Felicity Banks

Marvel-ous Day 5 (Part 1)

June 28, 2020 at 3:44 am (Reviews, TV/movie review, With a list)

Spoilers.

But surely you know everything that happens by now, whether you’ve seen the film or not.

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Wow. I’m about to start Infinity War so I’m sort of close to the end of the saga… but there’s actually still five films to go, and two of them are super long.

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Just now I made some chocolate mousse, for the first time in my life.

Why have I never made mousse before? Simple. Meringue is basically an ingredient of mousse, and meringue is delicious and annoying to make. So if you’re gonna make meringue, you’re not going to keep going and make mousse, are you?

So why did I make mousse today?

Well, I run a food pantry and I also receive a government food box each week. I take from the box what is useful to my family (usually not much because of food allergies etc), and put the rest in the pantry so it’s not wasted. But often government food, especially the fresh stuff, is a little dodgy. Rotten vegetables, dairy that’s past its use by date when I pick it up, etc. So on Friday I received a carton of buttermilk that was two days out of date, as well as a 600mL pot of cream that was use by on the day (Friday). I figured two days wasn’t all THAT much out of date so I should challenge myself to prevent food wastage by making as much buttermilk or cream-based food as possible. Thus, on Friday I made buttermilk bread. Today I made cheesy buttermilk scones (this recipe, which was awesome. I added chives, which was even more so). And then I made mashed potatoes with buttermilk for part of tonight’s dinner. And now, having successfully used all the buttermilk, I’m making chocolate mousse in order to make a start on all that cream. See? It all makes sense now.

So why am I mentioning this?

Because it’s fun to mock myself. Here’s some stuff I did today: I licked a spoon with the meringue on, having forgotten that the sugar is in a different part of the recipe. So that wasn’t as delicious as I had hoped. Mmm… raw egg white.

I also dropped four food items today:

*A perfectly-cooked lamb chop, right on the kitchen floor.

*A serving bowl into a mixing bowl.

*A mixing bowl into a serving bowl.

*uh… I forget what the fourth thing was.

The good news is that by the time this film is over, the mousse will be set.

 

Onwards!

 

***Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Disney +

One-sentence summary: Thanos gets all the stones and instantly erases half of all living creatures.

The opening scene is devastating, especially after all that the Asgardians went through in Thor: Ragnarok. And all Loki has been through (not that we’re certain he’s really dead after this scene, but it sure seems that way, especially since Marvel can bring the character back via time travel rather than resurrection). The gut-punch of losing Heimdall and Loki and half the Asgardian refugees in the very first moments of the film lets us know that all bets are off and there’s real pain ahead.

Before he dies, Heimdall sends the Hulk to Earth.

By the end of the scene, Thanos has the blue (space) and purple (power) infinity stones. There are two stones on Earth: the mind stone, in Vision’s forehead (yellow or orange); and the green time stone, in the Eye of Agamemnon (which Dr Strange wears around his neck on the pretty pretty necklace).

Dr Strange meets Dr Banner, then Iron Man, and the three of them face various high-level minions trying to get Dr Strange’s stone. But Hulk, having just been beaten up by Thanos (not to mention his more-than-usually tumultuous relationship with Banner) refuses to make an appearance. This continues for the entire movie (Banner wears giant armour in the Wakanda battle).

Iron Man: “Dude, you’re embarrassing me in front of the wizards.”

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Across town, Peter’s Spidey sense tingles.

It’s rapidly clear that the giant alien spacecraft on the other side of town might be a bad thing, so he heads over there at once, and receives this handy plot update from Stark:

“He’s from space. He came to steal a necklace from a wizard.”

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Meanwhile, in space, the Guardians respond to the Asgardian’s distress call and pick up an unconscious Thor.

Star-Lord: “Who is this dude?”

Drax: “He is not a dude. You are a dude. He is a man.”

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With Sorcerer Wong’s help, several baddies are killed but Dr Strange is taken away to be tortured until he gives up the green time stone. Which he doesn’t do.

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The reality stone is with the Collector on the planet Knowhere. Only Gamora knows where the soul stone is, so she makes Quill (Star-Lord) promise to kill her rather than let Thanos get ahold of what she knows.

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Thor spends the movie making a weapon strong enough to kill Thanos. Rocket and Groot (who grows the wood of the handle) help him, while the other Guardians go to Knowhere.

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The baddies come to Scotland to try to get the mind stone out of Vision’s head, drawing Scarlet Witch into the fight because she’s dating Vision. Luckily for them, Falcon, Captain America, Captain America’s beard, and Black Widow show up to help. (Ant-Man and Hawk-Eye are both on house arrest and not in this movie at all.)

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Mini Gamora is adorable and is the closest we get to caring about Thanos.

Grown-up Gamora manages to kill Thanos on Knowhere before he gets the reality stone. Even after all his abuse, she weeps to see him dead… except he isn’t dead. It was a fake reality that he was able to make as a trap for her because he also has the reality stone (red).

Peter is unable to kill Gamora. They confess their love to one another, and Peter is finally able to pull the trigger… but Thanos changes the bullets to bubbles. He takes Gamora, and ultimately gets the location of the soul stone off her (by torturing Nebula).

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Vision and friends (now including War Machine) head to Wakanda to see if Princess Shuri can remove the stone from his head without killing him. King T’Challa gives a tired-looking Bucky a new prosthetic weapon arm, and Bucky reluctantly accepts that he’ll have to fight real soon.

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Iron Man and Spider-Man rescue Dr Strange, and the three end up on a random planet (Titan).

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Oh! I just remembered the fourth thing I dropped. Some of the cream for the mousse. More ‘spattered’ than dropped. So now I have a lot of ineffectually-wiped cream on my pajamas. My kitten was thrilled at this new feature of my attire.

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Gamora and Thanos go to the location of the soul stone: Voromir. The red skull tells them that to get the soul stone one must give up the soul of someone you love. Gamora, very reasonably, laughs at the irony that Thanos can’t get the stone because he’s so full of hate.

Then there’s the awful realisation that he believes he loves her, and that belief is enough to get the stone by killing her. Which he does (badly reducing the number of female heroes in the films).

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Beautiful character moment between Rocket and Thor as Thor tries to say how fine he is, since he’s already lost everything that matters to him.

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Arg, my shoulder is really sore again. It’s not watching the movies; it’s all this typing. I’ll try to type less. At least this is my last movie for today (despite what the subject line says).

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Those Guardians not with Thor head to Titan and they fight Iron Man & co. until they all figure out they’re actually all good guys, and they team up (and Nebula too, since she’s escaped from Thanos).

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Arg! I just burned my popcorn again. *shakes fist at brilliant scriptwriters*

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The Wakanda battle has too many iconic moments to list, but there is one that stands out:

YIBAMBE! YIBAMBE! YIBAMBE!

I was yelling that at the cat for weeks afterwards. She was not impressed.

(Yes, I have two cats.)

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Thor helps forge his new Axe, Stormbreaker, and uses it to take himself, Rocket, and Groot to join the battle in Wakanda.

“I am Groot.”

“I am Steve Rogers.”

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Thanos has a big fight with everyone on Titan, which is cool but ultimately unsuccessful, and Dr Strange gives up the time stone so easily that it’s clear he is working towards the one successful future out of 14,000,605. The revelation that Gamora is dead causes Quill to screw up their plan. But to be honest it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, since Thanos was already far too strong to be killed by any normal weapon.

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Back on Wakanda, the girl baddie fights Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, and Okoye. It is an enjoyable scene, but the entire audience knows perfectly well that this is Marvel saying, “Look! We have loads of female characters now! They can have a whole mini-scene, see?”

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Overall, things are not going well for our heroes.

Thanos has every stone except the one in Vision’s head and the Avengers have run out of time to remove it. Scarlet Witch does it at last, killing him—only to have Thanos rewind time just to kill him a second time in front of her.

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This film is a tragedy. A well-written tragedy has both a sense of inevitability about it and a sense that there are so many ways when the story could have changed, and everything would have been okay. What if Star-Lord had shot Gamora quickly? What if Scarlet Witch had taken the stone from Vision as soon as they realised they should? What if Thor had gone for the head?

But in each case, it is their character that causes them to make the decisions that they do.

And then, of course, there’s the snap.

Thanos leaves. There is an eerie silence.

Then Bucky falls to bits in front of Steve. The field of war is halved as far too many people dissolve. King T’Challa vanishes. Groot. Scarlet Witch. Falcon.

On Vordor, Mantis says, “Something is happening.”

Drax vanishes. Star-Lord. Dr Strange, saying, “Tony. There was no other way.”

And Peter, resisting with all his spidey senses and strength, apologises to Stark as he turns to dust in his arms. “I don’t want to go! I don’t want to go!”

And that’s where it ends. Failure. Thanos wins.

It doesn’t matter that we know all our heroes will be back (except for the non-snap deaths). It doesn’t matter that we know they’re not actually real people. After all these hours (and years) spent with these characters, there is real grief at such an ending.

A generation of kids will grow up traumatised by that moment (TJ’s asleep, by the way!) Adults and teens will never forget the quiet sobbing in that theatre as the credits began to roll, and the shock of such an end.

Post-credits scene: Samuel L. Jackson realises what is happening and manages to page Captain Marvel just as he, too, dissolves into dust. “Mother-fu—!”

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Given that this is heading towards the 2000-word mark, I’m gonna stop there and post this one by itself.

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The mousse isn’t set. Hmm.