Reviews

I avoided the movie for over half a year due to the negative reviews and my own marvel-burnout, but after hearing it wasn't as bad as people said I gave it a shot. I say this to establish how low my expectations were. Ultimately, I had a ton of fun! I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't watched this with the family yet, but with it's shirt run time, quick pacing, easy-to-follow story, and great humor I could easily see this being a big hit at family movie night. This was never going for an oscar or trying to usurp Infinity War in terms of "depth," but it is a good time. It might not be for everyone, but I enjoyed it.

The movie, in my opinion, was not a slow, unemotional mess. The characters are incredibly fun to watch and their relationships/conflict are what carry the movie. There was only one moment in the film that I felt dragged on a few minutes longer than it needed to, but it immediately picked up again after that. It was diverse, but not in a preachy, political way. The differences in the characters were empowering and actually aided their characters identities. I think this movie is so contested because it doesn't it the marvel formula as well as other movies (so it is jarring to the marvel fans who crave movies like Ant-Man) and it is a blockbuster superhero movie so it deters the art/critic group. If you put labels aside, this is visually beautiful movie about 7,000 year old superheroes confronting the possibility of death. If that sounds appealing to you, I encourage you to ignore what others are saying and see it for yourself. I would like more experimentation like this in big blockbusters in the future. I think this one boils down to a matter of preference. I gave it an 8 because personally, watching it brought me great joy, I loved the characters and themes, and I felt it was above average. I'm curious to see how time will treat this one. I imagine it will be like many of Jack Kirby's post-60's works: maybe a little too high-concept and hard to digest at the time, but worth a go to see the artists vision. It's not perfect, but I thought it was a good time.