debating over the
current state of the franchise had nothing to do with the films themselves.
Instead, it’s solely because of a fandom that has sadly become defined by some
very obnoxious gatekeepers who think that they know better.
Phew… that was one heck
of a long discussion, wasn’t it? Anyway, at Number 2, we have the highly anticipated
follow-up to one of my favorite films of the past few years that continued to
highlight everything that has made its franchise the global phenomenon that it
is.
As I’m sure I’ve stated plenty of times by now, Walt Disney
Animation’s 2013 release Frozen is one of my favorite films from the
studio’s extensive collection of animated classics. In fact, it’s in my Top 5
when it comes to Disney animated films, which I do think is saying something
given how I’m part of the crowd that was raised primarily on the Disney
Renaissance but was still able to watch many of the classics that were before
my time thanks to VHS. But like any film that ends up becoming one of your
personal favorites, this is all due to the strong personal connection that I
have to it. For starters, this was the last Walt Disney Animation film that I
saw with my dad before he passed away in 2014. Granted, this first showing had
to be in 3-D at a time when that format was becoming an afterthought because our
intended 2-D showing was sold out (should I also mention that this was on Black
Friday, of all days?), but that didn’t stop the whole family from loving it.
And yes, if you end up looking back at my original review of it back in 2013,
you’ll probably notice that I only gave it a 4/5; simply put, we
can regard that as a prime example of a very outdated review. Cut
to a few months later after Dad’s passing and me, my mom, and my older brother
were invited by our relatives to join them on their trip to Disney World. It
goes without saying that this was something that we all sorely needed, and the
trip also helped to strengthen my love of Disney World that would later pave
the way for me working there in 2018. Anyway, since this was still during the
film’s impressive run at the box-office, Anna and Elsa had recently made their
debuts as meet-and-greet characters at Epcot, and as you might have guessed,
the wait times to meet them were incredibly long. Nevertheless, that didn’t
stop my family from waiting in that line just so that our relatives’ kids could
meet them.
But, of course, as is the case with anything that becomes
massively popular,
Frozen has also amassed its fair share of critics,
and in this instance, a lot of that is due to the extensive mark that it left
on the pop-cultural zeitgeist. It was the studio’s first feature to gross over $1
billion worldwide, it earned two Oscars at that year’s Academy Awards for Best
Animated Feature and Best Original Song, and it still stands as the best-selling
Blu-Ray to date with over 7.6 million copies sold. In other words,
Frozen was
(and quite arguably still is) one of the most talked-about films of the past
few years so, naturally, there were some people out there that got utterly sick
of hearing about it after a while. And yet, while I will admit that there was a
point in time where I did feel that ‘
Frozen mania’ got a little out of
hand in some instances, nowadays I’m personally glad that it became the cultural
sensation that it did. I still remember one of the trailers for the film that
boasted that it was the ‘greatest Disney animated event since
The Lion King’,
and while that is admittedly a bold statement to make, it was also technically
true since it was the studio’s biggest financial hit since the original
Lion
King. And really, when you have a film as great as this one that boasts
lovable characters, heartfelt themes, and catchy songs, it’s quite frankly the
kind of film that truly deserves to be one of the biggest films of all-time.
As such, I’m also one of those people who will thoroughly defend the two Frozen shorts that were made before the release of Frozen II that inexplicably attracted some incredibly hostile reactions. 2015’s
Frozen Fever was a
delightful little short that, for some reason, was regarded by the internet as
nothing more than a ‘cynical cash-grab’. And as for 2017’s
Olaf’s Frozen
Adventure, I still stand by my belief that it seriously wasn’t that big of
a deal that it was placed in front of Pixar’s
Coco. Many have argued
that it tried to steal
Coco’s thunder, but to be perfectly frank, I seriously
doubt that given that
Coco managed to gross over $800 million worldwide,
won the same two Oscars that
Frozen did, and is generally considered to
be another one of Pixar’s modern masterpieces.
Anyway, now we’ve finally come to Frozen II, and
right off the bat, one of the best things that I can say about this film is
that writers/directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee successfully crafted a story
that feels like a truly natural follow-up to the first film. Before Frozen
II’s release, there was quite a lot of speculation regarding its potential
plot developments. For example, given the reveal that Evan Rachel Wood was
taking over the role of Anna and Elsa’s mother, Queen Iduna (who only had one
line in the first film that was provided by Jennifer Lee), perhaps either one
or both of their parents were still alive? And, of course, the most common
theory that circulated amongst fans was the potential for a reveal that Anna possessed
powers of her own (most likely ones that were fire-based to contrast Elsa’s ice
powers). But while those ideas admittedly could’ve yielded some interesting
results, the narrative routes that the film does take arguably feel more
appropriate for these characters. The bulk of the plot revolves around Anna,
Elsa, and their friends traveling to an enchanted forest that’s been affected
by a mysterious elemental curse that also begins to threaten Arendelle. Along
the way, they also start to uncover the secrets behind Elsa’s powers, with Anna
and Elsa discovering that the intent of the trip that their parents had gone on
that ultimately resulted in their deaths was to find the mythical river known
as Ahtohallan that would hopefully provide the answers for Elsa’s powers. But
as a silver lining to all this, they learn that their mom had been a member of
the forest’s native folk, the Northuldra, and had saved their father, King
Agnarr, during the war that broke out between their people which, as it turns
out, was entirely orchestrated by Agnarr’s father Runeard. Thus, the spirits rewarded
Iduna for her courage by blessing her with a child born with magical powers,
Elsa.
It goes without saying that the relationship between Anna
and Elsa has always been the heart of Frozen’s story, and this is once
again emphasized to great effect in Frozen II. With that in mind,
another one of this film’s best aspects is how it perfectly balances their
roles in this story, especially when it comes to Elsa. Now, before I continue, I
just want to note that I think that Anna and Elsa are both equally great
heroines. However, if you were to ask me who my favorite was of the two, that
would have to be Anna. While I fully recognize why Elsa’s easily been the most
popular character to come from this franchise, the first film is quite arguably
centered more on Anna since she’s the one who embarks on the journey to climb
the North Mountain, mend the broken relationship that she has with Elsa, and
save Arendelle from an eternal winter. Frozen II, on the other hand, is
very much Elsa’s story. She’s the one who initiates the journey to the
Enchanted Forest and is directly responsible for taming 3 of the 4 Elemental
Spirits as represented by a gust of wind that they name Gale, a little fire-breathing
salamander named Bruni, and the mythical water spirit known as the Nøkk. And,
of course, as noted earlier, she ends up learning that her powers were the result
of the elemental spirits honoring her mother for her noble actions in a time of
conflict. If that wasn’t enough, Elsa also learns that she is the rumored fifth
spirit that is destined to unite people and nature, and after saving Arendelle
from being flooded, she decides to stay in the Enchanted Forest to become its
protector. Because of all this, I can safely say that Frozen II has
given me an even greater appreciation for Elsa as a character, and it goes
without saying that Idina Menzel continues to kill it in the role.
However, this doesn’t mean that Anna isn’t as important this
time around because she still plays a vital role in the plot. When Elsa heads
off to the Enchanted Forest, Anna tags along to ensure her sister’s safety, and
while Elsa tries to dissuade her from coming, Anna promptly reminds her that
she “climbed the North Mountain, survived a frozen heart, and saved her from
her ex-boyfriend” and did all that without any powers. But while their initial
journey through the Enchanted Forest does see the two sisters sticking together
through thick and thin, there does come a point where Elsa’s forced to send both
Anna and Olaf away and head off to Ahtohallan on her own, which understandably angers
them even if it was done with the noblest intentions. And sure enough, as Anna had consistently warned her
about the whole time, Elsa’s journey into Ahtohallan does result in her going
too far into it and she ends up frozen solid just like what happened to Anna at
the end of the first film. Luckily, though, Elsa manages to send out a message
to Anna before it’s too late that relays the information that their grandfather
orchestrated the war between Arendelle and the Northuldra and that the dam that
he had supposedly built as a peace offering was really a way to control them. But
unfortunately, because of Elsa’s ‘death’, this also causes Olaf to fade away
since her magic was the direct source of his existence. Thus, Anna now finds
herself completely alone at the worst possible time, which is a far contrast to
her situation at the beginning of the film where life in Arendelle was
practically perfect and, most importantly, after all the years that she spent
isolated from both her sister and the people of Arendelle, she was now fully surrounded
by all her friends and family.
Thankfully, our beloved heroine is able to overcome what is
quite arguably the lowest of low points and ‘do the next right thing’ which, in
this instance, is by destroying the dam even if it means that the subsequent
flooding of the fjord would destroy Arendelle. Thus, she lures a group of Earth
Giants (AKA the Earth Spirits) over to the dam so they can destroy it and she also
convinces the Arendellian soldiers who had been trapped in the woods for years to
help her despite their dedication to protecting the kingdom. With the dam’s
destruction, Elsa is freed from her frozen fate and she manages to save
Arendelle just in time before the incoming tidal wave can reach it. When the
two sisters finally reunite, Elsa assures Anna that she saved her once again
and that the other spirits have agreed that Arendelle deserves to stand with
her as its queen… and so the film ends with Anna taking her sister’s place as
the new queen of Arendelle having very much proven herself as a dedicated
leader. And while this does mean that the sisters end up separated again after
everything that they’ve been through, it’s not a complete separation this time since
it’s established that Elsa can travel between Arendelle and the Enchanted
Forest any time she pleases. With that in mind, I also want to highlight a deleted
scene in which Elsa shows Anna a memory from Ahtohallan of their parents in
which Iduna tells Agnarr that she feels it’s time to tell Anna (who, of course,
had her memories of Elsa’s powers erased when she was accidentally struck on
the head by them) the truth about Elsa. Despite Agnarr’s hesitation about
putting them together again, Iduna assures him that Anna would probably be the
only one who can help Elsa control her powers. After all, “
her love could hold up the world”. Simply put, it’s a lovely scene that lets Anna know how much their
parents believed in her. However, at the same time, I don’t think that its
removal from the final film ends up hurting it too much because, if anything, I
feel that the franchise has always done a wonderful job of getting the message
across about how Anna has never needed the kind of powers that Elsa has to be
great.
Now, of course, given that this is
Frozen we’re
talking about,
Frozen II sports yet another excellent soundtrack
courtesy of Robert and Kristen Anderson-Lopez. It all begins with ‘
All is Found’,
the Ahtohallan lullaby that Iduna sings to her daughters during the opening
flashback. With its soothing melody and a wonderful vocal performance by Evan
Rachel Wood, it very much serves its purpose as a sweet lullaby… just ignore the
dark implications of the ‘dive down deep into her sound, but not too far or you’ll
be drowned’ lyric that is directly lampshaded later in the film. Believe me, it
wouldn’t be the first time that a situation like this has occurred with a
famous lullaby. After that, there’s the film’s big ensemble piece, ‘
Some Things Never Change’. Simply put, it’s just a delightfully upbeat song that perfectly
highlights how truly great life has been in Arendelle now that Anna and Elsa
are together again. In other words, it’s the idyllic calm before the storm that
is the catalyst behind this film’s plot. Then, of course, there’s the film’s most
talked-about song, ‘
Into the Unknown’, as Elsa finally answers the call of the
mysterious voice that she’s been hearing. This was widely touted as this film’s
‘Let it Go’, and to be fair, it’s easy to see why. It’s Idina Menzel’s big solo
(although she is backed by the vocals of Aurora, who serves as ‘The Voice’),
and just like the first film’s definitive anthem, it’s a perfect highlight of
her vocal prowess. However, at the risk of being a bit controversial, it’s
admittedly not my favorite song from this soundtrack. To be clear, it is a
great song, but this is just one of those cases where I prefer some of the
other songs on the soundtrack. Basically, this is a lot like what happened with
2016’s
La La Land. While that film’s signature Oscar-winning song was ‘City
of Stars’, my personal favorite was Emma Stone’s big solo, ‘Audition (The Fools
Who Dream)’.
Anyway, once the group enters the Enchanted Forest, everyone’s
favorite snowman Olaf gets a fun little ditty, ‘
When I Am Older’, where he
assures himself that all the crazy things that have been happening to them will
make sense when he’s older… all while a non-stop array of chaos and destruction
rages around him. As you might have guessed, hilarity ensues. But then we come
to what may possibly be my favorite song from this soundtrack (although I will
admit that it’s somewhat of a toss-up between this and the next song), ‘
Lost in the Woods’, which is Kristoff’s big solo. It’s also notably the first big solo
number that Jonathan Groff has gotten to partake in when it comes to this
franchise since his other ‘solo’ outings have been little ditties that are less
than a minute long; ‘Reindeer are Better than People’ (which does get a short
reprise here) from the first film and ‘The Ballad of Flemmingrad’ from
Olaf’s
Frozen Adventure. Aside from that, he’s usually just a part of the ensemble
musical numbers, but now he’s finally been given the chance to showcase his
musical talents as the rugged but well-meaning Kristoff gets to express his romantic
feelings toward Anna. On its own accord, this is a genuinely sweet love song
that, as many of those involved in the production have pointed out, is a rare
case of a male protagonist getting the opportunity to address their romantic
feelings. But in the context of the actual film, it results in one of its most
entertaining sequences as the 80’s rock ballad aesthetic that the song is inspired
by is utilized to its fullest effect. There’s a moment where Kristoff sings
into a pinecone like it’s a microphone, Sven and a bunch of other reindeer serve
as his back-up singers, and there’s even a moment where the reindeer pay homage
to Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’.
The other standout number from this film is ‘
Show Yourself’,
which is the second song in the soundtrack that’s primarily headlined by Idina
Menzel. It occurs when Elsa has finally reached Ahtohallan and discovers the
secrets that she’s been searching for her whole life. Not only is she the mythical
Fifth Spirit who’s meant to unite people and nature, but she also discovers
that the voice that has been calling to her this whole time was a memory of her
mom when she was younger. Thus, Evan Rachel Wood joins in at the end for a touching
duet between mother and daughter. It’s a perfect culmination for what is easily
the film’s most emotionally cathartic moment, so much so that I’d argue that
this
is
Frozen II’s ‘Let It Go’. To contrast all that, we then conclude
with the most devastating number in the film, ‘
The Next Right Thing’, which is
Kristen Bell’s big solo as Anna. At this point in the film, Anna is at the
lowest point that she could possibly be at. Olaf has just faded away, which
also means that Elsa is gone as well, and because the trio had rushed out to
get to Ahtohallan, Kristoff was left behind with the Northuldra tribe. But at a
time where everything seems lost, Anna bravely soldiers on to finish what her
sister started and destroy the dam that their grandfather had built to save both
the Enchanted Forest and Arendelle. Even after everything that I just mentioned
in regards to how powerful of a sequence ‘Show Yourself’ was, ‘The Next Right
Thing’ is arguably the most emotional moment in the entire film, and a lot of
this is thanks to Kristen Bell being just as outstanding as she’s always been as
Anna. Plus, I won’t lie, this whole sequence did result in a solid 3-5-minute
cry session on my end. Trust me when I say that it truly is an utterly heartbreaking
moment.
But to end all this on a positive note, it goes without
saying that I loved
Frozen II just as much as I did the original. Now
with that in mind, I’m not going to partake in the conversation of ‘Is this
better than the first film?’ since I’m not really a fan of doing those kinds of
comparisons. But if there is one advantage that I think this film has over the
first
Frozen, it’d be that
Frozen II arguably hits harder with
its emotional moments. Now don’t get me wrong, the first film certainly had its
fair share of highly effective emotional scenes, like the finale of ‘Do You
Want to Build a Snowman’ after Anna and Elsa’s parents are lost at sea. Ultimately,
though, I do think that there a lot more moments like this in
Frozen II.
Regardless,
Frozen II is very much on par with its predecessor in practically
every conceivable aspect. Its songs are undeniably catchy and the animation is downright
gorgeous. Most importantly, though,
Frozen II fully succeeds at having a
truly heartfelt narrative that continues to do a wonderful job when it comes to
developing the lead duo of Anna and Elsa. It reinforces why Anna’s strength has
never needed to come from her having powers like her sister and it gives Elsa
some well-deserved attention after the first film admittedly focused more on
Anna and her journey. And while I know that some people were kind of iffy on
the ending for how it separates the two even though the whole point
of the first film was getting them back together again, it’s executed in a way
that still lets them be closely connected to each other while also putting them
exactly where they need to be. Anna perfectly sums the whole situation up at
the very end when Arendelle unveils a statue of young Agnarr and Iduna; simply
put, thanks to the dedicated efforts of our beloved heroines, their two lands
and their people are now fully connected by love. And with a heartwarming conclusion
like that, hopefully, most of you will now understand why I’m perfectly fine
with a franchise like
Frozen becoming a permanent staple of our current
pop cultural landscape.
And now, at long
last, we’ve finally come to my favorite film of 2019. But just like last year,
folks, I’m going to be completely upfront with you all when I say that I’m not
even going to try to build up the suspense of this reveal. Let’s face it, folks…
you know EXACTLY what this film is. Like last year’s #1, Avengers:
Infinity War, it was a guaranteed lock-in at the top spot the exact moment
I left that theater. It is a film that’ll forever define my life as a film fan the
same way that its franchise has defined it for the past decade.
For the past decade, we’ve had the honor of witnessing one
of the greatest runs that any film franchise has ever had courtesy of the
Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine that it’s been that
long since Tony Stark proudly proclaimed that he was Iron Man, thus setting the
stage for a massive cinematic universe that had never really been done before…
at least, not to the extent that Marvel Studios was aiming for. And, of course,
let’s not forget that back then, Marvel wasn’t able to use some of their most
iconic characters like Spider-Man and the X-Men since they didn’t own the film
rights to them, which meant that they had to rely more on some of their lesser-known
characters to get things started. Yes, as crazy as it may seem nowadays, Iron
Man wasn’t always one of the biggest stars of the Marvel universe. However,
that didn’t hinder Marvel Studios’ plans in the slightest, and in 2012, the
first big payoff of this plan was unleashed via writer/director Joss Whedon’s The
Avengers. Backed by Marvel’s concerted efforts to properly set up the world
and its characters before putting them all together, The Avengers promptly
became one of the biggest films of all-time and officially cemented the MCU as
one of the premier film franchises of recent years. This has continued to be
the case ever since, as Marvel Studios has consistently delivered top-notch
superhero films on a regular basis. And while I’m well aware that a lot of
people like to rag on some of their lesser-received films such as Iron Man 2
and Thor: The Dark World, I still very much stand by what I’ve been
saying all these years in that Marvel Studios has yet to make a film on the
same level of quality as the genre’s most infamous outings such as 2015’s Fan4stic
or 2004’s Catwoman. Sure, there have legitimately been some weaker
entries over the years, but at their worst, they’re just ‘okay’.
A lot of the MCU’s success has been thanks to the terrific group
of directors that Marvel has hired over the years to bring this universe to
life. This includes the duo of brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, who made their
franchise debut in 2014 with
Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Despite being known more for their work in comedies at the time, the Russos
managed to craft one of the franchise’s most exciting installments to date. In
fact, one could even argue that
Winter Soldier was exactly the kind of
hit that Marvel Studios needed after an admittedly rocky 2013 that was defined
by the polarizing reaction to
Iron Man 3 and the generally ‘meh’
response to
Thor: The Dark World. Because of this, the Russos returned
to helm the third
Captain America film, 2016’s
Captain America: Civil
War, and while they did manage to deliver another fantastic film headlined
by the Star-Spangled Man with a Plan,
Civil War also proved that they
could handle ensemble pieces just as much as they could handle solo outings.
After all, given that
Civil War involved almost every other member of
the Avengers in its efforts to adapt the controversial storyline of the same
name from the comics, some have argued that the film was basically
Avengers
2.5. As such, the Russos were then brought back
again to take Joss
Whedon’s place as the directors of the next two
Avengers films that
would be shot back-to-back, starting with 2018’s
Avengers: Infinity War.
And after several years of build-up,
Infinity War was fully primed to serve
as the official showcase for the MCU’s biggest villain to date, Josh Brolin’s
Thanos the Mad Titan. However, this also meant that there was quite a lot of
pressure on everyone involved to make this work since A.) the MCU has often gotten
flak for having ‘subpar’ villains and B.) before
Infinity War, Thanos’
role in the MCU was mostly defined by a whole bunch of jokes about how he
mainly sat around on a throne and did almost nothing.
But all that skepticism was properly negated when
Infinity
War came out and promptly established Thanos as the MCU’s greatest villain
to date. Heck, it managed to pull all that off in just the first ten minutes by
having Thanos eradicate half of Asgard’s surviving population, kill off some of
the franchise’s most prominent characters, and deliver an utter beatdown on the
Hulk. More importantly, though, the key factor behind Thanos’ strong
characterization is that
Infinity War was very much his story. Sure, he
was the main antagonist for the Avengers to face, but the whole crux of the
plot was his quest to collect the six Infinity Stones, which he does manage to
do despite the Avengers’ best efforts to stop him. And because of this,
Infinity
War concluded with
one of the best finales in recent cinematic history by
showing the full and utterly terrifying extent of Thanos’ plan to wipe out half
the universe. Yes, because of that infamous snap of his fingers while using the
Infinity Gauntlet, several key members of the Avengers found themselves dusted
away into nothing while their friends and family were powerless to stop it. But
while this was a moment that was lifted directly from the comics, I’m going to
bet that most audiences weren’t expecting something like this to happen in the
global powerhouse of a franchise that is the MCU. And yet, that’s exactly what
Infinity
War did, and in doing so, the Russos certainly challenged a longstanding
criticism that claimed that the MCU films have often been lacking in terms of
stakes. But while this certainly set the stage for the finale that was
Avengers:
Endgame, it also set up that film’s own set of unique expectations because,
to be perfectly blunt, as shocking as
Infinity War’s ending was, most
audiences already figured that its outcome would be reversed in
Endgame.
Thus, the biggest challenge of
Avengers: Endgame was to deliver a grand finale
that could still work despite the inevitable predictability of its plot.
And yet, that was exactly what the Russos managed to pull
off with
Endgame. For starters, the first twenty minutes of the film
properly establishes the fact that as clear as it is that the Avengers will
overcome their loss against Thanos and bring their friends back, this won’t be
an easy task. The first 20 minutes of
Endgame could potentially be
described as the proper epilogue to the events of
Infinity War. It starts
off by establishing where Clint Barton AKA Hawkeye has been since he didn’t
appear in the previous film by having him forced to witness the rest of his
family succumbing to the snap. After that, we see Tony Stark and Nebula attempting
to return to Earth after being the only survivors of the fight against Thanos
on the planet Titan. When all seems lost and their ship runs out of fuel, Tony
delivers what may be the final message he’ll ever send to the love of his life,
Pepper Potts. Luckily for the two of them, however, they’re rescued by Carol
Danvers AKA Captain Marvel who, of course, had just made her franchise debut in
her own solo film a few months prior (even though Brie Larson technically
filmed her scenes for Endgame first). She promptly returns them to Earth,
and because of Nebula’s connection to Thanos as his adopted daughter, the
Avengers discover where he’s hiding out and that he recently used the stones
again. Thus, the group heads out to confront him (albeit without Tony, who
promptly faints after a heated argument with Cap due to his weakened state). When
they get there, however, they discover that Thanos’ second use of the stones
was to destroy them so that no one could reverse his actions. This then results
in Thor doing exactly what he should’ve done at the end of Infinity War by ‘going for the head’ and swiftly decapitating Thanos. But while this
may have been Thor’s attempt at atoning for the mistake that he made the last
time that he faced Thanos, the kicker to all this is that… ultimately, it meant
nothing. Sure, Thanos may have been taken care of, but half of the universe is
still dead and their only means of fixing that is no more.
And so, we then cut
to five years later to the year 2023 and begin to discover exactly how the
world has tried to move on in the wake of Thanos’ actions. While the surviving
citizens of Asgard have established a new home off the coast of Norway, Thor’s guilt
over his various mistakes has led to him becoming an overweight, depressed
drunk. Tony Stark, meanwhile, has retired from the superhero life, is now
married to Pepper, and they have a daughter named Morgan after this was hinted
at during Tony and Pepper’s scene together in Infinity War when he suggested
naming their first kid after her uncle of the same name. And as for the
Avengers, Cap and Black Widow have been leading the surviving members of the
group while also struggling to move on from all that they’ve been through despite
Cap consistently telling others the exact opposite. But then things start to
change when Scott Lang AKA Ant-Man returns from the Quantum Realm after being
stuck there at the end of Ant-Man
and the Wasp when Hank Pym, Janet
Van Dyne and Hope Van Dyne were snapped out of existence. After an utterly
devastating reunion with his daughter Cassie, who obviously grew up in the five
years he was gone, Scott heads to the Avengers’ compound where he informs Cap
and Natasha that while he may have been in the Quantum Realm for five years, it
only felt like a few hours to him. Thus, Scott proposes a theory that they
utilize the unique physics of the Quantum Realm to travel through time and
collect the six Infinity Stones before Thanos can. And while their initial attempts
at recruiting Tony to their mission are unsuccessful because of the peaceful
life that he’s made for himself, he eventually changes his mind after
reflecting upon the loss of his protégé Peter Parker and, to his complete
surprise, managing to figure out a plausible method of time-travel.
 |
| "TIME TRAVEL! What? I see this as an absolute win!" |
Now before I
continue, I should probably address the elephant in the room that is the fact
that, as I’m sure many of you know, the concept of time travel can often be a
complicated aspect of science-fiction narratives. Simply put, just the decision
to use it can often lead to much debate amongst critics and audiences over all
the potential complications that can occur from it, namely the dangers of causing
a time paradox. This can especially be a problem if the film is part of a
larger franchise and ends up making certain plot decisions that don’t sync up
with the events of previous installments. With all that in mind, though, I’d
argue that Avengers: Endgame deserves quite a bit of credit for how it
decides to handle time travel. Namely, it does so by not making a big deal
about the semantics behind it. It efficiently sets up the idea behind the MCU’s
method of time travel (i.e. the Quantum Realm) and it doesn’t worry too much
about causing any potential paradoxes since it rejects the common notion that changing
something in the past will directly alter the future. However, it still acknowledges
the impact that these actions can have on future events by establishing that
the Avengers will have to return the Infinity Stones to the past once they’re
done using them so that the universe that they were taken out of doesn’t fall
into disarray. Plus, it could also be argued that the intent of all this is to set
the stage for the incorporation of a multiverse in the MCU. Sure, Quentin Beck
may have been lying in Spider-Man:
Far From Home when he said that he
was from another dimension, but at the same time, the next Doctor Strange film is subtitled In the
Multiverse of Madness, which means
that Marvel Studios is most likely beginning to work the idea of the multiverse
into future installments of the franchise. Ultimately, though, the
biggest selling point of this film’s time-travel plot is that the Avengers split
up into teams and find themselves traveling back in time to key moments in the
MCU’s history, thus paving the way for plenty of great callbacks and a lot of genuinely
unexpected cameos.
First up, we have Tony,
Cap, Scott, and Bruce Banner (who’s revealed to have merged his two personalities
and can now maintain his intelligence while in Hulk form) traveling back to the
climactic Battle of New York from the first Avengers. Bruce heads over
to the Sanctum Sanctorum to try and collect the Time Stone from the Ancient
One. And while she initially refuses to do so given the negative universal
impact of an Infinity Stone’s disappearance from the timeline, Bruce ultimately
convinces her otherwise when he reveals that Dr. Strange willingly gave it to
Thanos during the events of Infinity
War. Meanwhile, Tony, Cap, and
Scott work to collect the other two stones that are in the area at the time,
the Tesseract’s Space Stone and the Mind Stone within Loki’s scepter. While the
Mind Stone is initially taken by Brock Rumlow and his STRIKE squad from Winter Soldier, Cap manages to get it from them by acting like he’s also secretly
working with HYDRA. And, of course, it’s worth mentioning that this moment ends
up being a brilliant jab at the infamous Secret Empire storyline
from the comics where Cap is turned into a HYDRA agent. This also paves the way
for an awesome clash between Cap and his 2012 self when the latter thinks that
the former is Loki in disguise, which is the first of two specific instances in
this film where a character crosses paths with their younger self. The attempt by
Tony and Scott to collect the Space Stone (which primarily involves giving 2012
Tony a heart-attack by temporarily disabling his arc reactor) isn’t as
successful, however, since it gets knocked out of their possession by 2012 Hulk,
who had to take the stairs to the ground floor of Stark Tower instead of the elevator.
Thus, it ends up getting picked up by 2012 Loki, who promptly escapes with it
in a moment that confirms that a version of Loki is alive (even if the one that
we had become the most attached to was killed by Thanos in Infinity War) and sets the stage for the impending Loki TV series that’s set to debut on Disney+ next year
.
But, of course,
this then creates a new problem for Cap, Tony, and Scott since they only have enough
of the Pym Particles that they have been using to travel through time to get
back to the present. Luckily for them, Tony ends up figuring out a new plan that
would allow them to not only collect the Tesseract but also acquire more Pym
Particles. And so, he and Cap travel back to 1970 to Camp Lehigh in New Jersey,
where Cap had trained with the U.S. Army before his transformation via Dr.
Erskine’s super-soldier serum, where they collect the Tesseract from
S.H.I.E.L.D.’s underground base and collect the Pym Particles from Hank Pym’s
lab. At the same time, though, this little detour also ends up taking our two
heroes down some highly emotional routes. When Steve is forced to hide from security,
he ends up in Peggy Carter’s office, and while she’s arguing with another agent
in the adjacent room, Steve sees the love of his life for the first time since
she passed away during the events of Captain
America: Civil War. As for Tony,
he ends up crossing paths with his father Howard, and as the two exit the base,
they strike up a conversation when Howard mentions that he and his wife Maria are
about to have a kid (that kid, of course, being Tony). Howard reveals to Tony the
nerves that he’s feeling surrounding the impending arrival of his kid, who he
fears will end up inheriting his worst traits. As he puts it, “the greater good
has rarely outweighed my own self-interests”. Tony manages to help ease this
concern by relaying his own experiences as a father to Morgan and mentions that
as much as he felt his dad was tough on him, he admits that he now primarily remembers
the good times. His dad then proceeds to note that “the kid’s not even here yet
and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for him”. Thus, after several years of the
MCU clearly establishing that Tony and Howard had a complicated relationship when
the latter was alive, Tony is finally able to have a moment of reconciliation with
the dad that he never truly got the chance to properly connect with by
realizing that, at the end of the day, his dad was human just like everyone
else.
Next up, we have
Thor and Rocket traveling to Asgard in 2013 during the events of Thor: The Dark World… and yes, they managed to make a worthwhile
moment out of what is widely considered to be the weakest installment of the
MCU. Like I said before, folks, even Marvel Studios’ weakest is still better
than most other films in the genre. Anyway, while Rocket works to extract the
Aether (AKA the Reality Stone) from Jane Foster, Thor ends up coming across his
mother Frigga, who was tragically killed by the Dark Elves in The Dark World. And as much as Thor tries to trick her into thinking that he’s the
Thor from that time, Frigga immediately deduces that he’s from the future.
The ensuing conversation between mother and son proves to be exactly what Thor
needed after everything that he’s been through in the past few years and is
quite arguably the catalyst behind him beginning to overcome his depressed state.
When Thor reflects on all the recent mistakes that he’s made (namely, the
unnecessary killing of Thanos), Frigga assures him that those failures are what
makes him just like everyone else and that everyone fails when it comes to
being who they’re meant to be. And when Thor tries to warn his mom about her
impending death, she refuses to hear him out, implying that she’s perhaps
content with her fate. All in all, this is an utterly heartwarming sequence and
it’s nice to see Rene Russo get to have a definitive moment as Frigga after
most of her scenes in the first Thor
were cut and her expanded role in
the sequel ultimately ended with her death. And as a perfect coda to all this,
Thor summons the Mjolnir of 2013 before leaving and delightfully realizes he’s “still
worthy”.
Finally, we have Natasha,
Clint, Rhodey, and Nebula traveling back to 2014 to the planet Morag. Rhodey
and Nebula stick around to wait for Peter Quill AKA Star-Lord to arrive and lead
them to the location of the Power Stone. Thus, we get to witness a reprisal of
the classic opening title sequence from Guardians of the Galaxy as
Peter dances around the area to Redbone’s ‘Come and Get Your Love’. However, Endgame then proceeds to deliver a funny new take on this sequence by showing
that, from the perspective of a potential onlooker, Peter’s just singing to
himself since they can’t hear the music from his Walkman. Rhodey then promptly
deduces that he’s “an idiot”, which I feel is a fun and non-mean-spirited way
of poking fun at Quill in the wake of his little ‘incident’ from Infinity War that the rest of the internet grossly over-reacted to, and knocks him unconsciousness.
Nebula then proceeds to collect the Power Stone by using her cybernetic arm to
withstand the power of the force field surrounding it. But while Rhodey ends up
returning to the present with the Stone without issue, the same can’t be said
for Nebula, who previously noted that she and Rhodey weren’t the only ones in
2014 looking for the Stones. And sure enough, elsewhere in the galaxy, Nebula’s
2014 self is suddenly inundated with her current self’s memories since the two
of them share the same neural network. This prompts the Thanos of 2014 to go
through them and discover exactly what the Avengers have been planning, even
witnessing the death of his future self in the process. Using this newfound
information to his advantage, 2014 Thanos kidnaps the present-day Nebula and
has the 2014 Nebula take her place.
Meanwhile, Natasha
and Clint head to Vormir to collect the Soul Stone, and after they are approached
by the Stone’s guardian, the Red Skull, they soon discover the unfortunate catch-22
behind the process of collecting it. In other words, one of them must make the
ultimate sacrifice so that the other can get the Stone (“A soul for a soul”).
This then leads to the two longtime friends debating over which one of them
will take the fall, which Clint unabashedly volunteers to do given his recent actions.
When we first reunite with Hawkeye in 2023, it’s revealed that, in the wake of
his family’s demise, he has become a bitter, violent vigilante known as Ronin who
is hellbent on wiping out any criminals who survived the Snap. It legitimately
gets to a point where, during an earlier conversation between Nat and Rhodey
when the latter has been tasked with monitoring Barton’s whereabouts, he
suggests that Barton has arguably reached a point where he can’t be redeemed.
However, when Nat finally confronts him after he wipes out a group of Yakuza
members in Tokyo, it is her assurance that they have a chance to reverse Thanos’
actions that ultimately convinces Clint to partake in their mission. And because
of this, back on Vormir, Nat reminds him that he has a family to return to when
this is all over. Nevertheless, the two then proceed to get into a minor
skirmish as they each try to jump off the cliff, ultimately concluding with them
both hanging off it. Natasha then assures Clint that it’ll be alright and purposefully
falls to her death so that he can properly obtain the Soul Stone.
This has admittedly
been one of the more controversial aspects of Endgame, namely due to how
Black Widow’s overall portrayal in the MCU has often faced tons of criticism
for some of the ways in which the films have written her character. Back in
2015 when Avengers: Age of Ultron came out, there was a lot of scrutiny over
the decision to romantically pair her up with Bruce Banner even though it wasn’t
quite as ‘out-of-nowhere’ of a storyline as several people like to claim it is and
the films proceeded to make it clear that it wasn’t meant to last. In that same
film, however, she also referred to herself as a ‘monster’ when she mentions
that she was sterilized during her training in the Black Widow program, which
really didn’t sit well with certain audiences. And when it comes to her death
in Endgame, this can potentially be viewed as a case
of ‘fridging’, which is a term used to describe moments in comics where female
characters are killed, injured, etc. to further a male character’s
story arc. In this instance, Natasha’s the one who is killed so that Hawkeye can
go home to his family. This whole ‘fridging’ argument can also apply to the similarly
structured sequence in Infinity
War where Thanos threw Gamora off
the cliff so that he can collect the Soul Stone. However, while I very much
recognize how Black Widow’s death can be regarded as a case of this notorious
comic trope, it can also be argued that it’s one of its least extreme examples
since this isn’t a case where the event was done against the subject’s will as
it clearly was with Gamora’s death in Infinity War. In Natasha’s
case, she willingly decides to make this sacrifice so
that the Avengers’ mission will be a success. This is evident from her quietly
repeating a phrase that Cap said before they all traveled back in time, “Whatever
it takes”, and how she specifically responds to being referred to by the Red
Skull as “Natasha, daughter of Ivan” since she never knew who her real father
was.
Plus, while Thanos
was practically emotionless when he obtained the Soul Stone in Infinity War (despite him repeatedly stating that Gamora was his favorite daughter),
Clint openly begins to cry when he collects it, and when the Avengers return to
2023, their initial reverie at collecting all the stones quickly goes away once
they realize why Natasha isn’t there. That said, though, there’s also been a
lot of controversy over the fact that Natasha’s death doesn’t get as much
attention as the other main character death in this film (which, of course, we’ll
get to later). However, the scene where the Avengers mourn her death at the compound’s dock is arguably quite notable because of how the actions of each of the remaining
members of the original Avengers crew represent the five stages of the Kübler-Ross
model for grief. Thor straight-up rejects the idea that she’s dead and says
that they can just use the Stones to bring her back (Denial). Hawkeye assures
Thor that his idea won’t work and gets choked up when he notes that he should’ve
been the one to take the fall (Bargaining). Bruce, meanwhile, tosses a bench
across the lake (Anger). Steve is the most despondent over her loss and doesn’t
say much during this scene (Depression) while Tony immediately asks if Nat had
any family (Acceptance, which is also conveyed by Bruce when he states that she
isn’t coming back), to which Steve responds that she did… they were her family. It all perfectly ties back to the conversation
between Steve and Nat earlier in the film where she admits that before she
joined the Avengers, she “used to have nothing” but that “this job… this family”
ended up making her a better person. And so, with all that in mind, while Natasha’s
death is understandably a very bittersweet moment given both the highs and lows
of her appearances in these films, it does, indeed, leave a considerable impact
on the rest of the team. Not only that, but let’s not forget that, at the time of
this post’s publication, the next installment of the MCU will be her
long-awaited solo film, which means that while she may have died in Avengers: Endgame, it’s also clear that this will not be the end of her story.
Fully determined to
finish the mission in the wake of Natasha’s death, the Avengers proceed to
craft their own version of Thanos’ Infinity Gauntlet from Tony’s nano-technology.
However, this then leads to the most pivotal question of them all… who’s going
to be the one to snap their fingers and bring everyone back? Thor volunteers to
do so on the grounds that he’s the “strongest Avenger”, and in one of the film’s
most subtly powerful emotional moments, Tony rejects the idea despite Thor’s pleas
to let him do “something good, something right” because he clearly recognizes
that Thor is in no condition to do it. Thus, Bruce decides to do it instead, pointing
out that the radiation stemming from the stones is gamma-based and that “it’s
like I was made for this”. And, folks, in a film that’s chock-full of terrific
pay-offs to some of the franchise’s longest-running arcs, this is arguably one of
the best of them all since it ties back to a pivotal scene way back in the
first Avengers film where Tony and Bruce discuss the
incident that turned the latter into the Hulk. In that scene, Tony remarks that
the amount of gamma radiation that Bruce was exposed to should’ve killed him, with
Bruce then suggesting that Tony’s implication is that “the other guy” saved his
life for something important… this
is that moment. And while the
action of snapping his fingers to ensure that “everybody comes home” proves to
take quite a toll on Bruce to the point where the power of the stones severely burns
his arm, he is ultimately successful. Clint then proceeds to get a phone call
from his wife Laura and Scott walks off into another room to see a bunch of
birds flying around outside. Thus, in this moment of pure serenity, our heroes
realize that things are finally back to normal… before 2014 Thanos utterly
decimates the Avengers compound after traveling through time with the help of
2014 Nebula.
With that in mind,
let’s finally talk about Thanos and how he factors into this film. While Endgame doesn’t focus on him as much as Infinity War did, the
Russos and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely still do a
wonderful job when it comes to developing his role in this story. It all begins
with the bold decision to kill off the Thanos that we were familiar with from Infinity War at the beginning of the film. Like I said before, Infinity War was quite arguably Thanos’ film, and by the end of it, he had properly
reached the conclusion of his character arc. He had collected all 6 Infinity
Stones, snapped his fingers with the Infinity Gauntlet and wiped out half of
the universe while utterly trouncing the Avengers’ efforts to stop him. Thus,
that film concluded with him doing exactly what he said he was going to do when
he was talking to Doctor Strange on Titan; “I finally rest and watch the
sunrise on a grateful universe”. And when we return to him in Endgame, the reveal that he used the Stones once more to destroy them properly
ensures his victory even if it severely disfigured him in the process. As such,
when Thor inevitably “goes for the head” and kills him, one could argue that
Thanos was perfectly content with this fate because, at this moment (since it’s
safe to say that he probably didn’t know what was going on with Ant-Man), he
knew that the Avengers could do nothing to reverse his actions. However, with
that said, I also recognize that, because of this, the Thanos from 2014 that
the Avengers end up facing in this film’s finale doesn’t even remotely have the
same personal connection to them that his ‘modern’ counterpart had. This is
especially evident in the scene where he’s confronted by Scarlet Witch, who was
one of the Avengers most affected by him in Infinity War since he
killed Vision to collect the Mind Stone. When Wanda proclaims that he “took
everything from her”, Thanos simply responds, “I don’t even know who you are.”
Despite this,
however, the film doesn’t shy away from the fact that Thanos is still the most
dangerous villain that the Avengers have ever faced, and that is very much apparent
in Endgame’s finale, which effectively takes up the
last third of this three-hour epic. It all begins with a terrific three-on-one
battle between Thanos and the trio of Tony, Cap, and Thor, resulting in one
last utterly satisfying hurrah for the MCU’s Trinity. This also paves the way
for another one of Endgame’s most satisfying payoffs to past events
when Thor finds himself in a troubling situation as Thanos attempts to kill him
with his own weapon, Stormbreaker. We then see Mjolnir being lifted off the
ground as it’s launched through the air to hit Thanos… before promptly returning
to Cap’s hands, confirming what we all knew the moment we saw that scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron where the Avengers tried to lift Thor’s
hammer and Cap was the closest to doing so. Steve Rogers is very much worthy, a
fact that Thor delightfully reacts to (“I knew it!!!”). However, even this isn’t
enough to stop Thanos, who promptly knocks out all three heroes (while also breaking
off a sizable chunk of Cap’s shield) before proclaiming that he’s going to take
pleasure in enacting his new plan to wipe out the entire universe. And so, his
vast army made up of everything from the Outriders to the Black Order (disclaimer:
their 2014 incarnations, obviously, since they were killed off in Infinity War) arrive on the scene ready to fulfill their master’s plan. At this
moment, however, Captain America, the man who always stood up to bullies no
matter the odds, nobly rises, practically ready to take on both Thanos and his
entire army by himself. That is… until Sam Wilson’s voice comes over the comms
and, in a brilliant callback to their first scene together in Winter Soldier, tells Cap, “On your left…”
I mean… what more
can be said about the legendary sequence that follows? As Cap turns around, he
sees a portal materializing behind him to reveal the trio of T’Challa AKA Black
Panther, Okoye, and Shuri. Falcon then proceeds to fly out of it as well, thus
paving the way for other portals emerging to reveal the rest of the Avengers’ once-fallen
comrades. Almost everyone who was dusted away at the end of Infinity War (and Ant-Man and the Wasp) is there; Dr. Strange, the Guardians,
Spider-Man, Bucky, Scarlet Witch, the Wasp, etc. And they’re not the only ones
who’ve come to join the fight. There’s Valkyrie leading Asgard’s army (plus
Korg and Miek), the Wakandan army, the Masters of the Mystic Arts, the Ravagers
(including Howard the Duck, of all people), and even Pepper joins in wearing
the ‘Rescue’ suit that Tony had made for her. Ant-Man then emerges from the
rubble in his giant form, having saved the trio of Bruce, Rhodey, and Rocket
from the compound’s destruction. And to top it all off, Cap leads our heroes
into battle by proclaiming the two words that we’ve been dying to hear him say
for years, “AVENGERS… assemble!” Simply put, this whole portal sequence is pure
perfection. Whether it’s the amazing music from Alan Silvestri or the emotional
catharsis of seeing all the fallen heroes return at this pivotal moment, this
is truly the pinnacle of everything that we’ve seen so far from the Marvel
Cinematic Universe. Literally the only thing that could’ve possibly made this
whole sequence better is if all those legal complications surrounding the film
rights to Marvel’s characters weren’t a thing so that the X-Men and Fantastic
Four could be there as well.
Nevertheless, the
ensuing battle between the Avengers and Thanos’ forces is one for the ages as
the Avengers try to get the Infinity Stones away from Thanos via the Quantum Tunnel
in Scott’s van. There are, of course, plenty of epic action moments that come
from this, like Scarlet Witch’s previously mentioned beatdown of Thanos and the
moment where Spider-Man finally utilizes his suit’s ‘Instant Kill’ feature. At
the same time, though, you also get some great personal moments in there, like
when Cap and Thor casually switch weapons during a moment where Cap’s the one
holding Stormbreaker and Thor’s holding Mjolnir (“No, no, give me that. You
have the little one”). And if you want to talk about utterly satisfying
emotional beats, look no further than the scene where Tony finally reunites with Peter Parker. While Peter starts to go on a tangent about everything that happened
to them on Titan and how he “must have passed out” when he “got all dusty”,
Tony simply says nothing and gives the boy a hug. Remember the moment in Spider-Man: Homecoming when it looked like he was about to hug Peter,
but he was just opening the car door and proclaimed that they weren’t “there
yet”? Well, folks, there’s another terrific franchise-long payoff for you right
there, and suffice it to say, every time that I saw this film in theaters, this
was one of the big ‘applause-worthy’ moments. However, Thanos continues to be a
formidable foe to the point where, during his fight with Scarlet Witch, he
commands Corvus Glaive to have his warship “reign fire” on the battlefield even
if it comes at the cost of their own troops. And while the initial bombardment proves
to be an issue for the Avengers (e.g. a nearby dam is destroyed, resulting in
Doctor Strange having to deal with the subsequent flooding), the ship is then
suddenly destroyed by none other than Captain Marvel.
Some of you may be
surprised to discover that Captain Marvel doesn’t factor into this film as much
as you may think given all the build-up regarding her imminent arrival during Infinity War’s post-credits scene. After the whole sequence where the Avengers go
to confront Infinity War Thanos and the film then cuts to 2023, Carol
announces that she’s going away for a while to deal with conflicts in other galaxies
and doesn’t show up again until the final battle. And no, a very certain section
of the internet, this is not a case where Marvel was trying to do some
course-correction after her solo film attracted tons of controversy from misogynistic
fanboys just because Brie Larson dared to promote greater diversity in the
entertainment industry. Like I said before, Captain Marvel’s scenes in Endgame were filmed before her own solo film. With that in mind, I
believe that this was because Marvel wanted Carol’s big character-defining
moments to be reserved for her own adventure so that this film could directly
focus on the original Avengers crew from the first Avengers. Nevertheless,
when Carol does factor into the story, she still very much gets her time to
shine. Take, for example, the scene where she’s directly fighting Thanos and
ends up mirroring a moment from Infinity
War where Cap was preventing Thanos
from closing the Infinity Gauntlet and utilizing its powers. In Infinity War, that sequence concluded with Thanos knocking Cap out. Thanos attempts
to do this again with Carol in Endgame… and when he does so, she doesn’t even
flinch. Literally the only way that Thanos manages to gain the upper hand is by
taking the Power Stone out of the Gauntlet and using it directly against her.
Another key sequence
that involves Captain Marvel is when she crosses paths with Peter Parker when
the latter is the one who’s currently in possession of both the Infinity Stones
and the Nano Gauntlet. After a cute little moment where the two introduce
themselves, they then notice a sizable part of Thanos’ army heading their way.
When Peter remarks that he doesn’t know how she’d be able to get through all
that, all the other female Avengers proceed to come to her aid and take on this
incoming onslaught together while Carol heads for the Quantum Tunnel. Awesome,
right? Well, to some parts of the internet… apparently not. In fact, those people
have argued that this scene was the very definition of ‘forced’, with the
common argument being that many of the other female Avengers (namely, the ones
who had just come back from being dusted) don’t have much of a personal connection
to Captain Marvel. And to that, I say… who the hell cares? Heck, I don’t recall
seeing that kind of response towards the big female-oriented scene in Infinity War where Black Widow and Okoye came to Scarlet Witch’s aid against Proxima
Midnight. Now, would it have been nicer to let Black Widow be a part of this
scene as well? Absolutely! Nevertheless, this is an epic moment that’s reserved
solely for the amazing heroines of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Plus, I’m
sure that I’m not the only one who feels that this whole sequence is a perfect
showcase of the potential for a future MCU team-up film centered solely on the
franchise’s female leads. Brie Larson has gone on record saying that many of
them have been pushing for such a film and it goes without saying that I’m all
for it.
However, as noted
earlier, Thanos continues to give the Avengers a run for their money throughout
this entire finale. This even applies to Captain Marvel who, in the months
leading up to both this and her solo film’s release, was continuously implied
to be the most powerful character in the whole franchise who could quite
arguably defeat him singlehandedly. Ultimately, though, it all comes down to a single
clash between the Mad Titan and Iron Man. Going back to Infinity War for a moment, one of its most pivotal sequences was when Doctor Strange
looked ahead in time to witness the possible outcomes of their impending fight
against Thanos. When Iron Man proceeded to ask if they were successful in any
of them, Strange notes that of the 14,000,605 outcomes that he saw, only one of
them resulted in their victory. Thus, when everyone returns in Endgame, the first thing that Tony asks Strange when they reunite is if this is that one outcome, to which Strange responds by saying that he can’t
tell him what’s about to happen because it won’t otherwise. And after the big
clash between Thanos and Captain Marvel, Strange silently signals to Tony that this is the moment that will determine the fate of the universe. Thus, Tony
attempts to grab onto the Nano Gauntlet before Thanos promptly knocks him away.
Thanos then proceeds to repeat the phrase that his modern self said before
his death, “I am inevitable”, before snapping his fingers once again… except for
this time, nothing happens because the stones aren’t in the Gauntlet. Instead, they
are shown to have bonded to Tony’s suit, and right before he snaps his fingers,
Tony responds to Thanos’ proclamation with one of his own, which just so
happens to be the one quote that started this whole franchise in the first
place, “and I… am… Iron Man!” And so, with the snap of Tony’s fingers, Thanos’ entire
army is dusted away, with the Mad Titan himself quietly accepting his fate before
he too fades away.
Sadly, though, this
moment of triumph ultimately ends with tragedy since the power of the stones proves
to be too much for Tony to handle. He’s first approached by Rhodey, who doesn’t
say anything but quickly realizes what’s about to happen to his best friend. After
that, Peter Parker then comes to his mentor’s side, trying to get his attention
to tell him that “they won” before he begins to break down in tears (“I’m
sorry, Tony…”). Finally, Pepper steps in to share one last moment with her
husband. At this moment, Tony squeaks out his last words directed solely to her
(“Hey, Pep…”) as Pepper is informed by Tony’s A.I. system F.R.I.D.A.Y., “life
functions, critical”. Pepper then proceeds to get Tony’s attention, assuring
him that she and Morgan will be okay and that he “can rest now”, a line that ties
back to their conversation earlier in the film when Tony told her that he had figured
out the process of time-travel but was hesitant about losing the life that he
had built for Morgan and the two of them. Pepper responds to this by telling
him that, as lucky as they were to survive the Snap, she also knows he’d never
rest if he didn’t try to save those who were lost… not to mention the fact that
“trying to get [him] to stop” was never her strongest suit. And so, as the
light in his arc reactor fades out… Tony Stark dies, having put his life on the
line when it mattered the most. In a deleted scene, the other Avengers take a
knee to honor their fallen comrade. It’s a beautiful moment, for sure, but at
the same time, the sequence that immediately follows all this does get the same
point across just as powerfully.
And so, life in the
MCU starts to go back to normal. Hawkeye finally reunites with his family, T’Challa,
Shuri and their mother Ramonda happily look on as Wakanda celebrates, Scott
gets to have a peaceful moment with Hope and his daughter Cassie back in San
Francisco and Peter Parker returns to high school, where he promptly reunites
with his best friend Ned. While all this is going on, we get some narration
from Tony where he remarks that while “everyone wants a happy ending”, “it
doesn’t always roll that way”. However, at the same time, he also hopes that it
will be different this time while also reflecting on how much bigger the world
has become over the past decade and how everything that’s happened in that time
and the consequences that have stemmed from it all have now crafted the reality
that Morgan will grow up in. We then cut to Tony and Pepper’s lakeside home,
where it’s revealed that this narration is from a video message that he
recorded before he left to partake in the time-travel mission that’s being
viewed by Pepper, Morgan, Happy Hogan, Rhodey, and the rest of the OG Avengers.
Tony remarks that he’s nervous about the whole time-traveling mission and the
chances that they’ll have to survive it before he also admits that he’s well-aware
that this is “the hero gig” and that “part of the journey is the end”. He then
proceeds to proclaim that “everything is going to work out exactly the way it’s
supposed to” before he concludes the recording by saying one last goodbye to
Morgan. The four words that he says to her are the exact same words that she
said to him when he tucked her in for bed the night before he left, and sure enough,
these words have now become a definitive part of the eternal legacy that Tony
Stark has left on the MCU, “I love you 3000”.
We then proceed to
witness Tony’s funeral, as Pepper and Morgan set a memorial wreath adrift on
the lake. Nestled inside the wreath is the very first Arc Reactor that Tony created
to escape from his captivity during the events of the first Iron Man. That same arc reactor was then repurposed into a gift for Tony from
Pepper that would forever serve as “Proof that Tony Stark has a Heart”. After that,
we get a truly impressive tracking shot that goes through everyone in
attendance and serves as a perfect showcase of just how far the MCU has come
since its humble beginnings. Literally every one of the MCU’s major sub-franchises
are represented here, from the Guardians and Black Panther to Ant-Man and
Spider-Man. There are some characters like Hank Pym and Bucky who, despite their
complicated histories with the Stark family, are still willing to pay their
respects to the man who saved the world. Heck, even Harley Keener, the young
kid that Tony befriended in Iron
Man 3, shows up even if I’m sure
most people watching this film probably didn’t realize this upon first viewing.
Just like the portal scene, the whole sequence revolving around Tony’s funeral
is pitch-perfect, especially thanks to the powerful score from Alan Silvestri.
Simply put, it gives the MCU’s most iconic hero the send-off that he truly
deserved. And after this tracking shot, we get some nice personal moments involving
some of the other characters. The first is with Hawkeye and Scarlet Witch who,
of course, have been frequently partnered together since the latter’s debut in Age of Ultron. Hawkeye remarks that he wishes he could tell Nat that they won, to
which Wanda responds by saying that “she knows… they both do” which, of course,
is also in reference to Vision given his death at the hands of Thanos in Infinity War. The other moment involves Morgan and Happy, as the latter responds to
her request for cheeseburgers by pointing out that they were her dad’s favorite
food.
However, this isn’t
the end of the film as it then proceeds to tie up some additional loose ends. After
the funeral, Thor returns to New Asgard, where he informs Valkyrie that he’ll
be going away for a while to figure out his true purpose in life. And while
Valkyrie points out that the people of New Asgard will still need a king, Thor
effectively appoints her as their kingdom’s newest ruler before heading off to
join with the Guardians of the Galaxy on their next adventure which, from the
looks of it, will revolve around them searching for Gamora. You see, folks, one
thing that I’ve admittedly haven’t mentioned yet in this write-up is that, given
the whole subplot of 2014 Nebula being inundated with her present self’s
memories, the Gamora of 2014 ends up getting involved as well. And while that does
mean that this Gamora is not the one that we’ve come to know and love from previous
films since this is before the events of Guardians of the Galaxy (e.g.
when she’s ‘reunited’ with Star-Lord during the final battle, all she does is knock
him out), she still decides to help the current Nebula stop Thanos. Nebula even
kills her 2014 self during the final battle to prevent her from getting the
Infinity Stones. As for 2014 Gamora, she ends up leaving after the battle even
though this is only established in the previously mentioned deleted scene where
the heroes take a knee to mourn Tony’s death. And right before Thor gets on the
Guardians’ ship, we see Star-Lord looking at her profile on a monitor. With
that in mind, it’ll be interesting to see how this search for Gamora will factor
into the next Guardians film; if you ask me, it’d certainly help
give it the strong emotional depth that we’ve come to expect from this
franchise. Then, of course, there’s also the whole thing about Thor tagging
along with the group. While there hasn’t been any confirmation that he’s going
to be in the next Guardians film (if at all, since James Gunn has stated
that it’ll take place after the fourth Thor film, Thor: Love and Thunder), there have been reports suggesting that
the Guardians of the Galaxy will be making an appearance in Love and Thunder. But, of course, given that this is the super-secretive Marvel Studios
we’re talking about, it’ll be a while before we know what’s what.
Finally, there’s
the whole matter of returning the Infinity Stones and Mjolnir back to their
original timeline, which Cap volunteers to do so as Hulk, Bucky, and Falcon
look on. To their surprise, however, Cap doesn’t return despite Hulk’s claim that
he’d be back in just five seconds. Bucky then diverts Falcon’s attention to the
lake, where an elderly Steve Rogers now sits. When Falcon proceeds to ask him
about what just happened, Steve notes that after returning the Stones, he decided
to experience the kind of “beautiful” life that Tony had always insisted he
should get. And while Falcon remarks that he’s happy that Steve got to have
that, he also admits that he’s bummed about the prospect of living in a world
without Captain America. Steve then proceeds to pull out a bag that contains an
unbroken version of his shield, which both he and Bucky encourage Falcon to
pick up. And so, Sam Wilson, the man who selflessly followed Steve Rogers into
battle no matter the cost, picks up the shield, and while his response to Steve
asking him how it feels holding it is that it feels “like someone else’s”,
Steve promptly assures him that it isn’t. Sam then proceeds to inquire about the
“her” in his new life, to which Steve responds, “No… no, I don’t think I will”.
Thus, the film finally ends by showing us exactly what Steve’s new life entails
as we cut back to the year 1949, where we see him finally getting to have that
dance that he and Peggy Carter had planned on having all the way back in Captain America: The First Avenger before he ended up frozen in the ice. And
really, I think it’s rather neat that this is where Avengers: Endgame decides to end. Instead of going for some
epic group shot to tease future films, it simply ends on a peaceful moment where
Captain America, the man out of time who thought that he’d never have a normal
life, gets to have the happy ending that he deserved.
And yet, despite
all the good feelings that stem from this ending, I’m now forced to address
something that I’ve been dying to comment on for the past few months. I had
briefly gone over some of this stuff earlier when I was talking about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and how Reylos have been acting in response
to the death of Ben Solo, but now it’s time for me to fully lay out all the problems
that I have with one of the worst growing trends in current film fandom. Yes,
folks, the time has finally come for me to talk about… stan culture. What is
stan culture, you ask? Well, by definition, the term ‘stan’ (as popularized by
the Eminem song of the same name) refers to a fan who shows a particularly committed
devotion to the thing that they’re a fan of. This can apply to practically any
major form of media, but from what I can tell, it mostly applies to musicians
like Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato. However, what I’m mainly going to be
focusing on are the negative aspects of the utter devotion that stans have towards,
in their own words, “what they stan”. You see, these stans are so committed to
their favorite things that whenever someone else comes in and dares to say
something negative about them, they then proceed to defend their ‘faves’ in a
truly intense fashion that, from what I’ve seen, often utilizes some intensely
vehement insults. And in the case of films, incidents like this are usually
based around the characters that appear in them. In other words, if something
happens to a beloved character that their fans don’t like, the ones who get
attacked are the filmmakers. Thus, even though they are collectively
responsible for four of the greatest MCU films of all-time, the Russo brothers,
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely have somehow found themselves in that
situation thanks to the dedicated efforts of MCU stans to prove that Endgame is overrated.
Now I first noticed
this whole ‘MCU stans’ situation a little while after Avengers: Infinity War came out. Back then, though, they weren’t as
pervasive as they are now. Sure, you had some people who kept saying that the
ending of Infinity War was the most devastating thing that’s ever
happened to them, but to be fair, that film’s ending was a legitimately emotional
moment. At the time, there were only about two major moments from that film
that MCU stans kept harping on. First, there was the collection of Loki stans who
got upset over his death at the beginning of the film since Loki has
undoubtedly been one of the MCU’s most popular characters. In fact, I bet that they’re
still mad about it even though Endgame
revealed that the Loki from 2012
escaped from his captivity, thus paving the way for the character’s upcoming TV
series on Disney+. And then there was the whole thing about Star-Lord punching
Thanos at the wrong time that was further compounded by the internet joining in
on the process of apparently forgetting that the big, purple alien who looked
like a mix between Grimace and Homer Simpson was the actual villain of the
film. In the wake of Avengers:
Endgame, however, that’s when MCU
stans REALLY started to make their presence known online,
and unlike Infinity War, their gripes with the film aren’t just limited
to one or two moments from it since practically every potentially controversial
aspect of this production has spawned its own, unique band of ferociously critical
MCU stans.
 |
| "Is he asleep?" "No, no... I'm pretty sure he's dead..." |
You’ve got MCU
stans who were quite upset about Black Widow’s death, which was fueled in considerable
part by their intense hatred of Hawkeye. This promptly became an even bigger debacle
when Jeremy Renner found himself in a particularly scandalous incident with his
ex-wife, the details of which I won’t be getting into here since that’s a whole
bag of worms that I don’t want to get into on this site. You’ve got MCU stans
who were mad about the decision to turn Thor into a fat, depressed drunk which,
to be fair, was a very risky move for the filmmakers to take, especially when
it comes to developing some of the MCU’s trademark humor around it since humor
and depression are the very definition of polar opposites. However, I’d also
argue that this whole aspect of Thor’s character arc was handled as well as it
could’ve been and that the film does give him plenty of much-deserved opportunities
to find ways to overcome this, whether it’s the reunion with his mom or his
commitment to stopping Thanos once and for all. And, of course, you can’t
forget about the MCU stans who utterly despise some of the father
figures of the MCU for their supposed ‘mental abuse’ of their offspring. For
many years, this was often the case with Thor and Loki’s father Odin given the
fandom’s immense love of the latter, even though their last scene together in Thor: Ragnarök showed that Odin’s feelings towards his adopted son had softened
immensely since the events of Thor:
The Dark World. Their biggest
target, however, has been Howard Stark, which means that they weren’t too
pleased with the genuinely emotional scene where Tony got to have that truly
cathartic moment of reconciliation with him when the two crossed paths in 1970.
Instead, they’ve just continued to bring up the tense relationship that they had
when Howard was alive even though it’s well-established at this point that Tony
had managed to find several ways to come to peace with that (e.g. when he came
across the video message that Howard recorded for him in Iron Man 2). Plus, let’s not forget that this was all before Tony Stark had gone
through everything that he’s been through in this franchise that turned him into
the selfless hero that he ultimately became.
But when it comes
to the most vocal MCU stans, that distinction goes to those who stan Captain
America’s best friend, Bucky Barnes. Remember what I was saying earlier about
the ending in which Cap decides to go back in time to live out the rest of his
life with Peggy and how sweet it was? Well, Bucky stans hate this whole
sequence with a burning passion. To them, it completely ruined Cap’s character arc,
which they always argue by citing the ending of Avengers: Age of Ultron where
Cap notes that the version of himself that yearned for a normal life had gone
away when he went into the ice. And as for Peggy, they argue that she clearly
moved on from Cap at the end of the first season of Agent Carter when she threw
away the vial containing his blood into the ocean. However, I don’t think that
these stans understand that ‘moving on’ isn’t the same as ‘entirely forgetting
the past’. If it was, then Peggy wouldn’t have had that picture of pre-serum Steve
in her S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ office in 1970 and she wouldn’t have gotten emotional
when talking about Steve during the interview that was shown at his Smithsonian
exhibit in Captain America: The Winter Soldier. But then there’s
also the fact that Bucky stans were mad that Cap’s decision led to him ‘abandoning’
Bucky, who now takes up the mantle of ‘man out of time’ even though he’s set to
headline his own show alongside Sam, who he clearly has terrific camaraderie
with as evident from the scenes that they shared in Captain America: Civil War.
In their eyes, this completely went against their promise to be together “till
the end of the line” even though I’m sure that ‘being willing to let your best
friend have the happy ending he deserves’ can still be seen as an action that
applies to this ideal. Ultimately, though, I feel that this sums up the most
fascinating aspect of MCU stans since they always talk about how they want the
best for their favorite characters. And yet, when you have a situation like
this where Cap and Peggy get to have that happy ending, apparently this isn’t what they meant by that. Plus, as much as I’ve seen them mention
how much they love Peggy, I’ve also seen some refer to her as ‘Dusty Cooch’.
I mean, to be
perfectly blunt, folks… I just don’t get it. Really, I don’t. Like I’ve said countless
times over the years, if you ever find certain aspects of a film to be
underwhelming, then that’s fine. I’m not trying to change anyone’s views on subjects
like this. But you see, the thing that I’m not getting here is why these people
feel that the best way to express their feelings on the situation is by
attacking those who worked on the film. I mean, this is seriously up there with
everything that I just talked about with Star Wars as some of the
most egregious examples of gatekeeping that I’ve ever seen in my time as a film
critic. And because of this, I honestly have no idea why decisions like letting
Cap go back in time to live his life with Peggy or letting Tony have some
much-needed closure with his father have suddenly turned the Russo brothers, Christopher
Markus, and Stephen McFeely into social pariahs amongst certain internet types.
To me, this whole bizarre situation can be best summed up by an utterly messed
up picture that I came across a few months back on social media. I won’t be
providing any links to it because I don’t want to promote what it’s saying, but
simply put, this image stems from a sequence that was in the trailers for Endgame but didn’t end up in the actual film. The sequence in question revolved
around Black Widow as she’s practicing at a firing range, but instead of
traditional targets, this photo photoshopped Joe and Anthony Russo’s faces onto
the targets that she’s specifically firing at. You know… a lot has been said
over the years about the fact that, even though geek culture has become a
defining part of modern pop culture after years of being widely considered ‘uncool’,
we’re now living in an age where those who would’ve been bullied for liking
geeky stuff have ironically become the most prominent bullies of the digital
age. I mean, when you see something like this coming from the racist/misogynistic
crowd… that’s just something you’d expect from folks like that. As such, I
strongly believe that all this nonsense that I’ve been seeing from stan culture
is worse than all the crap we’ve seen from the racist/sexist morons in the
world because it comes from a crowd who should seriously know better.
And unfortunately,
that’s not the only thing that has attempted to hinder my enjoyment of Avengers: Endgame. Around the time of its initial release, an old classmate of mine from
college began to post some intensely vitriolic rants against it on social
media. Simply put, this person felt that anyone who enjoyed a film where superheroes
punch each other for 2-3 hours is a ‘puerile sheep’, and he even started
calling other people that online in the comment sections of posts published by
the film’s official social media pages. And if that wasn’t enough, Endgame wasn’t the only film that he mocked people for wanting to see. A few
weeks later, he said the same kind of crap when Pokémon: Detective Pikachu came
out, and while this finally prompted me to unfriend him on social media since
it’s great to cleanse yourself of that toxicity, I can only imagine how he
feels about films like Rise of
Skywalker or the Disney
live-action remakes. If I haven’t mentioned it in the past, folks, I’m not a
fan of film snobs and suffice it to say, this was one of the most egregious
examples of film-related snobbery. And finally, folks, there’s the one recent incident
that I’m sure many of you were expecting me to bring up here given the subject
matter, and that is how the one and only Martin Scorsese has responded to superhero
films. This occurred in October around the time that Joker came out since many pointed out that it was a comic-book film done in
the style of a Martin Scorsese film (in fact, he was even attached to produce
it at one point). Anyway, during the press tour for his latest film, The Irishman, Scorsese noted that he felt that superhero films “weren’t cinema” and
were more like theme park rides.
Now, for the
record, what I’m about to say is not intended to be an attack against the man in
response to his comments. For one thing… this is Martin frigging Scorsese we’re
talking about. This man has worked in the industry longer than most people have
been alive and knows far more about film than I’ll ever know. As such, if he isn’t
too fond of superhero films, then there’s literally nothing wrong with that. However,
I do respectfully disagree with his take on the genre since films like Avengers: Endgame are more than enough proof that superhero
films are, indeed, cinema. Just look at everything that revolves around the
death of Tony Stark AKA Iron Man. While some of those obnoxious DCEU fanboys that
I’ve often talked about tried to belittle the film by saying that Tony’s death
ripped off Superman’s death in Batman
v Superman, the one thing that
they forgot about is the greater impact that the former sequence had compared
to the latter. In the case of Superman’s death, you had a superfluous attempt at
an emotional moment for a character who was severely lacking when it came to
him having any substantial character development. As for Tony Stark, this is a
character that audiences have known for the past decade, so when it was his
time to go, it undeniably hit harder because of how pivotal he was to the
franchise’s success. Then there’s the famous “I Love You 3000” quote… which
wasn’t even in the script. Instead, it was an improvisation sourced directly
from Robert Downey Jr.’s own family. Or how about the scene where Morgan tells
Happy she wants cheeseburgers? On the one hand, this is another classic
callback to the first Iron Man where Tony proclaimed that the first thing
he wanted to do upon returning to America after his imprisonment was to get a
cheeseburger. But then one must also factor in the deeper meaning behind this
moment since one fateful burger was what led to RDJ overcoming his long battle
with drugs in the early 2000s. Thus, the way I see it, superhero films do count
as ‘cinema’, especially when it comes to the 24 films that make up a franchise
that’s literally called the Marvel
Cinematic Universe.
And because of
this, I can safely say that Avengers:
Endgame has easily become one of
my favorite films of all-time. It was the first film that I ever saw three
times in theaters. I saw it twice during its initial run (which, of course, included
one viewing in IMAX) and I then went to see it again when it was re-released near
the end of June and boasted some extra clips after the credits. And while the internet
may have proceeded to mercilessly roast this re-release for the debatable quality
of its extra content (which consisted of a tribute to Stan Lee, an unfinished
deleted scene with the Hulk, and the first two minutes of Spider-Man: Far From Home), that didn’t affect me in the slightest. Instead,
I was just more than happy to see Endgame
again because I knew that it was
the kind of film that was worthy enough for me to break my usual limit of only
going to see a film twice in theaters. Any way you look at it, Avengers: Endgame is an unmistakable masterpiece of the superhero
genre… and yes, I know that I said the exact same thing last year when I put Avengers: Infinity War at the #1 spot on that year’s list, but that’s
because it’s a statement that thoroughly applies to both films. Thanks to the
incredible direction from the Russo brothers and the always-amazing efforts of
the MCU’s legendary ensemble cast, the duology of Infinity War and Endgame fully succeeds at its goal of being a grand and emotionally cathartic
finale to the Infinity Saga. And while the latter is admittedly a daunting film
to get through given its massive 3-hour runtime, it more than proves itself of
being worthy of its length. Thus, the only thing left that I have to say about
this cinematic epic is this… Thank You Marvel Studios, Kevin Feige and his team,
the Russo brothers and all the other great filmmakers who’ve worked on these
films, and the amazing ensemble headlined by the legend that is Robert Downey
Jr. for giving us such an utterly rewarding cinematic experience.
At long last, this concludes Rhode Island
Movie Corner’s Top 12 Favorite Films of 2019. With that in mind, I’d like to
thank you all for sticking it out with me throughout what has easily been the biggest
project that I’ve ever done for this site. I’m well-aware that, for the second year
in a row, it took me WAY longer than it should’ve to finish these
posts. And this time around, I can’t attribute this to the fact that I had to
finish my ‘Top 10 Worst of the Year’ list first or the time-consuming process
of finishing my tenure with the Disney College Program. To be perfectly frank, January
was an incredibly rough month as far as being a film fan is concerned thanks in
large part to the considerable fallout of the volatile reaction towards Rise of Skywalker. As such, I attribute both this and the pressing matter of the growing
problem of stan culture that has continued to hurt the
film fan community as the main reasons behind the prolonged delay of this list’s
publication. Ultimately, though, none of that crap will stop me from doing what
I love and continuing to give you, the readers, more of the same, great
reviews, editorials, and retrospectives that you’ve come to expect from this site
for the past 8 years. And while this current worldwide pandemic that we’re all
struggling to overcome has meant that it’s been quite a few weeks since any of
us have been to the theaters, I’ll do my best to deliver some new content over
the next few weeks as we all eagerly await the opportunity to return to the
cinema and witness the next great cinematic masterpiece. Thus, as I’ve done for
the past few years now, I’d like to conclude this series by quoting the man who
has always been my primary influence as a film critic. In the words of Roger
Ebert, “I’ll see you at the movies”.
