Avengers: Infinity War

This is the latest big-budget addition to the Marvel Franchise. There are loads of characters from other movies. It seems a bit strange seeing them together on the screen; like this should happen in fan-fic and not the actual movie.

The plot is suitably ridiculous, a giant bad guy wants to collect six stones to give him ultimate power. The only oddity is that rather than using this power to destroy the whole universe he wants to destroy exactly half of it. To the film's credit this idea - bad guys collects stones of power - is introduced early on and you can then accept it and move on.

The heroes repeatedly defeat his minions but fail to stop him gathering more stones, until the inevitable final battle. With so many characters there's a few sub-plots going on. My favourite was Dr. Strange, the worst was Vision. I don't think I'd ever get used to calling someone Vision. The film is a bit more self-knowing than the other ones, and Spider-Man in particular makes light of them being heroes.

The only emotional connection is that the big bad guy's daughter is one of the good guys, so he is conflicted about killing her. This relationship is the core of the film, and expect will be what fixes the odd ending in the inevitable sequel.

With the huge amount of CGI the danger does not seem at all real, and the constant action scenes are colourful rather than really exciting. But there's enough constantly going on to keep me entertained, and I certainly felt I was getting value for money. Even watching late at night it never dragged, and I'll probably watch the next one too.

Star Wars VIII - The Last Jedi

I saw this a week ago and quite enjoyed it. I can' remember it perfectly as over the festive period I've since watched Bad Company, Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and Spiderman: Homecoming.

But what I can remember is that the film has the standard Star Wars setup of rebels on the run against an enormous enemy. In that sense it particularly parallels the second film in the original trilogy, Empire Strikes Back, most obviously for the scenes on the salt planet, which look very similar to the ice planet Hoth.

There are also Jedi training scenes, but this time they are the other way round, as Luke is the master. And the training goes rather differently. In fact it is the presence of old Luke Skywalker that sets this film apart, and his progression is the most satisfactory.

There is also a recurring theme about the nature of hope, which at its worst consists of Leia repeatedly talking about hope, but at its best is the boy at the very end offering hope for the future, and perhaps a hint of what will come in the final chapter.

The humour is acceptable but not particularly funny, but I suppose audiences expect it now. I think if you're making a Star Wars film you should be aiming for the sort of thing other people want to parody, not parodying yourself (I'm thinking of the visual gag with the iron).

Perhaps because I saw the film at a late showing I found the pacing of the film slightly wrong, and there are two more acts than I expected. I'm all for long epic films, as long as they build up correctly and you don't think "Is it about to finish?" then it carries on for another half hour.

I need to watch this again, to see how it connects to the other films. It was enjoyable, but I think the off-shoot films (like Rogue One) might actually provide more hope to the Universe than Episode Nine.