#redeeming factor

Curses, corruptions; I let my body sink down in the bog-water Where there is sound, nor vision; Where muscles stiffen alike rigor mortis. Despondent, I, Let myself be engulfed By a loathing for all that I am Without ego. Forsaking my own Humanity, for I do not Understand The conscientiouslessness Of the sentient. For all that I am, and must be, To claim a self-righteous place Amid creation; for all the reverberations Caused by my inborn destructive nature, I choose death. And yet This darkness; this sludge of Existential disgust, cannot claim my spirit, Even if I do offer it by volition. At the disintegration of my every selfishness; These drives, that senselessly force me alive; Where even love cannot save me, I find the light of darkness; The mercy killer. Unwilling, scared, saddened, yet, decisive, No matter how heavy the reaper's scythe is. It is not love that saves me. It is mercy. If such light should Burn in my human heart, I can open my eyes, And breathe.

So ... Avengers: Infinity War (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4154756/?ref_=nv_sr_2?ref_=nv_sr_2) coming in with an IMDB rating of 8,5 and a Redeemer rating of 9,0. This is a brilliant comic book movie .. perhaps one of the best. Sure it has its kinks, but because of the ending .. this movie sort of rides on the tail of a movie masterpiece from the past, Empire Strikes Back. I think, at least I hope, that at this point there is no way for anyone who is into movies to not know how this movie ends. Endgame would not need to exist if this movie did not end the way it did. That is a big part of my high rating for this. There is so much more you can do with a movie when the big bad comes out on top. This movie certainly takes full advantage of that fact. 

The plot. Thanos is finally, well sort of, taking personal charge of his grand plot. He still uses lackeys in the scenes when he is not supposed to win. Thanos’s goal is to collect the so called infinity stones so that he can bring the power of all of them together and bring to an end half of all the life in the universe. The Avengers sort of team up, in a few separate groups in an attempt to stop Thanos. 

The movie. For two hours and 29 minutes this movie allows every single Avenger to shine. I would even argue that it allows Thanos and the Black Order, (or the Children of Thanos) also get to shine and/or show off their individual powers. This movie really just goes from rewatchable scene to rewatchable scene . Oh man .. I have made a rule for myself that I am not allowed to really spoil a movie that gets higher than a 6,5 rating from me. And so I will not tell you about every scene of the movie here. Even though I would really love to. So much awesomeness. Oh well . moving on somehow. With what .. umm .. umm .. ok. At the end of Civil War, the Avengers were sort of thrown to the wind and have scattered. The “criminal” contingent of the Avengers have gone underground and Iron Man is attempting to keep the rest of them together. And so, of course this movie needs to bring certain characters out from the shadows again. And it does it so well. Every introduction to a character in this movie is amazing. There are so many “oh yeah” and “oh shit” moments. 2,5 hours may seem like a long movie, but this movie has some masterful pacing and just keeps moving. The actors are doing a fantastic job. The fight scenes are all brilliant. This movie is just epic. Now, that is not to say that there are not some holes in the movie. One, spoiler filled .. yes spoiler spoiler spoiler, hole is something that many people have mentioned and commented on. In a scene Dr Strange uses his portal creation power to cut the arm off of one the Children of Thanos. The main goal of the avengers in the movie is to separate Thanos from his infinity gauntleted hand. Portal open, hand through, portal close, job done. But we never see that power used again, and not that there were not places where it would have worked. There are also a few in movie character decisions that don't make a lot of sense. A few other nit picks that you will all see when you see the movie. But most of these things just don't bother me, this is an enjoyable movie. 

The demeaning factor. Dr Strange portal power ends the movie really quickly. But a half hour director’s cut of Infinity War would just suck. All the same, they could have made a scene where they try to use this move and fail. This is just something that needed to be addressed, and perhaps could have been made into a joke for Endgame .. MISS.

So ... The Meg (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4779682/?ref_=nv_sr_1) comic in with an IMDB rating of 5,7 and a Redeemer Rating of 5,5. This is one of those times where I feel like the general crowd of IMDB followers has basically gotten it right. This movie is a bit of a 50/50. It is on many levels reasonably entertaining dumb action. At times I do feel like this movie takes itself a bit too seriously and tries to explore real emotions that have no real place in a movie like this one. When a movie is dealing with a shark the size of a small house we don't really need to get engaged with characters on too deep of a level or anything like that. A movie like this just needs to be ridiculous and entertaining. And this one is just that about half of the time. 

The plot. Not that it really matters. Giant shark kills and eats. Some people die, some get injured and some survive to kill the shark .. or do they. #questionable ending, #sequel? Or I could give you the serious version. Super underwater rescuer guy “fails” to rescue some people and claims that a 70 foot shark attacked them. A, on the surface, colleague calls him crazy and has him removed from the job and basically excommunicates him. But the, suddenly, a job that only he can do comes along, saving some people under water .. and one of them happens to be his ex-wife .. all while he meets a new love interest in the shape of widowed woman with child .. all while it turns out he was right and 70 foot sharks exist .. all while more things happen. 

The movie. Where to begin with this movie. It is essentially a, completely and utterly, paint by numbers dumb action movie. But never funny. And I think that that was a big mistake. An action movie, particularly one like this one, needs some proper humor to fill up the empty space between the action sequences. Space that this movie tried, and did not succeed, to fill with an approximation of drama and story. Ok, let’s discuss what I meant with “paint by numbers” for those of you who don't understand. Movie begins with setting the scene, our protagonist is given a hurdle of some kind to overcome later in the movie. Our antagonist is slowly built up and we are made to believe that the only person who can be the hero is our protagonist. And then the unending can they, can’t they, can they, can’t they .. rollercoaster that these action movies use. And then finally .. success .. and then of course the questionable ending. And, to make sure that the asian, in particular Chinese, movie going audience is buying tickets most of the movie takes place there and the new love interest is asian. But this all basically boils down to this movie being utterly predictable. Now let’s move on with the rest of the movie. Jason Statham .. great action movie star .. as far as I am concerned .. really great and super entertaining. But, and this a ginormous but .. there needs to be fight scenes along with his smart ass comments. Look at Snatch, 100% smart ass .. and equally entertaining. The Transporter, 100% bad ass fight scenes .. bad ass movie. Crank, a good mix of both .. supremely fun to watch. This movie’s action scenes are entertaining, but there is no room for a cool round house kick when the antagonist is a huge CGI shark. The action is really just a lot of yelling in front of a green screen. The script of the movie does not do much to help in that category, and for me it did even less with creating a meaningful story. This movie makes some sort of half hearted attempt at making me connect with the characters that get killed off .. but it fails. And that is because that attempt is half hearted at best. In the end, all that we are left with here is an entertaining antagonist that looks really well animated and kills people in exceptionally entertaining ways. And that is all this movie has. 

The redeeming factor. The big shark was cool. That is really all that this movie does have going for it. I wish that the factor of this movie was Statham, but he was a shadow of himself in this movie .. thanks mostly to the script. And so the thing that this movie has .. is a big shark. Pretty cool. 

maladyofthequotidian replied to your post: “6. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?”:

FOREVER BITTER