Tres cool

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2019)

I'm not a big comic book fan, or movies made from them, or blockbuster movies in general, but I really enjoyed this. Yes, as others have said, it is too long -- I think they could have taken time from each of the battle scenes which would have cut the overall running time nicely without losing anything really important. Yeah, the CGI stuff is fun, but after a while, I get bored with it all. I watched this via Nexflix, so I ended up watching it in two parts which helped to keep it fresher for me. Previously I had watched both Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor, both of which I really liked. Another reviewer mentioned that the naysayers needed to have watched the earlier individual superhero movies as their story lines were meant to meet here. That does make sense to me. Although, if you were to watch this cold turkey with a relatively open mind, then you should be able to pretty much suss out what is happening without all of the other back grounding. Which I guess quite a number of reviewers here weren't interested in doing. Their loss.
This movie was really funny! The dialogue with the self-effacing humour and the inside jokes was so nicely done. This was what I also liked about Guardians and Thor. I almost didn't watch those movies because I thought they were going to be just all action (which as already mentioned, bores me pretty quickly), but I was pleasantly surprised. I'm now actually more interested in seeing the other individual hero movies (Iron Man, Hulk, etc), if they're going to have this kind of banter and lightness in them. I'm always more interested in the human/android/etc interactions than the never ending battle stuff. I loved Thor always calling Rocket a bunny! In fact this makes me think that what was put down as a "character error" here about him always pronouncing the destination as "Nivadellir" instead of "Nidavellir" actually wasn't an error at all. As he tells Rocket, he's been a God for over two thousand years... he doesn't really give a crap if he's pronouncing something incorrectly, or calling Rocket a bunny instead of a fox. And well, unless you're Captain Kirk, the average person (or character in a movie) just isnt going to question a God. Hahaha.
I also enjoyed that the writing of the main characters and the actors playing them actually had some complexity and depth (once again, keeping my attention from wandering, lol). Thanos in particular was so well done. Like really well done (kudos to the writers and Josh Brolin). It is rare that the villain is done this way. But a villain that makes sense and that you can agree with on some levels is far scarier than a cardboard box stereotype. It's the people who you can relate to, or even like, that can hurt you the most. The Thanos character brought up some important issues. Not everyone and everything can live. It is heartbreaking. It is terrible, but it's true. There just isn't the room and resources on this Earth in particular to keep up with the never ending onslaught of human carelessness. But who are we going to trust to make those awful decisions? Who would have the psychological strength to make them, and be partisan about it? As Thanos said, the choices are made irrespective of gender, race or wealth. It was not done without personal loss and pain. I loved at the ending when he's sitting up high, looking out, and feeling such loneliness. I also love that Thanos's endgame created a quandary for me, a viewer, cos I'm not quite sure who's side I'm now. Is Thanos really a villain, or are the super heroes (and the rest of us) not looking at the whole picture?
The ending was quite interesting. It wasn't all happy, happy. There were terrible losses, which were hard to watch. Although, it does make me think that as the other superhero movies were a portal into this movie, then this movie will also a portal into the next sequel where these losses will be righted. I hope so anyway.
P.S. The battle in Wakanda reminded me of a crazy teched out version of the big battle in The Return of the King.