Hello, and welcome back to my latest review, where we will be taking a look at one of the biggest pop cultural events of the decade. This film is the culmination of a massively successful 22 film franchise that was all started by Iron Man in 2008. But if that wasn’t enough it is also following up the massive cliffhanger of the excellent Avenger Infinity War, and will try to cover up loose ends from that movie as well as for the franchise in general. Now I am a big fan of this franchise, and have enjoyed a lot of their films (its impressive that they haven’t made a truly bad film, even if not all of their films are great), so of course I had some pretty high expectations for this film, and luckily it is able to meet those lofty expectations pretty well, if not overtly exceed them too much. (Note: do not worry I will try not to give away too much that happens, but there will be some slight spoilers for things that happen in the first act).
As stated before this film takes starts 22 days after the events of Infinity War, with half of all life wiped out, with those still left coping with the losses, especially the heroes themselves trying to find a way to find Thanos. Meanwhile Tony Stark, and Nebula are stranded in space with little oxygen left, but are thankfully saved by Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel and are taken back to Earth. There our heroes track down Thanos, and attempt to undo the snap. But things do not go according to plan, and we skip ahead to 5 years where the world is still trying to move on from the tragic event. Everyone is dealing with the fallout in their own different ways, but when a new solution comes to mind with the help of Scott Lang, the Avengers decide to do whatever it takes to avenge the fallen, and undo Thanos actions, and that is about all I can tell you from here.
You know, this movie, and Shazam! are two great examples, of having marketing campaigns that give very little away of the film itself, which I really hope more studios keep doing. But anyway back to the film itself, like I said it had a massive task of wrapping up the first three phases of the MCU in a satisfying way, and luckily it does just that. Avengers Endgame works extremely well as a finale wrapping so many arcs perfectly, and truly feeling like the end of an era for most of these heroes. This film actually does some things better than its predecessors in a couple of areas, like for one, the character balance I thought was handled a little better here since it felt like all of the major characters had moments to shine (Cap is much better utilized here that’s for sure), and even the minor characters had some time in the spotlight. The film is also a much more emotionally satisfying experience than Infinity War, as the film is very character driven, and there were many scenes that were very emotional, and tug at the heartstrings very effectively, as well as there were plenty of scenes that made me geek out, and feel very nostalgic (there a is a lot of fan service in this film, and a lot of it was earned). Also of course the humor is once again hilarious here, with a lot of good jokes thrown in there (very few of which do not work), and the pacing is very nice (it really does not feel like a 3 hour movie). But while it does a lot of things right, it is not a perfect movie, and has some things that prevent it from being one of my favorite MCU films. Sure while it was more satisfying than Infinity War, that film is arguably more shocking, while this film is not necessarily that surprising in the way that it concludes, and can be a little predictable at times (still well executed though), and it still suffers from some of Infinity War’s flaws like some character balance issues, some pacing issues with some scenes that were bit too slow, an uneven structure at times, and how the film doesn’t really have anything that deep like other MCU films in the past (though I guess some of the characters journeys count) .
But one thing that really bothered me was the way in (slight spoilers) it messes with the continuity in some respects, thanks to the direction in which this movie goes. Now don’t get me wrong the way the film handles those moments are a lot of fun, and they actually have some very poignant moments, but in hindsight there are parts of it that left me a little confused, and kept making me wondering how it affected the timeline. Now I’m sure there is a good explanations to all of this, but at the moment there was some things that did not make sense. Another thing that is a bit of a letdown is how the film does not take much time to look at how the state of things after the snap, affects the world, and it only focuses on the heroes (though to be fair the movie was dealing with a lot of things to begin with). The action is also a bit of a comedown when compared to Infinity War, as there actually is not too much of it in the film until the big final battle, and while it was epic, and I loved every minute of it, the action in Infinity War was still better handled in my opinion. But the Russo’s still direct the film very well, the cinematography is great in many places, and the CGI is once extremely well done making the film visually appealing. Some spoilers here so if you haven’t seen the film skip to the next paragraph, but I also loved how in the time traveling scenes, it felt like we were in the MCU movies they were going to, and the movie does a nice job fitting in with the feelings, and styles of those films.
Now of course, how could we not mention the elephants in the room, and that is the performances. The acting in this movie is probably some of the best in the franchise to date, with many actors playing their roles for one last time. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth obviously get the meatiest roles here as Tony Stark, Steve Rogers, and Thor respectively, and they are all so amazing, and probably at their best here, giving extremely compelling performances (Hemsworth especially, as he plays a very different Thor here). But those three aren’t the only ones who get some good stuff to do, as Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye, and Karen Gillian’s Nebula handle a lot of the dramatic stuff greatly, while Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner, Paul Rudd’s Scott Lang, Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon, and Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes are responsible for a lot of the films best comedy. To be honest not many of the more recent MCU characters like Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel get much screentime (for obvious reasons), but they do the most with what they’re given with at least. Unfortunately though the biggest disappointment when it comes to the characters though is perhaps how Josh Brolin’s Thanos is not nearly as great as he was in Infinity War. While his performance is still fantastic, his limited screen time, and the fact that he just becomes another world ending villain is what makes him such a let down after how he was handled in Infinity War.
While it may be flawed in places, Avengers Endgame still works greatly as an epic conclusion to the Infinity Saga. To be honest I think I loved this movie way more when I first saw it, but then when I started thinking about it more, the problems became more apparent (funny enough this is actually not a first for me when it comes to MCU movies, as I went through this with Captain America Civil War, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, and Spider-Man Homecoming being recent examples), but I had blast, and was riveted from start to finish. Also I think it is easy to forgive some of the film’s shortcomings since it works so well as a finale, and it makes me excited for what comes next. So while I personally prefer Infinity War, they both make a great two-parter, and it has definitely been a great honor to see this whole story play out on the big screen, as it definitely has changed, and influenced superhero movies in many ways.
Rating: B+
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