It's three hours of climax.

First time a Marvel movie made me cry. I dunno, something really guttural got wrenched when I saw Peter dissolving, pleading to this surrogate father figure who just happens to be my favorite character.

I was a nervous wreck going in because I thought Tony was gonna die because RDJ's contract was up, but then I realized he's already filmed Avengers 4 and I'm a fucking moron. Some close calls, though.

I am so glad Ragnarok made me like Thor. He gets some really nice moments in this flick.

Damn, they actually managed the sixty-something characters in a way that wasn't too jarring. I mean, it was a little, especially during the big Wakanda scene, but I don't know if they could've done it much better.

I dunno, maybe, maybe it was *too* quippy? Or maybe just too much dialogue in general. Again, it might be a size thing. Characters need to interact and all. But while I really felt the length of the film during Last Jedi, that wasn't a problem here, and this was a half hour longer. At the very least, the fanboyisms have thawed this old, necrotic heart for the love of the genre, because I was captivated all the way through.

Red Skull was a thing, that was neat. It's nice to add something onto what we think of as these throwaway villains the MCU is infamous for.

Speaking of, Thanos wasn't one of those, I suppose. He's definitely got more to him than your average villain, I just wish we got more motivation from him, more reason aside from "uh balance". It might be a source material problem, I don't really know if Thanos ever had a good driving force in the comics. Maybe this is the best you can do with aspirations of this scope. Maybe we'll have to save that for part 2.

And that's the thing, it's hard to judge this movie alone because it's not the full picture. I feel like I might have more story complaints, but that might be entirely remedied with the next movie. It very much an incomplete product, I mean just look at the ending. Some stuff I was expecting here, i.e. Tony and Cap's arcs being finished, we'll have to wait for. THAT'S gonna be the payoff, THAT'S gonna be the end. Though this movie was certainly a good way of bridging us there.

If anything, I'm afraid of what's gonna happen when I go see Ant Man and the Wasp, returning to the status quo that's been weighing on me isn't something I'm looking too forward to. This movie's ruined me, in a good way(?)

I TOTALLY CALLED THE AFTER CREDITS SCENE BTW.

Kinda.

See you this time next year.