Running Out the Clock

Conditions: Semi-Stifling

Film Review: Avengers: Infinity War

Finally!  F**king finally!  For so long we've been building up to Thanos and what he's going to do, and how he's going to do it, and finally like some kind of demented Santa God he's here, and he's wrecking shit from the start.  We begin one big action sequence after where we left off, in space - now with pieces of the Asgardian escape ship floating past.  Cut to the interior, where it seems most of the Asgardians are already dead, and Thanos is monologing his way through the aftermath.  To say it's a bit of a reversal after the end of Ragnarok is an understatement.  Thanos has his gauntlet and he is going to spend this film adding to it the gems needed to power it.

To do so he has to make his away around various semi-familiar locations and weave through or knock down various members of the Avengers trying to stop him.  One of the issues they have of course is that they all technically broke up a few movies ago and so aren't actually as united as they should have been.  I guess a treat here is seeing the various Avengers characters meet up, but since this is an ensemble film you are left feeling they don't have as much time as you'd want.

However this isn't actually a film.  Sure, things happen on a screen, but Marvel has now grown to so many characters and so many locations that in order to fit them into an Avengers outing means that the thing consists mainly of establishing shots and action sequences.  As such it's really Thanos' movie, as he's the one driving the narrative, such as it is.  Various superheros fight and bicker, they even have a plan at one point to just take his fabled glove off, but with a feeling of inevitability he flicks his fingers and then we get an extended die-off of exactly half of all the Avengers (and everyone else, natch).  So the film is really just a truncated first half of a two-parter, and one sincerely hopes all the character development and actual drama has been saved up for the second one.  Two charges out of five.




Film Review: Solo: A Star Wars Story

What in the hell happened to the Star Wars movies?  They went back and explained in exhaustive detail who Darth Vader used to be before he was Darth Vader, they went back and explained exactly how Luke was able to blow up the death star, which was completely unnecessary, and now they've gone back to explain who Han Solo is.  We already bloody know who Han Solo is!  We don't need to be re-introduced to the guy.  Especially after they've gone and killed him off.  But I thought to myself Ok, if they're going to go back and tell some tales from Han's history then maybe we can see some stories from when he and Chewie were smuggling stuff past the Empire starships, getting into trouble and getting back out of it again.  That might be fun, but no.  Instead what they've done is rewind way the hell back to when Han was a kid on some shitty planet dreaming of getting away.

Many years and regrets pass before Han finds Chewie, joins up with a team on a heist, and the result of that mess is Han reuniting with a lost love in order to pull off an even more difficult heist.  Along the way he meets Lando, flies the Falcon, and gets double crossed a few times.  It's very much a stepping off point for Han Solo, and that's the problem.

I get that a Han Solo prequel needs to explain a few things about the character, but what annoys me is this film felt the need to explain literally everything about the character.  Even to the detriment of telling an actual story.  The lead actor isn't bad in how he portrays a younger and more naive Solo, but there's a sheer lack of pace in this film as it keeps diverting off to provide another wink and a nod to the audience.  It's pure fan service, annoying in it's determination to tick every box.  Two hip robots out of five.

- Peace out