Picoreview: Infinity War: I still love this movie, but for my reCap purposes, it turns out Cap is actually barely in this one until the end. We get the amazing arrival with a beard scene, and a good fight there, and then basically there’s very little with his storyline until the end, where he faces Thanos (and Groot, with that amazing “I am Steve Rogers” line, which honestly is also still just so in keeping with the character.)
But by this point he’s fully transformed from Righteous Soldier into Righteous Man. Vigilante, if we will, sure. Steve has never been able to let someone else dictate his path, not from being a scrawny kid in Brooklyn up to holding off Thanos single-handedly. I would love to see some stories of what happened between Civil War and Infinity War, just like I want MCU Howling Commandos stories.
So while this is a reCap, and Steve does have some great moments in the film, my favorite moment in Infinity War isn’t Cap at all: it’s sullen, punk-ass teenage Groot realizing that Eitri isn’t going to find the axe handle fast enough, and seizing the red-hot metal to pull the axe together and bind it with his own arm. My goddamn HEART. I cry EVERY TIME.
Picoreview: Endgame: Technically? Technically, yeah, ok, no, this movie is not perfect. Nothing is.
But this movie is perfect.*
Everything. All the payoffs. EVERYTHING. Cap’s admission that people like them can’t move on, which, in its way, has been painfully true of the character for his whole story arc. The replay of the elevator scene. Cap telling his younger self that Bucky is alive (a thing we can’t prove DIDN’T happen in his past and which COULD inform his willingness to recognize Bucky against all odds in Winter Soldier but I don’t believe any of that). Cap watching Peggy through the window (there’s a conversation happening on the other side of the window, after we saw it the first time Ted asked if I’d heard what they were saying, I said, “No, I couldn’t hear anything except Cap being sad”).
THE HAMMER. :D :D :D :D :D
“On your left.”
“Avengers… Assemble!” :D :D :D :D :D
And look, I don’t care if it makes a hash of the timeline and that Steve would never in a million years let Bucky stay in hell if he knew he was there, the ending makes me happy. It is emotionally perfect, and the balm that story needed to end with after Tony’s death.
*no, it isn’t perfect, because first, they shouldn’t have fuckin’ killed Nat, it should have been Clint, everybody knows it, I’ll die mad about it, and second, I LITERALLY STILL DON’T BELIEVE THAT LOKI DIED AT THE BEGINNING OF INFINITY WAR and he should have come through the portals at the end of Endgame with the Frost Giants when Wong said “What, you wanted more?” but there was a lot perfect about it, and Cap’s storyline was emotionally note-perfect.