Here it is, our last look at the action series, The Falcon and The Winter Soldier before it debuts on Disney+.
Wandavision was terrific. But I have to admit, kinda looking forward to a straight-up action series.
Also, just as an aside…. why two “The”‘s in the title?
Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice? – William Butler Yeats
Mankind deserves sacrifice – but not of mankind – Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
Avengers: Infinity War is a sequel to The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron and takes place after the events of Thor: Ragnarok, Spider-Man: Homecoming, Black Panther and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2.
The movie begins aboard the ship carrying the survivors of the destruction of Aasgard. “Thor,” “The Hulk” and “Loki” are there ; confronting “Thanos” and his key minions, including Ebony Claw. Thanos is after the Space Stone contained in the Tesseract. It is one of the six Infinity Stones and Thanos intends to collect all of them. He believes that the entire universe is overpopulated. That this overpopulation represents a threat to its continued existence. He intends to use the power provided by all six stones to kill half of everyone, everywhere.
Since Thanos had the Power Stone already, he only needs the remaining four. The Mind Stone that is embedded in the forehead of “Vision”. The Time Stone, safely stashed in the secret compound of the Masters of the Mystic Arts. The Reality Stone which is in the hands of “The Collector” The Soul Stone is on the planet Vormir and Thanos can only obtain it from “Red Skull, the Stonekeeper” by sacrificing someone he loves.
Hulk survives the battle and lands back on Earth, transforming back into Bruce Banner. He reaches out to “Doctor Strange” in an effort to try to prevent Thanos from getting the Time Stone. Ebony Maw is joined by Obsidian and they try and fail to take the Time Stone from Strange. Since they cannot take the stone from him, they take him aboard their ship and head into space.
The Guardians of the Galaxy wind up rescuing Thor, who informs them of the intentions of Thanos. They then split into two groups, Thor, “Rocket” and “Groot” go to see “Eitri” . They plan to get a weapon that would allow Thor to kill Thanos. “Drax” , “Gamora” , “Mantis” and “Peter Quill” arrive on Knowhere, only to find Thanos is there already. He has the Reality Stone. He takes Gamora with him as he departs.
Are you tired yet? We haven’t even dealt with how “Midnight” and “Glaive” journey to Scotland to battle “Scarlett Witch” and Vision to get the Mind Stone and how they are rescued by more of the Avengers. Or the events that wind up with everyone assembling in Wakanda for the ultimate confrontation. Or how Doctor Strange makes use of the Time Stone to try to find a timeline where they can vanquish Thanos. The film’s running time of 2 hours and 29 minutes allows directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo a lot of time to cram as many characters from the Marvel Cinematic Universe into the action.
There is a lot of action and it is a lot of fun to watch. The irreverent humor found throughout the MCU’s movies is present. The abilities and powers of the players are astonishing. This is one movie where it would be handy for those in the audience to be provided with scorecards in advance. If you haven’t seen all of the MCU movies that came before this one, you could be easily confused.
A reminder that like all MCU movies, you need to stick around for the post-credit sequences.
“Truth is relative in politics. The truth is what I tell the electorate it is.” – ‘Calamity’ Jane Bodine
In 2002, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada was elected to his second term as the President of Bolivia. He hired American political consultants James Carville, Stan Greenberg and Bob Shrum as his campaign advisors and they brought him a victory. Three years later, an excellent documentary on the election and the role of the American consultants in it, written, produced and directed by Rachel Boynton came out. The 2015 movie of the same title is a fictionalization of the story, and is a project George Clooney began working to bring to the big screen nearly nine years ago.
Joaquim de Almeida, known for his roles in action films like Clear and Present Danger, Desperado and Behind Enemy Lines is “Pedro Castillo.” The former president is a wealthy man who wants to regain the presidency but is trailing very badly in the polls to “Rivera” (Arcella). So he hires “Ben” (Mackie) and “Nell” (Dowd) who reach out to the fiery trainwreck “Jane Bodine” (Bullock). ‘Calamity’ Jane gave up her work as a campaign strategist after losing several times to her nemesis, “Pat Candy” (Thornton).
There is very little difference in the methods of Ms Bodine and Mr. Candy. Either will stoop just as low as necessary to bring victory to their candidate. Not because they are true believers, but because they have that intense, Vince Lombardi inspired belief that second place is merely first loser. Just when you think one of them has stooped to a level beneath the baby bump of a pregnant ant, the other manages to out-do them. It’s an interesting, but eventually painful battle to watch. The question is, have the experiences of Jane Bodine that drove her to become a recluse and what she sees and hears in Bolivia been enough to cause her to grow a conscience?
Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton are both gifted actors, but they are only as good as the material they are given and how they are directed. There was some seriously untapped potential in this film that did not make it onto the screen. But I don’t want to make it seem that they weren’t good in this movie, as they were. Just not as good as I know they are capable of being. Conversely, I found the performance of Joaquim de Almeida to be exceptional. As the billionaire former chief executive of a nation, he puts just the right touches on how he communicates with others, at every level of society. He is completely believable in the role. Anthony Mackie and Ann Dowd are solid. Zoe Kazan was the perfect choice for her small but important part.
What Our Brand is Crisis does extremely well is illustrate how much elections are more about convincing the electorate that their particular candidate isn’t so much the better choice, but the best choice among a bevy of bad choices. Once again proving that the lesser of two (or more) evils is the evil of two (or more) lessers.