HUSBAND VS. WIFE MOVIE REVIEW： Avengers： Endgame ｜｜ We had SO much to say...
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Summary
In this episode, we discuss the plot of Avengers: Endgame, the characters in the movie, and the overall impact of the movie on the world and the world at large. We also discuss what we think of Robert Downey Jr.'s performance as Iron Man and why we think he's one of the most underrated actors in the MCU.
Transcript
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Hello, beautiful ladies and handsome gentlemen, and welcome to today's video where we're going to be doing another round of husband versus wife movie reviews.
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So, the plot of Avengers Endgame. So, we're going to assume we've seen the last movie because this is a sequel.
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You don't have to assume that because I haven't seen the last movie.
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Oh, yeah. Thanos, purple space tyrant who thinks the world's overpopulated, wants to cut it in half, gets magic gauntlet that can make your wishes reality.
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He gets the stones that power it up. They're stones that relate to creation itself.
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He's super powerful, wipes out half the universe, including half of Marvel's characters. Very sad.
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Now, our heroes, devastated, want to do something about it. So, they end up finding a way to try and do something about it, maybe through time travel.
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Go through time, pick up the stones and unite them, and then try and undo what Thanos did.
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Drama, tension, conflict, and surprises ensue. That's our movie.
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Cool. And so, our plan is that we are going to each take an index card and write a topic that we would like to discuss.
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Yeah, you've got to hold it up for the camera. They need to understand that these are standard index cards.
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Each one of us is going to write down a topic about the movie that we'd like to discuss, and then reveal.
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And if we have the same topic, that would be funny. And if we don't, then we'll each discuss our own view of it, and then see what the other thinks.
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Our idea is that, since we're not movie critics, we're coming here for fun.
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And what's fun is to hear people talk about what they noticed, what stood out to them, and what mattered in the movie.
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And there are movies where character doesn't matter. There are movies where it does, and it makes or breaks the movie.
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So, that's what we're going to do here. Because, quite honestly, a systematic approach to this is not the way anyone normal like us is going to be watching the movie.
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This is about just having fun talking about the interesting things of a movie.
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Oh, I like this game. So, you say your three, and then I'll say my three.
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Yeah. So, Robert Downey Jr.'s Iron Man, Karen Gillan's Nebula, and Brie Larson's Captain Marvel.
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Yeah. So, I have Captain Marvel, Iron Man, and Black Widow.
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So, which one do you want to start with? Let's do Iron Man.
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So, Iron Man was the first Marvel Universe character introduced.
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Yeah, yeah. I like how we are starting with me by you talking.
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So, Marvel introduced Iron Man first to the world, and Robert Downey Jr. is by far the best actor in all these movies.
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Right, but he's also not been in as many of them.
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And Robert Downey Jr. just generally, I think, is a really wonderful actor, and he has taken time to really allow his character to develop from where he started to this movie.
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And, uh, I think that they worked really well with him and with, uh, his character.
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Different in this movie as compared to other movies, because here, he comes across the most like a person, like a real character, rather than an assembly line kind of hero will say things to move the plot.
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But, uh, oh, Quips and Robert Downey Jr. charisma that he was in previous movies.
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He ends up having loved ones, which is different than any other Iron Man appearance.
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I gotta do it right to left here, because you all are looking at it.
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Um, there's a shift in his character to a man who has discovered meaning and purpose on a real gut level.
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Other than either the general heroics of, I wanna save everyone that all the heroes have.
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Now it's a man with something actual real in front of him that he's kinda humble before.
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Any sense of threat, and what's really, really nice, is this time travel plot that we mentioned before.
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There's, of course, risk associated with it, as any heroic venture would be.
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And for once, we get a hero who's had enough change in his life that now he doesn't want to assume the risk, at least at the beginning.
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Because it allows the movie to have themes of maturity, of not risking too much, of what being a hero can mean at multiple levels,
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Are there greater good in theory, or people here and now, and am I going to risk the people here and now to help everyone, or is that not moral?
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But it does enough with it that finally it came across, like, a mainstream, blockbuster superhero movie that had enough themes to actually be mature enough to be nourishing from, like, an entertainment art perspective for someone who's beyond the age of just 12.
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And this isn't to be kind of sending about any of the other ones.
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It's just that it's a little too popcorn a lot of the time.
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It's the same themes at the same level at the same depth a lot of the time.
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And this movie brought it up, like, an age range, which was really to be appreciated.
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And I would say that, like, not that we were going to talk about Ant-Man, but my two favorite characters in Endgame were Iron Man and Ant-Man, because I felt that they were the two most real characters.
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Probably because they're the two that have a family.
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We didn't see all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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Yeah, I've seen a lot of them, but I think that in a way that's a good thing, because that allows us to look at Endgame as a movie and a film and not as the culmination of all of these movies that we grew up with and we loved and adored.
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So we're looking at it from a little bit more of a film perspective, not an emotional one.
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A film perspective and a general art entertainment evaluation perspective.
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But Brie Larson is so charismatic in all of the pressers.
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To be fair, I don't think Brie Larson is ever charismatic, so this didn't really surprise me.
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But she immediately shows up and is like, well, I'm just going to take Thanos down.
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I mean, you've got a god, you've got super genius with technology that's world-changing.
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You've got Gaia 1940s steroids with a piece of metal banged into a circle.
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I honestly was like, oh, are we just going to start the movie and this is going to be the
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So I was glad that that wasn't the immediate solution.
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She immediately starts with her haughty, charisma-free, just stern, I'm better than you
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Everyone's just like, yeah, you're right, Captain Marvel.
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And then Thor just immediately is like, I like her.
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But just having Thor immediately say, I like her.
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Oh, we dreaded what we thought was going to happen and for being a big part of the movie.
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But she does get a major haircut and that made her worse.
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But Thanos, hypothetically, when he took out half the population, took out half randomly,
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It was every competent hairstylist in the universe wiped out.
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The five-year time skip in which mistakes were made.
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She's just told, we're told that she's the most powerful and there's no heroic character.
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It's just that she's better and she's strong and everyone knows it and everyone recognizes
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Thematically, does not fit in with what's compelling and charismatic about the series.
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It comes down to her feeling like she thinks she's better than everyone else.
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Yeah, and I was going to say, I think that's true of Brie Larson generally, is that she thinks
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that Captain Marvel is better than all these other characters who we've come to know and
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So you speaking down to everyone, not really going to work for us as an audience.
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So Black Widow was the character I wanted to talk about.
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She was one of the characters who had a terrible dye job.
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I thought it was really interesting how over the course of the series, she started off as
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this really big sex symbol because Scarlett Johansson is a sex symbol.
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And by the end, she's still a sex symbol just because Scarlett Johansson is beautiful.
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But that's really not the point of her character.
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The point of her character is that she's kind of everyone's big sister or their mom.
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And she is really taking care of everybody and taking them on this role, not of being
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a hot woman who can fight, but she's really the emotional caretaker for most of the men.
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And it's not really even about how well she can fight or any of the other aspects.
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It's just really, I thought that was a really interesting take on her, especially given
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that there is obvious sexualization of most women superheroes because they're in really
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tight outfits and they're fighting in kind of sexy ways.
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I just thought it was interesting that they kind of reeled that back and went into her
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Not mention her because that's an over, that's exaggeration.
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But just, yeah, a more thoughtful, emotional, and very platonic relationship with everyone.
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That worked really well for having the two normie human characters on the cast being emotionally
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Black Widow now has her surrogate family in this team.
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And they kind of previously mentioned, oh, she's a Russian super assassin who's had like
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all emotion drained from her as part of her training.
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But now she has a team, and I think that's been nice to see with the character if you
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A sleeper hit of a character for me, or not really a hit, because I noticed it, I appreciated
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it, but it's not like a big part of the entertainment value of the movie.
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What's been nice to see is she started as a one note, I'm dark action girl, I'm gonna
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kill all the enemies of Thanos, yada yada, and I hate my sister, and I'm ruled by hate.
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And then Guardians of the Galaxy 1 and Guardians of the Galaxy 2, she actually has her big
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weird turnaround moment where she becomes sisters with her sister effects, spending
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all her rage and realizing it's futile, and that her sister Gamora does not return it.
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And now she's been integrated into the team, the last movie, and then even more so this
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And it was really interesting to see this character remain dark in the sense that she
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She is her pain from her abuse of Thanos' father, but she's been redeemed, and now
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she's on the right side, because she's let go of the more embittering aspects of the things
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she's been through, and now is an eye towards, pain is bad, I suffered a bad thing.
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So the thing to do about it is prevent it for others, while maintaining a serious outlook.
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And she's still grim and husky and everything like that with her voice and her outlook.
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Yeah, Karen Gillan's not husky, so I want to be clear about that.
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Karen Gillan got into shape for the movie, she looks great.
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It's just, it's been nice to see a multi-film redemptive art that is not shallow, it's
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The Tony Stark character change was much more compelling.
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But I really like what they did, and for a character who's relatively minor, but made
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a main stage player, more or less, for this movie, it was nice to see that level of depth
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I will say, husband versus wife, I agree about the character.
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I just, her voice actually really did annoy me, because I didn't really feel like it
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gave her enough range as an actress to really show, I understood the point of it, but I
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All these get in the way of Shakespearean style acting and communicating human expressions.
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I appreciated it, and I liked it, and I want to see that done more often, and it added
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So, 60 degree, if that is approximate, thumbs...
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First, I want to get out of the way of criticism I have of the movie, because overall I thought
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it was very good, but there was something that they didn't do well, which was tone in
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They were pretty inconsistent at times with the tone that they were achieving, and it
00:13:06.860
I liked how they were more serious in this movie.
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I liked Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark seriousness.
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A bunch of the other characters, like you said, about Ant-Man, more real, more serious.
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And again, it's a very fun movie, but what makes it more appealing is that the characters
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have stakes, and they feel it, and also they're reeling from the biggest disaster anyone's
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And so you have moments where people are grappling with that, and they equips, and that just
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brought me out of the scene when that happened.
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And so there's a metaphor I like to use here, which if we think of the movie as a giant ship,
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It's like a fist-sized punch and a very big-sized ship.
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So for the duration of that ship's travel, it's not going to be waterlogged.
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Nonetheless, you don't want holes in your boat.
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And if you're a viewer thinking about what works or doesn't work in movies, if you're
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an audience demanding things in a movie, trying to set the tone for what's considered good
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art, or good entertainment at the very least, a good rule is to not have holes in the boats.
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Even if it's not going to sink this one, it's good to know what causes holes in the boats.
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An example is Thor's character in this movie, right?
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So previous Marvel movies, he was fun and funny, and then he became steadily more comedic
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The third of Thor movie, he's an outright comedic character at many moments, and Chris Hemsworth
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I would describe Thor as having gone off the rails in some ways in response to the big
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I know we're kind of assuming that people have seen the movie, but nonetheless, if you
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haven't, it's so fun what they've done with him in this way, I don't want to ruin it for
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But he's gone off the rails in response to the psychological tragedy of what Thanos did.
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Except how he went off the rails is really, really darn funny.
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And so we'll get moments where he's very serious talking about what caused him to go off
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Okay, but then the next second, it's just funny, and jokes are played off of how he's
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And a movie can have humor right alongside tragedy by having it be dark humor, by making
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And then, hey, now we're in light, fun, happy mode.
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I will say, I think that's kind of like Marvel's thing, but yeah, I agree.
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I was thinking more of like Don Cheadle's character, whose name I literally cannot remember,
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And I think that, yeah, he would kind of say things that the audience felt like they should
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I wrote down a plot, but I probably should have written down tactics.
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In the first 15 minutes, a few of the characters decide that they're going to go and attack
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Thanos with, you know, no plan in place, and that kind of drove me crazy because later in
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the movie, they actually do come up with a plan, and they come up with great tactics,
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and both times it works, and I don't feel like it should.
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It should be something where if you make a plan, then it works, and if you go in with
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just the heat of your emotions behind you, it's not going to work.
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And they really, the only reason that they succeeded in that first 15-minute segment was
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The worst part about this plan is that it was Captain Marvel's plan, and it was all part
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of her, I can do no wrong, I am the best, I am the strongest, what I want goes, what
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There were other things in the plot that were also kind of annoying, but generally, most
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Yeah, the story in many ways was a contravence for character moments, especially with time
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Time travel is in many ways kind of an inherently fan service thing, because it doesn't mean
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it has to be bad, but it's, you're going back in time to be like, ooh, as a fan, what
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To your point about characters going in with no tactics being something that was annoying
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When characters go in with no tactics in a movie like this, you kind of end up in a bad
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Either your heroes win with no tactics and any emotion, in which case, how big was the threat
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And they fail in the context of not taking things seriously enough or professionally enough
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Why have they not taken the consequences of either one seriously enough to even think
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Which is why I thought that Marvel's character was a joke, because she just...
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Captain Marvel's character is a joke, because I just think she, she thinks she's so powerful
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that she can literally do anything without a plan, and that's not entertaining.
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It's not entertaining, it's not dramatic, it's not likable.
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If you're that powerful that you don't need a plan, then I have no interest in watching
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And if you're not powerful enough, then you need to come up with a plan.
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The lesson, I thought, of this movie was really nice.
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I think it's easy in Marvel movies, in comic book movies, in superhero movies, to just
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make it about good versus bad, and good should win, even though the forces of bad are usually
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And so, I think that that's still a good lesson, but I think it's one that's not as relevant
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to someone who's a little bit older and kind of knows that already.
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I thought that the lesson in this movie was actually something that could expand beyond
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the boundaries of, you know, something, a morality that a 12-year-old or 13-year-old
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I really liked the idea that it talked about, which, to me, was the importance of kind of
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Tony in the movie has grown because he has a family.
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And as soon as somebody has a family, and we can view them as more similar to ourselves
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as a person who wants to live a life dedicated to raising a new generation, I found that really
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And that applies to a few other characters in the movie as well.
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And I think that that's what gives the movie its lesson, and I think it's what makes this
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Marvel movie the best of the ones that we've seen.
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So, actually, my idea of genre here was really the same idea as lesson for you, which is
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it was interesting to me what this movie was able to achieve within the genre of superhero
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Because, for the most part, these movies, rather formulaicingly that they've been done, that's
00:20:28.040
especially been a criticism of the Marvel movies, that standard origin sequence plot for
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all the characters, second act, everything like that.
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Whereas, for this movie, it actually, it didn't break the mold.
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But, for what Marvel's been doing, this was the most adult.
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And I keep stressing that because I was surprised by it and so much more entertained.
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But, to what you were saying about the lesson, what I like that they did with the genre is
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they went beyond the struggle and heroic journey of just, hero, put self on the line for the
00:21:03.960
greater good, as an abstract thing, the city, or the nation, or the entire universe.
00:21:11.960
And really what the hero is doing in a lot of these cases, especially if they're more
00:21:14.960
immature and thrill-seeking, the way Iron Man was or whatever, is they're kind of doing
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They're not really sacrificing something because they care less about them than they
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Real sacrifice in heroism is having something you really care about and being willing to
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risk it for the sake of something that is a greater good that might be a little less
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real to you or compelling, but you know as well.
00:21:44.300
This isn't a profound or novel thing, but it's this genre grappling with it on a level
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of kind of realism and authenticity just to life as the audience will experience it as
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normal people that you can take more from it, right?
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Just you feel the characters kind of stakes more and you feel the sense that, you know,
00:22:06.020
It is hardening to be willing to sacrifice yourself for something meaningful for a family
00:22:12.060
or like a close kin group and things like that.
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And it's kind of motivating to do it, you know, good entertainment slash light art will
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And this movie gave you a stronger sense of heroism, really feeling it for these characters
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rather than mind-numbing action sequence again for the vague idea of the greater good that
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You can't do it for just the faceless concept of all of people.
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I'm putting a 6 star, but it's a different one.
00:22:59.100
Well, I wanted to say that I would give this 4 and a half stars.
00:23:06.100
I would give this 4 and a half stars because I think for this genre, this is my issue.
00:23:10.060
I think with rating systems generally is that they're not within their drama.
00:23:15.260
So we're just preempting my explanation for the asterisk, I see.
00:23:23.280
Is that I think that a lot of the time we'll say 5 out of 5 stars, but you know, you're comparing
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Like, you're not going to compare those two things.
00:23:38.000
And Marvel Universe, Cinematic Universe is its own genre at this point.
00:23:43.900
So superhero movies, popcorn movies, movies you go to to get just kind of light entertainment.
00:23:49.660
And I thought that it raised itself above the level of just entertainment.
00:23:55.960
But I'm taking off a half star just because I thought that there were a few plot devices
00:24:02.520
And just a couple of the things that we mentioned, some of the characters were annoying.
00:24:06.420
But generally, overall, 4 and a half out of 5 stars.
00:24:14.220
Every genre is in its own lane of what it's intending to do.
00:24:18.280
Its purposes, what defines the objective of what the movie is going to achieve.
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And so for a superhero movie, it is entertainment.
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It's to spend an enjoyable one and a half to, I guess in this case, three hours and one minute of your time
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in a way that just does not compare to two hours of your time spent on something that's art that you grapple with.
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They're meant to be satisfying that you went through this and you got something from it.
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Maybe you've learned or you've changed because it's really challenged you.
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So why would I evaluate something doing that challenge thing well in the same way and with
00:24:54.740
the same kind of score that it would, something that's trying to achieve entertainment well?
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So this movie, trying to be entertainment, trying to be the most comic book movie that there
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This was the most comic book movie that there could be.
00:25:09.520
I could do without some of the ending little sequence elements, but that's not going to
00:25:13.660
take a 5 out of 5 away from a three hour and one minute long movie for me.
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