Echoing what others have said, that was easily the best audience experience since
No Way Home. We had an absolutely packed, riled up, 900+ person crowd, who was hooping, hollering, cheering, and clapping throughout, which could not have made for a better time.
The jokes were hilarious and the cameos were perfect. In fact, "Flame on!" was maybe the funniest thing in any movie in years, while Evans' brief appearance was so good, including his post credit appearance.
Jackman was of course phenomenal as well, and the emotional beats, especially centered around him, really worked overall.
That said, I do have three minor complaints…
1) The plot was definitely thinner than I was expecting, to the point where it feels like either a decent chunk was cut - or - the writer/actor strikes (which happened smack dab in the middle of filming) affected certain plans/plot points.
2) The timelines made absolutely no sense, seeing as
Logan takes place in 2029, while the bulk of this movie takes place in 2024 (not just in our time but in theirs as well).
3) It was somewhat disappointing that it didn't seam to affect the larger MCU much at all, despite Feige saying it was an 8 out of 10 in terms of how impactful it would be in that regard, a comment that makes zero sense now.
Again, though, minor complaints in the grand scheme of things.
One of the coolest aspects of the night was that
Shane Reid, one of the film's editors, was in attendance, on our same row. Before the movie, there was a big group of adults seated around us (like 20-30 people, easily), no kids, some of them dressed a little nicer than you'd expect, all greeting and high-fiving each other as new members of their group showed up, super enthusiastic to be there, etc. But again, most of them looked to be in their 40s and 50s, with no kids, which was odd. But then when the opening credits played over the first fight scene in the forrest, and when Shane's name came up the entire group erupted, and it all suddenly made perfect sense. I can only imagine how many times that dude has seen this thing now, which is almost assuredly more than any other person alive. I also noticed director
Jason Reitman there afterwards on the escalator, and now that I've looked up Reid, who edited
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as well, that connection makes sense now too.
Anyway, just an incredibly fun and memorable night overall.
It was a nice, unexpected send off of the Fox/Marvel era, but with those movies now officially in the rearview, and considering all the hilarious shots taken in the movie at the last few years of the MCU, especially the spot-on digs at the multiverse, I'm so ready for the MCU to finally MOVE FORWARD again, toward a
new endgame, if you will.
To that end, the
Captain America: Brave New World trailer played beforehand, and not only did it look great on the big screen, but man was the audience into it, cheering at both the beginning and especially the end. It just feels like everyone's champing at the bit to get back to basics, so to speak, and enjoy some grounded,
Winter Soldier-esque entires, between CA: BNW and
Thunderbolts to follow, that actually move the pieces on the board forward again in tangible ways.
