New Endgame trailer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcMBFSGVi1c
Giggity. Only one 'reveal' - not like it was going to be a surprise though.
Cool trailer. But I'm not really sure that counts as a "reveal." It's established in the CM end credits scene, so...
But it IS kind of disappointing that, at least from the VERY brief clip in the trailer, Carol seems just as wooden and unlikable as she did in her own movie. And bringing me back to the CM film, the longer it sets with me, the less I like it. Now that the initial hype is wearing off, there just isn't a whole lot there. What I liked mostly just boiled down to it being part of the MCU and feeling like it fit in as yet another piece of the overall MCU storyline. Other than that and a few isolated positives, it really didn't do anything to make me like it. And I think it significant that if you go character-by-character, there really isn't much there either. In fact, let's do that:
-Carol: We should have liked her, or at least been able to sympathize with her more. She was okay. But I think we should come away from a film feeling like our main character, the film's protagonist, and from every indication the one who is going to bear the Marvel standard going forward, needs to be a lot more than that. And the pieces were there for us to connect with her. But...nothing was ever really developed.
-Fury: The MCU Fury has been pretty cool at times. Often he's just decent. This version of him really did nothing. He was just a foil for CM. And he was, more or less, and idiot. I'm not sure if this was poor writing or poor directing. But I have long been of the belief that Jackson NEEDS a good director to shine. With a good director, he can be absolutely incredible. Without one, he can be, at best, a wooden caricature of himself. This performance was closer to the latter.
-Colson: The awful CGI aside, Colson brought nothing to the table. And him going so severely off script as an agent was...at best not believable. Sure, Agents of SHIELD is basically about him doing just that. But the whole point of that is that he has been relegated to being the leader of an outlaw agency who are, often times, the only hope of earth in the face of dire threats nobody is even aware of. He has a reputation of going off script because he's been forced to abandon the "by-the-book" government playbook. He can't be that as a brand new agent. It's just not believable.
-Maria: She's okay. Some of her lines are pretty predictable, and it's pretty clear that she is there merely as a plot device. I guess she's serviceable in that role.
-Monica: She's great! She might even be the best character in the film. ...and to say that of such a minor character is kind of a problem.
-The Skrulls: Other than Talos, I couldn't tell you, because he is the only one given any personality. And, I guess that's fine. He is such a strong character and does such a fine job that we can sympathize with the entire Skrull race simply through him. That works. Oh, and now that we're on him, I guess I was a bit premature in declaring Monica as perhaps the best character. It is clearly Talos by a country mile.
-Star Force: Unfortunately, we only really get to know Yon-Rogg in any kind of depth. And he leaves a lot to be desired. There isn't really one main villain. It's basically the Kree race as a whole. But he is the face of that and drives the plot. He is probably far and away the least effective Marvel villain yet. I got nothing from him at all. I didn't like him. But it had nothing to do with him being an effective villain. My dislike was simply because there wasn't anything to him. He was just a manipulative dude with nothing very likable about him. As for the other members of the team, Korath was a waste. We didn't really learn much about him. He was cool merely because, with less screen time AND dialog, Guardians already set him up to be pretty cool. Min-Erva was a cold-blooded elite military weapons specialist type. But, again, she was merely a "type" and not a character with any depth. The rest were just...there.
-Goose: Made for some good comedy moments. But after the initial "Yes! Goose really IS a flerken!" wears off, there really isn't much there.
-Mar-Vell: I'm not
angry about the the gender swap, as some are. But it was pretty pointless. Mar-Vell/Lawson didn't
need to be a woman for any good reason. So why pull a switch if it isn't going to serve a purpose? As an aside, I'm also not too upset that she wasn't actually the first Captain Marvel, and I'm okay that this is a completely different version of the character. Marvel has been taking liberties with its MCU and deviated from the comics since day 1, and it has largely worked. That's fine. But as for the character herself, she was wooden and really didn't do anything. She should have been the cool, almost-revered mentor figure. But as with pretty much all the others, she fell flat.
That last description is actually pretty apt for virtually all the characters. They all for the most part just fell flat. There wasn't anything there. And while this is "just a superhero movie," that's a problem. People went out and saw it because it is MCU. And because it is the connective tissue between Avengers 3 and 4. But beyond that, there just isn't any substance to it. And that's a shame, because if it foreshadows the future of the MCU, it means that we're pretty much at the end of an era as far as I'm concerned. It was an era of overall greatness. But I guess all good things must end.
I think I had said earlier that I was in the 5 or 6 out of 10 realm if I were to rate it. After letting it sit with me a bit, I think I'm at a 5. Maybe a repeat view will boost it a bit. But that's where I am right now. As it stands, unless I change my mind and pick it up just for completeness, this is likely to be the first MCU film that I don't buy.