Guardians of the Galaxy Review

Welcome to the final entry of my Marvel Cinematic Universe review event thing! This is the tenth movie in this series, and it's probably the one that has me the most mixed. Check out the review to find out why.

Guardians of the Galaxy

This movie is about Peter Quill, or Star-Lord, trying to steal an orb that Ronan The Accuser, a Kree general, wants to use to destroy some planet named Xandar. But there's also Gamora and Nebula, who are some purple dude's adoptive children, but Gamora doesn't like her purple dad and when she and her sister are tasked with retrieving the orb for Ronan, Gamora tries to steal the orb for herself and sell it, but then in the process, she ends up getting arrested alongside Star-Lord and these two bounty hunters, one being a talking raccoon named Rocket who likes weapons, and the other being a tree-man named Groot who's dialogue consists entirely of "I am Groot." So they get arrested and then they meet with this tough dude named Drax whose wife and daughter were murdered by Ronan, and they escape the weird high-tech prison. But wait, there's also this kind of redneck-ish guy named Yondu who raised Star-Lord and he's ALSO looking for the orb because he thinks that Star-Lord betrayed him AND ALSO he has a weird arrow thing that is controlled by his whistling. BUT WAIT, there's also this weird dude named The Collector who keeps all sorts of freaky aliens and stuff in glass boxes and all the main heroes go to him to give him the orb, because they could get a lot of money for it, AND THEN they all get an exposition dump for no reason from The Collector even though he's just buying the thing, and they learn that the gem inside of the orb is one of the Infinity Gems, which totally may or may not appear in some sequel or whatever. Anyways, you get the point. The plot is kind of ridiculous, and this movie has too many characters. Whatever. What's good about this movie?

First, the Guardians themselves are really awesome, particularly Rocket and Groot. Many laughs were had with these characters. Speaking of which, this movie is loads of fun. The action, the visuals, the comedy, they all come together so well in this movie. Granted, as soon as you start thinking about it, it falls apart, but it's still a fun movie to pop in when you're tired and just don't care. Because Star-Lord was abducted in 1988 while he had his walkman with him, that means that the entirety of the soundtrack consists of really awesome 70's and 80's music. Seriously, this soundtrack is, in my opinion, among the best movie soundtracks ever.

Overall, what can I possibly say about this that hasn't been said by everyone else? It's fun, it can be serious when it needs to, it has a great soundtrack, it's just a really entertaining movie. The only problem I can think of is that, again, it falls apart as soon as you start thinking about it.

I hope you all enjoyed my MCU review event…thing, and if you really don't want to wait until Age of Ultron comes out on Blu-Ray, I'll be doing a short, spoiler free first impressions post after I see the movie in theaters. Until then, I'll be reviewing other stuff. Leave a comment down below with suggestions.

Captain America 1 & 2 Review

Captain America: The First Avenger

This movie has a very similar problem with The Incredible Hulk. It is definitely good, and has a lot of points that allow you to think for yourself, but it's really loose in some areas and really needs a lot of extra time to give it a polish.

This movie follows the story of how Steve Rogers, a young boy longing to fight for his country, get injected with a Super Soldier serum that makes him stronger and faster. He decides to become Captain America and take down Hydra, but in the end gets frozen in ice and wakes up in the present day, where he meets Nick Fury and finds out what's going on. I know I just spoiled the ending, but the whole movie details Captain America's origin leading up to him waking up in the present. I can't really talk in detail about the movie unless I explain the ending.

First, the good stuff. The way Captain America's origin was told here is really good, and even though Steve Rogers really isn't the most interesting of characters, (yeah, 'murrica) Chris Evans still portrays him well. The movie waits until the very end to show him getting out of the ice in the present day, which was a very smart decision, as it gives the audience time to understand Rogers and the trouble he goes through to get into the army. Hugo Weaving as the Red Skull was a great choice, and the Captain America suit itself looks awesome. 

However, and I know a lot of you probably saw this coming, but the ending is really, really, profusely stupid. Not the fact that Steve ends up in the ice and wakes up in present day, but rather the way they get him to the ice. Okay, so we're gonna go step-by-step here, because everything about this is dumb. 

Red Skull's master plan is to launch nukes to different countries and rule the world afterwards. The nukes are made to be ejected from a silly-looking boomerang plane, where they will be piloted by Hydra soldiers and crash landed in their destinations. In order to indicate where each nuke plane is headed, Red Skull painted the names of the countries they were going to blow up on the planes in English. Are you guys still following me here? In the final fight, Captain America fights the different pilots and ejects a few of the nuke planes while the big plane is over the ocean. Because they are over the ocean, the ejected nuke planes do not explode. Then, the Captain beats up Red Skull, and then in the fight, the Tesseract which Red Skull is using as a power source falls out of the machine and Red Skull picks it up with his bare hands and disintegrates because I guess Red Skull is an idiot now. The Captain then pilots the big plane and when Peggy Carter radios to him, he says that he can't land the plane because if he does, the nuke planes will explode. Why? When were we supposed to know this? He says that he has to crash the plane into the water, because that's safer. Okay, if we're supposed to assume that landing the plane normally is dangerous, then why would he have to crash into the water? Can't he just eject the nuke planes manually and then land normally? 

"But Ian, he needs to pilot the plane, or else it will crash anyways." 

Really? Wasn't the plane auto-piloting during the big fight with the Red Skull? Who's writing this garbage? And then Steve wakes up, and we see Shield's amazing, well thought-out method of making just one fake room for Steve to wake in that looks like it's from his time period, only to let him escape and run out of the building into Times Square. Is there not any security in this place? Why make one fake, incredibly small room within a much bigger room for Steve to wake up in. Nick Fury greets him and says that they just wanted to ease him into the revelation that woke up decades in the future, but that's complete nonsense. If you wanted to ease him into it, why did you make him wake up in an incredibly small room where if he just looks out the fake window he tell that it is fake?! Why would you do something so stupid?!

Overall, Captain America: The First Avenger is a fun, although frustrating entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Also something something patriotism.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Let me put this in simple terms:

This movie is awesome on steroids. This movie is one of the few MCU films I can definitively say is well written, and while it may seem like a stretch, I think this is actually slightly better than The Avengers. Allow me to explain why down below.

The movie follows Cap' in present day working with Shield, and everything seems okay until Nick Fury reveals Project Insight, which involves three big helicarriers with machine guns meant to eliminate any possible threats ahead of time. The Captain is furious, saying that Shield is keeping the world safe by putting a gun to its head. Shortly after, Nick Fury is hunted down and shot presumably by the Winter Soldier, a mysterious man with a robotic arm. Armed with a flash drive and their wits, Captain America and Black Widow eventually figure out that Shield has been slowly infiltrated by Hydra from the inside, and now Cap' and Widow don't have anybody to trust. In the end, they take down Shield, destroy the helicarriers, and discover that the Winter Soldier was actually Cap's friend from the war: Bucky Barnes. DUN DUN DUNNN. As you can tell, this movie is very densely packed with information and plot threads, which all come together in the end very well. Of course, there's a bunch of information that was left out, but the plot is so thick that it's near impossible to talk in depth about it without listing everything that happened in order. 

For the good stuff, there's quite a lot. Black Widow is finally given a personality here, both when she tries to get Steve Rogers a date and when she starts questioning the fact she has been working for Hydra. The Winter Soldier may not appear very much in this movie, but every time he does appear, he's awesome. All of the fight scenes are exceptionally well choreographed and shot, and while I do wish that the movie wouldn't cut away so quickly during the fights, they were still satisfying. Samuel L. Jackson is still awesome as usual as Nick Fury, and Falcon was really cool. I've been told by many that in the comics Falcon wasn't very interesting, so it's a good thing we got a better version for the movies. 

Also, I know pretty much everybody expected this, but the Shield/Hydra twist was brilliant. Not just because it makes all of Shield past decisions in these movies more questionable, but also because throughout the second half of this movie, nobody knows who to trust anymore. I mean, we know Captain America, Black Widow, Nick Fury, and a few other Shield agents are the good guys, but aside from that, characters we once knew from Agents of Shield or any of the extra short films from Phase One are either definitely bad guys or in a gray area. Both Trust and Freedom are primary themes in this movie, and they're both juggled very well. With Trust, Nick Fury talks about how he doesn't really trust that many people, and that in Shield, you can only really count on yourself. Not everybody knows all the information, not even the Captain. With Freedom, a lot of the movie focuses on Freedom v.s Security, mainly with Project Insight, which if you remember, is made specifically to kill millions of potential "threats" before they even do anything bad. Captain America even says, and I quote: "This isn't freedom, this is fear." 

Okay, so what don't I like about this movie? Uhh....

...I didn't get to see it in theaters? I don't know, this movie is near perfect. I guess if I could say anything, it would be that Steve Rogers still isn't really that interesting this time around. I mean, Steve was never really interesting, but that doesn't make it not awkward when he's surrounded by so many characters way more interesting than he is. But when that's really the only problem with your movie, that's a pretty good sign. This movie is awesome, without a doubt the best of all the Marvel movies so far.

Thor 1 & 2 Review

Look at dat pose!

Thor

This is yet another Marvel I feel almost nothing about. It's about Thor being sent to Earth to learn responsibility...

...and that's it. Oh, yeah, there's Loki trying to take over Asgard, but aside from that, nothing really happens in this movie. Yeah, I guess it's cool to see Thor in his costume and with the hammer or whatever, but cool costumes and CG and can only get you so far. 

First, the few good things. Chris Hemsworth is really great as Thor in this movie, and while he gets much better in the role in the later movies, he's still pretty good here. Tom HeyFiddleDiddleSomething is also okay as Loki, although he also gets way better as the films progress. The cast in this movie is pretty awesome in general, even if some of the characters get pushed aside a lot.

As far as bad stuff, Jane Foster, a.k.a Unnecessary Love Interest is bland and stupid. I would honestly be surprised if I found one single person on Planet Earth who actually liked this character. Yeah, she kind of maybe-ish gets a personality in Thor 2, but here she just exists because if she didn't exist, all the comic book readers would complain about it. Not every superhero really needs a love interest, guys.

Overall, I really don't care about this movie. I only watched it because I felt like I had to at some point, and I don't plan on watching it again.

Apparently, they decided
to use the same exact
poster from Iron Man 3

Thor: The Dark World

This movie, while not great, is still way better than the first movie. It's about an army of Dark Elves led by Malekith, who wants to use the Aether to plunge the entire universe into darkness. Thor suits up, gets his hammer, and goes out to stop him. Oh, yeah, and there's Loki trying to take over Asgard or whatever, but aside from that, the plot is pretty simplistic. 

There are thankfully a lot more good things in this movie. Chris Hemsworth, at this point, has gotten used to playing the God of Thunder, and he does it great here. Tom Riddlerston also does pretty good as Loki, but judging by the reception he's gotten, you already know that. The dialogue in this movie is really hilarious, as well, and it definitely made the regular human characters more fun to listen to. The fight scenes, particularly the end one with Thor fighting Malekith while also being teleported from world to world, were really well done. They were creative and entertaining, and that's something we really need more of in these movies.

For the bad stuff, I guess I would say that it's only enjoyable on a basic level. I mean, Malekith wants to do evil things, Thor fights him, he wins, and everybody's happy. It didn't quite make me think the way Iron Man 3 or Captain America: The Winter Soldier did. Aside from that, the movie is pretty solid. Forgettable, but solid.

The Incredible Hulk Review

UPDATE: Last night I finally got around to re-watching The Incredible Hulk, and some of my opinions on it changed, so some parts of the review are either edited or removed. I hope you understand that I really want to give people the best review possible, so sometimes I might edit a review a little bit after it's posted. Thank you for reading.

Yes, I know I didn't refer to the thing in Tony Stark's chest as an "Arc Reactor" in my past review. I forgot that was what it was called. Sorry.


The Incredible Hulk

This one of the few MCU movies I feel almost nothing about. It's not that bad, but it's not that good, either. This movie focuses on Bruce Banner trying to find a cure for the Hulk while also running from the government. So basically, every Hulk story ever made. I mean, it's executed okay, but the story doesn't offer anything really new. 

First off, the good stuff. I seem to be among five other people on Earth that thinks Edward Norton is better than Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. People complain that Norton didn't do anything new with the character, and while I can understand that, he was still fantastic, as he definitely captured the tragedy of the character. Bruce Banner is also made a lot more realistic in this film. In particular, I really liked that he went out of his way to learn different languages and wear a watch that would tell him if his blood pressure was getting too high. It was also a smart move to have Bruce Banner's origin and why General Ross is hunting him down be explained in the intro, which is only a few minutes long. It gave the movie much more time to show what Bruce is gong through and why he does what he does.

Now for the bad stuff. The big problem I have with this movie is that it really doesn't do anything new with the Hulk. The execution is good, but the story itself doesn't have much depth to it. Betty, Bruce Banner's old girlfriend, just sort of shows up halfway through the movie because oh hey, that's an important character. The guy who becomes the Abomination at the end doesn't really do much other than fight the Hulk and... not succeed? What was the point to his character again?  And yes, the government is chasing after him, because we all know how much of a success story that is. Why, they're so good at hunting the Hulk, just watch as he shrugs off all of their missiles! That totally worked!

Overall, this movie is just okay. If you're bored one night and you want to watch the Hulk smash things, this is the movie for you.