Are we alone now? Excellent.
As your Prince of Unpopular Opinions, I have a lot of opinions on Avengers: Endgame and namely that as a a film, I have many thoughts that do somewhat conflict with my thoughts as a fan and my thoughts as a person.
Let me first say this: I don’t hate this movie. I like this movie. I may even love this movie. But criticism does not mean that I don’t like something. The youths have seemed to have corrupted the words “critic”, “critical” and “criticism” and I’m here to talk about film crit and fandoms because why the hell not. I love plenty of things that I can criticism because finding fault with a film does not invalidate enjoyment.
I want to structure this review with a point and counterpoint structure. I’m going to talk about a thing I like and then a thing I don’t like to keep things fair and once more, I will spoil the whole enchilada so here’s your chance to bail.
This movie had me crying within the first ten minutes. Tony Stark giving a heartfelt swan song to himself as he floats aimlessly in space waiting for death made me cry practically right away. I went and saw this movie with a friend who has experienced a similar loss to mine and we found ourselves sobbing within ten minutes of the movie starting. Tony Stark’s characterization and arc have made the MCU what it is and this truly is his movie. Which brings us to a point that I didn’t like: Captain Marvel. Now, full disclosure, I’ve never been a fan of her character. I tend to find her overpowered, a little bland and very inconsistent as far as the comics go. Her movie didn’t do much for me and her insertion into Endgame after her film did well had me rolling my eyes before the movie even premiered. And of course she’s there and she’s overpowered and she’s boring. I’m not here to shame you if she does it for you, she does nothing for me. I dislike that most writers are so afraid of female characters that they simply opt for giving them no personality and Captain Marvel is another one of those cases. But they did handle her being overpowered well and horribly at the same time: they simply didn’t have her in a lot of the movie. From a narrative standpoint, I understand why she couldn’t be hanging around: there’d be no conflict but as a comic book fan and feminist writer I was disappointed that this was how they handled it.
I’d like to take a moment to discuss the difference between pandering, fanservice and pay off to those who have lots of hot takes about this movie. Pandering is looking at the audience and winking: think Star Wars: The Force Awakens where it was essentially a shot for shot genderbent remake of Star Wars: A New Hope. Fanservice is giving fans what studios think they want no matter what: think of anime and the gratuitous boob shots, no one really asked for them but they do persist. Pay off is something that happens when you have invested time in a thing and finally it makes sense, happens or is acknowledged and thus pays off. Endgame is ten years of pay off and that makes it the best worst possible movie ever. This film does not exist without the others and thus it’s all pay off with no build up since we had build up over ten years. But in the moments it did massively pay off were incredibly satisfying and had me quietly screaming in the theater. The best example of that is Captain America picking up Thor’s hammer. This is something in the comics and something hinted at in Avengers: Age of Ultron: we’ve been waiting to see this for years and when it finally happened it was like an explosion of sparkles, rainbows and American flags. But when this movie is trying to be pandering or indulge in fanservice, it actively weakens the film: all the jokes about Captain America’s ass are nice but they remove tension from the film and dampen serious scenes in a way that does not feel earned. No one else has had any comments about Steve’s butt except for Tumblr so for it to be basically another cast member in this movie is strange. Who are those jokes for? Did someone read my fanfiction? Where is my check? I get it, funny joke is funny and Chris Evans (who is the best Chris) does have a fine ass but I don’t need Ant-Man talking about it during a serious scene.
One of the biggest themes in this movie is grief and how we deal with loss. Some deal with loss by helping others; like Steve does with his support group. Some bury themselves in work; like Black Widow did by basically becoming the new Nick Fury. Others go on rage missions; like Hawkeye. I know when my father died I went on a combination of a few of those things and by the time I had lost my mother I was full “let’s work until you can’t feel anymore” so this movie certainly had me crying for a lot of it. Which brings us to Thor. Thor has a strange place in this film as now he holds a lot of guilt for basically being the reason Thanos won: if only he had been stronger and went for the damn head this wouldn’t have happened. So when we see Thor again after The Snap he’s drunk, fat and living in a fishing village and is also willing to threaten children on mic over Fortnite. His grief is earned but we spend so much time with it that his reaction to it seems immature and really pathetic in comparison to everyone else who is doing their damn best: not that such grief is invalid, it just isn’t narratively satisfied. It’s also really sad that Thor’s pain is played as a joke and I know I certainly ate my way through trying to find mom’s love after she had died but the MCU has a problem with playing some pain for laughs and others get to be super serious.
Next up is plot twists and oh boy not everyone can pull of a twist. A lot of directors try and fail and boy did the Russo Brothers try. The biggest one happens about twenty minutes in where the remaining Avengers on earth hunt down Thanos and find him just doing what he wanted to do from the very beginning: fondle some wheat and be a farmer. Immediately we learn the Infinity Stones are gone and Thanos destroyed them and he is prompted executed. That’s right, kids. They kill Thanos in about half an hour and there’s still two and a half hours of film. That twist works and I was left with my jaw on the floor. The remaining time is spent with a little bit of discussing the real world implications of such a disaster (best part in my opinion) and then “The Time Heist” which is dumb, stupid and dumb. To be honest, this twist is huge and then the directors go for another twist that Thanos from the past learns about his future and there’s a weird swap with Nebula and then it feels like a weird Hitchcock film in all the bad ways. It just bloated the plot and we didn’t need more tension in literally an incredibly tense movie.
Now let’s talk loopholes and bloat because woah boy this movie doesn’t need to be three hours. The Time Heist is a cool idea but for sure does not need to be as long as it is and I’m sure now that there are some parts that while are cool on surface level are actually really horrifying to think about. So Loki has the Tesseract now. That happened. He just poofs himself out of bondage. Oh and we have Gamora back so that’s cool but she’s one that doesn’t know who The Guardians of the Galaxy are and thus all those years of arc and build up are lost between her and her crewmates so thanks, I hate it.
We’ll start to wrap with with a talk about call backs, homage and understanding the source material. This movie has lots of call backs to other films in the canon and most importantly to the comics. In The Time Heist when Steve is in the elevator with Crossbones and a few other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who we know now are HYDRA we think he’s just going to redo the elevator sequence from Captain America: Civil War but no, he says very confidently “Hail HYDRA” something he uttered in the comics and utterly devastated the fans as we learned in that canon that Steve had been brainwashed by HYDRA to be evil. We also get a ton of time with a character who is very important to the comics and indeed has been teased: Professor Hulk. Professor Hulk is just Dr. Bruce Banner keeping control of his mind while still all Hulk’d out and the movie takes him in a new direction. In this movie he’s more of a chill Instagram influencer who dabs on the haters and may or may not be a green Matthew McConaughey. It’s strange but rewarding. And that ending, dear reader, that ending battle. To see all those characters come together. To see all those years of hard work pay off. To see everyone, all of them, together. It was just…I cried. One complaint I’ve had with the MCU is that it always felt small but this felt grand in a way that I have been waiting for since the MCU began. It was a beautiful mess because the scene was shot clearly in the confines of a demon’s rear end because the Russo Brothers have never been introduced to what a lamp is but it didn’t matter. The Snap was reversed, my babies were okay and by then I was once more in tears.
While we’re talking about that ending, let’s end by discussing death, closure and the end of an era. I didn’t need to see my heroes die. I read comics to feel empowered. I am like Batman. I strive to save people because I couldn’t save the two most important people to me, my parents. So seeing Tony Stark, who has been carrying these movies for ten years be essentially given all the things he ever wanted: marrying Pepper, having a family, finding purpose and then to lose him and have him lose it all…I cried. Pepper telling her husband and father of her child that it’s okay to rest as Tony is mortally wounded from reversing The Snap using the Infinity Gauntlet (a thing no mortal should be able to do) brought me to a pathetic little sob. I lost my mom when I was twenty and my grandmother just a few years ago and hearing someone say that you have essentially permission to die broke my heart. I didn’t want to see my hero, my embodiment in the Marvel universe, my doppleganger, the person so many people know by as die but it was the most I’ve felt watching a movie in many years. I felt the same way with Steve’s ending where he does go back in time to replace the Infinity Stone he used but lingers a while. He lingers in fact long enough to finally give himself what he wanted and he returns an old man that had lived a full life marrying Peggy and finally giving her that dance and finally losing his virginity. What a wonderful way to send off two characters we knew we’d have to say goodbye to because of contracts and Disney’s never-ending capitalistic lust but never expected to say goodbye to in such a way. It broke my heart but was worth it to give Tony the send off he deserved.
Narratively as a movie, the longer I sit on this film the more problems I have. It have a strange tone problem, the loopholes and the length are all dings but dammit I left this movie on pins and needles and more in love with comics and comic book movies in a way I had not been in a while.
I cannot recommend this movie enough as it is truly the culmination of ten years of work. It’s a beautiful hot mess and I left crying, raw and emotional but also so proud to be An Avenger.
