Avengers: Endgame

Avengers: Endgame

*WARNING SPOILERS*

Well after 21 movies, Avengers: Endgame is finally here. What Marvel Studios has done in creating this cinematic universe is beyond amazing. I find it kind of crazy that this all started, 2008, while I was in high school  and now here I am 11 years later watching this saga come to an end. I have seen every MCU movie in the theaters and at the end of 2017 I rewatched every movie in release order to prepare myself for Avengers: Infinity War. It’s pretty safe to say these are some of my favorite movies and I have been pretty pumped and excited for Avengers: Endgame. 

Leading up to this movie I tried not to watch any promotional stuff for this with the exception of the original teaser trailer and the trailer that dropped when tickets went on sale. After I preordered my ticket to see the movie anything that had to do with Endgame I stayed way from, no more trailers, TV spots, articles, interviews, etc. I wanted to go in to this movie with only the knowledge of the previous movies. 

To me this movie didn’t have me on the edge of my seat like Infinity War did. When I was watching Infinity War for the first time I had no idea what was going to happen scene to scene and by the end I was shocked at what I just saw. I left that theater wondering *how are they gonna get out of this?* and after watching Ant-Man & the Wasp and Captain Marvel it started to become more clear to me what may happen in Endgame.  As I watched Endgame I wasn’t really surprised by anything that took place. With Infinity War ending on such a cliffhanger it only made sense for this movie to be about the heroes fixing everything. And that may have been my main issue with the movie, that this time I had an idea of what might happen scene to scene. It was just more predictable than I would have liked it to have been. 

For some this issue may not bother them as much and there will be others where this issue isn’t even an issue because they don’t have an idea of what may be coming next. For me however, after investing so much time in to these movies, this issue left me to be underwhelmed. 

When I look past that issue though there are plenty of good moments. One of the things I liked about the movie was the 5 year time jump. I like the idea that our heroes had to wait that long and get used to life after the snap. When we pick up 5 years later they are at a point where they are just accepting that this is the way life is going to be now. That feeling doesn’t last too long though because once they see Ant-Man, who was thought to be dead, they have this spark of hope again almost immediately. However I think it would have worked a little better if that “down” feeling did last longer. That feeling of hope to me didn’t seem earned just yet. 

I think for a cast of this size there was good chemistry and banter between all the characters. Within the larger picture of the MCU this movie has you care for the characters you’ve been watching for the past 11 years.  But There is a part of one scene that I don’t think worked so well when it comes to caring about the characters. When traveling through time to collect the infinity stones, Black Widow and Hawkeye are sent to get the soul stone. We as an audience know from Infinity War that the soul stone demands a sacrifice, “ a soul for a soul” as the Red Skull puts it. When these 2 find that out in this movie there comes a scene where they are fighting back and forth for who is going to sacrifice themself in order to get the stone. Black Widow tries but Hawkeye stops her and then he tries but Black Widow then stops him and this back and forth goes on. During this moment I found myself thinking *I don’t care who ends up dying, I don’t really care about either of them*. Now part of that is the other movies of the MCU haven’t really made me care about these 2 characters. But there was also nothing specifically in this movie to make me care about them either. Again when this scene happens and Black Widow is the one who ends up dying I don’t feel like her death was earned. It happened I was just like OK. 

I liked what they did with Thor in this movie. After 5 years he ends up becoming this fat drunk. In the movie it adds comedy but it also makes sense for his character. Thor ends up feeling personally responsible for Thanos’ actions because he wasn’t able to stop him and now Thor is just in a place of self pity and wants nothing to do with anybody. I thought that was an interesting thing to do with this character.

The end battle gives us some cool moments. Ironman, Thor and Captain America all taking on Thanos together was really fun. Captain America using Mjolnir was cool (although I don’t really know how he was able to channel lightning with that but I can look past that). When Captain Marvel finally joins the battle is another fun moment. Given her power set and knowing how extremely over powerful she is I think the movie does a good job of only using her in a couple of moments and doesn’t rely on her too much. 

The final beat of the end battle is 1 of 2 moments that ultimately makes this movie satisfying to the entirety of the MCU. We now understand why Dr. Strange gives up the time stone to save Tony in Infinity War. It had to be him. The moment when Tony takes all the infinity stones from Thanos and finishes it all, fits perfectly. Ironman was the character that started it all for the MCU and now Ironman is the one to finish it all, to the point of him losing his life. The 2nd moment is at the very end where we see Captain America is going to go back in time to replace the infinity stones they had taken and when they try to bring him back it doesn’t work and we see an old Steve Rogers. We find out he had stayed in the past and got a chance to live his life with the Woman he has always loved and then at the very end, Steve Rodgers gets his dance. Both of these moments feel proper and earned for these 2 anchors of the MCU. 

This was an interesting movie for me to try and decided my overall thoughts and opinions on. I like to look at a movie and decided how was this as a movie on its own. And if I look at Endgame as its own I think it was just OK. However this isn’t just any old movie, its the 22nd movie in an entire shared universe which is something that has never been done before and may never be done again. So when I look at it like that, overall I think this was a good movie because of the context of all the other movies before it. Do I think it’s the best of the entire MCU? No, but Endgame does gives this whole saga of the MCU a satisfying ending and I don’t think we could have asked for a more perfect way to end it.