Rent Avengers: Endgame on Amazon Video (paid link) Written by: Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (written by), Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (based on the Marvel comics by). Jim Starlin (comic book) Directed by:Anthony Russo, Joe Russo Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsowrth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chadwick Boseman, Brie Larson, Tom Holland, Karen Gillan, Zoe Saldana, Evangeline Lilly, Tessa Thompson, Rene Russo, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Danai Gurira, Benedict Wong, Pm Klementieff, Dave Bautista, Letitia Wright, John Slattery, Tilda Swinton, Jon Favreau, Hayley Atwell, Natalie Portman, Marisa Tomei, Taika Waititi, Angela Bassett, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiifer, William Hurt, Cobie Smulders, Linda Cardellini, Frank Grillo, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Redford, Josh Brolin, Chriss Pratt, Samuel L. Jackson Rated: PG-13 Watch the trailer
Plot
After the devastating events of Avengers: Infinity War (2018), the universe is in ruins. With the help of remaining allies, the Avengers assemble once more in order to undo Thanos's actions and restore order to the universe.
Verdict
This is the culmination of a lot of stories, years, and movies. It's hard not to gauge this with and against the twenty one movie franchise that led to this moment. That itself is a feat. This movie is a full three hours, though it never felt slow. If any part dragged it would be the penultimate battle which features nearly all the Marvel characters. That battle is a lot of spectacle, but this movie managed to put a lot of characters on the screen and give them meaningful roles. Before that battle this had scenes that were emotional and funny, scenes that tied the entire franchise together. The fact that I wondered if the entire franchise was planning this moment all along is an accomplishment. While I like Infinity War more due to the high stakes, this movie isn't without severe consequences. Watch it.
Review
The long awaited sequel to Infinity War (read my review) is here. What I liked about Infinity War were the very real stakes. Half of all the super heroes were gone. How would this movie handle that? Would it just revert it with another snap or would these consequences linger? The question of what happens next compelled to watch this, and I admit I was excited.
This nears the end of Phase 3 for Marvel movies, with Spider-Man: Far from Home being the final movie before Phase 4 begins.
Phase 1 began with Iron Man (2008), culminating with Marvel's The Avengers (2012). Phase 3 began with Captain America: Civil War (2016).
Back in Infinity War, Thanos snapped half the world into dust.
It's a movie you have to watch almost by the very nature of what it is. A culmination of the Thanos plot arc and twenty one Marvel movies. It made over $350 million domestically and $1 billion after just the
first weekend. The Marvel movies are nowhere close to stopping. You don't need to watch twenty-one films to prep for this, but you need to have seen Infinity War.
Captain America
I won't spoil anything. I will clearly and obviously separate my general review from the spoiler section at the end of this post. While I will reference specific scenes from the movie, they won't reveal anything that betrays the story, and I will be completely omitting a lot of plot points.
This opens with a quick reminder that Thanos disappeared half of every living creature in the universe. The world is obviously in disarray and the remaining Avengers are looking for Thanos. Suffice to say what follows is surprising, but the question still remains how do they undo the Thanos snap?
War Machine & Hawkeye
They've got a crazy plan, what other kind of plan could topple Thanos? We get some recruitment scenes to assemble a team for this plan. There's a lot of humor to this with Thor and Rocket being a lot of the comic relief. This really continues the almost silly Thor we saw in Ragnarok (read my review), and I like that. We have enough noble, stoic super heroes.
Endgame revisits the prior movies in a way. I don't know if this was planned from the start or it's just sleight of hand. I don't know the other movies will enough to tell, but it works for the story and to tie the franchise together.
Plans never go as expected and this is no exception, but we and the characters get a brief moment of victory, but it's completely blown up. This movie has a huge battle. My issue with these big battles in Marvel movies is that you know this is a franchise and the main characters have to be back for more movies. You assume, and rightly so the bad guys lose. That's why I liked Infinity War, the bad guy accomplished his goal.
Black Widow, Nebula, Iron Man
This battle veers to slightly indulgent. The movie never drags, but if any part does it's the battle as it feels like it takes up the second half of the movie. It's a slower tempo than the first half. There's a fair amount of saved at the last second and we see nearly the full roster of Marvel movie characters. There was a lot of clapping in my theater each time a character first appeared on screen as backup.
They all contribute in meaningful ways, though their unique abilities weren't as well utilized as in Captain America: Civil War (read my review).
This movie certainly has some consequences that makes me intrigued by what the future holds for the Marvel universe. Marvel can do some really cool things that would continue to extend the universe.
The movie starts with Hawkeye and family. He turns around to pick up and arrow and they are completely gone. It's a small scene but it's a reminder of the terror Thanos caused from Infinity War.
Captain Marvel
From the trailers and teaser at the end of Infinity War, Captain Marvel seemed like an integral piece to the puzzle of ending Thanos. She even states in this movie you lost before, but now you have me. With that buildup, she was underwhelming. I haven't seen the Captain Marvel movie, but I understand she's akin so Superman. All she does in this movie is act as deus machina not once but twice. She saves Tony Stark from space, carrying his ship to Earth and later she helps in the Thanos fight. In between she's away helping all the other planets in the galaxy.
For three weeks the Avengers have been trying to figure out how to defeat Thanos, assuming they can even find him. They find him when he uses the infinity stones again, this time to destory the stone. Thanos has achieved his goal and doesn't care. The Avengers find him and Thor kills him out of frustration. I couldn't believe that happened so soon in the movie. It solves nothing, and I wonder if this is why Thor is in such a decline. He's let himself go and is drinking hard.
The movie jumps to five years later. People haven't thrived like Thanos predicted. The streets are full of trash and abandoned cars. Captain America is leading a support group with Black Widow as the de facto leader of the Avengers, coordinating heroes across the galaxy. I liked that and wish more was done with that. I thought Black Widow's job might tease of her upcoming role in the group since if you follow Marvel universe news, you might know that Chris Evans
(Captain America) and Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) were in their last
contracted movie. They are done with Marvel movies... for now.
Hulk has reconciled his two halves to be one. He is big and green but looks like Bruce with the a Bruce level of self control.
Antman
Antman didn't die in the quantum realm and is brought back through very fortuitous circumstances. Time works differently in the quantum realm so the Thanos snaps has just happened for him. He wants to use the quantum realm to undertake a time heist.
The movie then has Antman and War Machine reference time travel movies while Banner tells them that's not how it works. Tony Stark is the only man who can solve this problem but he refuses. He seems to be the only person who has flourished after half the galaxy's living creates were removed from existence.
The idea intrigues him and he resolves it anyway. For a second this has him debate on whether to embark on this mission. It upheaves the non-super hero life he's set up. I wish the movie made that choice a bit more real rather than a plot point to extract maximum emotional impact from us later.
Thor does NOT look like this the majority of the movie
With the plan worked out, it's time to recruit the old crew. Thor is an overweight, beer guzzling frat boy plaing Fortnite with Korg and never leaving the house. Thor is the butt of a few one liners and jokes, but I have to imagine he feels a certain level of guilt about everything that's happened. That is touched upon later, but he's more comic relief which works.
It took me a bit to realize that undoing the Thanos snap was just going
to bring people back into the five years later timeline. It was NOT going to undo the snap. That's important as I
wondered if undoing the snap would undo Tony's daughter, creating even more of a reason for him to hesitate embarking on the mission.
It just so happens the stones were in just three locations at one point, so three teams will retrieve the six stones. It's never quite that easy as one stone gets away, but they always have a backup plan.
This revisits a lot of scenes from prior movies like the elevator scene in Winter Soldier. I don't know all the scenes but it helsp to tie all the movies together. It also has a few similarities to Back to the Future II, which Endgame chided for being unrealistic.
Cyberpunk Hawkeye.
I had forgotten that Thanos sacrificed Gamorah for the soul stone until Black Widow and Hawkeye were at the precipe of that mountain. Hawkeye is a cyber punk looking antihero from Asia now. I soon realized one of them would have to die, but I figured since Black Widow has a movie coming out it wouldn't be her. It is! I don't know if her movie with be prior to this in the timeline or something else will happen.
They get the stones back with Stark and Cap diverging from the plan and going further into the past. This gives Cap a moment when he sees Peggy Carter, his love interested, which comes back in the end.
With the stones, Stark assembles them on an Iron Man gauntlet. Hulk has to use it due to radiation and the injuries one would sustain. We get a breif moment of victory before Thanos enters the present and
wreaks havoc. There's a Nebula subplot with a switcheroo, but I didn't like it. It gets the plot where it needs to go though with Nebula bringing Thanos and his ship through the Avenger time travel machine.
The battle is huge! Cap, Thor, and Iron Man are attacking Thanos, but they just can't beat him. Just as Thanos about to kill Thor with Thor's own axe, Cap wields the Thor hammer to stop Thanos. It's fun but contrived. So many characters are on the break of death at one point or another. I was a bit incredulous that Cap could wield Thor's hammer, and if he can he should do it more often.
Just when the Avengers are on the brink of defeat yet again, Captain Marvel destorys Thanos's ship. It would have been nice if she had showed up ten minutes earlier.
Captain Marvel is almost too powerful, though she doesn't seem so in her fight versus Thanos. The movie has her sit out. Captain Marvel is helping all the other many, many planets who were devastated by the Thanos snap.
All the marvel characters show up as backup. Really, nearly all the Marvel characters. The new plan is to get the infinity stones back to where they belong.
It's a race as characters hand off the gauntlet with Thanos in pursuit.
I do take issue with Stark attacking Thanos and somehow swapping gloves with him. Stark destroys Thanos and crew with the gauntlet, mortally wounding himself in the process.
Spiderman states he was in an alternate dimension when dusted. That means Thanos and crew are still alive. We may not have seen the last of Thanos.
It also means a future Guardians of the Galaxy movie could have Starlord mount a mission to find Gamorah.
I'm a little underwhelemed, Infinity War had such stakes. Half the super heroes were gone or may have died. I wondered how they would udno that. Pretty easily, though Stark, Cap, and Black Widow didn't make it.
One of the last scenes is Hulk sending Cap back in time to replace the infinity stones, otherwise you create alternate timelines. He doesn't come back, instead staying in the past and living a life with Peggy Carter. We see him as an old man, passing his shield to Falcon. It seems we may get a new Captain American movie with a different Cap.
I like the idea of rebooting these heroes with new characters. I hope Iron Man gets a new actor/character. We're almost at the end of phase 3 of Marvel's grand plan, and a reboot for both seems primed. The comics do that frequently, it frees future movies up to do things differently and not be tied to the conventional portrayal of these characters.
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