The Electric State (2025)

Some people will roll their eyes when people comment about the budget but its so big it cant be ignored. The question is WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?. I always think back to Gareth Edwards’ The Creator which cost $80 million and looks like it cost double that. It’s not how much money you have but where you spend it that shows how good a filmmaker you are.I will give the film credit that the special effects look quite good but thats it as far as positive things for the film.

Millie Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt have no chemistry and its shocking how poorly they are together on screen. They might be contenders for worst double act at the Razzie’s next year. Brown is also not a convincing lead and is quite forgettable. Pratt also looks like he is phoning it in by playing the Chris Pratt that he always plays but without any of the charm that he usually plays. Where did that go? This is the second film within two weeks that I have seen that has wasted Giancarlo Esposito (Captain America being the other one). It also wastes Ke Huy Quan & Stanley Tucci which should automatically get this film a negative score.

So the idea of whether the robots are real people is a tired cliche and one that the film runs into the ground and the rest of the screenplay is dull and feels like it was written by AI. The directing is lifeless and shows that the Russo’s best work was in the MCU which is where they should go although they will have to work with a much smaller budget then. This has to go down as one of the worst films of the year and someone needs to have a word with Netflix because you could have used this $320 million and made 32 $10 million films and they would have potentially been some gems that came out of it.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

I cant recall a film having higher expectations than this film. I saw the film two weeks after the film came out when I knew the buzz would have died down but when I went to see it, the Box office takings had crossed the $2billion line and James Cameron sent a half-hearted tweet congratulating Marvel for surpassing Titanic.

So basically the plot is that the remaining Avengers go back in time to get the stones and stop Thanos from collecting them. It’s a simple enough idea which is handled well and doesn’t feel like its dragging its feet to much although I personally thought that it was about 30 minutes too long. All the stuff with them back in time trying to get the stones went on a bit too long but apart from that the film worked very well. Bearing in mind that its 181 minutes (not including the trailers they stick on at the beginning), it didn’t feel like a 3 hour film. So much happens and you are never allowed to really stop and think about what is happening.

There are a few MECU films that I haven’t seen like Black Panther and the Ant-man films so I found Ant-man to be useful to the story but I just found him to be the least important of the characters.

I’m sorry but I still find Brie Larson rather smug. She is less smug in this but I just find her to think she’s above everyone even though this is only her second film in the MECU. I’m glad she’s not in it for very long but when she does come in towards the end its like she’s saying to everyone ‘You can rest now, I’m here to save the day’. It makes everyone look silly and asks why we should care about them if Captain Marvel can save the day in two seconds.

I liked how they came up with a line that allows them to go back in time but doesn’t screw with the films that came before it and doesn’t say to you that you wasted your time in watching them because they still happened. They use the line that just because you go back in time and change whats happened, doesn’t mean that it changes the future. What did slightly ruin the discussion for me is when they mention films and TV that deal with time travel that they didn’t mention Doctor Who. This film has a former Doctor Who companion in it FFS and yet it didn’t get mentioned. Oh well. Another thing I was very impressed with what how they managed to make Michael Douglas look about 40 years younger and Chris Evans look 40 years old. Both effects were very well done and show that this sort of thing will be happening more and more in films.

Despite having so much riding on it and having to achieve so much, the thing that most impresses me about this film is how it works. It wraps up 20+ films and still manages to start threads for new films. It says thankyou to those that came before whilst putting over the new stars. Credit has to go to the Russo Brothers for directing a film that does so much. The final scene where all the Avengers return and Thanos realises that he is in trouble is one of the best moments I have felt in a cinema since The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers when the wall at Helm’s Deep blows up. Seeing everyone charging is a great sight and does what its suppose to do in a film and that is deliver a moment that cinemagoers can cheer on and enjoy and boy does it achieve that.

I think that this is the point that I am bowing out of the Marvel films. I have enjoyed them but figure that now is the time to stop going to the cinema to watch them unless something stands out but as it looks like Brie Larson is going to be the spearhead from the next generation, I don’t think I will be watching.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Avengers: Infinity War is the beginning of the end. The first Avengers film was a big success with 2015’s Age of Ultron being a disappointment. It's tricky to make Avengers movies work because there are so many different elements to put together and if the story isn't very good then the whole thing can go wrong. This is the first part of two (the second part coming next year) and comes in at 2 hours and 34 minutes which is the longest of the Avengers movies.

The opening scene might be one of the best opening 10 minutes or so that I have seen in a Marvel film. Thor and Loki versus Thanos which sees Loki killed by Thanos’ bare hand. This is the Russo Brothers way of saying this is what you can expect from these two films.

Thanos is perhaps the best villain that has ever featured in a Marvel film and that's partly because he has been involved one way or another in all the plots of the Marvel films and that alone makes him feel like the epic final boss. There is also the fact that he doesn't want the stones and the gauntlet to be a dictator but because he wants to bring balance to the universe and all he wants to do after that is rest. Literally the last shot of the film is him at peace and that makes it hard to 100% dislike him.

There are a couple of things that I am not so keen on. The Vision/Wanda portion of the film wasn't particularly interesting although it was fun seeing it filmed in Edinburgh. I know a lot of people might like it but the bickering between Tony Stark and Doctor Strange really did annoy me. I couldn't wait for the story to move away from them. Sometimes Robert Downey Jr.’s humour works but it felt like a bit of a misfire in this film.

I did like the relationship between Thanos and Gamora. It’s the thing that I found the most interesting aspect of the film. Yes everyone is going to be excited for all the characters to meet up again and in some cases for the first time but I think that this felt like something important and substantial. That is why when Thanos throws Gamora off the cliff to make the sacrifice it was a shocking moment and felt for the first time like there were some high stakes involved.

The moment when Thanos gets all his stones and clicks his fingers leading to half of humanity being wiped out is a fantastic moment and as it has been something that Marvel have been building up to for a decade, it didn't disappoint. It came after a long and very well set up fight on Wakanda and

Despite being two and a half hours long and part one of two, I felt like it was the perfect running time. Everyone got their time on screen and got something to do. It didn't feel like they were rushing things or struggling for things to do. It’s one of those rare instances where the run time was perfect. The only real downside to the film is that we will have to wait a year to see how this all pans out. The film does what it needs to do and does it very well. Time will tell if it was worth it.