Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Director: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo
Writers: Christopher Markus, Stephen McFeely
Actors: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Josh Brolin
This is the big one. The end of almost 11 years of work. Despite my reservations on Marvel films, I will say that what they have done is very impressive on a production standpoint. Just think back to 2008, when Iron Man first came out. Would any of us thought that in 11 years we would see a film like Endgame with all of our favorite Marvel superheros. I don't think any of us would have. How could we? It was an insane idea, but it happened. And despite all my criticism that I have previously given to Marvel movies (and to this one soon), I am glad to be living in a time where this grand project is possible. Although it is not the same quality wise but if you think about it, Marvel films are like the Star Wars of this generation. I see how they younger generation treat these movies. They love them so much. My little sister talks about Marvel films all the time. So it's understandable why Endgame is such a big deal, and I don’t want to take anything away from it. However, I am still going to judge it as a film, and how I felt about it. Before going into the review I just want everyone to know that I seriously went in with no bias in mind. No matter how many Marvel movies I hate, I always go in with an open mind. Just look at my Shazam review, I went in knowing how bad DC has been doing, but I ended up enjoying it, and I'm not afraid to admit something like that. All of this spiel is to basically show that I will be honest in my reviews, I will genuinely tell you what I thought not fearing the repercussions of anyone. I am not afraid of giving the next PTA film a 0/10 and the next Marvel film a 10/10, if they deserve it. And that’s all I offer from my reviews, brutal honesty from my end. Nothing more, nothing less. Now that we have all that out of the way let's get on with the review.
I will begin the first half or so of the review with what I did not enjoy about this movie. I need to talk about these things because they are pivotal aspects in my enjoyment of this movie. And it would somewhat give a better understanding of where I am coming from. One of my biggest gripes with this film is that in order to enjoy it to the extent that everyone is, you have to be invested in the franchise and characters. Now, I have seen every Marvel movie, but I am certainly not dying to know the fate of all the characters. Regardless, a viewer’s enjoyment of this film is highly dependent on their love of the franchise. This is because the story itself plays into the fact mentioned above. The first two acts of the film rely so heavily on fanservice. Relying more on "oh my god remember this part in this film, that was great wasn't it", rather than actually creating a unique story that is fit to send off 11 years of movies and characters. Rather they relied heavily on the "nostalgia" aspect that Marvel fans would be getting watching this film. Which is frustrating to someone like me because I don’t really care about reminiscing about what happened in the first Avengers after they caught Loki. I want an experience that is fit for a finale.
Regardless of what I want, they went for the fanservice route. Some may call it "A Love Letter to the fans" but I'd rather just call it fanservice. So in order to achieve this, they utilized time travel as a main plot element. Now I'm not the type of person who would complain about the "logical sense" of films. Especially not superhero films. My philosophy has always been, "the film has its own rules, nothing says it needs to adhere to common sense". I don’t really care if it doesn't make sense in real life, if it makes sense in the context of the film I'm okay with that. But this film’s usage of time travel MADE NO SENSE. They literally have a cute scene of The Hulk trying to explain how it works in "their world", which should have been the end of it. Just follow your own rules! But no, the rules were broken so many times that nothing mattered, because the writers will just do whatever they wanted to use time travel in whichever way will help them get to where they wanted to be in the plot. Now I won’t explain every single time something didn't make sense to me, but the most egregious moment was when Captain America came back as an old man by deciding not to travel back after he placed all the stones. This should not work with the logic they explained. That's the reason why they didn't go back to kill Thanos as a baby, because it will just make a new timeline. The time which he came from should have been his "past" and the past in which he is living should have been his present and subsequent "future", i.e. a new timeline. Gah! It makes no sense. Plus how did he return all the stones on one go with the Time Machine. They took them out from different timelines. I'll stop before I go on an even bigger tangent. There are so many more instances of this, but I just wanted to clarify that by them not sticking to their own rules it just made nothing matter. Because anything can happen regardless of the rules that were set. I would have rather them not even talk about how time travel works in their world and just let us accept it.
I'm not really done with my gripes unfortunately. There are a couple of more aspects that frustrated me, but instead of just talking about them, I will list them off to keep this review going on. Otherwise I'll never finish. Anyway here is a list of things I didn't like about this movie:
Captain Marvel
The first two hours drag on and could have been done so much better if they did not rely on fanservice and actually made its own story.
Captain Marvel
2014 Thanos being the villain sucked because he has no connection with them. I know he saw everything but still, he would have been much more effective if it was future Thanos or someone else who actually had a reason to fight them. Or even no Thanos, I would have been fine with that either. He just felt off, not like Infinity War’s Thanos, he had purpose, there were major stakes. This Thanos knows he succeeded, that sort of ruins the fun.
Captain Marvel
Some of the "teams" who went back in time were much more uninteresting compared to others. Like Nebula and War Machine were so dull in comparison to Rocket and Thor.
Captain Marvel
Why didn't Nebula leave after she had the "headache" that made her realize Thanos knew about them. She could have just left. I dont know, lets just move on.
I hate what they are doing with Thor, its sad how he is such a joke. The fat suit looked like a fat suit with a normal looking Chris Hemsworth face attached
That scene where all the female characters just stood beside each other to fight, was so cringey. It ended up not leading to anything. Like maybe a minute of fighting then it cut to something else entirely.
Scarlet Witch needed much more love, she should replace Captain Marvel as the overpowered female character. That’s basically what she is in the comics, but in the movies she is so under represented.
SERIOUSLY, WTH IS WITH CAPTAIN MARVEL. I don’t know why but every time she is on screen I roll my eyes. She is so dull and she is stupidly overpowered it makes no sense. Everyone is fighting their ass off for the past 20 minutes and Captain Marvel just flies in and demolishes the entire armada in one sweep. Why didn’t she just put the glove on when she had it if she is so strong. Why didn’t she just fly off with it until everyone is finished with beating Thanos. She is seriously awful and I'm considering lowering the score I gave her movie. In fact, I'm doing that right now.
Okay, I'm done venting. Lets turn this around and talk about what I did like. I really enjoyed the action in the final act of the film. Especially when Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America were fighting Thanos alone. That was the best sequence in the whole film for me. Seeing Captain America holding and fighting with Mjolnir was so freaking satisfying. When everyone else came back it was cool but it felt too rushed. Which is why I wish the first two hours were done differently or just shortened so that we could have more time on the epic conclusion to see more of the characters. Nevertheless, I also liked the way they ended Iron Man. The journey from the first film, being this rich jerk who only cares about himself to sacrificing his life for everyone else was great. Other than that not really much else to say. One thing this film actually did do for me is making me want to revisit Infinity War. I initially gave it a very harsh score, even though I didn’t do a formal review on it here. But this film made me want to go back and revisit Infinity War. Because all of the complaints I have of Endgame are not found in Infinity War. Anyway, that's that.
I know it may be frustrating to see someone talk about a movie you love in such a way. I know the feeling. However I always appreciate when I can see that the reviewer at least put forth the effort to justify his disappointments not just shrugging it off and saying it was bad. I hope you all can see that as well. I don't want to hate this movie. On the contrary I would have loved leaving the theater all excited to talk about the film and how Marvel ended it with a bang! But unfortunately, the misses are still there for me, and I can't really avoid them. If you found enjoyment from this film then all power to you. But to me, its just another messy action blockbuster that dragged on too long for the first half and sort of made up for it at the end. It was not a unique experience that I was hoping for, but this film probably isn't for me anyway.
To end my thoughts:
Is it a good Marvel film? Sure, compared to some of the bad stuff
Is it a good send off? Depends what you wanted out of it
Is it an important film? Definitely
Is it entertaining? At certain parts very, others not so much
Is it a good film? To me no. It has a lot of misses and some positives
Would I recommend it? I think whatever score I give this film, it is something you must watch just for the sake of it. So watch it, and enjoy it. Or don’t. Just experience it.
