Went and saw this a week ago because apparently that’s what you do when someone offers to play sitter for a night! And although I’d argue that it wasn’t necessarily as good as the first one, it was still nonetheless enjoyable…
I mean, I guess that should really be expected – the two movies are three years apart and after the second round of movies, pretty much all of the characters … except Hawkeye … are pretty well-rounded out at this point, and we even got to learn a bit more about him during this group sequel to even the odds a bit, too.
I think if anything, watching this movie makes me really wonder what to expect from the next couple of Marvel films – particularly Captain America: Civil War, as well as both parts of Infinity War which I’m really looking forward to because I’ve kind of taken in interest in seeing all of the stones coming together and I’m sure when Thanos finally gets his hands on the complete set, it’s going to be pretty incredible!
But more speculation … how are we going to see the team change as the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to evolve??? I really loved the glimpse at the end of Cap and Black Widow preparing to train the next generation of Avenger, which I don’t think that I was really ready to wrap my head around 5 years ago but as we see the stories and personalities – both on and off camera – beginning to intertwine, and especially when you consider how pretty much every plot imaginable was attempted at one point or another in the comics, maybe change could be good after all.
Except for Ant-Man, because he just looks stupid.
Sorry, Paul Rudd… 🙁
But think about it – there have been rumors about Robert Downey, Jr. being ready to move on from his role as Iron Man, in the comics Captain America went through an arc where Bucky actually picked up the shield and took his place after Cap’s death, and now more than ever you’ve got more stars – and good ones, too – competing for screen time. I didn’t think that I was really going to care for Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch when I saw them in both the trailer as well as the teaser at the end of whatever movie that was, but they both really stepped up to the plate.
I think I’ve even finally gotten used to Don Cheadle as Rhodey in the War Machine armor, and I kind of hated how he booted Terrance Howard out of the role back in Iron Man 2.
And Paul Bettany’s Vision was just plain awesome … you don’t need to be able to wield Thor’s hammer to agree with that!
Anyways, the movie itself was everything you could want from an action movie – upbeat, exciting, with plenty of humor that the entire series is known for … the only problem I saw was simply that the first movie left such Hulk-sized boots to fill, this sequel – as bad-ass as it was – still couldn’t hold a candle. That first Avengers movie was a whole different kind of epic because we got to see all of the superheroes come together for the first time when they really hadn’t interacted with each other at all in their individual stories up until that point.
But the second wave of movies changed that because they had to – we’d already seen everyone fighting together once before, so it made more sense to bring Black Widow into Cap’s story and make Rhodey a bigger part of Iron Man 3, and so on and so forth.
If anything, I’m admittedly a little bummed because after Ultron kind of creeped up on us because I frankly hadn’t even realized that it was coming out this spring – fatherhood will do that to a guy! – the next couple of years are going to be kind of slow in building to the next movies in the series that I’m personally looking forward to seeing…
- July 2015 – Ant-Man – couldn’t possibly care less
- May 2016 – Captain America: Civil War – I’ve really taken to Cap, so hopefully this will be better than Winter Soldier
- November 2016 – Dr. Strange – I don’t know a lot about this one…
- May 2017 – Guardians of the Galaxy 2 – the first one actually surprised me, so I’d look forward to this
- November 2017 – Thor: Ragnarok – I’ll see it, but Thor’s movies haven’t really done much for me so far
- May 2018 – The Avengers: Infinity War, Part 1 – SO FAR AWAY – MY SON WILL BE FOUR YEARS OLD WHEN THIS FINALLY COMES OUT!!!!!
- May 2019 – The Avengers: Infinity War, Part 2 – don’t even get me started on these multi-part movies again…
I’m sure if I looked back at the schedule that got us to this point, one good movie a year is probably about right considering that believe it or not, the first Iron Man movie actually hit us all the way back in 2008 – how’s that to make you feel old?! The MCU has been around for the entirety of the time that I’ve been married to my wife … whew! 😯
So in summary – great movie, Vision is awesome, not as epic as Avengers 1, tip of the iceberg for lots of wacky changes in the films to come. 😉